The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-09-18
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Session summaryEditor-reviewed
The Portland City Council reconvened on Thursday, September 18, 2025, continuing a session begun the previous day, with roll call confirming attendance before proceeding through several agenda items. Discussion focused heavily on proposed Comprehensive Plan, zoning map, and Title 33 amendments related to the Portland-Gresham Urban Service Boundary, along with a related intergovernmental agreement; questions covered acreage figures, infrastructure and sewer service logic, tax implications, and outreach to the Pleasant Valley neighborhood, with figures for affected acreage stated inconsistently across speakers. The council agreed to keep the written record open until September 23 and to resume discussion on September 24. The body also reviewed a second-reading ordinance on parking space reservation code flexibility, with concerns raised about mayoral authority over parking hours, prompting a motion to hold the item over for further work. A first-reading ordinance amending Small Donor Elections code drew detailed questions about match caps, tiers, and third-party fundraising practices, with testimony from Portland Elections Commission representatives. Finally, the council discussed declaring a small property on SE 21st and SE Powell as surplus, weighing land banking, asset management, and community use options before indicating support to move it to a second reading. Votes occurred during the session, with outcomes recorded in the vote ledger.
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Procedural episode · turns 0–8
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0 Good afternoon. It is 231 on Thursday, September 18th. I am calling back to order the Portland city council meeting, which was begun yesterday. And keelan, I believe we need to take roll again, don't we?
1 Good afternoon. Koyama Lane. Okay. Maria. Here. Novick here. Mark. Here. Green here. Zimmerman. Here. Avalos.
2 Present.
3 Dunphy here. Smith, here. Canal here. Ryan. Here. Pirtle-guiney here.
4 Thank you. And if we could reread our rules of order and decorum, that would be great.
5 Of course. Welcome to Portland city council. To testify before council in person or virtually, you must sign up in advance on the council agenda at wwe Portland council agenda. Information on engaging with council can be found on the council clerk's webpage. Individuals may testify for three minutes unless the presiding officer states otherwise. Your microphone will be muted when your time is over. The presiding officer preserves order. Disruptive conduct such as shouting. Refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others testimony or council deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, council may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony should address the matter being considered. When testifying, state your name for the record. Your address is not necessary. If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent. Virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the council clerk calls your name. Thank you.
6 Thank you very much. And colleagues, as a reminder, we have two time certain items that were previously on the agenda for today and three items which were carried over from last night. I'll note that we are starting at 230, and we do have, I believe, three councilors who have a hard stop at five. So we're going to try to move through things in that time period. Keelan could you please call the first item on our agenda.
7 Item ten approve comprehensive plan map, zoning map and title 33 amendments as proposed in Portland Gresham urban service boundary amendments. Did you want item 11 also?
8 Yeah, let's open them both together. That'd be great.
9 Okay. Item 11, direct city administrator to approve Portland Gresham urban services intergovernmental agreement.
10 Thank you. And, claire, I believe we have you for the committee staff summaries for both of those. So if you just want to run through them both, that would be great.
11 That is correct. And just for reference, the committee staff summary is the same. It's for both items. It is also posted to each item. So madam president and councilors for the record, claire adams, city council policy analyst and staff to the climate resilience and land use committee. The ordinance is before you. Document number 2025, dash 349 and document 2020 5-3 50 were heard in the climate resilience and land use committee on September 11th, where they were referred to council with the recommendation to pass the ordinances, respectively amend the Portland Gresham urban service boundary, or usb, and accept the terms of a revised intergovernmental agreement ordinance 2020 5-3 49 addresses inconsistencies between the city of Portland and city of Gresham urban services boundaries through specified amendments to the comprehensive plan map, zoning map, and pleasant valley district plan map, as well as through the removal of certain comprehensive plan designations from specified properties. The area specified by ordinance exhibit a are included in the amendments to resolve gaps or overlap in the provision of urban services to these areas. Ordinance 2020 5-3 50 directs the city administrator to approve an updated Portland Gresham urban services intergovernmental agreement that reflects the usb amendments. The full impact statement on the code change ordinance, which is document 2025 349 and items, includes information on economic and real estate development impacts and community impacts and community involvement. No verbal or written testimony was submitted on either ordinance and prior to committee action. And that concludes the committee staff summary.
12 Thank you very much. And councilor Novick, were you presiding over this meeting?
13 I indeed, and as we're all gentlefolk of fortune here, I will tell you plainly that when I first saw this item, my reaction was shiver me timbers. Was there a border war between Gresham and Portland that I didn't notice? And this is the peace treaty resolving it. But it turns out it's actually fairly technical in nature. But councilor Morillo and I give you our affidavit that Gresham is not getting away with anything here, and you can lay to that.
14 Thank you so much, councilor. I hope that we all take that as a challenge to bring such entertainment to our reports, to this body. This comes from the administration. There is no carrier report. But mr. Jordan, if there's anything else we should know, please. Okay, colleagues, we do have, I believe, director engstrom in the room. If there are any technical questions, either for the director, for our committee chairs or for claire before we move into public testimony. Yes, I see councilor Dunphy up first.
15 Yeah, we heard some some concerns from the pleasant valley neighborhood association. As I understand it, staff have done a great job of trying to answer some of the concerns, but I'm hoping to air some of it publicly, specifically, what is going to be happening with centennial high school, whether the this becomes within. I know right now they sort of exist in the nether region between Portland and Gresham. Interested to know from from a tax district perspective what where they land on the side of the line, how this is going to affect their school funding, how this is going to affect their services. If we have anybody available to to dive into that at all.
16 Director engstrom, is that something you can take on for us?
17 Thank you for the question. For the record, Eric engstrom, director at the bureau of planning and sustainability. I could not have summarized better than councilor Novick in terms of you can think of this line between Portland and Gresham as kind of a akin to a treaty, and it governs where we both agree that we will annex two in the future. The line is outside of the current city limits, and on our side of the line, we agree to provide urban services upon annexation, and then we'll consider annexation. And so we maintain comprehensive plan maps on our side of the boundary. Gresham does the same on theirs. And to the extent there was an overlap here, this is what we're cleaning up. It doesn't directly affect what what decisions centennial may make. And just to be clear, one of the parcels that's being moved around is is owned by the centennial school district. And so that's what generated the question. I believe my understanding is that parcel is vacant. And and in their ownership currently there's existing or sewer connection, I believe, to the property from Gresham. So this action it governs who ultimately might annex the property. But it doesn't affect decisions they might make about going forward around what they build there or when they do that, anything related to their their tax base. It's it's primarily a land use and infrastructure planning tool.
18 And just very quickly in follow up are we we are unifying them under Portland or would they will still remain sort of split like that vacant lot is going to be Gresham and they're going to different development standards or.
19 Ryan, can you clarify. Yes.
20 Hi. Ryan singer, principal planner for the record, the centennial school district lot is currently in. Most of it is in gresham's urban service boundary. There is a gap that is just Multnomah county. It's all Multnomah county, but it's not in either of the service districts. And then there is a a small area that is in the Portland urban service boundary. And the proposal is to remove that small portion from the Portland urban service boundary. And then we're working with Gresham to have their urban service boundary pulled over and cover the entire lot.
21 It sounds like this will make it ultimately easier to develop that vacant lot and make.
22 It will make it clearer about. Yeah.
23 Thank you.
24 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Smith, did you have questions?
25 Yeah. And I don't know if my question is a technical question or not, but. I would like to know how many square feet are on that land.
26 I can.
27 That's something we have probably.
28 Right.
29 You you have it in an email here. So there are five acres so I can't give you square feet. And again do the math back quickly.
30 But acres is fine.
31 Yeah. Five acres and that are in the Portland urban service boundary. There are 26 acres in gresham's urban service boundary. And then there's four acres that are in that sort of in between.
32 So from a technical standpoint, the five acres and the four acres are going to be pushed over to the 26 acres over into Gresham, and we're going to lose a tax base.
33 This property is not currently in the Portland city limits. So it's not paying taxes at this time.
34 But the issue is, if we annexed it into Portland, we would have the ability to put housing on that. In pleasant valley, which has the highest property tax rates in my district. And so we're taking away the opportunity to build housing that we could actually increase the resources that we bring into the city. It's not a question for you to answer, but I'm just making a statement about this. I know I felt the same way when I started reading this. I started rolling my eyes too, but it's it's an issue. And and I think the people who live in that area, they're concerned about not being able to have a Portland address and to be able to have it developed. So that's that's all I'm saying.
35 Thank you, councilor and keelan, could you confirm that we don't actually have anybody signed up for public testimony on either of these?
36 Yeah, we do not.
37 Okay. So colleagues, if there is any discussion, technical or otherwise, why don't we jump in and we may need the two of you to stay up here. So please don't don't leave us yet. Does anybody else have questions? Councilor, would you like to continue?
38 Okay. And I'm really concerned. Like right now we don't have one person to give public testimony. I was at the pleasant valley. Me and my staff on Monday or Tuesday, and we listened to them and they said they didn't know about it. They were asking us all kind of questions about it. And would we be able to do land and how much is that going? Is that going to cause their their property rates to go up? It's just a slew of questions. So for me, I wanted to know when you put this on the agenda, did you contact folks in the neighborhood or people who would be interested and did you one did you hear any any concerns? And two, if you contacted folks in writing or called and said, we're having this, we would love to have your your input on it.
39 My understanding is with this kind of an action, we send notice to the neighborhood associations and they they would have received a mailed notice.
40 The pleasant valley neighborhood association, they did see it and they got it late. And that's why they were asking us. They sent a note in to us on Monday through zendesk through 311. And so there's a flurry of emails going back and forth between all the commissioners and district one trying to figure out what's going on. But at any rate, I'm troubled by the fact that we don't have one person that that is from pleasant valley that says, yes, this is something that we want to happen because they don't understand it. You all say, and in the councilor Novick says that it's a good thing, but. I want somebody from the community to tell me it's a good thing.
41 I'll just add that the planning commission also did consider this, and there was notice to the neighborhood association at that time to. Yeah.
42 But there were there were no comments. No. Right. That doesn't surprise me because we are in in district one, we are in the lowest voter turnout area in the entire city. And so that does not surprise me that they did not respond to to mailers. And that's why I'm saying and I tell my staff too, you got to go to them and you got to call them and so that they understand what's going on, because they may not respond to you in writing or via email. And so I'm just concerned. Councilor Novick, I'm concerned that this is going to upset the pleasant valley neighbors. And personally, I would like to push this off until we can get somebody that says this is okay, of of importance.
43 The council, there's nobody here. But was there any written testimony against this today? May I ask the clerk? We had nobody in person. Did we have any testimony opposing this in writing?
44 No.
45 We received no testimony either way.
46 But councilor Smith does. I mean, with due respect, couldn't the people who you heard raising concerns about this have submitted testimony in writing? We can't force people to testify.
47 You are correct. You cannot force people to testify. But this is a big deal. This is this is this is about acres of land that is going to be. Over into Gresham that we could have a tax base from.
48 How many acres of land are there in the city of Portland? Does anybody know?
49 He said five.
50 No, I mean total.
51 I think that our.
52 133mi■!s is the number.
53 How many acres are in the total city limits, was the question.
54 Yeah. It's 133mi■!s.
55 I have to do this.
56 We'd have to do the math.
57 He originally said five acres.
58 No, no, that's the that's just the portion of this lot that is in the urban service.
59 With the centennial.
60 Yeah.
61 Councilor what I was getting at is this is a rather this is not a large fraction of the land in either Portland or Gresham. Five acres is not very much.
62 But 20 acres that Gresham is this, this, this, this particular five acres is going to be pushed in with the 20. So why couldn't we take 20 of their acres and put it into the Portland comprehensive plan, where we could build some, some housing?
63 Part of what drives the decision to go one way or the other on this boundary is the logic of infrastructure provision. And in this case, the sewer is more logical to be provided by Gresham because they've got a connection already. And so that was what drove this particular decision.
64 Okay.
65 Anything further counselor? Nope. Okay. I'm hearing the concerns, counselor Smith, that you're raising, and I'm wondering two questions. I just want to confirm, director engstrom, you said that there are no tax implications now in the future. So this right now is all I'm going to say. Neutral. It's not part of either city. Some of the acreage is receiving services from Gresham, some from Portland, some from neither city. In total, there are five acres that we provide services for now that we wouldn't in the future, no new acres that we would be providing services for. So there is no current tax implication in the future. There would be five acres worth of potential taxable land that is no longer in our potential sphere. Is that a correct summary?
66 Yeah, more or less the with the caveat that it's school district owned. And so there's in that current ownership there may not be tax revenue. And then the the we also take on liability when we take on those properties in terms of potential expenses for for utility connections. That may be hard to do.
67 Presumably as acreage that's not within city limits right now. Should we assume that there are sidewalk and road improvements that would need to be made? Also.
68 I'm going to assume that they're not sidewalks on this.
69 They're not sidewalks on this side.
70 Yeah. The point being that there would be infrastructure needs if there was annexation. And very often those are borne by the property owner in question with the development, but not always there. Sometimes our our city, things that come with it.
71 Thank you. Counselor and Smith. I hear I hear your concern that there's not anybody here today or anybody that has come to the city. But you also said that you heard some feedback at the neighborhood association, and I'm wondering if you can just share with the rest of us what feedback you heard so that we understand if it was question, if it was concern, if it was, they.
72 Were concerned. Yeah. They were concerned that it would impact district one's ability to develop market rate housing. It is currently a part of it is currently a soccer field. And it's like 174th. And and it also runs into a road that runs into the same road. It's really tight out there. It's rural and urban at the same time. But they were concerned to answer your question. They were concerned that one that we were we were giving an asset away to Gresham, to that they didn't have much more conversation with anyone from the city of Portland. And that's why I became concerned, because they were concerned about it and they thought that it happened so quickly.
73 Can you can you guys orient us to which lot you're talking about? Because there's a lot on these exhibits.
74 It's all the unincorporated areas. It's an unincorporated area. It's not Portland and it's not Gresham.
75 Councilor I think as I'm looking at the the materials, there are multiple amendments that are being made. Is it a specific amendment that we should be looking at, amendment one, two, 3 or 4. And I want to clarify for folks watching, these are not amendments to language of a resolution or an ordinance. These are amendments to the plan. So actual properties that we're talking about.
76 I don't know, to answer your question because I haven't studied it like that. I looked at it just as a whole and they didn't understand it by the amendments either. And that's why they wanted to talk to some, some people. They thought I would know more. I didn't know too much more than what they did, other than the fact that we were going to vote on it today. So I don't know what is the risk of us waiting for another couple of weeks to to approve this? Until we can talk to some people and they, you know, the neighborhood association, have them come in and have some of the other neighbors come in who are really concerned that we're giving away something that that is an asset.
77 So I think councilor, I want to make sure we hear from our colleagues. Also. I am through with my questions. I believe this is a first reading on an ordinance that is a nonemergency ordinance. I'm checking to make sure that's the case for both ten and 11. This is a first reading on both ordinances, so we won't be voting until our next meeting.
78 Can they testify at the next meeting?
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79 We generally don't do testimony on a second reading, but I'm looking to keelan. I'm not sure if there's an easy way to make exceptions. You're shaking your head. No.
80 So? So ordinarily.
81 Do you see yourself?
82 Sorry. Lauren king, city attorney's office. Ordinarily, because this is a land use record, we we land use decision, we close the record, but we can set the record open for either written testimony or additional public testimony to a date and time certain we would need to announce today.
83 So we could keep the record open, either to the next meeting for more oral testimony or for another, let's say, week to get written testimony in, depending on whether folks in district one thinks think people would prefer written or in-person. I hear a point of order. Councilor Kanal.
84 Yeah.
85 So if this is in fact a nonemergency ordinance and it's a first reading, our code says that public testimony is three minutes per person, unless the presiding officer specifies another time, and testimony is limited to the first reading, unless the presiding officer states otherwise on the record at the end of testimony at the first reading. So it might be more simple than what we were just discussing. And it sounds like the precedent.
86 For land use. We it's it's all basically the first reading. So you can have many first readings and continue to have lots of hearings. And the second reading is just where the vote is. So it it doesn't quite work the same way it does with all of your other ordinances. I would kind of put that nomenclature aside and just understand that what we would need to do for land use is just identify a date and time certain that either the oral record will be there'll be an opportunity for people to testify in person, or a date and time certain for the written record to close, which could be five days from now. And then you could still vote on this at the scheduled time you already planned. If you want to review that written record, if if council finds it sufficient to just receive written testimony.
87 Okay. I'd like to colleagues move to hear from our other colleagues. But I'm looking to the d1 folks. And if the three of you have a joint proposal for one, you might want to keep testimony open until. And if it's more important to have. To have people here in person or just to have the space and written would work, I want to come back to you in just a minute to get a sense of where the three of you might land there. Councilor Novick.
88 Question, mr. Engstrom, my intuitive reaction to hearing that Gresham is better positioned to provide sewer service here is that that would seem to make it easier to develop housing here. If it was, if it was in gresham's boundaries and if it was portland's boundaries, is that a facile interpretation, or is that accurate?
89 Yeah. Unincorporated.
90 Right. But I'm saying that what makes it easier to develop housing if the if the if the jurisdiction that has is better able to provide sewer service takes it over? It would seem to me it would be easier. But maybe I'm wrong.
91 Yeah. The point of this boundary is to make it clearer and easier to develop. And by having clarity about which one of us is going to be best positioned to provide the utilities. And so in concept, yes, the reality is those details often don't get worked out until the actual annexation proposal comes in. And and so it's a little bit too early to say for sure. But you're you're on the right track. It's just not ironed out yet.
92 Thank you.
93 Anything further? Councilor. No. Councilor. Zimmerman.
94 Thanks. I am just seeking clarification both from the staff and the district one councilors. There's a little bit it feels like you guys are kind of talking past the rest of us, and maybe you're just talking past me. Is there a specific set of lots? We keep talking about centennial high school, but I'm looking at exhibits here that seem to go much further south. I'm just looking for. Right. So. But a bunch of lots is not five acres.
95 Councilor. Could we see if.
96 Director engstrom can maybe weigh in here and help provide some guidance?
97 And then and I'm still I'm trying to understand the difference between exhibit a and exhibit b. And if you can orient us a little bit, that would help this conversation, at least for me.
98 Yeah. The the the boundary change in question has, I believe what is it, four different.
99 There's four.
100 Areas that are four.
101 Different areas that are affected. Two of them are public right of ways. And so those are not lots that are owned. And there are two other two lots. One of them is the lot in question, which is owned by centennial school district. And then another one is a lot that's privately owned. It's like a farm with a house on it.
102 So it's not the high school, it's just land owned by the district.
103 Yeah.
104 And that is amendment two one, 3 or 4.
105 I'm trying to share. Can I share the presentation here?
106 So it makes it difficult when the two exhibits that say the Portland and the Gresham.
107 Right.
108 They look identical and I and I don't know if I'm playing creed bratton find the difference here.
109 So no, no those are those are the those are intended to be the in state documents that that show the legal limits. The two lots. If you look at the here we have the project components lot one is the lot in question. That is the one that's owned by centennial school district. And then amendment two here is the other lot that is privately owned. And then you can see up there three and four are the right of ways that are being amended.
110 Okay. So if I'm looking at the existing, which is a sub or an insert in one of your slides, looks like slide four. That purple area.
111 Those are the gaps.
112 I should note those as those are the gaps. And so now we're saying we want to fill in those gaps. That's right. And say it is clear after this where urban services start and stop with different governments. Right okay. And and it appears that those purple areas are cutting through existing lots. In a way.
113 They are the the only one that sort of has like sort of the, the use the metaphor I use is a neapolitan ice cream is is the one the centennial owned one. They're both in Gresham. Then there's the gap and then there's the. So that's the only lot that has that condition. The rest of them are either whole lots that are, you know, between them, or they are lots that are in Gresham and not and and split between Gresham and not having a service area.
114 And to be clear about what we mean when we say urban services. We're talking. Not just so. So if if development exists in the purple areas that those purple areas today or I guess, moving in the future, this is how their, their trash is handled, how their sewer is handled, the how they do or do not get police services. What what do we mean when we say urban services boundaries?
115 There's a couple tiers to that. The baseline is sort of the things that are built infrastructure like pipes and streets. That's the first layer. It does eventually, upon annexation, affect potentially what the what the fire district is or what the what the police response is, although it's a little more complicated with those non pipe and street infrastructure entities, because they also have service agreements that sometimes make other arrangements. And so it's mostly about the pipes and streets okay.
116 And then.
117 It does not affect like who responds to an emergency call because they work out who the closest entity is.
118 Okay. And. When we say statements like it would, it may be easier for for Gresham to provide those services. Is that based upon the idea that some of Gresham services perhaps already get closer to those lines? Because Portland services, maybe the adjacent ones that are in blue, are still not hooked up, meaning Portland hasn't actually gone up to this purple boundary. The end of our pipe is probably some acreage or miles in the other direction. Is that what we're talking about here? And in the right side of this graph of this picture, we're saying Gresham services are probably closer.
119 Correct.
120 And sometimes there's topography or there's a stream going down the middle of this area too. And some of that has to do with whether or not you have to cross the stream with with infrastructure.
121 Okay. And this is my last question. So when we do an urban urban services boundary, some of these areas will remain unincorporated Multnomah county until annexation occurs. It's just we're saying urban services only. This is not annexation. I say that just because I know just north to the to the northwest of this picture, we have areas of of difficult enforcement for a piece of land that is unincorporated Multnomah county, next to Gresham and next to Portland. And we don't know how we don't know who's responsible for clearing the camp. Right. That kind of stuff. Right. Ownership issues in the middle of these ownership islands, if you will. So these will remain unincorporated if this action still goes forward.
122 Correct. Right now, we do not have an active, proactive annexation program and that we wait for applications to apply for annexation. And usually that's development driven because the land use law doesn't allow us to extend services unless they annex okay.
123 I'm generally quite, you know, flexible to the district counselors on items like this. I guess I'm missing the point here. I'm missing what we think we're going to develop or what the issue is. So if we could get to the I've lost the crux of what the concern is, I and I'm happy to be supportive. I'm just trying to hear that. But those are my questions.
124 Counselor. Anything further, counselor Green?
125 Thank you. Yeah, I'm following this discussion. And I also do tend to want to defer to the counsel, the district counselors that have an interest in this. Like if this was on the margins of district four, I would want to make sure that my colleagues gave deference to, to to the representation that we have there. But I just want to flag that I have reviewed the meeting minutes of the planning commission on April 8th, which took this issue up. They talked about the same thing and the point, and there was also no testimony there. And the big crux and driver here was that this needs to be done to make sure that we can send a clear signal to folks who do want to develop in this space what to expect, who to deal with, what sort of regulatory environment they might face, and then whether or not infrastructure exists on the margin and what is the cost. And so that's kind of really what's at stake here. And so what I really worry about as we go down this road is do we delay this such that we have to go back through a planning commission process? And are we going to be part of the sort of ongoing problem that makes it difficult to build housing in this, in the city of Portland and the broader region? Because it's not you know, some of this discussion does feel like, you know, florence and siena fighting for who's expanding faster. And I want to make sure that that's not there. So I just put that out there.
126 Thank you. Councilor councilor Kanal were you?
127 Thanks. Three thoughts on this one. There's I agree with councilor Novick that we cannot compel people to testify. I think that this is not on the staff. It's not on us, but I think as individuals, but it's on us as a collective that we need to do as much as we can to create an environment conducive to more testimony in this process. I don't think that that's necessarily specific to this, but I think it's a bigger picture issue. And as councilor Smith pointed out, it's particularly notable for d1. Secondly, this I just had a clarification question. You mentioned the neapolitan ice cream lot. Can you be a little more specific? There are two that are three areas that are next to each other.
128 Yeah. So the on slide seven I'm showing there you can see the purple shaded part portion of this lot. That's the portion that is in portland's urban service boundary. Then there is a gap between. The service areas. And if you sort of see it's like halfway sort of split the lot. The remainder of the lot is where gresham's urban services, urban service boundary goes through the lot on this on this slide.
129 And we were on slide four. Can you.
130 Yeah. If you go on slide four, you can see it as well. But that is it's harder to sort of see because this is just at a scale. But it's it's essentially if you see where the the purple is running through the, the, the lots there, there is a lot the centennial lot has that sort of is bisected by that purple. So the blue on one side is in the lot. And then the, the peach color is in gresham's urban service boundary.
131 And the. Just tell me the number by that one please. So we're all on the same.
132 Page if you it's. 403.
133 Okay. Thank you. It's verifying that. Thanks. And then the third thing is I agree with councilor Green that I generally want to be deferential. I know that we hadn't heard anything in this meeting related. In the committee meeting related to d1 concerns about it, because I just haven't hadn't gotten that information. So I'd love to to be deferential. But I also would love to hear more from the d1 councilors as councilor Zimmerman asked as well. I just wanted to give that context.
134 Thank you councilor. Before we go back to our d1 folks, I want to make sure councilor Ryan has a chance to weigh in. And then, councilor Dunphy, we're back to you.
135 Thank you, madam president. I was on I'm on the committee, as you recall. And we listened to the report. We didn't hear about any testimony. But I think this is a great example of the new form of government in motion at the moment. So now you have elected officials in district. So we're at neighborhood association meetings and things come up to us. And so I think in parallel style, we probably need to think about our outreach strategy on such land use issues with neighborhood associations. Again. And, and I think the practice of just putting out the note and not hearing from them is probably is not something that worked. I think if this was in district two, there would have been a good chance that I would have heard about this, because all politics is local, especially in this new form of government. So I have a question for the people from district one. They didn't do that so that neighbors didn't have a chance to have a deep understanding. And if I have learned one thing about land use is it's complicated and it takes a while to understand, do you think if they had the the opportunity to have this dialog, would they have been responding differently? I know you can't think for them, but I still think that's an important conversation.
136 I, I don't know, I can't answer that question, but what I do know is my staffer lives out there and I want to bring him up. He was at the meeting with me, and he can give you a better view because he lives and works there every single day. So if adam murray could come up to the dais, that would be great.
137 There you go. There's less speculation.
138 Please join us. And if you could introduce yourself and then share what you heard, that would be great.
139 Thank you so much. Councilors. My name is adam murray. For the record, I am a policy advisor for councilor Smith. I'm also a resident of district one and pleasant valley. This is my neighborhood. These are my folks. And you know, when this item first came up in committee, I. I just think that we have a tendency to view a lack of public comment as sort of tacit approval, and I would encourage folks to see it a bit differently with district one. When we went to the pleasant valley neighborhood association meeting, they talked about some of the outreach efforts that they were doing to to just get out the vote, to start to get more civic engagement from our neighbors in district one. And, you know, they only had the resources to put the postcard survey out to 3800 pleasant valley residents, and they were only able to do it in english. They reached out to several different city bureaus for support for for language translation support. They weren't able to receive it in time for that survey, but it's something that they surfaced they wanted to do because we know that a lack of engagement from district one residents is typical in city hall, and so we often feel quite disconnected from policy and we're often reacting to it. I'll give you an example. When we moved into our house in 2017, it was a city requirement as part of the annexation to connect to the sewer line as part of our urban service boundary, and the residents there incurred that cost as the property owners. And fortunately for us, we were able to get that as part of the deal and the purchase of our home. But my neighbors, who the majority of them are vets, retired, disabled individuals who can't afford $25,000 to to hook up to our services. And so I think, you know, while those services, those services are a lifeline, they're also a burden. And these things are deeply complicated and hard to understand. And so when I look at this particular amendment and no discredit to you all, you have done fantastic work. And it's really exciting that we have these technological advancements to get more accurate with our urban service boundary. It's just when we have these conversations outside of the district, it really represents a missed opportunity to get better, more diverse, more equitable engagement. And so when we see these district one specific items, again, I just want to reiterate that there's nothing inherently wrong with this particular policy, but it represents a missed opportunity to better understand what decisions here communicate energetically to the residents in pleasant valley in district one, and one could interpret some of these moves to say, the city's not interested to extend services out. As far as you know, those of us who feel we are portlanders, you know where we currently live. And so we know there's disparate service delivery. And, you know, part of what I think would make this proposal a lot stronger for my neighbors is the adjustments to the comprehensive plan, like, how does that impact positively, how services are delivered on the other side of that line, where we live and where we do extend those services. So I'm not saying that that work hasn't been done, but I think that those things would be valuable in this conversation, and I appreciate that you all are willing to to hear us talk about it.
140 Mr. Murray. Yes, ma'am. When we were at the neighborhood association, what were some of the concerns that that the neighbors had when we were there? There were many that you took. And like I said, I'm not saying that this is bad. I don't want us to go and change and have to go back and do some different things. But I just want to make sure that their voices are heard, even if we can take testimony up until next week, Thursday, that would be helpful to me. And that's all I'm asking. I don't want to prolong this. I don't want to take it past the time. I just want some some respect. Put on our our neighborhoods in district one. Not that you're doing it intentionally, but this is really dense stuff. And we have a elderly population in district one. And as adam said, they sent out a postcard 3800. They only got 84 responses.
141 So yeah. And that's, you know, indicative of where we're at and just how folks feel like if their time is, is well spent doing civic engagement. Of course, like we all see the, the, the deep value of that. But there are so many cultural barriers. There's so many fears to like. I mean, considering the federal immigration enforcement actions, like there are transportation and safety concerns with coming to city hall for these conversations. And we didn't see a robust outreach within the district to walk those grounds and to understand the significance of 174th or jenny road or, you know, and to really see what that land is all about. It's like we can look at this map and see that that land is partially unincorporated, that there aren't a lot of built structures. But, I mean, the residents of pleasant valley really see that intersection of 174th, 172nd. And jenny is like a really critical sort of crossroads in the neighborhood, a community gathering point at the gas station there. And as councilor Smith mentioned, there's a soccer field down the street. And so some of the concerns they raised at the neighborhood association was just safety and walkability. Like that specific intersection doesn't have sidewalks, and it's extremely dangerous for folks who aren't traveling by car to be able to traverse through those areas. And so, you know, one of the outside of the fred meyer on 148th, you'll find residents of my district often go to the happy valley, fred meyer, which has a gas station there as well. And they have more selection in their produce and things like that that are reflective of like the the, you know, the customer base for that community. And so we travel that road all the time and it's just viewed, I think, quite different. You know, when you have that cultural context. But I think that you all are really talented communicators and especially our bureau professionals. And, and we see these as opportunities to really like open doors to solve bigger problems. Like today. It's a, you know, a very simple land use issue that can help us better understand how our services work and do, not how we can better advocate for what we want to see our neighborhoods look like in district one, and specifically pleasant valley and those outlying neighborhoods. So those are the things like I mean, they they talked about safety, they talked about walkability. They talked about just the fact that they feel so left out of these conversations. And it's just, you know, respecting that. I really appreciated what councilor Ryan mentioned of just like noticing like, and when you do any kind of organizing, you see this all the time, like you'll reach out to people and you don't get a response. And you can either take that as tacit approval or you don't care and all these other things. But there are a thousand ways to interpret that. And sometimes when we shift our mode of communication and we make greater opportunities for engagement, we get these like exciting outcomes and new ways of looking at things. So to councilor Smith's point of just imagining like they they at that meeting, they were really excited about imagining the prospect of market rate housing in their district and getting to see more expansion and development. And just, you know, what a future centennial school district looks like and whether or not that's something that as community members, we can help support like so there's so many various things that I think by only having these conversations at city hall, we're just missing key opportunities to to really engage district one in the broader vision for Portland.
142 Thank you so much, adam, for your insight on this. It was it was very keen and. Helpful. What my thought is, is if we could leave this open until a week from today to be able to get some written testimony from some others, I don't want to I don't want to prolong this, but I do want to have some other things on the record that reflect what the people care about or what they even know about this project. Because I bet you a dollar to a donut. They don't really understand what this is doing.
143 Councilor is Dunphy, and Avalos is keeping the record open for written testimony work.
144 Yeah, that'd be great.
145 Lauren, we need to bring this back at a time certain. And I'm not sure how long we need between the closure of written testimony and when it comes back, if we keep written testimony open through next Tuesday to bring it back Wednesday or through next Thursday, and then we wait another week and bring it back the week after, what is the best way to work the timing here?
146 Lauren king again, for the record, you you can leave the record open up to a moment before council votes. So you just have to announce a date and time certain when the record is closed and bts will prevent more testimony from coming in or not rejected after that point. So it's just identifying a date and time and then a date and time for when you plan to take this up and vote. Ideally or often, you want to give yourselves time to actually review the record. So sometimes it's nice to close it at 5 p.m. The day before so that you can review it before the next day when you're going to vote or something to that effect. That would be my recommendation.
147 Great colleagues.
148 I had planned to bring this back on the agenda on the 24th, which is next Wednesday. If we were to keep the record open until end of business on Tuesday so that everybody could review it before the Wednesday meeting, does that work for you?
149 Excellent. That sounds doable.
150 Okay, councilor.
151 Dunphy, I see councilor Avalos nodding. That works for you as well. Okay.
152 I'll just state for the record that the record will remain open until Tuesday, September 23rd at 5 p.m. And council will return to vote on this item on Wednesday, September 24th. At what time?
153 That is a 930 meeting. So let's put it early on the agenda keelan and say 945.
154 We already have one time certain scheduled at 945. So I think. 10:00 I think 10:00. Let me double check when that first time certain is scheduled to end, and then we'll add this one after that. So let me let me double.
155 Check questions while she does math.
156 Yeah. Councilor Dunphy, you are next in the queue. Do you have anything to add?
157 Yeah, I just want to add my teams are ready to work with councilors, Avalos and smith's teams to go out and proactively find some testimony from folks who are either directly affected or the neighborhood association. Written testimony would be fantastic. My teams were asking for more than a week, but I think that we can make it work with the time that we just set. And, you know, this is a just just for context for folks who are wondering why we're talking about this. This is you know, I have joked that people living in 145th and division don't come to talk about their potholes. This is about three miles further than that. This is really where the city stops and the countryside begins. We need a little bit of time to be able to reach out to them. We're going to look at some translation services and some handouts and go knock on some doors, and we will try and get some stuff on the record. And if by the time by the end of day Tuesday, if we don't have it, we don't have it. And that was the opportunity. So we will see what else we can do. I know that this specifically at the at the neighborhood association meeting, there were some folks who wanted to go walk the property and understand what we were talking about and then consider doing testimony. So there there a later than our timeline, as we would hope. But I appreciate this council taking time to do a little extra flexibility for the farthest reaches of district one as it pertains to their land. So appreciate you.
158 Councilor, and I'm getting a note from the clerk that we could have this on the agenda at 10 a.m.
159 Okay, so Wednesday, September 24th at 10 a.m. And, councilor Dunphy, just to clarify, any communication you receive, it's still if it's just the written record, it should be in some form placed into. So if you receive a letter or a statement, then as long as your office can place it into the record on their behalf if needed, but it should be placed into the record. Perfect. Okay.
160 Thank you, councilor Zimmerman.
161 I. Am curious. I'm curious what the staff's expectation is if these areas become Gresham urban service areas. You know, the space age at jenny and foster, I don't think is going to significantly change in its role in the community. And I'm I'm just failing to understand why it is that if a piece of land is in Gresham, why it cannot then still be developable as affordable housing. We're using these terms and it's almost kind of sounding like because there was no public testimony, we're going to say these things that could happen, but we're not. I'd like to get into reality a little bit as we do this search out for public testimony or whatever it is, to help me understand what the concern is about being in a different urban service boundary, because that part remains incredibly unclear for me. So I'm supportive of the continuation, but I've heard nothing today that would stop us from doing this. And so I'm just hoping to get to some of that. I'm actually quite familiar with this area. I grew up in this area, drive a lot, probably spent more time on this road than most. I used to be assigned this area for Multnomah county as a tax assessor, so I am talking from a position of pretty good understanding, but I am not understanding why if something stays in Portland, it will be a gem. And if it goes to Gresham, it won't. So as we get that, I hope that we'll hear that in this continuation, because that part's being missed. If I'm going to be asked and I don't know that I will be. But if I am asked to disagree with the recommendation from the planning commission, I I'm showing my cards. It's going to have to have a lot of substance to it, because right now I don't yeah, I'm not seeing that.
162 We're not asking for that. And on top of that, the reason why you don't have it is because we don't have anybody testifying about it. So you're just going to have to wait till next week.
163 The other option is that even the people who live out there say, I don't see a change coming either, right? I actually don't think that there.
164 Are more resources in the city of Portland than there are in Gresham. Let's just keep it like that. We've got more resources.
165 We do have other people signed up to or so signed up, but in the queue to speak. So let's let councilors.
166 Know the meaning of that. Will, will will matter. And and I think we're being fair in this continuation. But I was pretty concerned with just the, the idea that one is good and one is bad. That's not that's not landing well with me.
167 Councilor councilor Kanal did you have something to add?
168 Yeah, just a request. And I want to be clear before I ask this question, that of the city administrator that I'm not implying anything wrong has been done, but I would love to. I would love to have the citywide engagement team be a part of being at the next meeting, because one of the things that we're talking about here is ultimately how we communicate outward with d1. That's a new team that I don't think they bear responsibility for any of the the lack of engagement so far. But I do think that that's an important part of this, and I appreciate what what adam said about, you know, adding d1 to the list of sort of communities or areas or groups where if there is no testimony, it does not necessarily mean a lack of interest. I think there is a lot of a lot of geographic pockets in the city like that. But there I think d1 definitely counts for that. And I would love to, to have just to make sure that that is tied in with our this topic becomes tied in with our broader efforts to engage better as a city. Thanks.
169 Councilor. I hear that request. I would suggest that in order to ensure that we have the full discussion on this topic, we not use this as an opportunity to talk broadly about that outreach, but that perhaps we ask the city administrator to get us information on how that team will be working on things like this in the future to make sure that outreach happens, maybe at a future point, or.
170 That'd be great. I was actually just asking that they come watch it and be great.
171 I think that's perfectly appropriate. Thank you. Councilor councilor Novick.
172 I just wanted to say that although I share councilor Zimmermann's puzzlement, I'm also sensitive to councilor Smith's observation that the folks who she and councilor Dunphy heard from just might not have a comprehensive picture of what exactly this means. And maybe after they think about it or two people talk to them about it, they'll think you're right. It doesn't make much of a difference if our urban service boundary is Gresham or Portland, and Gresham already has the sewer line here, so that makes sense. But I think if since we're not a huge hurry, the idea of giving people additional time to learn and to comment strikes me as quite reasonable. Despite my previous remarks about being interpreted to the contrary.
173 Yes.
174 Okay.
175 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor zimmermann, are you back in the queue? Okay, colleagues, seeing no additional discussion. This is an ordinance on first reading. We have announced that the record will be open through the end of day next Tuesday. And this will be on the agenda at 10 a.m. Next Wednesday. At our council meeting. We will pick up the discussion. Then, based on what we see in the public record, and if folks are comfortable at that time, we can move forward with a vote then otherwise we will talk about next steps at that time. Thank you all very much. I know you weren't expecting that much discussion today. Keelan could you please read our next agenda item? And I'll note, colleagues, that this is listed today as agenda item 12. But this is yesterday's agenda item eight.
176 Item 12 amend parking space reservation code to allow for flexibility in the distribution of responsibilities.
177 Thank you and colleagues. This is a second reading of an ordinance. So if there is no discussion, we will move directly to a vote. Seeing councilor Zimmerman, I'm seeing you raise a hand.
178 Thank you. I was awaiting an answer, and I don't think I got it. About what? Issues with parking the mayor has authority to. And which ones this council has authority to. And I noted last time that the mayor unilaterally extended the parking hours. And that has certainly spun my residence up to a level of fervor. And I haven't gotten an answer. So I would encourage us to either hold this or vote no and not be flexible with the administration on anything related to parking until we get clear answers. Thank you.
179 Mr. Jordan. Do you have an answer you can share today?
180 I'm afraid I do not, madam president. Okay.
181 Councilor Zimmerman, I think that was a suggestion, not a motion to carry this over.
182 I'll be voting no and I'll be voting no for anything else related to parking until we get an answer on this.
183 Thank you.
184 Councilor Smith.
185 Thank you, madam president. Do we have people that are here to talk about this? I have a question.
186 It is a second reading, but I thought that shoshana cohen from PBOT was going to be available. I'm looking to see if she's online. It looks like. Matt, are you raising your hand to weigh in?
187 I yes, I'm here to answer any questions for PBOT.
188 Thank you matt. So for the record, I think this ordinance offers a common sense changes to the code that are designed to make it easier for folks applying for these temporary no parking permits. That being said, I do want to find out. Do these changes risk communication gaps in parking enforcement?
189 We don't believe so, counselor. We actually think they'll help because this allows the parking enforcement officers who are much more aware of all those rules about out in the street, to continue to focus on that job. These are specifically on temporary street use permit staff who understand that process, who are putting out these notices that these are areas are reserved for the time that have been allotted.
190 And just one last question, matt. Did the conversations leading to this proposal surface any other potential inefficiencies for the city services?
191 Not that I'm aware of. Specific to the temporary street use permits. We're always obviously looking at ways we can be more efficient, but this was a way that we felt would be more efficient, so nothing else popped up and I'm aware of.
192 Excellent. Thanks, matt.
193 Thank you. Counselor. Anything further? Okay. Councilor Kanal.
194 Thank you, madam president. So I first want to say that I share the concern from councilor Zimmerman. I, too, have been asked about why the hours were extended. I would really, really like an answer to that question as well, and I appreciate it being raised last week. Last week I also asked if we needed to specify which unit of staff was going to put up the no parking signs at all. This code specifies parking enforcement does this task, and now we're talking about parking enforcement or short term permitting. And I asked whether or not we could just say the city does this task and was told we needed to specify. And I appreciate this rationale, but I also want to note that there's some inconsistency in what we're getting in terms of the level of guidance, in terms of the guidance on the level of specificity. We're going to to say. And I just wanted to to highlight a counter example to to illustrate this point, we get to talking about sanctuary policy. We've had the argument given to me that we can't be that specific in the code. We can't specify our intent in an ordinance. It needs to be in a resolution. Can't say that the city will have bureaus collaborate or assess compliance with sanctuary policy, because that needs to be in a different type of document. And so my concern here is that we need to be consistent if we're going to approve this piece of code and say which team, not even bureau, which team is going to do something, then we're signaling to ourselves, and I think to the public that when we start talking about other things later on, we're going to be that specific, including when we talk about sanctuary policy, how we react to the federal government and protect our people. So voting for this, to me, is a is a good signal that it would be that we're willing to be that specific and code again, and I want to be sure that we're all on the same page about that, because this is a very specific statement as to which team, not even which bureau, is going to do this type of work. Thanks.
195 Thank you. Councilor, councilor Novick.
196 So I'm taking this opportunity to raise a pet peeve that I've neglected to bring up with PBOT, which is my experience with temporary no parking signs, is that they often say no parking in big letters and then in really small letters. On September 18th, between the hours of one and two and I drive by, I think there's no parking. And then after parking three blocks away, I walk by and realize, well, it just realized that since I was parking in on September 16th, I could have parked there if the numbers had been bigger. So I just want to issue a plea to PBOT to require that temporary no parking signs say when no parking is allowed in really big letters. So we're not taking up parking spaces for longer than necessary because people just see new no parking and don't see what a limited time it's for. Thank you.
197 Thank you, councilor, councilor Zimmerman.
198 I mean, we could dance a little bit to the council. We could dance a little bit and revert back to the parking hours as they were on the last fiscal year. If we want to get serious. And in this same code, add an amendment to this and take back our control as the legislative body of this city. I think if the administration would like to make a case about parking hours, they can come and do that. But I don't think that they did that. And I care about it a lot, obviously, because a grand majority of my district is is covered by this. But I think a parking hours discussion is a fair discussion to have, like we did with fees or the price. I lost that, but I think it was a fair conversation. If there is an appetite to take back that authority and make this ordinance pass today, which, by the way, I agree with councilor Smith, this is a good ordinance in the right direction. But we have a moment here where the legislative body can undo an administrative, I think, stretch and return to 7:00 ending of parking hours, except for, you know, as they were before. And I'm looking around at you all because I'm just kind of getting a sense for who's gotten up and down. And if we want to actually propose an amendment and assert our authority as the legislative body of the city.
199 Councilor, I might suggest that if you want to move in that direction, we hold this over to next week so that we could get the language on something like that. Right?
200 I'm going to propose that we hold this over to next week for development of an amendment to this code. I don't know what you need in support of that motion, madam president, but I appreciate that nod.
201 Second.
202 I believe that as the presiding presiding councilor Keelan, I'm looking over there to make sure this is correct. I believe that I can just hold this over. Okay. Let's hear from councilor Green. And then I do intend to hold this over to our next meeting. Councilor Green, go ahead.
203 I this is interesting to me. I actually think I disagree with you on the specific application here. I like the longer parking hours. I do think that we need to be flexible in letting people go out and refill the meter and all that. That being said though, I think you're raising a very important point about the legislative authority that we have to make to codify law. And you raised points earlier that were germane to this as well. It's uncomfortable for me to be in a position where I'm told that I cannot direct the administration to do things by resolution. I can only do that by code. But then when I try to do it by code, I'm told that's also interfering. And so we've got a situation where it's not clear to me exactly how how we have any legislative ability beyond rubber stamping things. So I'm very interested in entertaining this. I think, important moment in the history of this new body. So I'm prepared to support this. I may vote against you on it, but like I'm prepared to support this holding over action and kind of have a broader discussion over this because I think it's important.
204 Thank you, councilor.
205 Councilor Clark.
206 Well, this is fun. I think when we first brought this up, the issue was administrative versus legislative, and we asked that we try to sort through those kinds of decisions when it isn't administrative issue, per your comment. Councilor canal, if we are going to hold this over, I don't mind that, but I think when we talk, we notify PBOT of that, that we also ask for some sort of economic impact statement about the hours, what that really means to us, because some of us know that we are in a tremendous deficit in terms of transportation finance. The legislature hasn't acted. And even though I know it's in my district as well, the three of us and I've got I mean, my parking downtown is probably doubled in cost, and I've heard a lot about it. I think we do need to know exactly what the economic impact would be. Should we should we pull back on that extension? But I don't have any problem with waiting for a week.
207 Thank you, councilor. Councilor canal.
208 Thank you, madam president. I would love to be a part of this solution as well. I think we may end up losing a little bit in revenue, and that is a very good shout in terms of the the the economic impact statement. I also think that and I'll speak not just not for the moonlight caucus, but as a member of it, that in terms of promoting our evening, our evening economy, there is a there is a need here to have that be a part of the conversation as well. So I'll yeah, there are more than one caucus. There's more than one caucus here. The moonlight caucus. Yeah. Lit. Anyway, I'd love to have that conversation in terms of the impact, not only on our own budget, but on the broader economic activity in the evening in Portland as a result of this. Thanks.
209 Thank you. Councilor. I am going to ask councilors canal and Zimmerman and councilor Clark, since you chaired this original discussion, if you could join them to do some work on what we might want to do here over the next week, I'll note that it would be great to make sure that there are conversations with the bureau. I think finding out the economic impact of what we do is important, and making sure we understand any budget implications. I would also note that we should probably reach out to our labor partners and understand what impacts any changes that we make on whether we include specifics about who can do this work might have on them. And I intend to bring this back at our meeting next week. With that, I will move us on to the next item on our agenda. This is what are we looking at? Item 13 on today's agenda, which was previously listed as item nine yesterday. Keelan, could you please call this agenda item.
210 Amend small donor elections code to adopt the recommendations of the Portland elections commission?
211 Thank you, keelan and colleagues. I'll note that this had been scheduled, and then we held it so that further discussion could happen. At the governance committee. We have a committee staff summary from craig today. Please go right ahead.
212 Thank you, madam president and councilors, for the record, my name is craig cook, council policy analyst, and I serve as staff to the governance committee. The ordinance before you document number 2025 230 was considered in the governance committee on August 11th, where it was referred to council with a recommendation to pass it amends Portland city code chapter 2.16 to align city election cycle timelines with new state timelines. Align the cap for matching funds for the auditor's election with the amount needed to mount a competitive bid for that office. Ensure penalties are paid in accordance with administrative rules. Permit campaigns to collect allowable contributions prior to filing notice and delegate to the Portland elections commission. Whether to exclude contributions from candidates from certification threshold requirements, and to find a way to enable candidates who ran for a different office to participate in small donor elections without penalty if they later run for city office in the same election cycle. Small donor elections provided a follow up presentation of the September 8th governance committee meeting to answer questions raised by councilors at the August 11th meeting. The ordinance under consideration was not amended at the September 8th meeting. The full impact statement on this item includes information on potential community impacts and community involvement, and a financial and budget analysis from the city budget office. There was no verbal or written testimony submitted on this item prior to committee action. That concludes committee staff summary. Thank you.
213 Thank you. Craig councilor Koyama Lane. Both was presiding over this and is not here right now. But councilor Ryan, I believe you, vice chair, that committee. Is there anything you'd like to add to that committee? Staff summary is councilor Koyama Lane online. I see you pointing.
214 She's showing as present in there.
215 But I did just get here. I apologize for being late council president, and I and I were asked to show up to an important community event in support of our immigrant community members, and I was there showing support from both of us. I'm happy. Councilor Ryan, do you want to talk a little bit about this?
216 I'm sure I have some comments. I could just go ahead and do those now if that's good. I thought we had a really good conversation, meaning it was thorough and and you, as you said, craig, there were two meetings. I'm I already gave a lot of this feedback at governance, but I think it's important I've learned when I'm not on a committee, how important it is to take some time at the beginning, so the rest have a better understanding of what we're voting on. I know I experienced that last night with some frustration, so bear with me. There were just a few points that I thought that we dove into, and I was the culprit. That was asking most of the questions. So here I go. Susan, it's good to see you here and thank you for your patience, because I know you were here last night as well, and probably been hanging out longer than you thought this afternoon. I hear there might be people from the elections committee as well that could get online and answer questions. I think as I'm the I have actually participated in this in 2020, 2022 and 2024. So I speak with a lot of lived experience on this program. I'm a big supporter of it and there was some missteps, if you will, a couple decades ago, and I'm always cognizant of that. And I want to make sure that when the public experiences something that doesn't seem right with this, that we really take it so seriously and make course correction. And I was pleased to know that that's what the dialog was. One thing that I keep bringing up is, I think it's odd that we keep the floor at 250 donors to receive the match, because there's no primary anymore. So I question why that hasn't been raised to 350 donors. I'm also was questioning about some of the incidents that showed up in the media and that voters were questioning because, again, this is their money that they're putting in with their taxes so that we can all have gift matches. So they're kind of attached to this issue. The one about the quid pro quo. I thought I heard some really good dialog about what the commission went through on that topic, and they made some course correction, which they can tell you about. That was satisfying. And I also brought up the other behavior, which is more nuanced and I think more difficult to understand, but it's having paid solicitors that go door to door to fundraise for candidates and they're not. And there was allegations that they weren't always as transparent about the exact beneficiaries of their efforts, and that I thought we needed better clarification on that for transparency sake. And because, again, using public money to pay directly to the candidates operations is one thing, but to have public money go to political nonprofits, campaigning for a slate remains a concern for that. Many, I think, keep finding a little bit unacceptable. I couldn't tell if what the commission did. I couldn't tell what the conversation was like on that topic, and I didn't hear any course correction on that topic about the third party paid solicitors. So that's where I remain curious on how we'll move forward on those allegations. Thank you susan. I hope that was a fair representation and summary of our long meeting that we had on this topic.
217 Thank you. And pause for just a minute for susan, because we are still just going over the additions to the committee staff summary here. Colleagues, are there technical questions? We do have one person signed up for public testimony that we should make sure to ask, or any amendments that we want to get on the table before we hear from members of the public. Councilor Zimmerman.
218 Thank you. I'm just hoping, susan, that maybe we can spend some time on number three. It reads amend prohibition on transferring funds to candidate committees to permit legitimate campaign expenses. And I just want to say my question comes from a position of not fully understanding the paragraph that there is attached to it. So I'm hoping we can third grade it for me and maybe use some examples of what it is. Otherwise, I think this is all good. Thank you.
219 Thank you counselor and susan, if you'd like to introduce yourself and let us know a little bit more about that section, that would be great.
220 Sure. My name is susan mattei. I'm the director of the small donor elections program. The number three amendment there. There was a prohibition. There is a prohibition in the code that campaigns cannot transfer funds to political committees, intended initially to sort of prevent kind of a maybe, maybe an overbroad way of preventing certain like donations to political committees. But what it did was it prevents campaigns who maybe want to share an expenditure from being able to have one campaign pay for it and the other campaign reimbursed that campaign for their part, or if they're going to. Yeah. So or, you know, or sometimes campaigns will rent office from a political committee office space and they can't actually do that because they can't pay anything to a political committee, even if it's a legitimate campaign expense.
221 It's getting more clear to me. So if when we say a political committee, we mean any political committee, not just candidate ones. So if I were to as a candidate, my pac were to want to rent campaign office space from one of the unions pacs who exists in town, that last year may not have been a permissible item, but now it could be a permissible item.
222 Yes, as long as it's a legitimate campaign expenditure.
223 And renting office space is a legitimate campaign expenditure. So therefore it's okay. Yes. Do you foresee an issue where. A how might we get after the issue of discounted space. Right. So if a, if a union pac or to endorse me, but they weren't to endorse somebody else in equal treatment as landlords in that situation. I'm just trying to understand this kind of situation where we're making it cheap for our friends but not for others.
224 Yes, fair market value is perhaps the most difficult part of campaign finance compliance, and the Portland elections commission, adopted in the administrative rules a couple of years ago a list of types of evidence that shows fair market value so that people it's harder for any anyone, whether they are a political committee or not, to give discounts to or overcharge for. Campaign expenses.
225 Okay. And then during last year's election, there was a point where your office sent out a questionnaire for everybody who was running about if we were supportive of. And it was kind of like a mid stride change to the way that benefits could happen from one pac to another. And I remember in the heat of the election being kind of confused by it. So I was not supportive because I just I felt like I was already in the race and the change didn't make sense to me about what it was. Is this directly related to that question we were asked, or is that a totally different set of topics?
226 That was a totally different set of topics that was about with the program, 60% underfunded, about if there are ways to help campaigns collect more money without undermining the purpose of the program. And this is really just about enabling campaigns to share expenses in a more financially pragmatic way.
227 Okay. Thanks.
228 Sure.
229 You councilor Councilor Kanal.
230 Thank you, madam president. Hi. Thanks for being here. Susan, can you speak to where is the change that you were just discussing with councilor Zimmerman?
231 It is totally abandoned.
232 Okay, okay.
233 All right. And then I do see the comment from at least the first of the two from councilor Ryan did get reflected in the change, which is to say the one about enabling looking into rules about candidate candidate to candidate contributions. I think it's even broader than just if there's a reciprocal donation that is reflected in the code. I did see that part.
234 Not the code, but the program. The elections commission made several recommendations on that. I don't believe any of them. Oh, no. There is one in the code, which is not counting contributions from candidates toward certification thresholds or tier thresholds, but still matching them. Remove the incentive to trade contributions with candidates.
235 Sure, that makes sense, it says. Looking into may establish additional requirements. And then the commission could certainly do that. I had two questions related to the section about the limitation, the the the actual tiers and the amount, the distribution. That's the word I was looking for. So this is on page 11 of the of the exhibit. So I'll start with why was the auditor amount lowered. And the reason I'm asking is city matching funds from the fund will be distributed only in a contested election is sort of the header on section a there. And then under a2b it reduces from 100,000 to 50,000. We very rarely have a contested election for auditor at all. So I was curious as to why that was a change that needed to be made.
236 Sure, it's not a critical change, but the Portland elections commission does prefer to if it's if the program is underfunded, reduce match caps evenly across races. But if they were to do that, the auditor's race would feel that far less than all the other office candidates for office because most, you know, it costs. Generally speaking, it costs more than $750,000 to run for mayor, but the match cap is $750 because you're going to raise some private contributions and some matching contributions. Same thing with council. If you look at historically what it takes to win a council race, it's more it's more than the match caps for council. On the other hand, what it costs to win a contested auditor's race is less far less, significantly less than the match cap of $100,000. So it was really to get things more into alignment with each other. So the Portland elections commission, if it has to, if it's underfunded and it has to reduce match caps, can do so just by the same percentage across races.
237 Thank you for that explanation. That makes a lot of sense to me, I, I do, I asked it in part because the financial impact statement called it a minimal, and I think it's more of a minimal hypothetical budget savings because of how rare that that even is. The other pieces did this conversation include eliminating the tier threshold at all on the second and third tiers for council? And I'm asking specifically because the difference between 749 and 750, or between 1249 and 1250, is especially the first one can be existential for a candidate, and doesn't seem to serve much of a purpose in terms of enabling the 251st to 749th donors impact. So, and I'm and I'm sympathetic to the argument about where the first tier should be as well. I'm not questioning that, but the idea of why not just have it be linear up to the 300,000 cap. Beyond that, it seems like an unnecessary midpoint check that can make someone at 749, you know, have their legs go out when they hear that number.
238 That was a good description of people's experience during 2024. And there was a lot of user experience research collected about frustration around that. But it was a it was a an effect of having the program be 60% underfunded. And then the tiers having the match caps at each tier being lowered from 100,000 to 200,000, 300,000 to 40,080 thousand 120,000. So what happened was when you get certified, most candidates hit their $40,000 cap in their first payment, received nothing for a long time until they achieved 750 Portland donors and then got another $40,000 check if if the program had not been underfunded, it would have been a much. It would have been. You get your first lump sum payment once you get certified, and then every two weeks you get more matching funds. If you collect, mostly. Five, ten, $15 matching matchable contributions, it's a totally smooth ride to get to the second tier. You get paid every two weeks if you collect mostly $20 and more contributions, there might be, you know, a 2 or 3, you know, 2 or 3 payment cycle gap when you hit your cap and you haven't gotten to 750 contributions. So it was really a function of the underfunding of the program and the reason that the tiers were not abandoned, even though they the the frustration of users during 2024 was expressed and discussed among the Portland elections commission, is that if the program is underfunded again and you don't have tiers, then you have to take the top the one match cap at the very top down much lower because you're not spreading the match cap reductions evenly between candidates who raise a small amount, candidates who raise a moderate amount, and candidates who raise a significant amount. What happens is the candidates who are fairly prolific fundraisers maybe get a 60% match cut, cap cut, and the candidates who are low fundraisers don't experience any match cap cut because they still didn't even hit the match cap. So some people are experiencing a fully funded program, and some people are experiencing a deeply cut program. The the tiers enable us to spread those match cap cuts even more evenly across candidates, which is more fair, and by doing so, save more money so that we don't have to cut the match caps as deeply in the event of underfunding.
239 So thank you for that. That opens up two questions for me. One is doesn't everything you just said apply to mayor and auditor too? Yes. Why wouldn't there be tiers for those races then?
240 That is something that is under consideration as recommending for those. But did was not tackled after having only experienced tiers and councils with really deep cuts. So we wanted to see tiers within a fully funded cycle or or close to a fully funded cycle before making that recommendation for other races.
241 Okay. And that leads me to the other question, which is we don't know that we're going to have fully funded cycles. We know this this budget we funded. And I think councilor Smith for leadership on that, ensuring that there was funding for small donor. But we still have a budget cycle to go before the later portion of the 2026 cycle occurs. And my concern about having this be written in code is that in the event that there is a reduction in the caps, we would be experiencing the same things you just mentioned, which I agree with. You would not occur in a fully funded cycle in terms of the smoothing effect, but we would need to do a code change to still achieve a smoothing effect. If there was underfunding in a future cycle. And the way I don't recall exactly what the mechanism was by which the match cap was lowered last time, but I don't think it involved a code change. So my concern is why would this be in code if then the solution wouldn't be in code and create this same problem in the future?
242 Sure. So the mechanism to lower the match cap is that the Portland elections commission lowers. It is the least they have to in order to deal with the underfunding. So they just take a vote to to make that match cap adjustment. And the problem is the limited amount of money in the program's budget in the case of underfunding. So if you were to smooth things out, all you're doing is you're giving people less money from the get go so that we can afford to give them more money. Between them getting to the next tier. So instead of getting a $40,000 check upon certification, you say, okay, we're going to give you a $20,000 check, and then every two weeks you're going to give you another, you know, $1,500.
243 I understand. And to clarify, I wasn't suggesting that I was saying the alternative would be the other alternative you mentioned earlier, which is cutting the top.
244 Yeah. So yeah.
245 So if that were to happen, for example, like let's say we were exactly 60% underfunded in 2026 as we were in 2024. Then instead of cutting the match caps from 100 to 200 300, there were cut 40, 8120. The if we didn't have tiers, we would have had to. If it was just a $300,000 cap, then instead of cutting it down to 120, because the people who only raised 40 aren't, you know, or only raised, say, 60, except they they only got 40. We're not getting any savings out of them. So then instead of taking that, that that $300,000 cap down 60%, now we're taking it down 75%. So it's a so what happens is, is just that the the people who don't raise them, the people who raise the lowest amount of money, experience a fully funded program, and the people who can raise the most contributions in matching funds experience an even more underfunded program than we have.
246 Okay, last question then I have a comment. When the Portland elections commission votes in a future scenario, hypothetically, where there is a underfunding, when they vote to reduce it, are they able, if they so choose to, to do that at differential rates by tier? I know you said they prefer to do that, but they are. Are they allowed?
247 They we've asked the city attorney's office for advice on that. And their advice was that they believe that they are allowed to to to decrease match caps by different amounts within tiers.
248 Okay. Then that satisfies my concern there. I will say that just while we're on the topic that I do intend to support fully funding the, the, the program, and I think the work that you and your team do, small as your team is, has been really, really influential and supportive in, in making this a better democracy. So thank you. Thank you, madam president.
249 Thank you, councilor. Councilor Smith.
250 Thank you, madam president. The question that I have. Thank you, craig, for for the presentation. But the the question I have, I too, like Dan Ryan, participate in the program in 2020. And once you hit your mark with the 250, instead of getting another second mark as we got in new donations, we were able to get the match instantly. Instead of waiting until you hit that second tier, you have to hit the second tier. Now when the third tier to get money. But in 2020, once you hit the 250, it just you automatically got your match on every on every donation that you got. So curious why you didn't go back.
251 Did I? I feel like I answered that with councilor Canal. So I'm wondering if there was a different if there was a different sort of nuance you're asking me about.
252 No, I. I didn't understand what councilor Kanal was saying. So.
253 Okay.
254 I don't know. He said a lot and I'm just trying to figure out why we didn't go back to 2020 and just start getting every time you put in. Once you met the 250 threshold, everything will be matched.
255 It will if the program is adequately funded and. Yeah, and then if it's not adequately funded then it's just a matter of it was it was so inadequately funded for 2024 that people getting certified at 250, almost all the candidates, once they got that 250, earned their entire $40,000 match cap in that first payment. But that was just a fact. That was a that was a that was a function of the program being deeply underfunded with with adequate funding or even three quarters adequate funding. You would get checks every payments every two weeks as you earn matchable matches from matching contributions.
256 Okay I understand, thank you. And so curious, why didn't you all bring up the fact that you're going to put out a ballot measure to raise the amount of what it costs to apply or register for elected office?
257 Oh, that was the auditor's office, and we're not in the auditor's office, so you'd have to ask their office that question. And just.
258 There is.
259 There is a possibility of if people don't know what I'm talking about, of the auditor's office putting out a ballot measure that would increase the candidate fee from 75 to 150. So that was alarming.
260 Thank you. Councilor, colleagues, I do not see any more technical questions. There may be more discussion later, but we do have one person signed up for public testimony. Craig, thank you for the overview. Susan. Just in case, don't go far though. If you want to take your back seat, that's okay. You're also welcome to stay right there. Keelan could you please call our testifier?
261 Yes, we have amy sample ward joining us online.
262 Welcome, amy, and thank you for your patience.
263 Good afternoon. Thanks. I'm amy sample ward, chair of the Portland elections commission, and my remarks may be out of sync, given the deep conversation that susan just had with everyone. But I just wanted to, from the pec side, offer a few notes. As before, you review this. So before you today, of course, as it has already been read, are some changes to the small donor elections code that have been recommended by the commission as part of the process that we carry out after every election cycle, to update and improve this small donor elections program. And that's through a conducting a database performance evaluation of the program, which susan's already referenced. The pec members are not only myself, but also include anahi, segovia rodriguez, amy ruiz, cristina valenzuela salgado, james adam briggs, norman turl, and kevin neely. I wish they were all here. Collectively, the commission has a great deal of relevant experience, especially with a special focus on members that have experience in the nuts and bolts of what it takes to win campaigns. After each election cycle, we review campaign finance data, user experience, research and suggestions that have made to change the program in user experience research or even through informal feedback. We use this to evaluate the program's performance and to make recommendations on how the program should be updated or improved. The pec makes its performance evaluation and these recommendations transparent by publishing a public report. It's already been published. The small donor elections program exists to give the public more confidence that their democracy and government are designed to work in the interest of all portlanders. The commission exists in part to evaluate the performance of the program, and also to make politically independent recommendations to council on how to update and improve the program. Our independence can really be valuable to council because when the program design recommendations come from the pec, the public can be confident that the recommendations are politically neutral, not worried that they might be motivated by council incumbents trying to protect themselves from potential challengers. While the comprehensive post cycle user experience, research process and the report are now complete, the sdc staff which includes susan, who is there, as well as danita and the pec, welcome questions and ideas from councilors at any time. If you, as councilors, have thoughts about an improvement to the small donor elections program, you can share it with us at any time. Whether it's a full proposal, it's a area of further study. We can provide data, fiscal analysis and independent recommendations at the September governance committee meeting. As councilor Ryan's already mentioned, it seemed as if there were some questions about two subjects. I want to quickly name those, and then susan and I are open to more questions. First, the pec decided unanimously not to create new regulations for third party fundraisers for myriad reasons, which we can discuss, one of which is the impossibility of enforcing those regulations. The pec also unanimously decided not to recommend changing the council certification threshold of 250 donors until we have more reliable data from the 26th cycle.
264 Thank you very much and perfect timing. We really appreciate that background and also the background on the process itself for folks who are listening in today. Colleagues, is there any further discussion or additional questions? Counselor Ryan. Counselor Smith I believe that hand was up from previous. Is that correct?
265 Yeah, I think it would be really wise to explain why the commission decided to give the third party. Situation incidents a pass, and why they decided that was something that they could not enforce. Tell me more about that.
266 Sure. I'm happy to. So there were several reasons. One of them was that a ban on third party fundraising would not be effective. It was, you know, terms of the exact contracts could easily be changed so that the third party fundraisers functioned more like temp agencies than the campaigns were technically the direct employer. And that would easily skirt a ban. There was concern that additional regulations, whether it's a ban on third party fundraising or more like, you know, requiring the, you know, canvas, you know, the the people doing the fundraising to have a script where they say that they disclose that they're paid. The there was a concern that that is basically impossible to enforce to the required legal standard of having the program having substantial evidence, even if such a canvasser knocked on my door and I didn't hear them say they were paid, I'm the fact that my recollection alone may be insufficient to meet any legal standard, and no one's ever knocked on my door, so it's very unlikely that that even that would happen. There was concern that a ban is not supported by program principles. The program's purpose is to give portlanders confidence that their government works in all portlanders best interest by ensuring that campaigns are, you know, raise money through lots of contributions from all over Portland so that then the elected officials elected from that, because they were funded by all of Portland, represent all of Portland, and not just a small number of large campaign donors and third party fundraisers going door to door, collecting five, ten, $20 doesn't really undermine that purpose, even though there are, you know, legitimate concerns that we have heard, there was a concern that a restriction for only program participants could undercut the program participation and therefore the program's effectiveness at achieving its purpose. And finally, there was a perception that the issue was primarily a media driven narrative and less of a genuine grassroots concern, because in donor surveys, which over 630 donors to program to the candidates and the program filled out surveys, very few of them mentioned this as a concern, even though they surfaced a number of other issues as concerns. You know, that we didn't even ask about, like the so many said, there was a truly overwhelming number of candidates on the ballot for them to rank. Right. So those were the the the reasons that the Portland elections commission ultimately decided not to add additional regulations on third party fundraisers, but they did recommend and the program did put into the candidate guide, some guidance about what fair market value tends to be for hiring canvassers directly by the campaign.
267 Okay, I just have to do a follow up on that. And maybe, maybe I could just say like this. So when I had neighbors complain about it, when they read the story, it must have been in one of our local newspapers, perhaps Willamette week. They they recalled people coming to the door with more of a big picture issue slate. And then at the end, they said that these are the candidates that that could benefit from this. So there must be a and they gave, say, 5 or $10, but the paid solicitor was paid a higher amount than that for, for that. So they that organization benefited from that. And so that's just is why it felt cringey when people read that. And so it's pretty nuanced and it's more, I think challenging than the other issue that received probably the most attention, which is the swapping. Not that that was really clean and easy to explain as well, but on this one there's receipts, so you can see that the candidates then paid that said organization when they got their match money based on the fact that they achieved 250. So they risked that they would get that amount. I don't know what they would have done if they didn't. And then they paid that organization those funds. So I think as a taxpayer, you're hearing that we're giving money to an expanded political industry that goes well beyond just the campaign of of a person running. Is that is that a fair characterization of what happened?
268 It's a fair characterization of what the article implied. But after that article was written, I went through the internal materials of the organization and confirmed how campaigns paid them, which was an agreed upon rate, which was usually $40 an hour, or it was 30 plus an administrative fee, which basically turned out to be the same thing. And if multiple candidates were getting were on that slate being collected for at the same time, that hourly rate was divided between them, it was not, you know, if it was three candidates, it wasn't that they were getting $40 an hour for each candidate, so $120 an hour. And I also confirmed that the organization received zero profit every single amount dollar that they received, in addition to what they paid canvassers, was paid out to administrative staff and the organizers within the organization that organized all of the administrative staff and canvassers did that on a purely volunteer basis. They made not $1 of profit.
269 Can you confirm that these were none of them were 501 c threes? Correct.
270 Oh, I did not I don't remember. It was one it was one organization and I do not recall what their exact status was.
271 If it's in you know the difference between that and the c four. So it's ac3 direct services and c four is political advocacy right.
272 I do not remember their exact.
273 To c3i think we have a problem here.
274 Yeah okay.
275 Well I know we would. Thanks.
276 Thank you. Councilor colleagues. Is there any other discussion on the ordinance before us? Okay. Thank you so much, susan. Thank you. This is a first reading of an ordinance. So we will take this up on second reading at our next meeting. I think that's three things now. Keelan. Okay, colleagues, that moves us to the final item on our agenda. This is previous item five, which was pulled off the consent agenda. Today's agenda item number 14. Keelan. Could you please call the agenda item.
277 Declare property located on southeast 21st avenue and southeast powell boulevard as surplus property, and authorize the city administrator to dispose of the property at fair market value.
278 Thank you. Keelan. And this was pulled off the consent agenda. So we do have a committee summary, but I don't believe that we have christopher in the room to go over it. Counselor Zimmerman, you were chairing this committee. Is there anything that you'd like to share about the committee?
279 So if you are on powell boulevard, there is a spot between a few buildings. That's been a variety of graffiti hotspots, bike chop shops, urban toilet use, whatever term, you know, it's a vacant lot. It's about 2900ft■!s. That is, n my view, appropriate for us to. It turns out that the city of Portland, sometimes when we don't actually know we own a piece of land, we're kind of bad neighbors about maintaining it as anyone might be. And so this falls into that category that we learned of our ownership of it. And so the staff brought this as a proposal for us to offload it to the market. And I think that that that case was made. I've talked with with councilor Dunphy, and I know that we've pulled it for a reason. I think he's going to lay out some reasons why we've pulled it. And I think and we should have that conversation. But it was supported by the entire finance committee. And I turn it back to you so that we can have the conversation.
280 Thank you. And this did come from the administration. Mr. Jordan, is there anything you'd like to add before we move into our discussion?
281 No. Council president maddie is here. If there are specific questions about fleet and facilities.
282 Okay. And, maddie, I believe we will likely have questions for you. So hang tight for us there, please. Councilor Dunphy, you pulled this from consent. Please share with us.
283 I did. This is my first item ever being pulled from consent. And, maddie, I apologize for the amount of time I made you sit in this chamber.
284 It's only been nine hours.
285 I apologize. Chambers colleagues, mark twain said by land, it's the only thing they're not making more of. I, as you all know, just recently returned from our trip to vienna to learn about how the city of vienna has has focused on their social housing network and the ecosystem of of options. And we had a conversation with a member of their national parliament, and we said, you have a 100 year head start on us. What should we be doing today? And this person who was the the chair of their social housing work explicitly said, you know, fix your your tenant landlord rules define roles and land bank, land bank, land bank. I've seen this piece of property. I've seen the bike chop shop that is on this piece of property. And I know that this is maybe three parking spaces worth of space. It's not enough to build housing, but it is my intention in the coming weeks and months to work to change our city, our city land disposition process, to create a robust land banking process. We need to be able to think about these these pieces of land as ongoing assets and as as councilor Zimmerman said. Yeah, sometimes we're a bad landlord and sometimes we are a bad neighbor, and I think we can improve that. But additionally, in the specifics of this piece of land, it is directly adjacent to a reach cdc affordable housing project. What if we had had in place a system by which we could enter an agreement with reach in order to turn this into a mini park? That was an asset for the neighbors, so that they didn't have to send their kids across five lanes of traffic to powell to play at the playground, or a bench and a tree and a swing so that older adults could come and sit at these things. We need to be rethinking about how we are dealing with land. I think that we should not. We should only ever be disposing of land in the most extreme circumstances in which there is a direct reason for it. We have opportunities to use land in order to achieve affordability in a long term way, and it will be ten times as much as expensive the next time around that we want to try and purchase pieces of land, even this small, in order to try and create community benefits. So I really wanted to to pull this in order to demonstrate we don't have the infrastructure today to be able to do that. I have worked to do that. I will be working with all of you on to try and create that system. But we should not be disposing of land anymore. We should really. And except in extreme circumstances where we can't ever possibly imagine a way that a piece of land can become an asset to the community, I will be looking forward to to finding ways to use that and use the power of the city infrastructure in order to be able to achieve affordability for the community, because that over and over again is the top issue that we hear from people in our in all across the city. So I will be supporting the effort to dispose of this piece of land. I look forward to it not being a chop shop or a a burden to the neighbors. But what if we also lived in a world right now where we had the systems in place, that this was actually an asset, that was a public asset that benefited the neighbors, rather than just saying, we're a bad landlord, we'll be done of it. So again, I apologize for making you wait in order to have that that conversation. But this is a conversation that is ripe for this, this body to start having. So, colleagues, thank you for your patience in having this. And I look forward to working on these issues with you all in the coming weeks and months.
286 Thank you. Councilor. I see a number of our colleagues getting in the queue. I know we usually do technical questions first, but we do have one person signed up for public testimony who waited for quite a while yesterday, and so I would like to see if they are here and if so, allow them the opportunity to testify. First.
287 We have susan anglada.
288 Who's an online perhaps. Upstairs maybe.
289 No.
290 I don't know.
291 So okay, perfect. Then why don't we move to our discussion. And we do have maddie sutter here. If there are questions for for the administration about our current policies and why the decision was made to dispose of this piece of property. Councilor Smith, go right ahead.
292 Thank you, madam president. Thank you, councilor Dunphy, for pulling this from from the consent agenda, because I was thinking about doing the same thing as I looked at this and I started talking to folks. Maddie, in your in your office, I was like, okay, why are we doing this? Because we just passed a a resolution that said we're going to have an asset management strategy. We should not be getting rid of any lots. So I went to Portland maps, tried to type in the I did try to type in the address and found out that it said reape owned this property. And then after I had talked to folks in your office, they said that we wanted to buy it. I said, how are they? How did we get possession of it? And my staff had wrote me a note saying that we didn't even know we owned the property. And so I really got intrigued by what was going on here. And so somewhere down the line, I heard that that reape wanted to buy the property for, for, for parking. And I was like, well, can y'all tell me, can we go up? How many layers can we go up? Because I was my first thought was to try to see if we could do affordable housing. And so it got to be a big thing. And I was trying to find our surplus property. Assets. And in what we do with that. So could you tell me, how does the city of Portland make decisions to deem assets surplus? And can you walk me through the process and the governance on that? Because even if we couldn't build affordable housing on it, my first thought was that we need to keep it until the resolution that councilor Clark put forward, that we could consider that as a part of our entire assets, and we can have a 30,000 foot look of all of our assets. So could you walk me through what our process is?
293 Sure. For the record, my name is maddie sartor. I'm the director of the bureau of fleet and facilities. So for the facilities portion of that, we own a large chunk of the city's facilities and land, also known as real property. And then we are the administrators of the city's surplus real property disposition program. So there's a long established process right now which one could say is reflective of the commission form of government, in which when a land owning bureau and there's actually nine different land owning bureaus, there are six different facility owning bureaus that when an organization identifies a property, is being surplus to their needs, they contact us. We advertise that property internally for a period of time. I can't exactly remember the number of days. Everybody has an opportunity to review the property in relation to their strategic plans, their land management goals. If they're interested in that, we engage with them and we communicate about what the real what the real deal is with the property, any known issues with it, etc. If they choose to procure it from us, there's a capital asset transfer that happens in which typically there's an exchange of funds. But we have to make sure that the asset record is in the right bureau's accounting list. If they're not interested in the property, then we do a notification of property owners in the areas we advise them of the disposition that's upcoming. And then eventually, after a period of time, we go to council, we submit a resolution or an ordinance. And if you approve it, then we auction the property. And that typically happens a couple of times a year for different properties of, you know, that are owned by the different property owning bureaus.
294 So that's that's very interesting. So does the city have a central database to guide and track all the assets and inform the decisions that you're talking about.
295 No. So you've asked the million dollar question. No. The city I don't want to get out in front of what? Out of the commission form of government. I would say that there are a number of complex problems to solve. So I don't want to get out in front of mike or the mayor in, you know, what priorities need to be addressed, in what order. But I would say there is not a consolidated database of real property at the city. There is a strong interest in developing that kind of database. In fact, every couple months, I would say a different bureau tries to initiate that. I was in a workshop last Thursday with pnd, who are yet again initiating the development of a database because bureaus need that information for different things.
296 Exactly. I was looking for it. So that's why I wanted to to to answer the question, because I know that is very central to what councilor Clark is trying to do. And so I heard the estimated value of the property is around $100,000. So how if you don't have a database, how can you explain how you use how you came up with the formula to to to put $100,000 as a price tag?
297 Yeah. The value is different than the decision to dispose. So the value is done either through a brokers value of opinion or an appraisal. So that's a real estate valuation. I think what you're getting at, though, at a more fundamental level, is how do we know that disposing is the right thing to do at all.
298 Exactly.
299 And you know, so that is again, currently done in a way that it has been for a long time, which is that every bureau has an independent plan, and they assess whether or not it makes sense with that plan. I think maybe what you're asking is in a more connected form of government. How do we know that that's the right answer?
300 Yeah. And I don't want to get you. I don't want to get you crosswise with with what the administration is, is trying to do. But just curious, because my first thought I had some plans for this money if we were going to, if we were going to sell it, if this property is sold for $100,000. I'm always thinking about cip and sidewalks. If. Let's say we got $100,000 for this, what would you do with that $100,000? If it was allowed to be back into your department?
301 Yeah, and that is in fact what the ordinance specifies that we are we are trying to.
302 Unless we amended it.
303 Fair play. We we are trying to build what's called an opportunity fund. So there are a number of decayed facilities within the city. And as a cost recovery organization, we don't have upfront money to do certain tasks that anybody who wants to acquire a property would naturally need to do. So if you think about purchasing a home, you would not do that unless you did an inspection. That inspection costs money and that's that upfront pre pre money that you need to do all kinds of things from due diligence to putting options down on property. So the market moves at its own pace. It doesn't move with the city budget timeline. And so if you have to hold a property to get to the budget timeline, that's what.
304 You need. Due diligence money.
305 We yeah, we need opportunity fund money or walking around money, they call it, to try to help address some of the issues we have in our portfolio. Which, you know, are issues acknowledging the fact that other bureaus have other issues in their portfolio that they're also trying to solve.
306 Well, you have been so helpful to me, this you you've really made this go full circle for me. I was prepared to to. To vote against this and to wait until we got the asset management. But I do think that you should be on that committee with the asset management, with councilor Clark, because you have a you, you, you have some uniqueness to your fleet and facility that that is different from other places that I think your your voice about what happens in your ability not to have due diligence money, you know, it's I think they need your voice on there. And I want to make sure that we are seeing a clear picture of the assets and why we need to keep them or why we shouldn't keep them. So that's that's my thing. I appreciate you and thank you for coming back the second day, because I was prepared for this yesterday. But I was like, man, we don't get to talk about this.
307 My pleasure.
308 Thank you. Councilor, councilor Clark.
309 Thank you, madam chair. Thank you, councilor Dunphy, for pulling this off. I think this is a really important conversation. And thank you for your comments, councilor Smith. I think the whole surplus property disposition process is kind of a nightmare. I dealt with this at the state level and tried to get affordable housing, the disposition for affordable housing on the list. It's at the very bottom of the list. I'm not sure it's ever been utilized, but it's something that we should take another look at. So I really appreciate that. And maddie is intimately involved in asset management. Let me guarantee you we would not be doing this without maddie. So thank you. And thank you for hanging around for nine hours. I have been working on and I think you know this, councilor Dunphy, I've been working on trying to get the Sellwood community house disposed of, sold for $1, as opposed to going through the surplus property process because the parks department, since, I don't know, 2017 or whatever, has said we cannot take care of this. Oh, friends of Sellwood community house, could you take it over? And they have and they have rehabilitated it. It's a beautiful facility now and they would like to purchase it, and they should be able to purchase it for a dollar. But we're we're discussing with a legal department, can we do that. And this is really complex, as opposed to going through the surplus property process to dispose of it. And I think there are a lot more assets like that. Councilor Smith, that we don't even know about, that community groups could be utilizing. But we don't have a central way of tracking all of that. It's just one of the many things that we need to do in the new form of government. In addition to asset management, we need to identify those properties and really facilitate an easier process for making sure a community organization or a nonprofit can maximize the use with always with the deed restriction that we would take it back. If they fail, we can do that. But you've opened up a whole nother area that we should have a whole chapter on asset management of our properties that we don't even know we own. And I do know of an example of a PBOT property. I don't know who. It's not in district four that was actually used for, I think, a women's shelter. I can't remember the name of the group, but I don't know if it was a surplus property or if they turned it over or if there's a deed restriction. But I know this has been done in little, little pieces all over the city. So thank you. Thank you for bringing this up. We have a lot of work to do.
310 Thank you. Councilor. Mr. Jordan, did you have something to add there?
311 No. The property was owned by environmental services.
312 Is that the Kenton women's.
313 Village women's shelter?
314 Mr. Jordan, is that the Kenton women's village? Is that the Kenton women's village?
315 Yes.
316 Okay. Thank you, thank.
317 You.
318 District two, for anybody wondering, councilor Green.
319 I appreciate that you brought this off the consent agenda. I'm looking forward to the broader discussion that we're going to have around land banking. I do want to recognize that, you know, there's an opportunity cost to that as well. So we would have to have the resources to. It's one thing to, like not sell a property, but it's also another thing to purchase other properties. But while we get there, while we're on that journey, I would just like to submit that one thing we can always do is just just lease a thing like, you know, enter into long term, permanent kind of or sort of long run lease agreements at a low cost. That gives us the flexibility to just pull that back when we need to use it for a different purpose, because we're not making more land. I actually think as a principle, we should never sell our land. And I think when we work with prosper Portland, we should give them the same sort of guidance, because it's only going to get more and more and more expensive to develop in this city. So I'm also going to vote to dispose of it, partly because my motorcycle was stolen a number of years ago, and it was at that chop shop, and it was a 1982 honda nighthawk. It was beautiful, and I lost the side covers to it in that process. I got the bike back, but it was never the same. So I'm not going to say this is a vendetta, but but we're going to sell this thing.
320 Elections works out, doesn't it?
321 Yeah.
322 Thank you, councilor Green. Councilor canal.
323 Follow that.
324 Thanks. Thank you to councilor Dunphy first for pulling something off consent agenda. And not just me. So secondly, I think when I compare, when I. When I describe the city as sometimes a city and sometimes 26 bureaus in a trenchcoat, the example I'm often thinking of is a question I asked maddie a long time ago before when I worked in another job, which is do we have a single list? I know you've been working on it forever, so I want to be clear that whatever progress has been made is from you and your team on this. And and I appreciate that councilor Clark shouted you out for that. And I'm happy to, to verify that as well. But yeah, we need to have a single it. It's embarrassing that we don't have a list. That is one list of all the land we own, of all the things that it's not moving around, right? It's not something that's getting up and walking away. So we should have a list of that. And I look forward to eventually getting there. And if there's anything that council can do to assist in helping to gently encourage people to share information, I'd be happy to support that. I think I'm I guess my only question really on this is the argument that I've heard here is strong enough that I'm curious why we would still vote yes on it, because if if indeed this is something where we shouldn't be selling land as a general practice, why not start that process here? And I'm there's probably a reason for that. This isn't a loaded question in the sense of I'm not saying we should or trying to advocate for it, but I am curious about that. The other piece is is more technical and to think about, which is I think having, you know, it's a very small amount, $100,000 in the grand scheme of city assets. But as a general rule, having greater assets is is something to borrow against. And so there's that element of it too, in terms of capacity that I think we should be thinking about if we're to I don't think it's relevant to this particular one because of the value of the property. But in in a general sense, that's another factor as well that I think should be brought into the conversation. Thank you.
325 Thank you, councilor. I think that goes to me next. Councilor Dunphy, thank you for moving us into this conversation. This is a conversation that I have brought up, I think. Maddie, I talked to you about some of these things during our first month or two on council. As the council is considering our needs moving forward, housing is certainly one of them. We also talk about our tree coverage and our urban forest plan and focusing as we focus on increasing density in our housing, a very important need in our city. We know that that means that it becomes harder and harder to have the open space that we are used to having, and that we value in our city and the the open space for people, the tree canopy that can occur in our natural spaces as well. So as we think about disposition of property, yes, we absolutely need to look at our housing. I want to make sure that part of the conversation, though, is also about our Green space. As we get denser, as we have fewer backyards, smaller backyards. It could be that we need to think about more what we sometimes call pocket parks. Small parcels. Not our large parks, not what you think of as the everything amenity spaces, but a space where you have maybe some garden beds, a tree, some Green space, a place where somebody can walk a dog, a kid can throw a ball, someone can sit on a bench with more density throughout our neighborhoods. And by holding on to properties like this one, though, this one is quite small and across the street from another park. So maybe not the right candidate here, but by holding on to spaces like this, we can have that conversation. I understand that for this particular property, there is low functionality and councilor Kanal asked why dispose of this one? I drove by this property recently just to make sure it was as I remembered it being, and it is much less deep a parcel than I thought it was. There's not access for for anybody who's not directly in the neighborhood already. I think if reach is interested in purchasing this property, as councilor Smith suggested, annexing it to the property that they already have probably does make the most sense here, but this is a conversation that I think we should be having differently. And that's why I appreciate councilor Dunphy bringing this forward. Because, maddie, when you say we don't have a comprehensive plan, our plan is each individual bureau can decide, do they need this right now or not? That concerns me. During the committee meeting, I'm on the finance committee where this came through. I specifically asked, was there an interest in this property for housing? Was there an interest in this property for parks? And I was told, no, each bureau had had an opportunity. They both said no. But what if the question is in the future, is there a city wide use for this property that we could foresee? Maybe not in the immediate plan for any individual bureau, but in a broader in our broader plan for the city over the next 20 years, because, frankly, we don't have the opportunity to buy property back more cheaply than we can sell it for today, certainly not in the next 20 years. I won't presuppose what happens to the real estate market after that, but probably not ever. So I think we have a conversation to have, and I appreciate this opportunity to have that conversation, though I will be supporting this disposition and I hope, councilor Dunphy, it seems like you're interested in that, that we could pull together a few councilors to have that conversation. I'd certainly be interested in being a part of it, maddie. I certainly would want to make sure that we had that conversation with your team to talk about what it might mean to prioritize keeping property, knowing that sometimes we do decide that it's not worth keeping, but to have the conversation differently and to prioritize. Certainly we've heard about parks and housing today, but maybe other needs that we're not thinking about that our bureaus could share with us. So thank you. And I look forward to being a part of that conversation moving forward. Councilor Koyama Lane.
326 Thank you, council president. Thank you, maddie. To start, I do plan to support this disposition. And at the same time, I also enthusiastically support what I'm hearing about from many of many councilors and specifically what councilor Dunphy's thinking and his direction that he is bringing up here. A bit about his excitement upon his return from vienna, about how we can really level up some of our strategic actions. And it gets me excited too. There's so much possibility here to improve housing, community building for our constituents, and I think this is a great opportunity where we can work on this together as a council and get things done together. Maybe this is another 12 thing we can be excited about.
327 Thank you. Councilor colleagues, is there any additional discussion? Councilor Zimmerman thanks.
328 Good chat. I hope there'll be as much enthusiasm when the city staff comes to us and says that we have a lot of property, that we are really bad neighbors and people have camped in, and they've thrown their trash in and all that because this feels good, sounds good. But for the neighbors, for the last dozen years, this has been a really crappy experience. And so these good intentions have to come with good checks, too. And so let's do that if that's the case, because I don't think I heard a bad idea here, but I sure heard a lot of ideas that we are not very good at doing right now, because we haven't funded anything that takes care of this. So let's do that. And I'll also say, you know, the position is important. It Multnomah county has this property valued at $240,000. Right. So $240,000 just for the land. The taxes, once something goes on this this is a commercial district. I think we can do more with that. Right. This property will pay well over $10,000 a year in taxes in perpetuity, as soon as it's developed. At some level, unless it goes to a nonprofit, which. Okay, but on the commercial district, we hopefully, you know, we want commercial space used for commercial spaces. And I think that's important. Council president mentioned it's directly across from the park. And so I totally support the idea to to an extent, I agree with we should never sell our land, but we also don't live in a world where we have taken, always taken care of the land we own, and that's always the balance I think we have to have here. So supportive of moving that direction. I hope this one passes. I think it's time to get this one off of our books, so that other people can take care of this and do better with it. But in our larger parcels, I think we have shown a really good direction as a team here. That sounds very promising. And and when maddie and others come and say to maintain this and be a good neighbor, I need $100,000 or I need $1 million, we got to say yes, because if this had been owned by any one of the developers in town, they probably would have been on the other docket of things we had at finance, which was all the the liens and tax assessments we put against them for $100,000 in fines because private owners would never get away with what we've been getting away with. And so I just let's just keep that in mind. Thanks.
329 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Clark.
330 I just before I'm going to vote yes for this, but just before we leave, I just want to thank maddie for all your work and for being here. Maddie was the first person who spoke before the transportation and infrastructure committee on asset management, and we've been working on ever since. So thank you so much for all that you do.
331 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor canal.
332 Yeah, I appreciate the point councilor Zimmerman just made. You're right that if we were to if we were being held to the standard, I would, you know, if this was a private landowner, I probably would be would be raising hell about it. That's that's a fair point. And I think about a lot of other properties. And I was just touring a business up just west of the saint johns bridge on the north side of it, and in district two, and there's a little plot of land that we've owned that there has been a hole cut in the fence and folks coming in and camping there. And frankly, that group of folks who's in there is not causing any difficulties at the moment. That could change over time, as other folks are. There's there's some cycling over time, but you could see there being a example, probably in most neighborhoods in the city of a property that we own, that we absolutely need to be a better neighbor and a better landlord around. So that to me is a good argument, and I'll be voting yes as a result of that. I do think that it's helpful to think about think creatively about the other uses. I thought about a community garden for this particular space, for example. There's a lot of small things the city does. Council president mentioned pocket parks as well. And it is true that that takes some some money to do if we do it. But I also know that there are almost in every neighborhood, probably in every neighborhood, there's at least a community group who would be willing to to get on that. I can think of a lot of folks who would love to pave an area like that and, you know, rewild it. So I, I would encourage us to be more thoughtful about future properties where it's not quite as limited as this particular space is, but there are maybe not obvious big park type uses and becoming more creative. And when we think about that, thank you.
333 Thank you, councilor, councilor Ryan.
334 Yeah thank you matt. It's always good to see you. Thank you for your professional work. I really I'm a yes vote on this. And I really do hope in this business district and this commercial zone that someone will buy it and they'll develop it, and we'll finally see some revenue coming in from that spot. I think all the news that we're reading about this week indicates that we need revenue. Thank you.
335 Thank you, councilor, for the reminder of that side of the ledger as well.
336 Yeah.
337 Colleagues seeing no one else in the queue, we will move this to second reading at our next council meeting next Wednesday. Maddie, I promise we will move more quickly there than we have the last two days for you. And it sounds like there's a lot of support for this. So thank you for your patience with us. Thank you. Keelan I believe that's the end of our agenda. Is that the case? Yes. Perfect. Colleagues, thank you so much. We made it through before 5:00. I will adjourn today's meeting.