The record · Transcript

Council session — 2026-02-26

Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (25,257 words), shown in readable case and split into speaker turns. Speakers are AI-suggested and editor-reviewed (low confidence — auto-captions garble names); each color marks a speaker.

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The same.

As always. Good afternoon friends. I am now calling to order the Thursday, February 26th afternoon meeting of the Portland city council. Please call the roll.

Avalos.

Smith here.

Kanal here. Pirtle-guiney here. Ryan Koyama Lane here. Morillo here. Novick. Clerk.

Green. Here.

Zimmerman.

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

Yes. Welcome to the Portland city council to testify before council in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the council agenda at w.w.w. Portland gov backslash council backslash agenda for information on engaging with council. Information on engaging with council can be found at the council clerk's website. Individuals may testify for three minutes unless the presiding officer states otherwise. Your microphone will be muted when your time is over. 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 testifier should unmute themselves when the council clerk calls your name. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Colleagues. We have only three items today, but don't think that we're getting out early. Don't think about that for a second. Can we please call item 14?

Item 14, commemorate the life of george floyd and reaffirm the commitment to racial justice of the city of Portland.

Councilors Avalos and Smith. I'm going to turn it over to you.

Council chairman john first.

No, go right ahead. I gotta pull up.

Sorry, I'm running a little behind.

Your time.

Council president. Before we do this, could I have a point of personal privilege? Sure. There was a a death in this community that I think that deserves to be celebrated and not mourned. And that was for. Former senator avel gordly. And many of you may have known her. She was a longtime activist in this community and a good friend, and she was often consulted by many in the business community, public service and and the like. And I am going to to miss her dearly, miss her presence, miss her leadership, miss her kind and warm words. And, you know, we share a background. Our families were raised in the skidmore in Vancouver and williams area, and her family had a her, her her dad and my grandfather were on the railroad together and they were porters. And senator gordly was the first african American woman to be a senator at the Oregon legislature. Margaret carter was the first black representative period in the state of Oregon. But we were all good friends. She passed away last week. She will be thoroughly missed and we will be celebrating her life next month. But I just wanted to I didn't want this council to pass today without saying something about her. And while my colleague gathers all the thoughts about george floyd, she was a huge. Criminal justice reform, social justice, police, justice, whatever, whatever you could name, she was it. And our community has a big, big loss. And I also wanted to say there was another giant in our community, not just the Oregon community, but just the nation in the world. With jesse jackson, he passed away in less than 12 hours after senator gordly did. I considered him a friend, an ally, a mentor. I knew him well. He came to Oregon many times and he he left a big, huge print on this community. And as I look at it, all the international problems that we're having now, it's not lost on me. When he went to other countries and he he got folks freed. And. In addition to being a civil rights icon and being a lieutenant of doctor martin luther king. He fighting for justice. He fought for justice for for entrepreneurs. The last time that he was here, we worked on a project together because bill gates said that there were no black tech entrepreneurs in the state of Oregon. And so he called me and asked me to put together a dinner with black tech entrepreneurs. And I did. And so he said, well, he's wrong about that. I said, yes, he is. And so we had a conversation and he took a couple people up to seattle with him, and he was able to get some, some resources for, for new entrepreneurs and get seed money. And so I, I will thoroughly miss him from a standpoint, because I wouldn't be sitting here today if it wasn't for him, because I told him I wasn't going back into to to office. And he said he said, I thought you were a soldier. So tears came down my eyes and I said, I just need a break. I don't want to be in the spotlight anymore. I just want to do what I want to do. He says, no, well, you're that same lady who who got all those jobs for those kids and the houses for the elderly and and so you're you're ready to give up, he said. You're tired. And he said, I'm tired, but I'm not tired. And so I ran. And as a result, I ran three times. And I am here. So I think you're where you're supposed to be when you're supposed to be there. But I just wanted to celebrate those two people because they meant a lot. Not just to me personally, but they put an imprint on the world that I think will be missed. So thank you so much, mr. President.

Okay. Thank you for giving me a moment to gather my notes. All right, colleagues, so first, I want to start by thanking all of the community members and brown hope for their work on this resolution. I am grateful for the many thoughtful suggestions that went into the language in front of us today. Before we hear from portlanders and move into discussion, I want to explain more behind the thinking of why this resolution and why now. February is black history month, and it's hard to separate out george floyd 2020 and police accountability from that context. But it's a disservice to our community to always think of black history in terms of the black Americans. Taken from us, police violence is often the most visible, most traumatic way that the system shows up in black people's lives. But police brutality is not the root problem. It's the symptom. The root problem is that for generations, black communities have been locked out of real access to housing, stable jobs, health care, education, climate, safety and wealth, and families have been destabilized. Land and opportunity has been taken, and generational wealth has been stripped or never allowed to exist in the first place. And when people are pushed into poverty, when communities are under-resourced, when trauma compounds across generations, the main system that ends up interacting with us is the criminal legal system. And so I want to be honest about this resolution in that context. This george floyd resolution is a commemorative resolution. It's about memory. It's about naming what happened and putting on the public record that his murder sparked a global movement for racial justice and forced cities, including Portland, to reckon with police accountability and systemic racism. It does not by itself create new policy. It doesn't allocate funding, it doesn't fix housing, workforce access, generational wealth or family destabilization. And I don't want to pretend that it does. At the first meeting of the citizen board for police accountability, I attended this month, close to six years after we passed measure 26 217, I was reminded how hard we had to fight for our wins and how much the work continues beyond a policy passing. So this resolution today is not a replacement for the harder conversations we clearly still need to have, but it can set a moral and political baseline. It can say officially what the city claims to stand for and become something we point back to when we're fighting for real structural change. And that's something that I hope all of my colleagues can support today. So I am looking forward to hearing testimony, hearing from my colleagues, and thank you for this opportunity to raise this issue and elevate the voices of black portlanders who have come to their black councilors to ensure that their perspectives are heard on this dais. Thank you. Go ahead, councilor Smith.

Loretta Smith: Thank you. And and I can read this afterwards or after we have testimony to close it up.

Or your preference, whichever you prefer.

I'll close it out with with my comments.

Okay. We have at least 15 people signed up to testify, so I'd like to move us into public testimony before we move to any form of council discussion. And councilor Smith, I will make sure to save time for you to deliver your.

Thank you. Thank you.

Can we please call the first panel of testimony?

We can. First, we have guy frankenstein, will pierce, and rachel morris. Rachel's online. Rachel, you can unmute and go ahead.

Welcome. Rachel. Please introduce yourself. For the record. Share your pronouns if you'd like. And you have three minutes.

Great. Thank you. My name is rachel morris, and I'm she her they. And I'm here in support of the resolution. I first I would like to share that I'm here as a mental health professional. And while I don't want to change the focus to support of black people, I just want to say the kind of broad spread support that is here by showing the impacts, the negative impacts of degradation of racial justice is having on my clients. And so I'm going to do this in an anonymous way by saying I have a white client who is feeling overwhelmed and anxiety over attacks on brown people and ice. I have a black client who is constantly feeling a sense of increased tension and stress without realizing it. I have a new therapist who is a woman of color, and she's coming to me because she's feeling distressed by the degradation of racial rights, and she's trying to support her clients. I have a there's a jewish person who's literally imploding as she's watching the degradation of people, of colors, rights, and it's bringing up anxiety from her ancestral terror. So the degradation of rights is harming everyone. And I'd like to speak for myself. The most reassuring thing that I can see is to have actual progress, not just deal with a, a a posture of defense. Progress, to me would look like a critical mass of black portlanders helping to make budget decisions. It would look like restorative justice as a core platform for our city, not the corporate prison system, which is just slavery with a tablecloth thrown over it. And that means regional forums and discussions, because it's very important to bring restorative justice back to our schools, which means the county. In closing, I need to see progress. The phrase we will not go back. That's not cutting it. We need to go forward. I've never seen a soccer game that was won from defense alone. We need to score some wins for humanity and for the people of Portland. And this resolution is a win. Thank you for letting me share.

Thank you very much for being here today.

I, frankenstein, will pierce. Next we have cameron whitton, nanette carter jafri, aman rutherford.

Welcome, cameron.

Thank you.

I think. Oh no you're good. It's on now.

Me me me me me. There we go. Good to go. All right. Good afternoon, council president. Everyone in city council, happy black history month. My name is cameron whitten. I'm the founder and ceo of racial justice nonprofit brown hope. We've been serving the Portland area since 2018, and we're grateful to be here today. I know that we are living in heavy times, and one of the things that gives me the most hope is collective vision. And we are here to celebrate that today, with this resolution championed here by our co-sponsors, Loretta Smith and Candace Avalos, a vision for a better future for all of us. And I believe that Portland is really just a place where that potential is possible. And that's the work that we did with this intentional resolution that was really just touched and inspired by dozens of portlanders, community leaders, organizations as a way for us to wrestle with everything that has happened in this community since the racial justice uprisings of 2020 and where we are today. And we're here to say strongly that black lives do matter. Part of this resolution is to honor george floyd, who I will say personally changed my life. One of my proudest moments in Portland history was the founding of the black resilience fund, which during the summer of 2020 was an economic lifeline for thousands of black portlanders. George floyd paid the ultimate sacrifice for that to happen, and we know there are countless black portlanders who also lost their lives to police, just to name a few. We have damon lamar johnson, emmanuel clarke, kendra james, andre gladden, terrell, kareem johnson, shanice, derrick hayes, aaron campbell, keaton otis and floyd stevenson. All of those black lives also matter and we must do more to protect our communities, especially black portlanders who during this time, their stories and their pain is being erased and it is being invisibilized. And so we are here also to reaffirm the city's commitment to racial justice. And that will take each and every one of us of all different identities to do that ongoing work. And yes, it's going to be stressful. Yes, there's uncertainties, but we're going to do it together. One thing I want to say is that we must increase our investment in inclusion, belonging and community. Because of the division happening on the national levels. We have to be there for each other. And so we want to see that investment with budgetary decisions. And we are also encouraging city council to support a regional conversation on racial justice so that the city, county, metro and other local governments are aligned together and how we will support dei and more. I think I'll just finally say it's important not to leave wiggle room to cpap, to capitulate to authoritarianism and fascism. So I turn to you all for ongoing leadership, and I'll leave with a final quote from a leader that we also lost in 2020 john lewis, former congressman, civil rights icon. And he said in a final essay before his death, ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble. I'll also remind you that over 70 community members submitted testimony for this resolution. Please read that. Listen to those voices and let's work together. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Aman rutherford ammons online.

Yes, we can hear you. Go right ahead. Yeah. Go ahead, introduce yourself for the record. Thank you. Be there.

Sorry not to be here on my work right now. The reason I decided to testify. I knew george floyd's brother. I used to be in minnesota. And this is the situation. Appeared to me. Like you said before, I had a friend of mine out here named gerard that got killed by a police. I just support this resolution, and I'm going to make my time short so we can get to the next person. So thank you guys for my time and I support this resolution.

Thank you very much for testifying today.

Is.

Next. We have lisa jackson, sandy chung, jay amichai, ze'ev nicholson.

Welcome.

This is on.

Please go and introduce yourself for the record.

And I the only one.

It looks like others are online. So you're our only in person right now.

All right. He wants to give everyone. My name is lisa jackson. I'm sure everyone received my email this last week. So, you know, kind of know what I'm here for. But first and foremost, what I am here for is to make you familiar with my face, because I will be coming more to your meetings to kind of fill you in on what's going on in our community. But I want to hear I want to be here to speak on george floyd. I knew george floyd personally. George floyd was best friends with my son's grandpa, so I felt when Loretta Smith said, you know, you're here for a reason. I'm not only here for that reason, though. I'm here because I want to. I want you guys to know we need to come together. And it shouldn't have taken six years. That's coming from a native of this land. I'm over 1300 miles away from home, and I advocate for every single color here. But I do not see a native sitting there. So I will come bring a native voice to the community because we're not at your table, but we are also being overlooked. I am not going to take the time to speak on any of that, because I just want to say thank you guys so much for bringing this to the table. You beautiful women. We need to see you guys get along. You know we. This shouldn't have taken six years and I want to cry right now, but I'm I'm just grateful to be in this space with whoever came up with this resolution. Whoever brought this to the table first. I'm just glad it's here. And I want to say a prayer for you guys in my language. So takashina wakantanka. Ushi aumakua mitakuye quasi grandfather, please help our relatives in this time of need. We're here as one. We need to come back and reunite. And I want to say. I want to say a quote from my chief. From the late chief joseph. Let's. Let's bring time to come and make a better life for our kids. You all seen that in my email. Every single one of our chiefs said that this isn't about us.

You said 30s. You have 30 more seconds if you want it.

I want to leave that for george floyd for a time of silence. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Sandy cheung, sandy's online. You can unmute. Go ahead.

Thank you. Good afternoon. Councilors. My name is sandy cheung. My pronouns are she and her. I'm the executive director of the aclu of Oregon. The Oregon is dedicated to defending and advancing democracy, civil liberty and civil rights. With more than 52,000 members and donor supporters across Oregon, we strongly support the resolution to commemorate the life of george floyd and reaffirm the commitment to racial justice of the city of Portland. Thank you so much to councilors Avalos and Smith, and to brown hope for this resolution and for inviting in community. Our country has a long history of racist harm and violence towards black, brown and indigenous community members. This has been perpetuated not just through the actions of individuals. It has been perpetuated through government actions and inactions, including a long history of legislative racism that's been built into our society, structures and systems. During 2020, we all experienced people across our country taking to the streets for months to mourn george floyd and the too many black community members who have been harmed and killed by law enforcement. Many of us had hoped that our country was finally ready for real racial justice. Unfortunately, we are currently experiencing the brutal and punishing backlash of white supremacy. In addition to trying to dismantle lawful diversity, equity and inclusion values and programs, the white house is reinforcing and expanding systems of racial injustice and control systems like policing, government surveillance and violence, and mass incarceration that have been historically been targeted disproportionately on black communities. Isis kidnaping and imprisonment of predominantly immigrants and refugees of color, the expansion of horrifically abusive detention centers. Scholars of American history warn us that these actions by the current federal government are modern day versions of slave patrols and concentration camps that are a part of our country's most dark, racist history. We support this resolution because we believe that American democracy cannot be achieved in full until our country fully embraces racial justice and truly ensures that all people, including black people, have fundamental freedoms and rights, access and power to engage fully in our democratic processes and inherent value, dignity and autonomy recognized by all. And more than ever, it is critical that we continue to speak up and fight for racial justice and all the ways before us by commemorative resolutions, like by supporting the critical work of the community police accountability board, by continuing to support lawful diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and much more. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Sandy.

Jay jay is online. You can go ahead.

Hello.

Good afternoon, councilors and happy black history month. My name is jay makai. I live in district two and the organizing director at unite Oregon, and I also served on the police accountability commission. And I'm here in support of the resolution. This city has a habit of making beautiful promises and quietly walking them back. The pack put blood, sweat, and tears into building the foundation of the community board for police accountability, only to see it gutted pretty much. But this resolution is asking the city to recommit to what that board was always supposed to be a genuine mechanism for transparent community oversight of police misconduct. And that recommitment matters a lot. Because, let's be real, the majority of our recommendations are stripped away to appease the police. And these weren't radical ideas, mind you. They were already established best practices from other cities. And 81% of Portland voters entrusted us to make sure that it would have teeth. And that trust deserves to be honored. And this summer, without being forced, mayor wilson's office complied with federal orders to gut die infrastructure preemptively, voluntarily. And this is not the actions of an office fighting for its people. This is what it looks like to practice, surrender and dress it up as pragmatism. George floyd was killed because his country decided his life was disposable. So were many of the black portlanders named by cameron earlier. And this resolution names that reality. But what it cannot do is substitute for action. Most of you are new. You didn't make the promises of 2020, but you did inherit them and now you are responsible for them. This is what it means to hold office, so please vote yes. Thank you.

Thank you so much for being here today.

Deb nicholson, mark poris, charlene, charlie wesley, and matt levine.

Hello, my name is xeve nicholson. I'm from minneapolis, minnesota, born and raised about three blocks away from where george floyd was shot. I used to shop at cub foods all the time. I want to talk today about history and just thinking back, I feel like six years ago, this should be a moment that we look back on, and it should be a watershed moment where we realized, oh, this is happening. This is time to change, right? Like the civil rights era. This is happening. It's time to change. We had the bus boycotts and we saw that real change. We don't see what's happened, what's changed. I was 12 the first time I got put in an arm lock and pushed down at a subway station and held there for like ten minutes. My friends have had it happen to it. It was standard practice. You know, we grew up in a time when we were being told that racism was over. We moved forward. We've we've evolved. Things have gotten so much better. And then george floyd happened. It was should have been that moment where we realized that it is time to have these fundamental changes. So I hope that the council can remember that this is the city with the most energy behind it. This is the place where there is no excuse to not put our 100%, because this is what the people want. I was there, I saw them, it's what we want, right? So thank you. I appreciate this council and all the hard work it continues to do, and I hope it continues to do so. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Mark poris. You can go ahead. Mark.

Thank you. Good afternoon council. My name is mark morris. I see him pronouns and with the group Portland copwatch. Since 1992, Portland copwatch has been working towards a police bureau free of brutality, corruption and racism. And as we're part of a peace group, we believe that everyone should be able to go home safe. After interactions with police, civilians and officers alike. Really appreciate jay and zev before me. We echo everything they said. We appreciate and want to elevate the clause in this resolution that states, be it further resolved, that the city affirms the importance of ensuring black portlanders are not only meaningfully included, but engaged as collaborative partners in discussions and decision making processes related to the causes, consequences, and solutions in the effects of systemic racism on black lives. We have hope for the clause that states, be it further resolved, that the city affirms its dedication to advancing racial equity and commits to ensuring that its stated values are consistently reflected in its policies, budget decisions, and institutional practices. If this were already true, the city would have engaged the community before contract negotiations with the Portland police association began 45 days ago. The resolution mentions manny Clark, the innocent black man shot and killed by pbb on November 19th, 2022. Officer christopher christopher saathoff shot mr. Clark in the back, despite the fact that PPB had information that the suspects they were looking for were white. In August 2025, city council approved the largest settlement ever for PPB brutality in this case, but that is not justice. $3.75 million cannot buy justice. Justice would be if manny Clark was still alive. The resolution also mentions damon lamar johnson, a black man in mental health crisis who was killed in custody of PPB on June 27th, 2025. The call was a welfare check, and mr. Johnson wound up dead at the hands of three PPB officers, who had a total of 7.28 years of policing experience, according to pbs's statement. And our math, not only did the city of Portland send the wrong people, armed officers, to the welfare check, they also sent inexperienced people and to use police language, a homicide occurred. We've asked you for this before, but we're repeating our support now for you to meet the mental health alliance's demand for an unlimited and independent investigation of the death of damon lamar johnson. Thank you.

Thank you. Mark.

Charlie. Wesley. Charlie, you can go ahead.

Thank you.

I'm charlie michelle wesley, a tribal member of the confederated tribes of grand ronde. Hi, lisa. I am here often. I'm glad to see you here. I'm a mother, grandmother, and great grandmother of indigenous black family members. Yes. Let's absolutely commemorate george floyd's short life, whose murder was perpetrated by police in full view of the world to reveal the common knowledge of racial injustice of police, stereotypical targeting of black and other marginalized community members for deaths. We personally continue to commemorate his and countless other black lives in our racial justice work to regularly include in our testimony in this very chamber as we as witnessing the corroding threat of racist white supremacy firsthand and the support of it in this very chamber by many city councilors. This resolution states lots of facts. Unfortunately, any suggestions for racial justice are all voluntary, and I fear another performative resolution. And from my experience, the part that says the black lives movement has deepened the understanding of systemic racism truly hasn't panned out. Even in progressive Portland, as had been hoped for. I mean, look at our city who continues to fight to prevent police accountability and thinks more funding for for more cops is the answer. The problem is, we simply get more well-funded cops with the same mentality to kill more black community members without accountability, just large lawsuit payouts which are neither racial justice nor accountability. Much of the resolution talks of restorative justice approaches, which does not address this lack of racial justice. It simply means to restore to harm state which does not exist. Reform operates within the same legal system and attempts to repair the past. How do you repair racist policing system that has multiple options to avoid accountability? Hiring police of color is not the answer either. That's only diversity of color, not necessarily mentality. There is no mention of what is actually needed, and that is transformative justice, which means personal and institutionally address root causes, systemic and structural conditions such as racism, oppression, inequities, unchecked power, lack of accountability, etc. You know, the things of core city values and the police core values would address, but continue to be ignored when making decisions. Again, simply performative versus to implement, transform and avoid traditional punitive measures and aim for long term healing with personal inventory around one's thoughts, behaviors, attitudes around your racism and your support of harmless settler colonialism. I if you want to, if you want sacrifice for these core values, then you don't have these values. Rest in peace, george floyd.

Thank you so much.

Matt. You can go ahead.

Matt levine, it is unbelievably important to us to commemorate the life of george floyd. He was a son, a father, a brother, a friend, a community member. George floyd mattered. He didn't deserve to die at the hands and knees of white supremacy. It's also unbelievably important to us to affirm the commitment to racial justice of what's now known as Portland, but is actually rightfully occupied lands of many different indigenous peoples of the lower columbia river. Furthermore, nobody at the city has demonstrated that commitment better than councilor Avalos. Such a commitment has been seen by councilor Kanal, Koyama Lane and Morillo as well, with commissioner Jo ann hardesty paving the way before them. Thank you. Our problem here is with the idea that the city could reaffirm its commitment to racial justice. This assumes that there has been such a commitment from the city before. And while there may have been words performatively saying this, there has never been action to make that commitment real on institutional and cultural levels. As james baldwin put it, we cannot believe what the city says because we see what the city does. And we ask, at what point was the city committed to racial justice? Not when it was founded by white supremacist colonizers as part of a genocide against indigenous peoples, not when it was part of the founding of a state based on an explicitly anti-black constitution, not when it was exploiting chinese communities, not when it was incarcerating japanese communities, not when it was stealing the homes of black and brown families for the sake of I-5 and legacy emanuel. Not while it's been facilitating gentrification for three decades. Not when it allows pbb to kill kendra, james keaton, otis, patrick kimmons, manny Clark, damon lamar johnson, and far too many more. Not when it allows pbb to target joanne hardesty, not when this council holds racially biased elections for council president. Not when mayor wheeler called for racial justice activists to hurt a little bit, and a portlander responded by killing two protesters standing up for black lives. Not when mayor wilson's office put forward a motion to remove one of the racial justice activists targeted in that attack from the cbpa, not when councilor Smith encourages investing in more police officers and divesting from bipoc communities. Remember one of the first collective calls for change in the wake of george floyd's murder was to defund the police. Black visions put out a petition to defund the minneapolis police within 26 hours. So yes, please commemorate the life of george floyd and affirm the commitment of Portland to racial justice. But please also recognize the theme and event of an event we held with racial justice activists lisa winston, doctor kevin wright, and faith akin in 2024, commemorating four years of racial justice protests in the wake of george floyd's murder. Racial justice requires radical truth, and the radical truth we must face is that this city has never been committed to racial justice. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

That concludes testimony.

Thank you very much, colleagues. We now move to discussion of the resolution. Councilor Smith, would you like to kick us off?

Thank you, council president. I would like to urge all of my colleagues to support this resolution as we close out black history month. I want to remind everyone that black history is portland's history. Black portlanders have built this city, strengthened the city, and led the city, often while being denied the very protections and opportunities we deserved. I am very proud to co-sponsor this resolution with representative Candace Avalos to commemorate george floyd, and to recommit ourselves to what his murder demanded from all of us, accountability and justice. On may 20th 25th, 2020, the world watched george floyd lose his life and communities everywhere, including Portland, responded because people were so tired of seeing black life treated as as if it was disposable. But remembrance without action, it isn't enough. This resolution is about aligning our policies, our budget decisions and institutional practices with our values and doing that work in partnership with black portlanders and black led organizations. It also recognizes the pain, the pain closer to home, including the loss of emanuel Clark, damon lamar johnson reminding us that this isn't abstract. It is so very personal, and it is ongoing. So today I am reaffirming this. The city of Portland will not back away from the work of racial justice, especially when it's difficult and many times it is. We owe black portlanders more than statements. We owe measurable progress. Thank you so much for listening to me.

Thank you, councilor Smith. Councilor pirtle-guiney.

Elana Pirtle-Guiney: Thank you, council president. I want to thank my colleagues, councilor Avalos and councilor Smith, for bringing this forward today and to the many community leaders. Thank you who worked together to bring this to us as well. I specifically want to thank cameron whitten, who I've been lucky to know for a very long time for reaching out to me early and and asking what I thought about this as, as one of your councilors. And I'm glad that you moved forward with my colleagues here. Colleagues, I want to note having this resolution before us today as part of black history month, because when cameron first approached me, I asked why in February and why not in may. But this is right. It is right to talk about this in black history month, because it is important to remember that history is not just what happened long ago. It's also how we write what has just happened. And I hear people talk about 2020 in Portland as a negative time. But 2020 in Portland is also when we made strides for racial justice. It's when we came together and said, enough, we must do better in a a way that community members had been calling on us to do for a very long time, and that not enough people had listened to before that. So I'm glad we're talking about this as part of black history month, so that we can write history correctly, and so that we can say, today it's time to double down on those calls. It is time for our country and our city to continue the work that our community has demanded for a very long time that we made progress on, but that we've not yet done enough on. I'm thankful to see notes in here to some of the work that we are doing now at the city. I think it's also worth noting that we need to do more. There are major community conversations that are needed. I know that brown hope, who brought this to us with other organizations, is leading some of that work. And there are other organizations bringing community conversations together as well. And I hope that passing this resolution today is an opportunity for us to write history correctly and to continue the work with our broader community of racial justice. Thank you for bringing this forward so that we have the opportunity to recommit today.

Thank you. Councilor pirtle-guiney councilor Green.

Elana Pirtle-Guiney: Thank you, councilor Avalos and Smith for bringing this forward and reminding us that resolutions have this the tool for us to speak as one body about what our where our commitments lie and where our expectations for the city lie. And thank you to all the testimony for reminding us. Particularly charlie, who's saying like, look, if we if we're not acting in accordance with these values and we don't hold these values, that's, that's very real. And so I think when we our job is to pass laws and appropriate money, that's our primary job. And I'm really grateful that this resolution is coming forward in February, because this is an opportunity for us to affirm our dedication to those values as we go into the budget setting process, we're going to be faced with some very tough choices in that process, and I want to make sure that we've got a framework to lean on to say when we make some cuts, we remember who it is that we're throwing aside and who it is that we're keeping whole. And I'll just leave it at that. Thank you for your leadership out there, too. Thank you cameron, always good to see you and I look forward to voting. Yes.

Thank you, councilor Green. Colleagues, I put myself in the queue just briefly. I just want to first thank all the community members who came to to continue to remind us how important it is to center the lessons that we hoped we had learned in 2020 and clearly haven't actualized. I was actually in this working in this form of government, or in the last form of government through the first part of 2020, and I saw so many good public servants ready to jump to action to respond to the moment. But we as as has been said repeatedly, it is fantastic to hear affirmation of the moment. It's the moment after that and the one after that and the one after that that really matters. And I think that that is always the hardest part. I also really want to thank my two district one colleagues. It is an honor to serve with you. You both do a phenomenal job representing district one, which we know is home to 40% of all the people of color in the city of Portland. It is amazing to have a. My neighbors have a voice at the table finally, and you both do an amazing job of representing our community. And I thank you for the work that you allow me to to follow along with. So thank you for for your leadership on this councilor Kanal.

Sameer Kanal: Thank you, council president. Thank you to councilor Avalos and Smith for bringing this forward. Thank you to cameron, whitman and brown. Hope for working on this, asking me for my thoughts too, and ensuring that people do not forget that the movement we're discussing for racial justice and for black lives did not end when 2020 came to a close, but continues to this day. I want to note that since the murder of george floyd, at least 17 people have been killed by local police in Portland. That includes manny Clark, antoine young, carlos tyrone johnson and damon lamar johnson, all of whom are black. We must remember that the city has committed, in the sense of words being said to many of these values in the past. In 2020, we and yes, it was the previous council, but as jay pointed out, we inherent those those commitments. We as a city adopted six core values, the first of which is anti-racism and the second of which is equity. We must recommit to this in words and in action, because it is a new city council and a new form of government, and then move forward to build a more just society. And if we build a society that was racially just, which means if we build a society that worked equally for black portlanders, it would by necessity be a society that was just for everyone. This resolution can hopefully be a first step towards that, and it will be fair if in the future, everyone who is here in support comes back and asks us, what have you done to implement the values that you said that you stood for in this resolution? And on that note, some more supporting the community board for police accountability is one of many steps we can and must take to live up to the obligation we already had and are committing to do to to hear again, thank you in particular to the testifiers and especially those who said support with changes and asked us to do more. We can and we must. Thanks.

Thank you. Councilor Kanal councilor Smith.

Loretta Smith: Thank you, council president. I just wanted to give a big thank you to cameron whitten for holding our feet to the fire, about making sure that we never forget and so many emotions. Come over me when I think about george floyd. I think about my my own son, and I think about some of the things that you have to do as a black mother that no one else has to do, like give the talk, the talk about how do you interact with law enforcement when you're driving while black? Before my son had the experience of having that experience, he says, oh, mom, that's back in your day. They don't do that anymore. We we live everywhere throughout the city. We all party together. It doesn't do anything. So when he was in high school, he had this opportunity to see if he was going to exercise the things that I taught him. And he didn't. He was driving my new car. Police pulled him over and said, what are you doing? You're too young. He had just got his license. And I told him, don't try to argue with the police and say what you weren't doing. Just give them what they need. Give them the title. Answer their questions clearly. Keep your hands on the steering wheel. And so when I think about george floyd. It is a reminder that black mothers have to have this talk not only with their sons, but with their daughters as well, but particularly with their sons. And so reminding the world and the city of Portland that there is something different about having black sons in this community and having to educate and giving them the opportunity to be able to. Survive an interaction. George floyd didn't have that opportunity the last time he had an interaction with law enforcement, and I am just so happy that it clicked in my son's head at some point, stopped being argumentative, stopped asking that question. Let's ask those questions afterwards, because I don't think that there was a night that he went out while he was in high school, before college, that I could go to sleep before he was actually in the house. And he said, what's the difference when I'm gone away to college? You don't do that. It's different. It's different for a parent. When we think about our boys being on the street. And so for me, it is. It is a full throated, wholehearted yes, yes and yes. We need to reaffirm our commitment to racial justice here at the city of Portland. I get it, I know it, I live it, and so I will urge all of my colleagues to please support this. This is so very important and it's critical. Thank you, councilor Avalos, thank you for your attention and your attention to detail and making sure we do this. I appreciate you.

Thank you, councilor Smith. Colleagues, seeing no one else in the queue, I would entertain a motion.

So moved.

Second counselor Smith moves. Counselor Avalos seconds. Can we please call the roll?

Avalos I. Smith I.

Kanal I.

Pirtle-guiney I Koyama Lane.

Thank you, colleagues.

I Morillo.

Thank you cameron. Thank you counselors Avalos and Smith.

I Green. I Zimmerman. I Dunphy. I resolution is adopted with nine votes and three absent.

Thank you all so much rebecca. Can we please call item number 15?

Amend the fy 20 2526 appropriation schedule to reallocate $150,000 from the legal priorities reserve fund to support refugee and immigration legal services.

Thank you very much. Christhopher herr from council operations is here for our committee summary report.

Thank you. Good afternoon. Council president and councilors for the record christhopher herr council operations policy analyst I serve as staff to the finance committee. The ordinance before you documents number 2026 053 was considered in the finance committee. On February 9th, it was referred to council with a recommendation it be passed. The ordinance amends the fiscal year 20 2526 appropriations schedule to reallocate $150,000 from the legal priorities reserve fund to the general fund to support refugee and immigration legal services offered by sau immigration legal services. The full impact statements includes financial and budgetary impacts and analysis, economic and real estate development impacts, community impacts, and community involvement. Six individuals provided verbal testimony and committee and two provided written testimony prior to committee action. General themes of testimony included the urgent need for additional legal support for refugee and immigrant community members, various personal experiences from clients, and the impacts towards legal services had helping immigrants and refugees navigate the complex immigration legal system. The funding and foundation of immigrant and refugee legal services stripped away by the current federal administration, and the need for additional support to fill the gaps. The need to address various barriers immigrants and refugees experience when trying to access legal services such as language and financial barriers, and added fear of leaving one's home due to targeting by the federal government and the complexity of u.s. Immigration legal systems that necessitates legal services, even for those who have worked in immigration legal settings in their countries of origin. This concludes the committee staff summary. Thank you.

Thank you, christopher councilor Zimmerman. This came out of the finance committee.

It sure did. But I think I will save my comments in the more general sense. And actually, I think it's better as the vice chair introduces this, since this came from her office.

Perfect. Councilor pirtle-guiney.

Elana Pirtle-Guiney: Thank you. And I think from a committee perspective, that summary covered most of it. But if it's all right, I'd like to share some details, please. Thank you, council president. And thank you, chair Zimmerman. Colleagues, I want to share some details about why these funds, why this proposal, what we have before us today, before we hear from our legal services and representatives from ncpc and other members of the community. What you have before you today is an appropriations ordinance that makes a critical and time sensitive investment in immigration legal services for portlanders who are facing immediate and destabilizing changes in federal immigration policy. Since January of last year, the federal administration has issued a series of executive orders that have dramatically altered immigration enforcement priorities and dismantled long standing humanitarian protections, specifically revoking humanitarian parole and temporary protected status for millions of people nationwide. These actions have created profound uncertainty and in many cases, outright terror, for the immigrant and refugee communities in Portland who relied on these statuses. These are our neighbors, people who are working, raising families, contributing to our city and community, and who thought that they were doing so with a secure immigration status. They are now sitting in legal limbo, critically, if they don't file for immediate alternative legal statuses, they will stay in that legal limbo. I don't need to go on about portland's values or how we show up for our communities on this issue. This council has many times shown that we are united here. We're a sanctuary city, a safe haven for those facing persecution. But having those principles means that in a time of crisis, we also need to act. I met earlier early last year, mid last year, with the new portlanders policy commission, and as a part of our conversation, I asked them what some practical, low cost ways were that the city council could meaningfully respond to the current moment. And after spending some time thinking about the options available and formally brought all of us a recommendation, a proposal to partner with sau immigration services, with whom we already have an iga, and who is ready to receive funds immediately to support these communities. You'll hear from sau and from members of the npc npc about these decisions and about the work that sau is doing in a moment. But ultimately, the commission recommended to all of us three potential funding options. What I'm bringing forward is the middle tier recommendation, $150,000 reallocated from a legal fund within the city that would allow legal screenings and full legal representation for individuals pursuing long term, lawful status. Asylum family based adjustments, visas for victims of crime or domestic violence, and other humanitarian relief. To fund this, I am proposing that we reallocate that $150,000 from the legal priorities reserve fund to the general fund for disbursement to sau the legal priorities reserve fund. I believe, though mr. Taylor can correct me if I'm off base, has about $820,000 total in it. The fund is supported by discretionary resources and can be legally repurposed. I worked closely with the budget office and attorney's office to identify both the fund and the level of allocation that this fund could reasonably fiscally sustain, without putting our city at legal risk by not having enough money in that fund, but also finding enough funds available to do meaningful work through sau. I want to thank the new portlanders policy commission for their leadership and responsiveness, and sau for being willing to step up to the plate for us. And I look forward to the discussion, and I'm happy to try to field any technical questions that may come. Thank you for your consideration today.

Thank you. Councilor pirtle-guiney colleagues. If there are any technical or clarifying questions, this would be a good time to do that. Councilor Green.

Mitch Green: Thank you. Councilor pirtle-guiney you remember at the end of the finance committee, I was like, I don't understand this budgetary impact worksheet. And you said it's it's all true and correct. And I said, well, we'll probably need to talk about it at the full council if this is the appropriate time for that. That feels technical. I don't know if there's anyone from the budget and finance group, but if you can walk me through. Absolutely how to read that, I would appreciate that because I, I feel like I'm pretty smart, but I really can't make heads or tails of this.

Thank you, councilor Green. So you will see a, an exhibit a attached here. There also is a memo that my team has put together. Thank you to devin on my staff in case you are looking for additional background. But if you look at exhibit a, we have a budget memo which appears as though there are $9 million in this fund. There are not $9 million in this fund. What we do at the city, as I understand it, and I don't see anybody from our budget office here. But what we do at the city is we have funds and sub funds and the legal priorities reserve fund is actually a sub fund of the funds that you see listed on the page here. So the proposed change is in the red, taking $150,000 from the budget. The reason that it looks like this is coming from a far larger fund is because we are talking about sub funds within that larger fund, the $150,000 is then added to the special appropriations general fund. We are putting it there because the fastest way to get these funds to soar is actually through a direct special appropriation, which we can legally do to move the money to soar quickly than any of the other methods that we have available. So that's the the movement that you see here from the fund and debt management citywide obligation reserve fund, in which the legal priorities reserve fund is a sub fund, moved into special appropriation general fund, from which we would then send it out to soar. Did that capture it a little bit?

It did. And I follow the exhibit a just fine as you as you talk, I can see the flow of funds. I think the thing that will probably continue to perplex me a little bit, and I don't want to hang up this, this legislative item for it is, is the way that we report the budgetary impact worksheet itself, which it's there are four line items there. There is a debit of 150,000. There is a credit of 150,000. And then there's two other 150,000 there. And so if you didn't know any better or you didn't know whether one was a credit or debit, like, it just it doesn't look like that. Nets out.

Got it. I'm sorry. I thought you were looking at the exhibit.

No.

No budgetary.

Impact specific worksheet, and I just I just flagged that for our broader your exhibit a I can follow that.

Okay.

But this is.

And here you see the fund number that it's coming from and the fund number that it's going to. But it's listed twice in both.

Yeah. And it's probably there's probably some double entry accounting thing happening there that I don't fully understand. But but I think the purpose of this is to make the public understand too. And there's no way the public can understand this.

Correct.

So that's.

There is no way the public can understand this, especially with things listed twice. But you see, the fund and the functional area there are aligned. It's two items, two items per transfer. Exhibit a does show, I think, a little bit more clearly what's happening here. And council president I see that jonas biery walked in. So if we want more details on the budget impact worksheet, I might suggest that we call him up. I'm not sure if we if we want to dive deeper on this.

I don't need to. I think I've raised the question. I think we can probably use this as an opportunity to educate me a little further, unless jonas really wants to come up, but it looks like he's he's fine either way. So I'm willing to yield at this point and say that my technical question has been answered.

Thank you.

And I do. I think that as we're looking at the budget impact worksheet, I think on the second set of funds, the 231006, the reason that there's a debit and credit is because there's money going into that account as into the special appropriations account, and then money that we expect to leave that account as a special appropriation.

Yeah, I get that. It's just the other two accounts where there's both twice a positive 150,000. That's unclear. It seems like it's a little. Anyway, I'll let it go.

We can also see this is the first reading of an ordinance. We may be able to get some additional information before second reading. Perfect. Councilor Koyama Lane.

Tiffany Koyama Lane: Thank you. Council president, I have a question, possibly for city attorney taylor or maybe our cfo. Not sure. Maybe it's for both of you. So I understand this. Legal priorities reserve fund is a sub fund in the citywide obligations reserve fund, and it's money that is recommended to be set aside to cover potential legal liabilities. And that this it could be used for this important work that sir does. I'm wondering. What flexibility is there with that fund, and if there were to be other work down the road where we wanted to fund something that goes hand in hand, like the rapid response work that is connected to some of this, would we have more funds for that? Can you paint a little picture?

Yeah. Thank you. Robert taylor, city attorney. So these are funds that are in a reserve fund. They are not appropriated. If council wants to use those funds for some other purpose. Absolutely. They can do that. So that's totally up to you. They're unappropriated funds sitting there just in case we need them. And the the background behind that is many of the claims against the city. Most of them are covered by the risk fund. There are some types of legal liabilities that are not covered by the risk fund, and they can be related to when we defend a council policy that council passes and there's a legal challenge to that. And if we lose and have to pay attorney's fees, we need some funds to be able to cover that. Years ago, we had the experience of getting a adverse decision in one of those cases, and we had to then try to figure out where we were, how we were going to pay for that, and where was that money going to come from. And one of the lessons from that experience was, let's set something aside so that we have something we can tap if we need it. So that's the purpose of it. But council can make a different judgment if they want to use that money for something else. We we do recommend that we have that reserve fund just so we don't get caught off guard in the future.

Is there a recommendation of how much we keep in that fund?

The that's a great question. And that's something we might talk more about in the coming budget discussion. I think initially it was funded with $1 million and with the plan of replenishing it every year, so that there was always that amount in the in that fund. Doesn't have to be that amount could be more, could be less. It's really a matter of of risk for the city. And if we're if we as a city are taking on more risk, that's not covered by the the risk fund, then I would recommend increasing that. So we had something available. But that's really a judgment for council. And we're in a time of very scarce resources. And I understand that there might be other demands on that money.

Thank you, mr. Taylor.

Thank you, counselor Koyama Lane colleagues, we have 19 people signed up to testify on this item. And unfortunately, that means we have to reduce it to two minutes per testimony at the request of the sponsor. Though, I've offered time at the beginning of public testimony to a representative of saw legal services, juan carlos chavez, the proposed recipient of these dollars, to briefly orient this body on the program that would be funded. So if mr. Chavez is available, come on forward. And because you are also providing some additional clarity, I'm going to offer you three minutes before we move to the rest of. So please introduce yourself. Share your pronouns. Afternoon. Yes.

Okay. All right. Yes. My name is juan carlos chavez. I am the assistant director of immigration legal services. This is a program of ecumenical ministries of Oregon and also the department of justice accredited representative. And I have been practicing immigration law for more than 17 years at the legal office. As an American citizen originally from cuba, I know what it is like to be new in poland. I immigrated here for more than 20 years ago, and I have had the privilege of providing legal services and representation to thousands of immigrants from cuba, haiti and other countries. During my time, I saw several legal has been providing culturally competent immigration, legal aid and education since 1992. Each year between our poland and hillsboro offices, we serve over 3000 low income immigrants from over 80 different countries. Our services receive over 100 calls every day from the community seeking legal help. Under the city of poland's iga with poland community college, suad provides free legal services, but with current legal funding level, our services are already booked into may. The need for expanded services is urgent, especially for humanitarian status holders. On the inauguration day last year, this administration signed executive orders aimed at terminating various humanitarian immigration statuses, including temporary protected status, tps and humanitarian parole programs. Oregon is home to over one 5600 tps holders, and more than 15,000 individuals have entered Oregon with some form of humanitarian parole over the last several years. The impact of terminating these humanitarian programs will be so vastly increased, the number of undocumented individuals specifically targeting humanitarian entrance, and those who are unable to return to their countries of origin due to ongoing conflicts, instability, and or violence. Many of these individuals qualify for long term permanent path to citizenship, but have not applied yet or may not be aware of these immigration remedies. During these times of confusion, chaos, and quick changing policies and other unscrupulous individuals take advantage of confusion to scam vulnerability. Community members providing misinformation and oftentimes increase the risk of deportation. The city of Portland can immediately support immigrants who have lost or will lose humanitarian protections by providing access to immigration legal services, as detailed in the proposal endorsed by the new portlanders policy commission for an investment of one 50,000, at least 75 individuals will receive immigration legal screenings. Thank you for the work that the city of Portland is doing to protect our community, and for the opportunity to speak today here.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Rebecca, can we please call our first panel of testimony testimony?

Oscar gonzalez. Ligia briceno, dimas, rustam, faruk and david lipoff.

Welcome, folks. Come on down and please take it away. Please introduce yourself for the record. And yes, two minutes.

Good afternoon. My name is oscar maiz and I am a Portland resident and originally from venezuela. Thank you for allowing me to speak on behalf of our immigration legal services today. I arrived to us because the living conditions in venezuela were very difficult and one of my sons graduated from pacific university, has been living here for 20 years and asked me to become a us permanent resident. When I met the requirements to apply for citizenship, I turned to saw for guidance and support, which I received unconditionally. So support to us as a family was completely invaluable. Language support for the help of excellent teachers, giving me the knowledge of the areas I needed to strengthen like history, civics and the end 400 forum and the preparation for the us's officer's interview to qualify for citizenship. The the support was critical to the successful outcome of my process as a member of my church. I had the opportunity to support other parishioners to advance in their legal statuses by asking saw how all this was possible for me as an active part of the community, as a citizen. Now, programs like soar are only possible by community and local government support. Many immigrants cannot afford private attorneys, but the need for legal help is real and urgent. Ct funding ensures that people like me receive fair access to justice, regardless of income or immigrant status. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for being here.

Good afternoon. My name is lygia briceno. Demise. I'm a Portland resident and I am originally from venezuela. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak today on behalf of saul immigration legal services. I'm here as a former client of saul. Before I found saul. I was facing some questions about the transition from being a permanent resident card holder to being a citizen. How could this transition affect my son's legal status? Saul. Immigration legal services answered all of my questions with expert knowledge. I truly appreciate it. As an immigrant, we frequently are exposed to hear information from friends and neighbors who want to help us in the best way. We, however, without appropriate appropriate information, it is a big issue for all immigrant community. Since I became a citizen, one of my goals was giving back to my new country and my community. I have been working as a volunteer for bebington literacy council. I'm a teacher in an english conversation class. I respectfully, respectfully urge you to continue and expand funding for saul immigration legal services. Your support makes a lasting difference in real people's life. Thank you for listening, listening and for investing in a stronger, safer community for all. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Before I tell you something, I just let you know my english and my accent is terrible, but I'm trying to do better every single day. So my name is rustam farik, and I came with my family to us from ukraine because because of the war and the many families, ukrainian families, to do the same, like my family. So I also want to share something, something personal in ukraine. I'm a attorney, but here I'm nobody. I'm start from zero. Every day, every single day. I'm fight. I'm trying to find a job. I'm trying to save my family and care. Care my children also. And we don't want to live here illegally because we respect law and we want to follow the law. And under the law and be part of this community. I want to support funding for immigrants, legal aid in in your city, our city for many ukrainians in Portland, access to a lawyer means the chance to be to chance to be obtained legal status, work authorization and stability for their families. And I also want to.

30 more seconds. You're okay.

And I also want to say for you that thank you for your stand with ukraine. You understand and support ukrainian people. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for being here.

Good afternoon. My name is david lipoff. I'm a Portland native and a current resident of district four. I appreciate the opportunity to speak today on behalf of saw immigration legal services. I'm here as one of saw's volunteer tutors. I also teach a free 12 week us history and government class three times a year. Both of these saw programs are designed to practice english reading, writing, and speaking skills and prepare immigrants to pass the us naturalization interview and exam. I've been involved in these volunteer capacities with saw for more than five years now. I've tutored some 20 students, all of whom have passed and are now our fellow united states citizens. In addition, roughly 70 students have completed the us history in government class since the fall of 2025. Ten of them are now citizens. I've learned a lot from and about the people I meet who rely on critical assistance that saw provides. I'm a teacher, not a lawyer, and saws legal services is a lifeline for people like my students, with many questions about the citizenship process, but limited incomes to afford attorneys for legal help that is often urgent. City funding helps ensure that people like my students receive fair access to justice, regardless of income or immigration status. I respectfully urge you to continue and, if possible, expand funding for saw immigration legal services. Your support honestly makes a lasting difference in real people's lives. Thank you for listening. Thank you for your service and for investing in decisions that build a stronger, safer community for all.

Thank you very much for being here.

Liz lipoff. Mohammad fayyaz karimi, natalia rose savage, mohammad omar arab.

Welcome. Come on up. Go ahead and introduce yourself for the record.

And I'm measuring.

Yeah. Pretty good.

Sounds good.

Good afternoon and thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. My name is liz lipoff, a Portland resident, and I come to you as a saw volunteer who tutors people who are studying for their citizenship interview. I call it an interview, but come on, it's a test. A really, really hard one. When my students pass and they all have so far, I tell them to go to the biggest fred meyer they can find, look around and appreciate they know more about America than any other person there. In addition, for many, simply speaking, reading and writing in english is a huge hurdle. A few of my students have actually memorized the whole interview. Every single one of the potential questions and answers. Yes, it is a lot, but it's even more stressful when they have questions their teacher and I can't answer. Inconsistencies come up with their history. Documents are missing all kinds of problems they can't possibly handle without a lawyer, and they can't possibly afford a lawyer. What are they going to do? But they do have a lawyer, a saw attorney, someone who knows the process can see them in a timely manner, someone who can help them. We all take a deep breath. They see a saw attorney, and every single time they figure it out, saws legal services would be unsustainable without substantial financial support. And so now my students and I are back to what was the first us capital. How many amendments to the constitution are there? How many are there in the house of representatives? I'm not going to grill you on that, but I. Thank you for letting us explain in our own words why your support is so critical to these hardworking, deserving people.

Thank you so much.

Pleasure.

Muhammad fayyaz kareem is online. You can go ahead.

Welcome.

Hey good afternoon everybody. My name is muhammad fayyaz karimi and I'm originally from afghanistan. I came to the united states in 2017. I was serving as a contractor with the us army in afghanistan. I came to the united states through a sieve, which is called a special immigration visa for those who served in afghanistan, shoulder to shoulder with the us army. First time when I arrived in Oregon, I, I didn't know where to go. So one of my friend and family directed me to the store office and saw office, helped me for resettlement. I had my wife and my five months child with me, and I was totally blind in the united states. What to do next? At the same time, also saw introduced me to the job centers. There was an office called erco. They had a job coach and they put me in a job. In the next month I got a job. They helped me with a housing and also they. Connect me to the government programs such as snap, wake, health insurance and local colleges. Most importantly, my caseworker at saw stood shoulder to shoulder with me, guiding me every step of the way. When my time as a permanent resident came and I was ready to apply to us. They also helped me to be a us citizen. So alongside, I'm also a father of four kids and my wife and I, we are building a family here with the help of saw, and we are running a small business here in Portland and we are now successful because we had saw behind us and helped us in every step that we needed. I hope the council will see how crucial these services are, especially as we welcome other people from the other countries. Thank you so much for your time and consideration.

Thank you so much for being here.

Natalia mohamed omar arab. You can go ahead.

Good afternoon. My name is mohammed arab. I'm a Portland resident originally from somalia. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of immigrant legal service. Before I found saul, I was an immigrant facing deportation and living in fear. I had a gap in my asylum process and I could not afford a lawyer. Somali immigrants like me faced stricter asylum review and increase the potential risk under the current administration. This creates fear and uncertainty for families. So guided me through the process, helped me gain stability and give me my family hope and security programs like like saw depends on community support. Many immigrants cannot afford attorneys, but city funding ensures fair access to justice for everyone. Please continue and expand funds for immigration legal services you support. Change lives. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

Teddy davis, burnell cruz, jennifer August, lisa jackson.

Welcome, folks. Kick us off, please.

Thank you. My name is burnell cruz. Good afternoon everybody. I'm here today representing the immigrant community. Identifies a refugee and an immigrant from guatemala. I came to the u.s. About 35 years ago, but I recently just passed that very, very difficult test we were talking about that deems me more knowledgeable about civics than most people at fred meyer. I'm also here representing the new portlanders policy commission, where I've served for the past several years. But mostly I come as a neighbor, as a friend and a son to bring you messages from the community, my own neighbors, and my own family. I'm here today to urge you to vote in favor of expanding funding for these free immigration services, legal services. Pardon me. Currently need this funding now because our communities are under stress and are experiencing active trauma. Families are afraid. There's a great deal of confusion. There's a lot of misinformation and a great deal of anxiety. What sword provides is not politics, it's clarity. They screen individuals to determine whether they may be eligible for legal status adjustments. The screening alone can change the trajectory of a family's life. Somebody who has worked tirelessly to help children reunify with their families here in the u.s. I can tell you the devastating effects of separations and the barriers that are faced when families cannot reunite. If this funding is not expanded, people who may have options simply will not be screened. That means preventable harm. It means that individuals and families remain in fear. The consequences of inaction here are real, and they're avoidable. Beyond legal screening, this moment is about stability. Our communities need support. They need credible information from reliable sources. Some are choosing not to travel to see their families abroad, including my father. Some people aren't leaving their houses even if they have status in the us. This constant fear is affecting folks mental health and our collective well-being. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Hello. Good afternoon. My name is jennifer August and I am a resident of Vancouver, but I'm originally from haiti. My relationship with sir is both personal and professional because I began as a client alongside with my parents, and today I serve as an employee within the organization. So this dual perspective helped me and allows me to speak how the work of sir is so important. As former clients, my family experienced firsthand the compassion, professionalism and integrity that defines our approach as immigrants. No immigration process can be overwhelming and emotionally taxing, so having someone that not only helped you, but trying to work through everything, it's a real relief. And as an employee, I can now witness the the dedication behind the scenes, the long hours, the careful case reviews to make sure that everything is all right, and the ethical standards, the multi-language that we work because we have not only asian, but a lot of people from anywhere from in the world. And recently saw a temporary protected status tps clinic when it was it wasn't only the clinic, but also some consultation. We saw more than 25 people that days and the person working after that, they were so relieved. They find information and they find new path to become legally in the us. So I respectfully urge the city council to continue to give, sir, the funding that we need, because our work is so important for the community and we'd like to keep going for the ten years coming. Thank you for having me. Have a good day.

Thank you so much for being here today.

Lisa jackson, lisa's online.

Once again. I wanted to visit with everyone in person, but I, I felt like, you know, I needed to speak on this to help advocate for community because I am native and I feel like, you know, as coming together as all we need to learn to stand together and, you know, rightfully of these lands. You know, I'm from north dakota and I'm not from these lands, but I am a dakota, lakota, hunkpapa of the lands over there. However, coming to Portland, I come to realize how diverse this place is, but how racist this place is, and having to come here and see the misuse of funding the racial everything. You know, we talk about racial, diverse, racial everything. I really wish I could have said this in front of everyone because y'all were racist to each other. And I really wish going back, we can really reel it in and all understand each other, understand why we're here. I'm sure all of you were advocates at one point, and all of you got voted on for some reason. And I love how they see I didn't get to see, you know, Dan Ryan and the other lady. I don't even know what her name is, but I know she's talk right now. However, my point is, is y'all got voted here for a reason and you need to remember that. And being native of this land, it's sad to see there's no natives in there. But you want to know why? Because I am in the native community and they've been oppressed so much, they've been oppressed so bad that they don't even want to come sit in front of no one there. But I will, and I will stand for anyone who needs me. The people that I was sitting by, the young girl. They shouldn't have to be coming to fight for anything. No one should be anything on stolen land. And I can't say that. And I will come to keep reminding and helping every immigrant, every person of this land who needs help. And I wish I could have been there, but I had to pick up my team. I appreciate all of you and make the right decisions on what you're doing with this funding and the housing funding. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Kerry babin, stephanie lauenstein, faith o'malley, sade tofik mowaffaq.

Welcome, folks. Come on up.

And kerry's online. You can go ahead kerry.

No.

I'm not carrying I'm said.

There she goes.

Hi, carrie. You can go ahead okay.

Good afternoon. My name is carrie babin and I am a member of the new portlanders policy commission. And I'm here today to urge you to vote yes for this ordinance as the federal government moves forward with its attacks on immigrant and refugee rights, we are not completely powerless. Access to immigrant and refugee services. Legal services is the best line of defense for protecting new portlanders. I'd like to highlight the urgency of expanded access to immigration legal services as it relates to our Portland refugee community. Specifically, on February 18th, the department of homeland security issued a memo outlining plans to arrest, detain and deport refugees who were admitted legally through the us refugee admissions program during the biden administration, but have not yet applied for permanent residency. Refugees are required to apply for permanent residency or Green card after one year in the united states, but not all refugees complete this step due to the cost and lack of affordable legal services. The current uscis filing fee for an adjustment of status is $4,440 per applicant, and while the application is fairly simple, applying without the aid of an immigration attorney could result in an error and your application being denied the typical flat fee for application support from an immigration attorney ranges from 1500 to $2000 per dependent. The median household income of a refugee in their first year in the united states is $30,500. Over 2500 refugees were resettled in Oregon during the biden administration, the vast majority being Portland residents. If dhs moves forward with their plans, many of these refugees could face family separation, detention, arrest and deportation to the country they fled out of fear for their life. One meeting with an immigration attorney to file an adjustment of status could prove to be life saving. While our federal government is turning its back on the promise made to refugee families, our city can offer protection by living up to the sanctuary city promise. Thank you for your time and to councilor Pirtle-guiney for working together with the mpc to bring this forward.

Thank you very much.

Go ahead.

So good afternoon, city council members. My name is mowaffaq. I worked as a us army interpreter in afghanistan in 20 2021. My family came to Oregon. We came here to find a safety and start a new life. When we arrived, everything was very difficult. We was being in a great time and also immigration law and stuff was being so complicated. The paperwork was being confusing. The small mistake was maybe causing a big trouble. So sorry. Immigration legal services helped us during that hard time. My family, my family were separated. My siblings were left in afghanistan alone, and immigration services helped and made made us united again. My mother got disability because of the suffering and pain that being away from his young children and my family, my family, my whole family was being worked with the us army and passed like in 2000, 20 years of service. But the helped that you like saw immigration legal services provide the support that they was made. The only the only things that was being good to my family and especially for my mom. Many immigrants do not have money to pay for private lawyers or organization. The saw like saw are very important. They gave professional help for the families and we really need it right now. Immigrant communities need strong support. Funding for immigrant services, not extra. It is necessary. My family is an example of how this support changed the lives. My brother is here. He was being the gold medalist in robotics. He was getting united with us in 2025 because of immigration legal services.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is faith o'malley. I'm the daughter of english immigrants, resident of Portland and an attorney who works in public defense here in Multnomah county. And today I'm here on behalf of saw. I spend a lot of time volunteering, doing legal services with saw. Since I first got introduced to saw when I was a law student, I had the pleasure of interning there my first summer of law school and just kind of stayed in touch. Since then, I've helped them organize probably 6 or 7 clinics, recruiting, helping decide what kind of clinics would work well for the community. Most recently, I helped with a clinic last spring that was a multi-month clinic. Over 50 attorneys volunteered, and we were able to fill out hundreds of adjustment of status forms. One thing that I have noticed through all of the clinics that I've participated in is that each time, every attorney in the room is floored by how complicated the forms are. And these are people who are mostly born in the us, speak english as their first language, are as attorneys by definition, highly educated, and also are educated in legalese. And even they struggle to fill out the forms. And everyone leaves those clinics, realizing that if it's hard for them, it's hard for the noncitizens who don't have a right to legal counsel that have to fill these out on their own if they don't have the services like soar provides, soar fills that gap by providing legal services to people who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford them. And I just ask that this committee vote yes on providing funding for soar.

Thank you so much for being here today.

City council. My name is stephanie lowenstein. I'm an adult basic education and english instructor working with refugees and immigrants. I'm also on the new portlander policy committee, and I'm very humbled to be among so many amazing testimonies. I will keep mine short. So $150,000. It'll be a very good investment, a very good investment to repair some of the ugly scars that have already been ripped into portland's social fabric. Many of my students experience accounts of what has been shared before, their investments in themselves and their families are completely in jeopardy until they can return to a legal footing. And. Many of actually all of my students are eligible, so I don't there's really no reason why eligible families shouldn't be getting legal help to return to the path towards a successful future in Portland. It seems to me time and again when I listen to the testimonies, that this is just really foundational. So I, among all the others, urgently ask and but also humbly and humbly ask for your support in favor of the $150,000 appropriations for legal services. Thank you very much for listening to all of us city council members, and for your support and your willingness.

Thank you very much.

That concludes testimony.

Okay, colleagues, it is 415. This is we have one more item, and I am inclined to we'll see if there's testimony. But I also want to give us a bathroom break. Counselor Zimmerman.

Thank you, mr. President. First, I'm really appreciative that the sponsor of this councilor Pirtle-guiney brought this through finance, was happy to support it, then continue to support it. Now, just on a personal note, I want to thank those who came and spoke and counselor greene and I both. We leaned over and talked to each other. That particularly for those of you who mentioned your role as interpreters for the united states military, he and I are both people who used your services overseas. And that sacrifice and your dedication to the American way of life is not lost on us. I you know, I shared an experience, I have shared an experience with a few folks, and I'm deeply supportive of this continually, because on November 11th, I had to go down to the ice facility myself and get somebody who is, I'll just say in my network who had been detained out of there, and in that hour or so that I waited outside the the few times that that what I thought were random people were walking up to me, but they weren't actually random people. They were people who were part of a legal network of support, who were walking up to me to see if I had a family member who needed help, who had been detained. Is that why I was standing on the sidewalk outside of ice? Was this an employee of mine? Was I there for that reason? That taught me a very fast lesson in that hour about the network of legal support that goes into putting together the fabric that is a defense in this. And so when councilor Pirtle-guiney brought up continuing funding for legal defense, in whatever manner it it finds itself, I want to be very supportive because I thought that that was a good showing, not just for Portland, but for anybody who was who has been affected by the situation down there. But also, this is not just about the most recent actions. This is an ongoing thing. And many of the stories that were shared today were not about just what we've experienced in these last several months of surge, but actually just about the immigration process, about new Americans, new residents coming to to our community, and that it does take a legal mind to navigate a difficult system. And and thank you for that. The very end there, you know, a teeny amount of money from a city of Portland perspective, but a huge impact from a case by case perspective when you think about it. So I'm definitely supportive. I'm actually colleagues going to look to the sponsor, because if I get a head nod from her, I am interested in our appetite for passing this as emergency so that we can move forward, but I would only do so if that was considered a friendly amendment. But I just am trying to get a sense, because this seems like something small enough fast enough that we could move and councilor Pirtle-guiney how would you react to an amendment of of adding an emergency declaration to that?

Councilor upon hearing some of the testifiers talk about how important these services are now, I actually had asked my staff for language around an emergency clause. I would be happy to entertain that motion if you'd like to make one.

I think then I will, I would, mr. President. I would make the amendment that we add an emergency declaration and if it needs to be read out that the council declare an emergency exists in order to fund that, in order that the funds may be disbursed without delay. Therefore, this ordinance shall be in force and effect from and after its passage by the council. And I know a few people have stepped out, but we will have nine if we get there. Let me be clear. If people are leaving because of it, I would withdraw that. I didn't think that was was controversial, but I don't think it is. I think it's just happenstance. People are taking breaks.

I think that is right. But we will need nine votes in order to move this. And so counselor Zimmerman has moved. Is there a second on the emergency clause?

Second.

Counselor Smith seconds the addition of an emergency clause, and we have language sent to the.

Happy to. It's just our standard one. I'll just happy to text it on over. Great. Thank you, mr. President. And thank you, councilor Pirtle-guiney.

Elana Pirtle-Guiney: Colleagues, is there any discussion of the emergency clause addition? And a motion will move before debate? Counselor Avalos, are you in the queue for the motion or for the underlying.

I suppose, and for the motion now? Okay. So I'll just yeah, I'll just give my comments. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. So first off I just want to thank the thank saw for their work in our community and also thank the portlanders who spoke today about how the legal assistance they received changed their lives. Really grateful for your stories. Our city is a better place because we've welcomed portlanders from across the globe and east. Portlanders especially love that our neighbors come from different cultures and backgrounds, and it's been the top theme in my budget survey. So, colleagues, yeah, since this is on the table, I guess let me talk through my thoughts on that. So first let me be clear. I fully support the funding of legal representation for immigrants, and I appreciate the intent behind the policy before us. When I've spoken with community members, organizations, and advocates, legal aid is one of the most pressing needs for our immigrant communities. But as I said in the finance committee, I hope we can continue to think about how we can do more, because the scale of need we're seeing in our city goes beyond what we are considering today. And that is not a knock on this ordinance. It's just the reality we're facing because of the current fascist administration. I recently hosted a workshop with immigrant and refugee protection organizations to hear directly about the situation on the ground and what is needed most in this moment. And what I heard was that our immigration legal services providers are at capacity and they're struggling to keep up. And in one case, a clinic reported a 600% increase in workload while staffing levels have stayed the same. So since that workshop, I have received outreach from several groups that want us to consider how to maximize this action for the entire ecosystem of immigrant legal aid. Our city can't afford to sit back when families are being separated and portlanders are being snatched off our streets. And this is especially vital for east portlanders that I represent, many of whom have personally experienced the fear and harm of the immigration system that is fundamentally broken. As we all know very, very well, we are currently facing a slow moving tsunami of people and families who are on the verge of financial crisis, because the lack of legal representation means that people are losing their work authorizations, they're falling behind on their rent, and they're facing impossible choices about whether to show up to court, go to work, or to keep their families safe because the on the table now is an emergency ordinance. What I was going to say prior to that was that I wasn't planning on introducing any amendments today, because I want to give my colleagues enough time to review some proposals that I have working again, trying to be responsive to the community members who have been reaching out to me in the last few days, asking for some tweaks to the ordinance. And because an ordinance takes two readings. You know, I was expecting that I would just be able to talk through that next time to give everybody some time to process those ideas. But since now emergency ordinance is on the table, I guess I have to mention this that, you know, in signal my interest in broadening the scope of the ordinance and increasing available resources, I do think that we need to give more time in this process to bring in other immigration stakeholders who are leading our region's rapid response network. We all agree that we're united in our support of portland's immigrant communities. That's definitely not a question, but I was hoping that we could have another conversation next time and be aligned on a proposal that would strengthen this ordinance. So just put in put in an awkward spot because I, I thought, you know, we were just going to go with the the two week process and that I would have time to do that. So I think for that reason, I can't support the emergency ordinance because I do want to be responsive to community that have been talking to my office about different ideas for how to strengthen the ordinance. So I'm definitely supportive of the ordinance. I just would like some more time to add some of that feedback into it. So I won't be supporting the emergency ordinance, but I hope that we can continue this conversation. Thanks.

Thank you, councilor Avalos councilor Pirtle-guiney.

Elana Pirtle-Guiney: Thank you, council president.

Colleagues, the policy before us today is. It is not of my making. I simply matched funding with a recommendation from our new portlanders policy commission, and we have many times up here talked about the importance of respecting the work and the recommendations of the volunteers who we appoint to boards and committees across our city. I would gladly work with councilor Avalos or anybody else at this dais to do more with respect to needing to support legal services in our community, whether through the budget process or through sitting down to look at where we might find additional funds. My sense is that we probably can't responsibly take more out of this account, but there may be other places we could look. Everything we do comes with hitting priorities against each other, and I am hearing that there are other groups that would like to be priorities in this work, and I would simply ask that we take that up in a different ordinance rather than delay the recommendation that comes to us from the new portlanders policy commission. And I would offer my time and energy in helping to to see what we might be able to do for others as well.

Thank you, councilor Pirtle-guiney councilor Smith.

Elana Pirtle-Guiney: Thank you. Just so that I can go back, I didn't know which ordinance you were talking about. Were you talking about the slow the flow to homelessness? Because there is a component of legal service money in that, in that one. Is that what you were talking about?

I know I was saying that I have some amendments to this ordinance.

To this ordinance. Okay. Okay. So. When this ordinance came forward, did it come after the slow the flow for homelessness? Because there is a piece in that, in that. Amended version for. For legal services.

Council president, may I respond? I believe.

That the funding and slow the flow is specifically for eviction prevention, whereas the funding here is specifically for for immigration support.

Okay.

And I thought it was also for we had identified immigrants as one of the priority.

In slow the flow.

Yes.

But I believe you limited those resources to resources helping groups that were named receive eviction prevention and other housing related legal services, whereas this is specifically focused on immigration support and individuals who either need to who are in legal limbo because their protected status was taken away, or who are trying to gain citizenship or are looking at other immigration needs.

For a stay of deportation.

Exactly.

Okay. Or apply for humanitarian parole. Okay, great. I was just trying to make the difference between the different legal pieces that we were that we had in front of us.

I would suggest that.

There's a lot of need in the community right now.

Yep. A lot of need. Councilor Zimmerman. If if we don't have the votes for the for the for the emergency. I'd be willing to take it off the table.

Yeah. If I may, I'll be honest. I'm trying to calling a friend and see if Olivia Clark came on, because I'm actually kind of surprised by this. But I certainly would not want to threaten the health of the overall ordinance. I would love to know more about what is being worked on, or why this group can't go forward now and another group later. I guess I'm I'm feeling a little disheartened by that, but I can be all ears.

Oh, I don't have a problem with it.

Oh, no.

Oh, I wasn't talking to you, counselor Smith. Oh, okay. I'm just referencing that. It sounds like something was being worked on because they want to fund a different group.

Or something. No.

I think that this, that councilor Pirtle-guiney brought up for the saw organization was all I had in mind here, and that was what I was trying to support. So maybe we can elaborate. I don't know, thanks.

Thank you.

Counselor Green.

Thanks. I, I think it's already evident because I think counselor Smith pointed out, but I was just going to note, colleagues, that if we don't have nine votes for this, then we should not pass this amendment because we do not want to tank this very important piece of legislation. So. I I'm prepared to support this today, but I don't know also what councilor Avalos is working on. I'd like to know more about that too. So tricky position, but we should not pass this amendment if we don't have nine votes, I cannot emergency. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, I can't stress that enough because we cannot tank this ordinance.

Thank you, counselor Green councilor Kanal.

Sameer Kanal: Just a.

Brief robert's rules lesson for everybody who may be wondering what we're talking about. This would normally take seven votes to pass. We could use seven votes to add a clause to it that would make it an emergency ordinance, and then it would take nine votes to pass the whole thing. You only need seven to make it an emergency, but you need nine to pass it as an emergency. And if it passes an emergency, you don't have to wait a week for a second reading and the money can go out immediately. Whereas if you keep it the way a normal ordinance, you have to have a second reading and then after it passes, 30 days have to pass before the money can go out. And there's nine of us here today. So that's, that's the, the, the math lesson here. I was going to say a lot of what was already said in terms of it's it's not worth passing this in if, if there aren't nine votes for the underlying for the same reasons. What I will say is that it's still worth looking at adding that next week if it doesn't pass today, because then at least the 30 day issue is mitigated and that still gets the money out the door 30 days faster. I'm still supportive, but just on the off chance that we don't get a 10th person in the room here or nine in favor of it, I wanted to just flag that. And that's all I have on the amendment. I'm more on the underlying. Thanks.

Thank you. Councilor.

Actually, I should say this the first time. Sorry. Even though it's not about the underlying I in the interest of full disclosure, my mother used to work for sore in the 80s. She's not worked there forever, like 30 something years. But I wanted to let people know about it. I've consulted with the city attorney's office. They've confirmed I can participate in this discussion, vote on this item, and that I do not have an actual or potential conflict of interest since that association no longer exists. But I wanted to make sure my colleagues knew it. Thanks.

Thank you and colleagues. I'll note it is 430. We still have another item. I'd like to get folks a restroom break. Councilor Avalos yeah.

Candace Avalos: Thank you. I again, like I said, it's a tricky spot. I think I am just trying to be responsive to the emails that I'm receiving. Like I said, I hosted a workshop with 20 different people representing all kinds of immigrant groups, and because that happened right before then, you know, we were in communication. They were like, hey, we saw this. We have some thoughts. Can we offer, you know, making these tweaks. And that's the legislative process as far as I thought. So I, I am just trying to respond to what my constituents are asking. I'm not trying to derail this. I'm obviously supportive of the underlying. I'm just trying to legislate. So it's not personal. It really is just trying to make it better. And some of the things I don't have all of it right now, and that's part of why I was like, okay, I'm getting emails in the last couple of days. Couldn't make it happen by now, right? And I didn't want to just rush and put something on the table because everyone freaks out when that happens. So I was just trying to say, I'm working on something. I will bring it to the next meeting because that's the normal, right? You know? And yes, I know it would push it by another meeting, but also we could pass it as an emergency at the next one either way. So that that's my logic. There's lots of little details. Again, I don't have all of the all of it worked out because I'm working in the moment here. So yeah, it's an uncomfortable position because I don't want to derail this. I think that I would my preference would be that we just move it to a second reading, and then we can have that discussion next week when I can bring forward some, some tweaks. I think that the main thing is that deportation, deportation defense is a big emergency and is a big part of what I want to talk through. There's just a lot of different orgs that are doing different kinds of immigrant work, immigrant protection work, especially around ice. And I just want to make sure that we're creating resources for that work. In addition to the great work that saw does. Again, it's not personal. This is just me trying to legislate and represent my constituents.

So thank you. Councilor Avalos councilor Morillo.

Angelita Morillo: Thank you everyone. I first, I want to say thank you so much to all the folks that came and testified, and I think most folks have left the room already and happy to see some faces that I recognize from the state legislature as well. So good to see you guys. We had worked on food for all Oregonians and other things together back before I was a city councilor. And I want to say for the folks that testified that set their english wasn't perfect. That's just because you speak more languages than most people in the us do right now. So never apologize for coming and speaking with us in whatever way you can or want to. It's greatly appreciated. I think that, you know, I'm generally supportive of this. I have zero issues with it. I think it makes sense to give money to immigrant rights groups. This is very important at this time. I think that the discussion that we're hearing here is because there is such great need, and there are so many different organizations doing good work, and we have limited dollars. So that's what you're hearing up here. I think that just because one very small pot of money was found to address one specific thing doesn't mean that we shouldn't move forward with this today, because the reality is we're always going to be trying to find more pots of money elsewhere to help in the ways that we can. And I did receive some of those emails as well. As far as other groups do, more rapid response, deportation work that were, I think, hopeful. You know, when you hear about those dollars going out the door, your organization wants to fight for those dollars as well. Make sure that they're getting funded and as they should, because they're doing incredibly important work as well. So I would say I would love to hear, you know, what councilor Avalos is working on if we could make it. Not an emergency. But I'm happy to vote this. I will personally be voting for this. I just think that's the dynamic that's being laid out, and I think that this is an ongoing dynamic that we will have to address as a council body. Two of councilors, every time we're allocating dollars, we're sometimes choosing to do it for specific organizations in a way that is removed from an RFP process, which means that people don't have time to apply for funds, they don't have time to advocate for themselves and say why. Maybe their organization is more deserving or less deserving of funds. I really hate the slowness of that bureaucratic process, but I think that this is a continuous thing that I hear come up during our budget discussions, when people try to just allocate dollars to individual orgs without a more standardized RFP process, even though I know there was some process, and I want to acknowledge that for sure. I just I just mean overall I'm seeing that. So. I guess that's all I'll say. I don't think it should be an emergency because of some of the discussion that's happened, but I will be voting in support of this. Thanks.

Colleagues. Just procedurally, we have a an emergency clause moved and seconded before us.

Which now revoked it.

Okay. Councilors, I was going to say we also could move it to a continuation, but it has been okay. The clause has been removed. Colleagues, is there further debate on the underlying ordinance? Councilor zimmermann, is that a legacy hand? Yeah. Okay. Colleagues seeing no one else in the queue to discuss this item now moves to second reading. Thank you all for being here today. I am going to take a nine minute recess so folks can have a restroom break. We are back at 445. Colleagues, please try to be as punctual as possible. We have one more item still. We'll be back in nine minutes. And we are back. Thank you. Rebecca, can we please call item 16?

Amend campaign finance code to maintain enforcement of voter approved regulations following court order. Amend code chapter 2.10.

Dana richardson from council operations here to give us a committee staff report.

Good afternoon, council president and councilors. For the record, my name is dana richardson.

The mic isn't turned on.

I'm depressed.

No, there's nothing to press. Staff has to turn that one on.

It's not Green. Hello? We can now.

There's still. None of them are Green.

None of them are all testing.

Oh. You're good. Yeah. Dana. No. Right where you are.

Hi.

Yeah.

Council president and councilors. For the record, my name is dana richardson. I'm your council operations manager, offering some support to the governance committee at this time, the ordinance before you document 2026, dash 055 was heard in the governance committee on February 9th, where it was referred to this council with a recommendation to pass the ordinance. Ordinance amends the campaign finance code to maintain enforcement of voter approved regulations following a June 31st, 2025, court order determining that the existing enforcement procedures were unconstitutional because they did not include procedural protections for those subject to campaign finance regulations. This ordinance does not impact the administration of the small donors election program or its enforcement procedures. As described in city code 2.16. Rather, the ordinance amends code chapter 2.10 to do three things add the opportunity to request and receive a hearing to review proposed city decisions, change noticing and investigatory timelines to provide meaningful opportunity to respond to and participate in enforcement procedures. And it allows the city auditor to make rules necessary to carry out its enforcement duties. The full impact statements on this item include financial and budget impacts, as well as community and community involvement. There was no verbal or written testimony on this item prior to committee action. And that concludes the staff summary. Thank you.

Thank you very much, dana. Councilor Koyama Lane you this came out of your committee.

Thank you. Dana did a great job summarizing. Yes. This item responds to a recent court order which found that the city's campaign finance regulation lacked adequate due process protections. So the auditor's office oversees these regulations. And this proposed code amendment ensures enforceability by adding in various provisions addressing the court's concerns. You may remember that last fall, the auditor's office briefed our offices or council offices on this item, and with that, I'll hand it over to chief deputy auditor reed brodersen and elections manager deborah scroggin to refresh our memories on this item before opening it up for questions. Thanks.

Thank you. Councilor, council. President. Councilors. Good afternoon. Thanks for having us. For the record, my name is reed brodersen. I use he him pronouns. I'm chief deputy city auditor. I'm here on behalf of auditor rede to introduce this item. I wanted to provide that short summary of the four main provisions dana touched on, but I wanted to make sure we fully understand the public has an understanding of those. These amendments were developed by our elections division, our general counsel, and in consultation with the city attorney's office. They're also informed not only by this rigorous legal analysis, but also the institutional knowledge we've built over the last three election cycles. These have been in effect, and the 87 complaints and investigations we've conducted over that time. These amendments address the court's concerns and allow alleged violators, the ability to meaningfully participate in our enforcement processes, which is their constitutional right. The four main components are first, adding a straightforward hearing to a neutral hearings officer, which is standard across the city for enforcement actions. The second is removing the expedited timelines, which are currently haft when a complaint is received within 30 days of the election, and the third is adding a sufficiency review of a complaint prior to us opening an investigation, which would add 12 days to the overall enforcement timeline. But it will allow us to do a couple things. First, it would allow us to coordinate with partners whose regulations are interdependent on ours. So, for example, the small donor elections program and the state of Oregon, it also allows us to dismiss frivolous complaints. And finally, and importantly, it lets us plan for the investigations process, which have become increasingly complex as these laws intertwine. And finally, these amendments grant the auditor limited discretion to extend enforcement deadlines with good cause, the criteria for which will be set out in administrative rule. This allows us to tackle the most complex cases with the time and the thoroughness they deserve, without jeopardizing due process rights of the alleged violator. So overall here, our goal is really to address, in a narrow way, the due process concerns the court has put forward and should council pass these amendments will move on to administrative rule making that will outline that appeals process and that discretion. With that, I think I'll hand it back over to council president. Thank you. Colleagues, are there any technical or clarifying questions on this? Councilor Morillo.

Angelita Morillo: Thank you guys for for these updates. I was curious, how have you guys coordinated with the small donor elections office and how are these updates going to impact them and how they execute their work?

That's a great question, councilor. Thank you. So our regulations are entwined in a very important way, which is if a candidate is is running in that program and the expense is allowable under that program, it's exempted from our the city's broader campaign finance rules. And so we generally have to consult with them if, if the violation or alleged violation relates to a contribution, for example, we have to double check with that program to see if it's allowable, in which case we would not find them in violation. That sounds a little simple. Sometimes it gets very complex, but that's generally how we would be. Yeah, how we would relate. And the changes here would not impact that program's administration. I'll let you clarify.

Thank you. Councilor deborah scroggin, city elections division manager. One thing that it would do is give us time to consult with our elections agency partners that we work with, whether it's the county, state or small donor elections, and get more factual information in a timely manner.

Gotcha. So, but in the development of these changes, did you guys consult with a small donors team?

We sent them information about the court order and our proposed changes prior to the governance committee hearing on February 9th.

And did they have any feedback or suggestions, and were those suggestions integrated?

Well.

I want to speak for her because I believe she's here for you if she has any feedback. But we didn't hear any from her and we gave her a heads up about them. But I believe that's because it's really about our enforcement provisions that don't really intertwine as much with small donor who has their own enforcement provisions.

Okay. Oh, I see susan in the back now. Sorry. She was being blocked. I don't want to put you on the spot, but you're welcome to come up if you would like.

Welcome, susan.

Thank you. Do you.

Have a question.

For me?

Or first introduce yourself for the record and then councilor Morillo question was about your. And if you have any pending concerns about this.

Sure.

My name is susan. I'm the director of the small donor elections program. To my knowledge, I was not consulted about this. I received an fyi about this I think two days ago.

Thank you susan. That's concerning. Having seen this now, how do you think this would impact your guys's ability? Because you're a how many are on your team? Could you remind me.

Two full time staff? Well, the the small donor elections program often is investigating the same alleged violation at the same time that the auditor's office is investigating that alleged violation. And in some ways, our laws are similar or identical. And in some ways our laws are different. But when when the relevant provisions are identical, it's important that we get the same information in our investigation and then make determinations that don't conflict with one another. If smaller elections program were to find no violation for the same transaction as the auditor's office finds a violation where our laws are identical, that would be problematic. Each time. The smaller elections timeline for investigations is different from the investigations. The timeline for the investigations for the auditor's office, and those were in charter. So there was nothing that could be done about that. But this amendment, proposed amendment changes those timelines to make them align even less with the small donor elections timelines. Making coordination between our two offices more difficult.

Gotcha. Okay. I mean, it sounds like maybe you'll want to respond, but first I'm going to ask more questions of susan. So if your office versus the auditor's office had different findings in an investigation, whose word is the final word on that, and how is that impacted by whose decision comes first based on those differing timelines?

Both of our words are the final words, but it would be very vulnerable to appeal by the penalized party if we had different interpretations of the situation. And generally speaking, the smaller in our elections process is faster. So generally speaking, our determinations would come out first and the relevant court case did specifically call out the small donor elections process as being a constitutional model that provides due process.

Thank you. Would you guys care to respond? Sorry, I saw people have some reactions.

Yeah, I appreciate the opportunity. Councilor. You know, I think generally, yes, the court ruling did give your program as a model. And there are elements of this proposal that that do align actually better with your program, including the right to a hearing. So I actually think that alignment is a benefit. The other thing I'll say is, you know, your program does have more flexibility built in than ours does in charter to date. These amendments actually give us the discretion to in cases where it's needed for us to slow down an investigation so that you can finish yours, because the determination of your program's eligibility is actually really important, right, as we enforce ours. And we'd much rather wait until you're complete for us to issue. So I think this actually builds in really necessary and important discretion so that we can collaborate better.

Yeah. No, I agree. And you know, I'm looking at a confirmation from you to us on February 9th. So I hope that was enough time. We're happy to give you more time if you have specific feedback for us. We consulted the city attorney's office who works closely with your program as well.

So I think honestly, based on what I'm hearing, it sounds like your agencies need to talk to each other so that we can make sure there aren't conflicts before I personally feel confident moving forward with this, because without that, I foresee that we're going to have there's if there are different decisions made at different timelines, we don't want a situation where people are violating campaign finance laws and then are not held accountable because of those different findings, weakening court cases and that sort of thing. So I I'm not feeling super comfortable with it right now, but maybe I will change my mind as the discussion unearths more information. Thanks and thank you, susan.

Thank you. Councilor Morillo. And just to be clear with everybody, this is the first reading of a nonemergency ordinance. We will have an opportunity to potentially hear more before we take action. Councilor Kanal.

Sameer Kanal: Thank you, council president. Thanks, everyone for being here and for being a part of it. I was briefed on this quite a ways back. And my you know, I'm looking at these four different pieces, adding a hearing at a neutral hearings officer. It seems like something that's not merely good, but but fairly obvious. Removing the expedited timelines. I have some questions about the sufficiency review as well, but I wanted to. You specifically said that it helps you dismiss frivolous complaints, and I'm reading the provision of the code that says for purposes of evaluation, this is the part two that says within 14 calendar days, which I believe is the sufficiency review you're talking about. For purposes of evaluation, the city auditor will assume that all plausible allegations of fact in the complaint are true. So there's a lot of subjectivity there in terms of what constitutes frivolity. It does say there's two other parts will give no weight to conclusions unsupported by specific facts, may take notice of any facts that it deems reliable and that are readily and publicly available. I'm concerned about this part of it because it actually appears that it's it's just extending the timeline which, given resourcing issues, may be fair to to ask for, but I don't. Can you explain how it would result in, in frivolous complaints being dismissed? Because I think and just I guess we're still in technical questions, so I'll wait until after to say the rest. Yeah.

Thank you. Councilor. I think we're going to have our general counsel, pearson, join us to help answer that question. She is on zoom.

Can you all hear me?

Yes, we can.

Councilor Kanal. Thank you for that question. This provision that we've drafted in here is very similar and is basically a paraphrase of what federal and state courts do all the time. The idea here is that if folks in the elections office get a complaint that purports to be a complaint about campaign finance, but doesn't actually state something that would be a violation of the campaign finance law, they don't have to open an investigation on it. So to take a very bizarre example, let's say someone claims that they saw a candidate at a mcdonald's and they don't like them being at a mcdonald's, and they would like this investigated as a campaign finance complaint. These kinds of things do happen, and they happen frequently, at least at the state level, which is my past experience, is being the general counsel for the secretary of state's office, which also investigates campaign finance complaints. People often like to weaponize the process in order to get publicity, by stating things that do not actually constitute a violation. So under the current code, the elections office would have to open a full investigation on something that even if every fact within it was true, it would not actually make a claim. This allows the elections group to focus their attention on on the things that actually might constitute a claim, and to prevent people from weaponizing the process here by stating things that are not relevant. So that's what we mean by stopping the filing of, or at least the investigation of frivolous complaints.

Thank you. I fully understand the problem and the desire. I don't think that this provision necessarily does that, and that's my concern. So I want to talk about that as we get through it. I understand if it's a mcdonald's complaint, but there's other types of frivolous complaints outside of the context of of public or of campaign finance. I've been subject to a frivolous complaint or two myself. So I think that there's there's it's worth looking into, but I'm still not clear on how this text does it, given that it assumes all plausible allegations of fact in the in the complaint are true. That seems to give a lot of discretion to the interpreter. And I like the idea of the auditor being trusted the way that the auditor's office is now. I'd like to maintain that level of public trust in the auditor, and I'm unclear on how adding discretion to it doesn't create a problem there. Thanks.

Thank you. Councilor Kanal councilor Smith.

Loretta Smith: Thank you, council president. Thank you. Councilor Kanal. I do agree with what you're saying. Having been involved in some of these, you know, frivolous claims as well, and to assume that if someone makes a claim that they're true, it's it's ridiculous to me. And I just think that we need to figure out another way, another so that I'm so that I feel comfortable that when my colleagues and others run in November, that we don't have a bunch of folks putting up frivolous complaints that we believe are true, first without investigating. So I, I don't, you know, I got to get some more understanding about this before I can give you, you know, a tacit okay for next week or whatever. I just think that we we need to have some conversations set up with my office and my chief so that I can have a better understanding. And then there's the. And I know you know, miss scroggins from the state, there's a whole nother group of rules and regs that need to be streamlined as well on the state level. So it's it is it is time consuming. It is expensive. And I know that there are several good government folks who. Routinely file complaints against everybody, and they just keep filing them, keep filing them just as a way to distract a a candidate from what they're supposed to be doing. And I don't want to give them any leeway to do that, because that's not healthy. And it's not. And it prevents people from running, wanting to run for office. So thank you.

Thank you, councilor Smith, councilor Zimmerman. And then we have three people signed up for testimony on this. Burn.

I should I don't have a technical okay. So I'll wait.

Okay. We'll come back to you. Thank you. Can we please move to public testimony?

We have three people signed up seth woolley, daniel meek and jason kafoury. They're all online. Seth, you can go ahead.

Do we have jason kafoury go first if he's available?

Jason, if you are.

Jason's promoting to speak. Jason. You can go ahead.

Oh, am I up? Fantastic. Hang on one second. Let me just shut my door here. I've been waiting for you guys. Sorry. Taking care of my kiddo and and watching this. First of all, I want to thank you for allowing some of the campaign finance reform advocates to testify here. You know, I've been working on this issue for multiple decades in my life. And I can say it is a very complex subject. It's a subject that requires local and national experts to weigh in on. There are federal supreme court precedents. There's local ninth circuit precedents involved. And this is not something that we should do on the quick and dirty in terms of trying to change policy when it comes to campaign finance reform. This is one of those few issues that everybody agrees with. Right, left, center, democrats, republicans, independents. Everybody wants to figure out how we can limit the influence of big money on politics. 87% of the voters passed this. I'm dealing with a situation right now at the Oregon legislature, where there was an agreed upon campaign finance reform statewide structure that we created in 2024. And I've been testifying at the Oregon legislature because a bunch of big spenders, led by business interests, completely came in and gut and stuffed our measure. That was all agreed upon with campaign finance reform advocates and is now trying to ram it through the legislature, which would destroy a lot of the contribution limits and disclosure pieces that we've been working so hard to actually implement. Portland has been doing this the right way, and I think my suggestion for you folks on city council is, let's slow this process down. Let's allow good government advocates to sit down and work together with city council. We passed this as a charter amendment. And so trying to change the sort of statutory ordinance language on this doesn't change what's in the charter. The charter is the charter. So I don't see a lot of purpose in some of the changes that are being proposed. I think that we should look at what the auditor's proposing, actually have some meetings about this and not rush, you know, through a decision process. Right now. Let's be deliberative. Let's do exactly what the legislature is not doing right now. And, you know, I'd love to have some more individual meetings with folks and talk through some of this. But I can tell you, we have people that have been working on this for decades that really understand the minutia, that really understand the case law. And I would ask that before you guys make any final decision on this, you allow us to be at the table.

Thank you. Jason.

Seth, can you go ahead?

Yeah. Good afternoon. My name is seth woolley, and I represent the coalition of good government groups that, along with civil rights and environmental justice groups, wrote and collected signatures for the 2018 honest elections charter amendment passed by 87.4% of Portland voters. In addition to future testimony that will lay out appeal related objections, we are concerned that the lengthening of the investigation process could add unneeded delay, which may result in decisions after the election. Short time lines are both good for candidates to clear their name in a timely manner, and good for democracy to inform voters. Before the election. The charter specified timelines were to ensure issues are resolved swiftly, to keep the electorate as informed as possible before they vote. Many kinds of violations are not complex. Almost all of them will be resolvable with official filings, bank records, electronic communications, or what is directly printed on each advertisement. The proposed amendment would allow the auditor to adopt unlimited extensions of time in enforcement proceedings, a good principle for investigation timeline policy is for there to be limits on extensions, so they cannot be extended indefinitely. Candidates and complainants have a right to a timely resolution. The small donor elections program permits one extension of 3 to 5 business days, but not unlimited extensions. We have reason to be skeptical of the auditor's good faith and implementing this part of the charter. Last year, the auditor testified at the legislature asking state lawmakers to preempt this part of the charter. It's rare for a city to ask for its own authority to be nullified. Fortunately, the legislature chose not to preempt. Additionally, the auditor has many times disregarded the charters mandatory minimum penalties, issuing letters of education instead, even though the charter requires the penalty and contains nothing about such letters, the motive may be as simple as the fact that they also stand for election as a candidate and are directly related regulated by the honest elections. Public corruption. Preventing provisions of the city charter council may have been told that these amendments are legally sufficient, but many of them conflict with the charter and are thus superseded. By superseded, we mean any city code in conflict with the city charter will be controlled by charter language, and the code will be considered invalid. Think of a charter as like our city constitution. If passed as written, there is a high likelihood that charter conflicting city code provisions would be found invalid by a court if someone challenged them to protect the will of the voters. We're asking council to pause just long enough for us to help craft a narrowly tailored fix that adds the hearing the court required, and leaves everything else alone. We are happy to meet with the auditor and council offices to get this right. A lot of the 87.4% of Portland voters passed deserves to be respected, especially a law that protects the sanctity of our democracy. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Daniel. You can go ahead.

Thank you. Can I be heard? Yes. Microphone. Okay, thanks.

Sounds good.

My name is Dan meek. I represent the honest elections coalition, which was responsible for writing and putting on the ballot measure 26 200 of 2018 which created the campaign finance reforms. At issue. I submitted written testimony in this proceeding. I've worked in this area for about 30 years. I first learned of these proposed changes to the city code yesterday. The auditor's office has not contacted any member of the honest elections coalition, including the league of women voters or common cause Oregon. We do oppose some of the auditor's proposed amendments. The auditor's asking the council to rewrite language that goes far beyond what is necessary to avoid adverse court decisions. The court last year held that the auditor's process lacked a penalty hearing, where parties were reliably notified of proceedings and could test evidence through sworn testimony and cross examination. The auditor's amendment does add an administrative appeal, which is reasonable. The proposed amendment should, however, specify that the hearing would constitute what's called a contested case, which is an Oregon term for an administrative hearing that is evidentiary and requires a decision based on the evidence submitted. But the auditor's amendments also go far beyond this. They rewrite the investigative process, which was not held unconstitutional, and they create a much longer timeline for investigations. The court pointed to the city's small donor elections process as a constitutional model, even though it is faster than the auditor's process today. In short, the circuit court did not find that the short timelines from the charter violated due process. It found that a lack of a meaningful hearing violated due process. And just a bit of a note about the circuit court decision against the city. Measure 26 200 was written to provide for a rapid non evidentiary hearing proceeding by the auditor, which is called an other than contested case. A party wishing to contest the auditor's decision then has a right to appeal to the circuit court for review. That means the circuit court is the taker and evaluator of evidence. But in the gonzalez appeal, the city took the position that the circuit court could not accept evidence with that position, it is not surprising that the circuit court found the entire process to lack due process. The city should have taken the position that the circuit court is the taker and evaluator of evidence in such cases, and does provide pre penalty due process because the penalties cannot be imposed prior to the expiration of judicial review, I would refer back to my written testimony and we at honest elections, including me, are available at all times in order to consult on on these sorts of proposed changes. And we're very surprised that we were not even notified about this until yesterday, and we were not notified at all by the auditor's office. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

That concludes testimony, colleagues.

We are over time already, so it will be my intention to continue this item rather than moving it to a second reading. But I want to get to the colleagues in the q councilor Zimmerman.

Eric Zimmerman: Thank you, mr. President. Some interesting testimony. Certainly was not expecting that. So what I was I'm going to stick to what I was I was going to say is we walked in here is just that I really appreciated, you know, the auditor's office, elections office walk through several several months ago. At this point, I think you got ahold of us shortly after the court case determined. And, you know, we went through questions about can the auditor's office do any enforcement given that court case? And you answered them and I appreciated that. And so. I you know, our conversation over I it was sometime in the summer. We did talk about the the word frivolous has come up. And in the way that that meeting left me is that given the current code as it was written, if, if somebody were to to organize 20 or 30 people, all to file individual complaints by code, you would have to, quote, open an investigation in our current law, open an investigation. And I and I'm saying that because opening an investigation is the headline is the news article is now the preemptive election information that is out there. And that feels very james comey like. And for me, that is where my I thought it sounded very responsible in terms of what you all were bringing as a fix to that. And that that still seems like a right move to me. So I remain, you know, supportive from that perspective, because that certainly leaves itself. And I have already gotten an indication that there's an expectation that given that openness of it and the requirement that you open investigation, that it will be weaponized in this next cycle. And future cycles if we don't make a fix. So that's front of mind for me, because I agree about the comment about keeping credibility. I think credibility in this topic is very important. And that's where I think that the way that the code I think restricts you actually restricts the ability to influence credibility. So I walked in today being quite supportive of your changes. I remain supportive. I will I will fully admit the overarching small donor elections lens to the city of Portland elections office, lens to the Multnomah county runs elections in our county to the secretary of state's. Y'all haven't made it easy for any of us to interpret or know where we're working from, but I think you've made their best effort and we're trying. But I want to just make, you know, there was there were folks who testified today talking about campaign finance. Have you made any changes to the amount of money that a candidate can receive from an individual or a or a committee or an organization in your ordinance changes today?

Councilor. Thank you. Absolutely not. We made no changes to any of those provisions.

Okay, so it still is $500 before inflation. What's that? Inflation with inflation. 613 okay we're indexing. Indexing is good. Thank you. All right. So thank you. So that hasn't changed I just wanted to make sure that was clear because there was some testimony that made it seem like we were throwing our campaign finance out. And that is certainly not the case. I. I'm I'm willing to listen to the arguments, but I haven't I haven't heard or I've tracked an argument that seems to. Get at the if a complaint is received within a certain amount of days to election, that they have to rapidly, instead of deliberately make determinations, nothing has been presented yet that would convince me that that that this change y'all have proposed shouldn't occur. Because I think if you're if it is as complicated as it seems to do something more rapidly seems rushed, and it seems like the code is a hurdle there and again, feels very, very james comey like. So I'm cautious there. And then the ability to exercise professional judgment that and and I'm using the words professional judgment to that whose discretion says it is frivolous or not or whatever the right words would be legally. I just part of me thinks that that's important. I hope that this seems like a big deal to. And I'm not sure, you know, if if in the next reading or further questions, I hope that the auditor herself can also come down and represent. This is a this is a big deal. I know she's not here today, but if there's more meetings to be had, these seem like important changes. And I hope that if there are concerns around that, that these don't get abandoned because if they are abandoned, I don't know that we have an enforcement mechanism given the court case, which essentially says we currently have no enforcement mechanism, as best I can read it, which is it was unconstitutional. And so that means that we'd be entering. And I'll be honest, my comments are I'm very cautious right now because for six of us, we are in the cycle now. And this this is. We're on thin ice. We're delicately walking here, but we have no enforcement mechanism as it currently stands. If I read that court case correct, and I don't think that that is the intent of anybody's work over the last almost decade now for campaign finance reform. So again, I wanted to give praise where praise is due. You all were very outreach focused to help us understand what the impacts of that court case were. Appreciated. My one on ones, my team meetings with you. So thank you for that. And if anything does change over the next, in the next time, please let me know. But I feel supportive at this point. And let me close with if there is an overarching concern here, I hope it can come off the page, because I'm just I wasn't totally seeing that, but I think I think it sounds like it's still okay. Just has to be maybe coordinated. Thank you.

Thank you, counselor Zimmerman councilor Pirtle-guiney.

Elana Pirtle-Guiney: Thank you, council president and council president.

Thank you for specifying that you're going to hold over the first reading and not move this to second reading. This is necessary. We need to make some adjustments here. Given what the courts have said, there was great outreach done to counsel. And yet I am hearing that that outreach wasn't done broadly. I'm a little frustrated. That's not all your responsibility. This was posted for a hearing and work session in committee. Nobody came to testify. It past committee five zero. Nobody came to testify. And for portlanders watching, we have moved to a committee structure. If you have an issue you care about, please come tell us in committee and don't wait until it gets to council because then we are left in difficult situations where we have items that we think are pretty much ready for prime time. So I would ask if over the next week before we have this back before us, if at a minimum, our two city entities, the small donor election program in the auditor's office can actually talk, not just send emails and acknowledge receipt and then say they didn't get the emails and put us in the middle of a who actually did what, but actually talks so that at our next hearing we can hear whether this works for both the auditor's office and the small donor elections office, or whether there is an actual conflict between them, I'm seeing heads nod. I appreciate that, thank you. Thank you, council president.

Thank you, counselor pirtle-guiney councilor Kanal.

Sameer Kanal: Thank you, council president. I had originally gotten in the queue to do some emotion, but it sounds like we won't need it because of the continuation that you said. I want to take the opportunity to say, though, that I appreciate the presentation. I personally do feel like there was good consultation with council on this item. I personally do want to say I feel good faith from the auditor's office as an institution, from this auditor, from both of you up here, and I want to just get that out in the in the public space here. I would add to councilor Pirtle-guiney question, which I think is good. I would love some legal information. I'm looking through you to robert taylor, who has the misfortune of being in the room and being singled out again, but I would love some information from someone who is. I understand that you have your own general counsel at the auditor's office, but to understand the specific nature of the code charter aspect that was brought up in in testimony, I want to just kind of clarify what my concern is. I agree with what councilor Zimmerman said in terms of once an investigation is opened. That's the narrative. And I understand that a sufficiency review by that name helps to mitigate that to some degree. I mentioned that I'm a little concerned with the idea that what this does will only rule out the mcdonald's types of cases, and not the the fairly obvious things that, you know, I think that the, the header on it is good where it talks about. On its face states a violation that that standard is a good one. But but as it gets down below that number one is really sticking with me. So I really want to just understand that better. And the other piece of it is by lengthening the timeline and allowing for discretionary extensions. I'm concerned about not having our names cleared when this happens. That is has been my concern since our first briefing, that a lengthy process does not allow for the answer to come out and say, actually, this was above board before an election, and that's related to the shortening of timelines that you currently have. My preference would have been, and it remains, because I think even separate from this issue, the auditor's office is probably under-resourced in other ways as well. I know the clerk's office certainly is, and I would love to be supportive of that. My my preference would be to to resource you sufficient to make the timelines that are better for this process, in my opinion. I understand that that's difficult to do right now with the city's current financial situation, but I also know that it's not actually that much money. It's like when people say, you know, the council budgets are the or the mayor's budgets or the prominent 0.00 whatever percent of the overall budget of the city. And frankly, not even that big a percentage of the general fund. So there are bigger fish to fry that relate to the overall budget process and how much we have to cut there. So fairly small resourcing that helps the rest of the world work, I think a little better so that that would be my preference at this moment. But I just wanted to be clear about why, and I'm aware that there were other approaches, and I think they're all trying to get to the same place. I do believe that that we're all kind of aligned on end goals here, but, you know, complete moratorium on enforcement was floated for the the month before an election. I get why that's appealing to some folks because it prevents the this thing from happening in a way that can affect it in the james comey way, as councilor Zimmerman put it. So I, I recognize that we're really talking about what are the impacts of of different ways of trying to achieve similar goals. So I'm hoping that there can be time spent on those things, especially the legal side in the next in the gap of this continuance. Thanks.

Thank you, counselor. Kanal councilor Smith, last word.

Thank you. City attorney taylor, would this if this passes, will this supersede charter?

Thank you. For the record, robert taylor city attorney the so it is correct that the the charter is supreme over our code. That is correct. The federal constitution like due process rights those are supreme over our charter. So if we we had a situation where our code tried to follow what was in our charter, and this and a court ruled that those that procedure was unconstitutional.

That was in the charter.

Correct. And in the code correct. So that's why we need to have some process that would conform with due process. That's what we're trying to do here.

Okay.

Sounds like you need another declaratory judgment that it sounds like you need another declaratory judgment for something that's in the charter. That's not right. Again.

Okay.

Colleagues noting the lack of a quorum at council. Now this item will be continued to next the next scheduled meeting of the city council. And with that, we are adjourned.

Thank you. Sir.