The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-01-15
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Session summaryEditor-reviewed
Portland City Council convened on Wednesday, January 15, 2025, with a full roll call recorded. After approving the agenda—including referring an item back to the Mayor's office—and adopting the President's recommendations, the Council heard public communications on topics including police accountability transitions, homelessness policy, and neighborhood safety concerns. The Council then took up two budget items: appropriating federal and state grants totaling roughly $7.13 million for the Barber Apartments affordable housing project and a Healthy Homes program, both passed as emergency ordinances after public testimony and council questions about financing, timelines, and program details. A lengthy discussion followed on a supplemental budget for Council and Mayoral staffing, with extensive public testimony both supporting and opposing the proposal; multiple amendments were considered regarding funding sources, staffing levels, and district office funding, and votes occurred, with outcomes recorded in the vote ledger. The Council also adopted a resolution acknowledging Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, heard from invited guests on civil rights and equity work, and accepted the Parks Levy and Parks Levy Oversight Committee annual reports following presentations and public testimony. Additional items included withdrawing authorization for the City Attorney to file an unfair labor practice complaint, amending council rules and procedures with an emergency clause, and establishing council committee structures and assignments, each following discussion and votes recorded in the vote ledger. The meeting adjourned at approximately 11:13 p.m.
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0 I am going to call this council meeting to order. It is Wednesday, January 15th at 601 keelan. Could you call the roll, please?
1 Avalos. Here. Dunphy. Here. Smith. Here. Now. Ryan. Here. Koyama Lane. Here. Morillo. Here. Novick. Here. Clark. Here. Breen. Here. Zimmerman. Here. Pirtle-guiney. Here.
2 Thank you. We. For this meeting. Operating under our current rules. Need to approve the agenda before we approve the agenda.
3 President pirtle-guiney, I'm so sorry to interrupt. May we ask the city attorney to read the rules of decorum? Yes. Thank you. Thank you.
4 Thank you. President.
5 Welcome to Portland city council to testify before council, in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the council agenda at. Portland.gov/council/agenda. Information on engaging with council can be found on the council clerk's web page. Individuals may testify for three minutes unless the presiding officer states otherwise, your microphone will be muted when your time is over. The presiding officer preserves order disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others testimony or council deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, council may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony tonight should address the matter being considered. When testifying. First, state your name for the record. Your address is not necessary. Two if you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent. And third, virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the council clerk calls their name. Thank you.
6 Thank you. So our first item of business tonight and keelan, do we need you to read the these first couple of items that are administrative or. Okay. Great. Our first item of business is approval of the agenda. Before we approve the agenda, I would accept a motion to amend the agenda to refer item. Let's get the right number. I apologize to refer item ten back to the mayor's office. This is a reappointment request. And because we have not had time to create a process for consideration of appointments, the mayor has graciously agreed to take that item back and bring it to us a little closer to when that reappointment is actually up.
7 Second. So moved.
8 Wait predated the motion?
9 I believe we had a motion.
10 Oh, I moved to refer that back to the second.
11 Keelan. Could you call the roll for us?
12 Would you? Is that. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. I. Dunphy, I Smith, I Ryan I. Canal I Koyama Lane I Morillo I Novick I. Clark I Green I Zimmerman I pirtle-guiney I.
13 Great.
14 That passes and are there any other requests to reorder items or reschedule any items on the agenda? Okay. Hearing none that approves with unanimous consent. We also, under our current rules, need to accept the president's recommendation of the items on the agenda. This is where once committees are established, we would have the opportunity under these current rules to refer things to committee or to the council as the whole, because we don't have committees established yet. I am recommending that we for every refer everything to the council as a whole to consider tonight. Are there any requests to amend the president's recommendations as listed on the agenda? Okay. Hearing none. The president's recommendations passed by unanimous consent. We are now moving on to the regular agenda, beginning with public comment. Keelan, would you like to invite up our commenters?
15 Yes. Thank you. First up, we have delgado.
16 Good evening. Councilors. President pirtle-guiney, mayor wilson, for the record, my name is uma delgado, and I'm here in my personal capacity as the chair of the citizen review committee, or crc, which I've served on for the past four years. I am also a former member of the police accountability commission, which proposed our city's new system of police oversight. Last week, the citizen review committee wrote to this council outlining our concerns about the transition process and asking for a voice in that process. I'm here to reiterate this request and to emphasize the precarious nature of our current system, recognizing that it is rare for a sitting chair to appear before this body, I will hope you. I hope you will understand the importance of my presence here. For many years, much of the burden of compliance with us city of Portland has rested squarely on the shoulders of volunteers. Key amongst those duties is a review of officer involved shootings, a term which I think belies the full weight of that task. So let me be less oblique. This city routinely asks us volunteers to watch police and community members interact in some of the most harrowing situations possible. They ask us to watch people die in some of those encounters, frame by agonizing frame, and then to rewind and to watch again and again and again. We are asked to make sense of these moments, knowing that we do so as part of a system that portlanders voted to overturn in 2020. We are asked to carry that moral dissonance. Case after case. For four years, we have done this work with less than half of the volunteers proposed for the new system, a fraction of the budget, and none of the supports that were proposed for that new system. We have done this work to the best of our ability, but we cannot do so indefinitely. It is perhaps worse for the dedicated employees of the independent police review. We have asked them to place their careers in limbo indefinitely. The task of seating our replacements has fallen to this council. So I am here to ask you, please set a clear timeline for concluding this process. The crc stands ready to assist you in any way we can, and to the best of our ability. You will likely hear from community members tonight who have concerns about bias and other provisions of the new system. I share some of those concerns, and I hope this council can address them in the way that it sees fit. But I also know that we owe it to the public, to our volunteers, and to the officers that serve in the police bureau to provide clarity about what comes next and to finish the task we started. I hope that you can strike that balance. Thank you.
17 Councilor Kanal you wanted to make a brief remark. Yeah.
18 Thank you. You may, for coming to speak with us today. And thank you for sharing your story and the impact it's had on you and your colleagues to watch something that traumatic and then have to watch it again and again. I think everyone on this council is committed to ensuring that we have a Portland where there are no traumatic deaths at all. And also, thank you for your service on the pac and crc. I've gotten a chance to work with you there. It has been unusual for committee leadership to speak to council, but it shouldn't be. You all deserve a voice in this process. You've earned it. We must move rapidly to set up the new accountability system and move rapidly in the right direction. And I know I'll be discussing it further with colleagues to ensure we're not creating unnecessary delay, and that this council ultimately determines that direction. I share some of your concerns with both the timing and the provisions you mentioned, and I'm not willing to sacrifice getting it done right to get it done fast, because we can do both, get it done right and get it done fast.
19 Thank you, thank you councilor.
20 Thank you. You may.
21 Next up we have wayne wiggins joining us online. Hello.
22 Can you hear me.
23 Yes we can hear you okay.
24 Well three minutes isn't enough to say everything I wanted to say. I tried emailing you representatives, only to find that the email addresses of public representatives are now being withheld from the public. Not a great first impression for this new government makes me feel it's more bureaucratic, less of a representative democracy. But for those who are interested, my full testimony I posted on my website I don't know. I think you can see that. Anyway, my main concern is that keith, you aren't saying much in the way of quality standards or tenant rights in regards to building shelters. Instead, you seem to be operating on the principle that if we build it, they will come dot, dot, dot and they will do what they're told. Now, I hope we're not allowing the grants pass decision to go to our heads. There may be a big difference between a small town case like that and cases that will evolve. If cities like Portland choose to really push the envelope here. Personally, I think there's a reason why the supreme court has refused to review that case yet, and other cases like it for a very long time. It's because this issue goes straight to the heart of private property rights. And let's face it, rights to private property are a thing that doesn't really make sense when you scrutinize it. Take land ownership, for example. Land is known as a fictitious commodity in the sense that nobody built land itself, so you can't really justify earning it. I like what the russian peasants emancipated russian serfs used to say is god's land. It belongs to those who use it. But honestly, thank you, keith, because what you're not telling us is housing first. We know what works. Housing first. Personally, I think homelessness is a family issue much more than a private housing issue, and our focus needs to be on legitimizing alternative forms of family. More than seven people in the small and overpriced boxes, which actually take them away from their street family. Somewhat related to that, what about outdoor shelters? And I'm not talking about pods like you, Dan Ryan. You have unethically reduced our notion of a our collective notion of a of an outdoor shelter down to talking about just places where people can go to sleep, find safety in numbers more than tents, and god forbid, a sense of community and pride. I think things like that are what you used to make Portland cool way back before charlie hill street sweeps. As for the study of shelter systems, our quality standards are so poor it's unethical. Psu grad students, they make a few phone calls to shelter operators, and they make a whole paper off of that. It helps get them a thesis. It doesn't really give us a clue. I'll close saying too much change too fast is dangerous, and I explain why. I think that that is particularly true in this case. In my full. Communication. Thank you.
25 Thank you, mr. Wiggins, for sharing those thoughts with us. We appreciate hearing from you.
26 Next up we have Dan handelman, Portland, copwatch.
27 Good evening. Can you hear me? Okay.
28 Yes, we can hear you.
29 Thank you. Hello members of city council and city officials. My name is Dan handelman. I use he him pronouns and I'm a member of Portland copwatch my colleague mark parrish will continue our formal introduction. Portland copwatch is a grassroots volunteer organization promoting police accountability through community member action. Our philosophy is that so long as there are police, we need to hold them accountable. We're working toward a police bureau free of brutality, corruption, and racism. We are a project of peace and justice works, which promotes nonviolent conflict resolution on local, national and international levels. We have met every chief of police, nearly every city council member, and other officials, including auditors, since we began in 1992. Our newsletter is published three times a year. You should have received a print copy of the January 2025 issue, number 94. It's also available on our website at Portland copwatch. Org we run an incident report line at (503) 321-5120, which takes reports of incidents involving the PPB in Multnomah county sheriff's deputies. In line with our goals, we respond to people with information about how to resolve their cases to help prevent future occurrences. We conduct trainings on your rights in the police and association with volunteer lawyers, and how to copwatch. Copwatching is a generic term for observing police behavior. Created by berkeley copwatch in 1990. It's an international movement, not a franchise. Though many other groups use the name copwatch, much of our work surrounds our goal of promoting and monitoring an effective system for civilian oversight of police. I've been to nearly every meeting of the civilian oversight committee board since 1992. First, the Portland internal affairs auditing committee, which was created in 1982, ten years before we were formed, then the citizen review committee, which succeeded them when the independent police review was created in 2001, we sat on the mayor's workgroup that proposed the system, which eventually became ipr, albeit with parts missing. I was also on the police accountability commission, which spent 20 months designing the new oversight system outlined in the 2020 ballot measure 26 217. Some key police accountability issues you'll be facing in the coming months are. First, you have until February 6th to appoint the nominating committee, which will in turn nominate 21 members of the new community board for police accountability. Each district has to agree on one person for the ten person committee, which will include designees from the chief's office and the police association and the police commanding officers association. Two this month, the Portland police are required by city policy to present a report on the substance and frequency of their work with the fbi's joint terrorism task force. Given what a flashpoint this issue has been since the year 2000, we urge that the jttf report be heard by the whole council, not in committee number three. Again, as you establish rules for council meetings, we urge you to place lawsuit settlements about police misconduct on the full council's regular agenda, even when they are less than the $50,000 limit. They may be settled by the city administrator without. Issue of police. Misconduct comes and goes from public attention. We started shortly after the l.a. Police beat rodney king in 1981 and the subsequent uprising. The PPB shot and killed 12 year old nathan thomas in early 1992, and the PPB has used heavy handed tactics to repress protest actions when those actions become popular and widespread. After the death of george floyd in 2020, the city seemed to embrace the concept, if not the movement, of black lives matter. It's problematic that the police violence against that movement doesn't stick in people's minds the way that focusing on property damage done during the protests perpetuates the narrative.
30 I'm sorry, mr. Handelman, the time was up there, but we appreciate your comments. Thank you for speaking to us today, and I know that you've reached out to a number of council members as well.
31 Next up we have mark porous Portland copwatch.
32 Hello, council, can you hear me?
33 We can hear you, mark.
34 Fantastic. Hi, my name is mark porous. I use he him pronouns and I'm a member of Portland copwatch I learned about Portland copwatch when they were working on a community campaign around collective bargaining with the Portland police association in 2019 and 2020. I've learned that, with one exception, there have been at least some public meetings for those important negotiations with ppa since at least 2010, we've been clear that copwatch supports the rights of workers to organize for fair wages and benefits. Our concern comes when ppa reaches too far into dictating policies that lead to unchecked violence against the community. The current ppa contract was set to expire in June of this year, so we asked the city attorney about the timeline for negotiations. They revealed that in April 2024, memo extended the contract until June of 2026. The extension gives this council more time to engage the community and ensure public meetings will happen. However, it is troubling that problematic parts of the contract will remain in place for another full year. The city has been under scrutiny of the us department of justice since they conducted an investigation and entered into a settlement agreement with the city in 2012. That agreement is meant to reduce the amount of force used when police encounter people in mental health crisis. Data provided by consultants who review deadly force cases indicate that the use of deadly force in such cases has actually increased since the doj agreement went into effect, and last week, the city status report to the court did not even mention mental health. Copwatch has been testifying about the agreement from the beginning. Mr. Handelman also has participated with the enhanced amicus, or friend of the court. The albina ministerial alliance coalition for justice and police reform since 2003, and is a steering committee member. Since 2010. The ama coalition has asked the doj to had asked the doj to investigate patterns of the Portland police after the death of aaron campbell in 2010, sharing bureau data that showed disproportionate policing against portland's relatively small black community did not persuade the feds to investigate the obvious racial disparities. Roughly 25% of deadly force cases, 25 to 30% of all force and 20% of traffic stops are of black people in Portland, which has a 6% black population. One of the city's core values is anti-racism. A serious look into where these disparities come from is long overdue. To fulfill that promise. Regarding settlements, Portland copwatch has tracked over $3 million in payouts just for the 2020 protests. We also track other misconduct, settlements, judgments and jury awards and keep a running top 25 list on our website. Another core city value is transparency. Putting lawsuits on the regular agenda is important both to so the public knows about them, and so council can discuss underlying policy issues and legislate improvements. The previous council often put smaller settlements on the consent agenda agenda, which only leads us to pulling those items for public discussion. The city's values around fiscal responsibility require you to keep in mind the most vulnerable populations. This means more compassionate policies towards the house community, starting with not criminalizing those who have nowhere to sleep but outside, including people with good reasons not to trust city shelter systems. We look forward to engaging with all of you collectively and each of you individually. It's important to keep in mind that public safety means much more than using police to address every issue on portlanders minds. It takes alternatives to police creative nonviolence programs and properly holding officers accountable to achieve public safety. Thank you.
35 Thank you for being here with us today, mr. Paris. We appreciate your remarks.
36 Next up we have michelle miller.
37 Hello. Good evening, council and mayor. My name is michelle miller. I am a resident in the northwest stadium hood neighborhood. And today I bring two related and pressing issues that threaten the safety and livability of my community the harmful operations of the Portland people's outreach project, or pop, and the importance of safeguarding our essential services budgets. Pop is the volunteer group that distributes syringes and crack pipes in our school zone each Friday night. They are not a one for one needle exchange. On a daily basis, we pick up syringes that are used and discarded, foil laced with drug residue all around, all in our school zone. Today it happened to be the needles we picked up were on the ground near cathedral school. We have been documenting criminal activity spilling over into the community that radiate from the hub of pop activities, and these problems are also impacting the lives of the unsheltered people who have to navigate the biohazards on the ground. And they're also feeling a decreased sense of safety. Stadium hood has security footage, photos and eyewitness accounts, interviews that confirm that pops operations have drawn organized groups, including antifa affiliated individuals, into our safe route to school. The proposed cuts that are coming up that you're going to consider to our safety budgets will further strain an already overburdened neighborhood. So today, I offer four considerations to help alleviate some of these burdens. Number one, the immediate enforcement of permit and zoning city codes, and a commitment to relocate pop out of a school zone where they can work without compromising community safety. Number two collaboration with the county for harm reduction programs. Let's ensure they address the needs of the entire community. Number three, I invite each of our new 12 councilors out to tour our neighborhood, a personal tour, and witness the things that we have been bringing to your attention at these council meetings. When it comes to demographics, the east Portland people and stadium neighborhoods are actually more alike than they are different. And that's according to the northwest and motion research. And we want to partner with you and help address the commonalities that we have in these problems. We appreciate that councilor Clark is going to be joining our stadium hood call this Saturday, so we can talk about some of these things. Number four, please protect our safety budgets. This is critical. Our police fire and emergency communications cover critical services. And they are the backbone of our public safety programs. We're not asking for perfection. We're just asking for some collaboration. Right now, we're on the ground working really hard. We're forging new relationships with our community members and stakeholders each and every day. And we want to share what we've accomplished with you. The bottom line is that our parents, our parents, are afraid to let their children walk to school around here, and residents are leaving the city. Cutting safety budgets might very well push us over a tipping point of no return. Resources must be prioritized to ensure the safety and well-being of the community, and not towards padding bureaucracy. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight and for your service.
38 Thank you, miss miller. We appreciate you being here and sharing some information about what's happening in your community.
39 That completes communications.
40 Okay. The next portion of our agenda, the next three items we have are all budget items, two grants and one budget adjustment. Councilors, you should have received a memo from our dcas about items four and five. Clerk could you read our next agenda item please?
41 Appropriate grants totaling $7 million from the u.s. Department of housing and urban development for the development of barber apartments affordable housing project.
42 And I believe we have helmi herrera from the housing bureau presenting this for us.
43 Great.
44 Thank you both for being here today. Go ahead and introduce yourself and you can launch in.
45 Thank you. Council president. Good evening, city council. Daniel oliveras. For the record, I'm the deputy city administrator for the community and economic development. So on behalf of the city of portland's housing bureau, congresswoman suzanne bonamici, with the support of senators jeff merkley and ron wyden, we submitted a federal appropriations request for $2 million towards the construction of barber apartments. The request was approved in the consolidated appropriations act in March of 2020. For this economic development initiative, community project funding was is administered by the u.s. Department of housing and urban development. Tonight before you, along with this $2 million, the request also includes allocating the remaining 5 million in community development block grant funds from previous years to complete a land acquisition for the development of barber apartments. Upon completion, the project will add 149 new units of permanently affordable rental housing, targeted housing targeting low income families. The project helps to meet the demand for affordable, family sized units, with 68% of the units having two, 3 or 4 bedrooms. I want to acknowledge that this is a really important moment as we keep the housing production pipeline going in our city. All across the city, all types of housing is needed, and this is a great example of federal leadership working with the city to help us find the resources to complete this investment. I'm now going to turn it over to my colleague, director helm, to talk about the project specifically and some details.
46 Good evening. Helm, historic director of Portland housing bureau. I use she her pronouns and before you. Today is an increase in the fiscal year 2425 budget by $7 million from federal grants administered by HUD. The purpose of the ordinance, as I mentioned, is to increase. Oh, let me go to the I have a short presentation on the project, really for your information, and I'll go through it. We also are joined by by joni hartman, who's the director of real estate at innovative innovative housing. Who's the developer? If you have any more detailed or technical questions on the project. So let's go to the next slide, please. So we request council to accept an appropriate $2 million of HUD community project funding awarded by congress. And we thank senators ron wyden and jeff merkley, along with representative suzanne bonamici, for their advocacy to secure this funding. I'd also like to acknowledge the office of governmental relations, who is a great assist in this project, in the funding, we appropriate $5 million of HUD community development block grant funding from our the city's prior year balance. These resources will support the development of the barber apartments, which are located in council district four. It's a new multifamily, affordable rental project in southwest Portland. Next slide the barber apartments is 100% affordable project providing 149 affordable housing units plus one manager's unit in the capitol hill neighborhood of southwest Portland, targeting immigrant and refugee families. The project will be developed and owned by innovative housing, inc. Barber apartments was created to prevent future displacement of the diverse communities of color along the southwest Portland corridor due to planned infrastructure investments and development, including the extension of light rail. This is also the second fb supported project to receive a congressionally designated funding via the economic development initiative. Community project funds administered by HUD to ensure long term affordability, the borrower borrower will enter into regulatory agreement with Portland housing bureau to maintain the affordability of the project for 99 years. Next slide. The barber apartments, as I mentioned, consists of 149 affordable units. These are at or below 60% of the area median income plus a manager's unit. The majority of the units, 68% of them, are sized for families with 82 two bedroom units, 16 three bedroom units and four four bedroom units. 20% 21% of the units are 30. Two of the units will be affordable to households with incomes under 30% of the area. Median income 13% of the units are. 19 of them will be affordable for households with incomes up to 45% of the area. Median 38 project based vouchers from home forward, the housing authority make these deeply affordable units possible. Next slide site amenities in the project include a large central outdoor play area, laundry facilities, bike and vehicle parking, resident services, management offices and two large community rooms. All three and four bedroom units will have in-unit washer and dryer. The project is pursuing an earth advantage gold certification. Additionally, the project is applying for pcf Portland clean energy funds to pursue additional sustainable greenhouse gas reducing options in the building's construction. The project team will strive to meet the fb or Portland housing bureau and metro metro bond funded project equity and contracting goals, including 30% hard costs and 20% professional services. Participation by cobid certified firms. The development team will also make a good faith effort to meet and exceed the 14% hard cost participation sub goals of the dm, wbe or disadvantaged minority women in emerging small business firms. Due to federal financing included in the project. Section three hiring and the build America buy America act requirements apply, the project team must prioritize efforts to hire and train section three workers, with the goal of at least 25% of all labor hours worked by America. Preference under baba applies to all iron and steel products used in the construction of the project. Construction is projected to start in March 2025 and be completed in the first quarter of 2027. Next slide. This is a little bit about resident services. The innovative housing, inc. Will provide resident services in the barber in partnership with the immigrant and refugee community organization urco. Urco will provide culturally specific programing to residents of the community rooms and meeting spaces, and have priority referral for housing opportunities. Ii also plans that's innovative. Housing inc. Also plans to work closely with nearby community centers, mosques and organizations, including community services network, neighborhood house, islamic social services of Oregon, somali American council of Oregon, and black parent initiative to provide an array of culturally specific and culturally responsible support services for residents. Next slide. The federal grants that we are that are before you today will leverage over $70 million or ten times of other public and private financing for the project contributed by metro, the Oregon housing community services department, the energy trust of Oregon, Portland clean energy fund, and the limited equity investor raymond james. Last slide. So appropriate federal grants. So what's before you is to appropriate federal grants, federal grants totaling $7 million from the us department of housing and urban development for the development of the barber apartments. Thank you.
47 Thank you very much. I think we have two questions from councilors councilor Smith.
48 Thank you, madam president. I noted that you said that the three and four bedrooms would have their own washer and dryer. Do you have on site laundry for the other? Residents?
49 I will have to ask the developer to remind you.
50 Thank you. And the answer to that is yes. There are multiple laundry rooms on the various floors in the multifamily.
51 Thank you.
52 Can can we have you introduce yourself for us?
53 I'm sorry, I'm johnny hartman, I'm the director of housing at innovative housing inc. Thank you so much.
54 Thank you. Johnny.
55 Councilor Dunphy, thank you, president pirtle-guiney. I noticed that on there. You mentioned there's a 99 year affordability. Three questions about that one, why 99 instead of 102? When does that begin? Does that begin when construction begins? Or does that begin when the first tenant is given a lease? Or is it when the last tenant is fully, you know, when they're fully booked? How does that 99 year timeline start?
56 That was two questions.
57 Yeah.
58 Right. And the third was what happens after 99 years.
59 Those are all really good questions. The first question I can answer the question regarding why 99 years, 99 years is, by legal definition of the longest term that we can have for essentially an in perpetuity lease in the united states. The when it starts is the question I, I'm not sure I can answer. Do you happen to know if it starts upon generally the regulatory agreements are signed at closing and they're dated as of closing. Okay. So it would be as the date of the closing of finance, which precedes any occupant getting in at the end of 99 years. What typically happens is the useful life of a of a real estate asset is 30 years. At that time, the developer has the opportunity to consider refinancing. Often during a refinancing, we will look to extend out the term of the affordability beyond the 99 years for an additional period of, say, 30 or 40 years. And we keep doing that every time we refi.
60 And just to follow up, does the financing happen? Does the final transfer of financing complete prior to the first shovel in the ground, or is that a process that it can occur simultaneously?
61 It's a two step process. The first step is construction. Financing closes once the construction is completed, it'll convert using the tax credits into a permanent financing. So there's a there's a two step process in the financing closings okay.
62 Thank you.
63 Councilor Green.
64 I appreciate the presentation and the proposal. So this is just mostly federal money. And this is essentially authorizing us to make use of that federal money. Is that correct?
65 The appropriation before you today is 100% federal dollars from the HUD housing and urban development.
66 Thank you. And I just want to put a comment that the southwest corridor, this specific area, is my neighborhood, and it is currently underserved by affordable housing. So I support generally attempts to go after federal money and move quickly on affordable housing production in a high opportunity transit corridor. Thanks.
67 Councilor Clark.
68 Thank you, madam president. Thank you for the presentation and thank you to our congressional delegation and our government affairs folks upstairs. I also live not far from this district. And this summer when I was at the multicultural fair in one of the parks, I heard a lot about the need for housing along the corridor. I actually worked on the southwest corridor light rail project or one time light rail project, so I'm really happy to hear about this. And I and I'm thinking that we also need a greater effort to preserve the affordable housing that is in the barber corridor as well. I heard a lot about that at the multicultural fair. Thank you.
69 And councilor Kanal thank you.
70 I have a series of process questions around the emergency ordinance aspect of this. My I, my understanding is that under our new form of government, accepting a grant no longer requires a council vote. And the only thing that I've seen in the emergency clause is that there would be a concern around delay of accepting the funds. And if that's correct, my question is why is this proposed as an emergency ordinance specifically?
71 I can take it. Thank you for the question, councilor. So in this particular moment, we're we're looking to activate all federal dollars as quickly as possible. That's one step. And because we're appropriating new dollars that this council or the prior council hadn't contemplated, we need your action to get to give us the Green light to complete the capital stack. So this is almost a keeping up with the development, you know, timeline that's already been in process for many years.
72 2019 is when we took out the purchase offer on the land.
73 There you go. Okay. Thank you.
74 Councilor Zimmerman.
75 Thanks. This is a great area for this. So I appreciate that. And maybe you said it and I missed it. I was looking one of these areas is. A fairly, I'll say, old school but important business in the area. Do you know if they have any. Are they closing down or do they have transition plans? I'm talking about the rental group there that provides a lot of I'll just say the things that we all need, but we can't afford to own ourselves. Right. Do you have any idea about the future of them in terms of how they've been involved in this thus far?
76 Well, we have been working with barbara rentals for since 2019. My understanding is that they are wrapping up their business after the end of the holiday season, and between now and we're supposed to take control of the site on the 26th of February, they will be disposing of all of the very interesting articles and useful things that they have on site.
77 Use them many times. Turns out it's great to have somebody in town who owns all the things that you need for a good party, right? But, but, but they're fully involved in this. And there have been they've been supportive. And to that would you describe it that way.
78 Very good. They've been very good partners.
79 Great. Thanks for touching on that point.
80 I believe we have one person signed up for public testimony. Is that the case?
81 Do we have. Okay. We have one person signed up.
82 We don't have any more questions from council. Then I will thank our guests and move on to public testimony.
83 Please bring screen some. Johnson.
84 Good evening. Councilors. The way the procedure works is you don't reserve seats for testifiers, so you have to allow me to come downstairs. I'll be with you shortly.
85 The procedure at this. Appointment. Because otherwise, every time.
86 Thank you for joining us.
87 Hello, old friends and new. I am portraying charles johnson and apropos on commissioner Canals mention of the word emergency. Long ago, when the honorable miss Smith was on the county commission, mayor sitting here passed a housing emergency. This is still the best we can do. Go to the electronic agenda and scroll through. How long this is. Observe that nowhere in this presentation which I cannot find a link on the public agenda listing. So I could not preview these slides and discuss and prepare for this. But I knew, I knew that it's just a glory show, that there's no concern about the timing of life saving deliverables. People are dying on our streets, and we're investing this much time on 140 units that are going to prioritize people who came here after many of these people got on their first waiting list. Now I'm very in favor of us pushing very hard to wrestle from the federal government money to give adequate and proper living conditions to all refugees and asylum seekers. We can't throw them in a pot with neighbors that have been on housing waiting lists for over 12 years, and regardless of whether I'm right or wrong about how we're doing that, you need to. I believe in your fiduciary duties. Look at the fact that we've just said that this project is probably going to take two years. I'm not an expert in commercial real estate. The housing bureau is. And the things that they don't talk about are the things that need to be talked about. What is the per square foot cost of these units and how does it compare to what we're giving normal, ordinary working families that can't get into any assistance program? The reason that's ultra critical is because y'all, in partnership with the joint office of homeless services, create castes, a caste system and striation among poor and homeless people. So some homeless people sleep in a situation where our taxpayers spend 2100 plus per month just on housing, and then throw the cost of wraparound services on top of that. And then another caste discriminated class of homeless people get told, no, you can't have that. You have to go to congregate shelter. And we're never going to talk about how much that costs per person either. That is why hordes of people like myself are spending years sleeping on the streets around you is because you don't address the problem in a systemic scope. I realize that this is just one agenda item that's an emergency so we can get the federal grant. Contextualize every publicly funded housing program as a piece in the puzzle, with specific numbers that line up with the point in time count.
88 And we also, sir, I'm sorry. I'm sorry to cut you off, but we have a.
89 Madam president, so obviously this is a yes vote, but contextualized and built into the system. For real. Thank you. Thank you.
90 Thank you for drawing our attention to the bigger picture that we need to make sure we're paying attention to. Is there any other final discussion before we take a vote? Okay. And this is an emergency ordinance. So it does need need nine affirmative votes to pass. Clerk, can you call the roll, please?
91 I just want to appreciate the efforts to seek PCEF dollars and make the building climate resilient, and also to work with community partners to ensure we're not displacing the very people this project is meant to help.
92 I vote yea Dunphy I.
93 I canal.
94 So I asked the question about emergency ordinances because I have concerns about the overuse of those in previous councils. I do think that in this particular case, with an incoming change to federal oversight of some of these dollars and how those will be done, that it makes sense to go through this process. I want to appreciate senators merkley and wyden and congresswoman bonamici. I also just wanted to shout out, this is near a grocery store. There's cultural programing with irco, which is great, and it's a Portland based developer, which is always nice to see as well. And those are really great attributes of this particular program. Broadly speaking, affordable housing is good. One of the renters on this council, I'm excited to support something that helps renters be able to stay in their homes. I'll just note that I do support the idea that if we're going to get a presentation, it should be posted in advance in the future so that everybody in the public can see it, too. And but yeah, on the whole, this seems like a good project and I vote yes. Ryan.
95 Yes, this checks all the necessary boxes of success. Federal, state, local governments coming together. Cobid goals have been met and thrilled with the workforce development targets, namely the 20% or more hours worked by trades and job site hours will be done by state registered apprentices. And I want to also add that it's great to see three and four bedroom units. And I can't believe I finally heard about the 45% ami target. So that's wonderful because there's such a big gap between 30 and 60. You've heard me say this many times. A few of you anyway. Bravo, I vote yea!
96 Koyama Lane I Morillo I Novick. I mark, I Green.
97 I just want to acknowledge that this is going to benefit the immigrant and refugee committee community, which has long standing presence in west Portland park and along this corridor. And I object to sort of this idea of distinguishing normal working class people from immigrants. They are also normal working class people as well, displaced in no small part by our federal government's actions. So I vote I.
98 Zimmerman, I pirtle-guiney I.
99 Ordinance passes, we will move on to our next agenda item appropriate grant for $125,000 from Oregon health authority for the 2024 state healthy home grant. Thank you. And we have our same guests back up. And is john tran joining you as well? If you can all introduce yourselves as you begin speaking, that would be great. Thank you so much.
100 Thank you, madam president. Daniel rivera, for the record, deputy city administrator for community economic development. I'm going to keep this brief because you have a long night ahead of you. Councilor. This is a great opportunity for this council to see a service here at work together. So the state of Oregon has provided these healthy homes grants for many years. And this is a opportunity for the housing bureau, the permitting development bureau, prosper and bts to work together to deliver services to our communities through a grant program providing funding from the state. I'm going to turn it over to my colleagues to walk through the specifics so we can move on with the city's agenda.
101 Great. Once again, helm, historic director, Portland housing bureau. I use she her pronouns. I'm joined today by john tran, who manages our neighborhood preservation program. And I'm going to actually let him do most of the presentation. I just wanted to mention that this is a state grant from the Oregon health authority. It is leveraged by federal dollars that we run called the healthy homes program. And I'll let john explain what the purpose of the program is and who we serve, and how many people we anticipate serving with the state grant.
102 Good evening. John tran, neighborhood housing preservation manager for the housing bureau. It's exciting to be able to present to you and ask for an appropriation, $125,000 to be utilized this fiscal year. We apply for $750,000 with the Oregon health authority for the 2024 state healthy home grant on April 5th. The state healthy home grant will leverage our federal healthy home grant that we receive back in may 15 to 2023. The program serves as a critical anti-displacement resource for low to moderate income families citywide. The Oregon health authority has notified the city of Portland that it will award the grant for the 24 2024 state healthy home grant to the Portland housing bureau and Portland permitting and development in the amount of $750,000. The grant hope to serve 21 to 30 households within the three year grant period. Thank you.
103 Thank you very much. Council. Does anybody have any questions? Okay. Do we have anybody who signed up for public testimony?
104 No one signed up.
105 Oh there are no questions. Perfect. Thank you. Councilor Kanal.
106 So this is a similar question to the preceding one. Other than the fact that housing broadly is an emergency, as was pointed out to us, why is this an emergency ordinance? Yeah.
107 Thank you, councilor, for the question, daniel. For the record, in this particular case, it's because we are trying to expend the resources as soon as possible, just given the transition. We may have taken this to council a bit earlier, but we had a little bit of a delay with the new form of government taking shape. So we're a little bit behind the work planning. So that 125,000 that you're approving tonight would almost go immediately into action.
108 Is that is that not always the case, that it would always be good to spend the money we receive in a grant as quickly as possible?
109 Absolutely. And in this particular case, just given the situation of our government, if we were here four months ago, it probably would have been on regular agenda. But we're a little bit behind the project timeline.
110 Thank you. Dc oliveras. Yeah.
111 Councilor Dunphy, thank you.
112 Sorry, I'm doing a little bit of quick math because I'm not good at that. This works out to be you're saying about 20. What does it say, 25 or 20 1 to 30 people over a three year period? Can you give me an example of who we're helping in this situation? Homeowners versus renters. What we're doing with that money, it works out to be about $25,000 per person. If that's the goal, what are we getting for that?
113 So this is going to be leveraging our federal healthy home grant that we received back in 2023. We're hoping to assess homeowners who are 80% less ami area median income. We're looking at in terms of working with Portland, permitting and development under their program called empowered neighborhood. And so they have homes, household homeowners that they're working with that have code violations. And so we're working with them to resolve those code violations. Some of our grant programs that we have now are smaller amount. And so using a bigger dollar amount, we're able to successfully take care of some of those violations. For example, fixing a roof, fixing, fixing a plumbing, broken pipes and so forth.
114 Will those I mean, that sounds fantastic. And I know that there are especially a lot of older adults who are aging in place, who are having a hard time keeping up with repairs, low income families who simply cannot afford to replace their roofs. I'm worried, though, will any of these dollars be used to resolve fines that have been leveraged by the permitting bureaus?
115 These dollars are particularly for bricks and bricks for construction, not fines.
116 Okay, but if I'm a I'm a homeowner, I'm getting my new roof out of this. I assume that if I'm on the list for this program, that it's been a while and bureaucrats have been involved and know me on a first name basis, and probably there have been some fines or fees leveraged against that homeowner. Do we resolve those in some way with this program?
117 Yeah, I can yeah. Councilor donnell, for the record, I think in the case where you're describing where someone may have a fine because of a noncompliance or an ordinance issue, if we were working with the housing bureau to rectify that, we have, you know, forgiveness programs. I would want to speak absolutely on that. Of course, it's going to be case by case. In some instances. There's code violations that span a range of issues. But I do think the permitting development bureau is definitely a kinder permitting development bureau. And we're trying to be more supportive of our communities.
118 Great. Thank you. Okay.
119 Any other discussion from council? Okay. Again, this is an emergency ordinance and requires nine votes. Keelan could you please call the roll?
120 Avalos.
121 Thank you again. And I am very grateful to see the partnership with the state on the healthy homes bill. Obviously biased because I was part of that coalition. And I think that work to create more clean energy opportunities is critical. And I appreciate your partnership I vote I Dunphy, I Smith I connell.
122 Yeah. Thank you to you to the Oregon legislature for making the funding available to the Oregon health authority, because this doesn't change our bottom line as a city. And we're just taking the money we've already received in a grant and appropriating it. I think your argument makes sense on the emergency ordinance side. So I'm happy to vote. Yes. Thank you.
123 Ryan, I Koyama Lane I Morillo I Novick. I Clark, I Green, I Zimmerman I pirtle-guiney I motion passes.
124 Thank you to our guests and keelan. Could you please read the next item for us?
125 Adopt a supplemental budget for city council and mayor staffing.
126 As we sit here tonight, we are about to enter into a discussion about a budget adjustment. And I want to remind everybody that our council was not set up for success. And in fact, the former mayor brought forward a proposal for our council's staffing that went against the recommendations of his own transition team and the public. We were not set up to serve portlanders in the way that you, all the voters asked for in charter reform. We are not trying to solve the entirety of the budget problem that we have inherited, and we've heard the response from portlanders and the fear from our front line workers that this budget adjustment adds to an already very, very difficult budget conversation that we'll be facing over the next few months. I want to be clear that every single one of my colleagues that I've talked to about this proposal is committed to engaging in that broader budget process in a way that ensures the outcomes that best serve portlanders. We will prioritize protecting services that portlanders rely on and rightsize the administrative management. The piece of city leadership that received the most additional funding under mayor wheeler's implementation of the charter. Tonight, though, we are focused on right sizing our ability to do the work that portlanders are expecting from us under charter reform. I am looking forward to a robust conversation about this measure. I will point out, as I say, that, that this is the start of three hours and 40 minutes of agenda items that we have left on our agenda at 7:00. So I hope that we can have that robust conversation and also make sure to be as efficient with our time as possible. As we move forward. Are there any questions we'll get to comments and debate, but are there any questions about where we're starting from? From councilors? Go ahead, councilor Avalos.
127 Thank you, madam president. So as the my fellow councilors know, because I alerted them a few days ago, I was prepared to offer an amendment today that would reduce the overall ask to just one fte per council office and change the funding source to contingency for a total of 1.2 million. Partially, I was introducing planning to introduce this amendment due to my personal feelings and feelings that I've heard from other councilors and community members about the trade offs in the way that the proposal was originally written, and it was unclear at the time why we would need a lot of one time funds in order and spend them within five months. So those were some of the original reasons why I was considering this amendment. But however, it's come to my attention that we are planning to have a larger discussion, there are many various proposals on the table, so I just wanted to inform the body that I am not going to put the amendment forward at this moment, but I am prepared to offer that if that is what folks are desiring. Again, bringing it down to one staffer per office. So I just wanted to put that at the forefront as well, so that the community can respond to that as we begin this discussion. Thank you.
128 Thank you, councilor Avalos. Councilor Smith.
129 Madam president, I just want to say thank you for your courageous leadership at this time. Early in the in the process that you're willing to build an infrastructure to make sure that we're effective and that we can do the work of the people. I noted in your amendment that this would be coming from the city administrator's budget, but is this the time that we can add to take that from the contingency budget instead of the city administrator's budget?
130 We can absolutely consider an amendment to do that. I believe we have a fair amount of public testimony. Signed up, and I think, as folks have heard, hinted at, we have a number of councilors who have ideas about amendments to this proposal. So what I'd like to do, if it's okay with you, councilor Smith, is hear from the public. If there's any other clarifying questions from councilors, then hear from the public and then have a broader conversation about level of funding and space that we could get funding from.
131 Perfect. Thank you so much. Thank you.
132 Madam president. I think a few of us have hands up before we make that move, before we hear from the public.
133 Yes.
134 Okay. Councilor Green, thank you, madam president.
135 As we get into this discussion, I would encourage my colleagues not to think about this in terms of ftes, although that's a proxy. That's a good yardstick for measurement of dollars. But really this is about dollars that we can that we have the authority and really the obligation to manage that best fits our districts and our constituencies. So as we get into that, I would like to sort of offer that framing. Thanks.
136 Thank you, councilor Green, councilor Zimmermann, I'm hoping that perhaps you can describe where this funding package sits currently.
137 I think that we have been in an unfortunate few days where some bad misinformation was put out into the public sphere by an employee outside of their scope, and I think it's led to a lot of misunderstanding about what would be given up. And I have a feeling that a significant amount of testimony today will address that. And I think that if we can get in front of that, it will help alleviate some concerns that exist, probably within this room and online to shore up some time, because I'd like to do that. I'm certainly not happy with how some stuff came about, and I think that we're going to hear from that. So perhaps we spend a little bit more time before we just open it up.
138 Why don't we take comments from councilor Dunphy? And I believe I see councilor Smith back in the queue, and then councilor Zimmerman, I would be happy to run through what we have today and what some of the conversation has been that both led to the proposal before us, and perhaps some of what we've heard since then. Thank you, councilor Dunphy. Go right ahead.
139 Thank you, madam president. I just want to, before we begin this conversation, recognize that, you know, many of us in this body have had many years working in public service and recognize the specific demands that this job has. I spent five years working for late city commissioner Nick fish as a team of seven, and the job was the hardest job I've ever had until now. Today I am working as hard as I can with one staff member, and he is an amazing human being who's doing great work. But the work to act act adequately represent district one cannot be done by two people. It cannot be done from city hall and the work that is currently before us is simply not, is simply more than two people can ever handle. And it can. And we must meet the needs of what the voters actually put into place when we move towards a district representation. This current staffing arrangement does nothing to help deepen or nothing but deepen the inequities that have happened east of I-205. And so I am bullish in making sure that we can adequately meet the needs of the community and meet community where they are. And I'm looking forward to a more robust conversation with my colleagues.
140 Thank you, councilor Dunphy. Councilor Smith, thank you.
141 And I can just say ditto, ditto, ditto. We were at an east Portland action plan meeting the other night, and I had to get there a little late. And me and my staffer, my one staffer went. But as we were leaving, councilor Dunphy's staffer was still here in the office at 630. He could not come over to the meeting, but I had my staffer. So it's a trade off, and we're trying to figure out how to do more with less. And I think what you were talking about, councilor Zimmermann, that there was some talk about us taking money from the homeless Portland solutions. That is not where we're planning to take this money from, and we're going to have this conversation later. But the original request was out of the city administrator's budget, and this new money is going to be taken from the contingency pot of money. So that's where we can shore this up at.
142 Thank you, councilor Smith. So building off of councilor Smith's remarks and in response to councilor Zimmerman, what we have before us is a budget adjustment which would increase the appropriations to council offices by $4,318,424 amongst the 12 of us, and increased funding to the mayor's office by 269 $269,810. Offsetting that by a decrease in operating expenses from the city administrator's budget. There has been conversation not started by this council that one of the places that that cut could come from in the city administrator's office is a specific program, and I do want to clarify that I don't believe anybody on this council directed the city administrator to that program. In fact, we have been very specific that we trusted the city administrator to find the best cost savings available within his budget. We have since heard a number of suggestions on other places we could look for to pull those funds, if we wanted to ensure that we avoided taking money from specific programs, rather than leaving that choice up to the city administrator, one of which you heard councilor Smith refer to, which is the contingency. And part of the debate that I expect we'll be having is where those funds come from. There also has been some conversation about whether we are looking at a lump sum amount and if so, what the general amount is that a counselor might need for their office budget to be spent in probably different ways in different offices, because we all have different needs and priorities, or whether we should be talk about building up as to a specific amount of staff and specific line items. So that is also part of the debate that I expect we'll hear today as we invite up the public to comment. I do want to just put a bit of a finer point on that by saying there is a lot of debate to be had. We'd like to hear from you first to hear your concerns, but please know that there is much conversation still to be had before we hone in on a specific solution. This evening. So, councilor Smith, is that a legacy hand? Okay.
143 Great.
144 I believe we have a number of folks signed up for public testimony. Keelan, could you please call up our first testifiers? And if you are in the balcony and have signed up to testify, is this an okay time to have people start to make their way down? It is great, so please do that. If you're here to testify on this agenda item.
145 First up we have fred neil. Thank. Oh sure. Okay.
146 Welcome.
147 Good evening, madam president and councilors. Mayor, my name is fred neil and I'm the co-chair of the government transition advisory committee or the gtac. I'm here with my co-chair, jose guerrero jorgensen. The gtac serves as the primary advisory committee for the city's transition. The gtac agrees that the current staffing levels for city council are inadequate, and recommends sufficient staffing of both individual councilors and shared council operations to support effective legislative development and community engagement. The gtac has not considered staffing for the mayor and is not commenting on that portion of today's proposed ordinance. Early last year, the gtac sent a letter to the previous council arguing that the allocation of one staff per councilor, one shared administrative staff per council district and five shared council operations staff was insufficient to staff an effective legislative body. We've submitted that letter as written testimony. Our recommendation for increased council staffing is based on research of 15 peer cities, as well as our collective personal and professional expertise and that of city staff. Our research shows that portland's current staffing is one of the lowest per councilor Staffing levels among peer cities. Comparable cities average 2 to 4 staffers per councilor Furthermore, one staff per councilor is only half of what the previous council adopted in its organizational structural resolution over a year ago. Research also shows that portland's total combined staffing levels for a presiding officer shared legislative and operations staff is otherwise likewise among the lowest of peer cities.
148 Thank you.
149 Staffing must accommodate the basic functions of both individual councilors and the city council as a whole. In the new form of government, councilors need support for both legislative policy making and budgetary analysis and adoption. Now solely the council's responsibility. Furthermore, the new district based council must have the staff to support constituent service and community engagement within their districts. The gtac debated but ultimately decided against recommending a specific number of increased staff. Our primary point is that, based on research, no other city has this low of a level of staffing as Portland does. The gtac declined to weigh in on where the funding for additional staffing should be found. The city budget office outlined several strategies to the previous city council at a budget work session about how to fund these expenses, and we defer to the city budget office's expertise on that. The new government strives for more efficient and targeted service delivery and constituents. Expect participatory, participatory, accountable government through their cities. Councilors, we. Okay. We believe that to optimize your new roles, you need adequate support and funding, of course, and we strongly recommend that you do pass increased funding for the council. And since I do have a little bit of extra time, I will say not on this agenda, but I want to appreciate you all for this early in the process, making council meetings more accessible to everyone by having some meetings at night. That was also a recommendation. We appreciate you acting on that so early in the process. So thank you so much.
150 Thank you, thank you, thank you both for your comments. And thank you both for all the work you put into your recommendations. We appreciate that guidance as we move forward.
151 Next up we have terry harris.
152 Welcome. Thank you for being here with us.
153 I I'm terry harris from hillsdale. I am also a member of gtac. Those guys that just were up here did a great job. So I'm going to be super brief and let you get on with the business of the day. I did want to just emphasize that you have different categories of staffing, and you're only addressing one of those categories in what you're doing tonight. You have big problems in your other categories as well for your operations staff, your legislative staff, shared staff and staff. For the presiding officer of this body, just sort of to keep the legislative engine running, we just going to make that point that that's going to be still out there until you address it and you have committees coming up later here, too. I'm sorry I do that every time. You're going to talk about committees, the committees are going to need staffing in all of those areas. So I just emphasize that you're not done. This is a difficult thing you have to do that was just landed on your plate. It's not your fault. But governance is not an option you need you need the mechanisms to make it work. Thanks.
154 Thank you for being here and for your work on gtac. And thank you for that closing and that reminder.
155 Next up we have ervin syverson, followed by alan combs. Let's see. Alan combs. Okay. Yeah.
156 All right.
157 Thank you. President. Gurney and councilors. My name is alan combs. I'm a pronouns he him I'm a resident of district three. And I will start off by thanking the councilors or the leadership for making it clear that at least as of tonight, the Portland environmental management organization, pmo, and I guess some of the houseless services are not on the chop block. That said, I'm coming to you today to recommend that you not move forward with the proposal to add 15 full time equivalents or ftes. And I'd just like to point out a couple of things. So the when the charter reform commission put out their recommendations, they did not signal that the your city council would cost this much. They didn't really signal the need for 3 to 4 staff per councilor So when you say you need to do the work that the city wants, I agree you're all now seated and you need to do your work, but it's not really what portlanders expected when they approved charter reform, because the true cost of a 12 member council that's full time wasn't really ever communicated. And although I very much appreciate the work of gtac and I've supported their work as a citizen, and I think their recommendations on benchmarking were important and accurate, I don't think they really explore whether the comparable city councilors are all full time staff, like full time paid counselors like you all are. And so what I would just suggest for today is that maybe you propose some incremental funding to improve shared services. I heard councilor Avalos proposed maybe one additional staff per office. I think portlanders need to see you operate in a coordinated fashion in your districts, because right now, the idea that you have three councilors just simply running their little fiefdoms now with two staff at, you know, basically a budgetary cost of almost, you know, the round numbers, $1 million a person. Fte. Right. So at that level, this is a very high coverage cost for a decision making organization for a city of 640,000. And I don't think gtac would dispute that actually. So thank you.
158 Thank you for your comments and for being here today. Councilor zimmermann, we do have more public testimony.
159 I'm aware I would request just a moment to clarify. We clarified the pmo piece. Okay. I would say additional erroneous information that was in that terrible memo was the indication that all this money was just for a singular fte. And I think it has led a lot of us astray. And so I would apologize that that occurred. And so thinking of this in terms of overall numbers versus certainly I would not want out there that $1 million fte exists anywhere in the globe in this proposal. And I think that it's, again, misinformation.
160 All right. Is it a half a million then. Right. It's a lot of money and it's not what was originally advertised when the charter reform commission I'm not trying to debate.
161 I will clarify the piece.
162 You're clarifying what I just said. So I'm I'm responding, but thank you. Yeah.
163 I believe what councilor Zimmermann is referring to is that there were a few things discussed in a memo that went out, one of which was the total cost here, and one of which was a staffing number. And those two things didn't actually go together. The total number in this proposal was a round number for counselors to work within on potentially district offices, potentially constituent outreach, potentially staff some combination thereof. I believe we have a number of additional testifiers tonight.
164 We'll try ervin syverson. Ervin. Okay. Taylor boudreau. Taylor. David gray.
165 Yes. I'm here. Can you hear me?
166 We can hear you.
167 Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you this evening. My name is david gray. I live in the stadium neighborhood in district four. We all know that the city is projecting a shortfall of $27 million. We are now two weeks into your administration, and you're proposing to add 4.5 million to increase your staff for six months, according to the city's chief financial officer. To make these changes permanent would actually cost 12 million per year. That is almost half the shortfall right there. We hear you talking about government accountability, fiscal responsibility, shared sacrifice. And we are comparing that those words with the actions that you take. You've been in office two weeks. How could you possibly know that your staffing needs are a higher priority than the million other things that need to be prioritized? For example, our police force is one of the most understaffed in the country. $4.5 million would pay the salaries of 50 police officers, $12 million would fund 150 police salaries. Is increasing the city council staff more important than hiring police officers? Is it more important than cleaning the trash off our city streets? Is it more important than funding shelters, deflection centers, and neighborhood programs? In hard times, you make do you do more with less? More with less? I'm not saying that you don't need this money or that you wouldn't use it. Well, what I am saying is that you should not make this decision today. Please take the time to understand your own staffing needs within the broader context and make your case for this. Alongside all of the city's many competing priorities. You made a lot of promises and we look forward to actions on those things. But none of you made promises about increasing city council staff or spending more money on administration, bureaucracy and bloat. We voted for you. We are rooting for you. We appreciate you. Give us a reason to trust you. When you say that you believe in fiscal responsibility and shared sacrifice, give us a reason to believe in you. Take the time to figure out what the most pressing issues are and where the money is most needed. I urge you to vote no on this supplemental budget, budget, ordinance, ordinance, and I do want to thank you for making this happen in the evening. I think that is I agree with the person who said earlier that that's a very important thing and very much appreciated. Thank you, thank you, thank you, mr. Gray, for joining us this evening.
168 Thank you. Next up we have rob martino, followed by robert butler.
169 Good afternoon, councilors and mayor. My name is rob marciano. I am a city employee. I work in the Portland water bureau. I'm also the president of my union, afscme 189 and first vice president of the northwest Oregon labor council. I provided the clerk with written copies of testimony that I believe lori wimmer has sent me to deliver, that she may have also submitted online, and that provides some analysis of comparative legislative bodies that I will let you read for yourself. I don't need to read her words. You're entirely capable. It's regrettable that the prior city council failed to adequately staff this legislative body. As a unionist, I support the Portland city councilors union's demand for adequate staffing and resources to do the job our city has asked you to do. This is not a negotiation. Let's imagine for a minute in a break repair, I remove 30 yards of material, roughly two dump trucks, and as we make that main repair, I say, give me two more. Two trucks of rock and my supervisor says, you got one. Figure it out. I'm sorry that that's the position that our formal council, that our former council put you in. I support this, I support workers having the tools to do their jobs. I'm in a similar fight. You all know that I represent 1100 other city employees that are asking for a fair contract that will ensure 1100 people continue to deliver city services. I understand this is controversial and that you're asking for more money. Money that would make our council $1 million a month. And that's okay. It's what it costs for good governance. Let's find the money. Let's deliver the council Portland asks for and frankly, that we all deserve. Last night, our mediation in our contract fight ended abruptly after a mediated proposal that was anti-union, divisive, shortsighted and lazy. Simple things like a jail side premium for hazards experienced in that space, back pay and pay parity where the city is not in alignment with the state's pay equity laws. These are things that we have had to deliver numerous tort claims notices in order to help the city be the employer it thinks it is. I'm frankly a little surprised that your agents at the bargaining table have upstaged the motivation and the work and the organization and demonstration of my members last Thursday, but they have. I'm left assuming that they must have already delivered their notice and have found gainful employment elsewhere at the offensive nature of what was delivered last night. For you and I both to have what we need is about 3/16 of 1% of this city's budget. We can find that money, and I encourage you to have us all have a safe workplace. Thank you.
170 Thank you very much, mr. Martino. Thank you for your support and for sharing with us that experience.
171 Next up we have robert butler, followed by doctor dennis scollard.
172 I'm robert butler, Portland native. I. Actually have a the same feeling that we are jumping way ahead of ourselves with the analysis presented to us. And the analysis is that it's hard to even get straight what the numbers are listening to this group now, because I don't think we've had the communication or internal communication to bring this forward in, in the manner that the public is hoping for. And I'll remind you that back when this was on the ballot that we approved, we were approving something very experimental. And with the possibility that we are creating the best city council arrangement in the country, and also the possibility of the worst in the country. And there's a lot of people that left the city knowing that they think it's the worst. But we were promised that for $900,000 or maybe $9 million, which in itself for the budget of the city of Portland budget officers to even put something on the ballot with a range of something. Well, this will cost you from 900,000 to 9 million that we should even that should even be on the ballot for people to judiciously vote on. And now we have these numbers floating around here, which really scare me. And, and I can do the math that it's annualized. We're talking $12 million no matter how you cut it, and you hope it's perpetual and that we're being told this is the bare bones minimum, we have no idea how much we need. We just know we're buried. And what what is where do we end up? And I ask you, where do we start? How much have we spent so far on this so far? We were promised 9 million tops. We're way over that already. And we're talking about another 12 million. And so we're not ready for this. And we were promised good governance, but we were promised good governance for a price. And the price is a sham because we're way, way, way, way over that. And so better communication to the public. Where are we now? What have we spent? What has this cost and how can we be efficient in going forward before we make these rash decisions? Thank you.
173 Thank you for your comments and your time.
174 Next up we have doctor dennis scollard, followed by janice thompson.
175 I'm one of those Oregonians that read the article in the Oregonian about the budget shortfall. I'm sorry you guys are going through that. I think you all are really dedicated to doing a good job. By the way, a shout out to district three councilors. I hope I get to know you. We have in woodstock really faced some dire consequences with some of the homeless camps. I've had people defecate in my front of my property. A lot of needles around. Kids have been threatened. It's been really quite horrific. The one thing I'm going to end up saying is that our people that do the cleanup are phenomenal. They do a great job. You have great employees, and I think sometimes we don't recognize the wonderful job they do. Corinne is one of the people that's a coordinators for the homeless camp, and I can't tell you how many times that I've called her and she's taken in clean things up in a week later, woodstock looks much better. Please recognize them. So I'm one of those that also came down and saying, don't cut the program. That's so important for keeping our wonderful woodstock neighborhood clean. And thanks for all the hard work you're all doing. I'm really impressed with you. I've learned a lot tonight already from being here, and I'm under three minutes.
176 Thank you for that time back. And thank you for being here. And our apologies. My apologies that you and others didn't have the full information about what we were doing tonight to be able to know that we weren't looking at cutting those programs. But it's always good to hear that city staff are doing a wonderful job out there. We know that's the case, and we know that they also don't always get enough recognition.
177 That is really true. Thank you so much.
178 Absolutely. Next up we have janice thompson followed by bridge crane simka johnson.
179 I'm janice thompson testifying this evening is an individual who has been a close observer of the charter review and the implementation process related to some of the comments about cost. I just think the challenges of estimating the kind of transformational change long needed for over 100 years was basically impossible. So, you know, in terms of people saying, oh, it costs this much, or we were promised this, I would set that thought aside specifically on what's before you. I support adding one person per council office, that per councilor Office. I mean, that was not only what was originally proposed by the transition team, it was also consistently recommended, as you heard, by the gtac and their research. I don't support adding three positions to the mayor's budget that the current staffing level in that office is exactly what was recommended by the transition team. It was what was funded by the previous council that included the former mayor. So especially given budget constraints, this element of what's before you seems premature. Under the commission form of government, the mayor and commissioners had two full time jobs legislative and administrative. I think that contributed to the staff sizes in both of those offices. I think we need to stop comparing previous staffing levels to what we need in the future, because now each elected official has one job. You all have a huge, big, full time job legislatively, but at least you're not also trying to run bureaus and needing staff to help with that. The mayor has, you know, a whole new administrative branch which appropriately is now reached, you know, kind of moved into the modern era of municipal management with the city administrator and, and deputy over service areas. And so the administrative branch has grown, but it's grown with professional. Public sector managers, so that influence, I think that you just need to keep that in the back of your mind when you think about mayoral budget considerations. So looking ahead, you know, either retain I do think for the next budget year, you should probably either get to or retain like the two. Councilor to two staff per councilors. The current mayoral. I mean, there's just these budget constraints kind of moving into that. I do think that the emphasis, if anything, should be on adding staff capacity related to committees. Those are the people who, with policy experience, who are going to have institutional continuity and expertise development over time. And that's a real major priority.
180 Thank you so much for your testimony. We appreciate your time this evening.
181 French crane, simca johnson.
182 Thank you.
183 Holy catch 22. That person. You know, when I talked on the first item, there was no link to the slide presentation on this agenda item. I think we get two exhibits and a thing. They're not persuasive. If y'all are feeling understaffed, which I think is a very legitimate feeling. And if you're understaffed, you wouldn't be able to present what we need to see to rally and cheerlead for you, which is, hey, instead of just these two little lists of fte things, tell us what you do say. Our staff receives 27 emails per day, 270 emails per day, 34 phone calls, 340 phone calls. There's lots. I don't know if you've heard of this thing, but it's called an mba, a management. And so there are professionals who can prepare proposals that tell us about workloads and stuff like that. And maybe I missed it, but as you work to get the public to understand why you deserve more money than we paid the previous batch of city councilor Commissioners, I think it's a reasonable expectation for us to be like, we need to know what this money does, not just that it creates fte. As we had the little exchange here with mr. Zimmerman, the prior testimony, fte is sort of a meaningless thing. When we don't talk about base salary. The fte for the young 18 year old who works for the parks department is different than it is for a bureau director that gets like $300,000 a year. I think for the water bureau, I think is the highest paid one. So maybe we don't need the improved transparency and understanding. But since this whole budget item has been couched in a sense of public concern, maybe public outrage, I hope that you'll be able to pass something today and tell us how much more staffing each counselor will have, and it seems like we have a process problem of if it passes today, do we really know where the money comes from? Or does the city administrator have to report back later? Exactly what budget items have had to take the cut? So. But generally put both that information in front of us so we can support the understanding that the one staffer that you have is going to be run into the ground very quickly. Good to see you back, mr. Humphrey. When I go to see my primary care physician, there's a portrait of nick fish with others on the wall inside the prism care access. And when we talk more about permanent supportive housing, I know as he left this world, he was working very hard to make sure there would be a real thing, not a buzzword.
184 Thank you for those comments and for being here, and I hope that we can make the case to you and to all portlanders. What we have up on the agenda are some technical budget documents. Definitely not the persuasive case that we know that we need to make to portlanders that complaints testimony. Okay, with the completion of public testimony. Mr. Mayor, before we go into council comments and potential proposals of amendments here, did you want to just say a few words about the proposal that you have included?
185 Council president, it's going now. Some comments and testimony. Council president, vice president and council, I appreciate this opportunity. The experts on what is needed to pass legislation, respond to constituents and effectively lead the city of Portland are in this room. In fact, they are seated before me. City councilors are the experts on the staffing and resources you need to best serve our city. I don't have to tell you how consequential staffing decisions are. You're not just thinking of yourselves. You're setting a path and a precedent that may well be followed for years to come. Everyone has had a chance to do their homework. You've researched how peer cities have higher staffing per counselors than Portland. You've read the government transition advisory committee memo to memo to your predecessors, which stated that the current staffing level is, and I quote, not enough to run a city. You know, the budget constraints we're up against and the sacrifices must be shared. We've talked about it for many weeks. We've talked about it for many months, but most of all, you know, responding to constituents and legislating on the critical issues requires good people by your side. Our staff, past, present and future are the unsung heroes making possible the hard work we all signed up to do. I've asked myself the same difficult questions, and I request that the mayoral staff be cut down, not from 20 to 5, but from 20 to 8. My responsibilities remain largely the same as my predecessor, but my staffing does not yet reflect the realities of the job at hand. I want every portlander who reaches out to me to be heard, and I want them to know that they are being heard, and I want the same as you want. You can't put people first if you don't hear their voices, and if you don't have the resources to respond. And I want good people by my side to help me make the right decisions on issues that will impact the city, I care so deeply about. City administrator jordan and I are here to assist you. We're here to work with you to the best of our ability, and will support the decision that you make internally with our administration. Thank you. Thank you for this opportunity. Council president.
186 Thank you, mr. Mayor. We have a proposal before us. We also, I know, have each heard a lot from the community. And I know that some of you have had conversations with a few others and have mentioned to me that you might have changes that you'd like to make tonight. I think we have three categories of items that we're talking about. We have our staffing needs. We have the conversation about our in-district footprint, and we have the many other things that are needed, such as constituent outreach and the funds to be able to do the rest of our work. And I've heard from a few colleagues that they want to make sure that what we're talking about isn't specific fte, but that whole bucket of what we need to do, knowing that in some parts of the city that footprint is more important than in some parts of the city, that outreach or the staff to do so are more important. I would like to kind of open us up broadly. Now. I see a couple of folks with comment, and maybe we can start by just putting some ideas out there. I would like to invite up, because I think we will need them. Our fiscal staff, dca berry and our cfo, ruth levine and mike jordan. I may put you on notice that we may have some questions for you as well. As we move through this conversation. So we have staff here on hand who can help us as needed. Councilor Smith, would you like to kick us off?
187 Yes, madam president, as one of two councilors who have been an elected official before, like you all talked about earlier, Multnomah county is a legislative, a total legislative body, and they have three staffers, and they have some concerns about being understaffed, understanding that we do need to communicate with our district. I am a council person from district one, which is the furthest from the city of Portland and city hall. Our communities expected us to have district offices and to be able to communicate with them in a way that we have never been able to communicate before. Candace Avalos, Jamie Dunphy, Loretta Smith they virtually have more representation today than they have ever had in the history of Portland. Good government, good governance. It costs. You cannot create a city administrator's office with a bunch of infrastructure without putting infrastructure in your policy side. You cannot expect us to communicate with other offices if we have no one to communicate with my staffer, my one staffer who lives in my district, and he travels to work every single day, he is my communications press person. He is my policy director. He is my communications and constituent services director. He is also the person that drafts the resolutions that come before you, understanding that we know one of the top issues in this community is public safety and housing and homelessness. We're not suggesting to take money from either one of those places, but what we are suggesting is we have a $13.8 million contingency that we can actually take those funds out of that contingency fund, $4.6 million, to be able to fund us at the level that we need to be. That would also pay for some of those things, like offices and being able to like we went to the meeting the other night, the ipap meeting. They had food for people. They had daycare to watch the children while they had a government conversation. If we cannot communicate in a way that's meaningful. That's effective, and we're overworking the one staffer that we have, I'm afraid that my staffer is going to leave. I'm afraid that he's going to be so burnt out in the next month that he's going to leave. I can't afford for you to leave, elijah. I can't. And so for me, I have I have seen what it looks like when you can have good staff. And I want to make sure that Eric Zimmerman, who I worked with over at the county, can give you a example of what the day in the life of a city commissioner or county commissioner is. It is early in the morning and late into the night. Me and Jamie Dunphy were over in east Portland until about 9:00, and we talked to every last person until every person got their question answered. So I implore you all to really think about good, effective, good governance and understand that we are not trying to take the people's money or to expand our operating budget. This is money that's already in the queue and we will not, and I will not personally take money from Portland solutions or homeless or housing ever. But we do need some assistance.
188 Thank you, councilor Smith.
189 Councilor Dunphy, thank you, madam president. First and foremost, I want to uplift absolutely everything that my fellow district one colleague, councilor Smith, said. I want to be directly responsive to some of the testimony we've heard, and I want to be a little bit more directly responsive to the testimony we have heard broadly. I've heard tonight that the presentations were not made available online, that there were not clear memos explaining why what we are doing here tonight, and there was confusion around process. This is partially an example of the fact that we do not have the capacity to be able to think through the details, that we need to be able to think through, and it's embarrassing. It's embarrassing to know that the powerpoint presentation wasn't available online for people to know. It's embarrassing to know that I have been spending 40 plus hours a week here in city hall when I have my constituents in district one who are not coming to district, coming to city hall in order to seek grievance from their government. They are not seeing themselves in these this building. And so they do not show up. In response to the testimony from janice thompson, who it's lovely to see her. We don't have just one job. We did lose the executive function. The previous commissioners did have to have an executive function over bureaus. But we don't have that. But we do not have just one job. We have legislative responsibilities in this building. We have committee work, but we also have deep work that is necessary for our constituents to help try and make sure that government works for the people. And that does not happen necessarily. Just from this seat. We must bring government to district one, and I must be able to allow my one staffer to go to those communities where they are not seeing the results of government. And if you look at this last election, the voters overwhelmingly voted for change, but the voters in district one overwhelmingly did not vote. We have so much work to bring government to the people in my community. I simply cannot do I. If I am tied to this building for 40 hours plus per week. We must do better on communicating what we are doing and why we are doing it, and why the people who are in this audience and the people watching at home, and the hundreds of thousands of people who are not watching this procedure right now, should care about having good government. The number of emails, phone calls, and actions that I must make in a day is not less because there are 12 of us. I do not have one third of the work to my neighbors, because there are three of us representing my district, and the number of decisions that I must make is not fewer, simply because my salary is higher than the predecessors. We have to make these decisions. This is hard work and our city is in a moment of crisis. We are not choosing to sacrifice anything to address that crisis in order to try and do this. This is about us moving numbers around on a piece of paper, and we will do the work that we were sent here to do only if we are adequately staffed and able to appropriately and timely respond to that. So I'm eager to move this forward. And thank you all for your time.
190 Thank you, councilor Dunphy. Councilor Morillo.
191 Thank you, councilor Dunphy. You're such a great speaker. I'm not going to say anything as beautiful or impassioned as you just said right now. And councilor Smith as well. Thank you for your comments. I want to uplift what you guys have said, because it's true that district one has unique needs. As we're having this budget conversation, and I want to highlight that we're here to support you guys as well in that, that those people in outer east Portland deserve representation, deserve in district offices more than I would say anyone else. You know, I think we all want district offices for every district. But if a choice has to be made tonight, I feel very strongly that district one needs to be prioritized because of where you are and the outreach that's needed to be done. So I just want to say thank you for saying that and for fighting for your folks over there. I want to give a real life example about what our office work looks like, because I don't think it's very tangible to people. Back when I worked in in a council office, I did constituent services work, and there was a point where there were some big news stories coming out and council offices received 75,000 emails in a month about one topic, 75,000. And I was the lone person answering those emails. They did not all get answered, mind you, because it was physically not possible. But right now we have really been reduced so severely that it is impossible for us to address constituent needs. And that's the thing that's going to impact everyone the most. We have a shared constituent services person who also does the work of an executive assistant via scheduling, who also answers constituent emails, who also does admin work. That staffer themselves is already severely overstaffed. Anyone who does executive assistant work and scheduling for one city councilor Knows that that is a full time job, let alone doing it for three separate people. That means that your emails and your calls are not getting answered as quickly or as diligently as they need to be. That also means that you are having your questions answered by one person that represents the district and not your individual council members, and we have very different perspectives across our council districts as far as the things that we want to push, the things we want to do. So you're not getting as refined information about what each of your city council members wants to do, and that prevents you from being an effective organizer that prevents you from putting pressure on us as elected officials to get the outcomes that you want. That prevents us also from communicating to you what we're trying to push and getting your help. You know, maybe when I'm on a transportation committee, I'll want to call on the bike advocates to do something with me, but I need to be able to communicate that to you so that you can help us push those things. So I think that it has been framed as this, this desire to just boost our budgets. And that is not at all true. And that's not at all what I've seen from our colleagues. This is really a plea so that we can serve you as best as possible. And I just wanted to leave you with that one tangible example so that you know what's happening behind the scenes. You're also always able to look at people's calendars. They are publicly available online, so you can see what we're doing, who we're communicating with, how many meetings we have. And I would also note that anytime there's a blank spot on our calendars, I see everybody running around back and forth having negotiations, discussions. There is no free time. There's not a spare moment to breathe. You're lucky if you get a chance to eat. So we want to do the work for you, and I hope that, you know, we'll make a diligent budget decision and I'll have some questions to ask on the budget as well. But that's the lens that I will be approaching this from. Thank you.
192 Thank you, councilor.
193 Councilor Green, thank you, madam president. I'm not going to kind of reproduce the comments that my councilors have made about the being available for constituency services or the kind of shared, you know, kind of the model of a shared staff and how burdensome that is. I'm going to speak to the economic question because I think that's why I was elected, because I have a certain expertise in that. I did hear a lot of concern from the public about fiscal responsibility and this, this idea that, you know, we are in a very tight budgetary year. And that's no question. I have no dispute with that. But just for context, we have something like an $8.2 billion adopted budget, maybe like six and a half, 6.3 net of intergovernmental transfers. It's a very large budget for a city the size of Portland. And so I entered this task with this idea that city council needs to have the independent capacity to look at that budget ourselves proactively, and then ask the very hard questions about what decisions do we make today that will have long term fiscal impacts tomorrow, for example, last city council approved six new tif districts. Okay, that's six new tax increment financing districts, which will have long run budgetary impacts to our city's general revenue. That may or may not have been a good idea. I'm not here to litigate that right now, but what I am saying is, if we are in a position where we don't have time to do our independent thinking with our staff to say, you know, what is the cost benefit proposition here? And what are the what are the costs down the road that we haven't considered, then we're always going to be sort of in a reactive mode where we have to sort of say, well, I guess we have to choose between 1 or 2 options that the administration has presented with us, which again, may or may may be the right choices, but we'll never know if we don't have that capacity. And so I have that skill set. Many of my colleagues have that skill set. So it's not really a good use of my time if I'm, you know, doing things that I could hire staff to do as well. And that's the first thing an economist will tell you is, you know, you know, why fix your toilet when you can hire someone to, to do it for you? Because, you know, your opportunity cost is so high. Anyway, I'll leave that there. I'll finish by saying that we were elected to do a robust constituent services and committee work, and specifically if we want the budget ultimately to reflect the policy priorities of our community, we have to have the time and the resources to bring those folks into this, these chambers, into our meeting places where we do committee work to inform that that that work that will then ultimately determine a budget. Thank you.
194 Thank you, councilor. Councilor Avalos, thank you.
195 A couple of notes, and I want to echo everything that my fellow counselors have said. I think it's important to remember that in the old commissioner System, the commissioners were really buried in bureaucracy and administration, which was actually what was leading to the extreme dissatisfaction of the people with their lack of accessibility, their lack of constituent services. So that means that even though our roles do not include those specific duties, it does not equal a vacuum of duties. In fact, I would argue we have way expanded duties. And in this new form of government, portlanders are asking for representation, engagement and access. And as councilor Smith has said, good governance costs money, and it's important that we make smart decisions about how to spend our money and understand that spending money for the people, this is us spending money for the people. It's not for us. I am prepared today as we continue to discuss this, to support a package that could provide a stopgap for the rest of this fiscal year, understanding that we will need to continue this larger discussion during the budget process. And hopefully that could inform, you know, over the next few months what really we are going to need in a future staffing model. But I just wanted to signal that I would like us to move towards, at a minimum, adding another staffer I know definitely agree with commissioner, with councilors that my staffer is incredibly stretched. And it's, you know, I and I'm stretched. Frankly, I'm overwhelmed by the inbox and all of the requests. And so it's not just the staffer, it's also us as councilors that are feeling stretched by our responsibilities. And having more staff is going to help us reach the people. Thank you.
196 Councilor zimmermann. Thank you.
197 I have been a chief of staff in two political offices that were district representatives, one in as far east as Multnomah county can get, and one directly across the river. I've worked in this mayor's office. I've been a deputy city manager, sitting in that seat in two other cities. In any courtroom, I think I would qualify as an expert witness. And it is a question about the staffing that I posed to everybody who ran for council president. If they'd be willing to put what is a difficult measure forward, because I think it's part of the role of the president, is that there's going to be some difficult things. And I think that the president sits in a role to be able to do it. And I asked each of you that, and you all were willing to engage in this, and I appreciate it. And so to you, madam president, I do appreciate that you've brought this forward. I think it's been deliberate. I think it's been well thought out. I think the prorated factors are important. I so my concerns come overall for the staffing and the effectiveness of this council. I have concerns about the president's role, but I'm willing to address those later in the in the budget form that that councilor Avalos speaks of having been in the mayor's office in previous administrations. I have concern around the mayor's capacity in an organization that turns in $200 million a year at the end of the year of unspent dollars as 800 plus vacancies right now. I think that in this consolidation and this movement to this new government, that no consolidation occurred in any part of this city except in the two areas of oversight, the publicly elected areas in the mayor's office and in and on this council. And we are the ones who represent the public. The mayor represents the entire city. I represent a district. I don't know who oversights, who has oversight, and who has enforcement to ever talk about $200 million of unspent funds every year and 800 vacancies every year? If we were the ones who were consolidated, I think that was deliberate. I think it was bad planning. I think in December, the reason I asked all the council presidents about a staffing package is because as an expert witness, I knew that we had been kneecapped. I feel very strongly about that, and it has been a history over this transition of small moves that have added to a major cut. And I think that's the problem here. And so in a body that took nine votes to find a council president, I'm warmed by the fact that across the comments around this dais is that there's general support. I don't know what the final number will be, but there is general support. And we have a model at the across the river with our Multnomah county commissioners, who are district representatives who they're not told by, by the organization. You can hire this many fte, you can have this kind of office. They are given a fund. That fund is the responsibility of that chief of staff and that commissioner to not bust through it, to spend it wisely, to spend it legally. And you're accountable then to your districts, to your voters on how well you spent that money, if you did or if you didn't, but you can't go over it. I think that's important. I think we need to move that direction. I think that the way in which I have heard all 12 of us talk about how we're going to spend time in our district is amazing. I think that's what's going to make this transition of government survive, because protecting this form of government, protecting the districts, protecting the fact that the council has oversight and representative, we are the representatives of the public. The city administrator is a great professional, but at the end of the day, he's an organizational professional, an organizational representative. And we the other 13 electeds up here, are the representatives of the public to do that. Well, I think each of you should have the ability to bring on staff that you think complements your skills. I certainly need to bring on some staff that complement my skills to do this job at the highest peak that I can, to go from Sellwood to the northwest industrial area to downtown. I don't want to focus too much on what I think has happened previously, but this is the right action to move forward. I'm ready for the rest of the discussion, but I will move for the vote as soon as possible.
198 Thank you, councilor, and thank you for the note on time. Councilor Kanal.
199 Thank you, madam president. First I want to say I agree with you, madam president, that we were not set up for success. I think your problem statement is accurate. I'm prepared to help find a solution collectively to it. I got a couple big picture notes and I think when we get into more on this, I have some some specific ideas as well. I disagree with some of the framing that's been presented here. This proposal is not about me or my staff or about anybody else up here. This is about you portlanders watching at home and watching in this room and the government that you deserve. The testimony earlier was correct. None of us ran specifically on increasing council staffing, but I think a lot of us talked about good governance as we ran. I personally said that being a city that works, that's our city slogan, requires being a city that listens and that you deserve a government that listens to you. You are entitled to be heard and you have a right to see your policy priorities reflected in city policy. And we can't do that if we can't be in five places at once, if we can't respond to all the emails coming in, if we can't meet with you and listen to you and build solutions to your problems and have the time to check them with attorneys, to run them by our colleagues and get an idea of what that's going to look like before it gets here. So that's that's, I think, what this is about. And I want to keep that in the front of my mind, that the people that I'm here to worry about are not in this building, but there are 155,000 people in district two. I am going to support district offices in the long run, beginning with district one. I think district two is just behind. I'd prefer to look at citing for those offices as the as the goal for this fiscal yea, and seek funding for the ongoing expenses in the future, but I'd be very happy to see district one go first on that. I think that makes sense. I support a small number of additional shared staff, solely the ones that provide staffing to committees and the legislative support there. And then just one other note, fiscal responsibility is a core value, and I believe in it strongly. It does not only mean less spending, it does often mean that it also means better spending. And that means spending on our highest priorities and not on lower priorities like out of state contractors that we pay to think for us. I have a specific contract in mind, just one that would cover one third of this if we if we were to terminate it. And there are hundreds of those contracts around the city. And this is not an either or with labor either. And I really want to thank rob martineau and lori wimmer for making that clear. And I'll stop here and get into the specifics as this progresses. Thank you.
200 Thank you. Councilor Kanal councilor Smith.
201 Madam president, I would like to suggest that you change the language on your current ordinance and change it from the city administrator's budget to the contingency budget to allow us to restore funding to the 2324 levels of the city council, because we have certainly been defunded. And in this marginalized position, it has put us in a space where we can't plan properly. If we take a vote on this, and if we can get nine votes to make this an emergency, we can act fairly quickly. So I move that we add those changes and take a vote at.
202 With permission.
203 Councilor Ryan is in the queue and has not had a chance to comment. Could I ask you to withdraw your motion to allow him to comment, and then we'll come back to you to oppose that motion?
204 Yes.
205 Thank you. Thank you, councilor Ryan.
206 Gee, this better be good. This is really awkward because I've been in this conversation now three times. Last spring when we had the big budget conversation and all of you, as my witness know, I was speaking. I feel very supported right now. Unlike last spring. And there was one other commissioner That had empathy for adding more staffing. And. But when you vote on the big budget, as we all know, you don't get everything you want. And this was at the top of my indigestion. But it went on. And then all of you started running for office. And you must have thought, gee, this is going to be fun with one staffer. And then and then the bump came along. That's the fall bump. And as jonas knows, I tried really hard to get the carryover money. The money that was not spent by commissioners offices in 23, 24, and the money that was not spent in the first six months to carry over. I felt really good about that one, but that also got blocked by three of my colleagues. So here I am, wanting to jump up and down on one hand, but also saying, whoa, this is a little much. So I'm going to pause and say that I've always been aligned with the g tax minimum recommendation of two staffers per counselor at this time, and I do think we need to take time to see how this overlapping staffing works out. I don't know what I don't know yet. The committee meetings haven't started. I haven't experienced what it's like to share the staffing in that more tangible level. I have noticed that all of the people who are doing our calendaring are working really hard, and they're they're nonverbal. Over this past week really dramatically changed with all four of them. So I can tell you that those jobs are too much for one person. And I do know that the constant complaint was there was there's not enough constituent services. So I do think the combination of legislative work and constituent services is really big. And I'm grateful that we're not doing the executive oversight. And that did require at least 2 or 3 more staff members. So I do have a little bit of pushback. In all due respect, councilor Smith, to restore to the exact same levels, because I do think that apple and orange is there. So if you could follow that, that's my way of saying that I'm supportive of stopgap to get through this year, to experience the next couple of months so that we come into the new year with in the budget process with more clarity. I also really appreciate councilor Smith's going to the contingency, as jonas knows, that's what we're trying to do in the fall budget process. And I got way off my notes, as you could probably tell, but I wanted to make sure that I covered as much as this as possible. And that's all you get at 809. All right. Thanks.
207 I councilor Novick is up in the queue for the first time, and then we're going to go back to councilor Smith.
208 So I'm not going to be a vote for this package, because I don't feel I know enough to take an informed vote. I totally understand everything my colleagues have said. When I first saw that we were going to get one staff person, I was shocked and I quickly looked around and saw, well, in denver they have three and in seattle they have three, and in san francisco they have three. And I didn't see how we could do this work with one staff person, but I asked my one staff guy yesterday, do you feel totally snowed under yet? And he said, not yet. Now, I suspect that's because people in our district aren't making too many demands on me because they figure, well, Novick is an old guy. What can we really expect? So I think other people have gotten more requests, but I mean, so I don't really know yet how much more help my office will need. I don't know how much the committee offices will need. And I also don't feel like I know enough about where the money would come from. If it were ten years ago, I would say, well, we can get some of the money by cutting them out of patrol, which I always thought was rather ornamental and could be cut. But now there is no amount of patrol, so I can't say that it may be that there's fat in the administrator's budget, but I don't know yet what that fat is. And I also know that we are going to be facing millions and millions of dollars in cuts in the overall budget, which mostly goes to police, fire, parks and housing, homeless services. So I just feel like I can't support this package until I have a better sense of what our internal needs are and a better sense of the other budget issues we're facing. I would support immediately adding a couple of staff, and I would say more than one to the council president's office, because I don't see how you can ask a council president to go toe to toe with the mayor with one person. And I would expect I would support adding a couple of folks to the mayor's office, because I don't know how you can be mayor of a big city with just five people. And I would support, as a couple of other colleagues have said, adding a district office and district one. So I don't think I'm going to get support for this, like slimmed down proposal. But I would I could support that. And having it come from contingency because I don't know at this point where else to take it from. But so I just wanted to again, I don't expect to I'm not offering a motion because I don't expect that to a huge amount of agreement, but I just wanted to let people know where I am.
209 Councilor Clark, have you had an opportunity to speak?
210 I didn't think so, no, I haven't, thank you. Go right ahead, madam president. Well, I really hesitate to say anything because I think I'm going to start whining and apologizing to all the people who are emailing, asking for meetings that we can't keep up with. And I didn't want to whine. I think everybody's been very articulate. I don't have a lot to add, but just to say that it's impossible, it's absolutely impossible to do what we're expected to do as the people's branch of government. It. I'm very supportive and appreciative of what you put forward here, and I will vote for it. To be clear, I think I whined a little bit last week about the committees because I thought there were so many committees I could not see how we would ever be able to be effective and spread ourselves so thin, which is another argument for having additional staff. I think I mentioned that we don't have a legislative research, we don't have a legislative fiscal. There are lots of things. Legislative council, there are a lot of things that we don't have, and we're about to make committee assignments tonight, and some of us are on four committees. How is this going to be possible without additional help? I don't know. Constituent relations, serving as a chair or vice chair or just a member of a committee, and then providing the kind of oversight that we're expected to provide over the city. It's impossible without additional help. So I'm sorry, I'm whining, but I to all those people that are emailing that I haven't responded to the phone calls, the requests for meetings, I'm really sorry. We'll get to it eventually. Thank you. Hopefully quite soon.
211 I see a number of other people in the queue, but I did promise that once everybody had an opportunity to speak, we would get back to councilor Smith and councilor Smith. You put forward.
212 A motion. Motion? Yes.
213 And your motion had two parts amending the current proposal to pull funds from the contingency fund, as opposed to pulling funds from the city administrator's office. You also talked about restoring to 23, 24 budgets. And I believe that's the number that we are working off of already, kind of sorta.
214 It's a little under that, but I just in general, it is restoration back to those numbers. But what you put forward, I would urge my colleagues to support and with the change of having the money come from contingency instead of the city administrator's office, I think that we, you know, I don't know if we could get nine votes to do this as an emergency, but I think it is so important and it's critical that we get started. People have an expectation that we're going to be up to speed right now, and I think it's very egregious to expect us not to expect the best from our own staffs, and not to treat them as if they are expendable because they're not. And as we listen to folks and I also want to thank rob martineau, that was a big, huge step for the president of afscme. I don't know if you all know about this. For him to come up here in budget negotiations to say that he supports what we're talking about, that's a big deal. And I see us moving closer together when we can see each other's. What we're trying to do. And so I thank you, rob, for your support. And I would just like to say that if we could put something to a vote, we've we've probably we've we've talked about this and as commissioner Clark said, councilor Clark, that we will seem like we're whining, but I just want us to take a vote. Let's see where we're at.
215 So I think there are two separate things. There is the potential for you to make a motion to amend the ordinance to section two.
216 No. Yes. One in a I'm sorry, a1, a1, a1 to hold the funding from contingency.
217 Yes. The 13.8 million.
218 Why don't you make that motion first and then we can speak to the broader proposal.
219 Okay.
220 Perfect. I propose that we change this from the city administrator's budget to the contingency budget. And I think we all would have stomach for taking that from that, that pot of money. And do we take that vote first?
221 We need a second.
222 Second.
223 Okay. Is there any discussion. And we do have our cfo here. If there are any technical questions. Any discussion.
224 Counselor Zimmerman, I am thank you. I am a protector of the contingency. I think they're important. I've been at places where they've had to be used. And when I look at it in the time left in this fiscal year, I think this is the right move. So full support.
225 Any other discussion?
226 Just clarification. So this is right now just to approve councilor Smith's amendment to have it come from contingency.
227 Correct. A1 currently says decreased bureau operating expenses in the city administrator's office by $4,588,234. To balance, I believe that the technical language would be decreased. The contingency fund by $4,588,234 to balance. Is that correct?
228 Yes.
229 So sorry, ruth levine, I'm the budget director. Jonas berry, the cfo, had another commitment that he had to leave for. But the I would say so if you're keeping the amount the same, all you need to change is that language that's currently says city administrator to say general fund contingency. So you could amend it to strike it and do decrease general fund contingency by the number. Only. Is that right?
230 Yes, I think it's clear. And the clerk has it. Yes. Okay.
231 Yeah. Question.
232 Counselor Zimmerman, were you for okay.
233 Larger comments I got it, counselor.
234 Ryan. Yes.
235 Thank you, madam president. Ruth, good to see you. I wanted to make sure that I just heard because we had this conversation not long ago, and it was a much smaller amount, and it was voted down because we couldn't justify taking it out of contingency. Could you tell me a little bit more about what that really means?
236 About what taking it out, what this really means?
237 Like what? What will what are the consequences?
238 Yeah, sure.
239 So budget person, you have opinions on this.
240 Yeah.
241 Yeah sure. Happy to. So the general fund contingency is set by council every year. And in typically it's been done in the fall bump. And so that's what we have this year. And it includes a couple of different accounts within it. There is what's called a policy set aside account. There's unrestricted contingency. And then there's capital set aside. At least those are the buckets we have allocated this year. The unrestricted contingency we generally set at $3 million per year. And at this point in the fiscal year, I would avoid against using it, given the things that we may face in the rest of the fiscal year. We just need that. It's not not a big buffer. And so the remainder of it of it is you're looking at policy set aside and capital set aside based on what's currently in there. And so this year, in the fall bump the there's a number of line items which I don't have a slide of right now, but I could get you of what is in policy set aside and what is in capital. Set aside the conversation. Counselor Ryan in the fall bump was around, sort of reducing some of the capital set aside amounts. I would say the reason that was the conversation then is because I would say they are the most flexible in that there would be no current year impact to. Reducing those amounts. It really is there to help the council with balancing the 2526 budget. So that is still kind of the most flexible pot of money. And, you know, that's that's frankly anywhere in the general fund at this point in the fiscal year. So that is probably what you would be looking at again, is reducing that capital set aside account.
242 Does that answer your question? I recall it was a number that was around 400 k or what was the number that I believe that you had put forward was in that ballpark.
243 I can't remember exactly what it was at that time. That was it was a 400 k that was not spent by the commissioner's office this year. That's right.
244 Yes. And we couldn't that went into the capital contingency. Yes.
245 That's correct.
246 And that and we voted that down 3 to 2. That's right. President, president pirtle-guiney may I just had to do a little bit of history for you all.
247 I just want to make sure, because this is the budget we're having to balance things. I want to make sure. Do we need to amend any of the exhibits or add additional exhibits in order to effectuate commission? Councilor smith's?
248 Yes. Thank you. Thanks. Linly. Yes we do. So the amendment that you're putting forward just I just need to add update exhibit one to reflect this change.
249 I suspect we will have conversation about additional amendments. Legally. Can we vote on this amendment without those exhibits being updated, so long as those exhibits are updated before we vote on the full resolution?
250 Yes. And I think ruth and I anticipate that once we have a sense of what all the amendments are, we're going to ask for a short recess in order to allow her to amend the exhibits, because those need to be complete for you to amend them and vote on the whole package.
251 I suspect when we're done with this portion, we will all need a recess. And I recognize that we have a number of bureau staff here and guests for things later in the agenda. I apologize. We are required to take up budget items first, which is why we are doing this this early in the agenda, despite knowing that we have guests here. Councilor Avalos, are you speaking to the motion?
252 Yes, a question. Yes.
253 A question is my question is can you project project how much will be added to the contingency pot for fy 26? In other words, do you expect that the dollars we potentially use for this resolution would be replenished in the next budget?
254 So I, I can't project today what will be in the contingency pot in in the fall of essentially we allocate that in the fall. So that would be normally let's say October of 2025. So I can't project what that looks like today. It's just too early in the fiscal year to really have any confidence in that. That being said, I think. There are sort of leverage points to increase the amount of underspending in the current fiscal year, if that's what you're getting at. So, I mean, I think that's more a question for the city administrator than for me. But there I mean, I think there's sort of there are a number of reasons. There are a number of ways that we build contingency. One is there's a certain amount of underspending that you want every year. It's actually in the general fund. It's not that big, but you wouldn't want to be spending up to your limit because you'd be in trouble. Another is sort of, I guess, true. Underspending vacancy savings, external materials and services, underspending and the like. So I think that is the place where there's room to sort of reduce those spending categories in the current fiscal year, and that would increase your contingency. And by, by sort of April, may, we will by the time you all are taking up the approved budget, we will have a better sense of what the what we call the ending fund balance for the current fiscal year will look like. So, you know, between now and then we'll get a little bit of a lens on that.
255 Does that help? Thank you.
256 Counselor Smith.
257 Is this to the motion?
258 Yes, to the motion. And, madam president, thank you so much. And I want to go back to what you the question was asked about 2526. And under Oregon budget law, we can't talk about budgeting for 2526 while we're in 2425, because the idea is that everything that we are operating budget is supposed to be spent to the penny. But the real reality is, like counselor Zimmerman said, we've been bringing over $200 million for the last four years that I've seen of underspending. So if history repeated itself, even in times of cutting, that it would suggest that we would have more money to bring over this 25, 26 year. But we can't talk about 2526 while we're in 24 or 25.
259 So a couple of things just to clarify the sort of true general fund underspending this year was like 24 million. So I'm not entirely sure where the $200 million number is coming from. But we happy to talk about the carryover from unused ftes, the beginning capital that we started with this year was $200 million. That probably includes like fund balance for things like PCEF and the water and the sewer funds. So happy to talk about that more offline. But yeah, the true general fund underspending is like 20 to $25 million.
260 Right. And we're talking about restricted funds versus general funding. But I'd like to get to this point and let's take a vote on whether or not we want to take this from the contingency or not.
261 I believe we have one more comment before we get to a vote. Oh, councilor Green, do you want to.
262 Okay, I just want to make a comment for my colleagues. So when you're at the beginning of a fiscal year and you were forecasting, you have a lot of uncertainty. And so it's really important to kind of keep your contingency balance unencumbered at the beginning. But as you move through time and you get closer to the end of your budgeting period, your uncertainty and the variation in risk gets narrower. We are very close. We're five months away from the end of the fiscal year, and so I feel very comfortable using that contingency set aside, because this is one time money for this fiscal year, right. Because that's the allowable use for that fund. So that's that's what I would offer to my colleagues.
263 Is that a legacy hand? Councilor Avalos.
264 Okay.
265 Any other comments before we have the clerk take roll on the motion? Okay. Councilor Morillo.
266 Oh no, I did the same thing. Okay.
267 Keelan could you please take a vote on this?
268 I Dunphy, I Smith I canal I Ryan, I Koyama Lane I Morillo.
269 I Novick I Clark I Green I Zimmerman I pirtle-guiney I. Thank. I.
270 That. Motion.
271 I know that councilor Smith has expressed interest in another motion. I also have heard from a number of colleagues pieces of proposals. Councilor Zimmerman, you have your hand raised.
272 Yeah. This is a plea to councilor Novick. So I hear you loud and clear, I really do. And I'm also hearing district one councilors loud and clear. I think that coming into office and throughout the last year, I heard a lot in the community at different times about having council or geographic based offices. And for me, being the person who represents this real estate, that was never really a big, important thing to me. And so I didn't spend more than two brain cells on that ever. And then I heard from all three of you, and I heard loud and clear. And then I heard from the other districts on that importance, and I and I, I'm going to support that in that. I think that y'all need some space to figure out what that looks like. And what I would say, councilor Novick, is that you might not be ready to make a staffing change yet, but I hope that we can support this, because if you're not ready or any one of the 12 of us is not ready to execute that, then I think you can turn it back in. And I think that's fine. But for those that are ready and those that have a bigger ask, and for district one in east Portland and I've, I've said I, I think a nod from district four occasionally is going to be an important part of this body. That would be my ask. And because I, I am trying to defer to what I think will be a better form of government for you all to hire up and staff up in that district differently maybe, than I will. And so for that reason, I hope that whatever ends up being the package, that we can all support that.
273 I have councilor Avalos.
274 I guess I would pose to the group. Maybe it would be helpful. It would be helpful for me to understand what are people's comfortable comfortability. Is that a word? I don't know if that is on what level we they would want to fund. And I would argue, I mean, also want to appreciate what everybody has said about supporting district one. I think that really speaks to the important nature of having districts, but also understanding the shared impact on portlanders and knowing that east Portland deserves more right now. So I appreciate that. I wonder if we could maybe separate those asks, because I'm hearing, at least right now, that other districts aren't eager to go into talking about getting funding for district offices. But we like that district one could have that. So I would maybe ask that those be two separate things. So this is a little bit of a process question, but my original question would be helpful if we could maybe if I could get a sense of what people's thresholds are, also because then I could maybe propose another amendment for a number of hands going up.
275 I also want to recognize that we are coming up on the time we had set aside for this in the agenda. We can blow through that, and that's okay. But if we all speak to every question, I think we're going to blow through that toward a long night. Councilor Avalos, does it make sense for what you're asking to separate out a few of the things that we've heard, which is 1 or 2 more staff each district offices in district one versus all districts, some additional shared staff, either within council operations to do our policy analyst work, council, president's office. Any other proposals around shared staff that folks have and think about all of those separately. Is that what you're asking for?
276 Maybe not necessarily that they all be separate. I guess I was just trying to get a sense, because it sounds like we want to move towards something and it's maybe would need to be an amendment unless everybody is supportive of the current 4 million et-cetera amount. So okay, I'm seeing some head nods. I just wanted to get a sense on if people were open to another proposal in cost. So. But I do think that the district office maybe could be a separate item. I don't think it needs to be separate from the other three that you mentioned.
277 Yeah.
278 Councilor I see councilor Zimmermann's hand up next.
279 I just want to answer directly. Right. I appreciate the question. So I support the package as it stands. And I've said it very clearly. I'll say it again, clearly. I think that that number is important to go to each councilor and that that those folks are the ones who make decisions on those individual things. Councilor Avalos so I wouldn't be in favor of breaking it out, because I think that's on your responsibility and on my responsibility. So that's where I'm at. I'm at the full 4.3 or 5. And I, I think that the area that I feel like I'm giving up some compromise right now is on the is on putting some council president assigned staff. So it's not her personal staff, but it's the office's staff. I think that's incredibly important moving forward. But I recognize that maybe that would be a later action. And in this one, it's just for these and for the mayor's. So that's where I'm at. I support the full package currently.
280 Councilor Kanal I support the full package as it's written right now as well. I do want to just note, I, I think district my comments about district one going first. Are they all I stick to all of them. District two does need a district office. I think that we should take a little time to get that scaled up and find a site and get that ready to go, so that in our 2526 budget, we have the money for the ongoing expenses. And I think, I think it can wait that long. I don't know that I'd want to wait that long for d1, but I think the people and, you know, this is maybe unique to district two in my interest here. And I've said publicly, I hope we have a district office for district two in historic albina, which is both the geographic and cultural heart of district two. And I also know that a lot of the folks who come to worship come play, come go to school, come hang out and visit their their grandparents and their aunties and uncles in in district two in albina currently live in d1. And so I think that there is a connection there to, to this work. So I don't want to have it be misunderstood that it's not a priority. I do prioritize it very highly. I think in terms of which budget cycle it ends up in is how I'm approaching d2. But I just wanted to clarify that I do support the package as is.
281 Councilor Smith.
282 Madam president, I do support your package as is and as probably the only grandmother here. It is so hard for me to. I'm touched by you all. Support for district one, I really am, but it's so hard for me to accept something that a different package than everybody else. So I think that if we're going to take something, y'all, we need to take it together. In what the president has put forward and everybody, they figure out what they want to do with their own budgets. But I am so I am so very touched by by you all's understanding of what district one is. And let's see if we can take that vote.
283 Councilor Smith, is that a motion or should we continue it as a motion comment?
284 No comments. Oh I'm sorry.
285 Can't say no comments, but if that's the case, then I need you to make a motion.
Procedural episode · turns 286–294
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286 I'd like to make a motion to support your ordinance as is, as amended.
287 So I don't think we need. I don't want to interrupt, but we don't need a motion because that's the ordinance that you have on the table. So I think we can just call the vote. You can you maybe if you're wanting to get a like a sense of the council that that's the way, the way they want to go and don't want to make other motions that might be appropriate.
288 Well, I would want to make this motion and let's see how this goes. And we may not need another motion.
289 If we don't need a motion.
290 There's a motion on the floor. And I call the question for point of information.
291 Can I ask a question?
292 Hold on. You're calling the question on the resolution as amended. Yes. Okay. Let's take the point of information and then we will continue discussion in the queue.
293 My understanding is that this is not currently an emergency ordinance. Do we need to add a can we vote on this without doing that.
294 So there there are two things that and again step in. If I'm if I'm overstepping right now two things that need to happen. Answer your question. First. There is not an emergency clause. One would need to be added. So yes to the budget officer needs to amend an exhibit before you can take a vote on the ordinance as it stands, and we would need a short break to do that. So if the answer is there are no further amendments. We like the ordinance as it was amended to change to general contingency. We would go make those changes. We would show them on the screen and then it would be appropriate. Do you want to make add an emergency clause? I think is the question.
295 Let's do this. Gretta wants to get to a vote on what we have. We may need we may have interest in an emergency clause. I'll point out that without that emergency clause, we come back and vote in two weeks, and then we have 30 days before implementation. So for anybody who is looking to hire staff before the next six weeks, we may want an emergency clause.
296 Sorry, I think sorry just on that. I think it's a budget ordinance. So it takes effect immediately, immediately, even if it's not an emergency.
297 Okay, okay. Thank you. I see the attorneys, but it is it is a delay. There it is a delay there. What I would like to do to get a sense of where we are at, since we need to take a break before we can actually vote, is to ask that if you are going to. If you were hoping to offer further amendment aside from an emergency clause, can you put yourself in the queue so that we can hear what the other proposals are? Let's get all of the proposals on the table. Let's figure out what we want to vote on. If we want to add an emergency clause, and then take a break so that we can actually have things on the screen to look at that work for folks. Okay. Councilor Ryan.
298 Yes. And I'm not there yet in terms of how much we're asking for. So I was I know I have to get to eventually putting out an amendment or a new proposal. Okay. I liked when we were having a conversation about breaking this apart. I'm glad that we already voted on contingency. I think that an incremental step towards having more staffing to do constituent work out in the districts, to allow district one to be first in the queue, to move towards having a footprint in district one, the one that is the biggest need at this moment. And then using the rest of this year to prepare us for the budget dialog for 2526, where we actually talk about what we're experiencing and what kind of staffing we really do need. I think we're getting ahead of our skis a bit by asking for this big amount. So I'm struggling to get to a yes on the big picture proposal at the moment. I'm probably halfway there. Thanks. That wasn't that wasn't a proposal.
299 That was not a proposal.
300 I feel like I'm still want to take up space to say that I, I, I need, I need to put this in. You need to see something I support adding one additional staff for each council office and moving forward on the district one footprint for a council office in the district.
301 Do you have a position on the mayor's staff included in the current proposal, and do you have a position on the shared staff that have been discussed, or are you leaving those out of your proposal?
302 I'm not in the mayor's office. I don't have the perspective. It sounds like I would say yes to that. Based on what you presented earlier. I don't have anything to say yet about the shared staffing because I haven't experienced it yet, so I don't have enough knowledge on the crosswalk of that.
303 I will tell you that our council operations has suggested that they could use one more policy analyst. As we get started on our policy work for committee staffing and actually for council leadership, that would be you, the president and the vice president.
304 I also want some shared staffing that would be shared with the two of you, so that you can do your extra duties.
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305 I know that our staff would appreciate that. So.
306 Hi, linly and keelan, to do you want to translate what I tried to say?
307 I could use some translation because I've never seen a where we asked for a bunch of amendments when we have a question called.
308 So I've never experienced a lot of I was experiencing right now.
309 I was told that we do not need to call a question, but that we have to know exactly what we want before we can call the questions, so that we can take a recess and have it written up. So I am trying right now, council zimmermann, to respond to what staff say they need and respond to the fact that I think I'm hearing some dissension across council, especially if we want an emergency clause which would then require nine votes. And I am trying to feel out where we're at. So we could certainly recess right now, but I suspect I just haven't heard anybody say I am moved to amend.
310 So that's out there.
311 And that's what I've asked for, is if you are going to move, to amend, to put yourself in the queue, I move to amend that we have an exhibit that gives us a dollar amount for adding one staff member per council office, and to get district one foot office footprint in motion and hopefully be established soon.
312 And also the mayor's three and shared staffing for the council committees and one for the council leadership. So that probably totaled two. Is that the same exact exhibit as you asked for? It's not. It's much. It's about half as much less good.
313 Sorry. Can I just clarify the last part of what you just said. You want it. It's is it two staff in council operations or three? I didn't quite track.
314 Yeah I said two one. One additional for the leadership and one additional for policy work.
315 Okay.
316 Got it. Yeah. Yeah. For the committees staffing which is shared.
317 Yeah yeah. Got it.
318 I'd like to see that exhibit as we go forth after the break so I can compare.
319 So this is not a motion. This is a request for information from our budget team. Is that correct? Okay. Councilor Avalos, do you want to make an amendment?
320 Go for it, councilor Holmes.
321 Oh, boy. Okay, I'm trying to respond to all the stimuli here. I, I. I guess what I'm feeling. I agree that the four point whatever feels like too much right now. So I do agree with that. I don't know what amount I want. I think I'm looking at what the outcomes are and the outcomes I want are definitely one other staff per person. Definitely more staff for the council president operation, right, including the policy analyst. It sounds like councilor Ryan suggested two, but was your original proposal? Three president pirtle-guiney the original proposal was based on a number that gave folks some flexibility.
322 Likely it would have been three if you were looking at a district office immediately. If you were looking at having a smaller district office footprint and focus more on constituent outreach, it may have been a little bit more. This proposal came in at a restoration budget number.
323 Hold on. I think what I'm asking is was three the number for president staff in particular. Is that because I feel like what you're describing is like for each of got it, got it.
324 You were talking about president staff. So I believe the conversation that a few folks had was one additional staff for our council operations policy team and two staff for the president or the leadership. Okay.
325 And then, you know, we don't because the original proposal was flexible funding essentially for each district so that they could decide about the district office. So I'm not clear like what that number is. And but I would like to I'm I'm hearing from commissioner Councilor Smith three 398,000 more for district one or per person per councilor, for district offices, for everything. For everything. Yeah. Okay. Okay, okay. If, if, if I keep doing that, why do I keep doing that? If councilor Ryan is yours was technically not an amendment. Right. So it was a request for information. Is that what I'm understanding? Yes.
326 Correct. Another exhibit.
327 Okay. Maybe I will put myself back in the queue. I kind of want to hear what everyone else is thinking, because I'm not quite sure yet. And I'm trying to gauge the room here, but I think I'll tell you what my gut is telling me is that I would like to make that amount smaller, so I'm trying to figure out what that smaller amount is, but that those are my intentions right now. So I'll I'll hold off and just kind of hear what everyone else has to say.
328 Councilor Morillo.
329 Thank you. So I, I have a proposal, I guess, but I want, I would like to see I don't know if there's a numbers person out here, a number of city staffer that can whip this out real quick. But we're looking at you. Okay. Thank you. I would like to see the proposal stay pretty much the same with one major change. So one staff person, one additional staff person per city council member, one staffer for the council president. Because you're doing insane levels of work and you deserve support. Two policy analysts that are shared amongst the city council, the three staffers that the mayor requested. Because I know you're here on saturdays and you also deserve some assistance and that for now, only district one get the funding for a council office. And the reason I say that is because I feel like we haven't done a clear analysis, or I have not seen one where we actually see the cost of in district offices when that comes to rent to, you know, internet phones, setting up the tech, setting up security for our safety. I haven't seen a meaningful analysis on those in district office conversations yet, and I think that district one needs to be prioritized right now. And I think that the other districts are able to hold off until a little bit longer. We can wait to get that analysis. We most of our constituents are able to access city hall by bus district one. You know, it takes an hour to get here. So I really want to prioritize that district for that need. But that's a suggestion that I have. If I think it's really important that we get additional staffers as soon as possible. So if the district offices are a place where we can cut that for now in order to advance getting staff, that is what I would propose. And I typed this out. So if I can email that to you, just let me know. I don't know what your full email is, but I'm happy to I councilor I will send you or maybe the clerk can send you in teams ruth's email so you can send it to her.
330 Okay. Thank you. Councilor Green.
331 Yeah, thank you, madam president. I guess this is I'm a little bit stuck with this process here because I, you know, as am I, we had we had a motion as presented in the agenda. We had an amendment to that motion, which we voted to. Accept. And then you would go back to the original. You'd go back to the original question. Right. And I understand that there's some process here about the exhibits, but what I, what we're stuck in now is now we're back in a world where we're we're bandying about proposals. That's very it's difficult to quantify because we're going based upon ftes. What's an fte? Is it a senior council aide? Is it a, you know, junior constituent services? I would urge us to step back from that space, colleagues, and just go back to the numbers. If you don't like $4.5 million, give me a different number. I can vote on that. But that's I don't think we can move forward in this conversation unless we can go back to just the aggregate dollars, because then we can trust ourselves. I trust all of you to make good fiscal choices with your dollars for the rest of the five months. So that's where I'm at.
332 Ruth, are you able to show us some numbers around district office costs and staffing costs? No. Okay. I'm seeing a no. So alternately, we can decide if we would like to put an emergency clause on this or not. Take five minutes, vote on the original.
333 Or take the emergency clause off.
334 Or take the emergency clause off and just vote on the original. Yes, though we can't vote on the we can't vote on the original today. I mean, if unless we put the emergency clause on that's can't vote on.
335 Is that what you said is that I thought she said the budget one goes live.
336 The budget one still needs the two weeks but then doesn't have the 30 day wait period correct.
337 You still need two readings, but you. But it goes into effect immediately, even without an emergency clause. So what? All I'm trying. I'm not trying to force a whole bunch of discussion. I'm just saying that before council votes on the or if before you vote on it, you would need to add an emergency clause and to make it comply with budget law, you would need to amend an exhibit. That is all I'm saying.
338 Okay, councilor Koyama Lane you are in the queue and have not spoken.
339 Yeah, maybe this is not possible information, but what would be helpful for me and I'm guessing other members of the public to see is a breakdown in everyday language of what these different scenarios are, what they look like. It's hard. I don't we don't have a slideshow. I don't have clear information that explains that is clear for me what 4.5 million looks like. I am wondering what councilor Ryan's scenario. How much would that be? What does that look like? Thank you. Yeah.
340 So if you give me a couple of minutes, I can make a few changes to the costing I have and I can get you some numbers and show you. Show you what that desire amendment looks like. I think without having done the costing that what councilor Morillo and what councilor Ryan said are very probably very close in number. And for the purposes of what you're doing today, you need a number. We do need to split out. And when we go budget it, the difference between personnel and external materials and services, that's just for this fiscal year. You can change that obviously for July 1st. So I need to have some understanding of, you know, whether like you're looking at two staff or one staff per office, just because that affects the number for personnel. But other than that, I just we need to get a rough number on the budget. And, you know, then you all can decide how to use that. And then you have more time to figure out what you need for 2526. So that's if you give me a couple minutes, I can give you that.
341 Thank you. And just to clarify, I believe there definitely is a need here to have this conversation and talk about increasing our budget. And I just want to make sure we're proceeding really carefully and thoughtfully with this and not rushing into it.
342 We have a number of other folks in the queue. We would like you to be able to work on that. We are at almost 9:00 and we have a number of other things on the agenda. So I am going to propose that we take a five minute break, let folks stretch their legs, let ruth get some numbers up for us.
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343 I think we need to understand if we've passed an amendment yet.
344 We have passed an amendment.
345 Okay. What amendment did we pass?
346 Madam president, we passed an amendment to a-1 project.
347 So my question with that is a point of order of why would we be now tasking ideas that have come from this dais without an amendment to them to bring forward several proposals? As it stands, the last motion to call the question was from councilor Green on on the package as it sits. We got direction from the budget office that they need to put together an exhibit, but then no other action has occurred.
348 We can't call the question. I'm aware, unless we put an emergency clause on, which is why I had originally opened it up to say, are there other amendments? Do folks need to talk through it? What do we want to do here? So we're a little bit out of order at this point, because there was a lot of discussion when I said, if you have another amendment, put yourself in the queue. I think what I'm hearing you say is, let's just come back, get this all ready and move on with our business to vote on this in two weeks. Is that what you're hoping for?
349 I'm uninterested in seeing packages developed on the fly from the staff that have not been voted as amendments by this body. I think that we should take votes on amendments so that we can give clear direction to staff, because I think we look like a shotgun blast right now to staff. And I don't think that's good, right. Because we scattered. So I would prefer that this body indicate what it is and isn't supporting, and that that is the clear direction that we owe to staff for this product development.
350 So let's I'm going to suggest something to that end. Alternately from what I suggested, before we could go back to the proposal from councilor Morillo and say that we would be voting on an amendment which would be prepared by staff, but which would be at the cost level of what she listed. Or would you prefer to put out a number?
351 Well, I would say that I would say that this number was rooted in fact. Right. It was. It is a restoration number to the council offices, previously prorated with the remaining five months given what has already been assigned. So these numbers didn't come out of nowhere. This is not a magic wand number. I think that those numbers already exist. They're rooted in that prorated data. And councilor Morillo, I agree with you. And some of us are like ready to go on on certain spaces and others and, and, and, and I think that, you know, I'm not one of them. But I agree with commissioner Smith. If this council takes an action, I think we take it together so that each office has the same budget that doesn't place any other districts out of the ordinary with everyone else. I think it would be bad for us to be able to point to different districts in a way that makes them. I'm just not there yet. So that's why I'm going to support equal numbers across the board. That 4.3 that's out there is the equal number across the board. That's the one that was amended for out of contingency. And as far as I can tell, that's the only direction right now that staff has. And I think that's important. Right. We should amend if we have amendments. But if we don't, the only one that should be given any product development is the one. As it stands, I think.
352 We have a number of folks who would like to speak right now. Councilor zimmermann, you are asking us not to speak, but.
353 I know, madam president, councilor Smith, I agree with councilor Zimmermann.
354 I cannot accept taking a higher budget than everyone else. I just can't. We were 12 and we get the same budget. I disagree with councilor Dan Ryan about giving the mayor three staffers in understanding that he needs three staffers, but not understanding that we need additional staffers to do all the committee work, and then giving the president more staffers because she needs to do additional work. Well, that work also has to come from us in order for her to do the work. So the simpler thing to do would be to take the 398. If you can't use it all, give it back to the general fund. We could use it. We have a budget deficit and let everyone get the same amount of money, because if we don't, I won't even be able to accept my own amendment. It's just not going to be fair.
355 Do we have anybody who would like to make a motion for an emergency clause? So we know if we're looking at a vote today or a vote in two weeks?
356 I'll make some calls. Yeah, absolutely.
357 I'll make a motion. Yeah. I would like to make a motion. I would like to add an emergency clause, recognizing that the city is facing multiple crises and an inadequately staffed legislative branch is unable to meet those. And a two week delay is unacceptable. Second.
358 Our attorney has.
359 Councilor Dunphy. May I suggest some emergency clause? Language. Language council declares that an emergency exists in order to have exhibits. One and two of this ordinance, as amended, be enacted upon passage of this ordinance. Therefore, this ordinance shall be in full force and effect from and after its passage by the council.
360 So moved.
361 Second clerk, can you please call the roll for us? Thomas. I'm sorry. Councilor Ryan would like discussion, I apologize.
362 Yeah. So this is our second amendment for the first amendment was we moved it to contingency. I voted yes on that because no matter what, I thought that was a good idea. So now this one is that whatever we vote on tonight is going to be have an emergency clause on it. We don't know exactly what we're going to vote on yet. I don't, because I would like to see the information from the exhibits.
363 I would just add that we are moving money from one side of a ledger to another from a contingency fund. We have five months to spend it. If we're unable to spend it in five months, we return it to the general fund. We're unable to carry it over into the next fiscal year. Each councilor is duly elected and has the authority to make their decisions on what they spend that money on. Whether or not we start construction or I hire folks immediately, this is a matter of simply increasing my office budget, and I think that there is an urgency to this.
364 I understand the case. I was trying to get at the nuts and bolts of the actual amendments, and so I understand the first amendment that I voted on. And this one is just to put an emergency clause no matter what it is. Okay. Thanks.
365 Well, just tell us if we can vote on it today or not.
366 Further clarification. So this emergency ordinance applies to whatever we pass. So right now we don't know what that is. Is that what I'm understanding.
367 That's correct. Because we don't know if we're passing something today or not unless we know if we have an emergency clause on it or not. Okay. Councilor Smith, are you in the queue or is that a legacy hand legacy? Okay, I see no more discussion unless.
368 I vote I don't I Smith I canal I Ryan no Koyama Lane I Morillo I Novick.
369 Although I'm still a no vote on the underlying issue as a courtesy, I will vote yet I on the emergency clause.
370 Clark I Green I Zimmerman I pirtle-guiney I. The amendment is approved. Okay. All right.
371 So we now have a little more clarity on our process.
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372 More staff would help us with this. What more staff would help us?
373 More staff would help us with this greater example okay. Are the folks in the queue in the queue to discuss the resolution or in the queue to offer an amendment?
374 Either discuss, discuss.
375 Okay. Councilor Green.
376 I move to recess. So a budget and exhibit can be prepared. So that way we can call the question take a vote second.
377 Do we need a vote on this or can we just call a recess? I think I can just call a recess, right.
378 Without objection. Yeah.
379 Is there any objection to a recess? How long we are going to take a five minute recess if our budget folks are not ready at that time, I am going to request permission to reorder the agenda so that we can hear from some of our other guests and let them go home. But let's take five minutes for everybody to stretch their legs.
380 Thank you. Okay.
381 For that explanation.
382 Everybody's asking for I am going to call us back in. And I believe we have amendment language shared on our screens. I'm hoping we can get it up on the screen so that everybody else can see it too. So this is what we are currently. This is what we have currently voted into our proposal. As I understand it, we need to vote on amendments to the exhibits to match the language of the resolution. Now, this is what the attorney has told me, but I see a disagreement here between I don't believe the initial amendment included the language and conform exhibit one, and that's the problem with it.
383 So we just have a conformed exhibit one, a quick motion, second vote on exhibit one. But I think keelan can show that as well so that people can see it.
384 Okay, let's get a reformed exhibit one up. Do we have a motion? So moved. Do we have a second?
385 Second.
386 Any discussion? Okay. We're going to get that up so you can actually see it. And as soon as it's up we will take a vote on this. I talk really slowly. I might stall for long enough. There we go. It's up for councilors.
387 Scroll down. Keelan.
388 So this is an amended exhibit one, which we now have a motion and a second to adopt, which would ensure that our exhibit one lines up with what is, in the language of the resolution, any discussion. Okay. Keelan, do we need to do a roll call on this? Yes.
389 Avalos I Dunphy I Smith I Ryan.
390 I'm not used to this. Sorry. I'm just not used to this. This feels very. So this is the original that was proposed and it was just moved to contingency. Okay. Correct. All right. And the exhibit two that I was trying to get to, is that going? Do you have data on that? Do you have the information on that?
391 Right now?
392 We are we're just voting on this one. Correct. We're in the middle of I wanted to see what the difference was. I don't have enough information to vote. I so no Koyama Lane I Morillo I Novick I apologize, I'm a little confused.
393 Are we just voting on whether we changed the exhibit? Correct.
394 To match the language of our of our. Yes, we are voting to accept the exhibit that will then conform with the language of the amended resolution.
395 I vote. Yes, I Green I would like to vote. Hold on, hold on. Oh, I thought Sameer pirtle-guiney I and I would like to offer councilor Ryan the opportunity to change his vote.
396 Yeah.
397 Now that I know we're just accepting the exhibit, I.
398 Yeah, motion passes. Do we now have a fully conforming resolution on which we could take motions or amendments?
399 We have a complete ordinance which is eligible for a vote today because it contains an emergency clause, okay.
400 And because it has an emergency clause. I believe that means that the question before us right now is the resolution itself. Is that correct?
401 Correct. As amended.
402 Is there any discussion? I don't see anybody in the queue. Do we need a motion or because this is before us, can we just take the vote? Keelan could you please call roll? We are now voting on the amended resolution, which is now fully conforming, which has the original dollar amount increase per office, the original dollar amount increase for the mayor, no additional shared staff. And we have moved the a one where the funds are coming from to the contingency and added an emergency clause. That is what this vote is on.
403 Okay, marvelous.
404 I just want to say thank you to my colleagues. I the thing that had that I had the most pause about was where the money was coming from. So moving it to contingency really helped change my views on this. In addition to feeling compelled by the arguments and agreeing that also we can have this money, everyone can spend it as they need. If you don't spend it, it'll go back into the pot. There isn't that much left in the budget cycle, so it's not really impacting too many of the areas that I was originally worried about. So with that, I vote aye.
405 Dunphy.
406 Thank you colleagues.
407 I. Smith.
408 I now I Ryan, I want to acknowledge first of all that the arguments made for additional staffing.
409 I'm all in agreement for and I am continue to have some indigestion with how big of a leap we're taking here. And I feel too rushed to vote yes on this. And so I respectfully vote no.
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410 Koyama Lane I Morillo I also was a little bit stressed out about the size of the budget and how quickly we're moving, but after discussing all of this with my colleagues and hearing the proposals, I feel very confident in this and that it's not going to harm some of the areas that I was originally worried about as well.
411 So I vote I Novick I really appreciate the quality of the discussion we've had tonight.
412 I also want to take this opportunity to congratulate president pirtle-guiney on inventing the phrase legacy hand, nay. Clerk.
413 I Green, I Zimmerman, I pirtle-guiney I is that ten votes?
414 Yes. Motion passes. I believe that moves us to item seven. Item seven is an internal item. Counselors. Items eight and nine have guests who have been with us for a long time. Without objection, could we move item seven down the agenda, please to let our guests speak. So moved. Second, any objections? Keelan, could we please move on to item eight on the agenda?
415 Acknowledge the birthday of doctor martin luther king jr.
416 Counselors Avalos and Smith. Counselor Avalos, I believe you're kicking us off, counselor Smith. Okay. Counselor Smith. Yes, I'm.
417 I'm trying to get up to speed to where you are. It is a. A great pleasure to be able to bring this resolution forward today and to be able to talk about doctor martin luther king jr. The purpose of this resolution is to articulate the significance of acknowledging doctor martin luther king, jr. S birthday and the multifaceted effects this recognition has on the city of Portland, particularly for its black residents in the broader community. Doctor martin luther king jr is a seminal figure in American history whose advocacy for civil rights, social justice, and equality has inspired countless individuals and movements across the globe. Doctor king's legacy is particularly resonant in Portland, Oregon, where the black community continues to face systemic challenges that he sought to address through his work and the anticipated outcomes from this resolution is community engagement. By recognizing doctor king's birthday, the city of Portland fosters great community engagement, encouraging residents to participate in discussions, events, and activities that celebrate his legacy. This engagement serves as a catalyst for building relationships and fostering a sense of community among diverse groups. Education and awareness. The resolution will promote educational efforts that inform residents about the history of the civil rights movement and doctor king's role within it. Increased awareness will enhance understanding of the ongoing issues of racial inequality and in terms of advocacy and racial equity. Acknowledging doctor king's contributions, it highlights the city's commitment to confronting systemic racism and inequity. It also encourages local leaders, organizations, and community members to advocate for policies and initiatives that aim to dismantle barriers faced by marginalized communities. Aligning with doctor king's vision of just of a just society and the acknowledgment of doctor martin luther king's junior birthday is not merely ceremonial, but a vital step towards fostering a more inclusive, equitable and just city. By honoring his legacy, Portland affirms its dedication to social justice. It engages its community in meaningful discussions and inspires collective action to address ongoing challenges. This resolution aims to empower residents, especially the black community, and reaffirm their rightful place in city governance and civic life. It has been such a great honor to sponsor this resolution with my district one city councilor, Candace Avalos, and now she will give her comments about doctor king.
418 Thank you so much. Also in honor to not only be here on this resolution, but to serve with you, commissioner. I keep doing that. Councilor Smith. I'm literally the one who on charter was like, it should be called councilors, and I keep doing that. All right. So good evening, everybody. Thanks for hanging tight with us. And I also have a few remarks because this is an important moment to recognize doctor king's legacy. So we're coming together to honor the life and legacy of doctor martin luther king, jr, as a leader whose courage and vision forever changed the course of history. But here in Portland, as we celebrate his birthday, we must also confront the ways that his dream remains unfinished in our own city. Doctor king challenged us to envision a beloved community, a society where justice prevails, poverty is eradicated, and people of all backgrounds can thrive together. Yet as we look around Portland, we see stark reminders of how far we still have to go from the ongoing housing crisis that disproportionately impacts black and brown communities to the systemic racial disparities in education, health care, and public safety. We know there is urgent work to be done. This resolution, as councilor Smith has mentioned, is not just a symbolic act. It is a call to action. Honoring doctor king means addressing the legacy of redlining that has displaced generations of portlanders of color, particularly in districts one and two. It means confronting racial inequities in our criminal justice system and investing in alternatives to policing that center community safety and restorative justice. It means ensuring that every child in our city has access to quality education, and no family has to choose between paying rent and putting food on the table. These are the principles that doctor king passionately advocated for, that many of us on our council also advocate for. Doctor king reminded us that progress is neither automatic nor inevitable. It requires sustained effort, accountability, and the courage to make difficult choices in the pursuit of justice. So as we pass this resolution today, I invite us to think about what it means to build a beloved community here in Portland, committing to lifting up the voices of those most impacted by injustice, centering equity in every decision that we make as leaders here on this dais, and committing to the long and very unglamorous work of systemic change, not just today, but every day. Let this also serve as a reminder that doctor king's dream is not a distant ideal. It is actually a roadmap for the future of our city, a future where Portland lives up to its promise as a place of opportunity, inclusion and hope for all who call it home. With that, I know we have some guests here to offer some other remarks. Where are you going? To invite your guests first, I think yes, I think doctor haynes is on is on the line.
419 Great. Doctor leroy haynes.
420 Yeah. Can you hear me?
421 Yes, sir.
422 Okay.
423 Doctor haynes, you have a few minutes.
424 Yes. My name is the reverend doctor leroy haynes jr, president of the bynum ministerial alliance, chairperson of the ma coalition for justice and police reform. I'm deeply thankful for the madam president, the council, for bringing this. Item up on the actual. The natural birthday of doctor martin luther king. And this is a very personal to me as having served as a youth organizer in the southern christian leadership conference under doctor king at the age of 13, and then later under congressman john lewis in the student nonviolent coordinating committee, I just want to thank a slight in these couple of minutes, the historical context. And I think sometimes we forget that, as the kernel report said, following the watts riots that we had two societies here in America, one black and one white, that was growing further and further apart. It was out of this context and that the modern day civil rights movement that some historians call the second American nonviolent revolution took place with the 55, the montgomery bus boycott in 63, the March on Washington, 1964, the public accommodation 65, the voting rights bill, 1968, the fair housing bill and the poor people March. It is out of this struggle for freedom, justice and equality that we have made progress in our society today. One of the greatest contribution of doctor king was the nonviolent social revolution in the 20th century that broke down the walls of American apartheid, segregation, what we call in the south, jim crow. He was the moral conscience of the nation when he came into guiding and directing the nation. He was a catalyst for the contemporary movement, the contemporary women movement in the contemporary. Lbgtq movement and the contemporary and indigenous native indian movement, and on and on throughout the nation. And then thirdly, I want to say he gave us the vision of the beloved community, a community that is inclusive of all people working together as, as equal, to create a just society. And lastly, I want to say that one of the last books that doctor king wrote is where do we go from here? Chaos or community? It is ironic that we still grapple with that question, and I believe we in Portland must choose community over chaos. And this is one of the reasons why we have the police reform effort that's taking place. The independent oversight committee and so many other issues that have evolved out of this movement towards as to create a more perfect union. Thank you very much.
425 Thank you, doctor leroy haynes.
426 Yes, thank you so much, doctor haynes. And now I would like to invite jeff selby, interim director of the office of equity and human rights, to give some remarks about how the city upholds civil rights within the organization. So, director selby, thanks for hanging in and for being here.
427 Thank you. Councilor. Good evening, community members. Madam president, madam vice president, city councilors, mr. Mayor, city administrator and colleagues. For the record, my name is jeff selby. My pronouns are he, him and I am the interim director of your office of equity and human rights. It is an honor to be here on this day, the 96th anniversary of the birth of doctor martin luther king jr. I think it's still the 15th. Yes.
428 Okay.
429 We stand on the shoulders of doctor king and so many others who led the civil rights movement. We cannot let all that blood and sweat and all those tears to be shed in vain as we continue our fight for justice as a city government, on behalf of the people we serve. The office of equity and human rights sets the equity, vision and goals for the city of Portland, and programs in our office were created to specifically reinforce and uphold the civil rights of all portlanders, and to ensure the city complies with our obligations under the civil rights act. My team's approach and framework have allowed the city to make great strides in racial equity, civil rights, language access, and Americans with disabilities act compliance, which is woven throughout major citywide planning efforts. And our equity team has provided guidance and counseling and developed myriad tools intended to guide and support equitable and nondiscriminatory planning, decision making, investment programing, and service delivery with civil rights, language access and accessibility in mind. We continue to implement standards and build robust civil rights data tools, equity analysis, and other resources to strengthen our community engagement practices and support community centered decision making. The office of equity has institutionalized much of this work in everyday policy work, and equity practitioners and equity managers throughout the city have helped move much of this work forward in their bureaus and service areas, from the Portland plan to a cohesive equity approach to the city's COVID 19 response to equitable strategic planning. We have made a lot of progress, but we still have so much work to do. Our new government structure allows for a more unified equity approach across the enterprise, and we are excited to guide the work in a more collaborative and organized structure. From a national standpoint, the next four years will undoubtedly test our city's resolve for civil rights, equity and accessibility. We as a government must set the example for equity. And civil rights are not just about laws and compliance. They are tenets of good ethical and moral governance. Remembering that we serve all portlanders while centering systemically excluded and institutionally oppressed community members. Above all, tonight is a celebration of community and their resilience. This resolution not only honors the work of doctor martin luther king, jr, and those who fought for civil rights over the past 60 years, but also of the ongoing work of people all across the country. Our region and our city, including the tenacious work of doctor hayes and the albina ministerial alliance. On behalf of my incredible, passionate team at the office of equity and human rights, and also on behalf of community, I think councilor, Smith and Avalos for bringing this resolution to council and to all of you for honoring doctor king this evening. We must continue to lead with racial equity and combat anti-blackness. We appreciate your continuing support of civil rights, equity and anti-racism work at the city of Portland. Thank you.
430 Thank you to both of our guests. I believe we have public testimony signed up.
431 We have one person signed up. Madam president chris copeland. Chris copeland. Oh, I see you now. Sorry. Bridge Green. We also have bridge crane, simcoe johnson signed up.
432 Go right ahead.
433 Hopefully next year will be different. When I come here. And I think about the people who've testified with me and before me and around me, it will have been a more diverse collection of faces. People in the columbia heights neighborhood, people out in the east county, even though they hopefully have local office. We'll see people have more faith in government and believe that it's worth their time to engage with you, because real change is going to come. It's been a long time since I had the privilege of being in this room with the reverend doctor leroy haynes junior, and to think back to 1929, when doctor king was born 96 years ago, as we were good enough to recall and mention and, you know, unfortunately, there's a lot of different activities that are going to happen through a whole spectrum of people. I think that's one thing that doctor king would want us to be mindful of is that even though we have not ethnic blocks or racial blocks, but inside each of those communities, there's a huge range of diversity. We've seen some of it in this council. At one time, jo ann hardesty and Loretta Smith were contending for a seat. Teressa raiford has been a candidate for mayor. There will still be a community action plan event on the legal holiday the Monday, where people can March from peninsula park down to the mlk statue. And normally I don't wear a yarmulke, but I'm a little bit disappointed that this right here, right now didn't have a better intersection with communities of faith. We know that in the 60s, more so than in the 70s, other faith communities that weren't part of the historic black church did a better job of partnering against anti-blackness. And hopefully under this current incoming presidential regime, we'll see a resurgence where whether people are secular or people of faith, we will unite to once again, you know, I'm glad that mr. Selby, who I've known from a time when this city used to have an active human rights commission that met in the commonwealth building. I don't know exactly how that faded out. Certainly, when we think about the human rights situation at different times in the last eight years, there's been a need for the city to have a better game, for lack of a better word, to make sure that marginalized and diverse communities are respected and protected, and that they get from this government, the public safety and social safety net things they deserve. Until we address one big problem that we don't talk about enough, and that is income disparity that is a result of historic discrimination. Black people being blocked from building wealth during the times of redlining, and other practices that may be continued right up to this day. So as we talk about black history, I don't know if I have 30s more or not.
434 No. Rich Green, you have five seconds. Thank you.
435 Of course, black history goes back at least to 1803 when york was here. I don't think the highest of the person who donated for the 1803 fund.com. But let's help that work proceed also. Thank you.
436 Thank you very much.
437 That completes testimony.
438 Thank you. Council discussion councilor Koyama Lane I just wanted to thank mr. Selby for being here and for the work that your team does in the city's office of equity and human rights.
439 I know that you guys are working hard every day. I also know that your team has prepared some equity trainings for us as councilors that have been bumped two times, and so I want to acknowledge how important this work is. We see that and we will make sure to do those trainings soon.
440 Any other discussion? Okay. Keelan could you call the roll, please?
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441 Governance. I Dunphy I Smith I now I'm gonna say something but I'll keep it brief for time.
442 I just wanted to say thank you for introducing this councilor Smith and Avalos, thank you to our testifiers and guests, especially doctor leroy haynes, whose wisdom has been of great value to me personally in several spaces over the last few years, briefly, district two, which I have the privilege of representing, is the home of Vancouver avenue baptist church, where doctor king came and spoke when he visited Portland in November of 1961. And while here, doctor king spoke of the necessity of all of us to quote, rise above the narrow confines of their individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity. And one thing I've always been inspired by, how about him, is by how he fought for civil rights, specifically for black Americans, but held the door open for everyone else who was being marginalized in society. He heard about the fair housing bill, the poor people's campaign, and these helped everyone to give a personal example about doctor king. And without the civil rights movement, there's no immigration act of 1965. Without that act, families like mine would never have been Americans. So we must all heed that example of doctor king and his contemporaries and strive to not only open doors for ourselves and our communities, but keep them open behind us. So we're addressing the broader concerns of all humanity. I'm proud to vote yes.
443 Ryan.
444 Yeah. I just want to start off by thanking councilor Smith and councilor Avalos. It means a lot that you brought this, but also you're you're living the dream. And so you're here representing that dream. I just wanted to say a couple of things, because some of my earliest memories are tied to the assassination of mlk. It sparked protests here in Portland, and I was curious about such things even as a kindergarten kid. My mom loved mlk, and she was also sad about it, so I'd always ask her questions. It was at a time where there were other violent assassinations jfk, bobby kennedy, malcolm x just a few years prior to mlk, and she just tried to do the best she could to help me comprehend why there would be violence for those that were speaking to justice and from love. These roots have made mlk day a big deal for me. As I track the day slowly evolving into a national holiday that actually had participation. And it's a holiday of inclusion, inspiration and action. And I celebrate in churches like many people each year and experiences holiday as a spiritual holiday rooted in love to help each person live to their fullest potential. Thanks for your vote. Oh, I.
445 Koyama Lane especially as we move toward this weekend, this year and monday's. Oh, I thought you said Elana. I'm sorry. No, I was like, this seems out of order, but okay.
446 Thank you councilors Avalos and Smith for bringing this resolution forward together. I appreciate you both, and I am proud to say I and I'm proud to serve alongside you both.
447 Morillo, thank you both for bringing this resolution forward. It's really a special thing, and I'll keep my comments brief, but I think something that I always think about when I think about martin luther king jr is how our history has really sanitized his legacy, and the fact that there really was a mandate to address poverty as an anti-racism issue, and that we in the city of Portland are facing with historic levels of income inequality and in this country as well, and that we have to do right by our residents and take take bold steps to address that. And I hope that we won't just sanitize his legacy, but actually really lean into what it means to serve the people in the way that he would have wanted. I vote yea, thank you very much for doing this.
448 Novick.
449 Thank you, councilor Avalos. Councilor Smith, doctor haynes, director selby, I want to take this opportunity to recommend to everybody. If you haven't read it already, taylor branch's three part history of king and the civil rights movement. It's the it's really engrossing. It lets you know what a great political leader doctor king was and how he had to manage this discordant coalition of various organizations and voices. And it's the fastest 2912 page read you've ever read. And I also just want to say that I was delighted listening to the eulogies for jimmy carter, to hear the voice of andrew young, one of doctor king's close allies. I didn't know that he was still alive, and it was wonderful to hear him still alive and brilliant and wonderful. Thank you.
450 I mark.
451 Thank you, councilors Avalos and Smith. I really appreciate you bringing this forward. And I think I'm safe in saying that we're all here for the beloved community, and we have a lot of work to do. I Green, thank you to councilor Avalos and Smith for bringing this forward.
452 It's urgent. It's not just symbolic. We are about to select committees. That is going to guide our work. That's going to have long lasting implications. And so I see this resolution as an invitation to remember that whether we're talking about arts and economy, whether we're talking about labor and workforce development, infrastructure, if it's not in the budget, it ain't happening.
453 All right. Zimmerman, thanks to you both.
454 I appreciate it greatly. Two great colleagues who one, I'm getting to learn, and I'm looking forward to it. One who I've been with two way too long. Councilor Smith. But this is an important and meaningful. I vote for me because for 15 years I have sat out there and watched you bring these in different places, and this is the first time I get to vote I with you and I'm so proud to do it. So thanks for bringing this.
455 I pirtle-guiney thank you both for bringing this forward, and thank you to our invited guests for being here with us tonight, especially this year, as we move toward this weekend, toward monday's inauguration.
456 It is so important that we not only honor doctor martin luther king jr with our words, but also with our decisions, with our actions, and that we lift each other up, that we lift our whole community up. I am honored to vote. I.
457 The resolution is adopted.
458 Thank you.
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459 I believe we are moving on to item nine on our agenda.
460 Except the 20 2324 parks levy annual report and parks levy oversight committee annual report.
461 And I believe our guests have offered us the great gift of time. And maybe cutting down the presentation slightly. Is that correct?
462 If it pleases the council, we were going to do a presentation of the parks levy report, as well as the parks levy oversight committee's report. We can, if you would like, not do the staff portion and just let our community member and oversight committee member present her report. You've all received hard copies and electronic copies of the report. So if you have any questions about the levy report, we're happy to answer anything. Or we can just do a truncated version of the entire presentation.
463 Councilor is any objection to moving forward with the oversight board report? And we have the hard copy of the annual report, which we can ask questions about.
464 Okay. But, madam president, I would actually like to hear a truncated version of the staff report. Okay.
465 Director long, you have your direction. We'll see how truncated we can be.
466 Great. I believe mayor had some opening remarks. Or would you like me to just get to it? All right. For the record, my name is adina long. I'm the director of Portland parks and recreation. I want to thank the council for having us this evening. I'm excited to share that year, three of the parks levy has been has seen progress on all of the commitments made to Portland voters. In the voter pamphlet. The report materials presented today cover key actions, finances and performance measures from July 2023 through June 2024. I'm looking forward to our work session tomorrow morning to share additional information about Portland parks and recreation. I want to thank our staff who played a critical role in delivering programs and services. Their work cleaning and maintaining parks every day, operating summer camps and events, and working with community partners have been essential to the successful implementation of the parks levy. I want to thank the members of the parks levy oversight committee for your work this past year, ensuring that parks levy resources are spent meeting voter commitments in a fiscally accountable and transparent way. Thank you to the current members. Alicia blakely. Zach conant, mary ruble, silas sanderson, and tim williams, and to casey mills for serving as a parks board liaison to the committee. I'm so grateful for their service. I'm going to turn it over to claire flynn, our parks levy coordinator, who will present an overview of the fiscal year 22 2324 parks levy annual report. After claire's presentation, mary ruble, a member of the parks levy oversight committee, will present the oversight committees annual report.
467 Thank you. Director. Long.
468 Good evening. My name is claire flynn, and I'm the parks levy coordinator within vibrant communities.
469 Next slide. Approved by Portland voters in November 2020. The parks local option levy, or parks levy, is a property tax of $0.80 per $1,000 of assessed value that will raise approximately $45 million per year for five years, having started in fall of 2021. We are currently in year four of five of the parks levy, and the current levy will go through fiscal year 2526 as the last year. Next slide. This report being presented today as director long said, is for the prior full fiscal year, which is fiscal year 2324 year three of the parks levy. Next slide. The report shares key actions, financials and performance measures for the 15 commitments included in the parks levy ballot title and explanatory statement. Each of the commitments is nested into one of three larger categories recreation for all, protect and grow, nature and community partnerships. Performance measures are also included to show impact of the parks levy year over year. As an operating levy, the parks levy is spent through a leveraged funding model in which general fund is blended with parks levy funding, so parks levy dollars support a portion of all eligible operational expenses. Throughout the report and on these slides, we include interviews and stories of staff, partners and participants to show the impact of the parks levy. Next slide. Recreation for all means increasing access to recreation by reducing cost as a barrier, ensuring service continuity and centering, programing and outreach on underserved communities. Next slide. Thanks to the parks levy, we were successful in preventing cuts and closures to recreation programs and facilities. Examples include the return of the mat dishman block party and how the bureau adapted to continue providing programing during the closure of mount scott community center. Next slide. We used parks levy funding to deliver a variety of recreational programs, including swim lessons, camps and classes, fitness in the park, pop up concerts, free lunch and play, and other popular programing. In year three, the bureau piloted the schools to pools initiative, partnering with public schools to offer swim lessons to second grade students, as well as continue to refine and adjust swim lesson formats with the parks levy. We've also enhanced free lunch and play in year three. Free lunch and play served over 58,000 meals, up 37% from the previous year and part of the total nearly 118,000 free meals served by pack in year three. Next slide. Two main elements of removing financial barriers to programing are the access discount and free programing. The access discount allowed the bureau to provide over $4 million in financial assistance to nearly 18,000 users, which was 26% of all participants. Our team is also currently working with Portland state university on a community needs survey to help the bureau understand if the efforts we've implemented, like the access discount, are affecting the perception of costs as a barrier and financial access, we anticipate those results back in February. We also showcase the success of free programing like the east Portland summer arts festival. Next slide. Protect and grow nature means making parks and facilities cleaner, better maintained, safer and more welcoming for all. Next slide. These two commitments are focused on natural features and natural areas and the benefits they provide. In this section we highlighted the work of the protect the best team and how the urban forestry team creatively worked to provide downed trees for use in salmon habitat and environmental restoration. Next slide. In fiscal year 2324, over 6600 people participated in environmental education programing. These programs. These programs are critical to connecting youth to nature and fostering a sense of stewardship in Portland communities. The environmental education team has expanded transportation options with the parks levy to ensure that all participants can access programing and site locations. Forest park has partnered with local organizations to connect people to nature. Next slide. A large portion of the parks levy spending this year was on park maintenance and cleaning. Aside from continued general park maintenance, including emptying trash cans, cleaning and checking restrooms, preventative maintenance and repair, and more. Parks, levy support and added positions were critical in maintaining safe facilities and parks. Following the January 2024 storm. Next slide. The newly published park tree maintenance plan and the engagement for the Portland urban forest plan are helping create stronger protection of Portland trees. In year three, we planted more trees than the year prior, with a higher percentage in priority service areas. Protections for portland's park trees have also improved. Proactive park and natural area tree maintenance is a service that would not be possible without the parks levy. Next slide for modernizing data systems, we detailed how we are now using microsoft access as a data database to track performance measure data. Urban forestry also now has the first ever software to manage and track trees as assets, and we have a new developed parks peer review process to better evaluate and track park condition. Next slide. Community partnerships are critical to centering the community in decision making and oversight, and to deliver an equitable parks and recreation system for all portlanders. Next slide. The parks levy oversight committee continued to review and advise on fiscal accountability, adherence to ballot language, and transparency. In a moment, we'll hear from mary ruble to present the committee's annual report. Next slide. This commitment also includes completing an independent performance audit in year three, and are contracted with efficient consulting to complete a performance audit. And the final report states that parks levy funds were used in compliance with voter approved commitments, and dollars were clearly tracked using strong financial systems. Next slide. In year three, the community partnership program continued to support delivery and services through partnership, granting funds to additional partner agencies and serving over 6600 youth. The parks levy is also supporting the interstate firehouse cultural center feasibility study to help create a vibrant black arts and culture ecosystem. Next slide. In year three, the bureau successfully delivered parks and recreation services to a wide variety of users and implemented initiatives such as english as a learning language, teen force partnerships with organizations serving communities of color, and more. With the parks levy, the access discount is helping more people, including older adults in lifelong recreation programs, participate in programing with reduced cost options. Recreation also continues to adapt and expand culturally specific and language specific programing. Next slide. This is a high level summary of parks levy spending in fiscal year 2324. The bureau uses service area codes to charge expenses, and each of those service areas have been evaluated and sorted based on whether they were directly contributing towards meeting one or more parks levy commitments. The total net expense is the total expenditures minus any program revenue, and the parks levy portion of expense is the amount of that total expense that was funded by the parks levy. Using the leveraged funding model per city council direction in the ballot referral, the parks levy was required to reimburse the Portland children's levy for compression impact, and so with that, the total amount of parks funding spent in year three was $51.22 million. This parks levy spending in fiscal year 2324 is pretty close to the exact amount that came in from tax revenues after the year end spending and balancing of a year end buffer. The parks levy fund balance will increase by $2.66 million, and this is added to the remaining balance from years one and two to be spent in future years. We do expect that in years four and five, our parks levy expenditures will outweigh the revenue that comes in from taxes, so that remaining balance will be needed to fill the gap. At this time, we anticipate ending the five year levy with the revenues from that five year period being fully expended to deliver services to portlanders. Next slide. I'm going to turn it over to mary ruble. Now to present the parks levy oversight committee annual report.
470 Thank you, claire.
471 And thank you, adina.
472 And thank you to the city council and the mayor for having us.
473 I'm mary ruble.
474 I'm a member of the parks levy oversight committee. I'm here today to share the committee's third report with you. A response to fiscal year 2324, annual report and the parks and recreation actions in this fiscal year. While we celebrate the success of year three, which has been very successful, we are well aware that the parks bureau is heavily reliant on the current levy for basic operating funds. In years three and four, it is funding approximately 40% of the bureau's operating budget. I'd like to underline that because in year five, it could be as high as 50%. We are well aware of the enormous backlog of maintenance to parks and recreation facilities, trails and parklands. The $600 million backlog must be addressed in order to maintain a parks and recreation system that is welcoming, safe and sustainable. Parks and recreation services are critical to the fabric of our community and to the livability and resurgence of the city of Portland. We want to encourage city council to keep the reality of how the bureau is funded, and has been funded over many years in mind. The bureau relies heavily upon both general fund dollars and special levies and bonds, but special levies and bonds will not fund the whole parks bureau, and we need to ensure that you have the parks bureau remain viable as we go forward. General fund dollars are critical to the future of the bureau. We are a committee of five members, as adina said, and we meet quarterly. Our role is to review information and verify general compliance with and progress toward the parks levy. Both the purpose of the parks levy. We also advise on transparency and communication strategies, and it is our responsibility to report to you in this annual report. And the members of our committee represent a broad swath of Portland. So we feel very good about the focus of the committee across the city. Fiscal accountability is one of the key areas of our focus. Next slide. Oh. Next slide. Thank you. Our report is structured in three main sections. The first being fiscal accountability through the annual report and oversight committee meetings. Parks was transparent and accountable in tracking and communicating the use of parks levy dollars. We particularly valued the bureau's proactive communication with the committee about revenue forecast changes and how underspending will be balanced across the five year levy time frame. After the publishing of this report, the committee was also pleased to receive the parks levy independent audit. This review validates the audit ability of the parks levy expenses and provides additional transparency about fiscal accountability. We recommend continuing to proactively share financial status with the committee as projections change, and that the bureau continue to disseminate the independent audit findings. We are pleased that the audit, in full is posted online. Next slide. The committee found that parks actions in year three are based on and build upon the promises contained in the language of the voters pamphlet. We encourage parks to continue to expand and refine performance measures related to the 15 commitments, and include comparisons to past performance to establish and provide quantification on what progress in each commitment looks like for the bureau. We also look forward to receiving receiving the community needs survey results this year to understand how programs and initiatives are serving portlanders, and can be further refined. Finally, the key element of adhering to the budget language is delivering programing and fostering partnerships in p and r spaces. This is happening. The quality and condition of our facilities are critical. The oversight committee urges the city to prioritize funding to address the nearly $600 million maintenance backlog. Next slide. In terms of transparency, parks has been responsive to the interests of our group, creating time and meeting agendas for topical presentations that we have selected and has shared information publicly. We also appreciate the parks levy. Information is shared in translated and accessible formats. We encourage the bureau to share short form, visually focused materials to demonstrate the parks levy impact to maximize public trust in the stewardship of the parks levy, as well as communicate the critical nature of this funding source. We encourage city leaders to collaborate with parks and understanding and planning the financial picture of portland's parks and recreation system. I want to thank city council for your continued support of the parks levy, and look forward to future years of success. With that, I'll turn it back to claire. Thank you.
475 Thank you mary. We're excited about the progress made in year three of the parks levy, and are grateful to the support of the oversight committee. That concludes our presentation. So we will open it up to questions and discussion.
476 Thank you. And thank you, especially, mr. Bell, for staying so late with us. This is time for questions. Councilor Dunphy.
477 Thank you. I had a couple of questions about the access discount program, and I may not be I might be too tired to ask it appropriately. And I may not be smart enough to know the answer. But my understanding is, through parks, we don't operate at a cost recovery model right now. For the cost of a swim lesson, a dance class, a cooking class. We don't operate at a cost recovery model. Is that correct? First, that is correct. Okay. So when we're using these dollars to supplement and to provide discount, first do we have a clear sense of where in the city those dollars are being used or where that access is being used. And then my second question is, the kind of confusing part for me is if we're already not operating at a cost recovery model for those costs, and we then further reduce that, how do we account for that in the in the accounting of the bureau, meaning that, you know, if we gave a $5 discount for a class that costs $7 out of pocket, are we using that simply to just transfer it over to supplement general fund for staffing? Are we using those dollars to I mean, is it funny accounting? I just I don't know how to ask the question accurately.
478 Good evening, councilors. Thank you very much for having me. I'm sarah huggins. I'm with vibrant communities as well. So I will take a crack at these. And we're also happy to follow up with sort of more specificity. So we have been analyzing the utilization of the access discount pass. We have a sense both of where it's being utilized. And we are asking people to voluntarily share some demographic information. So we can also have an understanding of who it's being used by as well. So we're happy to follow up with sort of more detail around sort of the utilization that we've seen so far in terms of how it's budgeted. Each year. We've put a forecasted amount for what we think it will be. It is certainly not operating on a cost recovery model, and so far we've been able to grow into that and absorb that within our planned budget.
479 Councilor Clark, thank you.
480 I have a lot of questions, but I'm thinking tomorrow we have a work session with parks. Is that right?
481 We will be back with parks in 11.5 hours.
482 So I can hold my questions until then.
483 To if you have anything specific that we need miserable for, let's ask that tonight.
484 Well, you did mention the $600 million backlog. Was that major maintenance? I'll let adina answer that. Okay.
485 Yes. The $600 million in deferred maintenance is for is capital to major maintenance.
486 That's the major maintenance. Okay. I'll just leave it at that, because that's not a levy issue, necessarily. It's a bigger issue or different issue.
487 Different issue, different issue.
488 Yeah, but thank you. Thank you for being here tonight. Appreciate it. Thank you.
489 Councilor Green.
490 I'll keep my comments brief. I just wanted to say thank you so much for serving on this committee. It's extremely important work. I do have a question, though, in appendix b of the report, you described the leveraged funding model. I'd like to know a little bit more about the successes and maybe opportunities where that could be be tweaked. Like specifically, I understand that it sort of preserves capacity of the levy to kind of spread that out over a larger array of services. Does that preservation also involve like sort of interest earnings? Like I'd like to know more. Thanks.
491 So the parks levy fund is a separate fund and it does earn interest. So levy resources are also not required to be spent in that five year window, although we are projecting that we will spend them in that five year window. Were there more specifics about the leveraged funding model?
492 No, that's that's very helpful. I was specifically curious about the interest piece, and I just want to encourage us to think about that more broadly in all of our our work in the city. It's good to be fiscal stewards that way.
493 Councilor Zimmerman. Thank you.
494 My comment is really I want to use this as an example for the colleagues for the city is, you know, I've been at a lot of municipalities where we have nighttime meetings. This is a big report. It was an important report. And this is the trend. And so I would encourage us to monitor how we use our nighttime meetings, because this is the trend that happens all over Oregon where we go late and we cut off, or we reduce the information that we receive because we get up against human needs. Right? That's not a bad reason. It's just the nature of what a nighttime meeting does. And so I know that we got some praise earlier for thanking us to have this meeting tonight. But I would also say we gave up some stuff, and you guys were some of them that we gave up because we got a very abridged version of what you had to share tonight. That will happen the rest of this year in some form or fashion. And so I just wanted to highlight that to use these as incredibly sparingly as possible because.
495 Any other questions from council? Thank you all for being here. Thank you for your patience and thank you for the information and for your work on this and the services that you provide for our community. I believe that we have public comment.
496 We have one person signed up. Virginia ellerby is joining us online.
497 Virginia, are you still with us?
498 Virginia, you're muted. Can you hear us? Yes I think I've got it now.
499 Thank you.
500 My name is virginia ellerby and I'm testifying on behalf of the concerned citizens, an informal group engaged in park related issues.
501 My testimony.
502 Tonight focuses on the potential that the 2020 parks levy could end up harming the financial sustainability of our city's beloved park system, given that risk. Our group urges the council to get more frequent updates on park finance bureau finances and to carefully vet renewal proposals for those unfamiliar with the concept, financial sustainability refers to an organization's ability to pay for its operations, major capital maintenance and capital growth projects without imposing undue burdens on future generations. Using that definition, parks has had a financial sustainability problem for over a decade, as evidenced by the massive deferred maintenance backlog that parks testified about. Bureau leaders have warned this maintenance backlog could necessitate the closure of 1 in 5 park assets by 2035. I admit, it seems odd to flag the potential that the 2020 levy itself could erode the bureau's financial sustainability. When the reports before you show that levy revenues have exceeded levy expenditures for three straight years. But the trajectory in the composition of levy spending are indeed causes for worry. In a budget review a year ago, the city budget office characterized parks expenditures as untenable and noted the bureau's full personnel costs were greater than its general fund allocation. These operations related financial sustainability risks merit high level attention given the value portlanders attach to parks. I'll close by elaborating on our two earlier suggestions for council action. First, we recommend the council request quarterly updates on levy expenditures and the rate at which accumulated levy funds are being drawn down. Second, the council should allow sufficient time to rigorously examine future levy referral requests. One key issue is whether a levy measure hiking the current mill rate in order to maintain existing operational service levels would be compatible with the core value of fiscal responsibility. Thank you for your time.
503 Thank you very much. Thank you for bearing with us this late and for your very action oriented testimony.
504 That completes testimony. Great.
505 Any further council discussion? On a report? We are actually looking for a motion and a second before we can vote.
506 So moved. Second. Accept the report. So moved. Yeah.
507 I believe we have a motion and a second to accept the report.
508 Avalos.
509 I.
510 Dunphy, I Smith, I now, I just want to congratulate you on the clean audit.
511 I had the opportunity to hear that in advance. As a member of the parks board, I appreciate it. And I also want to thank mary ruble and the whole parks levy oversight committee for your service, as well as the parks board, which I was privileged to be a member of very recently. I'll keep it short and just stop it there. I Ryan.
512 Yeah. I quickly want to say thank you, director long. Thank you for staying up past your bedtime. And claire flynn and mary ruble, you're such an extraordinary volunteer. I just have to say that in the ramp up while in the public health's recommended COVID distancing, there was some expected struggle at the beginning of the levy. And that was, I think, unfairly amplified out there in the media, like we were behind or something. And today you probably won't receive the corresponding positive press on how things caught up and were definitely providing the services as it was outlined in the levy. So I wanted to make sure I took a moment to congratulate you for that. Thank you.
513 Koyama Lane I maria.
514 Thank you guys so much for being here late at night to give us this presentation, and I look forward to going through the rest of the materials I Novick I Clark, I Green, I Zimmerman, I pirtle-guiney I thank you.
515 The report is accepted.
516 We are moving back in our agenda to item seven. I believe.
517 Madam president, can I suggest we do 11 prior to that? Or request it? Just because I know we have guests here, do we have any issues with the 11 under the current rules, do we need to adopt the new rules before we do?
518 Item 11 linly.
519 Oh, that's a good question.
520 So the question is if any of the committee assignments include that's 12.
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521 Oh that's 12.
522 No, no okay.
523 11 is fine.
524 Sorry. Thank you.
525 Okay. Any objection to moving to number item number 11 on the agenda. Okay. Without objection. Keelan.
526 Withdraw authorization for the city attorney to file an unfair labor practice complaint for a collective bargaining agreement. Violation.
527 Councilor Green.
528 Thank you, madam president. As well as my colleagues who consented to bring this urgent item with the 9/5 procedure. It is urgent. And so I want to thank you for that. I also want to thank special thanks to councilor Zimmerman for co-sponsoring this resolution with me, and also councilor Ryan for your vote last December, which was, I think, the sole no vote on this, which gives cause for the reason to rescind it today. So thank you for that leadership at that time, I see the inauguration of this new form of government as an opportunity to not only change how portlanders engage with municipal government and influence policy development, but also how council engages with the labor movement. My hope is that this council stands with afscme and seeks every opportunity to provide assurances to its rank and file members that we have their backs, and that includes respecting their right to organize for a better contract. Therefore, I'm introducing this with councilor Zimmerman, a resolution that withdraws the authorization specifically granted on December 4th, 2024 by the previous council for the city attorney to file an unfair labor practice. It is my contention. I think it is our contention that this was unnecessarily antagonistic to aps committee members who were facing a challenging contract fight, so the city attorney has yet to file this lp. So I think this is a fairly straightforward resolution, and we have an opportunity to hit the reset switch on this relationship with afscme and turn down the temperature during this cooling off period. We're trying to cool off, right. So with, you know, with the city as part of this contract negotiation. So at this point, I'd just like to offer to councilor Zimmerman an opportunity to say some remarks as well.
529 Thank you, councilor Green, and your leadership on this. I appreciate being a part of it as well. You know, I'm supporting this, and I brought it forward because I think that with this new government that there have been a few times where I think us signaling who we are, what positions we have is an important thing. I recognize the last council and the and the issues at the time, but my assessment after talking with folks is that this was an unnecessary boil point. And so while I don't think will change the overall economics of negotiations, I do think it can change how we go about those negotiations on both sides. And so that's why I'll support it. And I will ask for others support as well.
530 Any questions to our presenters and fellow councilors about their. Their item. Councilor Green is my question.
531 There's no question. I just the question is do I need to actually make a motion for this or is it already in place?
532 It is already in place and it looks like councilor Smith.
533 Thank you, madam president. I just wanted to say thank you all for your leadership, your courageous leadership on bringing this forward. And as we are talking about making sure that we treat others as we want to be treated, I just want to make a note that with asked me, doctor martin luther king jr visited memphis, tennessee in 68 and he went to tennessee to go support afscme. The afscme folks who were the sanitation workers and those sanitation workers were working in unsafe working conditions that they faced at the time. And during that visit in 1968, in memphis, on April 4th, doctor king was assassinated, coming to help the workers of afscme. Had they had a council like ours that believed in labor and in supporting folks not having unsafe working conditions, but it proved again the heart of doctor king. So in the spirit of doctor king, I will be supporting your your resolution. Thank you.
534 Any other questions from councilors? Did we have any last minute public testimony?
535 Sign up. No one signed up. Okay.
536 Clerk. Could you call the roll then for us?
537 Avalos.
538 This is an easy yes, I won't see a Smith.
539 I.
540 Yeah. Thank you for introducing this. Elections matter. This is a pro labor council. We want to lower the temperature during the cooling down period with afscme and also with our labor partners. Generally, I vote yes, Ryan.
541 Yeah, my vote remains the same. Although then it was important to say no. And then this one I get to say I, I.
542 Koyama Lane thank you, councilors Zimmerman and Green for bringing this forward. I think this is really important. It's an important symbol. It's an important thing to do. And I believe it's true that we do have a pretty labor friendly pro labor council. And I just want to add there that I'm not only pro-labor, I am labor. I fully understand, deep in my bones what solidarity forever means. I've taken out a group on strike. I am a rank and file union member still, and I will be continuing to pay my dues while I serve on city council. And so just want you to know that I understand that what what workers are fighting for when you're fighting for something, it's not just for yourself, it's not just for the members in your group, but it's for all workers. A vote and I vote. I, maria, I'm very proud to vote I on this.
543 I, I hope that the city can take steps towards making material amends as well to our workers and making sure that they get everything that they deserve because they do so much for us. Thank you.
544 Novick I Clark.
545 Thanks guys. This is an easy yes, and I think it demonstrates that we all want to operate in good faith.
546 Green I Zimmerman.
547 Thank you everybody.
548 I pirtle-guiney negotiations are hard and these negotiations will still be hard and will likely still be contentious.
549 But I hope that the city's employees are employees who are at the bargaining table with the city. See this vote as a sign that this council wants us to have a relationship embedded in respect for the work that they do, for the processes that we engage in. I'm a yes.
550 The resolution is adopted.
551 I think that now, I think that now leaves us with two items left on our agenda.
552 I would like us to move back to the second reading of our rules. Agenda item seven amend council organization and procedure code related to the council agenda, council rules and council committees. This is currently a non emergency ordinance and if we would like it to go into effect tonight to allow us to adopt our committee structure in the way in which we've intended to, we do need to add an emergency clause to this ordinance.
553 So moved. Second.
554 I just a question. I did submit a proposed amendment. Okay. Does that do we have to verbally say so moved for that or we do need to state the purpose for the emergency.
555 And I can read that language if it would be helpful. Thank you.
556 Okay.
557 All right. So the motion would be the council declares that an emergency exists because a delay in the city's implementation of these rules would cause meetings in the intervening 30 days to have different procedures, creating confusion for the public and city staff. Therefore, this ordinance shall be in full force and effect from and after its passage by the council.
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558 So I am going to move that.
559 And then. I'm sorry, who was the second?
560 Second councilor Smith? Thank you.
561 Did you not intend to see?
562 Linly? Are we out of order?
563 Absolutely not. I did want to clarify with the councilor. Did you had submitted an amendment that had additional language. But at this point, it's just the emergency clause.
564 We have another submitted we need to consider.
565 I submitted them at two different amendments. Okay. And I'm sorry.
566 Should we withdraw that and consider the other amendment first? No, no.
567 It sounds like there's only one amendment that is on the table. The present is just that emergency clause. The emergency clause. Okay.
568 Sorry, councilor. It was just it was posted on the auditor's web page as one amendment, and we just were trying to make sure we understood what it was.
569 I see. Thank you for clarifying. I think there was a miscommunication earlier. Yeah.
570 Are we okay to call roll on this vote? Okay. Go ahead. Keelan.
571 Okay. So just to clarify, this is the vote on the amendment okay. Avalos.
572 This is can do we can have discussion either by the way this this is the vote on the emergency clause on the amendment to add an emergency clause.
573 Right. Okay.
574 So we're just doing the amendments separately. Is that what's happening? Okay I.
575 Dunphy I Smith I canal hi Ryan. Hi, Koyama Lane I Morillo I Novick I Clark I Green hi Zimmerman hi pirtle-guiney I.
576 And councilor Kanal I apologize I thought these two were submitted together, so I sent them ahead with your additional. Yeah.
577 The other amendment that I put forward was on the it's to add a the item c in there. Do you have can you read that for us keelan.
578 Yes. So the amendment was to add directive c the council president will ensure a proposal to replace or extend chapter 3.02 is placed on the council agenda by October 31st, 2025.
579 So I'd like to move that.
580 But just to give a little context to this, this particular proposal, based on the feedback and public testimony received at the last meeting on January 2nd, including from some gtac members, there was, I think, an acknowledgment up here on the dais that there that the code regarding council operation needs a holistic review that is broader than the scope of this document and revision, and with the understanding that council will undertake this code review and revision this year, I was intending to put forward a, a amendment that would repeal the entire title on December 31st, after talking to our council president and getting her insight on this, I have adjusted to the amendment I'm putting forward, which is asking the council president to either bring that proposal forward through whatever processes we choose to do, or to simply say, we're going to extend that date out by October 31st. So the amendment, this revised version of it is designed to ensure that the same reevaluation of our overall rules is done to be responsive to public comment and insight around the reason why people were asking for a sunset clause, but to reduce the risk, actually to eliminate the risk of us having no rules whatsoever, should we get to that point and not have a finished our holistic review? And I did discuss this matter with the with the president prior to that. I also just wanted to say that the reason for the October 31st date versus the December 31st date is that's the time it would be beginning to be discussed, and so it would still be able to take effect by December 31st for the new thing. And again, that was for the beginning of next year. And again, that was after discussion with the with the president. So thank you.
581 Any discussion we need a second.
582 Do we.
583 Second. There we go.
584 Any discussion on the proposed amendment. We have my hand. You do have your hand up. Go right ahead, councilor Clark.
585 So there was a second I didn't hear it. Oh, sorry. Okay. So can you just explain to me a little bit more why this is really necessary? Because it seems like this is something that would happen in the operations committee. I, I don't really understand why this is necessary.
586 Thank you. Councilor Kanal. Go ahead.
587 Yeah, I think we got both written and verbal testimony that effectively said that inserting a sunset clause would commit us as a council to revisiting not only whether these changes work, but whether the broader set of rules adopted for us by the previous council work. I think it would still have the opportunity and the right to revise our rules or not under either circumstance. But this is a public commitment of that intent, and it was something that was asked for by a lot of the public testimony. And so I'm proposing this partially to be responsive to that testimony.
588 Can I just ask a follow up? I guess I'm just having a hard time with it, because it doesn't seem like we're going to be having much of a practice before then. I mean, how many months is that? I don't know, it's just I'm not sure I'm convinced of the necessity for this. That's fair.
589 Councilor Green.
590 Yes. I'd like to speak in favor of the amendment for a couple of reasons. One, I think it's clean in that it does. In the software world, you call it error trapping. It looks for the gap where like, oh, this is a major flaw in the sunset piece. So I appreciate the kind of conversation around ensuring that the council president has governance over that and that there's no lapse. But but also, I was compelled by the testimony I heard two weeks ago. There was a lot of folks who felt like this proposal that we would vote on tonight really doesn't do justice to the new charter system in terms of the rules that we need to use to operate. I have felt rushed at times as part of this, and I, I think no matter which side of those discussions you were on, we can all agree that it was fast, it was not very robust and we were all really tired. And so I think what this does is it allows us to sort of publicly affirm that, hey, we there is an opportunity to reset this, and maybe that is just an extension of the rules. That's something that we always have. But I would really like to hear more from the community through the governance committee or whatever we think is the appropriate committee to sort of like test some of these assumptions in here. So I'm going to vote in favor of this.
591 Councilor Zimmerman.
592 Now, as it stands, without this amendment, these rules continue. And as it stands, without this amendment, these rules can be changed at any time. That is what one of the committees that the president will be proposing here soon is tasked with in a large part. So I am not in favor of this amendment, because I think that this tactic of continuing to go back to the sunsetting is unhelpful in terms of setting precedent. It makes it feel like we are in a band aid year. And I don't appreciate that. I think that the year in which we're doing this work, we've got to be hitting our stride and where we find problems, we've got to address those problems in the right practice. But we keep coming back to this idea, and it was a struggle to get where we were. And now this amendment is coming in the second part of it. And I don't love that. But I would just say that this council has the ability to bring new changes to these rules at any time we want, and that there was a process being set up to do that. The. It this is related to some other aspects and it doesn't it doesn't give me confidence that folks are operating with expectation that these rules are are something that they don't want to throw out entirely. And I want a little bit of faith that we're going to be working through these rules and making this work and making these committees work and noting problems versus just knowing that there is a there's a sunset coming and we can deal with it all. Then I think that's a weird kicking of the can. So I'll be a strong no vote on this. I hope others will consider that that we can always make changes as we need to. We do not need to write into this this ordinance.
593 Councilor Avalos.
594 I agree and understand that we can make changes whenever I think part of this amendment and why I plan to support it is one because of what councilor Green has mentioned of a public accountability to us revisiting this, making sure that we're hearing from community, because as I've said, I think at whatever other meeting, I strongly think that we need to find ways to increase the people's voice. And I think the rules are a critical part of that. But I also see it as a accountability that we are making to each other as well, that I would worry by not putting something like this in here, that we would have a really difficult time trying to bring some of these things to the to the table, especially given that I have also received lots of outreach from constituents about ideas for how to make them better and how them better serve the people. So I'm supporting it not just for the people, but also to hold all of us accountable to doing that so that I don't have to worry that it's going to be a big fight if I want to come talk about it again. We are in a new form of government. I understand that we're trying to move with intention and not feel like this is a band-aid year. I really do hear that and understand that. I think, and I agree that we shouldn't do that for everything. I think this is one of the hills I will die on doing a sunset clause for this particular issue, because it's just so foundational to how we work. But I understand that spirit and don't plan on making that a habit for other bills, so I plan to vote for it.
595 Councilor Koyama Lane I believe that committing to reevaluating shows that we have the humility to reflect, and a willingness to be responsive to the needs that come up for the council and our constituents.
596 We heard from g-tech members and other community members that they are in support of this, and I plan to vote in favor of this amendment.
597 Councilor Morillo.
598 I'll keep my comments brief. I think that the sunset clause allows us to have a set time to revisit this issue, because I think we're going to be faced with an onslaught of issues, and it's going to be really hard to carve out that time later. So I think it's really important to have a set date just to revisit. We are establishing a new form of government that is going to last us, god willing, the next few hundred years. And so that means that we really have to do it right. So I think it's really important that we do take community feedback into, you know, how are our committees working? Did people feel like they could access them? Did they feel like they could come testify? That sort of stuff is really important to me. And I think with any good plan, you take a moment to look back on it and reflect on what what worked and what didn't. And I agree with what councilor Avalos said. This isn't going to be a regular thing that happens. This is kind of a one time thing as far as the first year of establishing this new government. Thank you.
599 Any other comments on the amendment? Keelan could you call the roll for the. And we are voting not on the rules themselves, but on the amendment to the rules.
600 Avalos I Dunphy I Smith I canal I Ryan no. Koyama Lane I Morillo I Novick.
601 First of all, I just want to say, councilor Avalos, I don't want to see you die in any hills at all or on the flat either. I.
602 Clark, no Green. I Zimmerman, no pirtle-guiney councilor Kanal.
603 I'm grateful that you were willing to change this from a sunset clause that left us with no rules to something that just asks us to have a conversation, which I intend for us to have with or without this measure, I will vote I. I believe that passed. Okay, we have an ordinance before us. Second reading on a set of rules which has been amended twice now tonight, any further discussion on the rules before we vote? Okay. Keelan, could you call the roll?
604 Avalos. I Dunphy I Smith I connell.
605 So I'm going to vote I on this. I just want to note one thing. I remain in support of this because it is a compromise we made to put forward a short term rules patch. I did want to highlight one thing in this compromise that still needs to be addressed around district representation on committees. I evaluated this originally through looking at a few specific committees like labor and workforce or governance, where one's experience and expertise might be more relevant than geography in building a committee's membership. But there are other committees in which geography is particularly relevant to the work discussed, so I'm not going to stand in the way over that. But I do think that we should ensure that the longer term conversation around our council procedures includes addressing this concern in a way that meets with our constituents comments and gtex recommendations, and I intend to apply the standard to those most relevant committees on a case by case basis going forward. I also want to just observe that there were three written testimonies submitted that related to written to evening council meetings, and I want to support that, as well as public input in the full city council meetings as well as committees, and for building a council where power has grown rather than diluted by being shared. I look forward to continuing that conversation after this vote. And I vote yes.
606 Ryan, I want to acknowledge council leadership, council president, madam president, madam vice president, for all the work that you've done to move this forward, you've been very thoughtful and I appreciate that.
607 I vote yea Koyama Lane. I Morillo I Novick. I Clark, I, Green, I Zimmerman I pirtle-guiney I motion passes point of information clarification I don't know could I ask that we have a practice after a vote that we just restate what the vote count is?
608 I don't know if that's keelan that should do that or if you president pirtle-guiney, but I'd appreciate that.
609 Absolutely.
610 Keelan is taking the official tally, so I will let keelan do that.
611 Sure. Thank you.
612 Passes with 12.
613 Thank you, thank you keelan.
614 But could you say the numbers? That's what I'm saying. Like it? Or did you say pass oh passes with 12.
615 Oh with 12 is what you said okay. Thank you, thank you.
616 Okay. We are moving on to our final agenda item, agenda item 12 on our 9/12 agenda. This is the establishment of our committees and the population of the membership and leadership of our committees. Just as a reminder, we had a work session on potential committees last week so that we could have a public conversation about what this might look like based on some of the interests that all of you had expressed, I brought forward a proposal of nine committees, and based on your feedback, we slimmed that down to eight, changed some of the descriptions, some of the jurisdictions of a few of those committees, and filled it in with membership, really, from things you all have said during and since your campaigns conversations that many of us had early on about your general interests and what you were hoping to do with council, this can change. I can bring forward a proposal to you all if we need to make changes at a later date. In general, I hope that the precedent that we set is that committee membership lasts for a year so that we have stability, consistency to get the work done. But in this first year, I know that we may need to reevaluate things. I also want to note that with eight committees, we are asking a lot of the folks who support us, our bureau of technology services, our security, the clerk's office within the auditor's office, our own council operations, our attorneys who are here today as well as others. And we may need to work with them as we go through this process of getting our committees up and running to make sure that they have the supports that they need as well. Is there any oh, are there any questions? Let's start with questions before discussion. Are there any questions? Council counselor Zimmerman. Legacy counselor. Avalos.
617 Okay, so yes, madam president, I have a question. So some of the testimony that we received included some concern about separating land use and development from housing. This is a concern that I do share. And in fact, one of the policies I was hoping to address through the housing committee was identifying metrics for Portland permitting and development, so we could identify and track measures of success for housing production. So the way the descriptions are written, I'm not sure where something like that would reside, and wanted to see if you could add some clarity on whether the housing committee could address development of housing, or were you planning on that being more in climate?
618 The intention here is that the housing committee would address the full continuum of housing through the development of market rate housing. Land use is within climate resilience and land use committee. So the broader view of where are we putting different things within our city is in that committee where we're having a land use and climate conversation. I've received some feedback about the fact that permitting is in different places within our committee structure. And one of the things that we'll need to address as we look more broadly at rules and procedures is how we use the idea of potentially subsequent committees to make sure that permitting all comes back to one place at the end of the day, so that we are talking about permitting within the bounds of the policies that that that permitting or that necessitate that permitting, and also a place where we look at permitting more holistically. So you're right, this is a place where there's some division. But I foresee and I hope that if this passes and you are chair of that committee, when we have our conversations about your goals for the committee that we are talking about, a committee where you're looking at the full spectrum of housing from the supports for folks who are unhoused to our subsidized housing, up to how we are developing market rate housing, and what we can do to ensure that we have enough housing supply in our city.
619 I appreciate that, and I'll just say, you know, I think as we're going to need to discuss in a few months, right? Like you said at the beginning, if everything is in the right place, I'll just keep that as a flag for us to keep checking. But I appreciate your answer. Thank you. Great.
620 Councilor Smith.
621 Yes, madam president, will all the committee work be done in this council chambers?
622 We have a few options. It is much easier for the teams that support us if our committee work is all done in these council chambers. There are other rooms. The 1900 building and at the Portland building that we can use if we run into conflicts, those come with additional work for our staff and additional cost to our council. So we will need to work on our our council schedule. Our council operations team has been looking at a potential schedule and they can make it work all in this room. We do have other options. If there is an occasional need for something different.
623 Perfect.
624 Councilor Green.
625 Thank you, madam president. Firstly, I just you guys did a lot of work. This is quite the puzzle to solve. I really I really appreciate all that hard work. I just want to speak to a couple of things. Firstly, I, I appreciate land use being brought up kind of right at the forefront. I also read those comments and I've also been thinking about it. I agree that the right place for it is climate resilience and land use. And the reason why is because you can make the same argument from the other side that why is it in housing? Because land use is actually a major site of economic development. It is a major site of environmental policy. It is a it's sort of a foundational policy area for us. And so I only say that just because no matter how we chose to slice and dice this, I think there was always going to be an implicit obligation and duty on the chairs of these committees to decide when it's appropriate to ask for a joint committee. But there may be issues that cut across this stuff in certain ways, that it's not appropriate for a single committee to be considering. And so we would we would spin up a joint committee. I think that's how you get around this complaint that these are not aligned with service areas. And I and I like that they're not aligned with service areas because I don't necessarily agree with the service area model. I'm not saying I don't like them right now, but this is our prerogative to change, right? These are policy areas that we want to do our work in. And I think these are these are good representative. Look at the policy areas of urgency. The other thing I would like to say is that as we kind of go forward in time and, you know, as you as you mentioned, we will have an opportunity to check in on this and you can always propose a change. Let's keep our eye on the district representative representation piece. If we find that there's like for instance, I look at transportation infrastructure, I don't see any district two representation on there. And I think that's okay for now, because I believe that the people on that committee are going to be thinking about district two. But if we find that that's not okay, I hope that we can bring that discussion into play, and we maybe would bring that to a rules, rules discussion as well. And then finally. You know, I, I like I like it. So I think, I think I'm, I'm generally in support of this and I'm really I'm really eager to hear what other other colleagues are, are thinking on this. Thanks.
626 Thank you. Councilor councilor Kanal.
627 Yeah. I'll start with my questions. I wanted to understand where a few things landed in terms of jurisdiction of committees, so I apologize if I'm putting the president and vice president on the spot here. But what? And I think it doesn't necessarily need to be amended in. I think the fact that it may be clarified here would be helpful for me to know going forward. I'm not proposing a change, but I just want to have it said out loud. What renter's rights fit into the housing and homelessness conversation? Would that be something they're authorized to discuss?
628 But my assumption would be that that would be the best place for it. And the way that our rules are that we adopted councilors can. Can move to send their bills to specific committees. But my advice to committee chairs and my ask to all of you would be that renter's rights issues go to that committee. Yes.
629 Thank you. Will the public safety committee and public safety committee handle issues related to police accountability and the parks rangers?
630 Yes. Comma. Yes. Asterisk. Parks is a little bit split on this proposal. The parks and rec bureau is a little bit split on this proposal. So parks rangers could fall depending on the type of discussion in the climate resilience and land use committee. If we're talking about how we use and work with our parks, but if we are talking about them within the bounds of our broader law enforcement system and public safety system, then certainly they would be part of those conversations and community and public safety.
631 Thank you. And then if you could clarify about where the recreation side of parks and recreation would live.
632 Yes. And that is a change from the conversation that we had last Wednesday, based on feedback from many of you on council parks, still lies within climate resilience and land use. Recreation now lies within arts and economy, and because bureau budget work will take place in a separate committee, we're able to split the policy like that to have those separate conversations. As councilor Green talked about, there may be times where we need to bring things together, but predominantly the work of recreation will be part of our conversation around arts and economy.
633 Thank you. And my last question is, if you could speak to the three committees that don't have district representation, you're thinking around from all four districts. And if you could speak to the thought process there, you know, one of our colleagues said this was a puzzle.
634 And as we put this puzzle together, the different overlays of the types of representation we needed to make sure we had the interests and expertise we needed to make sure we had. We're also something on on my mind and I think on vice president Koyama Lane mind as well. And to the extent possible, we tried to make sure we had district representation from each district on each committee, and we made sure that there were representatives from at least three of the four districts on each committee. Transportation and infrastructure does, as one of our colleagues mentioned, lack a councilor from our district, from district two. I believe I should have had my notes on this in front of me, and I didn't. I don't usually let myself get caught off guard like that. Let me see if I have it here. Climate, climate resilience and land use I believe does not have it does now. It does. We changed that one old news. Labor.
635 And unless something's changed, climate resilience and land use still doesn't have 04i apologize, I apologize.
636 I made my note wrong on that one. You're right. Climate resilience and land use is lacking.
637 Somebody from d4 and then arts and economy for three. Yes.
638 And arts and economy was missing somebody from district three. So those are the three places I think it's good to state that on the record, where we have representatives from three of the four districts and we will be asking our colleagues, at least I know that I will, as it relates to transportation, to make sure to pay attention to the concerns in our districts as well. Any councilor Can bring a policy to any committee, even if you don't sit on that committee. So this doesn't preclude conversations about those topics as they relate to individual districts from coming forward. And again, if we need to make changes because the districts issues are not being brought forward, we can certainly do that through an additional resolution at any time. Anything further? Okay. Councilor Zimmerman, yeah, these questions have been helpful.
639 It's good to hear kind of where people's thoughts go. I just when I think about these committees, I just reemphasize for myself and for others that we won't be doing the permitting right. We won't be directing any day to day work. We will be tackling the future initiatives we may introduce, or we may discuss changes that the administration would like to see come forward as they relate to the policy area. I think very few city services will only appear in front of one committee. Probably none actually. And so that I frame it that way for a couple of reasons. I will never use the term authorized to discuss, because as a member and as a chair, I will go where I think the committee needs to go is the way I would approach it. Meaning I don't think it's possible to write everything down and. If I think that a committee section, a committees body of work has a relation to an area of a department, of a bureau, then I think it's fully within our in our position to go there. So I think I look at these as suggested topic areas in the, in the subtext, not as must be only areas. So that's I just want to frame that up and I hope others will think of that, because I think we're asking some leadership, not only of the members of each of those committees, but in particular the chair and the vice chair. And I'm looking forward to it. Like, I don't have a problem with the non district representation in every area, in large part because I am looking to some of the other 11 to be my expert on that topic, because that's either an area that is maybe of less interest to me, or an area where I'm not nearly as talented as some of you all are. And so I'm okay giving up that space. But I recognize also why it was at least initially identified by some folks as being very important. So. But for me, I do get it and I'm okay with it. But I think it's important that we communicate some of these changes and these committee roles to our stakeholders. Right. I do think that we run the risk of sending the wrong signal by having a few different committees who are somehow affecting housing production, which is related to permitting, which is related to land use. We could send the wrong signal if we just do this in a vacuum and are not overly communicating. What I will say is what is the rule of the of the land today will be the rule of the land tomorrow after these are adopted in terms of the day to day operations, because it turns out the committee and this council haven't passed any new policies. And that's pretty normal for a legislative body. Our stakeholders, I think, are cautious right now. And so as we do this, as we have those, let's communicate that broadly to say just because the. The housing committee is taking up a topic doesn't mean that it's going to change something tomorrow, right? The day to day practice that was set up to get permitting in alignment remains. And that's where those two gentlemen over there, it's their job to implement it, to figure it out, to keep pushing things through the pipeline. And when we pass complicated things, it will be their job to figure out how to do that in the future, not in the next moment. And I think that's also important for all of us to recognize. So I'm trying to keep some space there. I would encourage all of us to take ownership of these areas instead of taking a subservient role in terms of how do we do it? No, I would say, please lean in and say, this is what I should be talking about. In fact, you have to make the case why I shouldn't be talking about it. Right? And that's what I'm hoping, that some of these committees look very empowered to do. And that's where I'm at. Right. And so I will support this. And it's going to be fun.
640 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Green, I apologize to my colleagues that I'm speaking again.
641 We are tired I am tired tired. But this is important. So we should put this on the record. I just want to say that the charter grants city council the power to delegate duties and powers to committees, and I think I interpret that to mean that when we form these committees and we assign leadership roles there, those chairs or vice chairs or chair co-chair, you know, whatever, whatever the model is, that's their job. Now to figure out what that scope is, okay. And if you can't figure it out, well, maybe you're not suited for leadership, right? That's up to us. And so I think, you know, in the spirit of what you're saying, there may be some areas where it's like, okay, this is an edge case. We're in. We're in a boundary issue. I'm going to bring this discussion to the full council. I'm going to talk to my colleagues and then we'll iterate that way. So I just kind of think that that's how I expect this to go. I and I agree that we're going to need to lik, really be communicative of our of the community at large. But I think that's the whole spirit of all this. That's why we have these committees in the first place. So we're we're doing this in the daylight. We want them to show up. I want them to show up and say, I don't like this. The name of this committee. I think you're not spending enough time on permitting and housing production. Great. Let me hear that. Let's let's talk about that and let's, let's do some policy development. So that's it.
642 Thank you.
643 Any other questions before we move on to public testimony. Okay.
644 We have two people signed up. First up is terry harris.
645 Mr. Harris, thank you for being with us.
646 Well, this time of day I'll either be loud or something to keep your attention. I actually appreciate the conversation you had at the work session, and I appreciated the conversation you had here. I'm going to go to my prepared stuff, but it it changed a little bit. I'm on gtac, but gtac didn't have the opportunity to review this, and so I'm speaking again in my own personal capacity. Basically, we support committees. We support your resolution to establish these committees, and we support you putting them to work as soon as you can. However, I'd like to emphasize that you still need some committee rules and procedures and developing them, maybe in a committee needs to be an urgent priority on capacity. We understand that this council was failed by the previous council to provide resources, but like it or not, on the capacity issue, it's yours now. It is this council's responsibility, the lack of capacity to do the work is not going to be an excuse you can use, because you have the power to create that capacity if you need it, and that will be important when committees start happening. Second, in the work session, there was a comment that the work is the same regardless of the number of committees. All that, and that's kind of true. But the idea behind committees is you can start working in parallel and you have to think that way. Not everything has to be cycled through this broad body. You need to start thinking in, and it goes to capacity, because if you're going to have bottlenecks, you need to identify those bottlenecks and mitigate them as soon as you can. And that might be using other spaces and getting the staff for multiple committees at the same time. I won't go into the district. Representation. You've discussed it. You've heard gtex position on it. We still think you should do it. And I think you're going to hear from your constituents that they're going to want that. But it's your decision. We understand the puzzle that you had. Oh, 30s. And it was pretty good. Jurisdictions, just for example, on the land use and housing thing, having joint committee sessions will be useful and you should use them. It's more eyes on the problem, more discussion, and I think that's great. We would recommend a rule that would establish explicitly that every policy matter has a committee that can review the matter that should go in your rules. Or a committee with catchall jurisdiction, and that should be the governance committee. And if you excuse me. You've got to embed community engagement and public input in to these rules, to your procedures. From the very beginning. It shouldn't be that their first public comment on a resolution is after you've had a work session, after you've discussed it for half an hour, you should be debating and deliberating after you hear from the public. And that's just basic public input. 101 so thank you for the additional 47 seconds.
647 Thank you. We appreciate the comments.
648 Next up we have Dan handelman online.
649 Good evening. Can you hear me council members.
650 We can.
651 Great. Well my name is still Dan heilman. Five hours later I use he him pronouns. I'm with Portland copwatch. It's a bit confusing that there are six service areas and eight subcommittees. It's not 100% clear whether they match up. And I wrote these comments before hearing your comments. So some of them you may have answered, but I don't have time to change everything. Members of the by then decommissioned police accountability commission testified about the city's version of the new oversight board, strongly suggesting that to ensure the new oversight system is as independent as spelled out in the charter, it should not be in the same service area as the police. It's our understanding, though difficult, to find evidence on the city's website that as a result, the new oversight system was moved to the operations area, which is where the bureau of human resources resides. This makes sense because a lot of work with the community board for police accountability will be reviewing the job performance of city employees, specifically police officers. So this raises the question of whether the oversight system will also be kept insulated from the police bureau by having one of the council's committees, which is not the public safety committee, oversee the implementation and then ongoing operations of the board. Pause for possible answer. Okay, I'll take my answer later. And we also echo mr. Harris's testimony that there should be representatives from each district on every committee, which two council members addressed already. So I won't go through our list that we got the same numbers that we heard read into the record in a broader context. It's hard to know whether committee members, community members who are interested in many aspects of the city's functions will have to go to multiple subcommittees to address their concerns and then back to the full council. It would seem that ideas brought to council are to be fully formed. I would agree again with mr. Harris. It would be best to get community input all along the way. That doesn't take away the full council's responsibility to hear public testimony and consider it before adopting proposals. You're all aware of this too. I think I heard some mention of it. That's six councilors are each on four committees, while four others are only on three. It makes sense that the president and vice president of the council are only on two each. We read the attachment, explaining the roles of the chair and vice chair for each committee, but we wonder how that differs from committees with co-chairs. The police accountability commission had a structure with three co-chairs, so if there is a disagreement among them, it can be resolved by a vote, which is not possible with just two people. It would be great to hope the co-chairs will always agree on everything, but they may not be. That may not be realistic. Another question that needs to be resolved soon. I'm not sure how it will happen in a committee or a council is the applications for the oversight board. They should be run through council and the nominating committee and in our opinion, the former police accountability commission and the broader community. To be sure, it matches the expectations of what the new board will do. Where do we bring that concern? Finally, it's of concern that this is only the council's second meeting, and there are already two items on the 9/12 agenda, meaning they weren't ready for publication as of last Friday when the full agenda was posted. As a result, this item being added yesterday, we had to scramble to get this testimony prepared. We hope future uses of 912 will be few and far between, and with 10s left. I want to say we agree with reading the vote counts. That's a good idea. And you need bigger nameplates that sit on the backs of computers so we know who you are, because the little ones underneath you aren't showing up on the screen. Thank you.
652 That completes testimony.
653 Thank you for your testimony, mr. Handelman, and for the note about how the nameplates show up online. Is there any final council discussion? Okay. Keelan, could you call the roll?
654 Avalos I. A Smith I now.
655 Thank you to the president and vice president for their efforts to balance so many competing interests, priorities and backgrounds among the 12 of us and come up with a slate of committees, responsibilities, leaders and memberships. It is a ton of work. As councilor Green mentioned, it's a lot of time and it's appreciated. I'm also grateful for the trust you placed in councilor, Novick and I to lead a committee focused on community and public safety, and to colleagues who also support a slate, including that regardless of how this ends up going, I'm committed to leading that work with councilor Novick openly, collaboratively, and with a clear focus on a safer Portland for everyone when we discuss the rules patch a moment ago, I mentioned I remained interested in reaching a better outcome than that ordinance provided as it relates to district representation, and that I intended to apply a standard of whether geography is relevant to the subject matter, and then look and see if the membership of the committee reflects that on the most relevant committees. I think that you answered very adequately my questions about jurisdiction, and I'm very happy with that response. But on the subject of district representation, I'm concerned about the lack of d3 representation on arts and economy because of how many significant districts in both of those spaces exist in that district, and how their needs are different than downtown's or 82nd. I'm even more concerned for district four, where the cei hub is located, does not have representation on climate resilience and land use. And as a representative of district two, I got a most highly rank. My concern that we're not represented on transportation and infrastructure. And when I talk to folks who live on trenton or by mccoy park, where the schools and the students are and the crosswalks aren't, or by, you know, the montessori school on lombard and mississippi, I've been committed to ensuring that those voices are heard in it. I don't personally need to be on it. I am personally invested in it, and I trust that either of my district colleagues would have represented our districts very well in the transportation and infrastructure conversations had we been there, and I'm disappointed that none of the three of us are. And I think the resolution needs to do both things to ensure that the policy discussions are as rich as possible and ensure that representation exists, in particular in the places where it's most relevant. And I think this document succeeds handily at the first of those, but because it does not, in my view, succeed as the second of these, I'm unfortunately must vote. No. Thanks, brian.
656 Yeah, we're building and you did a great job getting the scaffolding up and running, and now we're going to experience it. And I just have a feeling we'll make some edits about a year from now, if not earlier. But it's all good anyway. I vote yea.
657 Thank you. Koyama Lane I Morillo I Novick now that it appears that this will have the votes to pass, I do feel compelled to confess to councilors Green, Clark, and Zimmerman that yes, councilor Morillo I have already discussed and we've agreed that we will take advantage of your absence in the land use committee to zone to zone district four and only district four for all the bad stuff I.
658 Why would you say that, Clark?
659 A Green?
660 I just want to say thank you for having the courage to put a socialist on the economics committee. I.
661 Zimmerman.
662 Well, Steve, as the chair of finance, remember that what goes around comes around. I am happy to support this. Thank you for your work, both of you.
663 I pirtle-guiney I the resolution is adopted with a vote of 11 yeses and one no that I will close our council meeting at 1113 and see you all back here at 930 tomorrow morning.
664 No.