The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-06-04
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Session summaryEditor-reviewed
The Portland City Council convened its regular session on June 4, 2025, with roll call confirming attendance and one member joining online. The meeting opened with agenda approval, during which questions were raised about scheduling of a tie-breaking vote measure previously considered by the Governance Committee; clarification was offered regarding attorney guidance on when a mayoral tie-breaking vote would apply. Public communication included testimony on a proposed "Geek Week PDX" proclamation, personal grievances regarding past service-animal and legal disputes, and advocacy for continued city support of the Frog Ferry transit pilot project. The committee referral report and City Administrator's report followed, including discussion of settled claims, grant reimbursements, and an economic opportunities analysis update. Two settlement ordinances involving Portland Parks and Recreation—related to a light pole injury case and a drowning wrongful-death claim—were discussed and voted on, with outcomes recorded in the vote ledger. Extended deliberation occurred over the Children's Levy Allocation Committee's funding recommendations, with concerns raised about scoring criteria, equity considerations, and process transparency; a motion to remand the funding decisions was voted on, followed by an emergency ordinance to extend current-year funding levels, with all outcomes recorded in the vote ledger. The council also adopted committee rules, including several floor amendments, and confirmed appointments to the Development Review Advisory Committee and the Mount Hood Cable Regulatory Commission. The meeting was recessed to reconvene the following afternoon.
AI-drafted from the session's auto-captions, reviewed by an editor — describes the discussion only; recorded votes live in the vote ledger. Captions contain errors.
Procedural markers in this session
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0 Good morning, counselors. It is June 4th at 931. I am convening our Portland city council meeting. Colleagues, you'll notice that councilor Koyama Lane is online. This morning, and councilor Ryan has said that he is running a little bit late. We have a very packed agenda and we cannot run significantly late on this meeting today, because I would like everybody to have a break before the work session this afternoon. I'll also note that at the end of the meeting, we are recessed to reconvene tomorrow. We have a few settlements that we're going to take more time. And so we are hearing those tomorrow afternoon in that Thursday afternoon overflow slot. So that we could have time to get through the things that are on our agenda today. Council agenda.
1 Council agenda. I can't raise my hand.
2 I rebecca, could you please call the roll?
3 Canal.
4 Here.
5 Ryan. Here. Koyama Lane.
6 Here.
7 Morillo here.
Procedural episode · turns 8–16
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8 Novick here.
9 Clark. Here. Green.
10 Present.
11 Zimmerman. Here. Avalos. Present. Dunphy. Here. Smith. Here.
12 Pirtle-guiney here. Thank you. And I can't see who we have as our attorney today behind the computer. But could you read the rules of order and decorum for us?
13 Welcome to the Portland city council. To testify before council in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the council agenda at wwe Portland council agenda. Information on engaging with the council can be found on the council clerk's web page. Individuals may testify for three minutes unless the presiding officer states otherwise. Your microphone will be muted when your time is over. The presiding officer preserves order. Disruptive conduct such as shouting. Refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others testimony or council deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, council may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony should address the matter being considered when testifying. State your name for the record. Your address is not necessary. If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent. Virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the council clerk calls your name. Thank you.
14 Thank you so much. Councilors. The first item on our agenda is agenda approval. Are there any requests to amend or reorder the agenda? Councilor Ryan?
15 Thanks. Yeah, I just was curious about something. Madam president, on may 5th, the governance committee, after two really long discussions on it, passed a legislation. Excuse me, that made it really clear how we would handle the mayor tiebreaker vote. And we, you know, we narrowed it down to the fact that ordinances and land use hearings, it was very necessary if we were to six six tie to have the mayor weigh in and not on amendments. So that's a little summary of what we accomplished. You're aware of that. And then we passed that. And I know that people blocked the emergency first reading two days later I could. I'm okay with that. But we didn't have it on the last agenda. And then again, it's not on this agenda. So I think it's fair for the public to understand why we're slow walking this, I think, very important conversation. And I thank those that worked on the charter to campaign for that. There was a lot of rhetoric about how important it was to have the mayor tiebreaker vote when there was no veto established. So I'm just curious, especially as we're in the heat of very challenging conversations about our budget, why this is not being discussed at council.
16 Councilor I assume this is relevant to this agenda item, because you may decide to move to amend the agenda. Is that correct?
17 I, I don't know if I have the votes to move to amend the agenda, but I think it's fair to hear by those who were clear that they didn't want this to be read and by you, the council president, to explain why the public isn't hearing us discuss what we passed to governance.
18 Absolutely. Councilor there is a backlog of agenda items that have come out of committee that were brought forward by councilors, that I am working hard to get on our agendas because of our budget work. And frankly, a number of items from the administrative side that hadn't been brought forward earlier in the year or late last year as the government transition occurred. We have had a number of items, a disproportionate number of items coming from the administration that were in crunch time. I then tried to work through the agenda items that councilors brought forward that had direct budgetary implications, and then moved to things that, frankly, have been sitting for the longest. So actually, rather than a slow walk, what you're seeing is two items on our agenda today that also came out of the governance committee that have been sitting, waiting to be heard at full council for much longer. I think that our vice president, councilor Koyama Lane, was very clear with our colleagues when they didn't sign the 9/12 paper to try to get that on that first agenda, where we had left room for it, that that meant we probably wouldn't be able to vote on that measure before we were done with the budget. And after that, I sent out how the attorneys are currently interpreting the guidance around a tie breaking vote to all of our colleagues so that there was full transparency amongst everybody at the dais around how I would be applying the tie breaking authority, or looking to the mayor to apply that tie breaking role. And so we have been essentially make shifting as best we can without that, since folks chose our colleagues chose not to bring it forward. And again, rather than slow walking, what you actually see is two other governance agenda items that have been sitting for much longer on our agenda today, that I hope we will have time to get to.
19 Well then, I hope right now you could explain to the public how, in fact, if there was a66 vote on an ordinance, how we would proceed forward?
20 The guidance that I have gotten from our attorneys, specifically from robert taylor, who leads the city attorney's office and provides the closest thing we have. Excuse me, the closest thing we have to that that role of interpreting how all of our various levels of rules fit together. Is that the language that we currently have tells us that the mayor, on a deciding vote can break a tie, which means a couple of things. It means, first of all, that he has to be here to break that tie. There's not provisions for if he's not present. Yes, it means that if we are talking about an emergency vote which requires nine votes, that he does not weigh in because that's not a tie stood, it means that on votes that get us to a final decision like amendments, he does not break the tie. But on any final vote vote of passage, he would break the tie.
21 And that's exactly basically what we're trying to bring to the entire council. So it sounds like you're moving forward with the practice that we discussed in what we landed in the passage of that legislation.
22 And I'm happy to resend that language to everybody that I had sent before around the attorney's guidance, if that's helpful. I think.
23 That after the I thought we needed that transparency. It's been lacking. I appreciate it.
24 Thank you. Councilor Green, do you have a request to amend or reorder the agenda?
25 I wanted to speak to councilor Ryan's question. Okay. I mean, because I think if you want to make the motion councilor to see where the votes land, you can do that today. But I guess my question would be the overflow. The overflow session tomorrow. Would we have space to accommodate either what would be bumped from this or or that motion to amend?
26 Colleagues, we are hearing a lawsuit.
27 Settlement tomorrow that because of the extent of public testimony that we expect and the extent of discussion that I am anticipating, we've scheduled for two and a half of those three hours, and I don't foresee that agenda item being something that we can easily cut down.
28 Okay. That's helpful.
29 Councilor Kanal did you have a request to amend or reorder the agenda?
30 No. Madam president, I have a 15 second comment on this. That's okay. Go ahead. I can't speak to the votes on any specific measure. I can't speculate, but what I will say is that if there was to be a motion to only hear items from councilors and put everything from the administration on the back burner until July or August, I would I would vote for it. At this point, we have way too many items that I'll talk about a couple later in this meeting that have been waiting. Otherwise, thanks.
31 Thank you. Councilor, councilors, do I have unanimous consent to approve the agenda? Great. Thank you. Our next agenda item is public communication. Rebecca, could you please call forward the portlanders who have signed up to speak with us today?
32 First up, we have david raycroft.
33 Good morning. Wow, this is quite the swanky setup from the last time I was here. Very nice.
34 Meeting with us here this morning, david.
35 Greetings, mayor wilson and members of the city council. My name is david raycroft and I'm the chief goblin wrangler of geek week pdx. I'm actually here today to tell you a story. This story is about a few old school nerds that have a deep love for the quirky and creative culture that is Portland. Back in the olden days of 2024, this gaggle of geeks thought, you know what we need? We need a pizza week for nerds was a modest notion to inspire visitors and residents to explore our neighborhoods and maybe discover a new place to eat, drink, and play. So we went out to the community and asked, do you want to do a thing? And the community said, yes. Last year we cataloged over 400 nerdy experiences across 150 small businesses in every corner of the city. Every district showed up and let their geek flag fly. This week, geek week pdx is back, bigger and more epic than ever. We're transforming downtown, turning director's park into an imagination station with five days of nerdy, nerdy programing, including a grand finale fantasy fair that's going to be taking place during Sunday parkways. The central eastside is geeking out, kicking off festivities with an intergalactic prom at the jupiter hotel. Dust off your taffeta and bust out your baby blue tux. You're all invited, and the central east side is becoming an adventure hub with over 20 nights of programing over the ten day period of time, from wonderwood springs and saint john's to disk heroes, a comic shop and disc golf store on southeast 102nd street, more than 300 small businesses will be celebrating during geek week pdx. And yes, I mentioned disc golf because nerd culture is so much more than comic shops and game stores. Let me take a moment and tell you a little bit about what geek culture is, and why is the city we should celebrate it. The term nerd or geek has become a badge of honor. The definition is an intellectual enthusiast with a deep passion for an area of interest, and there are all kinds of nerds, food nerds, whiskey nerds, history nerds. You get the idea. According to a 2023 survey, 72% of Americans declare themselves as a nerd or geek. That's 240 million people in the us that consider themselves as a geek. To give you context, that's 6 million more than identify as a sports fan with iconic destinations and over 300 geek related businesses. I am here to ask you and the members of the city council to invite those 200 million nerds in America to discover the quirky and creative city by proclaiming September 5th through the 14th geek week pdx. Thank you.
36 Thank you so much for bringing that. Ask forward to us.
37 Robert robert jennings. Robert jennings, we'll move to number three. Injured and off. You can approach the table.
38 By. F third. Yes. Good. Oh.
39 Welcome. Good morning. Thank you for being here.
40 Good morning. My name is injured and off. I had it legally changed in the old Multnomah county courthouse. You can read it on google if you type or say injured and off. It comes up as the first four links that did Thursday. But this morning, while I guess I got demoted, it still had the four links at the upper part of the list. I came here because a injustices seven dog attacks on a blind person that had a legal service animal. I guess it's a joke about equal justice for all. I had to get Oregon legal aid to even allow me into the housing. It was called housing authority of Portland then that was in December 3rd of 2004. I'm talking some 25 years or 20 years plus. And the reason why they said that my dog wouldn't be allowed in the in the building was because it weighed more than 25 pounds. Well, he must have weighed some 60 then. And then with seven dog attacks on the service animal, I couldn't get no equal justice. Even with a valid restraining order against the person I went to the court down the street there, and the district attorney said, well, we're dismissing the case because she really didn't mean it. And so I didn't fill out a seventh and even medical mistreatment at OHSU. They were standing me up for three days ignoring my spinal cord injuries. And all I could do was throw up. And I even protested to the Oregon state bar and even to the united states attorney general. He apparently got fired. You can look up the date and see the video that I was talking. I'd sent for registered and certified letters to the united states department of justice, as well as one to Eric holder himself or two of them, and never no reply or anything. And he was the chief cop that was supposed to enforce the service animal laws. He got fired, like I said, and if that sounds like fair and equal justice, I guess I get the humor there. Even my medical report of my spinal cord injuries are just vanished. The hospital didn't want them, and the care facility that I'm at currently doesn't want them either. So bones and x rays do lie in the trash or in the incinerator. Thank.
41 Thank you for.
42 Being here and for raising your concerns about how things are moving there.
43 Next is joe perez. Joe perez. Susan gledhill.
44 Morning, susan. Thanks for being here.
45 Good morning. Thank you. Council president. Good morning. Councilors. My name is susan, founder of frog ferry. The Willamette river originally named the Multnomah after the chinook village, was a life giving resource and natural travel route for indigenous peoples. When settlers arrived, they also relied on river transit, but by the 20th century, federal investments heavily favored cars and highways and sidelined our rivers. Once vital water corridors, they became obstacles polluted and neglected. In 2005, Portland city agencies revisited river transit through a study that found ferries could work in the event of more congestion, population growth and with committed champions. We've got about 40 of us here today. 20 years later, our roads are gridlocked, our air quality is worsened, and we have fragile and expensive road and bridge infrastructure. Frog ferry was founded by citizens seeking solutions for climate, community resilience and equitable access to jobs. We wondered ferries work for other river cities. Why not Portland? In 2018, frog ferry was included in metro's regional transportation plan, and mayor wheeler awarded $40,000 for a case study of similar cities with ferries. That same year, PBOT proposed funding for a ferry feasibility study was cut in 2019, with ODOT funds and PBOT matching funds. We completed that needed feasibility study and demand model in partnership with PBOT, TriMet and metro. Here's a stack of the studies we've completed for all of you. The studies confirm ferry services viable and needed, and in 2021, we completed the pilot project planned with a second ODOT grant. Now in 2025, we're ready to launch a pilot project between st. Johns and downtown. We've delivered $40 million in value from a $90,000 city investment. De-risking the project a robust transit system is essential for the 40% of portlanders who can't drive ferries, bypass traffic, and cut commute times in half. From the north peninsula, frog ferry can launch and operate without federal funds. $10 million is currently under consideration in Salem. We are asking for $3 million over ten years with a $3 million annual subsidy. We need clear city support, a true partnership to strengthen our case for PCEF and state dollars. We understand you're making difficult budget decisions, so let's act with the resources we have to build a new transit mode that has very little operational and maintenance costs. This is an idea your predecessors have considered for decades, and you have the chance to lead something transformative for Portland in 2028. Let's launch an electric ferry. Let's get back to basics. Your leadership can make it happen. Thank you.
46 Thank you so much for being here this morning. And I'll let folks know who are not used to our council meetings and potentially are planning on staying, that we try to keep support or dissension, to silent support or dissension. Jazz hands. Thumbs up, thumbs down. All great. Thank you. Councilors. The next item on our agenda is the committee referral report. Since our last meeting, I have sent appointments to the mount hood cable regulatory commission to transportation and infrastructure, reaffirming council commitment to vision zero to transportation and infrastructure, requiring the city administrator to develop a citywide asset management strategy to transportation and infrastructure. Grant a cable franchise agreement to comcast of Oregon to finance committee appointments to the development review advisory committee, to the homelessness and housing committee approving the mount hood cable regulatory commission budget to the finance committee with a note to transportation and infrastructure. Adopting solid waste and recycling rates to the finance committee, again with a note so that folks know that it is out there to transportation and infrastructure. Appointing members to the parks board, to climate resilience and land use, and appointing members to the planning commission. Also to climate resilience and land use. The next item on our agenda is the city and councilor Kanal. Did you have a question about that agenda item?
47 Yes.
48 Go right ahead.
49 So I first as a comment, a suggestion. It would be great to have that in writing, but also to see the and I appreciate the transparency on that, but also the items that have been referred out from committee. For example, we have 2025 148 amend code to consolidate noise enforcement and improve fairness and consistency in noise regulation, which was referred by the committee to the full council on April 8th. And because this one does have to be heard by law this month, putting this here publicly would help people understand what's coming up in June. And then my clarification is my understanding is that the ordinance I filed, which doesn't have a number yet, but is adopt council regular meeting schedule pursuant to code subsection 3.02.010.3.1, better known as the weekly council meeting ordinance, was referred to the full council, but it hasn't been mentioned. I understand that that's not a committee.
50 You. As you started speaking, I realized that we have a flaw in our system, which is that we list items. It is on the website. There is a publicly available list of items that have been referred to committee. So you can see that in writing, it should be on the home page for our committees. At the bottom of that page. But because that is tied to committees, we don't have on there the items that have been referred directly to council. And I appreciate you flagging that I will work with our clerk's office to make sure that those items are also included, and that anything that's referred directly to council is on that list showing its referral to council. I don't know if our website, as it currently stands, can accommodate a public listing of what has been referred out of committee, but I think that's a great idea, and I'm happy to talk to our clerk's office about how we might be able to incorporate that into our publicly available information.
51 Thank you. And just to confirm, that document that I just mentioned has been referred to.
52 It has been referred. So the can you read the name of it again since I don't have it in front of me.
53 Yeah. Adopt council regular meeting schedule pursuant to code subsection 3.0, 2.010. C point one.
54 And that has been referred to the full council.
55 Thank you, madam president.
56 Thank you, councilor. Mr. Jordan, would you like to give us just any top level details that you want to highlight from your city administrator report this month?
57 Thank you, madam president. Members of council, you have the report. It I will highlight maybe one big difference in this month's report and that is that we have added all of the claims that have been settled with the city that are below $50,000, that don't come to council, and that's rather extensive list. So I hope that's helpful. I know that we are still continuing to tinker with the approach on citywide grants. You have a couple of pages at the very end of the report about grant activity at the city. Continue to entertain certainly, any of your comments on how this can be made better. It's still a work in progress, as most of you are maybe painfully aware, maine may was all budget all the time and kept us all very busy. I would note that we did get tentative agreement with cp, so that was, I think, a big highlight of the month. Looking forward, I'd like everybody to make sure it's on their calendar June the 14th, Saturday from 10 to 12 at the Washington park reservoir, going to have a big celebration about the reopening of that. I certainly am here to take any questions. And I think there might have been a question about the under 50,000 claims.
58 So thank you, mr. Jordan. Councilor canal. That might be your question.
59 Is, before I ask the question, I just wanted to say I appreciate you putting in all the things that happened on may 21st for the public safety service area while we were in a 15 hour budget meeting. And congratulations to the new boec staff, as well as everyone who got an award at the fire and rescue award ceremony. My question, administrator jordan, is about page 12 of the document, in which there are nearly 20 claims against the water bureau for discrimination on basis of age, religion, race and sex, and veteran preference as well. I understand that these were resolved by the bureau before being claimed, and all of them appear to have been addressed. Bureau resolved on may 1st, but I guess the question is, what is going on here that we have such a high number of this type of claim?
60 I appreciate I appreciate the question. I think rose reddick is here from risk to give you the detailed answer, but I believe it has to do with people of a similar classification in different bargaining units being paid at different levels. And I think there was one filing from an attorney's office and for 18 different employees in an attempt to create a class. If I if I read, read it correctly. But rose is here to maybe answer any questions detail you may have.
61 Thank you. Introduce yourself and go right ahead.
62 Yes, of course. My name is rose radic and I'm with the city's risk management. Thank you for your question, officer. Our councilor Canal. Yes. So, as our city administrator said, there were it was a handful of tort claim notice letters from the same attorney's office kind of characterizes the potential class action related to pay for the same classification, but under different cbas because they were in different bureaus. And so using those protected classes is kind of characterizing the claim of they're doing the same job. But here's some differences that they identified for the individuals. So there were 18 individuals named, which is why we set up 18 different claims. And heidi brown with the city attorney's office, took the lead on the kind of communication with the attorney to resolve these. And so there was sort of a group resolution in group settlement that was reached. And I believe payments were made in April 2025, but I don't have my computer with me today. But we can I can follow up with heidi and we can get more specifics if you needed anything.
63 Yeah. The follow up I'd have on that is 17 of the 18 listed are filed on the same day and closed on the same day. The 18th is filed on a different day, but also closed on the same day, which is may 1st. And so I just and that's the one that alleges gender and religious discrimination. So I'd love to have just a clarification if that is included. I know the number you said 18 would include it, but just because it was filed on a different date, I wanted to clarify there.
64 And I can look specifically to see which individual claim that was. I can say that because we got a couple different letters, they were set up sort of as risk claims when we get the letters. And then I closed all of them on the same day. Once I had confirmation of the payments going out. But I can double check why that one had a different date.
65 Great. And then my second of two questions is if you could give some clarity as to the definition that you're using for claim tendered in this entire list.
66 Okay. Or. And where where is that in the list? Just so I know where to.
67 Look, it's all over. There's many that are noted as claim denied or withdrawn or claim settled. Pd settled by settled. But but there's or no claim filed in a couple cases.
68 But yeah so the claims not for those water bureau claims but for others.
69 Just in general. And that if you could clarify that now. But if not I understand. I just.
70 Yeah, that's one of our closure codes and so I can I don't know if it's defined anywhere else, but we have some claims where, you know, the bureau resolves it and there's no risk payment for claim tendered. Often if there's like a contractor or something where we would kind of submit the claim to them under our contract or something to handle that might be used, if it's something where it's actually like an ODOT, like a state. Asset that they would handle and not was mistakenly filed with us. Something like that.
71 Okay. I do see a lot on transportation, so that would make sense. Thank you. Thank you, madam president.
72 Councilor Smith.
73 Thank you, madam president. Thank you. City administrator jordan, I want to go to the grants department. It looks like we were reimbursed for a lot of funding on the federal grant side, and we were granted as of 430. 25, 85 million. And eight and $734. Was any of that money that was reimbursed? Did we front general fund money for.
74 I'm not aware of that. I can look it up and make sure I can find out. I don't know if there was any general fund money on the front end.
75 Sometimes we know we get a note that says we're approved for xyz and we want to start the project. And so we'll get general fund money to grant it, and then we'll pay the general fund back. And I want to make sure that any part of that 85 million that is owed back to the general fund, that I know what that amount is. And when we fronted that money, whether it be this fiscal year or the previous fiscal years, and we also have PBOT, which which has a substantial reimbursement of 46,000,482 and 753. Same thing. I need to find out how much of that did we front and we're paying ourselves back. And to make sure that that goes back to the general fund. The other piece is the 9/12 that we passed in February. It it allowed for us to see within 15 days, not 30 days. So I would like to see a separate 15 day allocation of new monies that are coming in that are that are unassigned. And I can't tell from this report. So I think that we're trying to do two things with one, but I think we need to separate that so that we're clear of how much unassigned dollars like the opioid settlement monies and others that have come through, so that I can have a clear picture of how much money we have in the queue. Thank you very much.
76 Thank you. Council.
77 Councilor Green.
78 Thank you, madam president. Thank you, mr. Jordan. In the update, there's some mention of the economic opportunities analysis being being started. So I think that's great. We haven't done that since 2016. My question is there we're pretty early in that process. Is there an anticipated desire to have a work session to talk a little bit about the scope and methodology for that before full council? It could also be appropriate for the arts and economy committee. But but I do have questions about the methodology.
79 Sure. Just so happens, councilor, that Eric engstrom is here and planning and sustainability are running that work. It's mandated by the state periodically for us to do that update. But I'll let Eric.
80 Good morning. For the record, Eric engstrom, director of the bureau of planning and sustainability councilor, we've kicked off some initial communication with council by scheduling some briefings. I think they're later this month or early July. So we'll start there. And then if there's interest in deeper engagement after that, then we would do that. The project is scheduled to go to the planning commission later in the calendar year. So we're pretty far out from reaching council right now, but I'm happy to continue engagement.
81 I appreciate that, director engstrom, just one specific note. Folks who've been engaged with this work for a long time have raised a concern that the needs analysis that goes into the eoa exempts parcels under three acres, and we're early enough in the process that I just I just wanted to raise that concern and just let let you know that that's something I'll be thinking about.
82 All right. Thank you.
83 Thanks.
84 No other questions in the queue. Mr. Jordan, thank you for bringing that report to us counselors. The next item on our agenda is the consent agenda. We had two items on the consent agenda, items five and six, and both have been pulled from the consent agenda. Those are reappointments to the development review advisory committee and appointments to the mount hood regulatory commission. Things that are pulled from the consent agenda, if they are not reordered, go to the end of the regular agenda. So we will be hearing those later today. That moves us to agenda item seven. And rebecca, could you please read that agenda item for us?
85 Item seven pay settlement of f daniella araujo and ava levin's bodily injury lawsuits in the sum of $942,600 involving Portland parks and recreation.
86 Thank you. And counselors, as we generally do on settlements, we have a team here from our administration to go over some of the details here with us. We'll then move to public testimony and then a discussion and a vote. If you two could introduce yourselves. And please go right ahead.
87 Good morning. Thank you. Council I'm Dan simon. I'm from the city attorney's office.
88 And I'm rose radick with the city's risk management.
89 And also with us here today is the director of the parks bureau, adina long. Counselors. This ordinance will resolve two lawsuits, one filed by ava levin and the other filed by two plaintiffs, daniella araujo and her minor child, f, on June 23rd, 2022. Miss levin was providing childcare services to f, who was nine years old at the time. The two of them went to irving park, where levin hung a hammock between a tree and a light pole in the park. Miss levin testified during the lawsuit that she had done this many times before. While the two of them were in the hammock, the light pole the hammock was tied to fell over and landed on both of them. Bystanders responded and lifted the pole off of them and assisted them while medical help arrived. Both suffered injuries as a result of the pole. F in particular suffered extensive injuries, with medical bills of about $400,000. Fortunately, f has largely recovered from the incident, though some conditions persist. After that incident, the parks bureau contacted engineering firm kpf incorporated to conduct a structural analysis of the light poles failure. Kpf found that the pole appeared to have failed based on one or more of the following reasons one. Inadequate tie wire diameter connecting the pole to its concrete base, two offset between the poles base and its hairpins, and three tie wire corrosion. Kpf recommended that the poles represented a life safety hazard and should be removed as soon as possible. In response to kpf's report, parks began removing and replacing light poles in irving park and ultimately throughout all of portland's parks. And I just noticed that chris spoke of the parks bureau, who was the head of that project has joined as well. Parks conducted inspections of over 1000 light poles and ultimately removed 300 poles with the same anchoring design and replaced them with an updated design. Miss levin and f, along with miss arujo, filed lawsuits against the city and the company that manufactured the hammock. The parties all went to mediation on the claims and reached settlement. This ordinance will approve settlements of $782,600 to resolve the case filed by f and miss arujo, as well as $160,000 to resolve the case filed by miss levin, city attorney. Risk management and parks recommend that the council pass this ordinance.
90 Thank you to any of the rest of you who have anything to add to this. Okay, rebecca, do we have any public testimony signed up?
91 No one is signed up.
92 Okay. Councilor Smith, are you in the queue for discussion on this settlement? Councilor canal.
93 Thank you, madam president. And thank you everyone for presenting here. And I appreciate as well the addition of the one year and five year data to this ordinance and the description of the allegations. I also want to commend parks for just proactively, well, reactively, to the incident, but proactively before a lawsuit going out and doing this work. It was brought up in testimony that although it's in the code that you can't hang a hammock, that our we have not been enforcing that code at the time. In 2022, that it's posted, perhaps, but not necessarily enforced on a regular basis. Is that an accurate description of the way in which communication on that restriction is conveyed or not?
94 You're correct. The regulation is known. It's part of our title 20. It does exist on some signs, in some in some parks, park rangers have the ability to enforce that rule if they encounter it. Oftentimes rangers will correct the behavior and that is just gaining compliance. It's hard to say whether or not any particular ranger at that park noticed that behavior, and whether or not they had actually requested compliance or gained compliance for somebody who may have done that. But but that is my general understanding. Correct.
95 Thank you, director. And I think in a previous meeting you had said that there are 29 park rangers and that your ideal number would be 75. I'll also note that if the current budget is not amended, will be laying off three the only three park ranger service dispatchers who could theoretically help get our limited park rangers over there. And this is a rough estimate, but $942,600. How many park rangers would that pay for?
96 Roughly a fully loaded sort of top of the tier park rangers, about $133,000. That includes benefits and such.
97 Okay, so we could.
98 Get I can't do the math.
99 Six or so I think. Yeah. In that ballpark that that's really helpful to know. And I think a good reason to be proactive about the park ranger program in the future. But thank you. Thank you, council president.
100 Thank you councilor. Any other questions or discussion before we move to a vote? Okay. Thank you all for being here today.
101 Would you please call.
102 The roll canal?
103 Yes.
104 Nine a.
105 Koyama Lane I vote aye.
106 Morillo I. Novick.
107 I Clark. I Green. I Zimmerman I Avalos. I Dunphy I Smith. I pirtle-guiney.
108 I.
109 12 ayes. Ordinances passed.
110 Thank you rebecca, could you please read agenda item eight.
111 Pay settlement of the estate of mar a minor wrongful death and related claims resulting from a drowning at Montavilla community center for $1,660,400, involving Portland parks and recreation.
112 Thank you. Have you up here? I'm sorry. Please go ahead.
113 Good morning.
114 My name is Ryan bailey.
115 For the record.
116 I am a.
117 Deputy city attorney, and I am the city's legal counsel for.
118 This matter.
119 With me.
120 Are karen.
121 Bond with city risk management, adina long and andy.
122 Amato from the Portland.
123 Bureau of parks and recreation. The ordinance before you authorizes the. Settlement of a wrongful.
124 Death claim.
125 And related tort claims asserted against the. City by the.
126 Estate of mah.
127 Who drowned.
128 At.
129 A city pool in.
130 August of. 2023 for the sum total payable by the city of 1,660,000.
131 And $400.
132 The settlement is conditioned.
133 On the approval of.
134 City council, the city attorney's office, risk management and the parks bureau have evaluated the facts of the claim, assessed the legal and financial exposures presented, and based on our professional judgment, it is our recommendation that council approve the ordinance and we're happy to answer answer any questions if you have any. Thank you.
135 Rebecca, do we have any public testimony?
136 No one has signed up.
137 Okay.
138 Counselor Smith, are you in the queue for comments on this? Counselors, are there any comments on this ordinance? I'll just briefly say I sat on the parks board when this happened, and I appreciate all of the work you put in with the family. One of the things that I usually ask when we hear a settlement that councilor Kanal asked on this one, on this last one, rather so I didn't have to, was what had changed. And I know that processes changed after this within the parks bureau, and I appreciate that. I appreciate knowing that, and I hope we never have to see something like this again. Thank you all for being here.
139 Thank you, thank you.
140 Canal. Canal.
141 Yes.
142 Ryan. Ryan.
143 I heard you. Thanks.
144 Sorry.
145 I just want to say quickly that I have this family deeply in my heart and have since the day I got this news and I vote.
146 I Koyama Lane.
147 I vote, I.
148 Morillo. I.
149 Novick I.
150 Clark. I Green. I Zimmerman.
151 Yes. Avalos I.
152 Dunphy, Smith. I pirtle-guiney. I 12 ayes. The ordinance is passed.
153 Thank you. Rebecca, could you please read agenda item nine.
154 Approve funding recommendations of children's levy allocation committee for July 1st, 2025 through June 30th, 2028.
155 Thank you counselors. This is a second reading. So we go straight into a vote. Councilor Kanal is there a reason you're in the queue?
156 I think it's a point of information.
157 Okay.
158 Could you clarify? My understanding is we discuss this first. We don't take public testimony.
159 Generally on second readings we move straight into a vote.
160 Okay.
161 Can we what would be the mechanism by which we would request a discussion?
162 I would turn to our attorney for the exact item in robert's rules that we would use. But I believe that you would. I believe you would get in the queue just like you've done before. We begin a vote and move to enter discussion before the vote. I'm looking to our attorney. Is that correct?
163 Checking. Okay.
164 Robert taylor is coming up to the table as well.
165 Thank you.
166 Council president robert.
167 Taylor, city.
168 Attorney.
169 On second reading, typically.
170 You.
171 Move to a vote. Any member can ask to have discussion and you can proceed that way.
172 And that ask would need to happen before we begin the vote. Is that correct?
173 Typically it would. I don't believe the role has been called yet. So if somebody wants to enter into discussion, now would be an appropriate time.
174 Councilor Kanal are you asking for a discussion or should we move to the.
175 Yes, madam president, my asking for a discussion.
176 Point of information. So it doesn't require any vote other than a counselor saying we want to discuss it.
177 I was.
178 Just going to ask mr. Taylor that question.
179 Typically, the procedure on second reading is the chair would say, this matter is here for second reading. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, let's proceed with the vote. If there.
180 Is a.
181 Desire to discuss, then you can discuss.
182 Okay.
183 So no vote needed for discussion. Councilor Kanal would you like to begin discussion?
184 I will have something to say on this. I'm curious if we have representatives from pcl here, because there may be a question later.
185 That lisa is here, I.
186 Okay. I'll start by just saying and I'll let other people join the queue while I get my notes here. Pull them up. But I, I wanted to say thank you first for the information that was sent over. And I did have a chance to go through the particular categories where I had concerns and many of those concerns. I won't say all there was information about that in some cases that addressed that concern, and I just wanted to bring that up because I think it was very helpful to have responsiveness in that regard. I am curious, and I think this is more of a rhetorical question to staff or a real question to my colleagues about the degree to which, when we say we are going to be creating a process that benefits or. Takes into account at least the disparate level of prior funding, meaning rewarding people who have been, who have not been funded before. The degree to which that takes into account the fact that people who've been funded before know how to write applications for funding significantly better for the city than those who have not been. Because as I went through some of the data, that was the concern that I saw was that there was a great deal of commentary on specific applications, how they were being written, or the degree to which they were written professionally or spell checked or things like that, that were the reasons for scoring, as opposed to which which makes sense, except for the context that this entire process was described as designed to reward folks and privileged folks who have not previously received funding. I don't know if that made sense. I'm trying to convey it clearly here, but I was concerned that the comments seemed to be in opposition to that stated intent.
187 Thank you.
188 Councilor was that a question to lisa or someone else, or just a comment to your colleagues about how you're thinking about this? Thank you. Councilors. I don't see anybody else in the queue for discussion. Councilor Green.
189 Thank you, madam president. I have received a volume of emails asking this council to remand this package, and I am curious if my colleagues would like to have a discussion about this, because this is the time to do that if we're not going to remand it. Tell me why. I guess is what I'm asking.
190 I'm going to take that as a general question that folks can get in the queue to answer if they'd like councilor Smith.
191 Madam president, thank you, councilor Green. There's there are several issues that have been brought to my attention. We have major questions about why some applicants were denied funds, even though their applications were significantly higher than organizations who were successfully awarded funds. There are also major questions about failing to factor in to the effects of the COVID pandemic. Some organizations were penalized for experiencing a drop off in the number of people they served, but it was not put into the system to show that this was during COVID. None of that seems right to me yet. Apparently it is too late to fix those problems. I understand that what's at stake, but we have to get this thing right. I depend on stakeholders who are intimately involved to connect with me, and they have. They have told me that it would be better to vote against the children's levy, even at the risk of delaying funding for several months, because these are systemic problems that we need to fix, and this would be in place for the next three, three years, which would ultimately have an unintended consequence of. Having some programs be funded less or not even at all. And so I am looking to have this conversation and discussion. Councilor Green, to see how others feel about this. But this is where I'm at today because I'm very. Concerned and I'm troubled by what I've seen, particularly for organizations like reap, who are in east Portland in those dollars really help a lot of the most vulnerable kids in the city, in east Portland.
192 Thank you, councilor.
193 Councilor Morillo.
194 Thank you.
195 Madam president. I agree with counselor Smith. I think that my office has also received an influx of emails with a lot of varied accounts about what happened through the children's levy process of getting these funds out, and I feel like I haven't received sufficient transparency on if the allocation committee read the written testimony. We also got information that there was potentially an error that was made on an application and how that was accounted for in the decision making process. There was also no follow up from pcl or allocation to confirm the written testimony was read, or an explanation of the denial after they corrected the error on some of the applications. So I just have a lot of outstanding questions about this process. And if it was done as ethically and correctly as possible, and I want to make sure that, you know, when we hear concerns from organizations that do efficient work in schools and community, that and that they're not going to be getting these funds to help the people in our city who need it the most. I guess I just I agree with councilor Smith, and I definitely think that that's I, I worked at a nonprofit. I have concerns about grant dollars going out on time and the impacts of that. But the way that this was done, I just don't have the clarity I need to necessarily move forward with this. Thanks.
196 Councilor Ryan.
197 Thank you, madam president. I just want to speak once on this today. As you know, this is a hard conversation this year. The level set. I'd like to remind us of a few important things. The children's levy does, the vital work of serving kids in our community that need a hand up with additional resources. This was especially true coming out of COVID. I think we can all agree on that one there. Competitive grant process was through thorough and data driven. This is exactly what taxpayers want from us. It's truly is the best practice in all of the giving that we do. And as the only person up here who raised money to pass the last levy when it was on the ballot, and trust me, it wasn't easy. I heard a mouthful. No one was very happy at that time, and one thing that sold them to write checks to support the levy was that they appreciate the low overhead of the children's levy staff, and how thorough the process and decision making is. They can track the decisions, the funding decisions this year were challenged by shrinking tax revenue. 21% shrink, if you will, from when the RFP went out to the to when the decisions were made. Simply put, it meant less money to fund the community organizations serving children and families. And of course, the need has gone up much more than 21%. Having accountability as part of the application process should be required. And again, this is what people have been asking for. I must say, I find it interesting that the lobbying from the equitable giving circle in particular, who scored last among 23 applications in the hunger category, is behind some of this pushback. No applications scored last were selected for funding, and the non bipoc identity orgs that have been causing a stir among many also have a real commitment demonstrated to service to the bipoc residents. Here's the facts. Sunshine division 75%. And they are the only provider who serve homeless youth. Oregon food bank 72% and 60% of those homes were were. English is not primary language. Meals on wheels. Meals for kids 83% of their services go to the bipoc community. I get the same calls from friends that you get. It's part of our job. We all know this. We're elected to make tough decisions, and I would hope that we do our best to respect the tough decisions that staff in the many, many volunteers in their hours that went into this community effort. They provided the information to make these tough decisions. Also, the PSU evaluation made it clear that parachuting and rescuing practices a pattern that they called out since it prevents new organizations from receiving funding. The children's levy leadership anticipated there would be questions and reached out to each offices, all of our offices over the past weeks to offer briefings. Unfortunately, only one council office took up that offer for a briefing under a remand. The applications to each program, as we heard, will not receive funding until the process of reevaluation distribution is conducted again, meaning there will be a gap in funding to children and families they serve. I want to really give a lot of thanks to director pellegrino and their team for their diligent work, their patience, their flexibility to provide us with this set of funding, thoughtful recommendations to approve. I would urge the council to respect the two years of hard work from these professionals and the more than 90 volunteers. Clearly, I'm against a remand. Thank you.
198 Thank you, councilor, councilor Smith.
199 Thank you, madam president. And I have a question of lisa. If she could come up, because it is my understanding that the Oregon food bank award was, was awarded and appointed, not scored. And how did you come up with the decision to give them such a high number of the children's levy's resources without scoring them?
200 Every single application was scored each.
201 Could you please introduce yourself?
202 Lisa pellegrino? I'm director of the children's levy. She and her pronouns. I'm sorry. I speak a little louder. Sorry. A little frog in my throat. Every single application in this process was scored, and we provided the all the counselors here access to a folder that shows the scores for every organization, and a summary of each scoring each score by the four reviewers that scored that application. So there was no application in this process that was not scored. Oregon food bank was previously funded to provide school pantries. That's the program that's funded through Oregon food bank with the Portland children's levy dollars, and they are providing school food pantries at about 20 schools. The amount of funding that was recommended by the allocation committee for that grant is substantially reduced from what they are currently being funded at this year. As I think someone said at the beginning, our revenues are down considerably, and so every grant that has been refunded to continue offering service is being refunded at a lower level. I don't I don't know if I've got the percentage right at my hand, but I would say between 20 and 30% less for the Oregon food bank than what they have this year to provide services.
203 Were there any any awards that were discretionary that you were allowed to pick to help, you know further the mission of the children's levy that was not scored? You're saying every single.
204 Every single. Single grant.
205 And I would be happy to produce those documents for anyone who has any questions about it?
206 The two things that I point out, long standing organizations that are in district two like self enhancement inc, their book of business is mentorship, and they were not identified as an organization to receive that. They were not given any discretion within the system to show that they served a lower number of families and children because of COVID. And then we had applicants who came and started programs after COVID, who didn't have to meet those same criteria. And it is no secret that they serve a great majority of the black families in underserved kids in our community. And to have them not be looked at or given any consideration. I hear what PSU is saying, but you know, some of their recommendations are ill advised, and I'm not clear that they have a true picture of community and that their history does not go back to where it needs to go. So for me, that's that's very clear. And I think with organizations who do multiple things like a self enhancement inc, they should have been given the benefit of the doubt about the numbers. During COVID, everybody's numbers went down. So for me, that's that's a problem. And what's more problematic when reap has previously been a grantee and they were not awarded any funding and they are one of the premier african American programs that serve kids east of 82nd. And to bring in new people to help supplement what's already done. I appreciate that, but you can't take away the people who are doing the work and who are recognized for doing that work.
207 Well, if I could respond to I don't think that self enhancement inc was not funded in mentoring for the reasons that you stated. I believe that they were not funded in mentoring. So there was they don't currently have a mentoring grant. That was a new program proposed for pcl to fund. They were recommended for funding selected by the committee and after school for a very sizable more than $1 million plus grant.
208 And they lost $1.2 million in this process. And I and if you're going to talk about that with with great clarity, I would like to see if rahsaan could come up here and respond. Is rahsaan mckelvey.
209 Councilor councilor.
210 Let's allow lisa to speak, and then we can see if there are questions for others.
211 Okay. Thank you. But I still I mean, you say that and you said it before, and I told you before, they lost $1.2 million as a result of this new process, even though they were awarded monies, they lost moneys. And what I think really what I want you to understand, just because an organization says they serve black children who are white organizations, does not mean that wholesale black families and children are going to move to that organization to get support. People who need culturally specific services, they go to organizations that they trust. They may not know that all this money has been moved to a different organization to serve them. They're not going to move over there. And so some of the some of that direction needs to be provided to the folks who are interviewing and scoring. They need to understand that.
212 If I could respond, I would just say mentoring in the mentoring funding category, the committee selected for organizations that scored higher than psi, that are culturally specific black led organizations, and they and they selected three others that scored slightly less than psi to provide a range of services for the black community and the african led communities. So it was not the case that they did not select black.
213 There were.
214 Three specific.
215 That were below them that that that received monies. And what I'm saying to you is because they scored low because of COVID, there was no mechanism within the system for them to for you all to consider. Everyone scored lower during COVID. Some of these newer programs didn't even they weren't even serving folks at all.
216 We did not consider any data during the COVID years. We only looked at data for the last two and a half years. So the current year, half year and then the two years previous, we did not look at any of the data that was given before because all organizations, as you say, correctly, suffered in being able to do their services during a pandemic. So we didn't even consider that data. All the data that I provided to all the committee was from 23 and 24 and then the half year this year.
217 Lisa councilor Smith, did you have an additional question for somebody else, or do you have the information.
218 That you could respond because he's not I mean, we're talking about an organization that he represents, and he can say for sure what he thinks. Rahsaan, could you come up, please.
219 Please come forward?
220 I would ask that we not turn this into a broader discussion or debate between our guests at the table, and that we just have folks answer the question before you.
221 Thank you. Thank you, madam president. I appreciate that to keep order, but it's just unfortunate. It's you have an unintended consequence when you allow the children's levy to say their words and don't allow the community to say theirs. But I do appreciate it. I won't do that again.
222 What's the question that I, I don't want to I don't want to go out of context.
223 So I need you to explain how you felt like this process did not recognize or account for what happened over COVID, and that there there were there were areas that you were you scored higher than people who actually received the resources through the children's levy.
224 So two areas that I applied for, we did not receive funding, were mentoring and child abuse prevention. Mentoring director pellegrino correctly stated is not a contract that we had. So our. Our disagreement with the process and the mentoring category was not because our performance was was misrepresented because of COVID, it was because we were a new provider and we weren't given the benefit of the doubt that new providers who didn't provide any services, but because we provided services, another category, we weren't given an opportunity to get the priority treatment that a new provider would get in the mentoring category. The other issue that we have with mentoring was that there were 13 african American agencies that applied for mentoring dollars. Six of those were awarded, and there were multiple mainstream agencies that were awarded in mentoring specifically to serve black kids. And any of us who have been involved in mentoring services in african American community in Portland know that that has been a struggle for decades to find black mentors for black children and seeing a situation where white agencies are being awarded to provide mentorship for black kids, when black agencies are not being awarded to do that. That was our issue and mentoring.
225 That part.
226 I could keep going. I just.
227 I don't I don't want.
228 To go. I don't need a I don't.
229 Need a volume of words. I just need you to say what you what you're saying and what your concern is, because that is the concerns that many in the community have said to me. I think that we need to take into account again what I was saying, just because a person checks the box that says they serve bipoc children don't mean all the bipoc children are going to move to where the new money has gone. So we need to take that into account. Thank you, thank you.
230 Also. I'm sorry, council president. I did not say my name and I want to make sure I do say sahan mckelvie, director of advocacy and engagement for self enhancement inc.
231 Thank you for catching that. Councilor did you have additional questions? Okay. Thank you all. Councilors. I put myself in the queue. I just want to say for the record, I, I hear all of the concerns that are being raised, and I share a lot of the concerns with the process that was developed. I also was disappointed to see that organizations whose work I value weren't funded, and organizations who are critical to supporting families in my district weren't funded. But from what I saw with the additional information that we received, it looked like the process was followed. And while I disagree with some of how the process was laid out, I believe that the question of remand is about whether or not the process was followed, and I am concerned that if we remand to have the process followed differently, but the process was followed appropriately, that we could get back very similar results without the changes that folks are asking for and a delay in funding getting out for all of the organizations, including those who we do think were appropriately funded. So I just want to share that what's weighing on me right now is that I think the concerns being raised are with the process, not its application. Councilor Morillo.
232 Thank you, madam president. Yeah, I would just say on that note that I do have specific concerns about the process. I think if we've heard from organizations that they sent in corrected information, they were working with employees to correct that on their application, and then that didn't go through. And so they got a different score than maybe they should have. Then that means that there's an issue with the process itself, which means that a remand would be valid in my opinion. Overall, I'm just hearing so much discrepancy between what these orgs experienced through this application process and what the children's levy is saying. And so, you know, with organizations like reep that are long standing and critical in the black community in Portland, I just I don't feel satisfied that the process was followed to a t. So I you know, if councilor Smith wants to move forward with potentially remanding this, I would be supportive of that.
233 Councilor Kanal.
234 Yeah, I so.
235 I think when I asked about specific organizations, I got the score sheets back. And I'll note that, you know, there are a lot of score sheets that have no comments to explain it. That's normal. That's not a sign of a good process, a bad process, or the degree to which it's followed. But it does leave some questions that I still have specifically in hunger relief is the category that has that has been of the most concern to me. For me, what was concerning is that I got information saying, you know, I'll give you a specific example here. When it said that sunshine division was the only application that was to exclusively serve k-8 houseless children, and then you go to the hunger relief. There's a table here that doesn't note that, in fact, checks boxes saying that that there's that they would serve all age ranges. So the two different documents, whereas a latino network, it does specifically state it's a few lines above it that that there's a narrowing in terms of which age ranges are served. So I was a little confused by some of that. And it created concern for me because, you know, this is coming up and I acknowledge what councilor Ryan's saying about an offer of a briefing. This is coming up very late in the process. It's high stakes because we only do this every couple of years. It's not an annual thing every few years, I should say. And it's coming up, you know, at a time where we're going to be blamed. I'm sure if we do remand it for the delay, that wouldn't be our fault if we remanded it be the fault of not filing it earlier. And I just want to bring that up. Right. Because I think that the administration has not yet built timelines that build in anything other than a council rubber stamp for a lot of different issues. And so what we're being asked to do is neglect our responsibility to evaluate things fully. And this is not about the children's levy. This is so much broader than that. With relation to this issue. I am deeply uncomfortable with the idea, and I'm not sure if this is what's happening here, but it is what's being alleged that city staff is trying to tell communities of color who who serve them better, who would serve them better than organizations that they've built a trusting relationship with over years or decades, that that is a concerning possibility to me. And so I'm trying to understand where people are at on that interpretation. At the same time, I recognize a lot of work has gone into this, and both from the staff and from the reviewers and the committee. And so I'm trying to weigh that here and avoid substituting my judgment. But I do think that it would be a process concern for me if city if indeed the city staff was trying to tell communities of color, I know you like this group, and I know you've worked with them, but this other group would be better. And I'm also deeply concerned about the idea that the leadership of these organizations is not a part of the conversation, and the degree to which that leadership comes from the communities, at least in part, comes from the communities that those organizations would serve. Thank you.
236 Thank you, councilor. Councilor Smith, are you back in the queue?
237 No.
238 Councilors. I don't see anybody else in the queue, which would lead us to a vote on whether or not to pass on second reading. The funding recommendation recommendations for the children's levy allocation. Councilor Morillo.
239 Just a process question. So if we were to vote to remand it, would it would we vote this down and then move to remand it or how would that process work?
240 Either we would vote on approval and if it failed, somebody could offer up an alternative motion to vote to remand, or somebody could offer that up now or at any other time. But right now, the motion that is before us would be a vote to approve. Are you still in the queue?
241 Okay. Thank you. I would like to move to remand the children's levy.
242 Are you moving to remand the entire set of recommendations?
243 Yes.
244 Is there a second?
245 Second?
246 Believe. That was councilor Smith by a hair councilor Green. Is there any discussion on the motion? Councilor Morillo, are you in the queue for discussion?
247 Zimmerman I was hoping that director pellegrino could come back up. I'd just like to better understand what a remand back, what the implications are, kind of how you might manage that as well as if that has occurred before. I'm trying to understand for content on second and third order effects here.
248 It has never occurred in the past. And what I'm hearing is it sounds like people want the entire process redone. So I would assume we would start all over again. It would probably take us about a year.
249 And so if it takes about a year. Does that is the indication there then that the programs who if this was to pass today would receive funding and start moving forward on July 1st, that we're looking at up to a 12 month delay in those.
250 Well, all current all current grant contracts end on June 30th, 2025. So they're coming to an end shortly. There are options we could explore. We could we could renew every try to renew every grant for that we have right now for a year, and meanwhile run another process to redo the whole thing. That's one option I mean, I would need I'm just speaking from, you know, like I'm asking, I would need to check with many people and get a lot of input before we made any decisions about what we would do here. But that's an option I could see.
251 I appreciate that because I am actually asking for your best experience and best advice that you can give. If this was to actually go forward, because I, I have been listening for, for real purpose in this discussion because I, I, I don't know where I'll be on this question, but I want to be very informed if my vote is going to have longer lasting effects here. Can you remind us a little bit in terms of who the other community pcl type committees are before it got to us, where where decision or or acceptance of these recommendations have come before they got to our level. Director.
252 Well, I mean, the process starts with community engagement at its base. So we did I think we talked about in the work session, we do a very broad based community engagement process to try to understand what kinds of services does community want and how do they want those services delivered. So that's the piece that's done. First, we work with our community council. We have a 13 member community advisory board that was begun as part of this funding process. And they helped design what that community engagement process would look like. So who would we talk to? What questions would we ask and then hear the report of the community engagement folks come together to give the report and decide, okay, we've listened to what you've said. Now here's how we're going to shape that into what we're asking the community to give us applications for so that they work with us all along the way to design the application, the questions, the scoring criteria, those folks, those 13 folks worked in tandem with us to do that. And the allocation committee approves all of the work that gets done. So they hear it again. The recommendations are brought forward from the community council. The allocation committee considers and they give their input and it gets further modified. In addition, you know, we do a lot of work with organizations and reach out to them for input on. Here's the draft application. Here's the draft scoring criteria. Here are the draft funding priorities. What do you think of your feedback. So we're trying to reach out to multiple different parties during this process to try to get, you know, communication back from them about what they want to see. So that's the process kind of before the application is published. And then after the application is published, we, you know, we do information and kind of answer questions. We have an ongoing question and answer so people can ask us questions about the application and how do they respond or if they have any specific issues. And then we recruit community reviewers and train them. So that's a whole nother set of people. That's about just under 100 people that come in for that. And so they're giving their input in the sense that they're scoring their application. Then all the scores. And what we did with the community council was give them two unidentified portfolio options they could choose from, with different emphases at the kind of top level variables. So we're not we're not giving portfolios to the community council with specific applications in them. We're saying this portfolio looks more like this, this portfolio looks more like that. And they chose between the two. And then we took that recommended portfolio. And we sent all of our recommendations out to the applicants. So they got the list that we shared with you of all the applicants and the data on the applications and all of the score sheets, that's then shared with the applicants. So they get to see all of that and then they can respond. They're allowed to give testimony. We do that as we described the testimony that is written or video to the committee, so that they have time to hear it all. With 168 applications, it's very difficult for people to take in information from 168 organizations in one sitting. So we had people submit that. So the committee members have time a couple of weeks to give them a couple of weeks time to do that. So they're taking all that into consideration before they come and make their decisions. So that's the basic process. There are a number of groups and people that consult with this. You know, obviously if we're going to redo it, we can take the community and your all's input about how we should do it.
253 So the last group that approved this before it came to city council is the allocation committee. I will make sure of that. And that's charity crider, Dan floyd, Dan Ryan, felicia folsom and megan moyer. Correct. That's that group. Okay. Just in terms of the spirit of discussion on this question about whether or not I that seems like a very heavy vote to me. And I'm looking at this list. Right. It's a it's a list of people who are on it to receive money. And that seems, frankly, like quite the list of, of, of do gooders in our community. I'm feeling cautious about stopping that that flow for another year. I am open to ideas about either. Maybe we maybe we say this is a one year instead of being a full stop for a year to catch up, or we continue current for another year to do this. But, you know, I look at nea, morrison, child family services, latino network, impact northwest, irco. Oic black parent initiative. I mean, we're going down and there's a lot of folks who did make it in the list. And I I'm pretty concerned about stopping that. Come for those who are already in our book of business, stopping that on June 30th without a return date. So I, I want to be respectful to the councilors who are calling into question whether this process served well, but also respectful to the fact that when we pull something like this, it has cascading effects. And I would be open, perhaps to a less abrupt option if other councilors who have strong feelings about the remand are willing to offer those. Thanks, councilor.
254 I just want to clarify, you gave a specific example which was to approve the current recommendations for one year instead of three. Was that an amendment or an additional motion, or was that a suggestion to your colleagues but not a motion?
255 Thanks. I'm not making it as a formal amendment now because I'm I'm really kind of looking to those who seem to be more in depth involved, which are on both sides of this topic. I am indicating that it would be hard for me to take a vote that is a firm stop on June 30th for all these funds, but I I'm socializing it to see where my colleagues are at. If there are less abrupt options.
256 Thank you. I'm sorry. I just wanted to make sure I didn't miss a process piece there. Councilor Ryan.
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257 Yeah.
258 Thank you, madam president. And yeah, I will say a couple more things. I just want it to be known that the Portland children's levy staff did try to get on our calendar earlier. We heard earlier how difficult it's been to get on council agendas. And you also did a work session that was sadly not attended by everyone. But that was our opportunity to also dive in and ask questions. And that did take place. And just know when you make comments about staff that I would argue are not totally accurate in my opinion. You're also commenting on what councilor Zimmerman made clear, which is there's a community council, there's a volunteer readers, then there's allocation committee. So I wish our city had such a thorough process for all of our giving, and we simply don't. So again, it's our best practice that we have in the city. And I just want to make it clear that it's more than just the Portland children's levy staff that you're making comments about. So I want to make those comments for the record, because I do think they're all accurate. Thank you.
259 Councilor Morillo.
260 Thank you. Yeah. This is I think I guess I have a question about why it would take a full year to redo the process. Would it be possible to instead take a look at some of the discrepancies that came up and address those, rather than redo the entire thing?
261 Well, I hear a lot of different comments from you all about how the process went wrong, and I think I would need to get a good understanding of what it is you're looking for in the process. And what we didn't do that we would need to do, and that would possibly mean you have to reopen it and let people apply again. If you don't think it should be competitive and it should not be scored or it should be scored differently, or it should be scored by different kinds of reviewers. I've heard many comments here that suggest you want it done very differently, and if that's the case, I don't know how we could use this process as it stands. Because I hear objections to the process that that that's what I'm understanding. So I'm open to hear what you want to do us to do differently. But I think it would require us to do it differently.
262 Yeah. I mean, I definitely do think the process needs to be addressed long term, and I'm concerned about the impacts that would happen if these organizations didn't get their funding for an entire year. But I also think that from what I've heard, it sounds like there are going to be negative impacts to the other organizations regardless, some of which are more focused on specifically black portlanders who maybe need these services the most.
263 If I could offer, we could extend. This is another option. I'm not saying that anybody approves of this idea, but if you could extend the existing contracts for a year so that money would not stop, if you would like us to do that and redo this whole process, we could do that so people would not lose money. Then on June 30th, we would extend the existing agreements with additional funds. We'd have to come to you with a set of. It's another, it's another ordinance, and it's another whole thing that we would have to do to get that done. But we could do that.
264 Okay. Thank you.
265 Councilor Green.
266 Thank you, madam president. President, and I appreciate the discussion. You know, councilor Zimmerman raises some really important points. I think I have a question to the city attorney on what is in scope for council to do here so we can remand, but how much direction on how that happens are we allowed to do here? Under the act that adopted the children's levy? You're the council has the authority to remand by category. So if the decision is to remand all of the categories, that would be consistent with the act. And then the you cannot direct funding to a particular recipient, it would be a it would essentially be a direction to the children's levy. We don't think you followed the process, and we don't think that it met the standard laid out in the act. To foster a balanced and integrated citywide system of services. So if that's the decision of council that you've received this information, you don't feel the process was adhered to and you don't think it met the standard laid out in the act, then you would remand remand it for the children's levy to go through the process again.
267 Madam president, point of order.
268 Point of order.
269 Yes. In trying to identify how we can do this, is it possible to say, like miss pellegrino said, keep the current level of funding where it's at and have them go over the new a new process over the years so that not necessarily the new folks get money, but whoever is in the system right now, they get funded for another year so they can do the process over. So is can that be done with this?
270 Councilor I want to make sure councilor Green doesn't have follow up. Also on what was said.
271 Councilor Smith, you you actually point of order. The follow on question. I was going to ask so that we're all good there, but that's the that's the question to you city attorney, is, do we have the authority in this process to do what director pellegrino I good question. New question. I believe that you do. And I believe miss pellegrino is correct, that if you wanted to extend the existing contracts for one more year, that would take some additional council action to do it. You couldn't do it through this vehicle before you today, but that would be an option that council could take.
272 And I and I do need to clarify. As we explained, we have 21% fewer resources next year, so we cannot fund people at the same amount that they are currently being funded at. But we could give everybody the exact same cut across the board.
273 That's helpful. So would then the action be motion to table? Is that what would be appropriate? You could lay this on the table. You could refer it back to a committee okay. Thank you.
274 Robert don't run away because I have a question. When I get to myself in the queue that's related. Councilor Kanal.
275 So I'm very conflicted on this as I think I might be indicating here. I'm, I'm curious if anyone has heard any specific concerns related to categories other than hunger relief and mentoring. And or should there not be a specific concern about one of those other four categories which are after school child abuse prevention response, early childhood, or foster care? If there are broad enough concerns that would require those to potentially be remanded as well, because I think it is possible, and the reason for my inquiry here is because I think it is possible that we at least can get some of these categories through as is today. I'm not sure if that is the case, but I wanted to at least float that idea because, as robert mentioned, there are the category by category options exist as well. So just wanted to float that for now.
276 Counselor Smith.
277 I hear what you're saying, councilor Kanal but when you're talking about institutional disproportionality, it doesn't stop with one category. I think it would. It would cover all categories. And if we're saying that the process was broken for one, and if miss pellegrino is saying that we did the same process across the board, then we need to see if that's so. And I would if we have to go forward, you know, even with the 20% cut, I would like to extend the existing the existing grants and extend the existing grants and do a process all over again. And that would we have we would have done our due diligence.
278 Thank you, counselor robert, when you read the remand language, it said was the process adhered to. And then there was another piece and I'm trying to I'm trying to think about what our options are here, and I want to make sure we all understand what remand is, as opposed to laying this on the table and extending for a year and asking the children's levy to start over completely. I am also wondering if the children's levy starts over completely, if they set up a brand new process. What control counsel does or does not have there? Because the children's levy is specifically set up with a lot of community control over it as opposed to council control. And I want to make sure that everybody is very aware of what we can and can't influence before we take any of these votes. Two part question I apologize.
279 Yeah. Good question. Thank you. The children's levy was passed by the voters levies a tax. It also provides a process to allocate the funding. And so council should follow that process in the act. Or we can do the analysis to determine how much flexibility council would have to amend the funding portions of that. The. I'm reflecting on councilor Green's question about should we lay it on the table or send it back to committee? I mean, I think if the decision of the council is we, we, we want this all to go back to the children's levy to go through a new process with this or run the process. Again, I do think a remand would be the appropriate thing, because then that does formally send it back to them. If you table it or refer it to a committee, then you're just hanging on to it. So I do think a remand is probably the appropriate way to send this back.
280 But that's if.
281 We want to run the current process again.
282 If, if you want to run the, the, the current process, I, I think you I suppose you could lay it on the table or send it to the committee where council will just hold the decision. And then perhaps bring a separate set of items to council to extend existing grants for a year. Take that year and council can perhaps try to amend some of the provisions in the allocation to provide a different process for the children's levy to go through. I do think that there I do think that process further extends the time, because council needs to take the time to revise the process. Once council has decided on the process, they want the children's levy to use. Then the children's levy has to execute that process. So I do think it's possible, but I do think that extends the timeline.
283 Thank you. Councilor. You know what, councilor Clarke? You have not spoken at all today.
284 Thank you, madam chair. I guess I'm wrestling with what's the middle path here? And I'm a middle path that respects both the concerns of my colleagues and the incredible amount of community engagement that the children's levy folks have gone through. I want to respect that as well. It's a lot of people have been involved in this process, a lot of community engagement. So I'm looking for that middle path. And I also want to just make an observation that the children's levy is in the same position that we're in, in diminishing resources, and we're struggling with that. And those are very difficult decisions to deal with. And I'm also concerned that I don't want us to micromanage all of these processes that come forward, because this is not the first or the last. I really respect all the people that have been involved here, as well as the concerns expressed by my colleagues. So I just wanted to make those observations and very interested in finding a middle path. If there is a way to respect the process that's happened now, fund the people that have been funded in the past, do some sort of redo, but not not completely. Stop the process now. Thank you.
285 Councilor Green.
286 Yeah, I it's going to be hard for me to vote to accept a package that says that black led organizations cannot be the mentors for black people. It's going to be hard for me to do that. At the same time, I don't want to delay funding for a year. I think the middle path that councilor Clark is speaking about does look like bringing a new council or bringing a new action before this body to extend the existing contracts for a year. So there is an opportunity to revise this process, which has been which some some questions have been raised about it. I would support that, that approach.
287 Councilor canal.
288 The curse of following councilor Green is often that the it's laid out in detail, the way that I might suggest it. I just wanted to clarify because of funding constraints, if we were to extend contracts by a year, it would need to be at a 21% reduction. Is that correct?
289 Of course.
290 Okay. And I think. One of the things that is worth saying, I think we all know it up here, but is hypothetically, there could be a situation where maybe we like or have a familiarity with or trust in a specific organization that didn't get funding, and we remand it back, and they still don't get funding, even with a better process. That's a possibility too. Right? And I think that's the question that we're being asked is about process. It's not about the outcomes. And I, I want to acknowledge that I don't want this to be about, oh, this group didn't get it or did get it, because also, you know, I'll point out that that I don't think that groups, individual groups are I hate this word, but I can't come up with a better one entitled to funding through a process. They earn it. And I think what we're talking about is groups that that may have earned it through a fair process in our minds, and not necessarily in the process that we had. And I think that's a fair conversation to have. Would it be an emergency ordinance in pairing with we could do a remand now and then an emergency ordinance to continue that funding, because the funding we don't have 30 days, so we need to do it as an emergency. So does that is that the process we'd have to do for that second half of it? In that scenario?
291 I think you could do it. An emergency ordinance or a nonemergency ordinance. The emergency ordinance is effective immediately upon passage, and you would not have to wait 30 days. Sorry. You could do it either way through an emergency ordinance or a nonemergency ordinance. The benefit of an emergency ordinance is it is effective immediately upon passage. A nonemergency ordinance takes two readings, so two council meetings, and then it is effective 30 days after passage.
292 So in order to prevent a gap on July 1st, it would need to be an emergency. Because of that 30 day delay, an emergency ordinance requires nine votes. So I would love to know where the colleagues, because I think we haven't had nine of us speak up on this yet. I'd love to know from the colleagues that haven't spoken up where you're at on that, because what I don't want to do is remand it and then not have nine votes to extend the funding. And that's my reason for asking.
293 Councilor I just want to clarify, you're talking about remand and remand. I believe robert doesn't start a new process. It requires a new review of current applications under the currently laid out process. Is that correct?
294 I think that is correct. What I've heard miss pellegrino say is she's heard concerns and feedback from council about perhaps areas of the process that should be reviewed and fine tuned. And I've heard a willingness to do that. And perhaps it might take some time to, to get a process that's satisfactory. So I think there's some flexibility. I don't know that it's just run it all through the same process, rinse and repeat. But in terms of you'd still have to be bound by the standards in the, in the act.
295 Yeah.
296 To clarify, regardless of whether or not this is a remand for just that last step in the process or remand for the full process or something else. In parallel to that, we would have to have an ordinance of either an emergency or non-emergency kind to continue current funding at a 21% reduction. And my question was about whether or not there is support at the 9/12 level necessary for the emergency version of that which would be required to ensure there is no gap of funding for whatever period of time there is until the remand process or whatever other process is going on completes.
297 Thank you. Councilor.
298 Can I just make one clarifying question? I understood the next council meeting not to be until July 16th. After this, that might be the earliest I could get on.
299 There is a June.
300 18th council meeting.
301 Okay.
302 Tight agenda because it's an evening meeting. But we do have we haven't I haven't finalized that agenda. So if we need to do something quicker than this conversation, colleagues there that is possible. Councilor Novick.
303 Yeah, I just wanted to throw out another possibility. I am concerned about the idea of with no real process at all, simply saying we're going to extend all the existing contracts -21%, and it seems to me another possibility might be if people think the process should be revised. But and actually, this question is for miss pellegrino, would it be at all feasible to say we're going to approve the funding for the as the committee has, has approved it, but for to the people that's approved it for but for two years instead of five. So the we could proceed with funding for two years for those chosen through the existing process, but then have the council come up with recommendations to change the process so that maybe we, you know, have a we do a new a new process for the last three years.
304 Go ahead.
305 Does that make any sense?
306 No.
307 I think I understand what you're saying, just to be clear, what the ordinance that is on the table is for three year grants, not five years. Just just to clarify.
308 Sorry. Well, what if you what if you cut it down to a year and a half? Would that be logistically impossible?
309 Half years are difficult in general. At the city, we try to keep things on a fiscal year for a number of reasons, but I can't say off the cuff. It's impossible. No.
310 Councilor Zimmerman.
311 Thanks. First, just to colleagues who are considering sending this back, I guess it would help me to have clarity. If you think that the current process is flawed and needs to be rewritten, or if you think it was applied incorrectly, that's a little unclear for me right now. And then secondly, for city attorney, I'm hoping you can help describe your opinion a little bit more clear why you think we couldn't in this action, just make an amendment to the extension of the current funding, and then whatever the second half of that sentence will be, will be about my first part here, about whether it's a new process or a rebrand of the current process. But you mentioned that you think it has to be a separate ordinance for us to continue the current funding, even if we added the 2,020% reduction to it. I'm I'm pretty used to amending things in the moment. Why would that require a new amendment and a new meeting, please?
312 Yeah, that's a great question. The a couple of reasons. One is. Every ordinance that comes before council has to be confined to one subject. That subject is defined by the title. This title is concerning approving this set of grants for three years. We would recommend against just wholesale striking the whole title and doing something totally different. Instead, if you're going to make amendments, you should try to amend it consistent with the existing title of the item. I think that's one reason. I think the second reason is, is what miss pellegrino is talking about. Just practically speaking, we're going to have to go back, do the calculation on the 21% and just bring it back as a as a new item and make sure everything is in place as soon as possible. So for kind of the legal issue about the title and just the practical reason of if we're going to do this, let's take a little bit of time and make sure it's all in order.
313 Okay.
314 I appreciate that. I'm not sure that I. Am too worried about missing the intent here of if this council were to, say, extend the current funding with the authority at the director's level to adjust allocations to a certain percentage point, that we would need to delay that any further. But to my first, I think intent matters with with ordinances. And I think our intent could be clear here if that's the direction this council is going. But to my first piece of whether or not this council is concerned about the actual process that needs to be rewritten, or if it was applied incorrectly, would help me understand where I would be on this vote for remand or not. And I'm I'm trying to hope I'm trying to understand if we are in the situation where we're trying to pick winners and losers, or if we are saying something was was applied inappropriately. And that's not quite clear to me in the discussion here. Thanks.
315 Councilor. Councilor Koyama Lane.
316 Hi colleagues.
317 It's great to see you all. I was just a few blocks away at the courthouse, fulfilling my civic duty of jury duty. It's much more fun to see you all in person. I share many of the same concerns raised by community members and my colleagues about. I think. I appreciate your question, councilor Zimmermann, because I do think it is a process that is being brought up. I will be clear, I think it's important that we get this right and we are. The expectation is that we are looking very closely. I also, at the same time, do not want to delay support for many organizations that are counting on it, and I am looking to my colleagues, especially councilor Smith, who I've had some conversations with. I think we have various options here, and I if we do choose a path, I am absolutely willing councilor Canal to sign on to an emergency ordinance to make this as expedited as possible. But I will be honest that I am looking to some of my colleagues for where they're wanting to head.
318 Thank you, councilor. Councilor Smith, I saw you trying to jump in there, and I thought your hand here was a legacy hand, not a current hand.
319 It's a current hand.
320 Go right ahead.
321 Thank you. I think it is both, miss pellegrino. I think it is process and how it's applied. And I think it's about, you know, the devil is in the details. And who actually are the reviewers and the scorers and where they come from, what side of town they come from. So I believe if you believe that you have a good process, that folks that you bring to the table to score these, that's where it's not necessarily at the top, always where the long standing institutional kind of things happen. It's right here in the middle. They are the folks who are scoring, referring to the allocation committee. The allocation committee is a rubber stamp to what the middle did. So that I'm really clear on what I see as a 30,000 foot look into who were actually making these decisions. So we have taken it one step further down below, you know, below, skin deep, we're saying, look at those who reviewed. Where did they come from? Did we have a good cross-section of folks who could adequately and historically look at programs in the longevity of programs that have been in communities of color, producing good work for a very long time. And that's where I'm sitting. I could see a space in a place where we could remand, go back, do your process, but you need to figure out how to take some of that middle and make sure that you have the right people at the table scoring and making sure that they understand every side of the community, not just the side that they're familiar with. Because I think we have an unbalanced group of folks, and that's where you can change the trajectory of things, is when you identify a particular group to review. And if they don't have a historical knowledge of what and who. Organizations are, then they're not going to be able to reflect that in their reviewing process. So that's what I'm saying. I'm not doubting your process, but I'm doubting how it came out. And who's doing the reviewing.
322 We offered that we could instead hire contractors as reviewers instead of use community volunteers, because the ability to ask community volunteers to spend more time than it takes to score the applications is difficult because they're doing it as a volunteer. So that's one option that we could if we redid our process, we could.
323 But I think it's important to have the community voice. I think it's important to have the community voice, but you need to make sure that there is a comprehensive community voice, not just young people, not just people of color, but a cross-section of people who have a history of understanding communities who have long standing reputations of doing work and serving bipoc communities. And so we just have to be a little bit better about who we choose. If you believe that this process works, but we have a problem with how it's being applied, and we have a problem with the process. So for me, I that's that's where I'm sitting. I don't want to take anyone's money away. I don't want to take their wholesale money away for 100%. I think that I have talked to a few organizations, and they said that when the last time that we talked, you said it would only take a few months to redo this and to rescore.
324 If you're if you are sending back the all the decisions that the allocation committee made, and you're asking the allocation committee to go back and relook and decide whether their original allocations were merited or not. Given the considerations you've raised here, that's different than if we need to change the process by which this was done. And I heard many comments today that suggested the process was not done correctly. And you want to redesign.
325 And I'm not trying to pick winners or losers, because cream always rises to the top when you're doing the work, and you can do it no matter who's evaluating you. If you've done the work in the community, it should rise to the top. But what I'm saying is, let's give ourselves some breathing room. And they said those organizations that I talked to, they said they would be willing to wait a few months. If it was only going to take a few months. But now we're talking about a whole year. I would be supportive of a whole year extension of existing services. So that July 1st people could serve their communities.
326 And I think we could do that as the.
327 And in saying that to in talking to community organizations, I'm saying this to them. If we remand this and we do a different process, if it turns out the same, then you have to accept it.
328 You. Okay?
329 That's what I'm saying.
330 Thank you. Councilor.
331 Councilor Ryan. No, I'm sorry, councilor Dunphy. That's who I'm looking at. Who hasn't spoken to this yet?
332 Thank you. A couple of things. First of all, colleagues, I just want to acknowledge that my wife sits on the pcl community council as just. I want to declare that it's not a conflict, I don't think. But as I understand it, the community council evaluated all the applications blind. But I did want to just note that my wife is one of the community council folks. It's clear that I mean, to me, a lot of work has been done here and. Whether or not the process was followed, right, or whether or not the process is the right process, the outcome seems to be. Not hitting where we want to. And I don't hear any council colleagues excited to approve this as written right now. And now we're all sort of scrambling to try and find out what else. I do want to acknowledge that under city code in the I'm sorry, section six of the act that actually enacted the children's levy, it says specifically the allocate quote, the allocation committee shall make funding decisions in a public meeting based on application scores and other community conditions to foster a balanced and integrated citywide system of services. So, based off of that, the. Would it actually require a full reconsideration of the whole all of the applications or could we have I mean, would it would would it actually require a full redo of the process, or is there an opportunity where we could reevaluate faster than a year? I'm very concerned about the idea of delaying funding of this, and I also am really concerned about us trying to find an answer to how to fund these organizations today. So is there more that we could be doing in that specific understanding, that specific framing? And what part of the scoring process would have to be redone if we do remand? I'm struggling to ask what the right questions here. I'm sorry.
333 I'm not sure what I mean. The my understanding of remand is it's usually done with instructions of some kind to. So if you are asking the committee to go back and look at all of the existing applications and review their decisions and make decisions that are consistent with your instructions here today, they could do that, but that would. I just want to be clear, that would not be a different process in terms of people's concerns around reviewers or around who was selected or how the review was done, or how the application was written, or how the outreach was done, or how any of these other things that I've heard raised. It would not solve that. So I just want to be clear that you you can do that. I just I'm not sure that's I'm not sure that's what you want. I don't I'm not sure I know.
334 I guess could you clarify.
335 You know, based on that, the section that I read specifically, do you think that we're community conditions as it's put in the act, were community conditions adequately considered as by the allocation committee, or is that part of the process as community conditions explicit as part of the criteria.
336 There, looking at balancing to make sure, I mean, the allocation committee's job when they're looking at the at the final decisions, I think what they're they're trying to balance all of the competing goals that a process has. So for instance, they're interested in making sure they continue to provide stable funding for organizations that are performing well and delivering services to community. The community seems happy about. They're also concerned about making sure that new organizations or organizations that have not had access to pcl funding also have an opportunity to get funded. And in a year, I mean, I would just say that was perhaps the most difficult competing thing that I saw the allocation committee wrestle with was trying to trying to make sure they were supporting existing organizations, doing good work and also making room for new organizations that the community council specifically highlighted. They wanted us to do. They wanted the pcl to let in new organizations. When you have fewer resources than you have this year, that means that any existing grant that is continued would necessarily get less money. If you are also trying to free up resources to be able to fund new programs that are not currently funded. And it also meant that the committee wrestled with performance issues of trying to figure out which programs, keeping in mind that an organization may not deliver all programs equally. They may be doing one program. Excellent. They may having really struggling with another program. So I saw the committee consider performance in that context to understand. Some organizations are doing a great job with this program, but maybe not with this other program that they're also requesting continuing funding. So they made very hard decisions to balance competing interests and needs. And that was the struggle. And so balanced. Yes, they they did their best, I think, to try to balance things that they wanted when they wanted things that don't go together.
337 Councilor are you.
338 Complete councilors? I just want to point out that everybody left in the queue has spoken, I believe, multiple times, and we do have a motion on the table. Agreed. On the floor is yours.
339 Very briefly. I just wanted to answer councilor Zimmermann's question and also councilor Kanal question. So to your question, councilor Zimmerman, from the feedback I've heard, I think I'm mostly worried about application process. You know, councilor Smith has raised questions where that it might be difficult to disentangle those. But my motivation today was really worried about applications of process to include the things that council, Dunphy said, that, you know, comma also considering community conditions. So that to me would be application the process. Councilor Kanal if this was an emergency ordinance in June, I would I would be one of the nine that would be necessary to extend it. Thank you.
340 Okay.
341 Councilor Kanal.
342 So let me ask a question first. Where if any particular place do you think, director pellegrino, that the leadership and whether or not an organization is led in part or in whole by members of the community that it seeks to serve, where does that figure in to the evaluation process, if at all? At this moment.
343 It is currently one of the criteria that is literally written into the scoring criteria. And organizations did provide that information mostly. In some cases it was unclear, but about 75% of the organizations that are on this, or 75% of the. Let me hang on. Let me just check. I don't want to misspeak. Okay. Yes. So of the 94 applications that are currently on the list that you have for approval, 74% of those are from organizations that have more than half of their clients, board and staff, people of color.
344 Can I ask.
345 People of color? So that's that's the that's how it falls out. So it was considered it was asked. It was evaluated. In some cases people don't apply don't respond specifically. So we don't always have complete information on every applicant.
346 Can I can I follow up on that? You know, I'm asian American. I think that it's great that I'm represented on, on boards or that that people from my community are represented on boards. I don't think that me being on a board necessarily makes that organization better suited to serve black people. So can I ask if you disaggregated that further with relation to the parts of these applications that are designed to serve specifically black people.
347 You're asking we did used to ask in the application in the 1920 process. We did ask for very specific data about that question, where people filled out a chart and gave, you know, literally disaggregated data on all of their clients, their board and their staff, broken down by direct and management. We heard feedback in the last process that that was too much of a lift for a particularly smaller organizations and newer organizations to provide that level of data on an application, and it's too much information. So we took that piece out and in terms of that level of detail, and we asked for people to just in a narrative, tell us what the composition of your clients, staff and board are. And we wrote into the scoring criteria, specifically give percentages of the different communities that you serve and that what your on your staff and on your board. So some people did that and others did not give a specific information, but we don't have that level of disaggregated data that we did used to have. But that was in specific response to critique. We had about too much of a lift on our application.
348 Yeah. So I appreciate that you've clearly been responsive to the feedback you got from the previous process. And I imagine it could be frustrating. And I'm not going to ask you to confirm or deny it to, to be sort of responded to for the changes you made in response to previous community feedback. I will say that it's a little different because it is hard to gather data on your clients, and I could see that being a lift, being able to say who the members of your board are is something any, any nonprofit organization should be able to do fairly easily, though, and be able to say, you know, my board is x percent women, x percent LGBTQ, x percent black x percent whatever. And so I think maybe the separation there might be relevant.
349 We do have that data. Many people did provide it, but it's not it's not disaggregated at the same by the same variables.
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350 And can you the second I only have two questions on this. The can you speak so in reading not just I mean there's one of the applications. We've talked about this organization a lot, but I saw it in a couple where it was observed that the application itself, the writing in the application, was perhaps not, as I think words like professional were used or there was spell check issues, things like that. And that seems because not everybody gave comments on every box in the score sheets. That seems to have negatively affected some of the scoring. How does that square with the idea of having newer organizations be favored in this process? Given? And this is the point I brought up earlier, but I didn't give you the chance to answer. How does this square with the idea that new organizations should be favored if new organizations are less familiar with how to write a grant for the city?
351 I understand what you're asking. I think I think the community council was very concerned about that. And so one of you know, we tried there are, first of all, there are four scorers for each application. So and we take the median. So we're dropping off people who are the extremes you know from that calculation. So that's one way that we helped kind of correct for that. The other issue is score is not everything. So that was kind of to people's point. The committee really looked at score is very important. We want to lean toward high scoring applications for sure, because our application did heavily weight equity in the kinds of questions you're talking about, commissioner Councilor Kanal. But we don't want to only go by score because of those reasons that you just stated. And so we did succeed. About half the organizations on that list of 94 are new to pcl, have not been funded in the past. And so that was, you know, they reached down the list and did choose lower scoring applications for those reasons. And so there are cases where they have done that. I would say they did not reach down to the last application in any category. So if you scored last, nobody who scored last was was pulled up.
352 So then I'll close by saying, I think this is a little bit of both. To councilor Zimmermann's question, I would argue a little more. The latter application versus the process itself from my perspective, and also that I don't the part of the process that relates to the community council does not appear to be concerning to me at this moment. I that that is not the part that is more concerning to me. I think it's the development of it prior to that, of the questions, which does relate a little bit, but it's also how that was taken, the feedback and then the, the allocation side appears to be where I'm hearing colleagues talk about it. So that's, that's and I say that not only just to clarify, but also to say thank you to the people on the community council, because you did do a lot of work. And over many, you know, months and years. So thank you. I'll close there.
353 Councilors, I will again remind us that we have a motion on the table. Councilor Novick.
354 Yeah. I just wanted to quickly say that looking through the process, it starts with volunteers reviewing and scoring each proposal. Volunteers have experience in all program areas organizational, program management, racial equity, diversity, etc. And then after the volunteers do the scoring, then there's the pcl community council and then there's the allocation committee. And I really have not heard an explanation of what part of the process people don't like. We think we're picking the wrong volunteers. Do we think that there's a problem with the community council or the fact that they do a blind evaluation? Do we think it's the problem with the allocation committee? And in light of that, I actually would be prepared to vote to approve the allocation that has been made, because I don't really understand the objections to the process.
355 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Smith.
356 Thank you. I think there's a structural problem because you wholesale changed the process from 2020 to 2025. And if folks can't identify percentages of the of the folks who are their clients, then why are we giving them money?
357 People did do that.
358 But you said that you didn't. You stopped digging deeper because they could not disaggregate data.
359 Councilor Kanal asked me if we could disaggregate that data, and we did used to ask for it in a format that would allow us to disaggregate the data. We stopped asking for it in that in order to disaggregate data, you have to have the variables defined the same by every organization, so that you need them to fill out a chart that puts people in the in the same categories. If people choose to give that information in different categories, you can't disaggregate it. And also some organizations did not provide percentages. Most did, but some did not. So you can't say that for every single applicant. And sometimes it is the smaller and newer organizations that struggle to give the exact data, or they don't ask their board or they don't ask their staff.
360 That's right. And again, I said, it's a structural problem. You can't reward people who don't answer the question. And you rewarded folks who couldn't answer the question who you thought were new. That should be in the queue and gave them more opportunities to be one of the grantees, as opposed to doing what you did in 2020. Now let's go back to 2020. We were in a different time. That was the george floyd era. And so you all recognized where we were in that moment in time. And you had folks identify if they were black leading organizations that served over 50% or more of black clients. You understood that we were in COVID and that bipoc communities were disproportionately being disadvantaged in that economic time frame. And so you adjusted your application to that moment. So since the application has been adjusted in a way that it has pushed away. Existing grantees to favoring. And I'm saying this to you, councilor Novick newer applications, I would say that's a structural issue.
361 That was in response to feedback. Councilor Smith.
362 So I think there is a motion on the table, and we should address it, because I believe that we should go back in. We should remand fund the folks who are in the system, figure out how we can go back to a place and a time where there's nothing has changed since 2020. Only who's in the white house. And it is making it very difficult for the people that we serve who are in the bipoc community to even get funded. So folks are taking cuts all over the place. And so for me, I see several places on how we applied it, what we did with the application. If these organizations had 50% or more bipoc communities, and specifically black leaning black boards and some we kind of favored because they couldn't they were small and they probably not able to answer the question. We gave them a response and why they didn't do it. They didn't put a note there and say, this is why we didn't do it. They just didn't do it. So I can't hold. Up the entire process accountable because we felt that we needed to get new people into the system. We need to make sure that we have the most effective people in the system. And I don't see that practiced that. We have the most effective people who have a history of doing the work in a history of being a grantee of the Portland children's levy. They were kind of. Awarded and reduced so that you could bring new folks on. But that's the way I see it. If that's not the way others see it, I think we really need to discuss a little bit more, but that is the way I am viewing it and how you responded to the questions. So I would like to see us take a vote on this to remand it, extend the current grantees and see if we can figure out what's happening in the middle and redo this and come back a year from now. Okay? I know that councilor Avalos wants to speak as well.
363 Thank you, councilor, councilor Avalos.
364 Thanks. I have been listening and trying to understand the direction that we're trying to head in. I think that what my colleagues have raised around concerns about process or things that I share, I also am concerned about what I've heard is, I guess, your interpretation of what would happen if we remand that it would take a year or so. I think there's an in-between here. I'm trying to process what I'm hearing from our city attorney, as far as what kind of direction we can give to make, you know, whatever it is that you all do more clear and also expedited because definitely I don't think any of my colleagues want to see any organizations go without funding. While, you know, this kind of hangs in the balance, I certainly don't. Let me start by just asking you, are you how are you now that you've heard it from everybody? What is your interpretation? Do you feel you have enough guidance right now to reevaluate this process effectively?
365 I guess I would I would be helpful for me to understand. Do you want us to redo it from the application forward, like ask people to submit new applications, have them rescored using different review process with different criteria. Or do you want us to use the results of the last process, which is the applications that we received that were scored in the way that they were scored, and have the allocation committee go back and look among the applications that are currently in the system and make different decisions or make the same decisions if they choose. I guess.
366 It's my personal preference that it would be the latter. I think that a lot of the things we're hearing from community, and why so many of us came into this feeling concerned, is that there seemed to be some discrepancies in the process. There was miscommunication going on between how applicants were talking with staff, whether information was getting relayed effectively. And it the feeling is that because there were those miscommunications, the outcomes didn't reflect updated information that needed to be taken into account. So I would like to see us, you know, definitely not start from the beginning. I don't think that's what we're asking, but it's not what I'm asking. I think it would be more. So can we look at these claims and see how they fit into the current system that we have? I think that a new system is going to require some time, and I want us to have a thorough discussion about that. But I think in the interim, we can look at what's currently what are some of these concerns that we're all hearing and assess that via your process. Maybe there's new information that needs to be taken into account and go from there. That's where I'm landing on it. But I think you're I, I can see how this is very confusing for you. And so I'm also trying to figure out a solution for how can we make a decision to at least pause this, not indefinitely. To give you some more clarity, I don't know if that requires some kind of ordinance. If that's a discussion that's offline and then be able to, within a reasonable time frame, come back with updated information on, you know, what is how are you applying this new information? How is that applied to your process? While we then have a broader discussion over the next year on maybe adjusting the process based on some of the other overarching concerns that I hear from my colleagues? So that's what I'm currently taking away. I obviously don't speak for everybody. I'm not sure where we're landing here. I know the motion that we have on the table is for a remand. And so I guess my last question would just be just to clarify from you, city attorney taylor, if we do remand, do we need to put some kind of language in how we want to see that be done within this motion, or is that something that can happen offline, or is it something that needs to come in a formal way via some other kind of ordinance or council action, like how do we relay the information of what we're asking for in the remand in a formal way?
367 Good question. I think council has options. I think you could remand it with specific instructions. You could remand it pending further instruction from council. You could remand it to start at a specific point, tell them to start from the beginning or tell them to start after the scoring, but do the allocation process again so you have some options. If you can reach a decision on on that today.
368 Okay. Then I guess my do you have a response?
369 I was just going to say that I do that. We have an allocation committee meeting set for June 18th. If the entire decision making process is remanded, and depending on your instructions, if you want people to be able to come and speak to the allocation committee about the, you know, for in every funding area, every program area, I don't know that we can accomplish that in one meeting. So I did put information in the information that people asked for about what would be the time frame if the entire set of decisions is remanded. I'm not positive that if you want a process that includes people coming in to give verbal testimony to the allocation committee, that has to be planned and will take longer than one meeting, probably.
370 Okay, well then I based on everything I'm hearing, I think my recommendation to my colleagues would be that we do remand it, because that seems like it's the formal way that we can halt this process in the way. And in order for us to have these larger discussions, I think that we need to have an expedited timeline. So I'm looking to my colleagues to assure that we are going to find a way to have those discussions soon, and I think we can provide some further instruction in some formal way, it sounds like. So yeah, that's where I'm landing. Thank you.
371 Councilors, again, we are almost an hour over time now. And everyone in the queue has said a lot, and many of your colleagues are holding on to comments that we have, myself included, to try to move us along. Councilor Smith.
372 Do you have more.
373 That needs.
374 To.
375 Be added?
376 That's new. I.
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377 I agree with councilor Avalos. We need to remand pending instruction.
378 Councilor canal. Do you have something new?
379 Move to limit debate to the existing stack. The existing. Everyone has got their hand raised.
380 Ryan, do you have something new?
381 It's a point of order question. Actually, we never voted on if we were going to prove these or not, so we just assumed we weren't, I guess. And we're going to an amendment to remand. Is that what's on the table? I'm not used to this process.
382 A motion put on the table to vote to remand.
383 Okay. So it's like an amendment.
384 It's like a.
385 Go ahead.
386 Blowing up the one that's here and adding a new one.
387 It's in the think of it in the nature of a motion to refer back to committee. So it would be a procedural motion to remand it back to the Portland children's levy.
388 Seeing as there's no one in the stack, I will withdraw the motion.
389 Okay.
390 Councilors, with nobody else in the queue and a motion before us. Rebecca, can you please call the roll on the motion to remand, which sends this back to address concerns with how the process was applied.
391 Order. Though before you do that, based on what I was asking, city attorney, do we need to change the amendment or the motion to be remand pending further instruction? Is that necessary in order to ensure that we have the capability to follow up? Because if we, as I'm reading it right now, if it's just a remand, then.
392 I think.
393 If there's a remand, lisa could ask us for more details after the fact if she chose.
394 And I'm happy to do that.
395 I think that I think effectively that would be the same thing as remanding it pending further instruction from council.
396 Rebecca.
397 Please call the roll canal.
398 I'll keep this brief. I'm conflicted. I'm concerned. I appreciate all the work that's been done on this. I want to keep talking about this. I will vote yes on the motion to remand Ryan.
399 Yeah. I think what I got out of this conversation, I'm disappointed it didn't come up earlier. We've had a couple other opportunities, but it did happen today. And I think we got to some of the heart of the matter. So the weight of the new organizations that was recommended by PSU and what was discussed with the community council and the allocation committee, that weight is now going against the not having waited legacy organizations that we're hearing about today. So that's where the rub is, I think. And that'll be fascinating to figure out how to manage that. I thought that this entire process has been so much improved from the past, but that was the one issue that seems to have put this out of proportion. And so I, I stand with I was going to vote yes, of course, on what was brought forward. So on the remand, I will vote no.
400 Koyama Lane.
401 Yes. Morillo I.
402 Novick.
403 No.
404 Clark.
405 I just want to say I think this is really micromanagement. I said that earlier. I think it's very much like the former form of government. And I'm voting no.
406 Green.
407 Yes.
408 Zimmerman.
409 I am clarifying that there was no adjustment to this. So by this voting and passing, it will stop funding on June 30th. So I. I think I made myself clear in, in my willingness to entertain an idea that didn't. But because of that, the current amendment stands. I'll vote no.
410 Avalos.
411 I'll just go back real quick to a comment that councilor Kanal made earlier. That is a larger concern, which is this is not a rubber stamp body. You know, we have a duty to ask questions. We have a duty to respond to constituents who are concerned about process. And I think that's what we're doing here. I get that it's complicated. I know that we're trying to respect the process that a bunch of people were a part of, and I think it's our responsibility to be responsive to constituents that have concerns. And I think that's why I'm voting.
412 I don.
413 Dunphy.
414 I,
415 I.
416 Smith.
417 I would like to remand and to make sure that existing contracts go forward as well. Can we do that?
418 Right now we're in the middle of the roll call vote. So you can't you can't amend it in the middle of the roll call.
419 Okay, I.
420 Pirtle-guiney.
421 Out of fear for.
422 Out of fear for ensuring that we have funding for these important services moving forward. And also with respect to the many organizations in my district and district one who asked us to support these, I vote no.
423 With seven ayes. The ordinance is remanded.
424 Council president.
425 Yes.
426 I'd like to make a motion from the floor.
427 Okay.
428 That. We adopt an ordinance to extend the current levels of funding in the Portland children's levy, with authority granted up to the 25% mark to the director for reductions. Given the reduction in revenue for the upcoming 12 months, not to exceed one year.
429 Mr. Taylor, I assume that that's a motion that could be in order right now. That is a motion to add a new item to the agenda from the floor.
430 Second.
431 It it would be in order to suspend the rules with nine votes to add an item to the agenda that's not previously posted. If in that instance, it would be helpful if that item was if we had it in writing so we knew what it was.
432 Well, mr. Attorney, I encourage you to start typing because I just had to come with it with on the fly here.
433 I think that the motion that has been made from the floor is to suspend the rules, to add an item to the agenda, to be heard immediately. At this point on the agenda, I'm paraphrasing. So if I'm paraphrasing incorrectly, cut me off here, which would state that the children's levy is directed to, for the next year, fund the current. The organizations who are currently funded at a level of up to 25% below their current funding level in order to give them time to work on the remand. Is that.
434 Accurate.
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435 Madam president? Thank you. My intent here is to make sure that there is no significant change on July 1st and to acknowledge the fact that the revenues that are coming in from the levy are diminished to their from their current levels, and to put some trust and authority in the director's level to apply those as best they see fit. But to ensure that the last action that just took place does not have a cascading effect on a number of community providers. Thank you. And, mr. Attorney, I recognize that this is in the moment and. I still think it needs to happen to avoid an action that I think we're unclear about. So where your team or my team or anybody's team from this council can help put verbiage around that. Happy to help. But I think the intent is enough to be able to vote on.
436 I appreciate that it is helpful to staff, including attorneys, to have a little bit of time to do that. If I might suggest that I believe there's a council meeting tomorrow, it would be in order tomorrow to vote to suspend the rules with nine votes, to add that to the agenda. And have that heard in that that order.
437 No, no, no, no.
438 Mr. Taylor, may I ask a question? We have a motion made and seconded. Could we could we offer a friendly amendment to the motion that it be added to the end of the agenda tomorrow, and a vote taken to do that, which would give you time to see this in writing before we voted.
439 But I have a point of order, because I guess I'm not understanding why it has to be a separate agenda item at all. I think that it's within this item and it's, you know, we did a remand, but this.
440 Councilor.
441 Is that not like, why does it have to be a separate.
442 I.
443 Don't have an item to vote on to do this. There is nothing on the agenda. An agenda item isn't just a broad discussion about a topic. Generally, an agenda item is a concrete thing that we vote on, and we don't have an agenda item right now to do what counselor Zimmerman has suggested. So we would need to add an item to the agenda to do that. I'm reading the room that folks would like to consider adding an agenda item to do that immediately. And I think we have two options to add it to the agenda to discuss and vote on right now, or to add it to the agenda to discuss and vote on later in the agenda.
444 Point of order. We have a motion on the floor. We are prepared to do this vote. To. To, you know, relaxing the rules. To do this. We can do it. And we don't have to wait to do it. Let's let's just do the vote and quit. Always extending stuff when we know what the vote is. And I think we can vote on it right now.
445 Counselor Zimmerman, we have probably an hour's worth of other things on the agenda. Would you be willing to place this at the end of today's agenda and spend ten minutes while we debate the next item, working with our legal counsel to get this in writing for everybody?
446 Thanks, I. I am reading the body language and I am unsure of why. It seems like there may be some opposition to this. It seems like the intent is quite clear, but I'd be willing to take this up as the last agenda item of this meeting. But I think that an ordinance I would just say, I think. Direction of a thing that currently exists to continue does not require many pages of an ordinance written. I think single sentence ordinances would be a joy if we got more to those, because in ordinances about an action and an intent, I think I've read that into the record. I'd be willing to take this up at the end of this meeting, but I would not be willing to go any further. I think today's action could be alarming for a number of organizations in the community, and I'd like to set a tone directly today before we adjourn. Thank you.
447 I would be happy to accommodate that. If you would be so kind to send me an email with the language that you're hoping to see that will help me serve the council's desires.
448 Councilor Zimmerman. Are you willing to accept the friendly amendment that this be placed immediately following?
449 Item?
450 12 on the agenda? Actually, immediately following item six on the agenda? Because right now our agenda goes 12, five, six.
451 Today.
452 Naturally.
453 Members do.
454 Yes. Okay.
455 Counselor Smith, are you in the queue for debate or should we move to a vote? Okay. Seeing no one in the queue for.
456 Information, I'm sorry. When items are removed from the consent agenda, they normally go to the bottom of the agenda for that meeting. But this meeting continues till tomorrow. It's recessed. So my understanding is five and six are at the end of tomorrow's agenda, not today's. Okay, I might be mistaken on that, but I believe that's the standard practice.
457 They go to the end of the regular agenda.
458 And the regular agenda for this meeting continues.
459 Regular agenda.
460 Item 14.
461 Okay.
462 I think the normal practice is that they go to the bottom of the agenda for this meeting, so they wouldn't go to tomorrow.
463 If we don't get.
464 Technically, you are technically accurate. Tomorrow is the same meeting and mr. Taylor is accurate in that the practice at the city has been that it goes to the bottom of the agenda that day, as opposed to that meeting.
465 Thank you. There is a vote.
466 To amend the agenda. We need a three quarters vote, a 9/12 vote to add this to the agenda.
467 We need a separate motion.
468 We have a second from councilor Clark. So, rebecca, can you please call the roll.
469 Canal? I.
470 Ryan, I.
471 Koyama Lane I. Morillo I.
472 Novick I.
473 Clark. I.
474 I Zimmerman. I Avalos I Dunphy. I Smith.
475 I.
476 Pirtle-guiney I.
477 12 ayes.
478 Thank you rebecca, can you please read the next agenda item? Item ten.
479 Authorize. Authorize the bureau of transportation to acquire certain permanent and temporary rights necessary for construction of the northeast columbia cully boulevard and alderwood road intersection improvements project through the exercise of eminent domain authority councilors.
480 This is a second reading of agenda of an agenda item. Generally, second readings are voted on. Do we have any discussion before we move to a vote? Councilor Zimmerman, is your hand up for this agenda item?
481 No. Still typing in on this.
482 Okay, rebecca, seeing no discussion, can you please call the roll?
483 Canal. Ryan.
484 Aye. Koyama Lane I.
485 Morillo I.
486 Novick I.
487 Clark. I.
488 Green hi.
489 Zimmerman I.
490 Avalos Dunphy. I Smith. I pirtle-guiney. I and with 11 ayes the item is passed.
491 Thank you. Can you please read agenda item 11?
492 Adopt committee rules.
493 Thank you. Rebecca. Councilors. This is a resolution. Resolutions are heard once at council. This was previously worked on in the governance committee. This my notes say there's no committee staff report. But I'm wondering if. Okay I thought we had something for this. So we will start with committee staff report from ashley hernandez. Please go ahead.
494 Okay. Madam president councilors. For the record, my name is ashley hernandez. I serve the governance committee. The this the resolution document number 2025 166 was considering the governance committee on April 21st and may 5th, where it was referred as amended to council with recommendation that it be adopted. This established rules for committee for city council committees. The committee rules provide a procedural framework for committee operations, including. Quorum, the rules of presiding officer. Public notice, access, testimony, and recording meetings. The resolution includes guidance on general rules of procedure, deliberation, conflict of interest, and rules of order. The resolution described how items are referred to a committee, specifies committee actions and clarifies documents that must accompany an item that is referred from out of committee to a full council. The committee adopted amendments prior moving the item to full council. The effect of amendments on the original resolution draft are summarized in the committee staff summary. The full impact statement on this item includes committee impacts and community involvement. One person testified during the committee meeting on April 21st and the same person submitted written testimony. The testimony focused on council deliberation, quorum requirements, and committee meetings. Thank you.
495 Thank you, ashley councilor Koyama Lane you chaired the committee during this discussion. Do you have anything you'd like to add?
496 Just that we're bringing a resolution on committee rules that was passed unanimously out of the governance committee. The amended version you see before you as attachment exhibit a, as amended. We worked as quickly as possible, but diligently to meet a council wide sense of urgency around the need for set rules to ensure that we have a shared understanding of the role and responsibility of committees. My gratitude to my committee colleagues, as well as councilor Avalos, who joined us and brought thoughtful amendments and engaged in collaboration and discussion as we work toward an amended version that had unanimous committee support, we consider the options around bringing this to a council work session. But we all know that meeting time is extremely tight, and we have a backlog of a lot of different things coming before us. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and answer answering your questions as we discuss this resolution.
497 Thank you.
498 Councilor, and either councilor Koyama Lane or councilor Ryan. Do you have anything to add by way of a carrier report? Okay, I'm seeing a no from both of our colleagues. Are there any colleagues clarifying questions before we move to public testimony and then our broader discussion? Seeing none. Rebecca, do we have public testimony?
499 We do.
500 Could you.
501 Please call folks up in groups of 3 or 4 so that we can move through people seamlessly?
502 Refreshing this. We have ten people. Our first three are. Joe jackson, ahmed al-shamrani and craig bethel.
503 Thank you for being here.
504 Thank you.
505 Thank.
506 You. And forgive me if we've kind of entered the wrong format for what we're here to discuss.
507 In public testimony right now on the agenda item around adopting committee rules. Is that what you're here to discuss?
508 We are here to discuss. Rideshare drivers in Portland and the budget that increases the per trip fee to $2.
509 That's not what is on the table before us, rebecca, what is our process around getting folks signed up for testifying on the right things?
510 The sign up for the budget testimony is going to happen later. If you want to approach the clerk, we can get you signed up for the appropriate testimony time.
511 Which agenda item is that?
512 That's not on the agenda today.
513 It's not on the agenda today. Okay. Thank you.
514 Mr.
515 Did I see?
516 Any other folks who are signed up for this agenda item are here to speak to adopting the committee rules, or if we need to get other folks signed up for the agenda items.
517 Our next three were muhammad ali and yusuf fakih.
518 Okay.
519 Did I hear sheikh ahmed, karen, shira and debbie iona?
520 So we are here. Yes.
521 Anyone who's here to testify about the rideshare and budget, come over here to the clerk, and we'll get you signed up for the proper item. Anyone who is here to testify on item 11, adopt committee rules. Document number 2025, dash 166. You may approach the testimony table.
522 And if.
523 You were here to testify on the rideshare item on the budget, do you please make sure that your colleagues come back in so we can get you signed up? We still want to hear from you at the time when we're considering that. Rebecca, had you called debbie iona.
524 I did debbie iona, terry harris, and karen. Shira.
525 Debbie, go right ahead.
526 Okay. Thanks. I'm on zoom. In case you haven't figured that out yet, I'm debbie iona, representing the league of women voters of Portland. In your meeting packet, there should be a copy of a league memo we sent to the governance committee. Although we appreciate their work, we have suggestions. And in addition to section c in the committee rules on public access and public testimony, I want to highlight our addition of a sixth point to require timely availability of meeting materials. This is a cornerstone to facilitating informed public tracking and testimony. We urge that the deadline for sending exhibits and other materials to the council clerk for posting online should be no later than 48 hours before committee work sessions and meetings. Our understanding is that the clerk requests this timing, but we can see on the website that this request is not always honored. The clerk can't set a deadline mandate, but the council can and should. And since committee materials are frequently prepared by city staff, city council should request that the city administrator impose this 48 hours in advance deadline for their employees. Specific language for the league's point number six is in red font. In our memo, with background information in bold. Point four pertains to testimony at a subsequent committee meeting. We urge that when time runs out, before all public testimony has been heard, the people who signed up but weren't able to give their comment be allowed to speak at a subsequent committee session, instead of just being asked to submit written testimony. Point five relates to requiring testimony on substantive amendments, which is an excellent rule. However, a red line version of such amendments needs to be available in advance for timely review. Clarity is also needed regarding when and with what public notice will testimony on substantive amendments occur. Thank you for considering these suggestions, especially adding point six requiring timely online availability of council meeting materials in advance of committee proceedings. Thanks again.
527 Thank you so much for being here.
528 Mr. Harris.
529 Hi, terry. Harris from hillsdale.
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530 Thanks for this opportunity. I'm not sure that you have rules to.
531 Govern this particular opportunity.
532 And so that's kind of why I'm here to talk a little bit more generally, I support what you have in front of you. I appreciate the governance committee's work on on the resolution and the amendments that it took. But here you are, about half about almost halfway through a year, and you're about halfway through the rules that I think you need to operate. And I think it's also important to recognize that each rule resolution you pass needs to work with all the other.
533 Rules.
534 Resolutions that you're going to pass, and it needs to work with code 3.02 that I think you committed in your very first meeting to revisiting by the end of this year. So you still have a lot of rules work left to do. You have public input in to the full council what that looks like. And when it's up, it's taken staff summaries, impact statements, rules of decorum, rules of conduct, rules, clarity between the clerk, the council operations and council leadership, and rethinking your committee jurisdiction for standing committees, but also special committees. The budget committee. You're getting a brand new experience with that. I'm sure you're going to want to change. A committee of the whole would have been nice to have earlier today to refer things to and again, code 3.02, I don't think works very well. I think you're going to you're recognizing that now and are going to need to change it. So anyway, I still support the package as, as as it's been presented. Quick comment on the canal amendments that are filed early enough for us to see them, which I appreciate. The first amendment appears to try to do some of the blending, but I worry that it calcifies code 3.02 in the process. So I would say maybe it's not necessary. The second one amendment having to do with transcripts I think is unnecessary overkill, but I think it's really important that you all have access to the testimony that was given, and you can find the written testimony that I've presented, which I would challenge you to be able to do right now, because I'm sure you can't find it. And so resolving some of those problems, I think are really important. And I wish you luck, and I'll see you in a few minutes.
535 Thank you, mr. Harris. I rebecca, we had one other person signed up. Is that correct?
536 Karen? Karen is not here. That concludes testimony.
537 Thank you. I turn my mic off. Counselors, is there any discussion on this resolution? Councilor canal.
538 Thank you, madam president. I'm going to move the amendment that is pre filed as canal amendment one. This would change the section of the exhibit which reads council president may delegate a committee agendas b one. B council president may delegate a proposal to be heard by a specific committee. The amendment would add, as defined in subsection 3.02.020, b one, a, one, and b. And I can speak to that as well.
539 Thank you. Councilor. Is there a second?
540 Second? All right.
541 Councilor Avalos has seconded. Councilor canal, would you like to speak to this before we take broader discussion?
542 Yeah, the testimony is completely accurate. It would calcify code 3.02. That is the intent. So right now a person reading the committee rules might think the way it's written right now, that proposals are delegated by the council president to a specific committee. That is not actually what code says. And code supersedes resolutions. This aims to clarify and make sure that a person reading this document could understand that there is a process that's already laid out in significantly more detail in that code, by which a council president does, in fact delegate a proposal to be heard by a specific committee in the event it's filed by the mayor or auditor, or that the filing councilor Does not request a specific committee. It's a relatively this would not change any practice whatsoever. It would just make it clearer and ensure no divergence or difference between the two, that we would need to call robert taylor up to ask repeatedly, does a resolution supersede code? Because that's the question that I would avoid. Bye bye. I'd like to avoid by amending this in.
543 Councilor Green. Are you in the queue to speak to this amendment?
544 I was just going to ask councilor Kanal to respond to terry harris's complaints, but I think you're already part way there. I am in the queue though, for a different amendment, but that can come after this amendment.
545 Okay, okay.
546 Councilors, I am not seeing anybody else in the queue to speak to canal one. Rebecca, could you please call the roll?
547 Call? I.
548 Ryan.
549 This one is. Yeah,
550 I.
551 Koyama Lane know.
552 Morillo I.
553 Novick know Clark.
554 No.
555 Green.
556 All right.
557 Zimmerman. Avalos. I Dunphy. I Smith.
558 I pirtle-guiney no. With seven ayes. Motion carries.
559 Thank you, councilor Green.
560 I have an amendment I'd like to introduce on the floor. I'm sorry that I'm chewing. I'm very hungry.
561 Okay, let's.
562 Wait until. However, I'm willing to wait until canal two is heard. I would just like to know if these are going to be amending the.
563 Should we give you time to chew?
564 And thank you. Please.
565 Thank you.
566 I believe councilor Kanal is back in the queue. Councilor canal.
567 Yeah. So I'll move canal to. So this under committee actions b1 a1. It currently reads a number of testifiers and themes from public testimony received. This would change the word themes to transcripts and I am happy to speak to this. I'll just do it now because that's more efficient. The two reasons I give are we're actually very well articulated as well by by mr. Harris. The first one is that having the testimony in all, all in one place, especially with that convoluted way in which our website sorts written testimony, will make it significantly easier to read it. But I think the other best example is from the staff summary for this exact document itself, asking staff who did a great job at summarizing it's not about the job they're doing, it's about the request we're giving them in the first place. Asking them to summarize it led us to hear that the testimony was on, quote, council deliberation and quorum requirements, that committee meetings end quote, this testimony was from mr. Harris at was at the governance committee on, I believe, April 21st. And during that time, there's no reference to the fact that it talked about councilor Avalos amendments in committee. And that's because when we ask staff to summarize testimony, we are deliberately asking them to remove the context, the color and the detail. And again, they did a great job of it because that was the ask. My concern is not with the job they're doing. My concern is that the act of asking for staff to summarize public comment is putting a filter between the public and what the seven councilors that are not on the committee are hearing. It's unrealistic with eight committees to expect us to go watch every video of every testifier, on every item in committee. The best thing we have is these documents that come with attachment. And so having a replacing the idea of having staff summarize public testimony with the idea of just giving us the testimony, will make it easier for the seven councilors that are not on the committee to act in a way that's informed by the public.
568 Second.
569 Councilor Koyama Lane, are you in the queue for this amendment?
570 I am.
571 Go right ahead.
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572 Yeah. I want to thank councilor Canal for your interest and support of good governance and coming to our committee. I also want to thank mr. Harris. You are our frequent flier. You're at every governance conversation. Thank you. I am listening to what you said, mr. Harris, about this being unnecessary, possibly overkill, but that we do need to do some work on making sure that finding the written testimony, finding that testimony is something that we have access to and that it is clear. I am wondering what it would actually look like for our council operations to do this preparation. I'm wondering if it would make sense for laurie brocker to come speak to that, or someone else from council operations.
573 Laurie.
574 Are you here understanding what that what this means exactly.
575 We're going to have our council operations manager come up and speak to what this would look like for.
576 Just a point of order.
577 Councilor Kanal. Can you just because I had to step away, can you point me to which one we're on right now? Which amendment you proposed?
578 Canal two. Thank you for.
579 The record, laurie bracher, council operations. Ashley hernandez is up here with me as well. I think it kind of depends on what the councilor, madam president and councilors, what councilor Kanal is meaning when he says transcripts. I think if it was a link to what is already, I think, available on the council clerk's site, I'm looking to the council clerk. That would be one item, one then digitally, then the committee staff summary would be available to you in that form. I think if it is literal transcripts, we are talking potential significant hard copy of testimony depending on how many people show up. So I think that's the best I can do in off the top of my head. You may have councilor Something else envisioned.
580 Councilor Koyama Lane.
581 Yeah. Councilor Kanal can you clarify?
582 Yeah. So there's two types of testimony. We have the written and we have the, the oral we have for the written. It would involve taking what is in the system but is buried. And as you may see, it's separated out. So you can see that it's not by item. When you look at the written testimony and putting that basically at the back of the file, which is not printed out. So I don't think there's a hard copy concern, by the way. And then for the written or sorry for the oral testimony, yeah, it would be just the transcript which comes off of either zoom or youtube and the, the zoom ones, we don't have direct access to except live as the committee meeting is happening. But if you weren't at that meeting, you wouldn't have it until after the fact. But the clerk's office would. So just getting that all into one place, and then it would take the work off of council operations plate to go through and summarize as well.
583 So would a link to the transcripts to the youtube suffice, or you are asking council operations to go a step further and compile.
584 I.
585 I think a link to the youtube one would suffice. I think for the written one it would be helpful to compile because the website is not sufficient for it right now. I would love to change that. I would love to work with and I know this is not just me. I know a lot of us have had frustration with the way that the written testimony for several items gets broken up, where you can see like three of them on a page. Go to page two. Two more. Page three has the rest. And it kind of it doesn't split it across all 12 pages or whatever, but it does split it across some of them. And so that that would be helpful. And as soon as we can resolve that with, I think the clerk's office, then that wouldn't be required either. Yeah.
586 Madam president, may I enter in? I lori, again, for the record, I would be concerned about the workload for the analysts in this process, depending on and I absolutely defer to you as far as the knowledge of how the transcripts would be accessible off of the youtube recording. So that piece I think we would need to look into as to what it would require as far as time for the council analysts who serve each of the committees.
587 Thank you.
588 Councilor Koyama Lane, do.
589 You.
590 Have.
591 Any follow up?
592 Just to clarify, councilor Kanal, you're asking for a link to the youtube recording of the committee meeting. So councilor Could go back and find the transcripts and then also to have the written testimony for this item pulled out and uploaded separately, just that written testimony. So you're not looking through all of it in what's related to that item? The hope is that that is also attached. Yes, correct.
593 It could be in a separate document or could be later pages, and that's irrelevant to me. Either way works.
594 Councilors I'm next in the queue. I wanted to note a few things. First, the types of website changes that councilor Kanal is talking about are things that I have mentioned to the clerk's office that we need to address. I think eventually we will need to have a broader conversation about what we want our online system to do for us, but we need to know what our practical systems, our workflows, look like first. And so I've been talking to the clerk about what we can change now and what we need to wait to change to ensure that we don't ask them to do duplicative work. They are working with bts, though, now in in real time, not this very moment, but have been over the past few weeks to improve the written testimony web page and make that more user friendly. If you'd like details on that, I'm sure we can get either. Maybe rebecca's clerking, so maybe keelan to speak to that. The reason that when I asked council operations to start putting these reports together for us, because we've had these for a while now, even though we haven't passed these rules, I asked them to give us the themes is because I know that we are all busy, and I know that we can access these transcripts. We have staff who pull many materials from us to prep for, for us rather to for meetings. And there have been times where I've asked staff to pull in some of the more specific things that councilor Kanal is referring to in canal amendment two. But I also know that for many of us, there are times where what we need is a summary of what happened so that we can understand if we want to dig deeper or not. And I am going to oppose this amendment because I actually believe that that summary is very critical, especially when we have hearings and committees that have dozens of people who testify or submit written testimony to be able to have a sense of what was said and know, again, if we want to dig deeper or not. I think that that's a really important tool for all of us as we manage having as much information as possible and also not having a huge amount of time. I also do really worry about the burden on our staff of pulling together our council operations staff, of pulling all of this together. Councilor Avalos.
595 Thank you. I totally agree with the spirit of what councilor Kanal is doing here, and I think what I would probably prefer is that we keep both transcripts and themes, and here's why I agree that having, you know, the council ops do the being able to extract the themes and having that in the council report is good. But I also agree that it it is hard for us to navigate and find, you know, where am I, where am I getting the written testimony, which, as everyone has noted, is just a nightmare to try to find. But also, yes, all of the links for the meetings are online. I think it would be helpful not only to provide a link in that summary, but also you can in youtube. You can set it up to give you a link from a starting place. And I think this is just about us needing more comprehensive things in one place. I don't think it would be too much of a burden to say, from the link of this meeting to have, you know, the testimony for this item starts at one hour and 26 minutes and put in the report that link that goes directly to that spot. I think that could deal with the fact that, you know, actually drawing the transcripts, you know, might be too onerous for council ops, but also giving me an easy opportunity to be able to listen to the testimony. So I think this is just about having a comprehensive package that is meeting all of these needs. And I think I would actually want it to be both. And we could talk about that. Councilor Kanal if you're interested in, maybe we add transcripts instead of removing themes, because I do agree that having the themes is helpful, but the way I envision it is that we would get the report right. It's got the language of the bill, it's got the links to everything where it is on the on the websites, including the link directly to the written testimony. That was the other thing I was going to say. I don't know that I would I feel like it might be enough for you to just give me the direct link to that written testimony. I don't know that you would need to pull that and put it in a separate document, but maybe you could talk about what that how that would work. So then it would have a link to the, the written testimony, a link to the youtube that starts at the place where the oral testimony is, and then it still includes a summary that is provided by staff, so that that could be more at a glance. So that to me, would give me all of the options so that if I need to go deeper, I can. I have the themes, which is helpful because I agree that, you know, our staff do those things for us, but it's helpful to have that extra capacity from ops to be able to do that theming out. But yeah. Can you respond to what I'm suggesting? Like, does what I'm saying make sense as far as your capacity to be able to add essentially, I think just some links.
596 Madam president. Councilor Avalos, I think if I'm understanding the link, the link piece seems, you know, and I'm speaking for the analysts here, but it seems manageable. I think the depending on the number of people who provide written testimony, I'm wondering if you're thinking that there would be a digital committee staff summary, not something that is simply presented to you here, that you would then be reviewing all that written testimony that may, you know, maybe one person or it may be 25 people.
597 That's a good point. Yes, because we don't get that staff summary right. Like we don't have that written. It's usually just reported out.
598 It is.
599 Councilor I believe it's posted on the clerk's site. Yeah.
600 Okay. So then what are you saying? I guess.
601 I'm wondering about with the written testimony being part of that would it is written testimony I believe is already posted. If I'm correct and accessible. So this would just be another place in the same on the on the clerk's site. Am I understanding correctly where there would be written testimony compiled?
602 What I'm saying is in the summary report that we would get that, that that link would be in that summary report. That's it. So it would just be a direct link to the written testimony, a direct link to the link to the youtube with the oral testimony. What was the third thing I said? Oh yeah. And then the themes.
603 Yeah, I understand that. I'm wondering about the written testimony piece of it that you added, because I think that's already included on the clerk's.
604 Keelan is available online to speak to these items specifically.
605 Is that.
606 Councilor Avalos, would you like to have our chief clerk speak to some of these questions?
607 Yeah.
608 Keelan are you able to come off mute? Thank you.
609 Yeah. Hi. Council president I councilors happy to be joining you today to answer some of your questions. Councilor Avalos, to your question, the written testimony is available on the website. And as the council president already mentioned, we are working to improve how to navigate that site so that it is more user friendly. And we are able to provide a link directly to specific items and the written testimony that has been submitted for those items.
610 Yeah, that's all I'm asking for, is just to put it in that summary so that I don't have to go looking for it, because I don't think you need to extract it and put it in some other format. It's really just it's just an ease of like, I can click this and it's going to go directly to the page that has it all listed, is what I'm saying. But yeah, I'm, I'm curious, councilor Kanal what you think about my opinion on having both. Like instead of removing themes and adding transcripts? I agree with your general sentiment. You know about, like the worry of the filter, right, of the people to us. But I think it's I'm okay with them providing that theme, as long as I still have access easily to the other, to the actual transcripts. What is your opinion on that?
611 May I respond?
612 Go ahead, councilor.
613 Thank you. Yeah. So to the first part, I'm with relation to how the written and oral testimony is given, links and all that, that that's fine. I do think having it the thing about the written testimony is just the way it is pulled out along with the attachments. I've never received the printed out copy of a of a staff summary. So again, I'm not. It is filed. I have no concern about digital document length. Just to clarify that, I think I do disagree on the themes aspect of it. I think the primary purpose of this amendment is to avoid having someone else tell us what is important of what the public said. I think I trust my staff to summarize, you know, for me, if I need to. That's why I have staff to help prep me for all these meetings. And I am very confident in that. I think the risk that we have is either we're going to have a imposition of a lens on it, or we're going to get something that's so vague as to not necessarily be helpful. I'll point to the next item on the agenda currently, and the staff summary there. The title of the document is adopt a procedure for the appointment and confirmation of portlanders to city boards, commissions, and committees. Public testimony themes included how the appointment should be structured and presented to the council. That is effectively a restatement of the title of the document. And so having that level and that's that's good because that's a neutral. Right. Again, this issue is not with what how the work is being done by staff. It's the it's the question we're asking them. And I want to get out of the habit of asking third parties. And this also relates, by the way, to a conversation we've had about the financial summaries on some of our ordinances being written by prosper for us and or the finance and operations area. This is it's about having the direct information given to us and using our own staff, not a third party to. Summarize.
614 Then my question to council president and maybe council ops would be if, let's say this amendment passes as is and we do replace themes with transcripts, does that necessarily forbid you from adding themes?
615 I.
616 I mean, presumably any any of our staff can add more in a council president could direct them to add more than what is written here. So it would not preclude that.
617 Yeah. Okay. Well I respect where you're coming from. Councilor Kanal. I, I do think that part of having the themes is helpful just for capacity sake. Like, yes, I agree, my staff do a lot of work to prepare me, but I'm not necessarily opposed to it. I guess maybe just because I don't feel like that's like if I have access to all the other information, like I can make my judgments accordingly. I can look at the themes that were presented and be like, cool. That's one perspective. I'm going to do my own digging now that I'll have those other links, and I can have my staff do a further dive. So I'm not opposed to keeping both, but I am down to approve this amendment just because I do agree that we need to have more of the transcripts available, and we should codify that. And it seems like we can still provide the themes anyway. So I don't know, we could maybe work that out, but that's kind of where I'm landing.
618 Thank you. Councilor laurie, did you have a response before we move to councilor Morillo?
619 Yes, if you don't mind. I just want in in just putting it out there on the table. As far as the language, the lawyer in me, madam president and councilors would request at least a consideration of clarity about what is being asked. If it's a link to a transcript, then that be the reference. Lawyers are used to court recorders. You know, doing full transcripts. And so I would be concerned about some language going forward with a later interpretation would be that it is a full transcript. That is a part of it. Thank you.
620 Claire Morillo are you speaking to canal to.
621 Yes. I also appreciate the intention of this and wanting more clarity. And I understand the concern about, you know, the staff summaries being somewhat biased, just depending on each person's own perspective. But this also feels like aggressive spoon feeding. I feel like I if I need more information after a staff summary, I can simply click back on the committee meeting and watch it at 0.5 speed and call it a day. I don't. This seems like a lot of additional work for our council ops, given that the rewards don't seem high enough for the level of work that it will produce for our staff, who are already struggling to keep up with the workload of all the council meetings and committees. And I'll note that we are sitting here an additional extra hour, because we had some tough discussions to have have earlier. So. I don't think this is strictly necessary, I suppose.
622 Thank you, councilor. Councilor Green.
623 I was going to make a point similar to what councilor Morillo said, so I won't repeat that. I just I don't think we have the resources to request staff to do transcripts at this time, but I, I appreciate the spirit from where you're coming from.
624 Councilor.
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625 Ryan.
626 Yeah.
627 I'm just calling the question. I'd love to vote on this.
628 Okay.
629 Are are you moving to call the question? Would you like us to take a vote on that?
630 Yeah, call the question.
631 Okay. The question has been called.
632 So this is the vote on the motion to accept canal two.
633 We are we have to vote on whether to end debate. Actually, do we need a second on calling the question?
634 Do we need yes, yes.
635 I believe we need a second. Do we have a second to call the question? We'd like to finish? Does councilor Ryan have a second to call the question second.
636 Okay. Rebecca.
637 Canal.
638 Because there's going to be a friendly amendment suggested to this. I am going to that that councilor Koyama Lane and I are working out here. I will vote no.
639 Ryan.
640 I Koyama Lane. Know Morillo.
641 No.
642 Novick. Sorry, I can't see over there. Clark. Clark. No. Green.
643 No.
644 Zimmerman.
645 All right.
646 Avalos.
647 No.
648 Dunphy.
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649 No.
650 Smith.
651 No.
652 Pirtle-guiney I in hopes that we get to a vote soon.
653 With three eyes and eight nays, the motion to call the question fails.
654 We are back to debate. Councilor Ryan, did you have anything else for debate?
655 Absolutely not. Ready to vote when we're. When we're ready.
656 Councilor Zimmerman, are you in the queue for debate?
657 Thanks.
658 I appreciated the there's some difficulty in the way we get staff reports. I will acknowledge that because we're asking for editorializing, that I don't know that that's always positive to put staff in that position. But I did actually say that I think all of section b here is problematic. I really don't know exactly how this body wants to use committees, and I don't exactly know how this body expects committee rules to prepare them individually for, you know, the dais. And so I think I largely agree with councilor Morillo in this, and I'm not I'm not particularly understanding what I'm reading in a number of the amendments that got made on this, which. Is a little bit concerning, because again, I'll go, what is the role that we want committees doing when I think there are at least five councilors who submitted amendments just to this one thing, but we've asked the governance committee to do some work, and we asked them to do the deep dive. And they they did, and we might not love everything there. So I think I'm inclined to be a node for the sake of, of keeping the process that I think they put together a fairly decent document, even though I disagree that we even needs to exist. And then. I'm also very cautious because some of the again, using the word theme here, some of the amendments are defining how people want to work stylistically versus I think ordinances and procedures should be the bare bones in terms of how to make sure.
659 My way to a maternal health workshop and robin.
660 Somebody scrolling their story over there and not listening.
661 I know I'm listening to you, darling.
662 I my point in that is I want committee rules to be about fairness, and I want committee rules to be to be to not be about how we do our work. Right. Those are different things. We all bring different styles. And I'm sensing in a number of these amendments that a personal style is being projected for by certain people's amendments, and this is how they expect me as a committee chair or as a committee member to conduct my work. And I'm going to be kind of resistant to that. And so I'll just be curious where we all want to go. There's a number of amendments to discuss here, and that's all I have here.
663 Thank you. Councilor.
664 Councilor Green, you're in the queue for the next item, right? Okay. Councilor canal.
665 Yeah. Thank you. I will be proposing a I guess. Can I just do this as a friendly amendment? If it's me proposing it.
666 As.
667 A friendly amendment, you just need to have your seconder agree.
668 To it.
669 Okay. That was.
670 Yeah.
671 So it would be to change it to I'm just going to make sure I read this correctly. Number of testifiers and links to all oral and written testimony received. And I think that addresses the concern that our director of council operations raised and I'm okay.
672 Councilor Avalos, you're agreeing to that friendly amendment.
673 Yes.
674 So councilor Kanal amendment two would now say number of testifiers and links to.
675 All oral and written testimony received.
676 From public. Okay. So you're crossing off themes and from public testimony received. Yes.
677 All the from the all the end of that's replaced two.
678 Okay. Councilors. Councilor Avalos are you still in the queue okay. Councilor Avalos.
679 Yeah I appreciate that friendly amendment because I ultimately think that it is about just ease. I mean, frankly, like, sure, I could go and look up the links, but I don't have a lot of time. And I think I don't think that's asking too much of council ops because you're already in those links. You know, you're in there to, to, you know, do the summary. So I think just adding those would really cut a lot of searching time for me. And I don't think it's an unreasonable ask. So that's why I'm supporting it. I just wanted to clarify.
680 Councilor Clark.
681 Thank you, madam chair. I appreciate the links, but I would like to keep the themes. Councilor.
682 Thank you. Councilor.
683 Is there any other debate on this amendment?
684 Okay.
685 Seeing none. Rebecca, can you please call the roll?
686 Okay. Calling the roll on the motion to amend canal two.
687 This is calling the roll on the amendment itself. We are voting on canal amendment two as changed. So what we are voting on is the language number of testifiers and transcript. No number of testifiers and links to all written and oral testimony received.
688 Canal.
689 Thank you.
690 To thank you to the vice president for helping with that language. Workshopping.
691 I vote yea Ryan. No. Koyama Lane.
692 Yes.
693 Morillo.
694 I don't really understand the purpose of taking out the themes, although I like that it's been adjusted to have the links, so I'm going to vote no.
695 Novick. So gone. Clark.
696 No.
697 Green.
698 Yeah, I don't support taking the themes out. I really need that summary.
699 No Zimmerman. No Avalos.
700 I get where people are coming from. I you know, I don't want this momentum on this to go down. So that's why I'm going to vote for it. But maybe we could follow up with another amendment to add themes back. I would be supportive of that. So I'm going to vote yes for now.
701 Dunphy.
702 I agree with my colleagues that the themes I'm going to vote no.
703 Smith. No pirtle-guiney.
704 No.
705 That's eight nay votes. Three I the amendment.
706 Fails, amendment fails.
707 Councilor Green, you are in the queue.
708 Thank you, madam president. I'll get right to it. I'm moving to amend. First of all, I appreciate the good work that the governance committee did on this. I know it's hard work. It's really important work. Thank you for the testimony of terry harris and helping us be excellent. But in that spirit, I'm going to offer an amendment from the floor. I've emailed all of you and the clerk my draft, my copy, but it would be amending exhibit a. Committee action, section b, dash two d, and it is a.
709 B1 or b2. There is no b2.
710 D okay, my strikethrough was confusing. It is b1 d. Thank you. So the. So colleagues what this does this section is sort of specifying what documents suggest that an action is complete and how it should leave committee, which I do think we need. I take issue with the area on impact analysis and I'll explain why. So an impact analysis has a very specific meaning when you're talking about economics and real estate. So an impact analysis is not a summary of your sort of narrative opinion about what happens in the event of an action or not an action. It is literally a quantitative exercise that requires taking a model and running it against two scenarios to look at what the impact is on economic growth, jobs and income distribution and prices. That is not something that I think we can ask our bureaus to do by compulsion. And so I'm offering an amendment that does the following impact analysis. And so it would read this. It strikes shall and replaces that with may. So its impact analysis accompanying an item may be completed by the bureau service area or city agency as directed in city code. And it also strikes council rules. And the reason for that piece there is that only city code can direct bureaus to do an action. This is a resolution. This resolution cannot carry the force to direct a bureau, to conduct an economic impact analysis, which may run 30 to $60,000, depending upon the question at hand. And so for that reason, I, I'm very concerned that if we adopt this as written, it places us in a world where we don't get to move our actions very long, very quickly, because we have to find the resources to consider a full blown economic analysis. I'll I think I know where this comes from. It's sort of speaking to resolution 37 664, which was passed last year, which which I think rightfully does provide the cbo sort of the requirements to do a full blown economic and fiscal impact analysis, or I should say, just a fiscal impact analysis when considering matters for a new tax or a new fee. I think that's a good thing. But then later on, it then provides an unfunded mandate to prosper Portland to do economic and real estate analysis, which I think was ill conceived and prosper. Portland does not have the resources to do an impact analysis, and they are not a bureau. So for all these reasons, I think that this is a problematic piece of the resolution. And I think my code I think my amendment here. Places us more squarely within council's role vis a vis the other agencies of our government, and allows us to move forward with our actions. And so at that point, I will take any questions.
711 Yeah. My point of information is just can you point me exactly? I didn't catch where you are adding this.
712 So if you look at exhibit a, as amended in the briefing documents for this action, there is a strikethrough. Or you can look at the complete version, but it is council actions item b dash 1-d.
713 Council a new.
714 Okay so we have a second from councilor Kanal. Thank you. And the new item in count committee actions a sorry committee actions b1d would say impact analysis accompanying an item shall be completed as directed in code. Is that correct?
715 No it's it strikes shell and replaces with may. Okay be completed by the bureau service area or city agencies at directed in city code in caps and then full stop.
716 I'm sorry.
717 I wrote that down wrong okay. So impact analysis accompanying an item may be completed by the bureau service area or city agency as directed in city code.
718 That's it. Okay.
719 We have a motion and a second on the table. Councilor Avalos, are you in the queue to speak to this amendment?
720 No.
721 Councilor Kanal, are you in the queue to speak to this amendment? Councilor Clark, are you in the queue to speak to this amendment?
722 Yes. I just like to ask my colleague here, wouldn't you achieve the same or virtually the same thing if you just took out impact?
723 Analysis?
724 It is a good question. I think the reason why we need to be clear there is that I think the as I understand the intent from what the committee considered is they wanted to speak to very specifically to the section on economic and real estate impact analysis, because that's different than the impact statements. There's a our items have an impact analysis and impact statements. And so I think keeping those two words together is very important. If you if you if you were to strike impact analysis then we need to we need to ask the, the auditor to adjust the administrative rules that govern the elements that go into complete actions. And so I do think that's why I'm opposed to sort of separating those two terms.
725 Thank you. I wanted to ask the chair of the committee, councilor Koyama Lane, as well as our vice chair of the committee. Oh, wait.
726 Councilor Ryan.
727 Is vice chair of the committee.
728 Do you remember any of the history behind why we put in impact analysis? I'm trying to go into my memory cells and try to figure out why do we do this?
729 I believe for.
730 The reasons that councilor Green has stated.
731 Yeah, it was always a requirement in the bureau's staff, provided that work oftentimes. And then sometimes prosper would weigh in. I think what's important to me is that we're transparent about who's doing it. So if a council office does it and they're using what you often call experts and consultants, that that becomes really clear where that analysis is coming from. What I appreciate about civil service, about the public servants, is that they tend to do the best they can to weigh out everything in a very objective way.
732 Well, can I ask you then, do you do you have a sense for councilor Green's proposed amendment?
733 I'm disappointed. I would vote no mostly on all of this, but I would hope that there's transparency in in councilor Green's amendment. But I don't see that at the moment here.
734 Yeah.
735 Councilor Koyama Lane.
736 Yeah.
737 I'm supportive. If I of this amendment of these small changes. So changing the shall to may. Yeah.
738 Point of information. So I'm finally in the document. But then I forgot how you said it. Can you just say again. So I'm looking at this exhibit a as amended I'm under committee. Committee actions b1bb1db1d. Impact analysis accompanying an item may be completed by the bureau, service area or city agency as directed in city code. Removing the word shall and replacing with may, adding the word city before code and removing the three words or council rules at the end of the clause.
739 Okay.
740 Thank you, councilor.
741 Clark, will you. Complete councilor Smith?
742 Thank you, madam president. I think that the goal of this and I and I agree with councilor Green, the goal of the impact analysis is to inform better decision making by identifying and quantifying potential risks, benefits and ripple effects associated with the change. And so if we're proposing to make changes in a decision on a decision or project or action, it evaluates how the change may impact various aspects such as the environment, the economy, community, stakeholders, or specific systems, and helping in the decision making process. And I think that those processes can come from our offices or from other bureaus, and we should be allowed to have that happen.
743 Councilor Ryan.
744 I, I had a question for you, councilor Green. I I'm missing the transparency in this.
745 Yeah. I would love to direct response to respond.
746 Go ahead councilor.
747 I wanted to do after Clark. I put my hand back in. I would be very willing to copy forward the second sentence in part c, which says all impact statements must indicate the author's source for each section for transparency. And I would just sort of, I just, I guess I implied that that carried to the next clause.
748 You can imply that fair.
749 Thank you for raising it. What I would do is I would amend my own amendment, if I may. You second it. Okay. I'll just I'll just paste that sentence on after my amended part d and I'll change statement to analysis. And then that should get to. So it would be it would read in full impact analysis accompanying an item may be completed by the bureau, service area or city agencies as directed in city code. All impact analysis must indicate the authorship sources for each section for transparency. In other words, city department, council, office, service area. Does that does that address your question?
750 That's exactly what was missing. Thanks.
751 Then I will type that up and I will update that. For the record.
752 Can you please make sure that when you update that you send it to the council clerk?
753 I will I'll do that right now.
754 Thank you. Councilor canal.
755 As the seconder. I'm good with that friendly. Just to put that out there. I agree with this. Obviously I'm seconding it. I did have a question for councilor Green on one part of it, which was in the event, given the removal of or council rules, given the as directed in city code. Does the shall to may can you explain why that part is still necessary if. Because my understanding is if it's directed by city code, we shouldn't. This is my effectively my argument for my first amendment that if it's already directed by city code, we should just say we're doing it.
756 That's a good question.
757 I maybe I missed something.
758 I think that resolution 37664 last year should have been a code change. And I think that going forward, we should change that and modernize it and make it a code change. And so in this spirit, I really want this to be referring to city code. So when we do decide to make those changes it's robust against that. The reason why may is important here is I want to be clear that this does depend upon the question at hand and whether it's really appropriate for the bureau to spend those kind of resources on that. And so it provides a little more discretion, like, I've gone through and reviewed some of the council actions over this last year while we've been in there. And there's many points at which the economic and real estate impact analysis section says Portland has reviewed this pursuant to resolution 37664. Prosper Portland believes this is not relevant or no no response is required or request at this time. I don't know why they came to that conclusion. So this is part of the issue there. So I want, I think may removes a little bit of the directive there, but it's still sort of links it to city code.
759 That that answers my question. Thank you.
760 Councilor Clark, are you back in the queue?
761 Yes. I am sorry to belabor this, but why would I? I understand that council rules don't have the force of law, but why would you take it out?
762 I think it's to address the confusion that we are wrestling with in our broader set of rules right now, where if you've got a, a sentence here where the clause that says as directing the city court or city code or council rules, then we're stuck with sometimes arguable which is superseding the other. And if you just cut it off at city code, that makes it crystal clear.
763 But it's also more cumbersome. I mean, if we wanted to get a message out quickly, we could do a resolution or rule.
764 But I think in the in the context of an impact analysis for an item, I think we can't b. I mean, there are significant resources at play when you do that. And I do think that if we're going to say bureaus need to do or should do or be expected to at times provide impact analysis, we need to be pretty, pretty direct in what that means and resource it properly in our budget setting process.
765 Counselor. Anything further?
766 Councilor Avalos, I believe you are not in the queue on this item. Correct? Seeing no one else in the queue. Rebecca, could you please call the roll on councilor Greene's amendment? Which councilor Green, can you read it one more time for us?
767 Yeah.
768 The full.
769 Thank you. My amendment is council actions part d one d as in delta impact analysis accompanying an item may be completed by the bureau, service area or city agencies as directed in city code period second period. All impact analyzes must indicate the authorship authorship sources for each section for transparency. In other words, which city department or council, office or service area.
770 Thank you. Councilor rebecca, could you please call the role.
771 Canal on the amendment? I.
772 Ryan I. Koyama Lane I. Morillo I.
773 Novick Clark.
774 I.
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775 Green I. Zimmerman I. Avalos I. Dunphy I. Smith I.
776 Pirtle-guiney I.
777 11 eyes and one absent the amendment is accepted.
778 Counselors before we move on in the debate. And I'll note that councilor Avalos is next in the queue. But give me just one minute here for a point of privilege. I need to leave for a few hours. I have a kid thing that I absolutely cannot miss. I am turning the gavel over to councilor Koyama Lane, who will run the rest of this meeting and depending on timing, likely start the work session this afternoon. I will call in once I get to my car to try to be available for voting, but I just wanted to note that to everybody and let you know. I was turning over the gavel before I walked out and folks wondered what was happening. So I'm going to hand this right here and councilor Koyama Lane the show is yours.
779 Point of order. Will you be voting on the last agenda item for the Portland children's levy?
780 I hope to be able to. Once I get to my car, I will call in and I will stay on as long as I can. But I am going to be watching bands in a parade, so at some point I may not be able to hear anymore.
781 Okay. Okay.
782 Continuing council discussion on this item, councilor Avalos.
783 Thank you. I would like to move an amendment. Essentially, I'm bringing back canal amendment to the way that we friendly amended it, adding the links and then keeping themes. So again like I said, I didn't want us to lose that because I really need those links personally. And yeah, I think we can just keep themes. So that's the new I'm moving that amendment. Is that okay to just as is or do I need more? Do you need more clarity? Clark?
784 You're good.
785 I think that's clear. You'll need a second.
786 Okay, second.
787 I think we've exhausted the debate on it, so. Yeah.
788 Okay.
789 Seeing no hands in the queue. Rebecca, will you please call the roll?
790 Canal on the amendment? I.
791 Brian.
792 No.
793 Koyama Lane. I Morillo. I Novick apologies, Clark. I gree. I.
794 Zimmerman no. Avalos I. Dunphy I. Smith I.
795 And pirtle-guiney is absent. We have nine eyes. The amendment is adopted.
796 Okay. So we are back to the resolution as amended. Is there any further discussion of committee rules, counselor Avalos.
797 Oh, no.
798 Councilor Kanal I'll just say.
799 I think that we need to have a conversation. I appreciate the amendment. I do think it's an improvement. I do want to have a conversation about our relationship as individual counselors with council operations. I think that's important. We have an interim director, and as we move into the new system, I think that's an important thing to talk about so that it's clear the degree to which the other 11 or 10 of us, I guess, that are not president or vice president, the way in which we engage. And I just want to flag that it's not going to affect my vote on this, but I think it is sort of an underlying question that that this has brought back up. So I hope we get a chance to talk about it more later.
800 Thank you counselor. Okay. Rebecca, will you please call the.
801 Roll to vote on the resolution, as amended?
802 As amended.
803 Councilor Kanal on the resolution as amended, I.
804 Ryan.
805 Yeah, I'll vote yes on this. I, I just have to put this out there. Maybe we can talk about it in this retreat that that you've organizing. Why do we have committees? I just thought I'd put that out there. Thanks. But yes, on this amendment.
806 Morillo.
807 I.
808 Clark. I Green. I Zimmerman. I Avalos. I Dunphy. I Smith.
809 I Koyama Lane.
810 I with ten eyes. The resolution is adopted as amended.
811 Councilor Kanal.
812 Thank you, madam vice president. I move to amend the agenda to move item 12 to the bottom of the agenda so that we can get to the new, I believe it's item 16, which is the emergency ordinance filed by by councilor Zimmerman as it relates to pcl.
813 Second.
814 Okay, so we are voting on unanimous. Okay. Can we move forward with unanimous consent to move item 12 to the back of the agenda?
815 Yeah.
816 The back.
817 To the.
818 To the end of.
819 The next.
820 All right. Looks like we have unanimous consent. So we will now review items five then six, then 16. Right.
821 Next slide okay.
822 I move to move items five and six to after item 16. Or I guess it's 118. So I'll just say I'll ask to move them to the back of the agenda as well.
823 Okay. Do we have unanimous consent to also move items five and six. Thank you back. We do. Okay. So we are now on item 16. The clerk please read the item.
824 Apologies I'm pulling the item. A moment. I need one moment to get this item. I don't have it yet.
825 All good. Thank you.
826 So, colleagues. Well, that's been pulled up. I've sent to all of you and your staff the language that was drafted after the intent that I read into the record of half hour an hour ago. So the attorneys drafted that, and it sounds like we have it now. And so that's also in front of you in your email box.
827 Item 16 approve one year extension of funding for Portland children's levy that reflects lower revenues for fy 20 2526.
828 Do we have any council discussion?
829 Yeah, yeah.
830 Just a quick clarifying question. Make sure. What we're saying right. Is that fy 24 five grants are what we're going to move to that for one year. Right. It's not the new grants. It's the last year's grants. Okay. Just wanted to make sure that's it. Thanks.
831 Thanks. Very good clarifying question. It basically extends the current situation and it gives authority to the director to make reductions as necessary, given the fact that they're going to receive less revenues as a program. But it it it prevents a stoppage coming on July 1st. I'll also just note for everybody because this is coming as an ordinance that, excuse me, an emergency that to pass will need nine affirmatives for this.
832 Is your hand up?
833 No. Councilor Ryan.
834 Yes. I'd like to have director pellegrino come up just to make sure that this will. This is operational. I just want to hear from you that this is operational, that you'll be able to work.
835 With.
836 This, I believe. So we can we would normally if we do an ordinance like this, we would normally have a list of every organization with every grant and the exact funding that you're authorizing for it. But I think the language that the attorneys drafted with making the adjustment to the amounts will take current funding, -21% for everybody to reflect the decreased revenues. So barring any other change to our projected revenues, I think that should work fine.
837 Okay. Thank you.
838 Any other questions?
839 Seeing no. Hands up. Rebecca. Councilor Kanal.
840 Yeah. Sorry.
841 I'm just making sure I understand correctly. This is maybe a question for the attorneys. Do we need to clarify the answer in writing to councilor Avalos? Question about because I see the word current in a. Is that sufficient to cover this?
842 I don't have access to the language, so.
843 I'll just.
844 It says with all grantees on the current pcl allocation schedule, and I think.
845 It's sufficient. I think it's sufficient.
846 Okay.
847 Then I will I'm good if someone wants to, they can, but I'm good.
848 Rebecca, we did need to open this item for public testimony. Do we take that now or continue our discussion?
849 You can do either. Let me check and see if anybody has signed up. I don't believe we had anyone. If there's anyone in the room or online.
850 I can't hear you.
851 They would have.
852 To be. I'm checking to see if anyone has signed up. I don't believe we have anyone signed up, so unless there's anyone in the room or online. We don't have anyone signed up.
853 Counselor Smith.
854 Thank you, madam vice chair. And just to clarify that we don't have to say for fiscal year 2425 that we continue with the current 24, 25 grantees on on your amendment. I mean, the attorney said it was okay, but I want to make sure that it's okay that we don't have to put fiscal year 2425 is going forward for 25, 26.
855 I think the intent has been read in. I think the intent is how interpretations go. We got to remember that these things are executed by humans who are in the room, who are going to hear us. And I think that that satisfies, okay, currently, there's only one pcl allocation funding that is currently in existence. And it's just a continuation of that. Okay. And I and I recognize it's a little different I think these are muscle memories we'll get used to. But extraordinary times may sometimes provide us the opportunity for extraordinary actions. And I think this is one of them, where director pellegrino has everything she needs to keep things rolling while we go through the remand.
856 Excellent. And I just wanted to know if there are any grantees in the room that hasn't signed up that would like to say that they support this ordinance. To give them an opportunity to speak.
857 And all that would be needed is approaching the clerk's desk, correct?
858 Yes. If someone wants to speak, who is a grantee, who will be continued if they support this new. Ordinance? Okay. I'm looking at folks. If you want to support this new ordinance, please say your name and where you're from and that you support this new ordinance to continue.
859 Excuse me, are we are we hearing this as public testimony or invited testimony?
860 Either way, that makes it.
861 Public testimony is time limited.
862 I think. 30s yes.
863 Come on up.
864 Good afternoon again. For the record, suzanne mckelvey, director of advocacy and engagement at psi self-enhancement, inc. A current grantee, I would say that we would support this. I don't think this is the ideal situation, but I think this is where we are. And I know that we did push for remand, and this is the place where that has landed us. And looking at different scenarios in order to ensure that services are not paused or halted for populations that need them. This is something that we would support as a path forward from where we are right now.
865 Thank you.
866 Thank you very much.
867 Sorry.
868 Right. Any other hands up clerk, can you please call the roll on item 16?
869 Canal.
870 Thank you to counselor Zimmerman for writing that up so quickly. And to everybody who reviewed it. Yeah, I think this is the sort of necessary second step that accompanies the remand. I don't think there's much of an argument against it that I can see. I do want to just note that, and this may be fit better under the other thing, but the other vote on remand. But I think it could fit here to this process that is going to be reinitiated may yield a result that you are more comfortable with. Each person will have their own take on it and may yield the exact same result, and it may yield a result that you're less comfortable with. And I want to be clear that that this vote for me and on the remand as well, is not based off of the outcomes that the previous process yielded or that the new 1st may create. But whether or not we have a good process and followed it. So I just want to note that up front. And if you see that the outcomes of this second process are not ideal for you or your organization, and I vote for it anyway, that that's going to be. Why? Because it will be based off of that on this emergency ordinance.
871 I vote yea brian.
872 Yes, thank you, children's levy staff, for your professionalism and for your adaptability.
873 I vote yea Morillo. I think everything's been said that needs to be said. I vote I.
874 Clerk.
875 I voted against the remand but this softens the blow and I vote I.
876 Green. I Zimmerman. I Avalos.
877 I. Dunphy I. Smith I. Pirtle-guiney I.
878 And Koyama Lane. I and with ten ayes the ordinances passed the emergency ordinance is passed 1111 ayes, one absent.
879 Colleagues, I'm getting different messages in the chat about how we are able to go as long as 2 p.m. If we would like, and then our work session would start about 30 to 45 minutes later, depending on what we would like. I have the staff agreement to continue our work, and then we would reconvene for the work session. Our folks willing to push through until 2:00.
880 Yeah.
881 We should go fast.
882 Well, okay. Two of them I.
883 I move to table item 12 second. Do we have to vote on that?
884 Is that a second from councilor Kanal.
885 Thank you. Let's get some.
886 Unanimous consent to do that through unanimous consent. Or do we have to.
887 Vote for.
888 This conversation on.
889 Maybe we need a ten minute recess? Yeah. So yeah. Just what? Yes.
890 Can we proceed with item five? Or do we need to take any actions to be able to do that?
891 Item five reappoint jill krop and peggy moretti to the development review advisory committee for terms to expire March 29th, 2028.
892 Okay. Councilor Kanal.
893 Do we have staff here for this.
894 And do are we going to get a committee summary and all.
895 The.
896 Staff summary?
897 Is that what you're here for? Okay.
898 Yes. Do you. Hello. I am ros crone. I'm with Portland permitting development, and I am the liaison to the development review advisory committee. Does council want me to do the presentation that was done to committee, or was it? No. Okay.
899 I think simply the overview.
900 Oh, okay. I could do the overview. As was already stated, we have two members that we are putting forward for second three year terms. Those members are jill krop, who serves in our home builders position. The second member is peggy morita, who serves on our historic landmarks or historic preservation position. Both of these members are active contributors and bring valuable insight and perspective to the development review advisory committee. And so today, we are recommending that council confirm their second three year terms, which would serve from. March 30th, 2025 through to March 29th, 2028, that we're going back retroactively to March 30th, because that would be the March 29th was the end of their first term.
901 Okay, great. Thank you for being here.
902 You're very welcome.
903 Colleagues, do you have any questions?
904 Councilor Kanal.
905 Thank you. Ross. Could you speak to why there are.
906 Still four vacant positions after this? These reappointments.
907 There are 17 members of drac. And so we're kind of constantly going through recruitment processes, and sometimes we don't get the number of candidates. So we've had to redo a couple of recruitments. And then while we're doing that, because of the way that the their terms serve, we're kind of almost always going through recruitment. So it isn't uncommon for us to be carrying some vacancies, but we are actively recruiting to fill those existing vacancies right now. So we hope to be coming back to you very soon with some recommendations to appoint new members to fill those vacancies.
908 Okay.
909 I'm curious as we go through this. Because this is a very unique one in that there are 17 positions and there are 17 different categories of member, of which there's one each for it. And so my question is, are you effectively doing some number of 17 different types of recruitment at a time. Because these are different demographics or pools of people, right.
910 They're they're all done through civic life for all of the committees. But then outside of that, as appropriate, we're working on trying to engage specific groups, current members to get help in identifying organizations and groups that represent one of those 17 different categories.
911 Okay. I have two.
912 More questions. One, can you speak to the gaps in the design? Because I think that's where our role may be in the medium or long term. In terms of these positions, who's being missed? Because I'm looking through and seeing a lot of people in the in the building industries. And, you know, in terms of the different qualifications here, major facilities, landowners, small businesses, and are there people that you're hearing often in public comment or who have opposition to the decisions, who are not themselves represented in the membership categories for this committee?
913 I have not and I do not believe we are receiving that type of feedback about the 17. Different industry and community categories.
914 Okay.
915 I'd love to follow up on that because in looking through this, there appeared to me to be a couple gaps, but I'd love to hear more. And then last question, it's not necessarily it's not directed your way necessarily, but if you have thoughts, I'd love to hear it.
916 There's a.
917 Suggestion I think proposal might be further along than I than it is to waive some of the development review requirements. And I'm curious how you think that might affect this committee.
918 Design review.
919 Okay. I withdrawn the question.
920 Okay.
921 Thank you so much.
922 Councilor Avalos, as the chair of the homelessness and housing committee, would you like to speak to the process in your committee for these appointments?
923 At all? No, I.
924 Don't know. I don't know.
925 If there's.
926 Unanimous support.
927 Yeah. Okay. It got unanimous support. We discussed it. I don't know that there's anything else I can say.
928 That's fine. Sorry.
929 Great. And I believe there's no public testimony. Is that correct?
930 There is none.
931 And it does not look like there's any more council discussion. I would entertain a motion to confirm the appointment.
932 So moved.
933 Second.
934 Rebecca, can you please call the role?
935 Canal?
936 Yeah.
937 I've given my reasoning and previous meetings why I pull these off consent agenda. So I won't repeat it here. But I will say thank you to the appointees re appointees for being willing to continue serving. I vote.
938 I Ryan.
939 Yeah, thank you, jill and peggy, for stepping up again. Your veteran leadership experience is so needed and wanted I vote aye.
940 Maria I.
941 Clerk. Hi Green. I Zimmerman Avalos. I Dunphy. I Smith. I pirtle-guiney. I Koyama Lane.
942 I.
943 11 ayes one absent. The report is accepted.
944 Clark, could you please read the next item?
945 Item six appoint assad. But for a term July 1st, 2025 through June 30th, 2028 and reappoint leslie goodloe for a term to expire June 30th, 2028 to the mount hood cable regulatory commission.
946 Okay.
947 Do we have a presentation? We will have no committee staff report, right?
948 Up. Point of information. Vice president I, I was on the committee where we heard this. I would absolutely love to just do the summary as efficiently as possible and explain why that committee was unanimous in it.
949 Wonderful. That would be helpful, as I'm getting a script written into teams. To me, right in this moment. Councilor Green.
950 Appreciate that. I just wanted to get ahead of the broader thing we heard from the citizens utility board. I believe that recommended these appointments. These appointments strengthen the mount hood cable regulatory commission, the but brings a diversity to the commission that I think is sorely lacking. And I think we'll strengthen the kind of voices that we need, particularly during this period of time where I think there's a lot of islamophobia phobia going on in the media space. And so that was one of the reasons why I thought it was a pretty strong recommendation. Also, he brings a lot of experience just in the industry. And so I found this to be a very compelling recommendation.
951 Thank you, councilor. Councilor Clark, as the chair of the transportation and infrastructure committee, do you have anything else to add to councilor Green's comments?
952 I would just say that we were very impressed with these two people and very excited about their willingness to serve or continue to serve to.
953 And it looks like we have no public testimony. Signed up. Is that correct?
954 That's correct.
955 Okay. Councilor Smith.
956 Legacy.
957 Seeing no hands in the queue. Rebecca, can you please call the roll?
958 Is there a motion to confirm the appointments?
959 Second.
960 Now, rebecca, could you please call the roll.
961 Canal?
962 Yeah.
963 Once again, I gave my reasoning earlier for the removal from consent. Had nothing to do with the appointees. Feel free to refer back. Thank you for being willing to serve some more in one of so many different ways. To leslie, and thank you for being willing to serve to assad as well. And I vote.
964 Aye.
965 Ryan.
966 That's a good low. I saw your name when I was early in the morning that you were on the agenda. It reminded me that it's rose festival because you put so many hours in as a volunteer there. Hence the roses in front of me today. So anyway, I vote aye. Thank you.
967 Leslie Morillo.
968 Yeah, these people are wonderful. I'm definitely going to vote. Aye. And I just have to say, councilor Kanal, we do not need to hear your reasoning on the consent agenda every single time. On a day where the agenda has gone over for so long, we you have made your point. We understand it. I vote I.
969 Clerk. I Green. I Zimmerman. I Avalos. I Dunphy. I Smith.
970 I pirtle-guiney.
971 Pirtle-guiney go ahead councilor. Pirtle-guiney councilor Pirtle-guiney. We can't hear you.
972 Koyama Lane I.
973 We have ten ayes two absence. The report is accepted.
974 Counselors. We will recess the meeting today and reconvene tomorrow at 2 p.m. To review the remaining items on the agenda.
975 Give us at least a half hour.
976 Yeah.
977 Two, 15 or 2.