The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-03-10
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (12,499 words), shown in readable case and split into speaker turns. Speakers are not yet identified (colors just separate consecutive turns). Auto-captions can contain errors — check the recording for anything that matters.
Session summaryEditor-reviewed
The Transportation and Infrastructure Committee met on Monday, March 10, at 9:30 a.m., with roll call, a statement of conduct, and three agenda items. The first item featured testimony from members of PBOT's Pedestrian Advisory Committee and Bicycle Advisory Committee, who described their composition, past contributions to projects such as 82nd Avenue and North Portland in Motion, and requests including direct communication channels with council and committee visits, followed by committee comments and questions. The second item was a presentation from Bureau of Planning and Sustainability staff on the solid waste and recycling program, covering the franchise and commercial collection systems, public trash collection, equity initiatives, funding sources, the annual rate-setting process, state and regional roles, and upcoming policy changes, followed by extended questions on rate setting, cost of service analysis, complaint handling, and comparisons to other cities. The third item concerned a resolution on Zenith Energy Terminal Holdings, addressing disclosure of communications, franchise agreement investigation, and an auditor review; public testimony was heard from multiple individuals raising concerns about environmental risk, historical land use, and communications between city staff and outside organizations. Committee discussion followed, a motion was made and seconded to refer the resolution to full council, votes occurred, and outcomes are recorded in the vote ledger.
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.
0 Testing? Testing? Testing? Oh, did that work? Yep. Okay, great. Well, we will go ahead and get started. We have a small group today, so I will call the meeting to order. This is good morning. This is the meeting of transportation and infrastructure. It is Monday, March 10th at 9:30 a.m. Rebecca, can you please call the roll.
1 Smith Koyama Lane here.
2 Green here.
3 Clark.
4 Morillo here.
5 Claire, can you please read the statement of conduct for council committee meetings?
6 Good morning and welcome to the meeting of the transportation and infrastructure committee to testify before this committee in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the committee agenda at Portland.gov/council agenda, slash transportation and infrastructure committee, or by calling 311. Information on engaging with the committee can be found at this link. Registration for virtual testimony closes one hour prior to the meeting. In person. Testifiers must sign up before the agenda item is heard. If public testimony will be taken on an item, individuals may testify for three minutes unless the chair states otherwise, your microphone will be muted when your time is over. The chair preserves order disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others testimony or committee 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, the committee may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony should address the matter being considered. When testifying, state your name for the record and address is not necessary. If you are a lobbyist, please identify the organization you represent. And finally, virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the clerk calls your name. Thank you.
7 Thank you so much, claire. We have three items on our agenda today and only three councilors, so our discussions should be pretty brief and leave more room for testimony. First, we'll hear from our members of pbot's bicycle advisory committee and pedestrian advisory committee, who were really gracious and joined us again after we ran out of time to hear their comments at the last meeting. So thank you so much for taking time out of your day to be here again, and to share all of the information and testimony that you have. Then we'll hear an overview of the city's solid waste and recycling program as the infrastructure part of our committee. And finally, we'll conclude our meeting with a resolution on the zenith energy terminal with some time for public testimony. And we had five people signed up to testify. Am I supposed to get you guys to read the first item you are? It's only my second time doing this. Agenda item one bureau of transportation modal committees.
8 We are pleased to have members of two of pbot's modal committees returning to the committee to share their experiences with this work. In making Portland a more bike and pedestrian friendly city, it looks like our first speaker and people will have ten minutes to testify. Is sebastian bishop, a member of the bicycle advisory committee, and mark raggett, co-chair of the pedestrian advisory committee. If you would like to, please come up.
9 Good morning.
10 Thanks for.
11 Being here.
12 Good morning. Should I just dive in? Good morning. Members of the transportation and infrastructure committee. My name is mark raggett. I am one of the co-chairs of portland's pedestrian advisory committee. And we, as speaking for the group, we are excited to engage you this morning and serve this new city council on a transportation projects moving forward. I'm going to read from a statement I've written here. I'm going to look down a lot more than I would like to. In our current composition, we are made up of 13 volunteers, committee members from different areas of the city. We come from all kinds of different backgrounds. Some of the individual perspectives you'll find in the pack include navigating the city as a blind, low vision person working with houseless services, being a car free parent, and even working as a well-regarded safety researcher. A number of us have personal experience with the toll of road violence, and all of us bring a passion for promoting safe and joyful streets, for walking, rolling or running through our communities. I believe I we believe the pack can continue to be a strong volunteer resource for the wider city council, and this committee in particular, as part of your targeted efforts to engage the community in projects that improve our streets. For some background, previous Portland city councils have received detailed feedback from the pack on projects like 82nd avenue north Portland in motion, evolving scooter policies or pbot's role in ODOT megaprojects such as the interstate bridge replacement or the I-5 rose quarter improvement project. We also chime in to strengthen and support staff led grant applications, including recent wins, to allocate cfec funds to bridge bridge, missing sidewalks and redressing past disinvestments to better serve kids getting to school in several communities. That said, the pack is hungry to do more in two key areas improving streets for safety across the city and building on portland's reputation as a premier walking city. In our January meeting, the pack discussed the group's broader priorities. Looking ahead as a group, we are interested in continuing to forward the goals of the ped pdx plan on innovative interventions like promoting visibility at intersections, pursuing sidewalk and crossing infill projects, and adding critical improvements such as better lighting along heavily used pedestrian paths. We are also interested in advocating for great walking, rolling and running streets in all Portland neighborhoods, and are eager to learn more about what the next generation of fun pedestrian pathways looks like. We are always open to alternative, lower cost solutions where viable. We want to ensure they provide meaningful protection to all users. We are committed to vision zero and the goal of a future Portland with zero road deaths. We do not want to lose sight that when walking is not only safe but also joyful, we can advance our climate goals and create more vibrant communities where we live, work, shop and play. We have two. Two asks for you today during this transition, the governmental transition. There has been some uncertainty about direct communication from the pac to the city. If you would welcome advisory letters directly from the pac, it would be helpful to clarify that, like the freight committee, we would also welcome counselors to our committee to visit and discuss ideas for advancing pedestrian safety in climate friendly transportation. In this during this challenging time. If you would like to visit our committee and test an idea, voice a challenge, or reach out for feedback, please let us know and we would love to have you. As we all know, the past several years have been rough in Portland continues to find itself in a challenging place. We know we face financial hurdles from all sides, and pressure is always present. To cut safety and pedestrian forward programs. We need your leadership and vision to build on the past successes of the city, of which there have been many, and look forward with confidence. We need to demand demand better and more for our city. Whether someone is just crossing the street, waiting for, waiting for the bus on a narrow sidewalk or meandering seven miles across town because it's a beautiful Sunday, we are all pedestrians at some point. From a climate perspective, from the standpoint of valuing human life, and for the very fabric of what it means to be a thriving, healthy city. Doing better for Portland means prioritizing safe and joyful pedestrian movement. When thinking of how we invest our dollars, we are eager to roll up our sleeves and look forward to working with you and the new city council as we move forward. Thank you.
13 Thank you so much. I so appreciate you being here and the resource that you guys are to us. The fact that we can come to you as we're bringing policy ideas forward and get your advice and all the knowledge that you've built up over the years on these issues means a lot to us. So thank you so much for being here today. Do you guys have any follow up questions for now? Yeah. Councilor Green.
14 Not a question, but more of more of a comment. I absolutely welcome direct communication from your advisory committee. I can't speak for the chair of this committee, but as a member, I want to hear directly from the work that you guys are doing. I would also love to come attend a meeting and see see you guys in action. I just want to kind of comment, pursuant to your remarks on the budget, I mean, budgets are tight for sure, but that problem is only going to grow worse over time if we don't prioritize safe and joyful pedestrian movement as you as you looked at so or as you as you mentioned. So I think we have a moment right now to re-envision how we spend our dollars in this city. So that's going to continue to be a priority of mine. And I just thank you for the work that you and your committee members are doing.
15 Thank you very much.
16 Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for your work. I'm having kind of a few hats on, also thinking about the governance committee and thinking about how we're going to be taking a look at these advisory bodies and making sure that you all have what you need. And we have some standardized processes. And so just wondering if you you can share now or you can share later if there are specifics of things that you can think about that would be most helpful for you. Is it best for us, any of us to reach out to you? Do you want us to go through the chair? Are there any things that you know have worked well? You can share them now or later?
17 Yeah. No wish. I wish I had a prepared answer for that. I totally appreciate the question. I would want to bring that back to our committee. We have our meeting next week, and I think we could actually talk through that and figure out what the best, most effective path for communication would be. I appreciate commissioner Green, also. Councilor Green, the willingness to sort of receive direct communication and frankly, come to our meetings. We would really appreciate that.
18 So thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate you being here today. And we have testimony from another person, sebastian bishop, who is a member of the bicycle advisory committee, who I believe is online now.
19 Hi. Can everyone hear me?
20 Yes, we can. Thank you so much for being here.
21 Great. Well, vice chair Morillo and members of the committee, thank you so much for having me today. My name is sebastian bishop. I'm a member of the bicycle advisory committee. We're 20 volunteers of all ages, from all walks of life and all parts of town and may be hard to believe, but we all love bicycling as much as we love Portland. Our charter directs us to advise the city council and all city departments about all things bicycling. The back acknowledges portland's fiscal challenges and the demanding work you are doing to listen, to learn. And this definitely informs our priorities with what our asks are. The first is collaborating with you to ensure cyclists play their part with helping voters understand the need to invest in public transportation without more investment. We all suffer by bicyclists wanting to be part of the solution. We're your partners. We want to be in the most informed position possible whenever investment is possible. The second is maintenance of the existing bike network. We all agree we need to take care of what we've already built. The bicycle advisory committee is uniquely qualified to prioritize the most important places for the new bicycle Lane sweeper, supported by the Portland clean energy fund, to focus on safe and clear bike lanes, make it safer and easier to choose to bike. Nobody likes getting a flat on the way downtown to wor, or to spend money. Having cleaner streets will also encourage new bikers from communities with historically underserved infrastructure to choose biking in the future. Third, we ask that you use your visibility and positions to support existing and new events and activities that make people aware of portland's terrific bike network and that provide opportunities for people to ride bikes with their families, friends, and neighbors. We can't wait for you to come ride with us. There are many opportunities to meet your cycling constituents. With spring right around the corner. And fourth, we ask that you remember and support portland's transportation vision. We have amazing plans and policies for bicycling, made Portland attractive and fun and economically competitive. We can do that again. So when we're successful in meeting our adopted goals, our roads will require fewer costly repairs. Our air will be cleaner, our neighborhoods will be quieter. People who choose or need to drive will face less traffic, and we will have more money to spend. And most importantly, we'll have more fun. We're here today for a reason. Your bicycle advisers have your back. Together, we will help more people choose to bike. And I'd also like to echo the pedestrian advisory committee's commentary that, yeah, it would be really great to have any of you all in attendance for any of our committee meetings, and I can get back to you all about the best person for communication. Regards to that as well. Thank you.
22 Thank you so much for being here with us, sebastian. I think as the advice was given to the previous person that testified, if you would like to share how you think the these committees should engage with city council. Councilor Koyama Lane is chair of the governance committee. And I think that getting that feedback to her about what works best, what hasn't worked, and things that you would like to see council do would be really wonderful. And we'd love to continue to have the opportunity to work with you. As someone who just got my first bike last year and has been learning kind of the scary but exciting, you know, path to using my bike more regularly, it's been really wonderful and liberating. So I'm really excited about investing in alternative modes of transportation in the city and making sure that we have options for everybody that are safe, fun, and usable. And I will pass it off to my colleagues. In case you have any, any quick remarks or questions.
23 Thank you for being here. Thank you for your advocacy. It's so important. As I waved to my second and third grader this morning as they were biking to school, it just makes them feel connected and connected to the wider community that cares about supporting cycling. And thank you for fighting for safety for all of us.
24 Thank you so much for serving on this committee. And I just want to say that I am pretty hopeful that Portland will return to being a leader in sort of cycling in the country. I think we've lost a little ground in places like minneapolis and we can't have that. So I'm all in with you guys. Thanks.
25 And that concludes this portion of our of our committee meeting on that. So thank you so much for being here. Appreciate your time. Rebecca, can you please read the next item?
26 Item two solid waste and recycling program.
27 Oops. Sorry, I'm having some difficulty with my microphone. This is an issue for the infrastructure committee that I'm really excited to dig into. Portland is one of the last cities to not have a centralized sanitation bureau, and I feel really passionate about the fact that if we have a city that is clean and usable for everybody, I think we can bring the temperature down and have discussions around all of the issues facing our city in a different way. This is something that really impacts everybody in the city, regardless of who you are or where you come from, and the daily indignities that people face when they are in a city that doesn't have the appropriate sanitation work happening, is something that we can all agree needs to change. So I'm really excited to dig into our solid waste and recycling program, learn about the things that have worked, the things that haven't worked, and what we can do to partner with our team to make it better. So thank you both so much for being here today. And I would call you up, but you're already up here. Evan poke and director engstrom are both here to give us a presentation. We'll have 30 minutes total for the presentation. And then questions from the committee for about 25 minutes. So if the both of you could get started, that would be wonderful. Thanks so much for being here today.
28 Thank you. Councilors. Appreciate the time today. For the record, my name is Eric engstrom, interim director at the bureau of planning and sustainability, which includes the city's solid waste utility. With me here is evan poke, who's our solid waste manager, along with quentin bauer, waste operations manager pete winfield, our sustainable materials and policy manager stefanos gunawan, who is our technical assistance and education team manager. I also want to acknowledge there are members of the Portland haulers association in the audience today, as well as beth vargas duncan, who's the regional director with the Oregon refuse and recycling association. And again, we're excited to be here. Our purpose today is twofold. One is to answer some of the questions that you posed for us. We also want to briefly introduce some of the elements of our work. I think we're next slide please. So we'll go over how our what roles exist within the waste and recycling system in Portland, how that's divided up between different agencies and different levels of government. We'll talk about the work we do. We'll talk about fees and rates and how we go about that and what goes into our rates and what we use the revenue for. And we'll also talk a little bit about what what's coming up with our our collection system. Next slide please. And I just sort of mentioned this. There are kind of two overall purposes to the waste and recycling system to keep the city clean. And then also as an element of our climate and sustainability work, to get to a place of more sustainable consumption of materials and reuse of materials. Next slide. Next slide please. So on that first note, our work contributes to ensuring portlanders live in a clean community by delivering essential garbage and recycling services.
29 I'm sorry, could you speak just a little bit louder for the microphone?
30 Sure. Thank you. I'll lean in. Our work contributes to ensuring portlanders live in a clean community by delivering essential garbage and recycling services. This is a core basic utility service that we provide that protects the public health adjacent to this. We've also added the city's graffiti abatement program. In 2022, it was moved from what had been a civic life program over to the bureau of planning and sustainability. The second purpose next slide, please, is to realize the vision for sustainable materials management. And this is a term we use to talk about integrating sustainability into the way we use the stuff in the world. Materials this includes requires. This inherently requires equitable access to the system for everyone. It includes a holistic view of the life cycle of materials, and it boils down to encouraging, recycling, composting, reuse, sharing and repair instead of disposal at the landfill. This is a key part of the city's climate action plan as well, and we engage in this goal as we develop new system options, new service options, and as we develop policies that reduce waste and provide technical assistance to the community. So at this point, I'd like to turn it over to evan polk to continue the presentation.
31 All right. Thanks, Eric. Good morning, vice chair Morillo. Good morning, councilor Koyama Lane councilor Green. My name is evan polk and I am the solid waste recycling division manager. Knowing how many critically important issues that this committee is addressing right now, we do very much appreciate the opportunity to come talk with you today. I'll be taking us through the rest of our presentation. Next slide please. All right. The first thing I'm going to do is review a system as a as a whole. Today Portland discards about 1 million tons of garbage recycling and compost each year. But we recover almost 60% of that with recycling and composting. This is twice the national average. Next slide please. This slide shows the three approaches or systems that works with in no particular order. And we'll provide a little more detail about each one in turn. Residential collection services cover single family homes and duplexes up through fourplexes, and are governed under a franchise system, which is the most common approach to regulating waste collection in Oregon. The commercial collection services cover businesses, apartments and other multi-family buildings with five or more units plus construction waste. Finally, our services and public spaces cover garbage cans intended for public use and litter cleanup. Next slide please. The residential collection system is where we have the most regulatory authority in a franchise. The city sets rates that are charged to customers, and we also set the rules in terms of service. We set rules for both the collection companies and the customers. The haulers serve designated areas and they compete indirectly to provide cost effective service. There are a lot of reasons that cities and counties use franchise systems, including efficient use of heavy trucks on city roads, more cost effective service and cost controls, and a blend of private sector expertise with accountability to the community. Next slide please. Nine garbage and recycling companies serve over 155,000 households in the city. For our locally owned haulers. In our last customer service survey in mid 2023, 90% of customers reported being satisfied. Last July, we added the newest recycling option, batteries, and collected 16 tons in the first six months of service. Next slide please. The commercial collection system is an open market system. Every hauler must be permitted to provide commercial collection service, but the city does not set rates or designate service areas. We do set rules in order to ensure, for example, that haulers offer recycling and composting service to their customers that want it. Next slide please. Today, Portland has 15 permitted commercial haulers offering regular garbage and recycling service, with another 12 permitted haulers that just provide large drop box service, primarily for construction sites. Next slide please. Pivoting now to collection and public spaces. This is one of the topics that we know you were interested in, particular in talking about. There are many organizations involved in picking up trash in public spaces, of which we are one. This is not something we can expect portland's portlanders reasonably to master, however, so any issue involving trash or litter in public spaces can be reported via the 311 link shown here on the slide, or with a call to 311. Next slide please. Bce's public trash collection program offers 1400 cans across the city, of which 1000 have been installed since 2020. This system is still expanding in an ongoing rollout, with expansions pending in commercial districts in southwest and northwest. As we expand the system, we solicit submissions from local artists that community members choose among, and these cans are emptied at least twice a week. Next slide please. Here are some of the other entities involved in collection and cleanup in public spaces. Parks and rec manages trash cans in city parks. Baps serves about half of the trash cans at Portland streetcar stops under an interagency agreement with PBOT, and PBOT handles the rest of those. The homelessness and urban camping impact reduction program in the city administrator's office pays work crews to pick up waste associated with camping. For several years, baps has contributed just over $1 million annually to this emergency response, and the proposed budget for next year includes a one time increase to over $2 million. Baps also supports litter cleanups conducted by solv, approximately $400,000 per year. Now, looking beyond the city as an organization, TriMet serves trash cans at transit stops. Metro's rid program picks up illegally dumped and abandoned items on public property and contractors in two enhanced service districts deliver additional cleanup. Those are downtown clean and safe esd and the central eastside esd. Finally, private property owners are responsible, of course, for trash cans that are used by the public on their property. For example, the trash cans you might find on the property of a shopping center or at a food cart pod. Next slide please. As a city, core value equity is something that has kept central as we make decisions about how to manage our system. This has included the expansion of public trash cans outside the downtown core, new rules for apartment complexes to close, gaps in services, partnerships with community engagement, liaisons to provide customer support to local food related businesses, and more. This is also applied to more of the financial side of the system, which you'll see here on this slide. Under a procurement authority adopted by the city council a few years ago, we've opened new opportunities for cobid businesses to be city contractors. Today, $8.5 million in contracts are served by cobid businesses and community based organizations that are creating new jobs in the waste sector. This also includes contracts for public trash collection and contracts to maintain areas around public trash cans and our work, for example, with trash for peace, a nonprofit that provides direct support to vulnerable multifamily community members to improve access to recycling. Another project underway now is the development of a low income rate assistance program starting this July, if council approves, will propose to begin rolling out this program to offer reduced garbage rates for low income residents who may struggle with utility costs. And I'd like to thank our colleagues at the water bureau for engaging with us as we explore this. Next slide please. Under the next section of the presentation, we'd like to summarize our funding picture and a quick glance at our rate setting process for the residential system. Our core revenues come to the solid waste management fund, which is a dedicated fund with restricted uses. The primary revenue streams going to this fund are the residential franchise fee and the commercial tonnage fee. We receive a small amount of revenue from commercial permits and fines. We also receive funds from metro's regional system fee each year under, and these funds supplement our dedicated revenues primarily on a per capita basis, with a temporary supplement earmarked to support expansion of food scraps collection. Finally, we received some funding from the general fund exclusively to deliver the city's graffiti abatement program. Next slide please. Here are the major categories of expenditures in our division. First collection system oversight and administration. This includes customer service and working with permitted and franchised haulers. We also lead the city's waste and recycling policy work and technical assistance programs that ensure that we meet state requirements and goals. Under our regional waste plan, we contract for public trash collection and also push funding to the impact reduction program for similar work. Finally, we support sustainability work by the city's climate team, and we use general funds, as I mentioned, to conduct graffiti removal. Next slide please. One of the critical functions in our residential collection system is rate setting. Our franchise agreement mandates an annual rate review, and it also mandates that rates must be set to cover these three items. The overall cost of service, plus the target operating margin and the city's franchise fee. The review is a six month process starting every January, when haulers begin reporting on costs from the prior calendar year. The city receives cost reports and works with the cpa to vet those reports. And then we work with an economist to prepare the rate model that uses reported costs and forecast cost inputs. Then, typically in may, the findings and new rates are presented for approval by the city council, and those fiscal year rates become effective on July 1st, typically. Next slide please. $0.92 of every dollar paid by customers goes to the haulers. Approximately 40% of that covers the cost of the trucks, labor and fuel to collect the four different streams that we serve garbage, organics, mixed recycling and glass. Approximately 25% covers the cost that our haulers pay to deliver materials to the transfer stations and recycling facilities, which include the waste going to landfill and the sorting and processing of recycling. Administrative costs such as property rental, customer service, insurance, truck maintenance, etc. Make up about 20% of the customer payment. And then we have a system wide target, or essentially a cap on profits of 9.5%. Although it's important to note that our system doesn't guarantee that amount of profits to any one hauler. Finally, the city receives 8% of the rate which covers most of the expenditures. Notice noted a couple slides ago. Next slide please. We are in the middle of this year's rate review process, and you asked for a preview of what to expect coming up in the months ahead. As is typical, we're going to bring forward the fiscal year 2526 rates. We anticipate seeing increases in labor and other collection costs, and an increase in metro's disposal fee. Also, as typical, we plan to bring forward the commercial tonnage fee for the year and the proposed budget that would be increased by $1 per ton. This fee has been crucial to fund the expansion of the public trash program and the impact reduction program. We anticipate bringing forward two new elements in this year's process. One is an ordinance that would establish a low income discount, as I mentioned. And also we plan to establish a new rate sheet for on call pickup of large, bulky items like furniture and appliances. Our haulers have long provided this kind of service using independent quotes, but we will now have consistent and predictable costs for customers. Next slide please. All right. I'm transitioning to another aspect of our system that you expressed some interest in. And that is the state and regional context. In a nutshell, today the city has responsibility over collection. As you'll see on the left side of the slide, metro has responsibility over waste transfer facilities and the state regulates landfills, recycling and composting facilities. We'll dig into each of those a little more now. Next slide please. Oregon deq permits all waste recycling and composting facilities. And under Oregon revised statute 459, the state gives cities the authority regulatory authority over waste collection and specifically allows us to regulate via franchise systems. The same statute also requires us to provide portlanders with opportunities to recycle, compost, and reduce waste in several different ways, and to educate and facilitate these opportunities within our community. Next slide please. Obviously, our region is unique with an independently elected regional agency. Metro runs two waste transfer stations and also allocates garbage to six other privately owned transfer stations around the region. These are the stations that accept garbage from our collection system, and then reload it onto long haul trucks to landfills. Also, at its two transfer stations, metro sets disposal fees for garbage and organic materials that our haulers pay, and portlanders can also drop off waste themselves, including household hazardous items like chemicals directly at metro's two public transfer stations. Metro also develops regional plans and service standards, and aggregates regional reporting to deq. Also, just to note that Multnomah county doesn't have a waste oversight role in Portland, just in unincorporated areas in the county. Next slide please. And now back to Portland. In addition to regulating waste collection, we also have been a leader in setting waste reduction policies. This includes the long standing styrofoam ban, plastic bag ban, business recycling and composting efforts are deconstruction requirements and more. We also deliver technical assistance and education, and we manage the contracts for waste collection at city facilities and public trash cans, among others. Next slide please. Okay, we're pivoting into the home stretch here. We wanted to call out just a few other examples of our work, and then give you a little preview of what else is next for us. Although we set aside only one slide for this work here today that you're looking at. Now, I want to emphasize that technical assistance and education is a big portion of what we do in our division, reaching thousands of residents, businesses and numerous apartment complexes and schools every year. These efforts meet many of our requirements under the opportunity to recycle act, and also empower our community members to make more sustainable choices. As an example, thanks to this work, we have 99% of the largest food related businesses now separating food waste for composting. Next slide please. We also wanted to highlight portland's first in the nation deconstruction policy that helps to protect neighborhood air quality and recovers valuable materials by requiring that older homes getting removed must be deconstructed instead of demolishing them. We've deconstructed. We've seen deconstruction occur for over 670 homes since 2016, and that has salvaged 4.1 million pounds of lumber. Just as one example of what gets pulled out of these buildings. Next slide please. We also complement or supplement our existing waste collection systems by offering free dumpster day collection events in neighborhoods and also targeted free, bulky waste collection events at low income multi-family properties, often in partnership with cdcs or affordable housing providers. Wherever possible. We always want to reroute those reusable items to local nonprofits. Next slide. While we have a lot of exciting work underway, I want to close by highlighting two very important themes for our division over the next few years. One is the advent of new recycling improvements around the state, including Portland. We're going to see the biggest improvements to recycling programs across the state in at least 20 years under the plastic pollution and recycling modernization act. Impacts. Locally. Benefits locally include the fact that portlanders will see new drop off sites for hard to recycle items like styrofoam, and they'll also see increased efforts to educate the community on what's allowed in recycling. We also anticipate, although it's not here on the slide, we do anticipate accepting new items in our recycling as a result of the investments in the system coming from the producers. Next slide. Another major theme for us is to continue our work to improve the experience and access for recycling and waste reduction in apartments and multifamily properties. Over the next few years, we'll be implementing at least ten different internal and community facing projects that will bring apartments up to improved standards for collection services. One of the things we're working on right now is making sure that property managers comply with our rules to deliver adequate recycling at all facilities. Next slide please. So that concludes our our information for you today and we're looking forward to the conversation. Thank you very much.
32 Thank you so much. That was a dense presentation to get through. I appreciate you laying that all out for us. And I think this committee is going to have a lot of work to do in this area. It's a it's a massive part of our city and such an important issue that touches. Oh, sorry. My microphone keeps going in and out and with the noise outside. This is quite something today. But yeah, thank you both for being here so much. And I know we have other experts within the bureau in the room as well. So I'm going to open it up in case my colleagues have any questions. We have a bit of time set aside for that.
33 Thank you. Acting chair, and thanks for the presentation here. I'm going to dig in on some of the rate setting part parts of the presentation, because I have a specific interest in that. And so can you go back to the slide that had the rate, the rate setting schedule. There was like a timeline, a process timeline. Is that possible? Can we get that slide up again?
34 Yeah, we'll work on that.
35 Okay. While you're pulling that up, I'll just wait for that so I can ask my question here. Okay. So this is an annual process that looks at overall cost of service. It looks at target operating margin and a franchise fee. So a number of questions here one. How integrated and involved is like public comment in this process. So you know is it sort of the public is made aware of where we're at in this and what the proposals are. Or do you have workshops where public interest groups can come and say, you know, we don't agree with that cost of service analysis or we don't agree with this rate. How do you how do you engage on that?
36 Yeah, historically, the answer is yes. There have been opportunities for the public to engage in the rate setting process. Typically, there is a commission or an advisory committee upstream of council or downstream. However you want to look at it that we present the rates to that's been really in flux the past couple of years with city transformation. So, for example, last year we held a public information session, the year before we were going to the planning and sustainable sustainability commission for probably a few years. And before that, there were presentations at, I think, a public utility, essentially a public utility group.
37 Yeah. And I believe the intent as the transition is complete, that the climate commission would, would hold rate meetings for the for the waste rates.
38 Okay.
39 And this year, the only stopping point we have baked into the process is with you in this committee.
40 That's that's helpful. And so the folks who are normally engaged in this kind of citizen upstream citizen advisory are they do you expect them to engage with this new committee structure then? Is there any proactive outreach happening?
41 Well, I would hope so. We have not done any proactive outreach yet on this year's rate process. There were certainly, we assume, the opportunity for public comment with this committee. I'll share that. We typically hear little to nothing from community about rates. We have, I think, been worked hard to be good stewards of the rates in this system. Just for example, if you look at how adjusting the rates for inflation right now are two most common service levels in the residential system are at or below the cost that they were in 2012, okay, if you adjust for inflation. So it's been a pretty consistent system that's primarily just grown with inflation costs.
42 The other thing I want to just point out is there's kind of two tiers of this oversight. The all these haulers operate within a franchise system. And there is a recurring franchise review process as well, which correct me is that like seven years increment.
43 It can happen every five years. And the most recent was 23.
44 Five, five years ish in 2023. So we consciously overhaul and ask the public for feedback on the franchise system as a whole. And that's partly what sets the parameters for these rate systems as well. So that's kind of a second layer of review. And then the so the annual rate review is within the kind of parameters established by the franchise.
45 Okay. That's very helpful. And so as part of that periodic review of the franchise is that is it review of the system or is it review of any given franchise?
46 It's a review of the system. We also, of course, review individual ones when they come up or if they get sold or reallocated. But but the system has this automatic review. And the structure of the rates is part of that review, as is the overall level of service and what the expectations are.
47 That's great. Thanks. So my next question is when you do your cost of service analysis, I see in the chart March, you get costs, I would imagine, from the haulers, from the companies that we have a franchise agreement with. That's right. And then we contract with an independent accountant. Right. To do an analysis. Okay.
48 Yes.
49 Do we have any sense of let me just put it straightforward. Our executive management compensation packages included as part of the cost of goods sold. When we do that analysis.
50 That's a good question. There is a administrative cost category as you saw in some of the slides. And I believe that that can cover salaries and compensation I can't speak. So we have for locally owned garbage companies in our system. And obviously then the salary and administration, you know, in that space you can account, you can draw a straight line between that expenditure area and local management and employees. I'm a little less I'm not sure exactly how our cpa organizes the costs that are reported for our corporate haulers, but I would imagine that there is some upward structural compensation built into those costs. Reported costs.
51 Thank you. That's gonna be something I'll be looking into more closely because, you know, if we if you put executive executive compensation can be actually quite broad. It can be in the form of salaries, but it can also be in the form of stock options. And then you get into sort of a murky question about, are you putting your dividends in the earnings before interest and tax and dividends, or are you putting them afterwards and by hiding it through the executive compensation schedule? And so what I would want to avoid is us tacking on a 9.5% rate of return on top of a cost structure that I think is, is, you know, allocating too much. So that's one of the things I'll be looking at.
52 Councilor, if I may, now would be a great time to put your questions in writing for us to share those with the cpa.
53 I certainly will. And then I just my last question here is on the franchise fee of 8%. Is that stable or is that a function of this rate setting process?
54 The fee itself is fixed. The revenues collected under that fee go up a little bit each year, as the rest of the rate base changes.
55 Okay.
56 It's set. It's not set annually. It's part of the franchise.
57 It's fixed under the franchise.
58 Underlying franchise agreement.
59 Got it. Okay. And then I do have one more question, chair. And this is not about rate setting anymore. It's about how complaints. So you know let's suppose waste management refuses to pick up my trash, even though I had it out by 6 a.m. Every other week. And I've contacted them many times and they don't respond. Obviously. Personal anecdote. Do I? Can I then do people know that they've got a pretty clear avenue to sort of redress of grievances, as it were, through through your bureau?
60 I think. So we receive something like 2 or 3000 emails or calls each year to our waste info hotline to help customers troubleshoot things that may come up. And we often find ourselves intervening to, you know, correct a situation that may have popped up with one of our collectors. So in that instance, yes, we would we would, you know, our customer service staff would, would reach out and resolve the situation if it hasn't already been resolved.
61 And I can tell you just at the director level, this is something that has happened to me a few times. We've been involved with mediation between customers and their hauler on a few situations. We also have the ability to find the haulers if they fail to meet customer service goals and standards. And that is something we have done. I've I've done that as director.
62 Okay. Well, thank you so much. I think that concludes my questions. I'll be submitting those more detailed questions about cost of service analysis.
63 Great. Thank you. We still have plenty of time for more questions. So sorry to keep you up here and just keep grilling you. I'll ask you kind of a big overview question. I'm curious if, you know, if you could wave a magic wand and make this system work as well as possible. What would you do? Like big picture, no obstacles putting you on the spot here. And I have I have some follow up questions about the service areas and maybe how it's changed with 311 as well, because when I worked at city, at the city we didn't have 311. And so people were calling councilors offices and trying to figure out which, you know, where do I get rid of this type of garbage versus this type of garbage? And maybe we've resolved that problem and it's going a lot more smoothly now. But first, my magic wand question. I would love to hear if there was one thing that you could do to just magically change the system and make it more efficient and more cost effective, what would you do.
64 You want to start?
65 Well, I would say the in my mind, the thing that's most important to me is the overhaul of the multifamily situation. That's a the fact that that's served by the commercial system is a legacy of the structure of our system. And I think that it's there's a lot of opportunity for improved service there. And that's why we're focusing on that as one of our lead projects over the next few years. That could involve changing the structure, moving that to a franchise system or not. We that decision hasn't been made, but it definitely there's some opportunities for improved service.
66 Yeah I would I would agree with Eric that if you if your question is just focused on the collection systems in the city and not other policy opportunities, I would say that modernizing and taking a good look at our commercial collection system to ensure it's providing better outcomes in our community is something that we're due for. There's certainly a lot of other exciting opportunities over in the more policy waste reduction side of things that we'd also be interested in. In talking with you about at some point.
67 Thank you. And I'm curious as well, how other cities, you know, it seems like we have so many of our different pieces of garbage and waste pickup and everything happening city, county and metro or. Well, I guess you said county doesn't have as much of that except for the unincorporated areas. Is this common in other cities or what did they do? And is their garbage system more efficient in comparison to ours less efficient? If you could speak a bit to that.
68 Well, to start with the last part of your question, we'd have to get back to you about how efficiencies in our system compared with others. I'm not prepared to answer that question today, but there are there's quite a diversity of management approaches to garbage recycling collection around the country. You know, that we have some communities that have always provided that service as a municipal service with city employees and city equipment. There are many cities that have 1 or 2 large contracts with haulers to deliver service. In Oregon. The most common by far is the franchise system, and many counties have one or more haulers under a franchise, and then many cities have at least one hauler under a franchise. So that diversity of systems really, I think gives gives cities a lot of leeway, especially in Oregon, as to how to meet the outcomes that they want. But again, I think right now the history shows that cities have been pretty comfortable with that public private partnership that sort of represented by a franchise system.
69 It's also fairly common, I believe, for the for sort of the wholesale handling of, of the transfer stations to the end disposal being handled by a separate entity than the actual collections. That's a common division of labor.
70 Yeah. Thanks, Eric. Most counties are designated waste sheds in Oregon. And so it's the county level that would deal with waste transfer in many cases here in our region. Metro has that waste shed designation. And so they're the agency that is dealing with transfer and down onto landfill both in the, you know, the transfer stations that they own, but also they, they allocate waste to privately owned transfer stations.
71 On the on the service end. The our waste system is managing as evan described, both the commercial and residential hauling system. So on that from that sense it is one system, probably the place where there's the most sort of largest number of different players is in that public trash and litter arena, where it kind of depends on who owns the property that the trash is sitting on, and that's what introduces the complexity. But we've, as you said, we've attempted to overcome that through three, one, one and just allocating the complaints from a central location.
72 Is there any information on how that comparison with 311 has happened versus the old system? I, I just remember when I did constituent services, we would get so many calls and I'd be running around for like a week trying to figure out which agency was responsible for which issue. And as someone who was supposed to be the expert in that, I found it very difficult. So I imagine for our constituents, it's even more difficult if they're not involved in the nitty gritty. Every day has three, one, one sort of resolved that issue as far as directing people to the correct waste management.
73 I think it's made a big improvement, not just in waste, but overall city services. There's a much more robust wayfinding that happens that way. I don't know if you have any comments. From a waste perspective.
74 I think it's served. It's helped to serve the community a little bit better. If you click on the link that's in the slides that we showed for 301, there's like 8 or 10 different reasons why somebody might have a question about public trash and they're all a little bit different. And so 311 can handle along with support from us can can handle that decision making process. It's probably not perfect, but my guess is it's better. I've been with the city for a couple of years, so I don't have much history around the 3311.
75 Well, it's a big improvement, I'll tell you that. Thank you all so much for being here today. We really appreciate your time. We will follow up with any more detailed questions that we may have for you. I'm definitely interested in the rates conversation as well, just because I know most of our constituents are so financially burdened right now, and I'm interested in how we can partner on that and get more community involvement. So really appreciate your time. And with that, we're a little bit ahead of schedule. But because we only have three councilors here right now, if any of us leaves the room, we are not in quorum. So we're going to take a quick ten minute recess and then we'll be right back on schedule for our next item. Thank you all so much.
76 Thank you.
77 All right. It is 1035. So I'm going to gavel us back in. Rebecca, can you please read the next item?
78 Item three declare actions concerning zenith energy terminal holdings llc, including placing communications into the public record, demanding the mayor to investigate violations of the zenith franchise agreement, and urging the auditor to conduct an investigation into the competing statements and arguments heard by city council on January 21st, 2025. By city staff, zenith and members of the public.
79 Thank you so much, rebecca. And this resolution is going to be really important. The reason it is here in the transportation committee, instead of the climate committee, as many folks have asked, is because we are investigating the franchise agreement, which makes this a transportation and infrastructure issue rather than a climate one. I think we have heard from community members for a very long time that they are asking for and demanding for transparency in government. There are simply too many questions from community. And I will say also for myself as a city councilor About how some of these agreements were made and an investigation will put to rest all of these questions and issues that people have had for a long time, regardless of how it ends up and what findings end up being concluded in the investigation. So I'm really grateful that we have a city council that is ready for transparency and accountability to the public. And I think that we have a responsibility to answer these questions and put this issue to rest. So I will pass it off to my colleague, councilor Green, if he has any further remarks.
80 Thank you. Thank you, madam chair. And thank you to everyone who's here today to sort of be along this journey, which you've been along for so many years now. I just want to say briefly that, you know, the objective of the resolution is to address issues of accountability, transparency and public trust as it pertains to how the city makes decisions on behalf of our communities. You know, while the subject is, of course, on zenith energy and most immediately intersects with environmental policy issues, the resolution actually gets after a much more thoroughgoing set of questions. And these questions include how does the city value public involvement and input into policy decisions that affect our energy economy, land use, and infrastructure? What role does the city play in relation to corporations? Is the city passive or active in that relationship? Should the city exercise its regulatory powers to the fullest extent, or just choose not to? And finally, how informed should city council be in this overall process? Are we also active or passive in this regard? So to this end, the resolution is a very long title and it does five specific things. One, it it sort of demands disclosure. It directs disclosure of all prior communications between the city and zenith energy. And that includes deputy city administrator of community economic development, service area, director of the bureau of planning, sustainability, city attorney. And the Portland permitting division. It also demands a reevaluation of the Green ring review in light of recent findings. It urges. It demands the mayor to investigate the franchise agreement, which is going to be a really critical piece of this, this whole story. And then it also urges the auditor to investigate this incongruity of facts that city council heard during a work session that do not align with the public record, do not align with public reporting on that public record. And then finally, it pauses right now, upon passage, I guess, when we go to city councils for any pending or future administrative actions until this investigation is complete. So it does a lot, but it's really important that we enter this new form of government with a city council that is willing to exercise its due oversight authority. I think that's all I want to say on that so far.
81 Thank you so much, councilor Green. We have 15 minutes set aside for committee discussion. I suspect that will be fairly brief, given who is here today. And we have 20 minutes set aside for public testimony. So I think that what we will do is spare you all hearing us talk about this another time, since you've already heard enough from us. And I will open the public testimony portion for anyone who's already here today, it looks like we have five people signed up. You will get three minutes each to testify and oh, I see two minutes each. Do we have time for three? We do have time for three. After that, we will go ahead and move into committee discussion, which I think will be better after it's informed by community testimony. Anyways. So, rebecca, if you could please call on the members who have signed up to publicly testify in order, and if you could do a few at a time just to make it a little bit more efficient. Thank you.
82 Our first two testifiers are number one, william scholz. Number two, jorge sanchez bautista.
83 Hello. Good morning councilors. I'm will scholz. I'm a student at PSU. I study urban planning and I'm a part of the student government at PSU, which is a PSU. I'm in the sustainability ad hoc committee, which has been examining PSU path to a more sustainable future. In our committee, we heavily focused on bringing transparency to PSU as an institution, and because it allows broader understanding of issues that are faced in the community, namely environmental, social and fiscal sustainability. Environmentally, zenith energy is clearly unsustainable regardless of an event like the big one cascadia quake. They traffic crude oil and tar sands into the city for storage and most, if not all, of what they bring through isn't even used in Oregon. When the when the cascadia quake does happen, the 2020 probe by the Multnomah county sustainability office and the Portland bureau of emergency management has found that between roughly 100 to 200 millions of gallons of liquid material would spill. This is as much as the bp horizon oil spill in the gulf of mexico. But instead of being in the gulf of mexico, it would be concentrated in oregon's largest city. Yeah, it's not only morally egregious due to the potential loss of human life and environmental degradation, it's also fiscally irresponsible as the cost of repairing those damages alone, in the case of a cascadia quake, would be as much as $2.6 billion. The students of PSU, who I represent, do not want to live in fear that we won't have access to clean drinking water, that the city we choose to move to or to stay in would be destroyed. We want to follow wsu's motto and let knowledge serve the city. There is only one possible future with zenith energy operating as it currently is, and it's not the vision for Portland that we want. Portlanders pride themselves on our commitments to a sustainable future, much to the chagrin of fox news. And yet, we have a city that has not dealt with these issues in a responsible way. Defaulting to corrupt back door dealings that undermine our safety. I and the students I represent urge you to vote yes on this resolution and to further commit to building a better future for all of us.
84 Thank you. Thank you so much for being here today.
85 Is jorge sanchez batista in the room? If not, we'll move on to our third testifier, michaela mccormick. Michaela is online. You can unmute michaela.
86 Hello, councilors, I'm michaela mccormick. I live in northeast Portland. The 2022 process that led to the granting of the land use compatibility statement to zenith was flawed and illegal. It included illegal lobbying by zenith, parts of which were false or meaningless concessions that allowed them to continue pursuing a catastrophic climate strategy. Deputy city administrator donnie oliveira said that the conditions in the 2022 lux quote were based on conversations we've been having with advocates at the time, unquote. To the extent he meant the environmental and community groups who have been blowing the whistle on the backroom deal. This is a complete fabrication. Not only were advocates specifically not consulted during this process, it happened while the city was being sued by zenith over the 2021 lux, where columbia riverkeeper was involved in the litigation to defend the city. Instead, the city created a separate, secretive process to pursue its own agenda. Dca, oliveira and other staff also did not explain what made them decide to reverse their decision in 2022, in spite of zenith's continued violation of the comprehensive plan and zoning. In its presentation to the city, staff omitted key information, including that zenith has to acquire a new lux because it was caught doing illegal modification and use of piping and did not have adequate permission to operate. Staff skewed its presentation to avoid mention of any of zeno's past violations, including failure to report its 2022 lobbying and ongoing investigations. Staff declined to answer questions about the construction and modification that was the subject of deq's. November 2024 investigation. The only path to correct for this bias and non credibility is to allow the public and experts to provide evidence into the record. Accordingly, the investigation proposed by councilors Green and maria Morillo needs to be pursued. Thanks for your time.
87 Thank you.
88 Thank you for your time. Really appreciate you being here. I feel like a hall monitor when I'm chairing a meeting. Were technically supposed to not have any clapping or interruptions in between things, regardless of how I personally feel about it. So just noting that if we can move on to the next testimony.
89 Our next testifier is sarah taylor.
90 Hi sarah, thank you so much for being here today.
91 My name is sarah taylor. I live in district four. I was a school principal and a midwife and was busy setting up birth centers in haiti and came back during COVID and for a reason that I will never know, I dove into the comprehensive plan around the lower Willamette. I was looking at the social determinants of health in haiti, and realized that my own community was a disaster. I have studied the comprehensive plan in great detail. I serve on the economic opportunity analysis for the city, and I can tell you, I have no doubt that it is not in compliance with any kind of comprehensive plan. If you look at the goals, the guiding principles, and it says equitable health, safety not in compliance, I was on the linnton neighborhood association board at the time. They are required to come and meet with us. Never did. The other thing I would like to say is that my goal was to have the north reach plan enacted. It is now ten years old since they started it. The same actors who are trying to push it through are the same people that oppose the north reach plan. So we are ten years out of compliance with the north reach river plan. They know perfectly well that when that plan goes out to the community, the goals that they are using to do zenith will not fly. So just to say we have to do the north reach plan and there needs to be absolute push. The eoa is now years out. I've been on that committee and we have not done it. So I would like to say I'm kind of a historian. I like to study. I studied that area in complete detail, detail. So just want you to know, and I tried to print the maps, but I could not. But that was once 25% of the entire black population of Oregon lived where zenith is now. So the question I want to ask you is, how do we go from 25% of the black community in Oregon, living in a neighborhood to zenith? What happened in between? And that's what I am encouraging you to look at. I want to I know, I just want to tell you one more thing. A man was shot August 21st, 1945. Irvin jones was shot to death. Where zenith is now. So I want you to see this is a pattern. This is not just zenith. It's a pattern. And I also want to ask you if you know how much money the water department has collected from taxpayers for the superfund, $50 million. So are we going to keep charging people to clean up the river? 50 million?
92 Thank you for your testimony. Appreciate you being here today.
93 Next is laurie king.
94 Good morning. Councilors. First, I want to thank councilors Morillo and Green Koyama Lane and Jamie Dunphy for putting forth this resolution. It's a breath of fresh air. I was going to ask today for a unanimous vote on the resolution, but I'm going to switch my testimony. So of course, I would like a unanimous vote, but I'll save that for the full city council. Instead, I'd like to add into the public record recent information that has come out in street roots of the February 27th issue. That serves as even more evidence of the need for this resolution, and even more. And I'll be quoting from that article, and it's about, well, the headline is metro chamber privately discussed zenith with mayor wilson administrative staff before sending a letter to mayor wilson and council president pirtle-guiney supporting the luxfer zenith and the staff that the that the person in the vice president of the metro chamber, john isaacs, was meeting with was danny oliveira. They met frequently during that month before the lux approval was made on February 3rd. Although danny oliveira said he'd only spoken once to john isaacs, but they had met a number of times and texted. Then isaac sent a letter on January 28th to mayor wilson, and council president pirtle-guiney, also signed by metro chamber president andrew hoan, and the letter cited metro chambers partnership and the clean energy initiative as the reason the city should approve zenith's application. Despite significant public opposition, including from environmental groups like neighbors for clean air that are involved in the clean energy initiative. The letter pointed to a positively to zenith's plan to expand to be a renewable fuels hub for the west coast and a renewable saf hub for the airports on the west coast. This is pretty disturbing news and the article I. If you haven't read it, please check it out. It's disturbing. The takeaways to me is that it shows more evidence that that the zenith lux was anything but standard administrative decision in 2025, just as it was not standard in 2022. So that's very important. And then secondly, decision making, especially in areas with so much controversy as the zenith decision needs to have clear structures for publi, transparent engagement. The metro chamber should not be quietly guiding public policy in the interests of industry and profit. Instead, we need to have public engagement based on the Portland the comprehensive plan. And I just one quick thing. I really hope that the city council session on the cei hub and March 17th should include expert community testimony, not just the testimony from danny oliveira. Thank you.
95 Thank you so much.
96 Thank you for your testimony today.
97 That concludes testimony.
98 Thank you so much. So now we can move into committee discussion. And I just want to start by framing this, that I'm very happy to see councilor Jamie Dunphy in the back room right now. You can't see him on screen, but he is wearing a beautiful bright red sweater in solidarity with the advocates who have fought for this for a long time. And we have three council members here, which means that we need three votes to get it out of committee and to full city council in order for the resolution to be actually adopted. So we are just trying to move it out of committee today, as everyone has stated, I don't have any questions because councilor Green and I drafted this, but I just want to say a big thanks to the advocates who have pushed us as city councilors to really dig into this issue. I got to do a tour with mosquito fleet. We went on canoes along the river and really had a tangible experience of what it's like to be on the river and what the risks are. Should oil spill into the Willamette and to the surrounding areas. I also want to thank 350 pdx for all of the advocacy around this, and for bringing community into city hall. There was so much engagement on this in a way that I think is really beautiful to see from the community, that they know that this is a space that people will be allowed into and that they will be heard. And I also have to give a shout out on behalf of councilor Clark for the linton ladies, as she endearingly calls them, for all of the advocacy that has been done over the years, truly leading this movement and getting more information to the public than would have otherwise been there. So I don't have any further questions on on my own resolution. I'm just very grateful for all of the advocates for pushing us to do right and to look into this issue further. And with that, I will pass it to councilor Green or councilor Koyama Lane, in case you have any questions. And then we will move to the vote.
99 I'll defer to councilor Koyama Lane first.
100 Less of a question, more of a more of some comments. So regarding zenith and these reported conversations, I honestly I share my constituents questions and concerns about power and who has access to play a role in our city government. I think this brings up important questions about who's able to directly intervene or play a role in city business and who is not. And so, you know, with my hair, my hat on with the chair of the governance committee, I think these are the types of questions we have to keep asking. We have to keep asking those here in the governance committee. And it really, I believe, is our job as councilors to make sure that everyday portlanders have the chance to engage in public, transparent processes that are out in the open. You all deserve to influence how our future is shaped, and particularly regarding issues that affect our health and safety. So I really appreciate this resolution. And, you know, as I have different conversations about a lot of different topics and folks say, but it happened this way or this, and, and part of me wants to keep coming back to okay. There's also intent versus impact. This is how the public is feeling right now that things have not been out in the open. We don't have that trust. It's our job to earn it back. That's where we need to start. So I think this is an important step.
101 Thank you, chair, and thank you for sort of wearing the multiple hats in this meeting. Councilor I'll put my arts and economy hat on for a moment and just say, you know, sarah's comments, sarah taylor's comments remind me that it's not just zenith. It is sort of the broader question of what type of economy are we envisioning? What type of planning are we envisioning? We've engaged in this long, comprehensive plan that was to outline a sustainable economic future for us. And if we feel like that's not being honored, then we have substantial work to do in city council. So I think this this is the first step in kind of hitting the reset switch on how substantive we think our public engagement is. I'll be looking to sort of use the momentum from this resolution to then think about the north reach plan and see how we are engaging on that. The economic opportunities analysis as well, because the decisions we make today are going to affect the generations that live here tomorrow and then their children as well. And so we owe it to get it. We owe it to our city to get it right. So with that, unless there's any other comments, madam chair, I move this resolution, which is document number 2025070, be sent to the full council with recommendation. The resolution be adopted.
102 Second.
103 The motion has been moved by councilor Green and seconded by councilor Koyama Lane. Is there any discussion? Will the clerk please call the roll.
104 Koyama Lane. I Green? I maria.
105 I yes.
106 Three eyes. It's referred to counsel.
107 Thank you. The motion carries and the resolution document number 2025070 will move on to full council with a recommendation that it be adopted. Thank you so much. And we are going to close quite early today. Our next meeting is on Monday March 24th. There's not a preview of agenda items just yet, but councilor, clerk and I will be meeting to discuss what needs to go on the agenda and how much public input we're going to be having for that as these tough budget discussions come up. So I'm very grateful for everyone who took time to share their testimony. I'm grateful for councilor Jamie Dunphy for being here today with us to celebrate this moment. And I'm grateful for all of the community advocates for being here. We will all be updating you on the resolution and ensuring that when it goes to full council, we have full community involvement as well. So stay tuned for that and thank you all for your time today. With that, I will adjourn the meeting.