The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2026-01-14
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (40,293 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 Portland City Council convened its session on January 14, 2026, resuming a previously recessed meeting. Discussion opened with remarks condemning racist, sexist, and homophobic rhetoric reported in local media, followed by procedural motions—including a point of order to alter the agenda and a motion to suspend the rules to add a code amendment regarding council officer elections and mayoral tie-breaking authority. Votes occurred on these procedural matters, with outcomes recorded in the vote ledger. The body then proceeded to lengthy, multi-round debate and voting on the election of Council President, involving several nominated candidates and extensive discussion of governance philosophy, committee structure, the "Peacock" caucus, ethics complaints, public meetings law concerns, and relationships with city staff and the City Clerk's office. Multiple recesses were taken during this process. Votes for Council President occurred across many rounds, with results recorded in the vote ledger. A vote was also held to elect a Council Vice President, with the outcome recorded in the vote ledger. The Council then briefly addressed a time-certain agenda item concerning a property annexation ordinance, discussed procedural history in committee, and voted to move it to a second reading before adjourning the recessed meeting and reconvening under the regular 2:00 p.m. agenda.
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
Literal phrase counts from the official captions — a measurement of procedure, not a judgment of anyone's conduct. Click a marker to highlight its occurrences below. Captions contain errors.
0 Good morning colleagues. It is 901 on January 14th and I am calling our meeting back to order. Keelan, can you please call the roll?
1 Good morning. Avalos.
2 Present.
3 Dunphy. Here.
4 Smith here.
5 Canal here. And. Ryan. Koyama Lane here.
6 Morillo here.
7 Novick here. Clark.
8 Here.
9 Green. Here. Zimmerman.
10 Did we get a yes from Ryan? I see councilor Ryan on the queue here.
11 He's running in from the parking lot. He was parking right behind me.
12 Okay, but he's in the meeting.
13 He is in the.
14 He might be logged.
15 There we go. He is in the room now, too.
16 I'm also here.
Procedural episode · turns 17–66
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17 We need you to stay here.
18 Pirtle-guiney.
19 Here.
20 Here, here.
21 You've got Ryan as well. Thank you. Robert, could you please read the rules of order and decorum?
22 Thank you. 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 ww. Gov slash agenda. Information on engaging with council can be found at 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. 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 please address the matter being considered. When testifying, please state your name for the record. Your address is not necessary. If you are a lobbyist, please identify the organization you represent. Virtual testifiers should please unmute themselves when the council clerk calls your name. Thank you.
23 Thank you robert. Colleagues, before we begin conversations about leadership for this next year, I need to address some of the rhetoric that we saw on display about my colleagues of color that was published in the Portland mercury yesterday, because this needs to be a place where everybody is respected. It was pretty horrific. It was racist. It was sexist. It was homophobic. Disagreement over issues, disagreement over priorities and process are a part of this work. But name calling isn't. And racist, sexist and homophobic name calling is absolutely unacceptable. It has no place in these chambers, and it has no place in Portland. I hope that's something that we can all agree on. And when I say all, I do mean everybody in this room, not just the folks who are up here on this dais. Thank you for the space to say that. Okay. We are.
24 I'm sorry.
25 We have not discussed the agenda.
26 I have a point of order.
27 Okay, go right ahead.
28 Okay. Council president, I do have a point of order on the council agenda. I have a motion to alter the agenda that would put forward a code amendment related to the council officer elections. I move to add a new item to the agenda to be discussed prior to council officer elections that I recently shared, titled code amendment charter, chapter 3.02 council organization and procedure.
29 Point of order. You can't make a motion on a point of order. City attorney.
30 Robert, we have a point of order, I believe, to add an item to the agenda ahead of the current item. I think that's what I heard.
31 Yep. And I'd have a little bit more to say on it, but I was interrupted.
32 I should have gotten in the queue and waited to make an order. You can't sew on a point.
33 Of councilor Councilor.
34 I'm asking for an opinion from the city.
35 Attorney, and I have asked for him to weigh in on this. We have a point of order that has an ask to add an item to the agenda. Is that possible?
36 So a member who has been recognized by the chair to speak, or who has been recognized by the chair can speak and they can make a motion. If councilor Ryan has been recognized by the chair, he can make a motion. This is an item that is not currently on an agenda. In order for the item to be placed on the current agenda, it would require a suspension of the rules to do so. That would require nine votes. If there's nine votes, we can put it on the agenda immediately to hear it today. And if there are nine votes, you can pass an emergency ordinance that is effective immediately. So that would be the procedure. If you would like to take this up and do it.
37 Okay.
38 Point of information.
39 Councilor. We're not.
40 At the beginning.
41 Of a new meeting. We're we're resuming a recess meeting where we were in the middle of an item under discussion. And I think that this sort of procedure would be out of order.
42 Mr. Taylor.
43 That is a an objection to the procedure. The chair can rule whether this procedure is out of order or in order. The chair can make that ruling. That ruling by the chair is subject to appeal by any three members of the body. So if three members don't like the ruling of the chair, it can be appealed. The body would vote on that appeal. If there is a tie vote on the appeal, then the ruling of the chair stands.
44 Okay. Sometimes I wish I had the opportunity to rehearse things before we get up here. Colleagues. So we have a motion to add something to the agenda and an objection to that. Councilor I am going to overrule the objection. I hear your point, because we generally do consider additions to the agenda at the top of the meeting. I would like us to have the opportunity to vote on that. I recognize that that is something that needs nine votes and may well fail, but I do think that the body should have the opportunity to weigh in on whether we should add something to the agenda.
45 You guys are not going to get nine votes for this, but it's very obvious that you're not going to win on merit. So now you're trying to.
46 Councilor councilor Are you in? Are you?
47 Well, you're letting other people jump the queue to add random things to the agenda.
48 We had two points of order councilor and I would be happy to take a point of order from you. If you have a procedure that you would like us to move forward on.
49 Point of order.
50 None of.
51 This is chair's decision. Okay.
52 Councilor I believe it takes three people to challenge a decision. If two other people would like to challenge, we can vote on that. That is. Absolutely. Thank you for keeping us within procedure.
53 Council may proceed.
54 I the councilor has challenged my ruling on councilor Green's objection, and councilor Avalos needs two members to join her in challenging my ruling to put that ruling to a vote. Would two members like to join councilor Avalos? I'm trying here, folks.
55 I'm joining councilor Avalos.
56 I'll join councilor Avalos as well. Okay.
57 So I believe, mr. Taylor, that we now vote on my ruling to overturn councilor Green's objection and vote on councilor Ryan's proposal. Is that correct?
58 That is correct. And the issue to.
59 Be.
60 I, I'm trying to walk us through the steps here. Tell us what a yes or no means. Okay, so a yes.
61 The the issue that council will be voting on is should the ruling of the chair stand as the judgment of the council. So a yes vote upholds the chair, a no vote overrules the chair.
62 And a no vote in upholding the chair returns us to councilor Ryan's question. A no vote in disagreeing with the chair returns to the objection, which then negates councilor Ryan's motion. Correct.
63 No, a yes vote upholds your decision. Your decision was that councilor Ryan's motion was in order.
64 Correct. Okay, colleagues, does everybody understand?
65 Yes, yes.
66 I don't believe this is debatable. So, keelan, please call the roll.
67 Avalos.
68 No.
69 Dunphy.
70 No.
71 Smith.
72 Yes.
73 No.
74 Yes.
75 Ryan.
76 Yes.
77 Koyama Lane.
78 No.
79 Morillo.
80 No.
81 Novick. Yes. Clark. Yes. Green. No. Zimmerman.
82 Yes.
Procedural episode · turns 83–91
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83 Pirtle-guiney.
84 Yes. I think the body needs to debate this.
85 Motion carries with seven yes votes and five no votes.
86 It was a nine.
87 To overrule my determination on the objection is six. That returns us to councilor Ryan's. It's not a is it a motion to add this to the agenda?
88 Yes. So the vote the vote you just took was on the appeal. Now, councilor Ryan has made a motion to suspend the rules for purpose of adding his ordinance to the agenda.
89 Okay, colleagues, this motion requires nine votes. Is this a debatable motion?
90 Motions to suspend the rules are generally not debatable.
91 Okay.
92 Do we have a second for that?
93 Do we have a second?
94 Second?
95 Okay, so, councilor Ryan, could you please state your motion again?
96 I will I also have a cosmetic procedure. Don't worry, it's not surgery. Is there a foot? My foot thing is that I don't want to.
97 Does anybody have councilor Ryan's foot stool?
98 What does it look like? Is it?
99 It's here folks, I will explain to the room and anybody watching that in order for you to see us over the computers, we have to be at about the full height of our chairs, which means that for some people there, that it puts them in an uncomfortable situation. We're trying to make sure you can see everybody up here. Okay.
100 I'm going to go ahead and.
101 Please restate your motion.
102 The motion is council action 3.02.030. Tie breaking vote by mayor one. Except this will be taken out. It currently says except for the election of council officers under charter section 2.110, or that would be omitted. So except on matters setting count, setting council's rules of procedures under charter. Section 2-111, the mayor cast the deciding vote on final passage of non emergency ordinances, resolutions, reports and quasi judicial matters where the vote of the council is tied 6 to 6. The mayor does not vote to break a tie on procedural motions, including, without limitation, those listed in subsection 3.0, 2.0 40d that was sent to all of your offices just prior all of your offices just prior to the meeting. We have seen, and I'm grateful that this is a co-sponsor with councilor Smith, who had the courage to bring this up on day one last year. We have seen from the first council leadership election last year, again this year, that we struggle because the even number of councilors get stalled by tie votes. Some of us saw this coming, but were hope. We were hopeful we wouldn't again be in a deadlock. I know that we collectively worked up a new code language last year to codify that. The mayor could not break a tie in our president or vice president election, but experiencing the stalemate pattern for two years in a row, I strongly urge that we revisit this. My office has drafted code language that I have shared with all of your offices. It removes the language prohibiting the mayor from tie breaking in leadership election. I'm grateful for my co-sponsor to this amendment, councilor Smith, if we could go back in time, I wish our charter change commission had created an odd number of council seats or allowed for a mayoral veto, which most voters assumed was part of the package. Instead, we have 12 councilors and a mayor that only sometimes has tie breaking vote. This has contributed to decision making process that is inefficient, and that undermines the public confidence in our body. So since we aren't changing the charter here, let's make some code changes to help us function better and get back to the business of the city. Councilor Smith.
103 Thank you.
104 I.
105 I believe this is not a debatable motion. Generally, when somebody makes a motion, we let them explain why, which is why I let councilor Ryan speak there. But I don't believe that.
106 The.
107 Co-sponsor doesn't get to speak.
108 I this.
109 Is generally council attorney. Were you about to say something?
110 Yes. Thank you. So this is a motion to suspend the rules to put this item on the agenda?
111 Yes.
112 So if we vote this.
113 If you put it on the agenda, then you can have the full debate about the merits of it. But right now the issue before the body is just should we put this on the agenda because it wasn't already on the agenda?
114 Okay. So councilor Smith, I apologize, but we're going to move to the vote. Now, we've heard from councilor Ryan why he would like to put it on the agenda. And we can. Debate the merits if it is on the agenda. And if it is not, then we will move forward. So a yes puts this on the agenda. A no does not put it on the agenda. And mr. Taylor, we need nine votes. Is that correct?
115 Correct.
116 Okay. Keelan, please call the roll.
117 No, Dunphy. No.
118 Smith.
119 Yes.
120 Canal.
121 No.
122 Ryan.
123 Yes.
124 Koyama Lane.
125 No.
126 Morillo.
127 Nope.
128 Novick I.
129 Clark.
130 Yes.
131 Green.
132 No.
133 Zimmerman.
134 Yes.
135 Pirtle-guiney.
136 Yes.
137 The final vote is six. Yes and six. No. The item is not added to the agenda.
138 Okay, colleagues, I believe that returns us to the issue at hand, which is our council president election. Our rules allow the council president to speak first on something that is a privilege that I don't think I have ever taken. And I am going to right now, because I seem to have not been clear enough. Last week, when I lent my support to a few of my colleagues. So I'd like to be a little more overt before we get into debate. This race, to me, has not ever been about me. My term as council president has not ever been about me, not me, not any group I belong to represent, except for the people of Portland, who we all represent together. And the people of Portland need us right now to get on with the business of our city. I was admonished, along with some of my colleagues the other day, to be mature. I think my colleague who said that meant to say, do what we want you to do. Vote for our pick. But that's not what be mature means. Be mature means find a path that works for more of us. Collectively. It means putting portlanders all portlanders first, whether or not we share their ideology, whether or not we think they agree with us about any particular issue, including who should be council president. And right now, it means getting us back to the regular work of our city. Here are some of the things waiting on our agenda. We have multiple second readings of items that we did not get to last week. We have a planning session to talk about our needs in the next year, to put together with the city administrator that is waiting to see who will be council president to help plan it. We have debates over major policy issues. We have a handbook to adopt. We have items from the administration that we need to move forward for our bureaus to serve portlanders. So let me be clear. We are about to move into another round of voting, and I am not seeking your vote. You do not need to campaign for or against me. If my being in leadership is a distraction from the work of serving portlanders, I do not want it. But the longer we sit here in a stalemate over anyone being council president, the longer the work waits. And frankly, I would remind those of you who do not want me as your council president and who believe the gavel should be passed on, that the longer we sit here in a stalemate over anyone as council president, the longer I preside over this body.
139 Break the time.
140 So I'm asking us, all of us, to put effective governance first. I am asking everyone to pick someone you like, who you think will be fair, whose values are close ish to your own, but who you didn't come in here today thinking you would vote for for council president. Throw your support to them. Throw their name out there if it's not already out there. Let's give portlanders the effective government we've tried to build all year. Let's move us forward. Today. We are mid debate. Right now. The floor is open. We can discuss any of the names that are on the floor. We can move into a vote. We can recess. But please let's get to work. Councilor Novick, you are first in the queue.
141 Point of information. Are you stepping back? Is that what you said or no? Are you still a candidate? Since we're about to discuss candidates, are you still one? I wasn't clear about that.
142 Councilor. I think that whatever I do may not be enough for some people. So I am merely saying, please don't vote for me.
143 This is a clear question, but that was not a clear answer. But thank you.
144 Councilor Novick.
145 Thank you, madam president. I'm going to start by addressing one of the elephants in the room. Last week. I said that I have a problem voting for any peacock councilor Morillo then said, quote, if you're going to write off everybody in the progressive caucus, then I guess we will never have. Besides councilor Smith, if she can get a seventh vote, a person of color is president at the helm. I think that is very interesting for my colleagues to do. I know everyone is going to say that none of the criticisms are race based. Well, have fun telling that to all your colleagues of color. End quote. So I just need to say that it makes me very sad. The councilor Morillo who have come to think of not just as a colleague, but a friend, has convinced herself that my decision in this matter is based on race, that she puts me in the same category as the odious brian orndorf. Last week, I explained a reason why I was uncomfortable voting for peacock, which is that I thought that it might be difficult for a member of this tight knit group to be a president for the whole council. There's another reason I didn't mention, because it requires saying hard things, but I've come to the conclusion that sometimes hard things need to be said, and councilor Clark should not have to be the only one to say them. Last summer, Willamette week wrote an article about a group chat between all of the peacocks about the budget in which they discussed a conversation one of them had had with a seventh councilor, Steve Novick, and that prompted a bunch of complaints about violation of the public meetings law. And the Oregonian talked to experts in the public meetings law who said that sounded like a violation to them. The only reason the complaints were not pursued was they were considered untimely. That was embarrassing for this council, and it was particularly problematic for me because I got numerous emails, including from personal friends of mine, saying, I can't believe you were so stupid as to join the peacocks in a violation of the public meetings law. So I had to explain to them individually that I had a conversation with councilor Morillo that he did not know was going to be broadcast to five other people, but of course, dozens of people out there who I didn't have conversations with, who still think that I deliberately joined in a violation of the public meetings law. Last month, the ethics commission voted seven to nothing to investigate the peacocks for potential violations of the public meetings law. At a meeting that they had on August 6th. And I know that my colleagues all say that there was no discussion of policy in that meeting, so there was no violation. And I'm a trusting sort, and I'm inclined to believe that. However, I think my colleagues should recognize that that was not something that the ethics commission was going to take on faith, particularly since this group has a demonstrated history of, in fact, discussing policy as a group. So it is not surprising that the ethics commission voted to investigate. And again, it is embarrassing to have half of the council under investigation for potential ethics violation. I realize that we all have our concerns about the public meetings law, but it is the law, and the public doesn't know the niceties of the law. The public just sees that half of the council is under investigation for an ethics violation. Then, a couple days after the ethics commission vote, Willamette an article saying that five of the peacocks, excluding councilor Dunphy, are being represented before the ethics commission by a lawyer with an organization that frequently has business before the city, raising a conflict of interest concern that is also not a good look for the city. And whatever we think of the public meetings law, I would hope that we all do have a concern about the appearance of conflict of interest as a result of all this. I agree with councilor Clark that now it does not appear to be the time to elect a peacock. And I would also note that if any of us non peacocks does vote for a peacock, we will be deluged with emails saying, I can't believe you would vote to put power into the hands of these people who can't keep themselves out of ethical hot water. And I will get emails saying, I can't believe you voted to put power in the hands of these people who not only can't keep themselves out of ethical hot water, but drag you into it. So finally, I just wanted to say that I have great respect for each peacock individually. It's when you band together as peacock that you get into trouble. Thank you.
146 Thank you, councilor Councilor canal.
147 Good morning everybody. Prepared some things here because I've had some time to reflect in the last week, and I have three things I wanted to share as we move into this conversation today. First, last year's election went ten rounds. We're now in our 10th. And it might go further. I think that it's incumbent upon us to work on systemic solutions to this problem, and not just think that the November election may resolve this for us for next year by changing the composition of this body. The systemic solutions are internal governance choices that we could make to ensure that we're not doing multi-round deadlocks every year, because I think that that weakens the body in the long run. I'd want to look at things like having regular check ins, as councilor Novick suggested, on how the governance of this council is going. These don't have to be grievances. I think doing it regularly makes it less likely that they will end up being grievance focused. I'd like to have a work session after January 1st, but before the first meeting of the year, so that we're in a conversation that's structured to talk about what we want out of a council president and governance. Before we talk about who we want to be council president. If there is a legal way which there may or may not be, to have a portion of that conversation in private, I think it's fair to explore that, because it's also fair to say that each of us, as people, hear things differently when we're in this public space being watched than we do when we're in private. Obviously, only if that's something that the attorneys allow us to do. And of course, pursuing ranked choice voting for this election, if we're going to ask the public to do it, we should do it too. I'll also say, as a longtime advocate for respecting the will of the voters and a supporter of the 2022 charter change and its underlying values, I do think it's fair to at least consider whether we may need to ask the voters for more guidance. And while I'm not committed to that being the path we take, I'm committed to at least having the conversation. I also would commit to having an open discussion, by the way, on on the proposal that came up at the last second here in advance of next year's election. I don't know that I'm I'm not saying I support it, but I'm saying it's a worthwhile conversation to have. I do hope we can solve this inside the building, though, working as a group of 12 of us. Second, I want to talk about what happened on Wednesday. I am speaking perfectly, deeply and profoundly uncomfortable with how much this conversation became about identity. I would like us to have better leadership approaches and governance approaches next year than we do this year, but I don't want it to be that I win because seven of us feel we should have a brown man as council president. I want it to be because seven of us feel that the vision of good governance I'm talking about is their preferred vision. And obviously my background, identity and upbringing shaped my approach to governance. And obviously there's racism, sexism, homophobia and more in society broadly, but for two reasons. I want to ask us to keep this conversation today to the merits and to who we support rather than oppose. And those two reasons are simple. One the purpose of this conversation is to determine who the next president will be, and ideally, the conversation would be about who's best in the role, both the nuts and bolts of governance, and the specific choices that are often informally delegated to the council president. Second, we're 12 year old people. I understand that we can be abstractions to folks who haven't met us personally, but our real human relationships matter a lot for the health of this body, this institution, this government, and eventually the city. Regardless of who wins, the 12 of us need to work together the day after this ends, and I would prefer that we spend the next 11.5 months working on the business of the city, not have to spend the entire year rebuilding bridges that were burned over the course of this process. I also want to note that I think five and a half rounds of wednesday's votes were rich and substantive discussions, and then it got pretty ugly. I want to be clear, I think councilor Pirtle-guiney and I kept it to the high road, and some of those voting for each of us did, too. And I want to say something about both the council president and council, Ryan, because we work together well in district two, which is that for those of you who might be here supporting me, understand that I need them as partners to keep fighting for the people of district two. So if you won't do it for me and you won't do it for them, please do it for the 155,000 people who live in my district. We need to be able to work together after this is over. And I know all three of us are equally committed, though we may differ on policy decisions. Equally committed to working for the people of district two. Having said all that, third, I wanted to note that since it has been a week and quite a week it's been, I will briefly take the opportunity if you'll allow me to reintroduce myself. I would love to say that the purpose of running here is because I want to see us have successful strategic planning. I want to use that strategic planning process to help inform committee structure, scheduling and all the decisions that we do over the course of the year. I'd like to see us use the time, certain agenda and other tools so that things that aren't on the immediate next agenda can have certainty and time for our staff, for our counselors, for the public alike to come in and have time to prepare, to get child care, to move your schedule around and come shape the decisions that are made in this building because they matter to you as much or more as they matter to us. I want to see us have information shared in advance, with little or no delay between when the council president finds out about something and when the rest of the council does. We have to create the space for the oversight system envisioned in the charter, to be developed in detail by this council in a way that works for everyone here and guarantees the certainty that someone is looking into it. When we don't have perfect outcomes, which is often. And finally, I would love to see an agenda that prioritizes councilor Filed items in terms of what meeting agenda they're on so that we recognize in practice, and not just in theory, that the mayor's items are the business of the city and so are councilor Filed items. I'd love to talk to you more about the merits of this as we go through this day to day, and hopefully come to a conclusion as quickly as possible. Thanks for the opportunity.
148 Thank you.
149 Thank you councilor.
150 Councilor. Thank you for the suggestions on ways we could resolve this. I just want to note that you mentioned ranked choice voting, and I've had a few people suggest to me the idea of everybody listing everybody they think they could vote for and seeing who has the most votes. So I think there are some creative ideas out there that are similar to that. Councilor Green.
151 Thank you, madam president, and thank you, councilor Canal, for recentering us on the substantive aspect of this. I think those are difficult conversations. Last week they had to be had, but I think it's now time to return to the question at hand. And, councilor Council president, you asked us to sort of think about who it is that we want to vote for on the merits of their leadership. That is why I'm supporting councilor Kanal, because I do think he's bringing forward fresh ideas that aren't wholly disconnected from the conversations we've had. And I'm supporting him on his own merits. And I very much would like us to move away from the personalized aspects of this. And so I'm not going to engage any of that, but I will I will say this, you know, in your motivating preamble, which I think was important to do, and I think it's yeah, I want to acknowledge you haven't really used that privilege much for your time. So I think that's fair. You have charged us with remembering that the decisions that we take up here need to be less about friendships, relationships, or even ideological commitments, but rather the business of the city and what we think is in the best interest of the city. My decisions to support canal, I think, are in the best interests of the city. We all have a decision to make. We all have to keep that charge in our hearts and our brains. But I want to say, I feel like I have a special thing to say here, because a year ago, a little over a year ago now, actually, I was the one that made a decision that moved off of my original principled position because I was trying to place the needs and health of this city first. I was very, very worried that we were going to start our new form of government with the failure and inability to elect a council president. And I made a decision that knowing that I was going to let a lot of people down, I made some other people happy. And that's politics. And so I compromised, and I put you in that seat. And I'm asking right now for you to remember that. While all 12 of us have to make that decision, you have a special burden, a special weight, because you're currently the council president. And so all the things that you have said that are waiting, all of the good pieces of legislation that are waiting to be heard are waiting to be heard, because we can't come to a decision and you are in a unique position to settle that question and to help us move forward. And so I'm asking you to support councilor Kanal for council president and help us move forward in this city. I know that's not easy, but that's an appeal to you. And it's not about you, but it's it's a request from someone who who made that decision last time. I do want to speak briefly because I, I don't want to engage in a defensive posture around the peacock. Councilor Novick, I appreciate your comments. I. I'm not going to be defensive about it. And when you said that you want to grant us the benefit of the doubt and take us at our word, I also want to grant you the same and say that you you're very concerned about who you'll let down and what perceptions that you validate in the court of public opinion. And you're worried about the sort of real or perceived impropriety here. I want to I want to acknowledge that that's a real concern. But I also would like to note that, you know what we did, what we did realize yesterday was the same people filing these complaints are the same people identified in brian oldendorf's text messages. And so you're going to get a lot of emails also from constituents who would be disappointed in the real or perceived appearance of falling for that trick. On the on the question of the legal representation piece, I'll note that ors 244020 section seven b specifically says that gifts do not constitute contributions made to a legal expense trust fund established under the Oregon state law for the benefit of public opinion. And my attorney is filing that. And so I think. On the peacock question, my colleague has already said he's willing to step down. I'm also willing to follow him in that. And I know that doesn't necessarily change things right here and now for all the reasons that you said. And again, I want to take you at your at your word that it's it's caused an issue for you. But I'm also thinking forward to the next votes we take, particularly the next budget cycle. That's five months down the road. I want to be in a position where there is trust from my colleagues that I am able to work with folks who are not in the progressive caucus now and are willing to engage in progressive politics with me. And if that's what it takes to do that in the budget cycle, I'm willing to do that now and just put that out there on the record, and I'll leave it there for now. But just wanted to say my piece on that. And, council president, I really hope that you hear me. Thank you.
152 Thank you counselor.
153 I hope you're not underestimating your or anybody else's vote in saying that, because we all have one vote.
154 We all have one. Some of us.
155 Councilor Smith.
156 Thank you, madam president. I disagree with you. In you stepping back, you have been an amazing and outstanding leader. I have enjoyed learning from you. I did not get everything that I wanted from you, but I got more than I expected. And so for that, I want to tell you, thank you. Thank you for your service and thank you for your willingness to be a leader, because I think this all boils down to the crux of this issue. It lies in the interpretation of our city charter, specifically section 2-401, which clearly states that the mayor shall vote on matters before the council in case of a tie. However. And forgive me, city attorney taylor, I believe that you had a very restrictive opinion issued in early 2025 that limited this provision to final ordinances only to exclude procedural votes such as leadership elections. This interpretation to me and to councilor Eric Zimmerman, we were the only two who voted against it does not align with the plain language of our charter, and could potentially set a harmful precedent for our governance, like councilor, canal said. We could be back here again next year. They're going to be several votes. I am urging the mayor to punch his political credit card and to weigh in and do his job, and to vote and to break a tie. We all know where we stand. We all know what we stand for. But the citizens of this city voted for us. Our names are on the election certificate. So I'm going to stand up with that, with that charter says, and just in case people don't know, the charter trumps an ordinance. And I don't think people understand that the charter trumps a resolution, an ordinance trumps a resolution. And some people who sit up here don't know the difference between the two or the three. So I think if we get to a point that we're going on and on and on, we're going to have to suggest some things that we haven't suggested before. I'm ready to go to a vote because we've talked long enough. Thank you.
157 Thank you.
158 Councilor councilor Morillo.
159 Thank you, council president. I really appreciate the spirit in which councilor Kanal has joined this meeting today. I think he has clearly demonstrated that he has a firm grasp of robert's rules procedures and is willing to actually bring affirmative ideas and a vision for what he would do with the council presidency seat, which is the main reason why I want him to be council president. When I brought up the racial dynamics in the discussion, it wasn't at all because I think councilor Kanal is only qualified because we deserve to have a man of color up there. Although I do think that our lived experiences give us different knowledge and sets of data to work upon and to bring to the table. That's why it's significant that this is the most diverse and youngest council that we've ever had before. There is a significant difference in that, whether or not people want to hear that, that's the truth. But what I see from him is mature leadership, a willingness to do what is necessary in the moment. And I think the way that this is also being run councilor Green is right. Everyone does have one vote council president, but you have the deciding vote on whether or not this moves forward. Again, when we are talking about who has already compromised. Councilor Green made that compromise and he got a lot of heat from our constituents and our voters for making that compromise last time. We are asking our colleagues to do the same, to continuously ask for us to compromise is showing a lack of maturity and faith in the system and in your colleagues. And I will also note that we have passed a lot of policies together. I've passed a lot of policies directly from my office. Guess what? That requires a seventh, eighth, or ninth vote, and I happen to have gotten them. So when we talk about who can work with whom and across the aisle, I think we have long demonstrated that we are able to do that. I also have to say that it's really hard to hear about some of my colleagues are better people than me, so they're going to not talk about stuff the way that I will. But I'm really running out of patience because the majority of the ethics complaints that were made were made by a man who coordinates with a group of people that talk about me, a paraguayan immigrant, and call me a burrito, that talk about a black woman's braids, that talk about tears of asian people and the hierarchy there. I mean, like, come on, let's let's not pretend any one of us can file an ethics complaint at any moment. And investigations, I believe, wait to see who is innocent until proven guilty, because we could have plenty of people filing complaints against any one of you up here, and then say that that is putting that. That means that you are inherently guilty. I will also say, I don't want to name any of this, but we have some colleagues who are under investigation for other reasons too, who are up for president. We have colleagues who were so frustrated during the last meeting who said that, who told some of my other colleagues that they want to switch seats because they can't bear to sit next to me, but they think that they are going to be council president and work with the whole council. Come on. So we really need people to do what is mature right now and actually just step up and make the decision. We do have agenda items waiting, and I would really like to see the other side compromise the way that we have been forced to compromise so often. Councilor Kanal I'm very grateful that you stepped up in this moment. You are the only candidate that I've seen thus far that has really created an affirmative case for what it is that you would change the way that you would run process the only one who truly has a profound grasp of the rules and how to run a meeting. I think the very fact that we that you would be willing to concede running a meeting of your own election is important because our current council president is not doing that. I think that's very strange. I, I but I can't ignore this elephant in the room where we are going to pretend that we are like post-racial. Everything's good now because clearly we're not. And that does impact how we talk about our colleagues, how we have talked about councilor Kanal, because all of the things that people have said to disparage the reasons why he shouldn't be a leader are things that I can equally point to each of you. So I'm just not understanding the negative case against him. And I would love for people to lay out a more concrete and coherent vision if they actually want to be, to have a different council president, because so far, the only person that has a real concrete vision is councilor Canal. And the only thing that we've heard from council president pirtle-guiney is that maybe she'll take some of his ideas if she gets elected again, but he's the only one bringing new ideas, so I'm not going to be talked about like we are lacking maturity. We have already shown that we will do this. And again, what does it mean to be a progressive or to be in the progressive caucus? I'll happily step away with councilor Greene as well, if it ends this whole ridiculous discussion. Because what it means to be a progressive is not a description or a vibe, it is an action. So we will continue to hold oil companies accountable. We will continue to investigate when our police officers are attacking protesters. We are going to continue to make sure that we are prioritizing the needs of the working class people of this city, and so I can leave the peacock title. If it so comforts you. That doesn't mean that I'm going to change how what I choose to prioritize in the city. Thank you.
160 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Dunphy.
161 Madam chair, I apologize for the interruption. We have a bit of housekeeping at nine.
162 Oh. Thank you, I am sorry. We do have a housekeeping item. We have an item on the next meeting's agenda. The one that was scheduled for 930. That is a time certain item for 945. We are not able to pick up that item right now, because we are in the middle of a different meeting. As noted on the agenda that was posted today, the regular council meeting is being delayed until 2 p.m. To accommodate this recessed meeting from last week. The regular meeting agenda item, titled annex, the 548 southwest hilltop Lane property, is the item that was noticed as time certain for 945 today. For anybody who is here in person or online to participate in that time certain item, we will hear it at the next council session, which I am optimistic will begin as posted at 2 p.m. It will be taken up in the same order that it is posted online, and you can see the online council agenda for information on how to testify on that item. If you are here to testify on that item, we hope to see you back a little bit after 2:00 this afternoon. Thank you, councilor Dunphy. Go right ahead.
163 Thank you. Colleagues, I want to start by saying that I slept really horribly last night about how this day was going to run. And right now, I have a tummy ache. That's fine. I signed up for this job. I fought for this job. And I'm really grateful to my neighbors for sending me here to do this job. But I hate this. Today's decision matters. The council president sets the tone, the process, and the the culture for how we govern. And I'm really thankful to my colleagues up here who have recentered this conversation already today. My vote has always been about what I believe is best for this body, and I will reiterate that I am immensely thankful to councilor Pirtle-guiney for her leadership this year. It was an incredibly hard role to step into, and she stepped into it and did it far better than I could have. And I think better than any of the rest of us could have. And I think that this year was always going to be messy, and she did a great job. My vote is not a vote against her. My vote is for the health of this body and for setting the precedent for the next 100 years of leaders in our community. I genuinely believe that leadership grows when it is shared, and that in these first few years, we are under a particular burden to try and welcome a change of how things are done. And I will say that I have my own personal preferences for who I think follows in leadership, but I believe that there are counter to what I heard some of my colleagues say. I think that there are 12 individuals up here who are fully qualified to be council president. I am choosing to support Sameer Kanal. I believe that Sameer Kanal is immensely qualified. He brings he brings a deep procedural knowledge, real experience in the work and a clear, disciplined vision for how this body can function better. He laid out a presidency that is process oriented, transparent and equitable for all councilors, not just a few, and that matters in a body as diverse as this one. And we need to be honest with ourselves. Portland has a long history of exclusion and a political culture where money and influence have too often spoken louder than equity and fairness. I will note that a lot of that inequity has been racial, has been economic. But I will also note that representing district one, the east side of Portland, it has also been geographic, but I'm a bald white guy. I can sit down at any table in the world. The more progressive councilors of this, sorry, the more progressive councilors of color have faced coordinated criticism and hostility, both publicly and behind the scenes. Far more criticism than me. The story in the Portland mercury laid this reality bare. That context cannot be ignored. And just last week, as folks spoke about why a progressive caucus was formed in the first place, political, powerful political players were sitting in this room right over there, actively using racist language and narratives in real time with each other in one breath, while talking about removing power and representation with the other. It really only underscores why representation alone is not enough. We have to center that representation in our leadership. And I will say, it makes me really uncomfortable that for the second year in a row, folks are hesitant to vote for an immensely qualified candidate who happens to be a person of color. I'm not saying that that is the reason for anyone's vote, but I do think that we should all take inventory of our biases, conscious or unconscious. Sameer Kanal has the skills. He has the vision and the integrity to lead this council. A vote for Sameer is a vote for strong process, fair governance and a council that actually will live up to its values. So I urge our colleagues, let's vote and let's vote for Sameer Kanal. Thank you.
164 Thank you, councilor Councilor Koyama Lane.
165 First, I want to sincerely thank our current council president for her opening remarks denouncing the dehumanizing texts that occurred in this very room last week. These texts matter not for the sake of outrage or spectacle, but because they do reveal something deeper about the health of our city government and the culture that surrounds it. And I want to say, in addition to council president taking a stand here on the dais, she's also said something online. And council president also spoke directly with me face to face yesterday, human being to human being, and checked in on how I'm doing after having to read those disgusting words about my body and my appearance, and about japanese people as a whole, that meant something to me and is notable. And thank you. Okay, as we head into another critical day of deliberation, I want to I want to share and be clear why I have consistently supported councilor Sameer canal for council president. I deeply respect his leadership style, his professionalism, and his intentionality. Councilor Kanal is thoughtful about process grounded in the responsibility we carry as a legislative body. And he's very serious about governance. I chaired the governance committee over the last year. I've been able to do that, and outside of the actual members on the committee, he joined the governance committee to support us in workshopping policies and legislation during committee, more than any of the other colleagues. I want to name also the strength of his council office team that he's built around him, which says a lot to me. It's a team that's clear eyed, focused, deeply conscientious about how decisions are made, how power is exercised. And I think that kind of leadership infrastructure matters, especially in a new system where trust, transparency and steadiness are very essential to the health of this council and the city that we serve. And on a more personal note, it's been a profound honor to serve alongside councilor Kanal as the first two asian Americans ever elected to Portland city government. You know, being the the first is often framed as celebratory. But the reality is it can also be lonely and heavy. And there are pressures, expectations, scrutiny, scrutiny that's not always visible. And being able to navigate this moment with you. Councilor Kanal someone that understands and respects that experience, and someone who leads with care and integrity, has meant a great deal to me. So I'm proud to vote for you. Thank you.
166 Thank you. Councilor councilor Novick.
167 Three things one. I want to apologize to councilor Smith. Last year you raised this point about the charter, says the mayor breaks ties on matters before the council and matters before the council is comprehensive. And I should have supported you because you're right. And I sort of accepted that. Well, people are not going to go with that. And we should be able to elect a council president anyway. But I was wrong and you were right. Second, I'm concerned by the suggestion that nobody should worry about ethics issues if complaints were filed by bad people that the the experts that the Oregonian consulted on the first ethics complaint, who said they thought there was a violation, were not, I don't think bad people and the people who complained to me that they thought that I'd violated ethics rules were not bad people, and I'd see no evidence that the ethics commission are bad people. And I also want to say that the conflict of interest issue isn't just about the gift ban. It's about the appearance of a conflict of interest being represented by somebody who has business before the council. And finally, I wanted to say that I'm not going to reiterate all of it, but I did lay out some of the things that, contrary to what councilor Morillo says, I did lay out some of the things I'd want to do as council president. I brought up the idea of of an airing, of periodic airing of grievances, which is not a joke. I think that it should happen, and it should have happened in this last year. I talked about how we need to improve our communication with the executive and their communication with us. I talked about having cooperative discussions about what to prioritize on the council agenda, that that's not something that the president has to decide alone. We can talk about what issues are coming up and what issues all of us think should should come up quicker. So I agree that councilor Kanal has spelled out a vision for what he would do with the council presidency, and I think councilor Smith did too. But I, I did say some stuff. Thank you.
168 Thank you councilor.
169 Councilor Smith.
170 Thank you, council president. I'm a black woman. I am a mother. I'm a grandmother. I'm a community member. I'm a niece, a sister, a daughter. And. The idea that someone would put me forward to lead this council is huge. So I thank you, councilor Zimmerman, for having that faith in me. But I want to go back to something and then I'll be done with it. Council president, it was said last week it wasn't lost on some councilors who councilor Canal is, but it's not lost on me that our current president is a lgbt woman who happens to be Jewish. I had a meeting with a group of Jewish community members who were upset last week here in this building because they thought that some of the comments about council president were anti-semitic. Y'all don't want to talk about that. I'll be the first one to defend any of the people of color in the peacocks. When something happens, but it was outrageous, unconscionable, and unnecessary to say the things that some of you all said about our council president. Now. We have to make a decision here. We have to make a decision on what we're going to do. Everybody knows what I care about. I care about fixing our streets, filling our potholes, maintaining and modernizing our infrastructure, and ensuring that our police and fire bureaus have what they need to keep people safe. In the city of Portland, delivering those core services. That's who I am, and that's who I will be as council president. So it would be an honor to represent you all and to break this gridlock and councilor Green. I'm not going to call out one person and say it's their responsibility to change. I'm saying to all of the peacocks, support me. Make that decision so that we can get on with the business, about being the business, about our business. Right. So it's not on Elana. It's on all of us to say who we want and how we want. And. I will end. Thank you again, Elana pirtle-guiney, for your leadership and your grace.
171 Thank you, councilor. Thank you, councilor Avalos.
172 I think my response to the discussion so far is that it has been incredibly strange and lacking in accountability, and I'm going to leave it at that. Colleagues, I want to offer a final thought before we vote. At this point, we've heard all the arguments. We've tested the concerns, we've watched these narratives rise and fall. And what has become clear to me is that this decision is no longer about uncertainty. It is about courage. We are being asked to choose what kind of leadership we want for this council. Sameer canal is prepared to lead full stop. He is thoughtful, disciplined and serious about governance. He understands process not as a tool for control, but as a structure that allows everyone here to do their work effectively. And he is consistent, fair and principled. He listens. He explains his reasoning very clearly, especially when asked direct questions. He respects disagreement without punishing it. This is exactly what this council needs. I've heard many of you say across this dais out loud that Sameer is smart, capable and qualified. I've heard praise for his judgment, his temperament, temperament, which we clearly saw earlier today. I am incredibly impressed with how you have shown up today. Deep respect. When there is that level of agreement on competence, the question becomes simple what are we waiting for? Because it is no longer credible to say this is about readiness. What we are really deciding today is whether we are willing to move forward when leadership looks different from something that we are accustomed to, and whether we are willing to stand by our stated values when doing so feels uncomfortable. This council is diverse by design. Our city voted for this change, and that change only matters if we are willing to honor it with our actions, not just our rhetoric. Sameer has demonstrated that he can steward this body with integrity. He has demonstrated that he can balance strong leadership with shared power, and he has demonstrated that he can guide us through disagreement without fear or favoritism. We don't need perfection. We need trust. We need fairness. We need someone who will lead this council as a whole, not from the center of power, but in service to it. That person is Sameer canal. I urge my colleagues to bring this process to a close. Finally, act with clarity and conviction and vote Sameer as council president.
173 Thank you councilor.
174 Counselor. Zimmerman.
175 I'm hearing your words, council president, in terms of considerations besides yourself and. I'll take that seriously. It's why I nominated councilor Smith and councilor Novick was to to expand the debate, expand the questions, and I do look forward to that. I don't know what we'll see on the first vote, but I do look forward to the vision for all four candidates to continue to discuss. But I'll respect your your comments at the beginning. And I and I say that with. You know, last year when there was a deadlock or there was no conclusion, when I think it was councilor Olivia Clark who was up for president. And then we we approached you. And I think you've led well this year. I also want to give praise to your staff. You know, natalie and devin and ella, the amount of work it takes to staff the council president is more work than it takes to count to staff me, and I think that is probably applicable to the rest of us. And so to that team who, when the rest of us were getting our footing, you guys had to be at 100% on, on day two, essentially. And so the the people we surround ourselves with and our staff is important. And yours has treated my team with great respect and I've seen great respect happen. And what I think is your team has created a positive environment for all the other staffs on this floor. So I just want to give some credit to you in in this time. I still think that you represent likely the most experienced and a good path forward for council president. And I agree with councilor Smith, I didn't get everything that I wanted from you, but I, I felt you led fairly. I felt that you navigated moments of emotion and, and turmoil in our city and sometimes in this room with. Proper deference, proper calmness. That helped me as a as another councilor. So I want to just thank you for that. I'm very much considering, you know, councilor Loretta Smith and councilor Steve Novick and. I do hope that we will get to more information about what folks are hoping to bring to the council in the in the future, but I cannot let today forget your first year of service to this, to this body. And I don't think it was the last year that you will be the council president by any means.
176 Thank you councilor. I hope.
177 You're looking into the future when you say that. Councilor Clark.
178 Thank you, council president. I don't need to repeat the remarks that I made in earlier meetings. I don't feel the need to do that. But I do want to ask a question about the upcoming vote and the process. And maybe it's a question for legal as well. Is it possible that we can take what's on the dies now? The four people who've been nominated and vote each one individually? Is it possible to do that kind of a vote? One, two, three, four as or let me offer another suggestion. I think somebody already kicked this around. Could we do a ranked choice? Is that possible? I see, I see head nodding no, but I'm just going to throw that out to see if anybody has any thoughts about that, that we would vote for council president. Council canal councilor Canal councilor Smith. Councilor Novick something like that. Do one individually as opposed to all at once.
179 Councilor.
180 If I may, I would like to pose this question to our attorney in two parts. The first being what do the rules specifically allow for or tell us to do? And the second being what options would we have on the table if we suspended the rules that are allowed under the charter, but might be different than what the rules in code specifically state? And maybe that's the same, I don't know, I am I am making this up as we go here, but I don't know if that might offer us any color.
181 Thank you. As you will recall, when we began this election procedure last week, the council adopted adopted the procedure you would be using. And if you would like to adopt a different procedure at this point, you could make a motion and a second and vote on a different procedure. I, I would say that under robert's rules, it it generally supports the procedure we have been using. That is why we have been using it. And so that includes when you vote, you have all four candidates. You know, you'd have the four candidates. You vote on all four of them at the same time. Yes or no. If you want to adopt a different procedure where you vote on each individual person, you'd have to decide the order in which you're going to vote on them and that kind of thing. Robert's rules does talk about what it what it calls cumulative voting. That is similar to the ranked choice voting concept. Robert's is generally disfavors that because in the in the view of robert's rules, it violates the fundamental parliamentary principle of one person, one vote. But if this body wanted to adopt that procedure by rule, it could do so.
182 Thank you robert.
183 So what we have before us are rules that we've adopted. Where councilor You get one vote, you vote for one person. I see my colleague councilor Canal, who suggested other forms of voting earlier today looking at robert's rules right now. Colleagues, it would be my recommendation that since we're in the middle of a process for a vote, that we take this vote under the current rules, but that we could, if folks are interested, discuss different rules. If this vote doesn't produce a winner, because we do need to find some way out of this. I know that last year we said, let's go with what the recommendation in robert's rules is, but I don't think robert's rules conceived of this type of of deadlock. Councilor Smith.
184 You have.
185 Spoken twice this round.
186 Which is councilor Councilor president, can I oh.
187 I'm sorry.
188 All right. Can I make a motion that we consider or that we do a different process? And that process I would recommend is that we do an up or down vote on each individual, starting with our council president, followed by councilor Canal, followed by councilor Smith, followed by councilor Novick, four separate votes.
189 I believe that's the order in which folks were nominated colleagues. We have a motion on the table.
190 Second.
191 Okay. Mr. Mr. Taylor, is this a debatable motion or do we go straight to a vote?
192 This is a proposed rule of procedure, so it's debatable.
193 Okay. Colleagues, I, council counselor Smith, are you in the queue to debate this motion?
194 Yes. I appreciate councilor Clark in her very wise points about things. But I think at this moment, because we have not taken one vote with the new people who were added to the list before. We try to do something else, we just need to take a vote, because you might have a winner somewhere. And creating all this extra confusion about new stuff. I don't do well with that. I don't do well with that at all. No. So I would prefer to go forward. In your original thought council president about taking the vote. That's where I think we need to be headed at this point.
195 Thank you, counselor.
196 Councilor Morillo.
197 Thank you. I, for one, am kind of already frustrated by the procedural gimmicks that are going on. We put forward our candidates. You need to defend your candidates, and you need to have an affirmative case for why your candidate is the best one. If you cannot outline why your candidate should be president, or your candidate cannot articulate it well enough to get another vote, then we have a problem. I am very frustrated that the council president leading her own election is running the meeting. I think that's already created issues. I think the fact that we have to keep changing procedure or threatening to change procedure because people can't win on the merits is a serious problem. Again, I'm going to reiterate this one last time. Some of the other alternatives for ideas for what I would do differently is I'll talk to people about their grievances. But I'm going to be so sensitive about disagreements that I might ask some colleagues to switch seats during a meeting because I can't handle sitting next. Someone who's upset with me or. I'm just being honest. The only person who has made an affirmative case of what they would do differently is councilor Canal. So please let us get on with the show and stop using procedural gimmicks to try to game the system. When people have not reached consensus.
Procedural episode · turns 198–206
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198 Keelan can.
199 You please call the roll? I'm sorry. Okay, this is a vote. I'm sorry. Thank you counselor. I was in my own head there because I was going to make comments and realize that they probably were not germane to the motion before us, so I held back and did not do a good job summarizing. Colleagues, the motion before us is on whether to councilor Clerk I don't believe you proposed a new rule. You proposed that we take up new rules. Is that correct?
200 Either way. What did. You specifically.
201 You did you did specifically propose an order. Okay. Whether we change our rules to vote on each individual candidate individually accepting the results of whichever candidate received the most votes. If there is a candidate who receives a majority of votes. Votes. Is that accurate? Okay, that is the motion before us. A yes vote would change our procedures. A no vote would continue us, put us back in debate of the candidates currently on the table under our current procedures.
202 Point of order. How many votes do you need to win? 7 or 9.
203 Taylor. Is this a seven or a nine vote?
204 So this vote would be to adopt a new rule of procedure. So that would take seven votes. And then if if that carries. Then you would proceed with the vote in the manner that councilor Clark laid out, where you would vote on each individual in turn to elect a council president, it still takes a majority vote. So somebody would have to get seven votes. And I, I believe the if, if the if you call the president first, then you get seven votes, then you would be elected. If you don't get seven votes, then there'd be an up or down vote on canal. If he does not get if he gets seven votes in that round, then he would be elected. If he does not, then we would go to the third person, have an up or down vote on that person and see if they could get seven votes. I believe that is the procedure we would be following if this rule is adopted.
205 Point of clarification.
206 Counselor greene.
207 Mr. Taylor is my understanding that our rules of procedure are codified by ordinance.
208 You do have rules of procedure that are codified by ordinance. We do not have the the specific rules regarding exactly how this procedure on the election will happen. Was made by motion and voted on by this council on Wednesday. And so it is a more detailed procedure than what is provided for under the code.
209 So but you're saying that to amend that change, that that's not a change to an ordinance which would require nine votes in this case.
210 Correct? Correct. It's you're by this motion, you're essentially amending the procedure that you adopted on Wednesday.
211 Thank you, mr. Taylor.
212 Colleagues, seeing no one else in the queue for discussion. Keelan, could you please call the roll?
213 No.
214 Dunphy.
215 No.
216 Smith.
217 No.
218 Canal.
219 No.
220 Ryan.
221 Yes.
222 Koyama Lane.
223 No.
224 Morillo.
225 No.
226 Novick.
227 Yes.
228 Clark.
229 Yes.
230 Green.
231 No.
232 Zimmerman.
233 Yes.
234 Pirtle-guiney.
235 No. Though I note I am very open to this. After this next vote.
236 The motion fails with four yes votes and eight no votes.
237 Colleagues see no one else in the queue. Councilor Ryan.
238 Thank you, council president. I realize I haven't said anything about today's vote. I just want to clarify a couple things. For the record, I did compromise last year when I switched my vote from councilor Clark to councilor Pirtle-guiney. It was a big leap of faith for me, and I asked for the false narrative about only part of this council making compromises to please stop. And let's get present with today and reflect on what is best for the city today. Second, like councilor Novick's admission, I also made a mistake by not joining councilor Smith and Zimmerman last year to allow the mayor to break the tie, hence bringing that back. Today, I will also say that I was really struck by your leadership last week when this body again faced a tragic emergency in our community. How you stayed calm working with local government leaders, presenting a calm and unified front that's so important. And I watched you do that from afar, and it was very impressive. We need a person in this leadership role that does act as that team captain. It's not about themselves, but here for the team, particularly important during times of challenging crisis, which we are currently constantly in during this administration. From afar, I'll be voting for those who are experienced bridge builders today. Thanks.
239 Thank you councilor. Colleagues, we've heard a couple of times that neither councilor Novick or councilor Smith have made arguments for what they would do as president, and nobody else has made arguments for their qualifications. And I believe last week I made some significant arguments for both of their qualifications. I did not have those written down, and I don't know that I am of the place to be able to say it quite as eloquently today. So I'm not going to try. But I do want to say before we move to a vote, because I think that that has been stated a number of times and just isn't true in stating it over and over doesn't make it true that I believe councilor Novick your experience, your thoughtfulness, your willing to take issues on the merit, your track record, both in the last year and prior to that of service and of service. Working with different people on different issues as they come forward and listening to your colleagues. Is indisputable and an important piece of this work. Councilor Smith. Your ability to reach into community, to bring people to this room, to say things that are critical and need to be said in the moment, are also qualities that are necessary in a council president, and you bring those forward. I could say much more about each of you and that I said one thing about one of you and something else about the other, doesn't mean that you don't also have those characteristics and qualifications, but I just want to make sure it's clear on the record that there are many reasons to vote for my colleagues. Thank you. Councilor seeing no one else in the queue. Keelan can you please call the roll?
240 Okay, great. Avalos canal.
241 Dunphy canal.
242 Smith. Loretta canal.
243 Canal.
244 Ryan.
245 Councilor. Smith.
246 Koyama Lane councilor Kanal Morillo.
247 Future president. Councilor. Canal.
248 Novick.
249 Councilor. Smith.
250 Clark.
251 Councilor. Smith.
252 Green.
253 Canal.
254 Zimmerman.
255 Smith.
256 Pirtle-guiney.
257 Smith.
258 Councilor. Canal receives six votes. Councilor Smith receives six votes.
259 Councilor Zimmerman.
260 Thank you. I would just move for a short recess for humanitarian purposes.
261 I think that's a good suggestion. I was looking at 1030, but let's do it now. Colleagues, let's take a 15 minute recess. We will be back here at 1039. Welcome back. We are reconvening our meeting. Colleagues. We finished a vote just prior to recess, which means we are in another round of debate. And I want to point out I'm in the queue. I hate being in the queue first. There's been a lot of talk about sides and who our constituents are, and I get it as. Somebody who spent a lot of time in the labor movement, I respect solidarity, respect for that. Colleagues. But as my colleague councilor Canal talked about earlier, we all serve the same constituents. And so this idea that we have our constituents and that we have sides in these boxes that we're putting each other in are really hard for me. And so I just I want to ask a question because there's been a lot of talk about compromise. And I have some colleagues who have said we switched from our first choice person to somebody else last time, and we did so this time. And I have other colleagues who said, but we gave the vote to break the tie last time, so you should this time. And there are different ways to look at compromise. I think compromise is about trying to find a path that gets more people on board. And so I'm just curious and I know nobody has to answer. We're in the middle of a meeting. I can just make remarks and you can ignore them. But I'm wondering if anybody else has spoken to more than one person who voted differently from you last week about what a compromise might be. Not vote for my person, but is there another person who could be put forward because I did?
262 Me too.
263 And I don't know that everybody did. And I just hope that as we go through another round, I hope that as we go through another round, we get somewhere. But if we don't, I hope that folks can spend some time having conversations about how we can get to a true compromise. Where more people can feel good about our leadership team moving forward. Councilor Smith, go right ahead.
264 Thank you, council president. Those are some wise words. But before we get to that, I know that this is going to go. Keep going going going going. The council's deadlocked six six and 11 round ties to elect council president. Despite the Portland city charter. Section 2-401 stating the mayor shall vote on matters before the council in case of a tie. It is one sentence we were given a four page interpretation about one sentence, and I respectfully disagree with our city attorney, who issued a restrictive opinion in early 2025 that the mayor's tie breaking duties only applies to final ordinances, not procedural votes like leadership. And in this kind of election. So we're going to cut off some time and I'm going to address you, city attorney, I respect you, I appreciate you. And we have worked well together this past year. We disagree on one thing. Your interpretation of the charter. I would like to ask that we get a declaratory judgment from a judge to view our charter so that we can have an outside person tell us what was meant. Until we do that, we're going to be going back and forth, back and forth. And I would ask you to do the declaratory judgment. But since you wrote the opinion, I would like you to put aside some money so that we could identify a.
265 Line of order. Madam president, I do not believe that this is germane to what what we're discussing.
266 We're we're discussing the vote, and I'm telling him another pathway forward. I'm sorry. It's not your turn.
267 Are you suggesting that this is related to the election today or.
268 Yes, it is related to the election today. And I'm talking to the city attorney because we're deadlocked right now. And unless we do something, we have to have an outside party. Tell us and tell us what is it in the in the charter.
269 Councilor.
270 Could you please answer? Please advise.
271 Go ahead, mr. Taylor.
272 Thank you. I. I think I think council has a couple of different options at this point. So you thank you for your kind words, I appreciate it. I have issued an opinion on my interpretation of the charter. That is that is my opinion.
273 If which is not which is not the ordinance is not it is not binding. So say I just want you to say that.
274 Let him finish.
275 Let's. This is my question, councilor.
276 Let's get mr. Taylor's answer. And then, counselor, if you have a motion germane to the debate today, let's get that on the table.
277 Okay.
278 Mr. Taylor.
279 And the the the interpretation of the charter does take precedence over the code. Council has adopted a code provision that also prohibits the mayor from breaking a tie. However, ultimately, it's up to this council to decide its rules. It's up to this council to decide the interpretation of the charter as it pertains to their procedures. So if this council, by a majority vote, decides on a different interpretation of the charter, that would allow the mayor to vote, then a motion could be made and seconded and we can vote on that. And if the council by majority decides that the charter does allow the mayor to break a tie on the election of the president, then we could proceed in that manner. So that is one way you could handle that today. The second way you could handle it, although I don't think it would be resolved today, it would take more time, but there could be a a declaratory judgment or validation proceeding filed. City attorney could file that. Outside council could file that. Any member of the council, I believe, in their official capacity, could use their office budget to hire an outside counsel to prosecute that type of a claim if they wanted to. Councilors who are opposed to that could likewise use their office budget to hire counsel to litigate those issues. But that is another way that this issue could get settled. I, I would say that. You can either let a judge make that decision or council itself, as a body can decide how it wants to handle that by adopting an interpretation of the charter that suits the council.
280 City attorney taylor, this body has already decided how to do it, and I think it's wrong. I think it is direct. It is in direct conflict of the charter. And I believe you should have suggested these things earlier last year. That was your job as our as our city attorney. You know good and well that an ordinance does not trump a charter. And I think the mayor needs to be here. He needs to do his job and take this second seven vote. So what you're saying is that we can use our office budgets to sue the city of Portland for a decorative declaratory judgment from an outside entity who will look at everything and look at our charter to see. And we would also have to have some sort of restraining order to stop this proceedings from going forward until we get that declaratory judgment. Is that what you're saying?
281 Yes. You can. I believe it is appropriate, since this is an issue affecting council as a whole and individual councilors, for a councilor to use their office budget to hire an outside counsel to file whatever motions they want, it might be a temporary restraining order. It would be up to the outside counsel to make those decisions. We, as the city would, would defend that action.
282 So councilor.
283 Can I.
284 Say just one thing? This is not I have asked for counsel, counsel for the councilors to have their own counsel. This is not anything new. And like I said, I appreciate the work that you have done and your and your team of 58 lawyers for us. But I think there is a clear misunderstanding of what plain language I asked my my colleague who was the chair of the charter committee, what was the intent of giving the mayor.
285 I'm sorry, but we are getting far off track. If there is something here in the line of questioning leading to a motion right now, I'm happy to let you continue.
286 I'd like us to.
Procedural episode · turns 287–310
Parliamentary activity detected in this stretch (see the markers above). An editor-reviewed analysis has not been published for this episode yet.
287 I don't want us to just move down the path of.
288 I'd like us to recess because I would like. Thank you. Thank you, madam president, but I'd like to recess because I'd like to get a declarative judgment on this and move this until we can get a declarative judgment of information.
289 This is not germane.
290 Germane.
291 Point of order.
292 Thank you. Okay.
293 Recess to then figure out how to sue the city of Portland. This is this is not germane.
294 Point of order. Wait wait wait wait wait. Order. Councilor. Hold on. Councilor. You asked for a point of information. Is there something that you have to ask?
295 I'm asking the council president if she believes that this is germane. Or is the discussion of the council presidents under consideration germane?
296 I thought that councilor Smith was moving toward a question that she might use in her deliberations today, which I thought was germane. It sounds as though that's not happening, which is why I asked for clarification of what she was doing.
297 I move.
298 I councilor Hold on. I hear a point of order from councilor Avalos and I would like to recognize her. And then councilor Smith, I would like you to get back to your motion. Councilor Avalos.
299 Point of order to robert taylor. What? It is unclear to me what you are saying because. Are you saying suggesting that one councilor Without a vote can say in the future we would like to investigate this, bring it to a judge, whatever. And that that is going to halt our procedure. Why is that? The power of one councilor to determine a future action that is not really relevant to the current thing? I don't understand your point. Could you please re-explain.
300 Thank you. The there. There is a there is a legitimate legal question under the charter about whether the mayor is entitled to break a tie on the election of the council president, and I have provided my advice on that topic, and I did that a year ago. I may be wrong. And I also as as your lawyer, I believe in the rule of law. I believe in the court system. And if if the only way to get past this is to get a court to decide the interpretation of the charter, and to have a court decide if I am right or if I'm wrong, I am entirely comfortable with that. And what councilor Smith is bringing up is just procedurally, how we would get a court to decide that issue. How would we get that legal issue in front of a judge and a way to do that is for a councilor to use their budget to hire an outside lawyer, to file a lawsuit against the city, seeking clarification through a declaratory judgment action on the meaning of the charter. That is a way to do that. And the if such a lawsuit was filed, then the city attorney's office would defend that lawsuit. We would argue in favor of the interpretation that our office has provided, but it would be, I think, appropriate for another lawyer hired by a councilor to argue the other side of that. And we can have a judge decide. I think that is the rule of law, and I certainly believe I'm right. But I am more than willing to admit that I might be wrong.
301 But what does that mean for this meeting? Is what I'm asking.
302 So. So for this meeting, because a declaratory judgment action would take time. It would take time. What you could do here is again, you have options. But what you could do is adjourn this meeting. You could adjourn this meeting. You will not have elected a president that would allow you to move on, to have future meetings under the code, with the previous president presiding. So that's an option. You could you could stay in this recessed meeting and just keep recessing it and reconvening it until you ultimately get a decision from a judge. That's a possibility. So the council does have some options. I do I get the feeling that this question of whether to adjourn or to recess is going to be of importance. And so I want to just let folks know the procedure there. So the council president can adjourn or recess a meeting by unanimous consent. Without objection. If there is an objection to that, then it would require a motion, a second, and a vote in order to adjourn or recess.
303 And a vote of seven. Correct?
304 Correct. A majority of those present to to adopt those procedures.
305 Thank you, mr. Taylor. Councilor Avalos, is that complete?
306 Your point of order, councilor Smith, I believe you are about to make a motion.
307 Yes, I move that we adjourn or recess until we can get a declaratory judgment from a judge that we officially know for sure, because it's not going to sit well with me. And I heard my counselors here, Steve Novick and Dan Ryan, who said they wish that they could change their vote on what they did. I see my counselor clerk saying she's shaking and nodding her head. She wished she could have changed her vote because this would have prevented us from being in this situation. Today. I don't have a problem with using any of my staff budget to go and get a a lawyer to put this in, because I think until it is settled in a court, because we're in a constitutional crisis, because our charter is our constitution, we're in a crisis right now and we need to settle this crisis. And that's why I'd like to move for you to recess or adjourn.
308 A motion has been made to move to a recess. Is there a second?
309 Okay, there's a motion and a second. Mr. Taylor, is this debatable or do we move straight to a vote?
310 Motion to recess is not debatable.
311 Okay. Just checking. I don't want to get this wrong. I know there are a lot of heightened emotions here. Keelan, can you please call the roll on the motion to recess?
312 Unless.
313 Absolutely not.
314 Dunphy.
315 No.
316 Smith I.
317 Canal no. Ryan I. Koyama Lane nope.
318 Morillo.
319 You are all again using procedural gimmicks to get around the council president vote. Absolutely not.
320 Novick I.
321 Mark I'm voting I on the understanding that this is for a recess and we can do other things during this recess as well.
322 I Green. No Zimmerman. I pirtle-guiney.
323 Colleagues.
324 We just got back from recess. We will have another recess, I am sure, because I don't see this resolving soon. So I will vote no. Knowing that we will get to that recess.
325 The motion fails with five yes votes and seven no votes.
326 Counselor Smith, anything further?
327 Thank you for putting that that on. Thank you.
328 Counselor Green.
329 Thank you, madam president. We are not in a constitutional crisis. We are in a situation where this council has failed to elect a city councilor, which is it's the duty of of the council. And you need seven votes to do that. I think the there's there are several ways to resolve this. My preferred way is people change their minds, and we show the leadership that we need to show to make a decision so we can move forward in this city. The second best way is that someone can make a motion to adopt new rules, so we we can figure out how to make it through this situation, not rely upon the city attorney to tell us what's in the city. Attorney, by the way, has already made a determination what they think he thinks the. The interpretation the charter is city council has adopted rules of procedure that clarify that. So the second preferred method is us for for us to introduce something to clarify that further. So we can then do something different. The worst possible thing we can do is use our office budgets to sue the city. And that is not something that I will seek to see in a council president. A council president should be someone who does not think the way out of this mess is to recess to sue the city. And I say that with all the respect in the world, for all the other reasons that the council, the candidate for the council president, has sought the office or has accepted the nomination for the office. But I frankly think it's deeply unserious to suggest that that's how we resolve this. If we have to get to a world in which we we adopt rules that say the mayor breaks the tie, that is something that we can debate. That is something that we can do as this body to pass by ordinance to clarify the intent of the charter. I think if we want to create a constitutional crisis, and I think if we want to frankly undermine the institutional veracity of this, of this city, we start suing because we can't elect a city council president for the second year in a row. So I will not be supporting councilor Smith for council president for that reason.
330 Thank you, counselor.
331 Councilor Morillo.
332 Thank you. Yeah, I was saying this earlier. There are procedural gimmicks that are being used because our colleagues can't compromise, and that is extremely frustrating. I do not think the future leader of our council is going to be offering up suing our city during a time where we already have a very limited and tight budget. That does not make any sense to me. And this is just profoundly unserious at this point. I would like to hear our candidates reassert their affirmative cases for why they should be council president. The way out of this conundrum is not going to be procedural rules, which I'll point out. No one brought up the constitutional crisis of the charter until they realized that a vote from the mayor would benefit them because they couldn't get a seventh vote. No one brought that up until it was useful to them. So I also am going to just translate for the public that may be watching this. The reason this is happening is because, as we may have been watching, the progressive caucus tends to be critical of the mayor's shelter plan, how it's impacting unhoused people, how it's impacting people of color. And so, of course, the mayor is likely to choose a council president that is going to be supportive of his vision. That's the translating. That's not happening for people who don't track this as closely, but it does not make sense to say that this is purely a good governance issue or a constitutional crisis or any of those things, because it was only brought up when it was done in favor of their candidates. So let's just be open about that. Also, robert taylor has made very clear policies and very clearly outlined the reasons why this decision was made. We have had a whole year to discuss that. If we didn't like it, nobody has done that till now. So I beg my colleagues to be serious right now and to not do this anymore. We need people to reassert why it is that they are the council president, why they are the one. I think, again, councilor Kanal has very clearly outlined how and why he would do that. He's also demonstrated that in his relationships. I would love to see that from other folks. I don't see that right now. And turning to sue the city over this is just. It's very disappointing that this is where we're at. I want to hear some other people explain why exactly they think councilor Kanal should not be the candidate, if that. If they so choose to dig in their heels over that. Because what I heard earlier was maybe issues of temperament, but I can point to each of the candidates, and I say this as someone with temperament stuff, okay, but most of us up here have had some temperament moments, so let's not pretend that that is a disqualifying thing to sit on this Portland city council. We are a fiery bunch. I just I can't pick out any standard by which councilor Kanal is being held to that other people are also being held to, but what I can say is that everybody had positive, affirmative things to say about councilor Canal that he is a serious leader, that he does work with people much more graciously than I ever planned to. So I'm just really asking for some maturity and some forward movement here that does not involve suing our city. Thank you.
333 Thank you. Councilor councilor Clerk thank you. Clark, I don't believe you've had any temperament explosions this year. I just would like to point that out.
334 I'll work on it. And if I do, they're behind closed doors, as you well know. Colleagues, I, I would like and this may be something politically incorrect to say, but I want to stop beating a dead horse here. I just think we've all made our points. We've made them repeatedly. We know what our viewpoints are. We know about the characteristics of our colleagues because we've been sitting here working with them for a year. What I'd really prefer that we do is to find some sort of an alternative path forward in voting, some alternative method that's going to get us to where we need to be. But I'm I really can we I'm just going to implore that we we stop beating the dead horse, that we stop repeating everything that we've already said multiple times and move ahead, please. Thank you.
335 Thank you. Councilor councilor Smith, your second time this round.
336 Thank you. Council president Elana pirtle-guiney. I just want to say that some of the things that councilor Morillo said are not true. Someone on this council last week said that I was probably the seventh peacock, that I voted more with the peacocks than anybody else sitting up here. So I guess I have some progressive credibility. I also want to disagree with councilor Morillo, who said no one has outlined what they will do. I outlined infrastructure, maintaining our streets. That would be my my priority, ensuring that the police and fire bureaus have what they need to keep our people safe. Delivering a balanced budget is what I will be working towards and delivering core services that define a functioning city. We are not the homeless corporation of America, but we have to make sure that people who are on our city streets have a place to stay in our shelters, and the mayor has done that. I don't know what else you want more from me? I've worked with you. I've sponsored. I've been a co-sponsor on your bills and others. But to say we have an outline, it may not be the outline that you want and to try to tell people that we haven't said who we are and that people haven't spoken on our behalf, on who we are. And I agree with councilor Clark to just go over this and over this again and again. At some point, it's going to get ugly like it did last week with councilor Pirtle-guiney. And I don't think y'all want to go there. I don't want to go there. I just want us to vote again. If councilor Clark has a has an idea that she thinks that will get us to where we need to be. I don't want to sue the city, but every time we're in executive session, I can name each of the peacocks that have said that doesn't follow the charter. We can't do that. So when y'all say it, don't follow that we're not following the charter. It's okay. And to stand ten, ten toes down on it. But when I say we haven't been following the charter for a whole year, you're wrong. It wasn't true. I've been speaking on this for the whole year. I did not vote for that. Me and Eric Zimmerman were the only ones that didn't vote for it. So don't mischaracterize my record. Tell my record straight if you're going to tell it. I believe that we need people who will stand up, who are outstanding, people who understand the budget. I may not be a person who is a scholar in robert's rules of order, as my colleague, and I appreciate that. But it does not mean that I cannot govern. It does not mean that I will not listen to you, and it does not mean that I will try to go around you and do a roundabout. It means that I want all of us to be together and to work like we've worked this last year. We don't have to go there. I prefer not to because everybody knows what it is. Councilor Clark, put something on the on the table. Put a motion on the table so we can we can vote for it. Thank you.
337 Thank you, councilor.
338 Councilor Morillo I thought I saw council vice president Koyama Lane in the queue.
339 I accidentally.
340 Took myself out.
341 Do you mind if we return to her before I call on you?
342 Can I very briefly.
343 If you feel comfortable.
344 Yeah.
345 I can also.
346 Just get back in line.
347 Sorry.
348 No.
349 I'm sorry. Council vice president councilor Morillo.
350 Just a very briefly direct respond. Councilor Smith, I know that you're a fighter for district one. I have seen you stand up for your community in a way that has never been represented on council before, and I honor that. I will say the things that you listed are just things that a regular city councilor Should do, and they're a policy values around focusing on roads, focusing on infrastructure, focusing on housing. What I am asking for is a specific platforms around council president, what you are going to do with our committee structures, what you are going to do to facilitate disagreements, that sort of thing. What you have listed are all beautiful, wonderful things that I appreciate and I support, but that is not what I am asking for. I'm asking for a council president platform, not a regular city councilor Platform. Just wanted to clarify that.
351 Thank you.
352 Councilor councilor Novick.
353 So in the spirit of laying everything on the table. One of the things that I would do as council president is be a president for all of the council. Each single member. And I think that I gave a hint of the fact of that the other day when councilor Zimmerman attacked councilor Kanal character. And although I was not supporting councilor Kanal, I said that in my experience, what councilor Zimmerman was saying was not true. I called out, I responded to councilor Zimmerman by name, and I defended councilor Kanal by name. Last week, councilor Morillo leveled one of the most grievous insults anybody can level against. Anybody against me and councilor Clark. And it was clearly the two of us, because we were the two people that said that we didn't want to vote for any peacock. And I expected some peacock in particular, councilor Kanal, to stand up and say, I don't think that it was appropriate for councilor Morillo to level that insult. Now I have a strong relationship with councilor Kanal. I expect to continue to have a strong relationship with him if he is elected council president. I look forward to working with him, but we are all entitled to our feelings and I at this point am deeply hurt and I was waiting for somebody and I think it had to be somebody on the peacock side to speak in my defense, and nobody did.
354 Thank you, councilor Novick councilor Koyama Lane.
355 Sorry colleagues. I'm trying to gather myself because I wasn't expecting to feel emotional hearing that, because I actually feel really hurt. Councilor Novick that you haven't said a single word to me, or asked how I'm doing in the last couple of days to. Okay, I, I want to speak directly and with respect about where I am. On talking about councilor Smith and councilor Kanal having the six six. While I do not like this idea of suing the city, I want to. I want to say publicly that I have told councilor Smith that I respect her. I expect a lot. I respect a lot of things about her, her experience, her presence, what she brings to this council. I did not know her before getting sworn in, but my head of staff, mary lee, has known her for decades and has worked alongside her and has a lot of trust in her, and they've done a lot of important work together. And I will say that I am glad, councilor Smith, that you are my colleague, and I appreciate your leadership in ways that you've stood up over the last year. And I can even say that I, I would consider supporting you as vice president. I wish that some of this conversation happened earlier, but where we're at right now, that's where I am considering where we're at in this moment as a city, as our council, particularly as ice is terrorizing our community members. We have so much federal uncertainty. All we've witnessed over the last week, I believe strongly that councilor Kanal is who we need serving as council president right now. This is a moment that requires steadiness, intentional process, trust with community partners who already are feeling very vulnerable and targeted. And I will continue to support councilor Canal. I'll leave it at that.
356 Thank you. Councilor councilor Kanal.
357 Thank you. I was not aware to the degree that that moment had an impact on you. Councilor, last week, because I, I will say I remember the whole conversation as a, you know, a abstract what was said broadly but not exact words. And when you spoke earlier today, you didn't. I had already prepared something. So I didn't respond directly to your question. Right. You quoted and the particular quote that you gave I don't agree with. I'm very comfortable saying that. I don't think that. And I agree with counselor Smith, by the way, that there's identity for not just the people for whom it might be visible up here. Right? That, that that there are things that the rest of us experience, even some of us who have visible identity. There are parts of our identity that are not visible either, but and I also think it's worth pointing out that I have not had that experience with me or my staff with councilor Novick I've said it, I think you were out of the room for part of this last week. I have had a great working relationship with councilor Novick. I agree that we will have a great working relationship again afterwards. I don't think that the people who are supporting councilor Pirtle-guiney last week or anyone else now are doing so because of that, because of of the race, of the candidates. I don't think that what I do think well, I do think that there were some, some pretty ugly attacks and I appreciate councilor Novick calling those out last time. I really did appreciate that. And one, the one thing that I can say is that under the code. And this is this is our city code as it relates to. As it relates to the role of the president. This is 3.02.04 0b1b6. The presiding officer needs to ensure that councilors confine themselves to the question under debate and refrain from personal criticism. That is something I would be very comfortable doing if I had the gavel. I think you've seen that in the in the community and public safety committee where I've chaired. When it's my turn to. So I think that's something that's worth bringing up. I understand that there are a lot of emotions here because we are real people. The other thing I wanted to say is that I have a lot of respect for councilor Smith. This is. I'm not I don't think we should be going into this with the perspective of why someone is unqualified. Councilor Smith is qualified to do this, as I believe somebody else pointed out, all 12 of us are. It's a question of what's the vision of governance going forward. And I want to point out, you know, we had a meeting about our budget and we talked about a request that might come in the future. And this is this is relevant to it. It might not sound like it at first, but a request that might come in the future for a little additional money, because the 9.5% reduction in equity and engagement and bts all that stuff isn't coming through at 9.5%. And so this fiscal year, we might need to allocate more money because the reduction is less than that. And I opposed the reduction by 9.5% personally when we voted on it back in the budget in June. But I think it's really important that we say as a general rule and there are exceptions, and I think the charter is an exception. But I'm speaking generally here that when the council votes to do something that we need to then say, that's the decision of the council, right? That that's what we did, even if we didn't agree with it personally ourselves. That's something I think the council president has done a good job of this past year, by the way, among many other things she's done a very good job at. But I do think that that's a really important thing to note here, that it's the job to look at the institution and its health alongside a lot of the other considerations we have. And the institution is not. It is injured right now, and I would like to give it the chance to heal while we continue working on strengthening it in parallel.
358 Thank you, councilor Councilor Smith and Morillo, you have both spoken twice this round of debate. I'm going to give councilor Dunfee an opportunity to speak.
359 Thank you. I don't know that we're going to solve this right now, but I'm going to just sort of put this out there. We're obviously not moving like this is not happening. This is not working. I would like to propose that. And maybe this is a question to the nominees. Is there a different model we can consider? Is there a model where we have joint leadership where perhaps. The duties and responsibilities of the president are finite and defined? Is there a, a, a maybe even an interim step for co-leadership, while we also have an opportunity as a body to have some of those conversations? Again, another work session to have that conversation or a council debate about the role of the president or something. Is there any other path forward or any other model that anybody I don't know what that looks like, but I would love to just we got to find another path forward at this point, and I don't know what that is. So that's my only question.
360 Councilor is that a question to our colleagues or a question to the attorney? Because there are some legal limitations, but also some agreements we could make to get around them. Related to this that I've asked our attorney about previously, thinking this might come up.
361 I am currently interested to hear a reaction from my colleagues.
362 Okay.
363 Councilor Zimmerman, you've not spoken this round.
364 I guess the reason I'm speaking now is. I have very serious concerns, just in terms of, I think, to councilor Dunphy's point, in terms of the direction and what this means for this council, it may or may not be constitutional crisis, but it is a crisis. And I don't think this body is serving Portland well in this. I'm to the point now, and I don't think I ever would have said this, that I'm open to some of the things that were said earlier, like, can the vote for president this in these rules be a ranked choice situation, as was discussed a few different times by a few different people? I'm open to that at this point, because I think we do need to have a vote that puts this to bed and allows the government to continue moving forward. So to councilor Dunphy's point, and to answer your question specifically, I'm also looking for some feedback and how other people think about that. But to answer yours, I'm not really looking to change the role of council president and vice president, but I am open to considering how we vote. And I think that in what I read is that, I mean, I think I would demand as a councilor, like if we were to have something like ranked choice voting, that it be because I think doing that verbally is almost impossible. But a paper ballot that is then read openly so that everybody knows what was said, because our votes have to be public. But I also see deadlock coming if we don't change anything. So I have concern there as well. So I offer that up to just as for discussion colleagues.
365 Thank you. Councilor councilor Green. I believe this is your second time in the queue.
366 Yeah, I've already outlined my order of preference on how we deal with situations like this. And, you know, changing our method of voting is my second preferred method. And we may have to have that conversation to answer directly. Councilor dunphy's question for the good of the body. I think that's an interesting question, but I, I don't think that's something that we can kind of take up ad hoc in this moment of crisis, because I think it rises to the same level of gravity of consideration that we spent and deliberated on and are now maybe dealing with the consequences of when we talked about whether or not the mayor should break the tie. I think that's something that should happen in our governance committee. And I think councilors who are not on the governance committee should make time to attend that governance committee decision, provide testimony. These are all things, by the way, that the current council president has suggested is good practice because it is good practice. Councilor Kanal is also suggested that this is good practice. I think we may have to have that discussion. I think it would be hazardous to try to shoehorn that discussion in right now as an expedient method to solve this. I agree with my colleague councilor Zimmerman. I won't say my colleague to the left, because I know that would be confusing and annoy you, but we were in a crisis. We are in a crisis. This is a crisis of leadership. We need to we need to vote and we need to elect a city council president. We need to change our votes. Someone is going to have to change their vote and think about the good of the health of the city. I've already asked the council president to be that person to lead us out of this mess. I hope that you'll consider that continuously in good faith. Thank you.
367 Thank you, councilor Councilor Clark. I believe this is your second time in the queue. Go right ahead.
368 Thank you. Council president, I would first just like to reiterate that we we do need a different form of voting here, I think. I don't know what it is. I don't have any idea. But I did want to react a little bit to councilor Dunphy's questions and some of what I would be looking for. And I don't think these things have been addressed by the current candidates, but I would like to see in the future a leadership team. I would like to see, almost like the team of rivals that president lincoln put together, bring the rivals together, bring some sort of a team. But I would say that ultimately the council president, in coordination with the council vice president, retains the power to make the final decision. Otherwise, we're going to be here on many other things, not just this before us. I would like to know what people think about shrinking the number of committees. And I know that councilor Dunphy actually came forward with a proposal to do that. I think it was in August.
369 In April?
370 Oh, in April. Well, I remember maybe it was in August. And I think I thought it was a premature discussion and asked that we, we, we put it off until we had a less toxic environment, which I'm not feeling that right now, but I think that's something that the future leadership needs to consider is shrinking the number of committees. And I know that's difficult, but it may also save us some money. And I would hope that the future council president and vice president are able to work as a team to work more closely together. I don't know if that's power sharing necessarily, because, I mean, ultimately the buck has to stop somewhere. And I think that the final power needs to be vested in the council president. But those are just a few of my thoughts and reaction to your question. I'm not looking for a revolution. I'm not looking for a new form, but I'm looking to maybe massage the form that we have. And can we please have some ideas on how to move forward with the vote?
371 Thank you. Councilor councilor Canal your second time in the queue?
372 Yes.
373 So at the end of this, I'm going to just request not move, but request that we take the vote and then take a recess so that we have a chance to chat about this one more time. The I think it's your questions are really important, and I want to respond to them directly. I got the Portland street response resolution passed back in June, and it created a committee. And that committee, the the membership was interviewed by councilors. And I think you can look at who I asked to take part in that as a good example of sort of what what can be exemplified before one is council president as to how they would if they were council president. And I asked councilor Zimmerman, I asked councilor Smith's team. I asked councilor Novick team. I asked councilor Greene's team, and I there's one more. And I'm forgetting. I will figure out who. Apologies if I forgot you. Oh, council president's team. Thank you to to be involved in that. And I'll also note that the council vice president was involved in the development of the the interview questions and the posting council vice president. And I worked on the broader structure and came up with the calendar. So I think the idea of bringing people in who had skepticism about it. Councilor Novick was originally very skeptical about the idea of a committee, for example, is important. And I think it's important that, you know, when there are these little informal teams made after a document gets passed, that people who are against that are part of it, too, because they own it, just like I was talking about previously, they own the decision of the body as a member of the body, even if they personally weren't there. And it'll build a better system, a culture between the group of us. So that's that's the first thing I've talked about. Council president and vice president last week. I don't want to take up time repeating myself, but everything I said then I agree with still and in terms of committees, which I think was your third item, I want to say that, you know, I did not make a proposal for the number of committees back then. I'm the person who came up with what the consensus positions were among the four different proposals that had been made, and that's how I like to approach things sometimes. I did I have thoughts on what committees should be, but I think one of the differences here is that we're talking about apples and oranges. There are there are conversations where. We are talking about whether or not to provide answers to the questions of what is the height, what are the highest priorities, or whether or not to give space for the council to decide what the highest priorities are. That is a distinction, right? I also think homelessness and public safety and infrastructure in particular transportation, is very important. But I think it's really important that we don't prejudge the strategic planning session as to what those are going to be. So I'm not putting forward the policy areas. I'm going to say we'll get agenda time, because I think it's important that we honor that, which was, you know, very honored to be asked to be a co-sponsor of that resolution. And so those are the things that the way that I would approach this, and I think as it relates to the committee conversation, to just be a little more specific, there were some points of consensus. There were points of consensus around finance and governance needing to be merged, not necessarily as a single committee, possibly as a committee. The whole there was disagreement there, but that they should not be two separate small committees. There was a consensus around public safety existing as it was. There was a concern. And I'm just talking about a consensus among the four proposals, not necessarily all 12 of us, because not everybody got to weigh in on everything. There was a consensus on getting to fewer. 4 to 6 was the range, and there was consensus around housing and homelessness remaining pretty much as it is, possibly with the addition of land use. Those are the things that I remember coming up. Then. There may have been other things that I brought up at the time, but I think building off of that starting point of consensus is how I would approach facilitating a committee conversation that yields a smaller number of committees, because it seems to be the consensus position here. And I mentioned earlier last week, I would love to give everyone their mondays back so that they can be in district or take the meetings they need to to make. Right now we have committees on three different days a week when they meet. I think it would be great to get that down to to Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, including council meetings and committees. Thanks.
374 Thank you. Councilor councilor Novick your second time in the queue?
375 Yeah, I just wanted to address the committee question, because I think it's one thing that I didn't address at length in my initial remarks when councilor Zimmerman nominated me. I agree with the idea of merging finance and governance. I also think that even if we maintain the current committee structure, other than that, we might make it official that committees that tend not to meet as often just don't meet as often, rather than they're scheduled and they get canceled. And I think that includes labor and workforce. And I think, if I recall correctly, arts and economy. I also think that the issue of how we run our committees and other scheduled, etcetera is something we should discuss with the clerk, because actually, one of the first calls I made when I heard that council was going to nominate me was to the clerk's office and saying, is there do you think that there's a way that we could restructure how we deal with committees, even if they're the same committees, to make it that process less onerous on the clerk's office? And keelan said, yes, she thinks there are some ways we didn't get into details, but I think that's an essential part of the conversation, because we rely on the clerk's office to, you know, keep the keep the wheels running, running here. And they, I think, are an essential part of a discussion of what a committee structure and schedule would be.
376 Thank you. Councilor councilor Zimmerman, your second time. Go right ahead.
377 To the four candidates. I'd actually like to hear your philosophy on working with the clerk. One of the areas that I brought up last time was a concern about how certain people work with the clerk. So I think that as you manage whatever the committee structure is and this council structure and work sessions and all those ideas that you've all put out there, I think that one of the great challenges is working with a staff who exists in another branch of the government, which is in the auditor's branch of government. And I have heard throughout this year about the council president having to step in front of members to kind of protect that relationship because it wasn't the healthiest. So I want to give people a chance for what would your expectations be of yourself as council president in. Protecting the role of clerk and managing your colleagues, which I think can be very difficult in terms of how colleagues may or may not work well with the clerk's office or cause problems in there, and I'm hoping that all four can speak to that. Thank you.
378 Councilor councilor Canal. Would you like to go ahead?
379 Sure.
380 Councilor smithson, thank you though. Do you want.
381 To.
382 Councilor Smith okay.
383 Last year when we had the first meeting of the year, our council clerk chaired that meeting and did an amazing job. And I said afterwards that as much as the clerk does not tend to like the spotlight or being on camera, and is probably uncomfortable with this even being a topic right now that she's done a great job in this role forever. I worked in the city. I filed items in council for for a few years, and I think that the clerk's office as a whole, our previous and current deputy clerk and the clerk are among the most professional people I've ever had the ability to work with. I just want to say that you don't necessarily see how much work the clerk's office does to create access to the public for the work that council does, but if you haven't seen it, you know, what I'm talking about is true. And if you haven't, take my word for it, I guess. But I believe that very, very strongly. I think there was a conversation about moving the clerk's office out from the auditor's office to under the city clerk council and the council operations. My initial reaction to that was was to not support that. I think the independence of the clerk's office is really important. And anything that might just just to be totally blunt, anything that might make anybody in that office not want to keep working there scares me, because they're very good at their job, and they work with very little capacity there. And I supported in the budget ensuring that there's enough capacity there as well. So that's my broad strokes on it in terms of how we would get from here to there. The only other thing I'd add is I think that we have underutilized our council operations team this year, and I'd like to utilize the council operations team more as the the day to day relationship holder with the clerk, so that it wouldn't be about individual councilors going to that. And I want to say I have been me and my office have been guilty of this, of having multiple staffers in my office ask the clerk to do something faster than their their deadline. And as soon as I found out about that, I talked to my team about that, because it's not ideal and it's not how I want to have that relationship work. I also think that our our we should talk more. The auditor and that team in general, I think people don't always remember that there is this other branch of government that's super important. So broadly speaking, I think it's the same way all the support teams that that support us work. If they need capacity. I want to hear about it. Make sure that there's a conversation with the mayor so that that capacity can be provided in their budget proposal from the mayor's office, and ensuring that there's maybe a little more process and a little less ad hoc nature of the relationship between individual council offices and the clerk's office. And this applies to bts and opensignal and all that as well. By having more of that be routed through the council operations team, I think is great. Thanks.
384 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Smith.
385 Thank you. Thank you, council president. That was a good question. Councilor zimmermann, I think it is so important to have a great relationship with the clerk's office, the way it is, the way that it stands right now, the clerk's office is under auditors, and it's kind of different from the government that we are used to. But in terms of keeping the the trains running on time, it's so important to have that. I also think that we we also have to have a good relationship with all the departments and being the conduit in between, in between these different agencies and bureaus is so important. And sometimes relationships can get a bit spicy. And I think that the president's office should be that should be that role where we try to make things a little bland, even though we all like spicy food. But I don't think it's really appreciated in the workplace. I also think that there are some ways in which we can improve upon council operations, but we also have to understand that we are in a $67 million budget hole right now, and I would like to see council operations do more training and education of individual us as a council so that we understand the budget better so that we understand that if you're putting something forward, you've got to take something out. And where you take it out from. Having some of those conversations will help us be a better council as a whole, because the charter only gives us one thing that we're supposed to do, and that is a balanced budget. All the other stuff is just, you know, icing on the cake, cherry on the top. But our role in what we are hired to do with our election certificate is to balance the budget. And we need more training and education, because as a whole, we're an inexperienced group who have had not the kind of experience that you would see in most councils. So I think that that that's a role that council operations can play. And I actually talked to dana a little bit about that last week. I think she has some things in the works. But the issue is, is unity. At the end of the day, we have to be a unified force. We can't be peacocks and everyone else. We have to be collegial with one another. And that is where the priorities as a council president, that's where I think we can take a role to be meaningful, to making sure that we do put those infrastructure things in place, that we do make sure that transportation is an issue, and I disagree. I think I can still have issues as a councilor Because that is that is who I am. But a lot of the work will be be switched into an administrative role. And so I understand that I'm not I'm clear on it. I think some of the stuff that you really, really want, we need to do a work session in a strategic planning session. And hopefully after this process is over, that we'll still be able to have a decent relationship with one another so that we can see where our flaws are and make sure that we fill that gap.
386 Thank you. Councilor councilor Novick.
387 I think I've said a couple of things about the relationship I'd want to have with the clerk's office and with the other supporting offices, open signal and security. One thing specifically I didn't address is I think that we need to be sensitive to everybody's time. And one thing I think we need to revisit, despite the fact, you know, I, along with councilor Kanal, councilor Avalos and councilor Dunphy, are part of the moonlight caucus. We like doing stuff at night. It is an imposition on all of the staff to have even one council meeting night council meeting a month. And it's been my observation that we have a night council meeting because we're scheduled to have one a month, not because there's a particular issue that we expect will get a lot of public interest and a lot of night testimony. So I would like to see if we can figure out how to only have night council meetings when there's a specific topic where we think the public would really benefit for that from that.
388 Thank you. Councilor councilor Novick, are you in the queue separately? Okay. Councilor Morillo.
389 Thank you to the candidates for more. Maybe reiterating some of the things that we heard over the past few days and introducing new ideas. I think that the evening council session is really critical to have a different type of person coming in and testifying and hearing from them, and I think that what we've seen successful before is that if there is a policy area that's going to get a lot of testimony, putting it in the evening council session has been really beneficial for the public and I it's hard for me. Work life balance wise, to have so many evening events and things like that. But I also think that's the responsibility that we took on in this new form of government, which is to make it more democratic, which is to make it more accessible to the public through a variety of means. So I think it's still really important. I, I again, just want to say thank you to councilor Kanal you the way that you talk about some of these things, you remember details about committee meetings, procedures, things that we've discussed months ago because you live and breathe this stuff, which is because he's a huge model un nerd. And frankly, that's what the role of council president is. It's model un nerd stuff. It is someone who is going to help us get some of these procedures in order. Make sure that all of the resources that we have available to us as councilors are used to the fullest extent that they can be. And so I'm just very grateful for that. I do think if we're able to maybe take a recess sometime soon, we could have further discussions. But I'm again, just very impressed by you and appreciative of what you've brought forward.
390 Thank you. Counselor. Colleagues, seeing no one in the queue keelan, can you please call the roll on the vote for council president?
391 Avalos canal. Dunphy canal.
392 Smith. Novick.
393 Canal canal.
394 Ryan.
395 Smith. Koyama Lane canal. Morillo canal.
396 Novick Novick.
397 Clerk. Novick Green. Canal Zimmerman. Novick. Pirtle-guiney.
398 Councilor. Novick.
399 Councilor can all receive six votes. Councilor Smith receives one vote. Councilor Novick receives five votes.
400 Colleagues seeing no one else. Seeing no one in the queue to begin a new round of debate, I'm going to give us a 30 minute recess. Hopefully, that is enough time for people who need to eat to grab some food, but also gives us time to get back here and maybe get through this before our 2:00 time so we don't have to delay another meeting. We will be back here at 1220. Colleagues, last week we were all back right on the dot and we're not doing as well today. But I am going to call us back into order. We are in another round of discussion. I believe this is the 11th round of debate. Councilor Kanal you are in the queue.
401 Thank you, madam president. I. On Wednesday of last week, in response to I think it was councilor Zimmerman, I asked if there was alternatives that could be offered and councilor Zimmerman did offer two additional alternatives. On Thursday. I think it's worthwhile for there to be a conversation around that again, and to offer up the possibility that there may be someone else who can get not merely seven votes, but but broader support. Ideally in this body. So I'm going to make a nomination if that's appropriate at this time, to put another candidate into the queue, into the into the queue, and to say a little bit as to why that is. And so I'm going to nominate councilor Jamie Dunphy from district one to be a candidate for council president for 2026. I want to start by saying that councilor Dunphy is a skilled legislator who has gotten done not only the work of new policy in the context of noise code, but also has taken the time with his excellent team of going back through some of the work that was done with very little scrutiny in the later stages of the government transition in late 2024, and found the fair wage standard and brought it back and put it back into law. I've been very impressed with him and his team and I think it was appropriate. I can't remember who brought up how important it is to have a good team for the council president. I hope that we we continue to to value that in our considerations. I think that that is the type of legislative leadership that proves a qualification for the role. I found him to be someone who is a very good listener, which is an important skill set to have in the council presidency. And I've also found him to be someone who has a core of values that he is able to hold to while also being able to compromise, and that is a needle to thread a champion for his district. As all three district one councilors are. And I think that he would be a very worthy president if the body decided to go that way. I've also been very impressed by his commitment to all six of the city's core values. This week has been really important to think about all of them, which are anti-racism, equity, collaboration, communication, transparency, and fiscal responsibility. And so I'd like to offer this opportunity for him to consider taking a nomination, being a member of the the emerging and evolving candidate set, even as we continue to have a important debate about governance and about what we need out of a council president going forward. Thank you.
402 Thank you. Councilor councilor Dunphy, would you like to respond?
403 Yes. Councilor Kanal, thank you for the nomination. Colleagues, let me be very clear. This is not something that I have been seeking and is not something I am excited about. But if the only way out of an entrenched six six stalemate is for me to step into this role, then I'm willing, not happy, but willing to do this in service of this institution. I do believe deeply in this new form of government, in ranked choice voting in multi-member representative districts. The highlight of my first year in office has been working with my incredible d1 colleagues, councilor Smith and Avalos, to fight for our constituents in d1, and I worry that the longer this vote stays entrenched, the more damage we do to our collective purpose, and that's a reasonable expectation that we can take turns at compromise. Not that only the folks who have historically held power less power are expected to do so. But let me be clear. If I were to be elected, I will use this role to distribute power, not consolidate it, to build systems that treat each of us the same and protect this council as an equitable body for our colleagues and our constituents. I really don't want this to be a yearly ritual of hardened battle lines. This has hurt my heart. I want to build a presidency where we intentionally, truly pass the baton. With shared leadership enshrined in our structure, the media narrative paints us as along party lines, and it's not accurate. This council has had to count to seven, and most of the time we do. And the last time I checked, the passage rate as a body is nearing 84%. The mayor has never had to step in to break a tie. We agree far more than we disagree. And twice a year we get heated and we lock in at six six. But that's a structural problem, not a values problem. The only solution to that problem is a cultural one. And I believe we should have a culture where we share leadership. I'll do everything in my power to make this position less powerful and more of a facilitative role. That means a strong vice president, a leadership team that includes the president, vice president and committee chairs one from each district scheduling that honors a first come, first serve, not a leadership preference for our our agendas and leadership opportunities across the ideological spectrum. This is not my my preference. I do not want to be the council president. My preference is still for councilor Kanal to be president, but I'm committed to. I want to make sure that we have a body that moves forward. I've always said that I commit to agreeing with my fiercest opponents and disagreeing with my closest friends, because principles come before personality, and I want to make sure that the president role facilitates the leadership of council in this government as a legislative branch and not a mean. And that doesn't. And that means empowering each and every councilor Here, not one half over another. So those are the commitments I take if I take on this responsibility. And thank you for the nomination.
404 Thank you. Councilor councilor Koyama Lane.
405 I want to thank councilor Kanal for putting himself forward again and again through many rounds of voting, and also for raising councilor Dunphy. I think all of that takes courage, stamina, a willingness to be vulnerable in public. I do hope that you have been taking moments to look around the chambers and see how many people have been here to support you. How many people see you, our partners at apano see you community sees you. You know, when I speak with people in district two, I hear again and again how seen and supported they feel by your leadership. I appreciate you modeling generosity and respect. I it's no secret that I adore councilor Dunphy. He was one of the first colleagues, after we were sworn in and officially on the job. Who has who pulled me aside, checked in on how I was faring and being in this in this building. And he's offered a lot of advice when I've asked, has consistently shown up as thoughtful, grounded, and genuinely a good human. One of the first things I remember him saying, and that's when I was like, oh, I want to get to know that guy more. As he said, shared success is the best kind of success. And he doesn't just say that. I see that him living that out and bringing that, bringing people along, while also fiercely advocating for d1 constituents. I am genuinely excited and proud I to cast a vote for either of you, and I will leave it there for now.
406 I've seen a whole lot of people in and out of the queue, so I'm going to get in the queue to give ourselves a little time in case others want to speak and just say councilor Kanal. I know how hard it is to put yourself forward for leadership, and I also know how hard it is to then elevate the the many attributes that our colleagues bring forward. After you have done that. And thank you for for doing both. Councilor Dunphy, I have seen you over the last. Year. Be somebody, as the council vice president said, who checks in a lot and who brings forward the types of policies that that do the bread and butter work of running the city and make sure that we are actually taking care of the details while also moving on the big things. And that ability to hold both the details and the big picture is really important. I think we all have a lot to think about right now, and I appreciate you being willing to put your name forward for consideration. I know it's not something that you take on lightly, so thank you to both of you for helping us have more options on the table so that we can try to find our path forward. Councilor Green.
407 Thank you. I'll be brief because I am now I have had lunch and I hope that you all have had lunch too. So I feel a little less hangry and a little more in the position to just recenter us on the grace that we give each other. And I just want to first say, start by saying of all of all the candidates who have nominated themselves. There's a reason why I never nominated myself and was reluctant because I know it's a really hard job. And so council, council president like you did a really hard job this year. You've had you've been in the pinch point of a lot of stuff, and we haven't always agreed and things have gotten, you know, ugly at this dais. But I want to say that on the merits, I want to say, I see you and I'm grateful for your leadership here. And I want to say thank you to all of you, all throwing your hats in the ring here to try to help resolve this situation. And councilor Kanal takes a lot for someone who sees all the support out there to say, you know what, let's consider another opportunity. So I'm going to be looking to your leadership here on this. I'm going to echo everything everyone said about councilor Dunphy. That's been my experience. And because I'm because I'm thinking, I'm thinking for how we're going to work together after this vote tonight. I'm still just going to reaffirm my willingness to step away from peacock. So that way we can engage in those budget meetings in a few months with a little more trust and a little less of that. So I'm saying that here again for everyone listening. So thank you.
408 Thank you councilor. Colleagues. Councilor Novick.
409 Councilor Dunphy, it occurs to me that just as I owed an apology to councilor Smith for not supporting her on the tie breaking vote issue, I owe you an apology. Because when we passed your revised noise ordinance, I promised to supplement it forthwith with a funk ordinance, and I have not gotten around to that. A substantive question I had is you said a minute ago that in terms of scheduling, you would follow a first sort of a first come, first serve model. And I don't know if this is exactly if you meant that quite literally. But one of the things I said the other day is that I would tend to prioritize ordinances over resolutions, because it seems like we pass a hell of a lot of resolutions telling the administration to do stuff was doing anyway, so I just wanted you to express any nuance you have about what to schedule first.
410 Councilor Dunphy, would you like to respond?
411 Thank you. Yeah. I think that with very few exceptions, I think that if something is passed out of committee, it should be in line to get on the council agenda. I think that you made a good point earlier about evening council sessions, that those really are unique opportunities for us to reach out to people who could not make it here at in the middle of the day and should be separate and special so that we can get advanced community involvement. But my preference would simply be a that if something is coming, if something gets filed and has all the work to do it, it gets through the committee structure and it gets back to the committee or back to the council. My preference would be to just keep moving that through in that order, whether or not it is a resolution or an ordinance. I less interested in personally, because I think I know how much work goes into the acts of filing anything, and I think that the amount of work that I or my staff have to put into a resolution isn't necessarily dramatically less than an ordinance. And so I really do think that as the council's as the committees do their work, the big council should honor that.
412 Thank you. Councilor, colleagues, any other questions? Any other comments? Any other nominations? Councilor Zimmerman?
413 I think you're an interesting candidate for this job. Councilor. I, I think of all the 12 of us, I think you and I, you might be the person I talked to the least in our day in and day out weeks and whatnot. But I am reminded of of whether it was a good thing or a bad thing. But there was a moment that happened in the campaign, and I got a call from a number I didn't recognize, and it was you, and you gave me a ring about a thing that you were, you know, you were in the news about. And I won't pass judgment on that thing. I will say I did appreciate the call. Right. You said I'm calling you because we share some endorsements. We share some like. Values. And I want you to know from my mouth to your ear about it. And so I just I want to I appreciate the way that councilor Greene said. And when others say it, too, I see you. Right. And I think that's an important thing. So I'm not sure where I'll go on this, but appreciate that in the the little bit that we've done together. But also there are character points that people show you along the way. And that was one of them that I just wanted to to mention here. Thanks, councilor.
414 Thank you councilor. Colleagues. Seeing no one else in the queue. Keelan, can you please call the roll for a vote for council president?
415 Avalos. Canal. Dunphy.
416 Canal.
417 Smith?
418 No.
419 Canal. Canal. Ryan. Novick. Koyama Lane. Canal maria canal. Novick. Novick Clark. Novick Green. Canal Zimmerman. Novick pirtle-guiney.
420 Could make this really fun right now. Dunphy.
421 Councilor canal receives six votes. Councilor Novick receives five votes. Councilor Dunphy receives one vote.
422 Councilor Kanal. Are you in the queue for debate?
423 Yes.
424 I'm running out of paper keeping track of who's spoken in all of these debates. Go right ahead.
425 This has been a really hard week for everybody. I think for the city watching. It's been a hard week for me personally. I cannot express the gratitude I have for the people who have been taking part in this. Even if you didn't support me for council president, but being willing to come in and share your voice with this city hall. I particularly want to thank the people who made me feel seen as a person of color in the institutions that are not built for us. There'll be more to say on that, but I cannot express the level of appreciation I have for that. Everything in this room is what can get to seven votes. Councilor Dunphy can get to seven votes. So I want to formally take my name out of consideration at this time, and I will be voting for councilor Dunphy for president. And I thank you all in advance and ask you to join me. Thanks.
426 Thank you. Councilor colleagues. Is there any one else interested in joining the queue? Councilor Clark? I thought there might be.
427 Thank you, council president. I'd just like to ask a couple more questions of councilor Dunphy. Can you talk a little bit more about your vision for committees and maybe respond to my suggestion that we have a group that operates as a team of rivals? How do you feel about that?
428 Thank you for the question. You know, I submitted a proposal and helped lead this council through a pretty unsuccessful work session a number of months back with my regard to to the committees, what I would like to see, I would like to see, I would like to see us get to five committees. I would like to see the vice president, chair, one of those committees, and I would like the chairs of the five committees and the president to form a leadership council with shared responsibilities and shared power and some shared decision making. I would want to work with this body to rightsize what those committees are. I do think a committee of the whole is a good idea. I. Am open to what that looks like. Otherwise. I think that by getting us to five committees, ideally with six members, not only do we empower ourselves to share leadership in a structural way, but also we can eliminate some of the challenges around being able to have a conversation with two of your colleagues at once. That would eliminate some committee quorum rules. I do believe in shared leadership across an ideological spectrum. As I was saying again, I also don't believe that we have that great of an ideological spectrum on this board. So I would absolutely, as council president, I would step away from peacock. I would ensure that committee leadership is represented geographically. I would make sure that committee leadership is represented across the ideological spectrum, and I would invite my sharpest critics to be. Advisors.
429 Can I continue questioning.
430 Please go right ahead, councilor.
431 Councilor Dunphy. You know, if you do operate as a team of rivals and you do have a leadership team, you know the buck will stop with you.
432 Absolutely.
433 Okay. And how do you feel about working with the vice president?
434 I very much. I did not seek this role. I have a lot of legislation that I want to work on. I do not want to be a full time cat wrangler, and I don't want to hoard power. I will need a strong vice president. I will not be able to do this job without a strong vice president who can help me approach the work and handle the load and defend the right of this body and our authority to help represent this body outside of the walls of this chamber. And I would work closely with a vice president, hopefully toward a shared agreement and shared power. But I do agree that I, I don't I don't even as I had recommended it earlier or suggested maybe a co-sharing model earlier. I do think that we need responsibility to end with one person, and I would take that responsibility seriously. It would be me. I would be the the final owner of decisions. But the decision making process would be done collectively.
435 And can you just say a couple more words about why you like this idea of the committee of the whole? Because I'm not so sure I do.
436 I think there are a number of issues that this body has demonstrated that we are not. Going to take the the good word of our committee members. I think that things around finance in particular and around governance in particular are and I would say even things like appointments to bodies and committees, I think that each of us has a separate reason to want to understand these things. I think that by having a committee of the whole, I think it will give us a venue to make our full council meetings operate more effectively and give and remove opportunities for people to, to, to feel like they aren't being included in decision making around things that actually affect their day to day job, affect the ultimate job. As councilor Smith said that we are here to approve a balanced budget. I think it has potential to. Make what happened last year in the budget process less likely to happen. And I think that I do think that with regard to committee, I appointed boards and commissions. I think that we have seen that folks want to have a a have input on people who are representing them and their districts in their name. And I think that that would be a really good way for us to do that. I don't know that a committee, the whole, needs to meet with the same regularity that the housing committee would or public safety committee would. But I do think that it's a good practice in most in many legislative bodies, and I think that it's one that we should we should look at.
437 Thank you.
438 Thank you, councilor Councilor Morillo.
439 Thank you, council president. Councilor Dunphy, you are a reluctant hero. And I think sometimes that's the type of person that is best suited for power, someone who doesn't strive to have it. I will say, councilor Kanal, you have demonstrated immense leadership today and especially in this moment. You did what other leaders couldn't do. You saw the writing on the wall and you stepped down to support somebody else. And to me, that shows who you are as a person and what you're willing to do to serve this city above serving yourself. So I hope that next year that you will be council president, because I think that you have proven your character in this moment when other people couldn't or wouldn't. And I say that as one of the stubborn people. So I'm admonishing myself as well, if that makes anyone else feel better. Councilor Dunphy, I really appreciate you stepping up in this moment. You have brought numerous proposals around governance and committee structures, so I don't have a ton of follow up questions because I already know your perspective on some of what you would do differently with the presidency. I have the utmost faith in you. I think that you have been a wonderful partner to work with, with. I've seen everybody on council. And I think that you will absolutely be the consensus builder that we need in this moment. So proud of you for being okay with stepping up, even though I know you really, really didn't want to. But yeah, big flowers to councilor Kanal for for doing that in that moment. Thank you.
440 Thank you, councilor Councilor canal.
441 I really should ask this before I said what I said earlier. Do you promise to put someone from district two on the transportation and infrastructure committee? Yes. All right. Well, good.
Procedural episode · turns 442–452
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442 Councilor. Novick.
443 I appreciate councilor Kanal last question. I think we should have many more transactional discussions like this before the next vote. Yeah. So one, I just wanted to express a bit of a concern about the idea of six member committees, because I appreciate the idea of setting up a situation where you can talk to more than one of your colleagues in committee, but I do worry we might wind up with a bunch of 3 to 3 votes that way. And actually, what are your thoughts on that? What should happen to a piece of legislation if it's if it's 3 to 3 in committee, does it just die? What do you think should happen?
444 I mean, first thank you. That's that's a fair question. First, I would like to say that if I will, I will be working with each of you and would likely want to bring forward a work session or something before I would make a change to committees. I have very strong opinions. I also know this body has strong opinions, and I would want it to be informed by this body because again, I do not want power. I want facilitation. With regard to that specific challenge, I think you're right. I think that a 3 to 3 tie is a challenge that we would likely see, and I think it is incumbent on lawmakers, each of us, to find a sufficient number of votes or else it fails. Yeah. Just as within this body I don't on amendments and things. We if it doesn't get seven affirmative votes then it fails. I think that if we have a six member committee, four affirmative votes are needed. And okay. And there's always opportunities for discharge from committee and being able to bring something back to an officer's.
445 Another topic I wanted to ask about is relationship with city staff. I expressed a concern last week that I think that sometimes we and the council have put things forward without adequate consultation with city staff. But on the other hand, I think that city staff is too often been felt like they're not empowered to communicate with us. So I talked actually to the new city administrator the other day about this, and I was just wondering what your thoughts are on that, the relationship with city staff.
446 You know, I everyone knows this, but I spent five years as a staff member for commissioner Nick fish prior to my time in elected office. I know where the power of this system is and it is in the staff. I will tell you that I think the lowest moments we've had as a body have been the moments in which we have made our staff. Deeply uncomfortable or felt like they weren't respected. I think that we cannot adequately do the work without the experts who are doing the work, helping us finding the way path, and I would hope that we had that we have we I it would be my intention to work with the city administrator and the mayor to ensure that information flows, that it's done in a way that doesn't disrupt the day to day jobs. None of the thousands of employees we have are just sitting around twiddling their thumbs, waiting for us to ask them questions, but I think that we cannot do the work unless we get an ability to connect directly with the the subject matter experts. So and I will tell you that throughout every city bureau, I have had an opportunity to work with countless public employees who I hope I have embodied that that that spirit in my work, and I hope that I would be able to continue that. But I would also want to make sure that we put very firm protections for our employees in place. I cannot stand I mean, I think it's different for a leadership, but I, I would hope that we would I would try to do my best to enforce decorum and demonstrate that professionalism to anybody who might come before us here.
447 Last question. I mean, we talked about the idea of like every couple of months having an airing of grievances and whether we call it that or not, I mean, I do think it would be useful if periodically we scheduled sessions the full council with no specific agenda except to just talk about whatever's on our minds. And I'm wondering if what your thoughts are about that idea.
448 I think that we can't we as a body, the 12 of us individually, can't do our jobs. Also if we aren't communicating with each other. And as leadership. Again, as someone who I if I am elected to this position, is hoping to treat this as a facilitation role and not a leadership role in the most traditional or power centered role, I would hope that we would have regular opportunities to privately, and I would welcome a public opportunity to air grievances, especially if there are grievances that cannot or have not been addressed. I don't I do care about the the. I care about this body. I care about the legitimacy of this body, and I care about our perception in the public. I really do care that. The public feels like we are living up to the promise of government reform, and the media has. Many in the media have done a great job of of demonstrating some of the nuance. But media, as a general rule, does not deal with nuance well. And I think that an airing of grievance without some clear. Guidelines around it and some decorum requirements is basically just fodder for the Oregonian editorial board to say that we are a dysfunctional, bickering body. So I would love to have more specific conversations about what that looks like, both with you and with the body generally. But I'm not opposed.
449 Maybe this is where we bring in the marriage counselor.
450 And I want to make it clear that I was sort of trying to refine the air grievances to just a session where we talk about whatever comes to mind so we can all talk to each other. I mean, there's so little we can talk about as individuals because of the public meetings law. Sure. Just a general discussion so people can bring up things that are on their.
451 Mind, the equivalent of public comment. But for councilor.
452 Exactly. Thank you.
453 Absolutely.
454 Anything further? Councilor? No. Councilor Dunphy, you are in the queue next.
455 I am I just I wanted to say something very explicitly, colleagues, if I am elected to this body, to this role, I will not seek reelection. I will not seek reelection. So if we need to have leadership conversations, if we need to have conversations as a body about how we don't do this again next year, I am eager for those conversations earlier than later. I will not seek reelection to this. This is a this is not a job. I am accepting willingly. I'm taking it. But I just want to make that explicit.
456 Thank you. Councilor councilor Smith.
457 Thank you. Council president. Before the break, we had some conversations about alternative ways to to to to vote. And was there a motion on the floor before that?
458 There was not ever a motion to consider something specific.
459 Okay, okay. Thank you.
460 Councilor Avalos.
461 Thank you colleagues. Lots of thoughts right now. But before we move forward, I need to speak honestly about this moment. And I want to start by first thanking Sameer. Canal. I mean true king energy. Honestly, Sameer entered this process with one clear focus what was best for the city of Portland and the long term health of this council. And throughout this entire election, he was the only person, in my opinion, the only person who consistently centered the institution over himself. He showed up with seriousness, humility, a genuine commitment to good governance, and as a fellow good governance nerd obsessed with that. And I'm really actually sad and angry that you won't be the president. You deserve this. We deserve this. Even as this process became increasingly difficult and frankly, frustrating, I just wanted to say that because it's really upsetting to me. And I want to be clear, because stepping back was not easy and it should not have been necessary. The fact that Sameer was willing to do so anyway speaks volumes about his character and his leadership. He put the city first when others were focused on positioning procedure, protecting their own comfort, and for that he deserves real appreciation and respect. And I also want to be transparent about how frustrated, frustrated I am because this process didn't need to unfold that way. The prolonged deadlock, the repeated deflections into technicalities, the unwillingness to engage directly with the merits of leadership has been a disservice to our constituents. We keep talking about what our constituents are feeling, but I think the message that people are trying to send our constituents is the wrong one, that we're a mess. No, we're a mess. And to them, not just for us. And that's what's upsetting. And that's why I am upset that councilor Kanal is not going to be president, because he did it for them. Portlanders are watching us, and they deserve better than a council that appears unwilling or unable to make decisions about its own leadership. I want to acknowledge my colleague Jamie Dunphy. Jamie represents district one alongside me. I know his commitment to our communities. I see it every single day. I am so impressed with the way that he's shown up for our district, and I respect his willingness, although begrudgingly, to step forward in a moment when this body clearly needs a resolution and some stability. But I want to say this plainly leadership moments like this are very revealing. They show us who is willing to absorb discomfort for the sake of the institution, and who is not. Councilor Kanal demonstrated that willingness today and throughout this week, he modeled what it looks like to put the city first, even at great personal cost. And you know that I know how that feels, you know? I know how that feels. As we move forward. I really hope that we do. So with that example in mind, this council needs leadership that prioritizes the city over our ego and accountability, over avoidance and integrity over gamesmanship. And I see my colleagues shifting in their seats. And guess what? It's going to get more uncomfortable because there's a lot of repair work that has to happen. And we're about to go into strategic planning. Lord help us. So I know people are uncomfortable. I'm also uncomfortable. I'm angry. I'm frustrated. And I know that is reflected for different reasons across this dais. And I hope everybody holds themselves accountable for moving forward today with some integrity and respect for our constituents. And that is what I think councilor Kanal did. And I'm grateful that councilor Dunphy, I believe he will do so in his leadership as well. Thank you.
462 Thank you. Councilor councilor Clerk.
463 Thank you, council president. I'm not angry. I'm not. I'm frustrated. I would like to say a few things before the next vote, knowing that I don't usually speak very much. I just want to thank our council president again. She's been my preferred candidate all through this thing. She has done yeoman's work. Let me remind you, as our first council president, I don't think anybody else could have done this job the way she has done it. I certainly would have not had the same grace or patience or poise that she's exhibited. So thank you so much for even now for conducting these meetings under such duress. I really appreciate it. I want to say to councilor Smith, you were the one person here that I have known the longest. We go back way far, and I don't think there's anybody here that works as hard as you do that matters. The numbers, the way you do and how much I appreciate your dogged determinism. You are nothing but tenacious and in a smart way, particularly when it comes to budget. And I really appreciate that. You dig in on that. I want to say to our other candidate, Novick, I think you're the only person on the dais that has actually heard me sing, and that was at my retirement party where I said I was retiring because I wanted a self-enhancement sabbatical. Little did I know that I was going to end up here. So thank you and thank you for your incredible brain power. I appreciate it to councilor Canal. I appreciate your courage. I appreciate your brain, and I appreciate your nobility here today very much. And yeah, we'll get somebody from district two on the transportation committee. I'm thinking right. I am going to take a big risk here. And some of my colleagues are not going to like this. Some of my constituents are not going to like this. They're going to be very unhappy with me. But I am going to trust I am going to trust. Councilor Dunphy. And when I mentioned the need for more trust and less toxicity on this dais back in August, I was accused of weaponizing trust. And that has really stuck with me. But I am going to trust you and trust us all that we're going to do the right thing here. And if not, it's only for a year, right?
464 Only takes 90 to 9 of us to kick us out. I'll vote first.
465 Well, I appreciate your reluctance and what we have worked together, and I appreciate the way you show up. I think it's really important. And we have actually some commonalities in our background that bring us here. And I appreciate that. With that, I'll close.
466 Thank you. Counselor councilor Koyama Lane.
467 I promise I'll be quick. I know it might be surprising, but I do want to finish by thanking council president. For your for your service for this first year. I know you've given up a lot. I know it's been a lot of bedtimes and sports games you've missed, and you've stepped into this role just crying a lot today during this really hard time. It's really uncertain time, and there's been a lot of public scrutiny and it's required real commitment and resilience. And you have shown that and I haven't been perfect and we haven't been the perfect team. And there's some things I think we tried really hard at, and I do appreciate the time, care and labor you've invested in helping council work to find our footing. I appreciate your support for counselor Dunphy. I am really excited about the idea of having a council president from district one. And my last thought is Novick, as you're talking about airing grievances and speaking openly, which I support, I also do think maybe that could also be called a retreat.
468 Thank you, counselor councilor Ryan.
469 Thank you, council president. I think sometimes I'm the last to know there was something that came out this morning. What was that? The Sameer you were showing me from rose city. What? Rose city reform.
470 Shout out to maya harris.
471 So I have the distinct pleasure of being the the only, the 11 to 1 being on the one side. I'm not proud of that. As much as I think that we're supposed to be independent, nonpartisan and vote our consciousness. I think this is a complicated vote for me. And so I'm going to ask you a few questions, councilor Dunphy, because I had probably the highest expectations for you and maybe for us working together. And I found that your campaign and how you serve to be the most biggest contrast that I've experienced. I was hoping for more independence, more nonpartisanship from you. And then there's been a couple of votes that I want to ask you questions about. Can you once again answer why you thought it was not a good idea to meet as a whole, free from talking points and transparency, discuss the priorities that we have for our city. You're one of two no votes. Councilor Novick was quite different than yours, he explained. It just wouldn't go well. And so I understand. I could really understand his vote. I think our job is to try. And so I, I think that I'm always going to be an optimist about a practice that is such a sage practice for all bodies across the country that do this. You were against it. Could you please explain why?
472 Absolutely. I voted as one of two votes against the strategic retreat. I think that I have been through many strategic retreats in my capacity as a volunteer with nonprofits and my staff roles. I don't believe it will work well in this body. I don't think that outside of agreeing that the service, the five service areas that we have, that we have common values or common ideas of what our priorities will be. And further, I'm not clear what we do with that information when we have it. Besides use it as a tool to tell our colleagues that's not a priority, that you can't do that right now, that I will make a principled vote against, I don't know, councilor Greens hot dog initiative, because it's not called out by our our priority setting exercises. I will be voting for the hot dog thing, don't get me wrong, but I'm saying that to use it as an excuse. Because we had a retreat, we were facilitated, and for somebody on this body to be able to say, well, we all agreed with the priorities were your priority, isn't there? I think we have a priority setting exercise. I think we are doing it, and I think that we are about to do it in the form of determining what our, our committees are comprised of. I think that the work of this body is supposed to be going through those committees, and that should be the filter for me of where that is. And I think that my least favorite thing about the city of Portland, and the way that this city has been governed for the last 100 years, is that we have a tradition of beautiful pdfs where we put together workgroups of the smartest, most involved members of our community. We ask their advice, we compile it onto a document, we make it beautiful, pdf, we email it around, and then no one ever sees it again. We are the city that plans. We are not the city that works and I. Don't believe that I didn't see a value coming out of a strategic retreat, even if it were wildly successful outside of that. So that is ultimately why I voted against it.
473 Staying with this conversation as council president, you will have a lot of influence on how that could go down. I would come to you, but I'm doing it in front of everybody and say, let's get off this dais. Let's turn in our phones. Let's not look at any electronic devices and actually reveal to people how we think free from constituents, from or from your base, telling you what they'd like you to say. If we had a conversation like that so people could see how we independently think, I think then we will have the. The right kind of integrity in that conversation. And so that's what my hope would be. And I've led those with those kind of parameters and they help. Okay.
474 I if I am elected to city council president, I was on the losing side of that. And I believe in the integrity of this body. And I will, with full faith and as good of intentions as possible, facilitate that the faithful execution of your resolution. I will approach it with as much humility and open mindedness as I can, and I will ensure that everybody on this dais has an opportunity to participate in that. Whether or not I personally think it is going to work that is not that is councilor Dunphy's job opinion. As council president, I am again, this is not about me or power. It's about facilitation. And I will facilitate that conversation.
475 I do hope that we get away from being locked up here, and that we're at a table and actually connecting and listening and communicating with one another.
476 Agreed.
477 Because the way.
478 We are that very often.
479 Right, right now, we're not talking to each other. We are performing. This is a performance.
480 I just want you to know, you would assume the mantle of independent leadership and treat us all fairly and openly. I've heard you say that. And of course, I really appreciate that. You mentioned city staff. A lot of my no votes during the budget were that I thought we weren't respectful to city staff. I'd like to understand better how you plan to recuse yourself from the caucus, the peacock caucus, where you've been very loyal.
481 Yeah, I will step away from the peacock caucus. I will not have time. I will not have the ability. And I also believe that personally, I believe that the peacock caucus was a response to the unique conditions of year one in this body. I think that it was a unique opportunity and a moment in which we did not have bookends on the work that we do. We did not have rules and best practices, and we did not know how the year was going to go. And it was messy. It was a messy year and it was always going to be messy. I think that we should be. I think we should not be assuming that any year on year is going to be the same. And I know that this coming year is going to be a new, hellish challenge in a lot of ways that is going to require something different of us as a body, and I hope that I can help facilitate that. And so I will not be meeting, I will not be participating with the peacock caucus going forward. If I am elected to this position.
482 I want to end by thanking you once again. Council president, I also want to thank my colleague councilor Kanal. What I appreciate about our relationship is we get really we we get to business quickly. We let each other know how we think. What we say in one on one is the same as we landed here. Yeah. I haven't had that experience with you, counselor Dunphy. And I hope this year I experience that differently.
483 Thank you.
Procedural episode · turns 484–493
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484 Thank you, counselor councilor Novick.
485 Counselor Dunphy, you just said something that I almost outwardly applauded, which is that we are the city of plans, not the city that works. And I actually was having a conversation with somebody a couple of days ago about whether it might be a good idea for us to pull out some of the plans that we passed over the years and go over them and ask, do we really still believe in this? And if so, what do we have to do to actually get it done? Or do we acknowledge that we're a failure and do something else?
486 I agree, and in fact, if you'll recall, the one of the first things that I helped lead with councilor Avalos was our around our unified housing strategy, based on the exact idea that we have spent decades asking the community for their input, asking, what do you want to see in your neighborhood? What does housing success look like? How do you think we should get people into shelter and then into housing? How do you want to build housing along corridors or multifamily versus single family? We've asked those questions of the community, and they are sitting on dozens and dozens of different pdfs. And the unified housing strategy really was specifically not to waste the public's time and go back out and ask, what do you want? It was to get the city to get our house in order to put all of our plans that we've already asked the questions of, and have ideas for how to put it in one place and then identify where are the gaps, where are the contradictions, and what is no longer relevant. And that is the the foundation from which we can actually meaningfully move policy forward. Short of that, we are wasting public time. We are wasting goodwill. We are wasting staff resources, and we have so much information sitting on, again, these beautiful pdfs that we can do the next hundred years worth of work. But it is a time for us to stop and reexamine and say, is this still the plan? I think that there are a number of things that we should be looking at in terms of just calling the question on, is this still the way we should be doing things? And I think that's true of all things broadly. We should be asking, you know, but I think that there are a number of things how we pay for our parks structure, how we have these parks. That's not sustainable. Right. What is the role of civic life going forward when it's sort of been diminished and still has a title? How is the new, how are we going to properly protect ratepayer dollars versus taxpayer dollars when we are also having a public works bureau that is including parks and PBOT, and how do we make sure we get most efficiencies out of that? And then more than anything, also we need to understand what our priorities are because we are about to have an awful budget cycle and we need to understand what have we already said we're going to do? What have we promised? For example, last night the parkrose heights neighborhood association told us that the parks department since 2020 has been promising to provide chips, and since 2020, every time they bring the truck out, it's too soggy and they just don't. Little things like that where we've already made the promises, we should double down on that and we should go back and not just have these lingering hurt feelings sitting in different places, in different places. Excuse me.
487 Councilors. Councilor. Morillo.
488 I. Am wondering if we can call the question after the last people in the queue speak. I think the comments up here are kind of funny about performance, because I will say that's your own projection, because I say the same thing in every room that I'm in. And if you're not doing that, that's not my problem. I think that we know where the wind is blowing on this. I know everyone's trying to save face because they have. If they make a concession for a peacock councilor Even if he stepped back, that they have to prove to their donors or whatever, that they are somewhat against this. But I think that we can call the question we know where it's going. Councilor Dunphy is someone who many whose name has come up many times because we know that he's a consensus builder, and I still will say, you know, councilor Kanal is my dream candidate. But I think that we know where it's going and we have other business to attend to. So I would I would ask that after whoever is final in the queue that we call the question.
489 Councilor we our process would be to call the question after the queue is empty. Are you asking us to close the queue so that nobody else can enter it? Limit debate. Limit debate?
490 That's correct. Limit debate if possible.
491 Okay. I am going to suggest with just one person in the queue that we not take a vote and have a process on that, but we can if you'd like.
492 No, that's what I meant. I would like councilor Smith to finish and then I would like for us to vote.
493 Councilor. Go right ahead.
494 Thank you. Madam president, I have a question. I've heard a few things up here about from peacocks who said I'm going to back away from peacock. If I'm the president, I'm going to back away. So I have a question. It's not is peacock a meeting or a philosophy? Because I don't know how you can back away from a philosophy. You can back away from a meeting. But peacock is a there's a philosophy that you all have. So are you saying you're going to back away from that?
495 No, I would not. It is a meeting for me.
496 That's all it is. Is a meeting to you.
497 For me personally, I do not agree with all of my colleagues all the time. And in fact, some of the most my feelings have ever been hurt have been by members of peacock. Candidly, some of the least pleasant conversations I've had have been with members of peacock. For me, it was an organizing tool to meet and help us. Make sense of what this year was. It was it was a meeting for me. It was not a philosophical I don't think that I have I have disagreed, as I said earlier in my my speech, you know, I have always approached this work with identifying my values of what I stand for and being willing to compromise on anything that isn't on that list to being open and ready to vote with the person I disagree with the most on this council, and to vote against my closest friends I. Philosophically, that is how I've always approached the work. I think if you look at my record, I have voted against with the peacock team a number of times, and I will note that the most of our things we vote for broadly is a body come out unanimously or near unanimously, and there have been some meaningful times in which I have have come out differently and voted differently on things. So that is my my intention is mostly I will step away from from the meetings, from the the effort to coordinate.
498 What did you vote against?
499 I signed on to the ipr, afscme. Resolution I signed on to. I voted against a number of my colleagues budget amendments. I voted against. I voted with councilor Zimmerman on the nomination for the the Portland street response committee, and removing the individual that he did not want. I believe there's a couple of others.
500 And just so that, you know, a lot of constituents believe that peacock is a philosophy and not a meeting. It's just a place where you are able to discuss your philosophy and going forward, there is going to have to be work done. If you are the president, to make sure that folks know that it's not just a meeting or it is just a meeting to you, not necessarily a philosophy.
501 Absolutely.
502 And I would say that, you know, I have I think there are individual moments I the homelessness response action plan, I councilor Ryan and I were the only two to vote against it. I think you're right. But I also think that there are a number of moments in which I will. I have demonstrated my independence, but also I also firmly believe, and I believe that peacock has only ever been able to vote anything on a75 by appealing to a person who is not on peacock. And as you said earlier, often it is you. And so we I think that you and I clearly share a lot of the same values and priorities as well.
503 Thank you. Thank you counselor.
504 Colleagues. Seeing no one else in the queue, I will. Any final words, counselor? Okay, I will ask keelan to call a vote.
505 Avalos.
506 Dunphy.
507 Reluctantly. Dunphy.
508 Smith.
509 Steve.
510 Canal.
511 Dunphy.
512 Ryan.
513 Novick.
514 Koyama Lane.
515 Dunphy.
516 Morillo.
517 Dunphy.
518 Novick.
519 I appreciate my colleagues who voted for me. I seems clear that counselor Dunphy is going to be president, and I really look forward to to working with him as I look forward to working with councilor Canal or councilor Smith or councilor Pirtle-guiney for another year, I choose right now, and even though I know she's not, she said she was withdrawing as a candidate, but she said her name was still placed in nomination. So in gratitude for her last year of service, I vote for a lot of pirtle-guiney.
520 Clark.
521 You made that hard, Dunphy.
522 Green.
523 Dunphy.
524 Zimmerman.
525 Dunphy.
526 Pirtle-guiney.
527 Dunphy.
528 Councilor. Pirtle-guiney receives one vote. Councilor Novick receives two votes. Councilor Dunphy receives nine votes and is elected council president.
529 Congratulations.
530 Councilor Dunphy. Congratulations. In a moment, we're going to move into a brief recess so that you can get a new binder and some things together before presiding over a vote for vice president. I want to say thank you first to my colleagues, though, and I'm teary now from what you said, councilor Novick. And I did not intend to be teary right now. I'll take that up with you later. I want to thank you all for the opportunity to lead this year, and the opportunity to work with each one of you from this role. This has been a challenging year for our city, and to have a year like this, with the outside pressures that we had while we are forming a new body that tests people and we have all been tested. And I think that despite what portlanders have seen over this last week, despite the differences that have been aired and the things that have been said, for the most part, we withstood that test. We met the moment, and we did it in many cases with unanimity in our vision and our drive for portlanders. Thank you all for letting me lead during this moment, and I look forward to the opportunity to work on more policy with each of you, since I will have more time to actually move a policy agenda this coming year, which I very much look forward to. Councilor Dunphy, congratulations! My team has a binder for you for the next steps today, and they are waiting to get it to you. How long of a recess would you like to prepare? And a half an hour.
531 I could use 15 minutes.
532 15. Okay, I will recess for 15 minutes. We will be back here at 145.
533 Yep. First gavel. I'm breaking the gavel. Good afternoon friends, I'm bringing this meeting of the city council back to order. Thank you. Colleagues, I'm going to take a moment just to say. Thank you for your confidence. And to those who. I will earn the, the the dignity of this office. I will earn the trust of my colleagues. I am so grateful to be the first city council president representing east Portland. Is this going to be a hard year? And I need all of you, and I will do my best. And I will make mistakes, and I. Will work with each of you to find what is best for the city. Thank you for your dedication to this work. We still have work to do and we got a lot to do today. The next action item, next action for item two of the agenda is the election of the council vice president. We'll follow the same nomination and voting procedures that we previously approved. I will ask for nominations from the floor for vice president. As announced under the city code, the vice president must be from a different district than the president, unless no councilor from another district wishes to serve. If you would like to be recognized to make a nomination, please raise your hand in the zoom and I will call on councilors in the order that they are received. They are raised. If there are no nominees from districts other than my district, district one, we will open nominations to councilors from district one. Councilor Koyama Lane.
534 Thank you, council president. Colleagues, I have been grateful for the opportunity to serve as the first council vice president of this body. I've learned a lot over the last year. It feels like it's been ten years, and I'm looking forward to heading into year two with all of you. I would like to nominate councilor Olivia Clark to be our next council vice president. I do so with respect for her leadership, her professionalism, and her commitment to collaborative governance. I've enjoyed serving on the transportation and infrastructure committee, which she leads alongside councilor Morillo, and I valued her voice on the governance committee, with councilor Jamie Dunphy now being council president Jamie Dunphy, I believe that councilor Clark would be a strong and steady partner. She's also someone who's a strong proponent of strategic planning and retreats. Councilor Ryan will remember that.
535 I think. Jamie.
536 And I also am excited about there being possibly the idea of leadership coming from districts one and four, and I think that those would be two leaders that would help ensure that this council works collaboratively and collectively for the whole city. Thank you.
537 Thank you, councilor Koyama Lane. Councilor Clark, before I turn to you to give some remarks about that, I want to get through the rest of the hands on the q and see if there are other nominees. Councilor Kanal.
538 Thank you, council president. I just wanted to ask a question and then I'll have a comment. Councilor Koyama Lane vice president, does that mean that you are not standing for reelection?
539 That is correct.
540 Okay. Well, then I want to take the chance to thank you for your service to the body, for the dignity that you have brought, the commitment you have made to our personal relationships, the effort you have put in to get us to care about them as much as you do, and the incredible organizing work you have done to coordinate this council's federal response over the last year. Whatever anyone out there has seen. Councilor Koyama Lane do you have not seen the half of it because so much of it has been behind closed doors. And I appreciate you as a colleague, as a vice president, and of course, as a friend. I just wanted to take the chance to to do that. And I hope that that you know exactly how much you're appreciated, not only in this room, but in the city. Thank you.
541 Councilor Morillo.
542 I wanted to take the opportunity to do the same. Councilor Koyama Lane I think that you've done a lot of invisible labor behind the scenes to help broker relationships between people, work that you shouldn't have had to do and to handle our federal response, and I saw how you coordinated with immigrants rights groups and just your deep connections to communities, knowing that your family is directly, you know, tied to people who faced internment camps and everything, you understand this moment, and your community understands this moment better than most. And so the way that you responded to it was deeply human and personal. And I'm excited to see what Tiffany unleashed looks like. And same with councilor Pirtle-guiney. I'm kind of excited to see how we get to team up on new things. Now that you don't have to be neutral as much or you know, in that role with those constraints. Grateful to both of you for your service. And I have more questions for councilor Clark as vice president nominee.
543 Colleagues. There are no one else in the queue to make nominations. Oh, councilor Novick, are you.
544 Sorry, I just I mean, I reiterate everything everyone has said about vice president Koyama Lane. I just want to note that I think that her last act as vice president was to give me lunch, which I neglected to arrange for. So I really, really appreciate that.
545 Councilor Smith.
546 Thank you, mr. President. I have to think about that for a second. Congratulations. I didn't hear who was nominated. Is it just one person nominated.
547 Councilor Clark?
548 Okay. Thank you for for recognizing me. And I just want to thank my colleagues for nominating someone that I do know and that I know that would be would be great and would be amazing and outstanding. And so I want to go back to a couple of things that, that I think I would be uniquely qualified to say. We just had a president's election again. And there was a lot of question about race and all of that thing and back and forth, but we still have not gotten to the point where we can elect a person of color in an underserved place for president. We are still in that same space when we have more people of color on this council than not. And so if we're really going to be intentional about things that I think that we need to be intentional about those things. So I would like to put forward Candace Avalos as a vice presidential.
549 No thank you.
550 You're welcome.
551 Has been nominated councilor Kanal.
552 I just wanted to take a chance to ask two questions. One of. O q.
553 Just as a reminder, under the the city code that's been adopted and the rules that we're using, the vice president must be from a different district than the president, unless no councilor from another district wishes to serve.
554 Thank you. Yeah. That's right.
555 I was I was trying to I was trying to say that in addition to having folks like my district, one colleague who have been very calm and, and, and looking for ways in which to partner that, I also think that we need to be intentional. We need to be intentional about what we're doing. And if any of us folks of color up here are thinking about going into leadership in any kind of way, we're going to need everybody to support us. And so, as you saw, there were many people who were in the presidential, but we just couldn't get there. So we had a compromise candidate. And in doing so, we're still being under served on this board of folks. But congratulations, I tried candice, but maybe next time. Thank you.
556 Councilor Smith. Thank you, councilor Canal.
557 I'm not sure if it's the right time. Has councilor Clark? No. Still. Okay, then I'll. I'll come back in the queue after that response.
558 Councilor clarke, seeing no one else in the queue for nominations. Would you like to have some remarks?
559 Sure. Thank you very much. Council president. You're going to wear it well, not to worry. Thank you, councilor Koyama Lane. You're still vice president. Vice president Koyama Lane, it's been a pleasure to serve with you, particularly on governance committee. It's one committee. I think all of us agree that we really like to go there. We really enjoy the process. And you've offered tremendous leadership there. Really, really appreciate it. And I think just getting to know you over the past year has been a joy. So thank you for nominating me. I guess I accept that and like our council president, I am a reluctant recruit. This is not something I sought or wanted, but I am willing to serve and I think I may have. I'm probably repeating myself like a typical senior. I will just say that I ran because I thought we needed people with experience on the new council to make this form of government work. That's my goal, is to make this form of government work, to do what's right for our city. And I really appreciate also the potential opportunity to work with our new city manager. I think with that, with his hand on the tiller as well, that we will we will do very well this year. And I appreciate the fact that he spoke to us in governance committee about prioritizing and strategic planning, which we may not agree with or agree between you and I, council president, but I'm a strong proponent of that, identifying what our priorities are, how we're going to show up, and how we're going to deal with the future. That's very important. So I'll just leave it at that. Thank you. Thank you. Council vice president.
560 Thank you, councilor Clark councilor Avalos.
561 Thank you, councilor Smith, for your gesture. I think what you were talking about is symbolic, and I think that does matter to say. And I will say, I mean, obviously, I think councilor Dunphy and I, president Dunphy and I would make a great team because we already do and we do on our housing committee. So, sorry. Can't do it because, you know, but I appreciate the gesture because of what it means. So thank you for doing that. I also would just want to take some time to appreciate council vice president. Look at me while I appreciate you because it's really true that you all don't even know a quarter, you don't know a 10th of the work that councilor Council vice president Koyama Lane has put into this council. She has done everything to build the bridges behind the scenes, mend the relationships. And it's I appreciate that because I'm not always in the mood to be mending relationships, but she always finds the energy to and that matters. And that has shown up and it has made a difference on this council. So I just really respect you and want to make sure that the public knows that we all respect you. And let's not forget that we we were really enthusiastic about you being vice president last year, and I'm still I. That was the right choice. It was the best choice for our council. So thank you for your service. I'll leave it at that for now. Thanks.
562 Thank you, councilor Councilor Kanal.
563 Thank you. First, I just wanted to appreciate what councilor Smith's words were. You know, the mercury article came out and that particular conversation did not involve, or at least that, I don't know, did not involve councilor Smith. But I want to be clear that councilor Smith has taken a lot of the same types of, of negativity that that the other four of us have up here. And just because it wasn't in that particular article doesn't mean that we should forget that. I also think that it would be I think that you'd be a great vice president. Of course. Councilor Avalos, I have a question for both the council president and our nominee. And I think that council president pirtle-guiney had made a really good precedent of having a project. That is something that was asked for the vice president to lead. And in this, in 2025, that project was primarily the federal response. And my question for council president is if you think that that is something that has to be continued the way it is, or if there are, it's a possibility that there might be other projects. And I'd like to know from the candidate if there are particular things that you'd like to lead on, just so that we understand what we might be getting.
564 Thank you for the question. Yes, I would like to continue to be the chair of the transportation and infrastructure committee. I would like to continue on the projects that we've started there, looking at alternative finance, alternative revenue for transportation, as well as asset management, which is a high priority for me. So I would I would like to continue to be the chair of that committee.
565 Asset management is so important and so is revenue. So that's really helpful to to hear from you and I appreciate it. I don't know if you wanted to answer as well just for our understanding of what the role might be under your leadership.
566 Yeah. I don't hold anything sacred. I'm open to what works best for this body at this point.
567 Great. Thank you.
568 Councilor pirtle-guiney.
569 Thank you, mr. President. I want to thank I want to start with some gratitude to our outgoing vice president. You helped define a role this year that was even less defined than the council president's role. You were a thought partner, and you led on some key projects that were absolutely necessary for us to come together on. And you you did it in a way that truly brought people together at every turn. So thank you for taking that on, for helping to do the work of defining what we are doing here, and for being that person who brings people together on some of the most important decisions we had to make this year. Councilor Clark. I have known you to be somebody who is focused on some of the most forgotten and most important work that we have at the city. Councilor canal beat me to getting you to say the words asset management. But when people talk about the delivery of core services in a way that ensures that we can actually serve every portlander, there are things that aren't exciting, aren't flashy, but are absolutely necessary that you lean into. And I think that that is often overlooked, and often the most important work we can do to really, truly ensure that we are reaching everybody in our community. I think that you bring a wealth of relationships, a wealth of. Knowledge of how things work not only in our city, but in the state and the the way that you and council president Dunphy go about doing your work, I think, would complement each other very well. Actually, I think you are both focused on those things that are often overlooked, but you also both bring in different people to the work. And I think it would be an incredible asset for our council and for our city to see you in the vice president position and to see you and the council president working together. And I look forward to supporting you.
570 Thank you. Councilor. I will note that it is 205. We are going to finish up this since there's only there are no additional nominations, we're going to finish hearing from many councilors who want to speak, and then we will move to a vote and move to our 2:00 time. Serve as quickly as possible. Councilor Morillo.
571 Thank you, president Dunphy. I'm excited to hear about your nomination. I'm. I have some questions, and I'm a little bit perturbed by the idea that you would continue to chair a committee while being vice president. The outlined role before was that president and vice president stepped down from their chair seats. So this would be a different standard for you, uniquely from what has been set and established. And councilor Kanal, when he ran for president, was asked what policy priorities he would be willing to put down in order to take on the additional workload that it is to be president and vice president. So that's my first question to you about how you think you will manage both of those things, especially because the transportation and infrastructure committee is, in my opinion, one of the most important committees that we have. Asset management is a top priority, but so is the role of vice president. I'm also curious about what you think of the vice president role, the way that councilor Koyama Lane had it before. We were doing a lot of federal response things. And frankly, there are sometimes difficulties with federal response because we're handling not just how federal agents are treating our constituents, but how our police are interacting with federal agents and how all of that plays together. And I think I'm curious how you plan to be sort of an accountability role for that if you are engaged in federal response as vp?
572 Thank you, councilor. Well, first of all, I would say that some of those things are things that I would have to work out with the council president. We would have to find some accord. And I think we can do that. As far as the committee, I think I would drop every other the other committees, I wouldn't be on arts, and I'm thinking I wouldn't be on arts and economy, and I would no longer be on governance. And I think that as she was vice president, councilor Koyama Lane was chairing governance. So she was chair. There is a precedent there. I would love to have a conversation with president Dunphy about keeping councilor Koyama Lane in that position with federal relations. I think she's done a great job, and that's a conversation we should have, because I'm not interested in that. I mean, I am in the big picture, but I'm not interested in the hands on of that role. But that's something I think we're going to have to work through. But there's a lot of things we're going to have to work through. And if I am elected and I'm working with councilor Dunphy, president Dunphy, I hope we do more than rock, paper, scissors and or arm wrestling. Because, you know, all when I do work out. But but I think those are those are great questions. And but I would like to maintain just that one committee and see if we can't work something else out on the federal side.
573 I see councilor Koyama Lane concerned face about having to maintain the federal role outside of being vice president. I think I'm just I'm saying that the the reality is that the council president and vice president are council's representatives, and the mayor alone does not have all of the tools. I think he's doing a great job. This is not a criticism. I just think as district representatives and people who engage with different communities, we offer a different perspective in the federal response and that our voices are very critical to the table. So I'm curious as to how you two are going to broker that and make sure that we do have a seat at the table for that. I think it's pretty critical right now, and I think that there is an expectation and a demand that council, even if this is a federal issue, that we address, how we plan to take care of our constituents.
574 No, I agree with you on that. And that's a conversation that we can have.
575 Okay.
576 Thank you. Councilor Morillo again, colleagues, we are at 210. We have a 210 a 2:00 time certain I would like to get through this item and move on to that as quickly as possible. Councilor Green.
577 I'm hearing.
578 The call to scoot along here, but I, I just wanted to follow up on what councilor Morillo was asking and and put a finer point on it in case in case it wasn't clear, at least from my angle, what my hope is. As you have these conversations with councilor President Dunphy, when we think about as a leadership team how we engage to do things like press conferences, make statements and figure out our federal response, I want to be very clear. It's very important that we put front and center in an active role. The immigrants on council and folks who are like, primarily centered in that space. And so for me, that's going to be something that I, I saw that Tiffany Koyama Lane was doing a lot. And even if you envision a different role there, I hope that you can bring that. I think hopefully you can hear me on that and then, you know, work with them on that. Thanks.
579 Thank you, councilor Green. Councilor Avalos.
580 Yeah, I just got to be honest, it does concern me. Some of the things that you've said that you want to be the transportation chair that you have don't want anything to do with it. I mean, you kind of corrected it, but that concerns me. So I think that I am expecting leadership of the city council to lead us on one of the most critical threats that we have, which is the trump administration. And to hear that that's not of interest to you. I don't love that. I got to be honest. So I expect that the vice president is focused on the work of leading the council, focused on governance related issues. We spent a lot of time, you know, telling councilor Kanal that he couldn't do all these different policy areas. And I hear you're saying, oh, well, then but then you said, but I'll leave governance. And that was confusing to me. So you would leave the governance committee. You said I would leave all the other committees, one of which being governance, but now you're the vice president. That's just not adding up for me, because I would expect the vice president to be on governance. So or lead on that area. So I just got to say, I'm uncomfortable to hear that. Obviously, I see where the wind is blowing and I'm not going to stand against that, but I'm going to have a lot of questions of you. Councilor Clark, as you enter in this position, if you are elected, because I do expect more from this position than what you've described.
581 Can I respond? Sure. Thank you, councilor Avalos, I appreciate your perspective. I think that we've talked about rotating duties here. We've talked about rotating chairing committees. We've talked about a lot of different options that play to other people's strengths. I don't think that we have to stay with the same model. I think that's what we're demonstrating now by changing presidents that we're we're open to change, we're flexible. And I think it's going to depend on all of us to figure that out. It's not just up to me, but I appreciate what you're saying and your concern about change. And it is change.
582 Thank you. I think what I was just enumerating is it's one thing to share leadership. It's another to put the burden on councilors of color to take the lead on that. And that's how it sounded. So I'm also just being honest that that's how it sounded to me. It's like, oh no, I'm just going to give it to councilor Koyama Lane. And I know she doesn't agree and I see her face too, but that's just how it came off. And because I represent these communities in particular, I have to flag that. Thank you.
583 I apologize. That wasn't my intent.
584 Thank you, councilor Avalos. Councilor Koyama Lane.
585 I want to clarify that is not why I was making that face. First, I do want to say that I will give any support and that you need, or whoever ends up in this seat in terms of giving information, knowledge. What I've learned in this role, and that's actually a question that that's something that former council president pirtle-guiney and I have specifically talked about, what that looks like. If the folks on these roles want us to shadow meetings to like, share documents and how we could do that, I think my face, my I'll explain my face. I was surprised because we didn't talk about that piece about transportation infrastructure. You remaining the chair. I am wondering how open you are to that being a conversation. I do like the idea of playing to strengths and there being options. And council president and I also made this decision so the vice president could be somewhat of a check on the council president by being in charge of governance. And either that or also if we end up moving towards committee of the whole. I think robert's rules explains that typically the gavel goes to the vice president in that situation. And so wondering how open you are, do you feel like very locked in that you would absolutely. You can't budge. You would need to be putting transportation infrastructure, being the chair of that, something that you really don't want to move on. How open are you?
586 Thank you. I'm sort of open, but it's something I'm very invested in and that I have expertise in that I'd like to continue to work on.
587 And is it that you would need to be chairing or even being on that committee would be.
588 Let's discuss that later. I'd like to discuss that with council president.
589 Thank you. Councilor councilor Kanal.
590 Thank you. First, I, I think I appreciated the other parts of the list that you mentioned, councilor Clark, about other interests that you have, and I didn't dig into this enough, but I think revenue broadly is something that is probably important enough to to require a specialized focus. I'm not saying instead of anything else, I'm just saying that's, that's it's a high enough priority of an issue. And I'd like to talk about that. If you do end up being the, the chair or in the leadership of transportation and infrastructure or whatever it ends up being named later, I would look forward to continuing to work with you on traffic safety. In the context of my role as community and public safety co-chair, and I would love to to have that be a topic that comes up as well. I already got what I wanted in terms of a commitment to have d2 on that committee, so I'm not going to get involved at the at the moment in the in the leadership conversation. But I did want to mention one other thing, which is the federal leadership. I actually think it's a good conversation for us to have about what the best way to put a united foot forward on that is, and how the way we organize ourselves behind the scenes on that can help us get to that point. Whether that I don't think that has to, by necessity, be the vice presidential role. And I was I that's really what I was asking without trying to I didn't want to imply, I don't want you to do it. I was just curious about how we get to that point. So I appreciate the answer. I think I agree with what councilor Morillo was saying in terms of the general statements we've made on the role in the past, and I'm open to to having the conversation as well as we go forward.
591 Thank you.
592 Thank you, councilor Councilor Novick.
593 Yes, I have an incredibly specific question. Councilor councilor Clark. And I'm asking this in public, partly to sort of give people an idea of some of the things that go on, important things that we were going behind the scenes. Councilor Green and I have been joining city staff in mediation discussions with pge about whether we can come to a mediated resolution of the issue of their proposed transmission line through forest park that the council voted against. And tomorrow is the last scheduled mediation, and we might have further ones, but it's supposed to be like a big deal. And councilor Green and I have been in this kind of weird position where we're the highest ranking city people there, but we're just two random councilors. We aren't really leadership. And if you have, I mean, tomorrow, it's meeting tomorrow. What is it, council Green between like nine and five and I can't. Councilor Green is going to be there in the morning. I can't because of climate and land use. And I was just wondering if you could make some time tomorrow to be at that meeting.
594 All I could do is look at my schedule. I'm. I'm open to that. Right. Sorry.
595 Sure. I mean, I think that that I bring that partly because I actually would really love you to be there, but also that strikes me as an example of the kind of like one off special project that probably the vice president should be dragged into.
596 Okay, I feel the dragging. I would also say that there are other responsibilities I've been given this last year. I'm the liaison to the league of Oregon cities. I'm the liaison to the ibr, the interstate bridge. There's probably others I'm not thinking of right now. So all of that has to be reorganized.
597 Seeing no one else in the queue. Oh. Councilor Ryan. Thank you. Go ahead.
598 First of all, thank you, vice president. I get to call you that one more time. Koyama Lane you. I've enjoyed being your vice in governance. You demonstrated the willingness to bring me along to treat me as an equal partner. I think, to the surprise of some. And we we demonstrated shared leadership. I can also say that about councilor Green. And your attention to interpersonal relationships is a practice that actually has been my go to throughout my career. It's been more challenging this past year than any other aspect of my career, because this is a different role, and I have to be a voice for those who are silenced by this council at times. And those are a lot of voices. Anyway, I want to thank you so much for that. You've also let me into what the role of the vice president is, because I've been around you a lot, and when we're talking about governance, it naturally intersects into leadership. So, councilor Clark, I think that you will be terrific in council leadership. I also think the role will consume you. The grand bargain that seemed to take place during one of those breaks that placed councilor Dumphy in this seat as president, and you as vice, signals that that leaning into that role is going to be imperative. I think in all these conversations we've had starting last week, one of the tenors from those that were supportive of councilor Canal and not continuing in leadership with council president pirtle-guiney.
599 That council president.
600 I get to not call you that anymore. Councilor pirtle-guiney was that we there was a struggle between the president and vice president in that shared leadership. So since I've been with all of you up here for far too long on one agenda item, I don't want us to pretend that didn't happen. Over the last two weeks, that's been a theme of our conversations. And so the excitement of finally moving out of this agenda item and into the next, I don't want to be rushed to dismiss the importance of you leaning into that role. And so I do have concerns about you taking on other big committee assignments, because I think what I've heard loud and clear again over the last two weeks is the importance of shared leadership in these two positions. So I'm, of course, I'm highly supportive of you. You're probably my closest connection on this council, and I think it's going to be just very important for you to consider leaning into the role as vice president and perhaps letting go of some other assignments you've had this past year. And I appreciate the nonverbal I'm receiving from you at this moment. But if I didn't voice that, I would have. I tried to leave everything on the table. And so I had to say what was just said. Thank you.
601 I appreciate that very much. I feel like you're suddenly my therapist. I really appreciate that. And I will definitely, will definitely be thinking through all of these issues. I mean, the whole thing right now is kind of new. A lot of unknowns for all of us. So I think we have a lot of discussions to follow. Thank you for that, councilor Ryan.
602 You're welcome. And I'll take the giggles after the word therapist came out as a as a compliment. Thanks.
603 Thank you, councilor Councilor Morillo.
604 Thank you, council president. No, I giggled at therapy because I think councilor Clark brings up therapy and counseling more than anyone else I know. I appreciate that you tried to answer my questions, but I don't necessarily feel like they were answered. I think I want more clearly to understand why you want this role, because I think you have very clearly articulated your care for transportation and infrastructure issues in our city. That's been a through line that I've seen in all of your work and in the things that you've tried to pass forward. But in my opinion, governance is governance is a quintessential issue that has to be addressed by the council president and vice president. So I am troubled that every answer that I received is I will have that discussion behind closed doors with council president Dunphy afterwards. I think we want to hear on the record right now what your priorities are so that we can make a decision, because if not, there are other people that were offered up for vice president, and I have not discounted them yet.
605 Well, thank you, councilor Morillo. I, I think you're going to have to give me some room. I think this is absolutely a new it's just happening. I haven't had the time to think through every angle of being the vice president, every aspect of it. So I'm not sure I'm going to be able to answer your questions to your satisfaction. I'm sorry. I'll tell you honestly that when we first were sworn in, I did not ask for transportation. I asked for other committees that I did not get. So I subsequently leaned into transportation and with my background that made a certain amount of sense. It could be that now I'm going to have to completely change directions. And I think I said earlier, I ran to be on this council to make this form of government work, so that actually I think that says something to your question, but I think you have to give us some space and some time to work through this. I don't have an answer for every question that you've asked. I apologize, but you're going to have to give us some space.
606 Well, you're one of the most experienced people on this council, as you said. I know you have thought through councilor Clark. I think you're doing yourself a disservice. You are one of the savviest people on this council, and I think we all know that. I know you can't answer every aspect of the question, but can you answer any part of it, any part of governance, council wide that interests you in the role, or why would you accept the nomination otherwise?
607 I think I've answered that. I think I've said that I want good governance. I'm here because I want this system to work. I want us to work as as 12 people together, pulling in the same direction. That's a priority for me in figuring out how we do that. In addition, in spite of or in addition to our differences. I don't know what else I can say to give you some comfort about what I'll be able to do in this role, but I've got to talk to the council president, talk to other people like councilor, Koyama Lane and our retiring council president as to as to how to work through that. I really have not gotten my head all the way around what this is going to mean. I don't know that our new council president has either. This has all happened very quickly, and I appreciate your compliment very much, but I think we're all kind of in this boat together.
608 Colleagues, it is 226. I would really like to move to our first time certain since we only have one person nominated, councilor Zimmerman.
609 Thanks. Last year we put a lot of emphasis on the committee assignments and committee leadership brought forward by the council president, and that was in large part with our council vice president. I think we saw it some week later or something along those lines. So I guess I I'm acknowledging this committee discussion, but I'm also not I get I don't need an answer to it today because I'm expecting to see a moving of deck chairs by by you as the council president with. You know, some discussion from whomever becomes your vice president. So I don't need those answers. And I think that I look forward to that plan as it comes later.
610 Thank you. Councilor councilor Smith.
611 Thank you. Thank you, mr. President. I have enjoyed Olivia leading us in the transportation committee. And we have two big items that we're we're working on. It's like the asset management. How do we do that? How do we how do we manage what we have? And how do we come up with different ways to to fund those things? And those are two big deals in our transportation committee. So I won't be voting for Olivia for this position because I'd like her to stay on transportation. I think she is a leader in that, and I think that we should consider other options for vice president.
612 Thank you councilor. Waiting a moment, seeing no one else in the queue. Keelan, can you please take the role?
613 Amylose.
614 Clerk I guess.
615 Smith. No.
616 No.
617 Clerk.
618 Pirtle-guiney. Clerk.
619 Ryan. Clerk Koyama Lane.
620 Thanks for stepping up.
621 Clerk Morillo. Clerk. Novick.
622 Clerk.
623 Green I'm happy to help you with infrastructure stuff. Clerk.
624 Zimmerman.
625 Clerk.
626 Dunfee.
627 Clerk.
628 With 11 votes. Councilor. Clerk is elected by council. President. Council. Vice president. Sorry.
629 Congratulations, councilor. Clerk.
630 Should we rotate chairs now or should we run to our 2:00 time? Sir?
631 That's time certain would be appropriate now.
632 All right, we're going to go to the time certain very quickly, right now. And then we will take a brief recess, rearrange the deck chairs and come back and finish our agenda. Thank you everybody. Keelan, can you please call the our 2:00 time certain.
633 Item 2025 483 annex. The 5048 southwest hilltop Lane property.
634 Welcome, claire. I think we have a staff report. Is that right? Cool. Please take it away.
635 Thank you, mr. President. Madam vice president and councilors. For the record, claire adams, council policy analysts and staff to the climate resilience and land use committee. The ordinance before you document number 2025 483 was heard in the climate resilience and land use committee on December 11th, where it was referred to council without recommendation as to passage. Passage. The ordinance approves the property annexation of 5048 southwest hilltop Lane, as described in ordinance exhibit a into the city for the purpose of connecting to city services, sorry, city sewer services. The ordinance clarifies that the property will be withdrawn from the tualatin valley fire and rescue district. It further directs the bureau of planning and sustainability to provide the city auditor with a current list of public utilities, electric cooperatives, and telecommunications carriers in the city for the purpose of filing the ordinance with these entities and with metro's boundary change office. The full impact statement on this item includes information on economic and real estate development impacts and community impacts and community involvement. No verbal or written testimony was submitted on this item prior to committee action. And that concludes the committee staff summary. Thank you.
636 Thank you. Claire councilor Novick. As I believe your committee chair, anything to report on this?
637 No, nothing to add.
638 Great.
639 And we are not doing a staff presentation at this moment. Is that right? Because yeah, we're in the first reading at the moment. But the presentation was at council, at committee, the climate resilience and land use committee. Keelan has anyone signed up for testimony on this item?
640 No one signed up.
641 Okay. Council, is there any discussion of this item? Counselor Zimmerman.
642 I just had a clarifying question. Clarifying question for claire. Did you say it was passed without recommendation?
643 That's correct. So it was moved out of committee with without recommendation as to passage, I can note, and this is on the record, on the video record that a committee member of the climate resilience and land use committee made the suggestion to move the ordinance to full council without recommendation in order to reserve committee agenda. Time for a subsequent committee item on that date.
644 Okay. So all right, so I guess I, I'm looking to the to the leadership of the committee. Was there controversy around this item or was it an administrative like, let's roll, get it off our docket?
645 Councilor I wish I had a stronger memory of it, but I think it was the latter. I think it was. Let's roll. Get it off our docket. I don't recall that there was any complaint about it.
646 Got it. I appreciate that as as being in my district, it's like usually I know the controversial one, so I wasn't quite sure how to take that. I appreciate it. Thank you. No further questions.
647 Counselor. Pirtle-guiney.
648 I believe this came without recommendation because there wasn't time for a presentation in committee. Is that correct? There was a presentation in committee.
649 I can't remember whether there was a time for a short presentation, but then no time. Real time for discussion. Claire, can you help me? I apologize, yes.
650 And again, based on being present in the committee meeting, the committee record the staff did give, as requested by the committee, an abbreviated presentation. As I mentioned, there was no written testimony or public testimony. And again, as far I the committee discussion was was limited. Yes. And staff are here in the room. If there are technical questions, staff from bts.
651 Councilor Kanal may have some information, so I'll defer to him and jump back in if needed.
652 Sounds good. Thank you, councilor Canal.
653 Yeah. Thank you. I made the motion to refer without recommendation. What happened was we heard the the recommendation. We had an item later on in the agenda for the parks levy key performance indicators, and we were going to run out of time for that. And at first we thought that that we could hear that in a different meeting. But then midway through the updated meeting, staff us that this was the only time we could talk about the parks levy, key performance indicators. And so we had already about to start the presentation. So just to save time so we could talk about something that matters to, you know, very broadly is a purely administrative thing. There's no controversy that I'm aware of. Thanks.
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654 Thank you. Councilor Novick.
655 I just wanted to say this will not be the first or even the 50th time, and it won't be the last time that I bow to councilor Kanal superior memory.
656 Thank you colleagues. With nobody else in the queue at this moment, I will move this item to a second reading. And with that, I'd like to take a five minute. Oh, sorry, mr. Attorney.
657 At this, you could take a five minute recess and reconvene, or we are still in the recessed meeting of January 8th. You could, without objection, adjourn that meeting and carry over the remaining items to the regular 2:00 January 14th meeting.
658 That is what I would like to do. Without objection from my colleagues. I'd like to adjourn this meeting and roll the items over to the 2:00 January 14th meeting. Is that right? Any objections? Seeing no objections, I will adjourn the meeting. And we will reconvene in five minutes.
659 Oh, I'm sorry.
660 I'm sorry, very sorry. We will need a little bit more time to be able to switch the meeting.
661 We'll.
662 15 minutes. Okay? Okay.
663 Everybody, please be back here at two 250. Thank you.