The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2026-04-30
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (26,639 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 session, held Thursday, April 30, 2026 and identified as a continuation from the previous day, opened with a roll call establishing member presence, followed by discussion of Item 9, an ordinance (Document 2026-111) addressing identification requirements for law enforcement officers, including facial-covering prohibitions, badge visibility, and identity verification, amending City Code Chapter 23.30. The item had been discharged from committee to full Council. A staff presentation outlined the ordinance's background, its relationship to the recently passed state House Bill 4138 (the Law Enforcement Accountability and Visibility Act), and its four components: unmasking, identification, verification, and documentation. Invited testimony included a state legislator, representatives from the ACLU of Oregon, Latino Network, Together Lab, and the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition, and a Saint Paul city council member, all addressing masking, identification, and impersonation concerns. Extensive public testimony followed, expressing a range of views for and against the ordinance and related enforcement issues. The Council then discussed a sponsor's technical amendment and a competing set of amendments addressing definitions, investigation procedures, and enforcement mechanisms; participants raised questions about documentation, dispatch procedures, and potential costs. A motion to limit debate was made and voted on, as was the sponsor's amendment; votes occurred, with outcomes recorded in the vote ledger. The session was continued to a future date as a continued first reading before adjournment.
AI-drafted from the session's auto-captions, reviewed by an editor — describes the discussion only; recorded votes live in the vote ledger. Captions contain errors.
Procedural markers in this session
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0 Good afternoon. I'm calling back to order the meeting of the Portland city council. It is 2:00 on Thursday, April 30th. Rebecca, can you please call the roll?
1 Kanal Kanal here. Pirtle-guiney. Ryan.
2 Koyama Lane here.
3 Morillo here. Novick. Here.
4 Clark here.
Procedural episode · turns 5–15
Parliamentary activity detected in this stretch (see the markers above). An editor-reviewed analysis has not been published for this episode yet.
5 Green here. Zimmerman.
6 Avalos present.
7 Smith here.
8 Dunphy here.
9 And can we please read the rules of decorum?
10 I believe since we're continued from yesterday.
11 Great rules of decorum still apply people. Thank you. Can we please read item number nine.
12 Item nine ad identification of law enforcement officers. Code to prohibit facial covering. Require badge visibility and require identity verification for individuals conducting law enforcement activities. Ad code chapter 23.30. Document number 2026-111.
13 Thank you very much, colleagues. This item was discharged from committee to a full council by the request of four councilors. As such, we will not be hearing a committee report today. Councilor Kanal staff will give us a brief presentation on the substance of the ordinance. Councilor Kanal.
14 Thank you.
15 Can I have a point of information? Is the link working for everybody else? Yeah, okay, I will. Clerk I need a new link. Thank you.
16 Thank you. Council president colleagues, I'm excited to bring forward an ordinance to ensure that law enforcement in the city of Portland are unmasked, identified, and verified in partnership with my co-sponsor, councilor Morillo portlanders, you have the right to know who's policing you. Today's ordinance, if adopted, will enshrine that right into law. That's a broad statement. So let me be clear about what we're all going to be asked to vote on. This is a modest, narrowly focused ordinance that will ensure we're in compliance with state law requiring visible faces for law enforcement in most situations, in compliance with state law and our Portland values requiring visible identification for law enforcement in all situations. It is also an ordinance that provides certainty to the public that Portland police officers will respond and look into it. When someone is in our community claiming law enforcement authority, but without obvious indicators that they have that authority. Finally, it will provide public information on all the above through documentation. Colleagues, you will not be asked to vote to forcibly unmask other law enforcement agencies or pin identification to them physically. That is not in this ordinance. You will not be asked to vote for arrests of other law enforcement personnel and any claim to the contrary you may hear today is false, but today we can build public trust in local government, help combat the infrequent but incredibly harmful phenomenon of law enforcement imposters who in the last year have robbed, abducted, sexually assaulted and even killed people across the country and help ensure that we know which people claiming to be law enforcement actually are and create public information. So portlanders know who is policing us. I'm going to invite my staff member, jack tjaden, to come up, and we'll start screen sharing as well. It's my senior policy advisor, jack tjaden, joining us. I think we may also have for a portion of this councilor Morillo policy staffer as well. I'll let her introduce when that's when she comes up. So I'm going to we don't need to see this to, to get started on it, but the agenda for today's presentation, we're going to start with that presentation, move to invited testimony and the technical sponsors amendment, which brings the text up to date from what happened since the last time this was heard in committee on March 16th. Then after giving any other councilors who want to float an amendment time to do so, we'll hear from the public and a council president. Dunphy's direction will do technical q&a and discussion together afterwards. It's a full house. It's a packed presentation, so we'll hopefully get through as much as possible. But my main focus today is to ensure that people understand the legislation, how straightforward it is, and don't get lost in misinformation. And we'll wait for slide three when you can, please. I don't know if council president, if you. Had intro comments as well. We get there. Oh, we got it. There we go. If you can go two slides forward please. Who are these people? We can't know. And right now we can't tell. Sometimes they're masked. They're smashing windows, kidnaping people into unmarked cars with license plates removed, stalking parents outside of schools, and spreading terror in our community. In some cases, we don't even know if they're law enforcement or imposters. Next slide please. We know that the existence of masked agents, absent consistent verification, creates the conditions in which imposters can be more successful. We also know that ice is not telling the city when and where they are operating. For most law enforcement agencies, there's a concept called deconfliction. It's a crucial process to alert one another when they are undercover or executing warrants or otherwise operating in places where they might be in the same place. This helps avoid accidental interference and safety concerns between law enforcement and for the public. Ice, telling us where they're at wouldn't violate sanctuary policy because we're not helping them. We just want and need to know where they are in our community. And in the midst of heightened threats to life and safety that we're in today, this is more important than ever to recognize that context. When we started this process last summer, I think people were on board with the general concept, but unconvinced that this was a real fear, even though we had examples that you can see on the slide from other locations. But this is no longer a hypothetical risk here in Portland. Two weeks before I presented a committee, the first time cbp agents shot to east portlanders, and the week and a half after I presented last in committee, an imposter said he was an ice agent and threatened a 7-eleven cashier and his family in southeast Portland. Next slide please. So impersonators are a real risk. And like I said in committee, when asked, why are we doing this ordinance? Even donald trump's fbi agrees that law enforcement should be identifying themselves in light of impersonators. Portlanders have a right to know that someone claiming to be law enforcement is not an imposter. You have a right to know that law enforcement agencies are operating transparently and accountably. You have the right to the information that you need if you wish to seek justice or a remedy in the future, like a lawyer needing to know which agency may have picked up their client, you have a right to know who's policing you. Next slide please. This policy aims to clearly establish the community standard for accountable and transparent law enforcement in compliance with state law. The law enforcement accountability and visibility act, or leiva. It aims to prevent kidnapings or worse by imposters through consistent verification, fight fear and intimidation while building public trust in local government and increase accountability and transparency. Just to give a little timeline of how we've gotten to this point, we've engaged stakeholders since this concept began. As you can see, there's been a lot of back and forth. It's the next slide. Sorry, she might be two more. Yeah, this is a little context to the legislation that's already happened. One more please. Yeah. So we've engaged stakeholders since this concept was first brought together. As you can see, this started in August. In September, we started meeting with people across the administration, particularly the public safety service area. I want to thank everyone at the public safety service area who's given feedback on this. It's been really helpful to ensure that things can be done operationally. Mayor's office, city attorney's office, etc. We started on this before leiva at the state, and so I wanted to just flag as we go to the next slide, how that got changed, because we presented what was then version six. We're on eight now to the council's community and public safety committee. In January. We participated in some of the conversations around leiva at that time. From January to March, we continue to revise and engage and made a version seven, which we brought forward in March. And in April we created an eighth version, which is the one before us today, incorporating further feedback from the public safety service area, as well as updates that needed to bring this legislation in line with levi definition updates, things like that. After the four councilor Released that moved it here, we have brought this ordinance forward. There is a technical amendment that needs to bring the March version in line with today. And today is the first reading. Next slide please. I'm going to walk through the policies for parts. Now we call this the right to know who's policing you, because it is so much more than just unmasking. There are four key components to the policy unmasking, identifying and verifying officers and documenting incidents. I'll go through each of these. First. We're establishing a standard that masks are not commonly acceptable for law enforcement in the city of Portland. It's marked with a check mark on that previous slide because the state already established the law in house bill 4138. And in a few minutes, you're going to hear from the primary sponsor of that representative who is here with us. It also already includes common exceptions such as medical reasons, undercover operations, thanks to feedback and engagement from the public safety service area police bureau, we've even clarified some of the parts, with the exceptions that the state didn't address. This ordinance used their suggestion of a set temperature, for example, as an exemption from masking rules when it's below a certain temperature. Next slide please. It identifies sorry, it benefits our community when people are identified and whether or not other levels of government are identified or not. It increases trust in local government. When portlanders can clearly and visually distinguish PPB from other agencies. We've lifted much. We've taken much of the identification standards from existing police bureau directives. Here in Portland. There are some changes. We've met the state identification requirements from the bill. We go a step further as well by requiring name tags with last names, visible badge numbers and clear agency insignia. The ordinance also establishes indicia of authority or legitimate markers for law enforcement authority, including the pairing of identification with authority, again with melissa hortman, the speaker of the minnesota state house, who was killed last June. The imposter had uniform and a squad car. We need to make sure that someone not only looks the part, but that they have some verification from the the agency. And that leads me to the next slide. When officers cannot tell if someone is a legitimate law enforcement officer and that person is doing something that would be illegal for a civilian, but not law enforcement, such as smashing a window, forcefully grabbing someone, throwing them into an unmarked vehicle. This can be a disturbing scene. This ordinance requires that our officers do a preliminary investigation. This is where a PPB officer in the field would do. They would call their leadership and someone would call dc Salem. Other agencies to determine, is this person dea, ice, state patrol, whoever. If reasonable suspicion exists, then they would also be able to do a full investigation. We've retained the federal legal standard, including officer discretion, for this particular test, and this requires only that. It starts with a call to dispatch to try and verify. The verification section does not directly, directly regulate nor seek to the conduct of anyone but Portland city employees, ensuring that we as a city take on the responsibility of verification of law enforcement authority. This fits into our existing responsibilities to follow and enforce laws around impersonation, kidnaping and more. Now, it's true that we cannot directly prevent federal officers from exercising legitimate law enforcement authority that they have been given by the federal government due to the supremacy clause of the us constitution. It's also true that if someone wants to claim supremacy protects them, they need to first prove that they are legitimate law enforcement. As a result, this section is legally compliant with federally set rules around reasonable suspicion because officers are not being directed to arrest or detain, but they are recording the steps that they do to look into it and the information they receive, which leads us into the next slide. Documentation. Documentation occurs through written reports and or body worn cameras. Details about the person or officer that they investigated, and indicia of authority if it was observed. This provides an accounting of the reasons PPB officers did or did not have reasonable suspicion of impersonation or other crimes and accountability. That this ordinance is being followed. The system is being used. It creates a record that could be used by the attorney general at a later date. The aclu has also advised that they have interest in this sort of information to. The ordinance serves as a legal structure and institution beyond just us, because justice can one day be served if we set our future selves up for it. This ordinance is not a mere masking ban. Together, all four of these components will get us to the point where you know who is policing you. Next slide please. A note about legality. We did not do this policy alone, along with organizations like the American civil liberties union, who you'll also hear from will also received feedback.
17 Sit down. And they had a camera that they around the camera.
18 Along with organizations. Sorry.
19 Law enforcement.
20 Thanks, folks. Thank you for raising.
21 Attention to our security. Security will take care of it. Thank you very much for enforcing the chamber rules. Security folks. Councilor Kanal.
22 Yeah. Thank you. We didn't do this policy alone, along with organizations like the American civil liberties union, who you're going to hear from. We also receive feedback from the Oregon justice research center and our own city attorney's office. And at the risk of, you know, diminishing our own role, the city attorney's office authored well over half of this code's exact text and therefore ensured that it was in legal compliance. And we also ensured that it includes language for both labor and bargaining compliance. I want to take a chance to talk about a couple of the things we've heard in the past and how we address those, and I'll just go through these starting with the next slide. We were and I'm not going to read everything on these slides, but it's all available online for those who are interested. While it was claimed that this could inhibit use of law enforcement masks for things like health related n95s, kn95s or hazmat usage, masking required for medical or public health purposes explicitly allowed. And there's references to the occupational safety as well as ordinance clearly applies only to law enforcement. Next slide please. There was a conversation around, well, do we have to do this at all because the state created. And that means we no longer have to do an ordinance in. Law enforcement agencies are required to maintain a masking policy within 180 days of the ordinance, the bill being signed. It also explicitly says that it's a floor, not a ceiling. And in specific places, local jurisdictions are permitted to go above and beyond the minimum standard. Next slide please. I talked about the supremacy clause a little bit earlier. I want to be clear that that while it's been claimed that we can't require PPB to hinder a federal investigation or arrest ice agents, and that's true. The ordinance doesn't do that. And we can say all the things that are legal or not legal. But if it's not relevant to the ordinance, that's the concern here because it's not in the ordinance. State masking and id rules establish a community standard for verification. There's no requirement to hinder a federal investigation. In fact, quite the opposite in multiple places. The ordinance states that once someone is verified as any level of law enforcement, PPB will disengage. And I also want to just draw attention that creation of standards through this process has both upward and downward implications on legal risk. And what that means is, in the hypothetical scenario that that I think has been brought up in committee of fear that somebody is going to be dragged into court, it would be helpful for that city employee to be able to say, I was told by the state and by the local government that this is what I had to do, and that's a positive for that person. Next slide. 20 other jurisdictions. I'm not going to run through all this, but they're all on here, other jurisdictions. We already have different rules than other cities. But when we ask for partners to come in and assist us, we all enforce the law in the place that they're they're doing it not necessarily the place of their employment. Next slide. Violations are not criminal. I want to I want to make this very clear. Violating this ordinance would not be a criminal offense. And we wrote that in explicitly. And instead it requires documentation and conversations with supervisors around things like exemptions. We were told that verifications were illegal in committee. This came up. We followed the federal reasonable suspicion standard and broke up verification into two parts to be legally compliant. A preliminary investigation in which any interaction is purely voluntary for the potential imposter and a possible full verification should reasonable suspicion exist. And finally, we got criticized for putting too many mask exemptions in on this. And I'll just say these exemptions were based off of the next slide. The exemptions were based off of state law and legal adaptations that we created, based on our conversations with the public safety service area to maintain operational capacity and avoid undue restriction. I'll also note that just like with any other ordinance, once we pass something, there's administrative rules that any bureau would have to would have to implement in order to operationalize it. Okay. Next slide. I just want to point out a couple of things here. Hundreds of people emailed, called, or reached out to my office. And while that's something that might not be visible to colleagues here, there were also 280 plus written testimonies over the life of this ordinance so far, and 100 plus live testimonies that excludes today's number. We also had lots of community based organizations who provided feedback. Some of those are here today. And thank you in advance to those who are going to testify on the next slide. We have some themes, and I want to note that the last two are things that people did ask us to go further in some cases, or have distrust that this would be implemented. We didn't necessarily share the same feeling, but I wanted to share it in the sense of being upfront about what the feedback we received here. There was a lot of commitment to transparency and accountability. We heard in those testimonies, as well as some personal stories that you can watch the the testimony in the future if you'd like to, to see what they said. And with that, I do want to play one little clip from an earlier testimony because seven of my colleagues were not in that committee. And I think. Are you ready to. And this is these are from March 17th.
23 Good afternoon. My name is allison keelan. My pronouns are she her, and I'm the pastor at salt and light lutheran in northeast Portland, district three. And I want to tell you a story about why I'm in support of this ordinance. Three years ago, when I started this role at salt and light, one of the first people who I met was mariana sri. She and her three year old daughter were attending an event at church, where I had also brought my three year old son. And as our children played together, we talked about what it might look like for our worship services to center our children. Mariana joined a leadership team, and together we developed this child centered service. It still goes on monthly the third Sunday of the month. Except one thing is different, which is that mariana no longer comes to services because mariana is afraid of being kidnaped by ice. Mariana doesn't come to church anymore. She's had to stop working. She cannot take her daughter to school. She cannot take her daughter to the park, and she only leaves her home for the most essential outings. Her absence has left a tear in the fabric of our community and in so many communities like ours. So this is why I support this bill, because we need to know specifically who specifically is kidnaping our community members, and specifically who is terrorizing our community members out of the fabric of our community life. We need to be able to unmask them and hold them accountable now. So I want to know if it's not the police who are to do this work, who? This is what it looks like to be the gold standard. So I support this ordinance, and I look forward to continuing to work with you on it.
24 I think we're still working on one thing here.
25 Hello, my name is kim and I live and work in district two. I am a pastor at westminster presbyterian church in Portland, and I'm here to demonstrate my strong support for the right to know who's policing you ordinance. I'm a first generation immigrant from korea, have been a naturalized citizen for over 15 years. I was raised by and have lived with communities made up of immigrants from countries all around the world. And I heard from many of these testimonies, both in favor and against this ordinance, using the phrase fear and uncertainty. And I want to name that fear and uncertainty is fear and uncertainty that immigrant communities have had to navigate for generations, because that fear and uncertainty is not only because there is a lack of transparency and accountability from the law enforcement agencies, but because those law enforcement agencies are violently detaining, kidnaping families and families from families, from their homes. Myself and other immigrant communities are asking for this policy because it is simply an alleviation of this fear and uncertainty. One tool that we might be able to use in alleviating that fear and combating that uncertainty ourselves, because the fear of being detained, the fear of being kidnaped, the fear of being sent to another state, the uncertainty of whether or not a child's father comes home, the uncertainty of driving without your passport, the uncertainty of whether or not I carry around my correct documentation, including my passport, every day. And it is clear from this hearing, as it has been for many decades, that law enforcement wants little to do as possible to protect me. And so this policy will be at least one more tool I can use in immigrant communities can use to stand up for themselves so that they can try to hold the law enforcement agencies accountable themselves. Because again, as alison, reverend allison names, if not the police, then who? Thank you.
26 Thank you. And we'll go back to the last couple slides here. And those are both March 17th. And I want to just point out we have so many people have testified. And it's it's it's kind of a flaw of the system that we often have to ask people to keep coming back to ask for the same thing over and over again. I see you, I hear you when you come in and you do it. And we wanted to get a couple, but just because we didn't play the clip doesn't mean we didn't hear you back then either. I just want to acknowledge that we do have a couple invited community speakers I want to invite up here, and I'll note a late change on one of the names as we bring them up. So if we could invite up our panel, we have Oregon state representative farrah. We have ethan crowe from the American civil liberties union of Oregon, of ana munoz from latino network. We have aleida vilches ibarra from together lab, and we have alyssa walker keller from the Portland immigrant rights coalition. And as they're doing it, I'll just go to the next slide. I'll let everybody get settled for a second. And that's the last slide. Or one more, actually, sorry, I do share the. Thank you. All right. And we can drop the slides. And representative, thank you so much for being here.
27 Thank you. Thank you city council mary may day eve to you all. For the record, I'm farrah, I'm the state representative from Beaverton and aloha house, district 35. In this last legislative session, I introduced and championed house bill 4138. The law enforcement accountability and visibility act, also known as liva. With the help of all of the community organizations and folks you see today, our bill was signed into law on March 31st by the governor, and I'm here today to support councilor Kanal right to know ordinance to continue the legislature's work on this issue and ensure that in Oregon, power is exercised in the open and in service of the people we came to be because our communities were calling on us to meet this moment. Fascism isn't knocking at our doors anymore. It's literally knocking them in without warrants. This bill was created to meaningfully work to protect scared Oregonians by establishing uniform minimum standards for all law enforcement operating in Oregon, local, state, and federal law enforcement. So authority is visible, accountable, and transparent. I'm proud of the work that we accomplished with liva, but I'm also here today to testify to the fact that there's more work to do. Hb 4000 138 was always meant to set, meant to set a statewide standard, and to be the floor for local government and jurisdictions to expand upon. That was the intention. I don't like preemptions on you guys. We can't do everything. So this is a floor. The passage of liva reflects not only the hard work of community partners and advocates, but also numerous compromises during the many long and arduous, arduous negotiations with opponents of the bill and other legislators, we fought to maintain a minimum standard of transparency, knowing that local governments could expand on this work to meet the needs of their constituencies. I introduced liva based on what I consider to be a simple and widely shared belief that when someone has the power to stop you, question you, detain you, or arrest you, you deserve to know who they are and who they work for. And it's unamended form. Liva included granting local and state law enforcement legal backing to investigate potential violations of misrepresentation of a law enforcement agency. While it did not mandate that officers were required to investigate those violations, it stated that they may choose to investigate these instances. This portion of the bill was paramount to impacted community members and advocates, and they were important to me as a state legislator representing one of the most diverse districts in Oregon. Amending this out of the bill came after much negotiation, however, the community decided that it was critical that the state pass some protections, however imperfect, for families living in constant fear of masked agents. It's my hope that this body can build on the work done in the short session to deliver even stronger protections for our most vulnerable neighbors. I'm kind of confused by some of the dissent that claims this ordinance should be abandoned in order to implement house bill 4138, since, like I said, it was intended to serve as a statewide statewide standard and operate as a floor, not a ceiling for local jurisdictions, this is a point that we made extremely clear in the process of passing this bill. I asked legislative council many times. I checked in many times to make sure that we were not going to cut you off. Not just you, anyone. And we were assured that that was the case. Portland, like every city in Oregon, is unique and will benefit from legislation crafted with its specific communities in mind. This ordinance empowers Portland to set your own standards that build upon the fundamental principle of liva. Regarding this recent california ninth circuit court ruling. I'm not an attorney, and I'm certainly not a constitutional scholar, but I do want to address that. This is just a preliminary injunction and currently pending appeal. There's no final ruling, and the court's full analysis still hasn't come out yet. Let me be clear. Nothing happening in the california courts is currently preventing the implementation of a statewide in Oregon or the Portland city council for moving forward with the ordinance being discussed today, should a final ruling and opinion come down from the courts stating federal law enforcement need not abide by the requirements of or mandates from local jurisdictions, this ordinance will still have value in regulating how our law enforcement officers are operating, and in signaling to the community who they can trust. We've heard anecdotally and from community members doing this work on the ground, that there are marginalized community members who no longer feel safe reporting instances of domestic violence, assault, or other issues because they can no longer easily differentiate between legitimate local and state law enforcement officers and potential imposters. Through the passage and implementation of house bill 4138 and ordinances such as the one before you today, the public will know that legitimate local and state law enforcement officers must not hide their faces behind masks except for narrow exceptions, and must display minimum uniform standards that include a form of individual identification and what jurisdiction or agency they work for. Oregonians have time and time again voted with their values to say that they support immigrant and refugee communities at a time when the community is rightfully demanding accountability and visibility from law enforcement and public entities, we must meet this moment and send a powerful message to protect vulnerable Oregonians and build trust in local and state law enforcement. I'm here today to urge your support of councilor Nils right to know ordinance as a continuation of the legislature's work to ensure that an. Oregon powers exercised in the open and in service to the people. I am happy to answer questions if you want.
28 Refer to, go to the full five.
29 If yes, council.
30 I'd love for the rest of the panel to lead us off from the public testimony. If that's all right, we can just very quickly, I apologize to all of you very quickly. We'll get through our business because there's a couple of technical amendments that are needing to be discussed. I'd like to colleagues, what I would like to do is I'd like to have us present the amendments to councilor Kanal. Turn it to you first. My priority is to get through testimony today, and then we can have council discussion after that.
31 Can we have four other panelists before questions for. For.
32 Yeah, yeah. Sorry. I had invited testimony later on my run of show.
33 So my apologies. I think we might have had two versions. All good. Is it okay.
34 Then let's let's continue this. We'll get you all through and then we will move to amendments.
35 Thank you so much. So I think, ethan, I think you're next. Thank you so much.
36 Hi. Ethan crow with the aclu of Oregon here in place of jessica maravilla, who couldn't be here today but appreciated the time of many stakeholders and folks in this body that she's had the opportunity to speak with. We strongly support the right to know ordinance at the aclu of Oregon. Our work is grounded in protecting civil liberties and ensuring that government power is exercised transparently and within constitutional limits. When someone exercises the authority to detain, question, use, force, the public has a right to know who they are and what agency they represent. Transparency builds trust, protects both community members and law enforcement, and ultimately keeps everyone safe. This past legislative session, Oregon took a major step forward by passing house bill 4138. The law enforcement accountability and visibility act. Leave for short from the beginning level, was designed as a floor, not a ceiling. Local governments were always intended to build on that framework based on the needs of their communities, and portland's need is profoundly clear. Right now, people in this city are experiencing enforcement actions where they cannot identify who is detaining them, what agency is involved, or whether that person is lawfully exercising authority that creates real harm. It fuels fear, increases the risk of escalation, and opens the door to impersonation. Just as importantly, we lack even the most basic data. There is no consistent way to verify or record these interactions. Law enforcement is not consistently dispatched to these calls, and we do not have reliable way to track how often this is happening. That gap undermines accountability and makes it harder to build effective public safety responses. This ordinance addresses that gap. It requires that when enforcement actions occur, officers verify and record identity and agency, a basic safeguard that protects both the public and officers. We want to acknowledge mayor wilson and his office. We appreciate the ongoing engagement and the shared commitment to getting this right. These are complex issues and we value the dialog. At the same time, we want to respond directly to some concerns that have been raised. A recent federal court ruling has raised concerns that this type of policy may not withstand legal scrutiny, particularly as it relates to federal officers, and that moving forward now could create a risk for the city. It is important to be clear about what that ruling actually does. It is a preliminary injunction pending appeal, not a final determination on the constitutionality of these policies. The court's full analysis is still pending. And even if portions of these types of laws are ultimately narrowed, as applies to federal officers, that does not undermine the core value of this ordinance. Strong identification and masking limits for state and local officers send a clear message to communities that transparency and accountability are non-negotiable. This ordinance does not interfere with federal law. It sets transparency, limits transparency standards for how enforcement operates within Portland. At the end of the day, this ordinance ensures that no one exercises the power of the state in our communities while remaining anonymous. Leave us set the foundation. This ordinance is Portland doing its part to carry that work forward in response to what communities are experiencing here right now. Because this is not abstract, this is not this is about whether a parent knows who's stopping their child, whether a neighbor can trust that the person at their door is acting lawfully, whether people in this city feel protected or targeted by the systems meant to serve them. Transparency is not a burden. It is a baseline. It is how we build trust, how we prevent harm, and how we ensure that power is used responsibly. Portland has the opportunity to lead here to affirm that in this city, accountability is not optional and safety does not come at the expense of our rights. Respectfully, we urge your support. Thank you.
37 Elana might be next.
38 Thank you. Hi. Buenas tardes. Good evening. My name is ana munoz. I'm with latino network. I'm director of community defense, and I am here to strongly support council member canales proposal on the right to know ordinance. Excuse me. In other words, to increase transparency in our local law enforcement tactics. And we urge you to do the same. There shouldn't be any shortcuts in law enforcement tactics because mistakes can cause someone their life. When we interact with law enforcement, whether during a traffic stop or any other encounter, we expect basic, basic safeguards. We expect to see a face. We expect a name spoken or clearly displayed. We expect the presence of body or dash cams to ensure accountability and safety for everyone involved. We expect access to police reports after the fact, and we expect that any changes to policing policies are subject to public scrutiny, legislative debate and oversight through established bodies like dps est. When we don't have basic safeguards from our local law enforcement, you are opening opportunities for imposters to act as the authority imposters who are led by anti-immigrant and white supremacy beliefs. Imposters have been known to harass, attack, and threaten immigrants, leaving them too afraid to call the police. This type of terrorizing should not exist in our communities at all. Many immigrants and refugees are here escaping religious persecutions, systemic gender based violence, war, and civil conflicts. Do you truly believe that they trust law enforcement? Know and they don't trust someone that has their face covered, someone that don't identify themselves, right? I mean, that's terrorizing already. So don't have our local law enforcement act like federal agents because that's exactly what they're doing. Portland must be clear and consistent, no matter the jurisdiction. Anyone acting in a law enforcement capacity must uphold these standards and treat our residents with dignity, respect, and full due process under the law, regardless of individual beliefs on immigration policy, the reality is that these recent chaotic and lawless enforcement actions are eroding trust at a profound level. This erosion is not limited to immigrant communities, though they are disproportionately affecting u.s. Citizens and native Americans as well. Legislations like this championed by councilor Kanal. Thank you very much. It's a critical step towards restoring and keeping trust among law enforcement. It helps mitigate the chaos and harm established, establish clear expectations, and reaffirm portland's commitment to accountability, transparency policies. Portlanders will be able to rely on the simple but essential truth that our local law enforcement will not operate without identification, without oversight, and without accountability. Thank you.
39 Thank you. Good afternoon, council president and members of the council. My name is aleida and I'm co-director of together lab, an organization that builds community power to transform systems that exploit people and the planet. We build that power with immigrants, with youth and the people who love them, and with faith leaders, a few of which you will see testified today. I'm here to urge you to support the right to know ordinance. In the past year, together lab has given over 50 know your rights, know your rights, or ice watch trainings to our communities in every single one of your districts. I have sat in rooms with lawyers reviewing heartbreaking footage of ice's brutal tactics alongside other immigrant defenders, so that we can update our trainings and make sure that people have the latest information to keep our community safe. And I've had the privilege and great responsibility to hold the grief and the terror of every of your constituents. As operation black rose took over 1000 of our neighbors. We support this ordinance because every single place we have given our presentations, the same questions come up. What if ice doesn't leave my house after I don't open my door? Can I call the police? What if the person who is harassing me is an imposter? Is police working with ice? My answer always has to walk the line between pointing the sanctuary law that so many of us in this room organize to pass, and the reality that police in our community have never prioritized the safety of immigrants and communities of color. People want concrete answers, but what lies under these questions is a deeper longing to know that someone cares about our safety, that someone will actually protect us. This ordinance will help us verify agents see have access to recorded footage and have data that we need, so that when we are on the other side of this, and I hope we get to be on the other side of this, we can hold accountable the people who perpetrate this harm, and also to make sure that today it supports our cases. I can imagine for you all in a position of power, it is easy to intellectualize this ordinance, and I know you want to be as good stewards of our funds and the loss of our city. But for those of us who are part of the immigrant community, the rapid response networks, mutual aid groups, community organizations, and faith communities who see our neighbors being taken. And for me, who has to stand in a room full of people signing as people are signing papers, giving away custody of their children in case that ice takes them. This ordinance is not just an intellectual exercise. It is about our city fighting for us and fighting for what is right. It is about city councilors and me and the mayor that is willing to take the same risks that so many of us already are taking, and about the values that we hold sacred as portlanders, the values that we show up for our neighbors. So I urge you to vote yes on this ordinance and join the thousands of us in your city that are already taking risks, showing up for our neighbors, and in big and small ways. All of us are building a city where immigrants will always belong. Thank you.
40 Good afternoon councilors. My name is alyssa walker. I'm the coordinator at the Portland immigrant rights coalition, and I'm here today to show support for the right to know who's policing you ordinance. We're grateful to councilor Kanal and his team for inviting us and other partners, some of whom are with me here at this table, to be part of the review process for this proposed ordinance. Our perspective is formed by the on the ground observations of more than 20,000 phone calls to our hotline last year, for people from people who were looking for resources and reporting possible ice activity, we've borne witness to the confusion and lack of clarity due to the actions of agents who dress in plain clothes, drive vehicles with no license plates and, of course, notably, are covering their faces and do not provide identification when asked. At least 287 detentions were reported to perk in Portland proper since July. That's nearly 30 more than the last time that I gave testimony on this ordinance. This is very much an issue that is impacting your constituents. Perks. Incredible. Dispatchers are telling us how challenging it is to receive phone calls from callers who are unsure who they are dealing with. Many hotline calls involve unmarked or suspicious vehicles and people, and uncertainty means lost time. Our dispatchers have shared that police verifying whether someone is a federal agent could serve as a deterrent to would be imposters. Because we have received reports of imposters interrogating young people on the max. And then this past month, when we saw an ice imposter threatening a 7-eleven clerk during a robbery in southeast Portland, having PPB officers ascertain with clarity who is involved in a detention or provide documentation of these violations will also be of great value to the families who are seeking justice when ice has broken the law, and it will deter these imposters from copycat behavior that creates fear and undermines our community's safety. The reality is, is that every day, courageous portlanders are already taking it upon themselves to ask agents who it is who is detaining their neighbors and loved ones. Thousands of Oregonians have been trained to do just this already, so it makes sense that the Portland police would be mandated to verify the indicia of authority of agents to detain people. This will help protect your issuance. This will show our community who local police are choosing to protect, and we may not be able to prevent ice masking, but we can reduce the uncertainty and fear in our community with clear ordinances that visualize who it is. I shared this story in the committee hearing, and I think it bears repeating. This issue is never more real to me personally than the moment that I accompanied the very next person who left court and walked to her vehicle. After the first detention in immigration court last June. I will never forget the terror on that woman's face as she met me at the doors of the court. Who was that? She asked me. I think it was ice, I explained. Well, why were they wearing masks? What happened to the girl in the pink sweater? These masked men had walked in, surrounded a woman, took her away and left everyone stunned, unsure what had happened or why. And there was no one there with the authority stopping them and asking why they had done so. Like so many others, this woman shared with me that she never thought that this would happen in the country that she had fled to. I ask that this council move, this proposal to be an ordinance. Local law enforcement can alleviate confusion both in their transparency of identification and by being given the responsibility to document crimes against Oregonians. Your vote today communicates to this city that we are willing to take the steps necessary to know who is kidnaping our neighbors off the streets. Thank you.
Procedural episode · turns 41–49
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41 Thank you all so much for testifying. So, colleagues, as I mentioned, there are some amendments floating on the table. I'm going to turn it over to councilor Kanal to introduce his amendment and then councilor Novick. I'll also turn it over to you to introduce your amendment, and then we will move on to public testimony, two minutes each. And I believe we have 40 something 42 people signed up to testify. So councilor Kanal.
42 Thank you, council president. Thank you, everyone for testifying. Two quick notes before I get into the amendment. One, there is a sixth invited testifiers connection has not happened yet, so we'll get that as soon as they're available. And the other thing is, for those who may be watching this at home or watch the video later, there's a very there's a lot of spirited democracy going on outside this room and outside this building, and I hope that we'll match the spirit of that, if not necessarily the style inside this building as well. So when we made this amendment, I just want to transparently note that we we put up an amendment on April 16th. It's still posted there for transparency. We updated it yesterday. So it's what was already there and then some. It originally had a track changes version and a clean version at the bottom in the same document. The new one there is a scrivener's error in the clean version, so please use only the track changes version up top. I just wanted to make sure we're using that. This amendment updates the definitions to better align with the recently passed house bill 4138. A more clearly describes preliminary investigations to make clear the actions that PPB must take, which is including calling dispatch and also those that may be taken to avoid risk exposure from misunderstandings of the code and clearing up the language. It clarifies the reporting requirements for police actions taken under the verification section. It explicitly exempts, which we didn't originally we missed that explicitly exempts the entire section from a different section of city code 1.0, 1.110, which is the code violation penalties. I mentioned that earlier in the slides. It updates language to clarify what is being verified, to very clearly say when the thing that we're verifying is authority to operate as a law enforcement agent. And it clarifies legislative intent because while the values haven't changed, some of the very specific actions have, we understand that legislative intent needs to be made very clear. And so we're trying to make that clear, both in the presentation and in the text, around what needs to be visibly displayed, including last name badge, permanent identifying number with minor word changes so that terms make sense both legally and operationally. Because sometimes a word can be interpreted differently by the people on the ground and our attorneys here in the city. And so I'm happy to to answer questions about it. When we get to that point with the specific thing, as we scroll, as you scroll through, you may have specific questions, but that's the broad strokes of what it does. And it is a sponsor's amendment. So what I would be asking colleagues to do is have the courtesy we normally do, where we allow the sponsor to start the debate wherever their proposal is, and then feel free to amend it, of course, as the conversation continues. Thank you, council president.
43 Thank you, councilor Kanal councilor Novick.
44 Thank you, mr. President. First of all, I want to follow up on the comments made about the ninth circuit decision. The ninth circuit decision is actually devastating, and unless it's overturned, we are out of luck. The ninth circuit decision was a decision on a preliminary injunction. So it is technically a preliminary decision. And the court just said that it's this is that the california state law, which closely mirrors the Oregon state law and this ordinance, is likely unconstitutional. But the language the court used, if they stick with it, is devastating. Section ten of the vigilantes act requires any non uniform federal law enforcement officer, with narrow exceptions to visibly display identification while performing federal law enforcement duties. Section ten of the no vigilantes act attempts to directly regulate the federal government in its performance of law enforcement operations. It purports to override the federal government's power to determine whether, how and when to publicly identify its officers. The supremacy clause bars direct state regulation of the federal government, and that is precisely what the vigilantes act does. This opinion is an opinion of a three judge panel of the ninth circuit, which is the way things normally work out, so it could be appealed to the full ninth circuit, but it was a unanimous opinion by three judges, including an obama appointee who, ironically, is the first asian American woman to serve on an appellate court. So the odds that this will be overturned are low, and the public people just need to know that we need to be honest.
45 Point a point of order on this is the amendment about the ninth circuit court ruling. Are you overturning in your amendment?
46 No, I just I just thought that it's important for people to know. So I'll I'll proceed with my amendment.
47 The aclu disagrees.
48 Okay. Well, they would at some point like the city attorney to come up. So so.
49 We're doing amendments, right?
50 Yeah. So. All right. I still think that we should try to pass something because miracles do happen. Maybe the ninth circuit opinion will be overturned. My amendments do several things. My amendments. First of all, I want to credit councilor Kanal for all the work that he's done in this, and particularly having to deal with the passage of the state law. If you've been working on a local law for for months and months and incorporating that and consulting, etc. One thing that my amendment does is close what I see to be significant loopholes, one of which is borrowed in this ordinance from the state law, and one of which I think is separate loopholes that I think ice could drive trucks through. The proposed ordinance address applies the identification requirements to people engaged in law enforcement activities, and that is defined as criminal law enforcement. Ice is largely involved in civil enforcement of immigration laws. So I my amendment says that it applies to people engaged in criminal law enforcement or civil law enforcement. When that enforcement involves detention. Councilor Kanal identification requirement applies to officers. Officers in uniform ice is often not in uniform. In fact, I'm not even sure they have uniforms. So this changes that as well. Also, I thought it was important to have a more specific enforcement provision. The state law enforcement provision is that people can bring citizen suits to enforce it, leaving it up to individual people. Councilor Kanal refers to various administrative or civil processes. I want to say specifically that this ordinance authorizes the mayor to bring a lawsuit against any violating agency, to get injunctive relief, to force them to comply with the law. Beyond that, my amendments would address would remove certain language, which I think is unnecessary and and problematic. Councilor Kanal ordinance goes into detail as to how the Portland police will internally comply with this law and the state law. I think that the Portland police are already under instruction by the state law to come up with their own internal policies and procedures, and the Portland police do not have a history of over masking or under identifying. So I think that it's appropriate for us to leave it to the Portland police to complete that process. And partly that's because and this is frustrating, but if the council issues prescriptive instructions to the police on how to do something like implement this ordinance, then we're likely to draw a challenge under labor law that we're trying to mandate things that should be achieved through bargaining, and that is a real threat, and that could result in the implementation of the legislation being significantly delayed. Right now, my understanding is that the police are negotiating in their bargaining agreement to incorporate the state law into it. So that is already underway. In addition. So my proposal would take out the part saying, here's how the Portland police are supposed to internally comply with the law. In addition, my proposal would remove some of the language from councilor Kanal provision on what the police are supposed to do when they encounter somebody who's doing something that would be illegal if it weren't done by a law enforcement official. My proposal says that, yes, they should take steps to determine if that person is actually law enforcement, and they should write a report on the outcome of that. And also a specifically say that no matter what the outcome, the Portland police should, if they see a purported federal law enforcement officer who is wearing a mask or not wearing the required identification, that should be reported. And I envision that those reports could be used as the basis for a lawsuit that the mayor could bring. My proposal eliminates a lot of other specific language in that provision in that section, which I think are unnecessary and legally problematic. I think that the specific directions to Portland police increase the risk that we could have a labor law violation. And to the extent that councilor Kanal provision suggests that the Portland police can order federal agents what to do, which I think some of them are subject to that interpretation, then that raises legal risk under the constitution. And I have checked with the city attorney, and they said that they do think that my language significantly reduces the risk on both on both counts. So again, I want to pass something, even though I know that it's likely to be overturned. But I'm a sports fan and I know that miracles happen. Just last week, the houston rockets had a six point lead and the ball with 28 seconds to go against the los angeles lakers and the lakers came back and won. So I think this is a long shot. But we should try it because as yogi berra said, it ain't over till it's over.
51 Thank you. Councilor Novick.
52 I'm sorry, mr. President. I'm going to pass out a small amendment that that mr. Taylor suggested to us yesterday. Just adding a few words to my amendment.
53 Okay. Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Smith.
54 Councilor Novick.
55 Thank you, council president councilor Novick just said something from a technical standpoint that our attorney told him something that his amendment was supposed to be better suited to not have a lawsuit. And I need our city attorney to come and tell us that I'm not could I could I could robert taylor come up.
56 I'd like to get to testimony before we get too technical.
57 But but but but the idea that's that's the last thing that they left with constituents and that's in their head. So before they give their their comments, I want him to give us this technical opinion. If that's if that's true or not.
58 I would like to move to testimony, please, before we move to technical or clarifying discussion. So. Rebecca, can we please call the first panel of testimony?
59 I'd just like to confirm, counselor, are we moving? The last speaker has joined online and. Oh yes, the order of.
60 Great.
61 Okay. If we could please call that person.
62 We do. We have counselor hwa jung kim online. Counselor kim, you can go ahead and unmute and begin.
63 Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for having me. My name is kim. I use she her pronouns. I'm a council member in ward five here in saint paul. I'm here to testify in support of the right to know ordinance. I was council vice president for the last two years, and just before operation metro surge and after metro surge, I stepped down from the leadership position to spend more time in my community. So I wouldn't be lying if I didn't say I saw so many Portland frogs for halloween and leading up into our occupation. You all brought such a unique flavor to this resistance, and even though we didn't know what was coming in minnesota, we wanted to follow your lead and make our own mark. And it's it's hard to translate what minnesota has been through. But masked secret police were smashing windows and pulling people out of cars, leaving children strapped in their car seats and vehicles rolling down the streets. Entire neighborhoods were filled with toxic and painful chemical irritants meant to hurt and cause psychological harm. They would raid restaurants and pull children from parents arms and, as you saw, use our tiniest residents as bait to bait parents out of their homes. They pulled elders out in minnesota, winners and nothing but their undergarments. Children lived in fear. Families and parents were being kidnaped off our streets. And it was all for the case of overt racial profiling. The daily violence was staggering, and the collective trauma was incredibly real. It was in my ward. We. They went door to door asking neighbors if they knew any asian people, just any asian person in the neighborhood. So now more than ever, residents need to see that they can trust their local government to act, legislate and lead powerfully. We have a tie in our state legislature, and local municipalities were more nimble to respond, but that doesn't mean that everyone took took in the urgency. We watched in horror as ice invaded your streets and my office sounded the alarm. And trust me, we got pushback. Oh, it won't happen here. It's not worth it. We don't know what they'll do. And truthfully, we didn't know enough until it was too late. And I say that having helped thousands and thousands and thousands of our of my neighbors started mutual aid for rent and kicked off some of our first grocery runs and patrols in minnesota. We proved the dhs and ice are lawless, violent, and murderous. And it's wild to think that cities taking up the same kinds of ordinances that we passed are getting any kind of resistance in saint paul. We are a sanctuary city, and for myself, that means something. Our laws become powerful statements of our morals, not just because they are written, but because we have the courage to take action and expand the scope of meeting by bolstering those values through policy making, I led banning, banning the staging or queuing in our city owned parking lots and restricted non access to nonpublic areas in our city buildings, which codified our cease and desist order. Similar to the ordinance before you today, we require all local law enforcement to display their insignia and prohibit them from masking. The saint paul city council also unanimously, unanimously passed an ordinance this last week strengthening our training, reporting and accountability relating to federal immigration enforcement and our city employees. We provided prescriptive instructions. They are incredibly important. Every single department, including our police officers, wanted clear direction and guidance, and ultimately, we did not legislate based on threats of legal challenges. All of our ordinances were unanimous, unanimous. And the council stands ready to defend our laws and protect our immigrant neighbors. What might be encouraging to hear is that we face the same legal challenges and considerations that you have. I know we like to think that we're all unique, but that just means that it's not just the right thing to do, but practical and responsible for local government. This isn't a risky thing to do. This is common sense. In minnesota, we would say this is a pretty good thing to do. These ordinances help educate and inform your residents on what they can expect and should expect when encountering federal agents in their neighborhoods. Help them sift through the massive mis and disinformation and give them solid information they can trust from all of you. This clarifies expectations to not only help calm the fears of your residents, but it also makes an impact. Families felt safer accessing resources at our libraries and rec centers, and it gave our lawyers and our city staff the ability to just tell folks to keep it moving. For those of you who think that they were just going to. For those of you, sorry. So some of you may think, well, they're just going to break the law anyway. And you're right, they will. And they showed up in masks anyways. But without establishing laws that can be broken, there can be no accountability. The hardest part hasn't been the gaslighting from the federal agency, from the federal government, but from the lack of urgency and action from our allies. The tragedy isn't the dysfunction of the federal government, it's the inaction of our local municipalities that don't utilize the power and levers they can control to do something. The downfall is an authoritarian regimes enforcing broken immigration policies with impunity, with the indecisiveness of our leaders at every single level, when given the opportunity to enact safeguards for our most vulnerable, I carry with me thousands and thousands of volunteers who have given so much of their time. I bring forward their hoarse voices of our immigrant communities crying out across the country to see their humanity. I implore you to pass this with no amendments. Thank you so much for taking the time today.
64 Thank you very much for being here.
65 Okay, I'm going to start public testimony. Sorry. We have a little timer issue. And quickly, for those signed up to testify, reminder you each have two minutes. I'll call you up in groups of five. For those in person, you'll see the timer displayed on the screen in front of the testimony table on the floor, and those online. The timer is in zoom. You'll hear the timer ding twice. Once is a warning when you have 30s left. The second is when your time is up. And I'm going to do one quick test. Okay, we'll start with heather helman, benjamin gilbert, jordan lewis, holly brown, samantha ibarra. You can begin testifying when you get to the table.
66 I am heather helman, pastor of Multnomah presbyterian in district four, part of together labs network of pastors and also of movement chaplain outside of the ice facility. I'm speaking in favor of the right to know ordinance, and I have been working with canals office and together lab on this ordinance for months. I keep showing up because as a faith leader, it's my job to advocate for those most affected by this cruelty. And I have heard from immigrant families themselves that this ordinance is important to them. We have heard that our police are the gold standard, and the mayor wants to show a safe Portland for businesses. But how can we make these claims while masked men are roaming our streets, making our neighbors too afraid to go to work, school, or even report domestic violence because they are afraid the police will act as ice does? Beyond the unmasking of federal agents, this ordinance asks our police to actually respond to calls from our immigrant neighbors. Be present and document what is happening. The city attorney has said this policy is legal. We have seen Portland officers shake hands with dhs at the facility. We have heard one officer express support for the killing of rene. Good. This is a chance for our officers to make it clear that they do not support ice. This is a chance to show that our police and leaders like yourselves don't use the vulnerable among us as a bargaining chip. Our immigrant neighbors need to trust that when they are in danger, the police will show up and try. They need to know without a doubt that the police are not working with ice, and PPB has failed to make that clear. We have been beaten, poisoned and harassed by ice and they're cosplaying fans as we've tried to protect our neighbors. We're exhausted and angry. We need to know that you are all in this with us. This ask is actually simple make all officers easy to identify and make sure our police respond to calls and document what they can. This is how we start to build trust with leaders like yourselves and the police who have failed. It won't be perfect, but we don't claim a gold standard. Thank you councilor Kanal, for trying something. And thank you to all who supported this and brought this to the table.
67 Thank you so much.
68 We just go next. Okay. Hello, my name is samantha ibarra. I'm a organizer with pdx cd. I'm a first generation immigrant and a marine corps veteran. I'm here to give public comment to demand the identification of law enforcement ordinance to be updated to include the federal agents in the mask ban. This is a performative and manipulative tactic. Although it has ice in the problem, it's nowhere in the solution. It doesn't protect the community. It's just a band aid to a sucking chest wound. And I know you know what that is, Kanal said in September of 2025 that he would put something out in weeks. It's April 2026. And also calling nazi speech spirited is crazy. Only counting the October and December, dhs claimed 1200 people alone. This feels like a runaround for the city council that loves to prolong their heinous actions around our community. And this is another link for pbb and dhs to work together. The city council should be putting forward proposals to shut down the Portland ice facility as a whole, and not looking for sympathy on their digital footprint. Revoke the permit and that will be the gold standard. I'll stay up here until I'm done.
69 Hello, my name is ben gilbert and I am a volunteer lobbyist for the Portland democratic socialists of America and a tenant in district four. Portland has a reputation of being a solid, progressive city. But instead of boldly leading the charge for transparency and accountability, the mayor's office is trying to throw in the towel. The california decision is only a preliminary injunction. If we treat those as final decisions, we might as well carry trump's bag in on his way. Public services must be accountable to the public, and that cannot happen if people aren't able to identify who they're interacting with. This is true for all levels of government law enforcement officers hiding their identities as standard practice also creates increased opportunities for impersonation. While the city's power may be limited in regards to federal agents, it is able to handle fake agents. But in order to do so, the police have to verify who's legitimate and who isn't. Obviously, this ordinance won't fix everything, but it is an important, substantive step in the broader push to protect our communities. It's also important that the council reject the undemocratic antics of the ppa, who are constantly inventing outlandish theories about how they are not accountable to city council, and attempting half baked smear pieces against councilors. We would have thought they'd move away from these tactics after they were caught trying to frame joanne hardesty for a hit and run she wasn't involved in. This is the same group who complained about masking during the pandemic, and have had a sudden, convenient change of heart on the issue. Both positions come from prioritizing the comfort of individual cops over the basic well-being of the community. Thank you. I yield my time.
70 Thank you very much.
71 Hello, jordan. Lewis. He him volunteer lobbyist for Portland dsa. And I live and work in district four. I'm here tonight in support of the full policy without amendments. I'm kind of tired of all the runaround. And we're constantly like, I feel like government just exists to tell people no. And there's almost this like giddiness in like saying no, like, no, we can't do that. And I'm kind of tired of it a lot. A lot of us have followed this for many sessions, and people aren't asking for the world people. People aren't asking for a downtown tunnel or a robust free childcare. They're asking to not be abducted and killed in the street. And like, why? Why is this such difficulty? Come on. Just yeah, let's go home. Let us let us move on with our lives. Please just pass the full thing without amendments. Thank you.
72 Thank you very much for being here, holly.
73 Holly brown is online. You can unmute and go ahead.
74 Yeah. Hi. My name is holly brown. I'm a resident and worker in district two. And I want to give public comment to demand that this ordinance actually applies to ice currently. As it stands, it may say it applies to all agents, but how can that realistically be so when it has absolutely no enforcement mechanism and specifically tells Portland police to not interfere with mass federal agents once they have identified who they are, who they say they are? My concern is this is going to set up a situation that's going to be even more horrifying for those dealing with ice violence. When they see Portland police walk up to a masked federal agent, talk to them, confirm their identity, and then step away and watch as bystanders while ice violently kidnaps community members. In addition, by not building upon the state mask ban, which also has no enforcement mechanism aside from civil litigation, we are creating a system where only those who can actually afford lawyers are able to receive justice. As someone who is slammed to the concrete by ice in front of the Portland ice facility and held in their detention center by masked agents, I, as someone who makes under $50,000 per year, cannot afford a lawyer, and I'm someone who's very well connected and activist spaces. So how will people who have even less access than me be able to find real justice when they're dealing with mass federal agents? It's not hard to see this as an attempt from councilor, Kanal and others to get headlines saying that a mask ban was passed without actually doing the hard work to challenge ice. We don't want any more performative measures. We want a real mask ban that requires Portland police to not just write a report, but to actually arrest ice agents when they break the law. No one is above the law and people are right. We are living in unprecedented times, and so we need the council to stand up and actually respond to these urgent times with urgent measures. And this just is not that it's half measured. And so I also really want to demand that you revoke the permit for the Portland ice facility, despite city council saying you cannot. You can. We've read the code. Stop lying. Revoke the permit. Real mask ban now.
75 Next we have blaire glennon, taylor long, Eric Clark, e j. Wilson ski, jack dickinson.
76 Come on up, folks. Feel free to introduce yourself for the record, feel free to share your pronouns. And you have two minutes each.
77 Do you want to go? Go for it. Okay.
78 My given name is taylor long, and I come out today to speak on the negligence of the current administration and the lack of concrete action used by city hall, while our so-called representatives sit before us today, having dragged their feet on any concrete action against the isis facility, nor implemented any real tangible consequences for the multiple land use violations at mcadams ice facility. Instead, they pass a farcical mask bill that does not even apply to federal officers. All this entails further mingling of the dhs and PPB in the eyes of the public masses. This bill requests that PPB investigate whether a mass individual is suspected of being a federal officer, and then if they are indeed a fed, they're supposed to just leave the fed alone and let them continue. So nowhere in this ordinance is there any actual stopping of masked, newly recruited, anonymous, faceless federal officers from terrorizing the streets. No, this is just a civil proceeding. But hey, if you have thousands of dollars laying around, you could potentially sue the federal government. Oh, most of the people being terrorized are working class and low income and educators. Ice and dhs lead a fear and kidnaping campaign not just in Portland, but in the surrounding regions of Oregon as well. Now, there will be even more direct ties between PPB and ice. Honestly, I would rather you spit in my face than smile and continue to do next to nothing while criminalizing the protesters and citizens who stand in the face of this injustice. But don't forget, dear citizens, my neighbors and friends, that according to judge Eric tongue, there is no constitutional right to be free from the exposure of tear gas. Opb 2026. So until there is actual action to revoke the ice permit, mcadams remains not only a public health danger as well as an environmental and economic danger. The federal government is holding our city hostage. While you do worse than nothing, you placate the masses with fluff, stamping out the growing civic dissent with reactive legislation. They passed this mask mandate not for the safety of the populace or for the democracy they claim to uplift and uphold, but to save face and their own careers. While the issue is trending to bank in on civic heartbreak for their own gain, revoke the ice permit or resign. Stand for citizens. Take accountability for your lack of action and the real deaths and terror that this inaction has enabled. We demand direct action by city hall and mayor keith wilson, and that they uphold the law. Follow the wishes of the voters in your district. Thank you. Invoke the permit.
79 Thank you very much for being here.
80 Members of city council. My name is Eric Clark. I'm a pastor who's been organizing on behalf of my faith community for greater transparency and accountability for law enforcement in Portland since at least 2014. Most recently, I've been among many clergy of a wide array of faith traditions, have worked together with together lab and perc to provide accompaniment and witness for immigrants attending court hearings and mandatory ice appointments. In these accompaniment encounters, I often simply walk with my neighbors to their cars, or help answer questions or offer prayers for their safety. I am witness to their palpable fear of being kidnaped, of being whisked off the street by masked assailants, that they have no means to identify or know what the purpose of their encounter would be. I have witnessed the belligerence of masked officers, I believe, emboldened by their ability to act without accountability and without the ability to be identified. I've recorded these encounters
81 Is on my phone. I have sought, as a clergy person to be there to de-escalate these encounters, to prevent escalation of violence, and to keep members of my community safe from being kidnaped. It's past time that we were able to unmask and identify the people who claim to exercise lawful authority in our communities and our society, and to kidnap and arrest and disappear members of our public and our neighbors. If this was happening in another country, we'd have no problem naming these people as secret police. And these, you know, detainments as kidnapings and disappearances. Not only is this the case, though, with our federal law enforcement, but it's important that this ordinance applies to our local law enforcement as well. Despite the testimony earlier of councilor Novick, I have been witness to Portland police officers acting without visible badge identification and the incredible difficulty it is for people in the protest community or in the public activist community to seek redress for harms carried out against us by our own police. And so it's important that the leadership come from our city council, and that we have clarity and transparency from the from the top down, transparency is a prerequisite of accountability to the public for our law enforcement agencies. Please pass this ordinance. Thank you.
82 Thank you very much.
83 Hi, my name is ej wicinski. Each day people are killed in this country with benefit of neither trials nor sentences. The majority are deaths without bodies. A single execution can unleash an international scandal for thousands of disappeared people. However, there is always the benefit of the doubt. Friends and relatives make the useless, dangerous pilgrimage from prison to prison while the bodies rot in the bushes or dumps. The technique of the disappeared. There are no prisoners to claim nor martyrs to mourn. The earth devours the people and the government washes its hands. There are no crimes to denounce nor explanations to give. Each death dies over and over again until finally, the only thing your soul retains is a mist of horror and uncertainty. Does this sound familiar? Because it's happening here. This is a quote from eduardo galeano, who survived the fascist takeover of his country in 1970s. And in January I was detained by ice from my holding cell. I noticed on every wall where big red posters that said, if you're sexually assaulted by an ice agent, call this number. Sexual assault is easy to get away with when they can keep their mask on and make you vanish. They prey on our communities, contribute nothing, destroy families, tear gas. Children force our communities to burden horror and uncertainty. And then what happens? They clock out, take their masks off, and demand from us our food, our hospitality, and our bathrooms. That. This ordinance is about so much more than knowing who is policing you. It's also about giving our community the chance to administer social consequences for disappearing. Our neighbors eyes wears masks because they are aware what they do is seen as abhorrent. Those masks allow them to be abhorrent while shielding them from natural consequences of their behavior. And to speak to my community, remember the names of those who oppose this ordinance. Tell those nearest to you who they are. They deserve the same social ostracization that ice agents should be receiving. There has to be consequences for the technique of the disappeared.
84 Thank you.
85 Yeah.
86 My name for the record is jack dickinson. I want to make two points today. First, there is an overdue need for this body to pass an ordinance. Fighting fascism is a group project. And as of this moment, Portland is the member of that group that is legislatively and executively speaking, not contributing beyond protecting your own constituents. Passing legislation allows other jurisdictions to learn from us just as we are learning from them. As I reflect upon my own mistakes and errors, one thing that I have to reckon with is the fact that the tactic of protest I chose to use and helped legitimize in the last year has clearly enabled members of this body to sit for interviews and claim victory without having to actually pass anything relevant yourselves. You are our elected representatives. Yet too often it is felt like we are the ones representing you. Second, this body has an obligation to exert its power when that power is contested. The Portland police association has claimed extraordinary authority in this instance, as an attempt to bar you as legislators from legislating. It doesn't matter if you receive support from the ppa on principles. As members of this council, you must advocate for your own ability to function. I was reviewing statements from the ppa as I prepared to testify today, and there was one from last fall that really struck me. In the immediate aftermath of trump calling our city war ravaged, aaron schmautz used his position to speak with fox news and advocate for federal intervention. While countless portlanders were taking to the streets and to social media to point out the absurdity of trump's lies that our city was burned to the ground, aaron felt it was wise to go onto the network most responsible for fabricating those lies and lend legitimacy to them. The ppa clearly sees a lot of kinship between PPB officers and dhs officers, and I urge you all to critically examine who the association is really advocating for when it comes to legislation like this. Thank you.
87 Thank you all very much.
88 Mcclymont is not here. I'm going to move to amy, lestat, joshua dunham, francis barth, vincent hawkins, tara velarde.
89 Welcome, folks.
90 You can go ahead at the table, whoever wants to go.
91 Good afternoon. I'm fran barth, a resident of district four, a member of the congregation with pastor heather and a retired Portland public schools educator. I'm pleading with you to please pass the right to know who is policing you ordinance. I should be enjoying retirement, but instead, I'm out on sidewalks, holding signs, reaching out to voters, and doing everything I can to help combat the violence and terror isis brought to our neighborhoods. I am still connected to the communities I served, and I hear accounts of what our immigrant families are facing with ice. The stories are chilling. The impact on the children is devastating, and the effects of living with this fear will last far longer than this administration. I see that families don't have faith in government systems anymore. They are scared of our local police. Despite sanctuary laws being in place. These families want to see the city act on their behalf, and they support this ordinance as one step in working towards their safety, making sure police are clearly identified is the least we can do. Requiring federal agents to unmask is critical. And even if that doesn't happen, having the police show up to emergency calls that potentially involve ice is an important step. Their presence and willingness to document what is going on will communicate concern and help build trust in our communities. As a teacher, I learned that to gain a student's trust, I had to clearly communicate, care, be present with them, and listen. As citizens of Portland, we need to see our city leaders and police be present with us in this struggle. Passing this ordinance will signal to many in the community, especially the vulnerable, that you are listening, that you are trying everything you can and that you are with us in this fight. Thank you.
92 Good afternoon councilors. I am the reverend joshua dunham, a presbyterian pastor, a resident of the wilkes neighborhood in district one and one of the clergy that works with together lab. I am speaking in favor of the ordinance to add identification to the law enforcement officers code. I am here because there are black and brown members of my community who feel unsafe to be here at this meeting themselves because of the environment of fear that has been created in Portland by isis presence. I am here because I have worked extensively with the immigrant community in Portland, and this is one of the key issues for my members, my neighbors and my friends to feel safe in this city. And I'm here because my faith compels me to speak out in support of what my savior, jesus christ says are the least of these. What you do to the least of these you do to me. President jimmy carter once said, the measure of a society is found in how they treat their weakest and most helpless citizens. Portland has a problem. We have time and time again not listened to our communities of color, and have instead continued to marginalize them and say that their experience is not as important to our city as that of the white majority. This is the dark reality we appear to be unwilling to address in this supposed liberal utopia. It's a liberal utopia for white hippies and hipsters, but not for the poor or people of color. It's time to stand up and change that. President john f kennedy once said, if a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. Counselors. If you say you support the immigrant community, it's time to put your vote where your mouth is and vote in favor of this ordinance. It's not the full measure of all that needs to change, but it's a good start. And let's finally start rather than kicking that down the road again.
93 Thank you. Thank you so much.
94 It's more comfortable for me to stand and speak. I feel like we've been sitting for too long and not doing enough. My name is vincent hawkins. I'm a local emergency room nurse. An army national guard medic. And someone who. An unintended activist. When I had a mother bring her child in in the morning to me, a preschool aged child whose face is red dried blood coming out of one of her ears, who had spent the entire night awake. Both of them. Fearful to come into my emergency room because of the rumors at the time of ice circulating around. That was early last year, and since that time, I myself have been nearly blinded by immigration agents who I will never know who it was. It's not my right to know. This proposed amendment needs to be passed. It needs to be the bare minimum start. There is no burden on federal agents. They've already detained someone. This is not california's law that requires a proactive approach that determines tells the feds what to do ahead of time. This is merely making sure that that person that's getting zip tied and dragged off like an animal is doing so under the authority of the federal government. That issue we will take care of separately, but at the very least, this council has the ability to ask to direct Portland police to do the barest minimum of their job. It is time to meet the moment we can expect. No, we should be prepared for no. And we should be prepared to ask them to do their job anyways. That is the barest minimum in this time in this place. Thank you counselors.
95 Thank you very much.
96 Hello, my name is tara velarde. I live and work in northeast Portland. I'm an organizer for indivisible. I've been protesting down at the ice facility for over a year, and I help organize the monthly interfaith silent solidarity March to ice, asking law enforcement to show their faces while carrying out their taxpayer funded duties is absolutely the minimum standard of transparency and accountability. If your job is to protect and serve the people, you do that in part by showing your face clearly. Identifying yourself helps reduce ambiguity and fear, and it decreases the likelihood that a bad actor will be able to impersonate an officer and abuse the public trust in dangerous ways. This is not rocket science. This is the bare minimum. It's basic common sense and public safety. No concealed identities, no secret police. It would have been unimaginable. Unthinkable to me as an American child of the 1980s and the 1990s. In this, the land of the free and the home of the brave that I would one day have to stand before my elected representatives and beseech you to use your power to protect the people of Portland from the dangers of masked secret police. Please do everything in your power to pass this bill.
97 Thank you very much, amy.
98 Lestat. We'll move on. Aaron. Schmartz. Karen shirey, marty glickman, marshall mcfarland, minden. Ocon.
99 Can you hear me?
100 Yeah. Go ahead. Aaron.
101 I apologize for not being there in person on March. Aaron schmaltz, Portland police association president for the record, on March 18th, 2026, councilor Sameer Kanal while discussing his opposition to a policy to abate human trafficking near mcdaniel high school on northeast 82nd avenue over concerns of unintended consequences, gave the following assessment of the perilous nature of policy making one of the most dangerous things a person with decision making authority can do is to recognize a real problem and say, just, we have to do something. Because when you say we have to do something, you're really opening the door to doing anything. He continued. We have a responsibility to find a solution that addresses the problem. Instead of blaming another group of people. And what has been done here is taking an accurate assessment of the problem and going and finding a scapegoat. This is what has happened with the masking ordinance that was ripped out of community and is now before you. Today, we have to do something, has opened the door to doing anything, but the solution proposed does not actually solve the real problem. And I'll note this is clear. Listening to the very powerful and passionate testimony today, none of the concerns that have been noted are actually addressed by this ordinance this week. Mayor wilson said in a memo that passing this ordinance is making a promise to community, knowing that we cannot deliver on that promise. He stated failing these communities will not make Portland safer. It will only serve to undermine public trust in our ability to lead. We wholeheartedly agree the state legislature has already done the work passing the leiva, which passes statewide a statewide standard for officer masking, identification and working. These standards, incidentally, were placed on what were. Based on what PPB currently does. The first role of any government is to hear community concern and input, and then tell the truth about what authority we have, what is currently being done, and what is what work is left to do. This ordinance ordinance purposely obfuscates all those core points, and I'm going to run out of time. I've posted all the rest of my comments online. Thank you.
102 Thank you very much.
103 Karen. You can.
104 Go first.
105 I'm going to have to this is going to be a real quick. Good morning. Good afternoon, members of the council. My name is marshall. Brandon mcfarland, trustee for ernest leo wordsmith trust testifying in support of ordinance 2026-11. In lieu of my experience on April 27th, while disposing of litter in the north park blocks, I was detained by PPB, a detention initiated solely on the unverified allegations of a supposed park ranger that never identified himself but had no qualms demanding identification. The policeman inspected my trust id, acknowledged my status, and then chose to treat me with the same level of criminal, with the criminal manner historically reserved for those with an abundance of melanin in this city. This was not a mistake. Of fact, it was a choice of custom without cause or consent. They bypassed investigative protocol, applied physical restraints, and failed professional standards. This incident, filmed by multiple onlookers who knew the police were acting outside of their legal standards, highlights a systemic failure that the city will be held liable for. The policeman refused to relay their names, badge numbers or bond numbers for any personal liability claims. Shoe shack used pain compliance to twist my wrist after I was already in handcuffs, when police lacked the training to properly identify and respect the legal status of civilians, or when they act on unverified hearsay without professional accountability, they opened the city of Portland to substantial liability. I see your vision councilor Kanal. This is a good basis and it has to expand. This is a step towards transparency by demanding professionalism and accountability. Proper identification is the first step in ensuring that policemen understand their jurisdictional limits and the constitutional rights of the public that they serve. Because these policemen, especially shoe shack, who made multiple misleading statements, failed to adhere to these standards, the city of Portland is now facing a formal notice of tort claim and a commercial lien for constitutional trespass and battery. I urge you to pass this ordinance and ensure that there is proper training on identification and recognition of statute to prevent future costly litigation and maintain the dignity of portland's public spaces. Never mind the publicly drunk guy who was allowed to stumble away because of what could only be construed as racial discrimination based upon the demographics of the individuals that were in handcuffs. Vanport happened 80 years ago. Now is not the time to revisit it.
106 Thank you very much.
107 Greetings, counselor. Counselors, my name is marty glickman. I'm a resident of district two, and I'm testifying in support of this ordinance. People who have restraining orders, people who have been stalked and who are survivors of domestic violence, often already live in fear that the individual who harmed them will return. Now all those perpetrators have to do is put on a gaiter and a tactical vest from amazon, and they could take someone right off the street in broad daylight. Bystanders would probably assume it was a nice detainment. I am one of those people who has a restraining order restraining order against my former husband. I'm one of those people who fears he will violate the restraining order and return to harm me. He is forbidden to possess or purchase firearms or ammunition while the restraining order is in effect. But he is no fool. He knows that a good way to get close to me would be to pretend he's a nice agent with a firearm and ammunition. If a bystander saw him and called the police, would Portland police even come if there was a chance it could be ice? Do you realize how frightening it is for us that the answer to that question is maybe if we don't act and pass this ordinance, we're enabling imposters to hide behind anonymity to terrorize us. We need our local law enforcement to do more than just assume that masked individuals dress like ice while breaking the law are legitimate. We need them to actually verify that those individuals are law enforcement every single time. The city could not, should not abdicate its responsibility to protect portlanders. Please pass this ordinance. Thank you.
108 Thank you very much.
109 Hello. My name is karen cherry. I'm a veteran, a business owner and district four resident of district three, lifelong portlander and a member of stadium hood. And I'm wanting to know what types of masks are you requiring for them to not wear? If we're talking about medical masks, there's no way to ask people to take off their masks due to hipaa reasons. I've seen several people in here wearing masks today. I know that when you're asking one particular class of people to not wear a mask, it's kind of discriminating against all the other people that we see around town wearing masks. So if you're going to ask law enforcement officers to unmask, and I think everyone should be unmasked as well, and that includes people at protest, at marches, businesses, and on our streets, just walking downtown or around town so that we're all safe. And I say this only because part of the reason is we had a burglar to our business. The burglar was wearing a mask. He was outside my business for two hours and broke into my business, bled everywhere, stole $8,000 worth of product. And when we found him and had him arrested and he was released, he ended up not getting prosecuted because they couldn't identify him because he was wearing a mask. So please, let's include everybody in this unmasking and not just law enforcement officers. So and we don't have the resources for ppe to monitor all these people wearing masks, either document or take reports. I mean, they could barely show up to my business when I have actual crimes. So unless you're going to fund more officers, we we can't afford to have them take time doing mask patrols. Thank you.
110 Thank you very much.
111 Online. You can go ahead. You can unmute and testify. Go.
112 Hi. Can you hear me?
113 We can, we can.
114 Sorry. I was supposed to be there, but I couldn't make it because I didn't want my daughter to possibly get made by councilor Testers and be swapping anything because they tend to market. But I just want to say thank you to councilor Kanal for this, and I hope that you guys do pass it, because it would be a step in holding police accountable for, you know, everything that they're doing. I don't have a speech, but I do have a story because, you know, I do a lot of community stuff. And just not too long ago, Portland police was at jefferson high school while they were having a like talent show or whatever. And. A bunch of kids and their families and everything traumatized and terrorized because Portland police showed up with their masks on. And, you know, in the times that we're in right now, people don't know if it's Portland, if it's if it's somebody coming to kidnap them or possibly harm them. So I think this should pass. Even though it's something little, it's still a step in the right direction to holding Portland police accountable for, you know, whatever they're doing. Because I have seen Portland work with I have seen Portland police show ice their phone and I showed them their phone. And then next thing you know, see somebody get detained. I have been followed by Portland police as well. And I have this fear of police possibly, you know, pulling me over, detaining me and then handing me over to ice. And that is what they are doing to the community. So yes, please pass this and hold them accountable. That's all I say.
115 Thank you so much.
116 Irvin syverson. Kaylee roll, kip silverman, sarah fisher, patrick alexander. Kip is online. Kip, you can go ahead.
117 Yeah. Hi there. Hello city council. My name is kip silverman. I use he him pronouns and I am a resident of district two. And I'm also a trained legal observer. And I fully support this ordinance. When a law enforcement officer of any origin interacts with an individual human being, that person they're interacting with is not guilty of anything. Nothing has been proven yet in a court of law. The most basic accountability possible is being able to see that person's face so you can identify them, and to be given information to prove who they are and to be able to follow up. As someone who is being accused of something, much less being accosted, dragged, detained because they have a certain look about them. This is basic, the idea that a human being who could lose their life figuratively or literally by someone claiming or legitimately a law enforcement officer, but refuses to be identified or accountable as morally reprehensible. My adult children who are not white are stressed out, yet they refuse to hide, but they don't feel safe in the city they call home, which is Portland. An asian friend of mine carries her passport around and so on. These are real people and genuinely impacted by the present state of things and not passing. This legislation goes against everything this country and our city supposedly stands for. The mere idea that we'll keep our head down or shy away from a legal fight that might be unsuccessful, means we're willing to sacrifice people who are in real and present danger. Standing idly by is complying, and that's unacceptable. Don't be cowards. Fight every way possible. Thank you, councilor Kanal and Morillo for bringing this forward and the rest of city council, please vote yes on this. Thank you.
118 Thank you very much.
119 Good afternoon, council members. My name is kaylee. I'm a tenant in district four, a member of Portland dsa, and work as a registered nurse at a hospital in district three. When I'm at work, I wear a badge with my name and my picture. And below that, another badge that says r n in big letters. This is to increase patient safety, transparency, accountability, and professionalism. While members of our community are in my care. In fact, health care workers wearing an id is a law in Oregon and has been since 2005 that law states a health care practitioner working at a health care facility and providing direct care to a patient shall wear an identification badge indicating the practitioner's name and professional title. Just as my patients have a right to know who is caring for them, members of our community have a right to know who is policing them. In a time where unidentified and masked agents ice agents, are terrorizing our immigrant neighbors, this ordinance increases transparency and accountability, which is crucial at beginning to manage these federal agents who are acting with impunity and are out of control. This ordinance also helps protect our community against people masquerading as law enforcement officers for the purposes of robbing, kidnaping, sexually assaulting or murdering residents of Portland, portlanders need to be able to tell the difference between law enforcement and human traffickers. This legislation is not going to undo decades of institutional corruption embedded in our law enforcement agencies, but at the very least, it serves as a necessary first step to accountability and transparency. As a union member myself, I ask that you not allow the Portland police association's absurd claims about this needing to be bargained with their union, stop you from protecting your constituents. I also ask that you not allow fear and distrust to further spread in our communities. When you have the power to make a difference. Law enforcement who walk around with guns and have a huge amount of power should at the very least be held to the same standards as health care workers like myself. I urge you all to vote yes for the bare minimum guidelines for transparency and accountability. Thank you.
120 Thank you so much.
121 Sarah is online. You can unmute and go ahead. Sarah.
122 Good afternoon councilors. My name is sarah fisher. I'm an episcopal priest and I pastor a community in Montavilla park on Sunday evenings. Here's a story I told the public safety committee in 1967. My parents were peacefully protesting the vietnam war in new york city, where my father was a university professor. The police stood by while counter-demonstrators began to throw things into the crowd of peace marchers. This concerned my dad, and he wrote down the badge numbers of several officers. Suddenly, three of them jumped on him. Get the paper, they shouted. He had the note card in his hand. One of new york's finest bit him on the thumb to retrieve the card. They arrested him for disturbing the peace and arrested my mother for interfering. I remember him coming home with a bloody bandage on his thumb. Six months later, the case against my parents was dismissed. The officers were never charged. My father and his community of marchers were not safe because he could not identify police officers he felt were failing to keep the peace. I like to think that that was then and this is now, that we've come a long way in 60 years, but it is still true that none of us is safe if we cannot know the identity of those who have the power both to arrest and to harm. Most of you are used to hearing me testify on behalf of safety, livability and dignity. For portlanders living in extreme poverty, what is good for our poorest neighbors is good for all portlanders. This ordinance is critical for keeping our whole community safe. Without transparency and accountability, there is no true community safety. Please stand up for your community and public safety for all by voting yes on this ordinance. Thank you so very much.
123 Thank you very much.
124 Irvin syverson or patrick alexander, jeremy beausoleil Smith, eva hammer, ted bascom, sean rice. And tony alvarez. Eva's online. You can go ahead. Eva.
125 Hi there. My name is eva hammer. I'm a resident of district three, and I'm here in strong support of this ordinance. Anybody who has the power to stop, question or detain another person on the street must be identifiable. It's really the bare minimum of accountability in a democratic society. You're hearing today, members of your community, your neighbors and your constituents telling you that we're living in fear, not knowing who's at the door, not knowing who is taking us or our neighbors. And this is terrifying. This ordinance is fully reasonable. And I urge you to vote yes. Thank you.
126 Thank you very much.
127 Good afternoon councilors.
128 My name is jeremy Smith. Masked law enforcement agents in 2026 are a symptom of the same white supremacist system that produced the runaway slave patrols in the 18th century, union busting goon squads in the 19th century and the ku klux klan in the 20th century. These groups all masked their identities. This country was born out of a white supremacist principle, and until we finish the work of post-civil war reconstruction, the cancer of white supremacy will continue to metastasize, just like the confederates of the past. Ice agents are cowards, only preying on the vulnerable when they have numbers and can operate anonymously. If ice agents aren't ashamed of what they're doing, then why can't we see their faces? If they're afraid of retribution, then maybe they should ask themselves why people so viscerally disagree with what they're doing. Is it possible that they're the terrorists, the thugs, and the murderers that they falsely accuse immigrants of being? No one is illegal on stolen land, and the borders are imaginary lines that we have drawn in the sand. The time, energy and resources put towards this reign of terror against immigrants are unfathomable. Our country does not lack resources. It prioritizes cruelty. The tactics used in these state sanctioned abductions are the same tactics that will be used on political activists. And anyone who dissents from donald trump's fascist agenda. Let's make it known that these masked marauders aren't welcome here and pass the law enforcement masking ban. Thank you.
129 Very much.
130 Good afternoon councilors, I'm padre tony alvarez, associate director for latino ministry at saint michael, and all angels in the hollywood neighborhood in district three. I'm also the child of mexican immigrant farmworkers, and I'm new to my position as well as new to Portland. Last fall, as I was attending a series of dinners in my spanish speaking parishioners homes, time and time again, I heard stories about them staying home from work, dodging ice raids during their lunch breaks, going around the grocery store just to make sure that they were safe going into the store, I could see the fear in their eyes and the discomfort around the dinner table as they discussed the goings on in their lives with their new pastor. I urge you to vote yes for this ordinance. It is the bare minimum that we can do to make sure that those who are policing our most vulnerable communities are held accountable. Thank you. I yield my time.
131 Thank you very much, sean.
132 You can go ahead online.
133 Councilors, thanks for taking the time. I I'm sean rice, I'm in district three. I fully support this ordinance. I hope that you vote yes on it. We do not live in an authoritarian regime, or at least, you know, we're not supposed to be. And unfortunately, we cannot trust the federal government to do what is right or even what is legal anymore. So this is, in my opinion, the the first step, hopefully the first step that y'all can take to prevent continued violent fascist actions in our city. So thank you so much. And I hope that you vote yes without amendment. Thank you.
134 Thank you very much.
135 Juliette.
136 Juliette dunn, edith gillis, jeanette de castro, beatrix lee, kirsten frederiksen.
137 Welcome. Come on up.
138 You can go ahead at the table.
139 Okay.
140 Sorry. I didn't know what the order was. Good afternoon. Councilors. My name is beatrix lee, a Portland resident testifying in support of the ordinance to enforce law enforcement identification standards. I'm here to uplift the voices of community members who did not know what alphabet soup letters of a law enforcement officer who was brutalizing or kidnaping them, which is deeply concerning and withholds accountability, especially when filing for civil litigation. Black and brown communities especially, aren't safe from all law enforcement, especially on identified ones. I want to echo the voices here in saying identification standards for law enforcement is the bare minimum asking for identification for who is kidnaping us when no one should be kidnaping us is a small demand. We asked that city councilors continue to assess and implement further bold, ambitious policies to ensure community safety, police accountability and divestment from the carceral system to protect our community. While ice exists, they need to be identified, but the end goal should be abolition of ice and divestment from policing, and instead investment in alternatives to community safety. I also urge you to stand with protesters who are demanding to abolish ice, as we shouldn't misinterpret or ignore the language of the unheard, but listen to the urgency of the matter. Thank you for championing, championing community safety and for your time, and urge councilors to vote yes to pass this ordinance.
141 Thank you very much.
142 Edith is online. Edith. Edith, you can go ahead and testify.
143 Thank you. Can you hear me?
144 We can.
145 I am edith gillies. I live in district three. Since October 5th, 2006. I have been demanding of each and every city council member and mayor and police commissioner That we do far more than this. So right now passes unanimously, quickly. And to get on with the next steps, what I've been saying is we need to protect portlanders, our economy, our civic engagement and trust by having all those who claim to be law enforcement from any jurisdiction, any nation operating within the limits of city Portland, be clearly identified. Their faces uncovered, their last name and a small short identification number clearly visible on every item of of external clothing and gear and equipment and their vehicles and bikes. So we know who they are matched to a website that has their face, their silhouette of their body, their title, their supervisors contact information, their training, how many complaints and accommodations have been against them. For them, we need to start with this. In October 5th, 2006, there were multiple federal agencies. There were none. There were private security and military, county and city police who use multiple kinds of weapons. Many of those, many times that anyone by themselves could have killed me. We don't know which of the many killed me. That was because they knew they would be not held accountable. They were not identifiable. And the city of Portland has been wasting lives, safety, trust, and money. By allowing this to continue, the entire history of the Portland police. Let's stop it and let's prevent anyone from having any jurisdiction in court, any testimony in court, or any ability to.
146 Thank you so much.
147 Detain someone.
148 Kirsten frederiksen, melissa. Reed, gail. Brasher, chris. Brenner. Munoz. Air. Oh.
149 Welcome, folks. Whoever wants to go first, jump right in. Rock, paper, scissors.
150 Okay.
151 City councilors, I'm the reverend melissa reed. I'm a resident of district three and a part of together labs clergy caucus. And I'm speaking in favor of this ordinance without amendment. I'm here as a christian pastor and in particular today as a mother. I'm here because of my 17 year old son, jack's best friend. For safety. We will call him d like my own son. D plays high school sports, but he is also an apprenticing barber, already starting his own business, cutting his hair, all his friends hair. Jack always looks fresh because of d unlike my son, d is responsible for doing all the grocery shopping, errands, and earning money for his family because they can no longer work out in the community for fear of being disappeared by ice. Like my son, d struggled to attend school regularly. My son has mental health struggles and suicidal seasons that in part stem from living in a society where his best friends parents might get deported. The climate is on fire and the future feels violent for future feels violent, with fewer adults to count on. Unlike my son, d has to worry about his own parents safety on a minute to minute basis and carry the weight of supporting his family. Unlike my son, d has to worry about being racially profiled and disappeared himself by the very people paid by his parents tax dollars to protect him. Recently, d dropped out of school because the pressures were too much and he needed to cut more hair to invest in his family. This should not have been the main priority of any child in our society. D should be playing football, giving his teammates fresh cuts after practice. D should be in school learning skills to support his growing business. In December, a group of clergy met with the police chief and the head of public security in a local synagogue, and they told us there is nothing we can do to interrupt federal agents. And last month, in this work session around this audience, we heard that there is a legal way for police to interrupt the anonymous nature of ice presence. And in that session, these same public safety gentlemen, and they are all men, made excuses as to why this policy is hard. It might cost $50,000 to get all the police force, new badges. We might end up in legal battles. You don't have enough voice in crafting the policy.
152 Sorry.
153 My kids could raise that $50,000. It's time for them to get to work, and it's time for you all to get to work.
154 Thank you.
155 Thank you so much.
156 Is it my turn?
157 Sure.
158 Good afternoon. My name is air. I am a teen. On February 1st at 7 p.m. I was tear gassed and almost shot with a pepper ball by an unidentified agent at the Portland ice facility on mcadam and bancroft. I will probably not know who that that is because they were masked. This is an experience no one should have to go through. We must know who is on our streets and terrorizing our community members. I also demand that the permit is revoked and ice is removed from Portland and demand justice for anyone who has been falsely detained by ice and dhs. It is not something that we should have to be living with in this society. I will leave you with words from doctor aye, Morillo ki. We are here. We are not here to beg for our rights. We are here to take them back.
159 Thank you very much.
160 My name is jill brasher. My pronouns are they them. I'm not from any lobby or a leader of my community, but I am a student living on campus at Portland state university, which is which sits only a max station away from here. Psu has made it clear that it's an anti ice campus. And yet, despite this, ice officers or even imposter agents are still able to treat people like animals if they simply hide their face and claim they have the authority to. I have heard of incidents walking to class or just down the road. Fellow students and rally members have had tear gas thrown at them. The targets of ice and ice impersonators, immigrants, people of bipoc and LGBTQ plus identity and those deemed dangerous or wrong are not numbers, statistics or simply strangers. For me. They are my classmates, my teachers, my friends and my dorm mates, and even on a supposedly ice free campus, there is still widespread fear and uncertainty across campus. Make this ordinance pass so that we not only have a bare minimum of accountability for law enforcement and for people to know who may threaten their safety, but that the people, many of them straight out of high school, actually take an ice free policy seriously in an environment where future leaders, workers, and yes, even representatives are taking their first steps in education and community involvement. Thank you.
161 Thank you very much.
162 Chris munoz. That concludes testimony.
163 Okay, colleagues, it is 405. I would like for us to take a quick ten minute break. So please, everybody be back here at 415. And we are back. Colleagues, we are now going to move into discussion. We have two amendments that are going to be presented. And we can move into also technical or clarifying questions. Councilor Kanal.
164 I.
165 Just while.
166 I know there's people who may still leave over the course of this, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone for the testimony. Thank you for being here, regardless of your position on it. I really appreciate everyone sharing their stories. I'll just take the opportunity to formally move Kanal one at this time, and then we can continue the discussion.
167 Great councilor Kanal moves Kanal one is there a second?
168 Second.
169 There we go. Councilor Morillo seconds. I would have given it to you. Councilor Avalos. But you weren't there. Okay. Colleagues to the Kanal amendment. Councilor. Novick.
170 Thank you, mr. President. I just have some questions and I apologize. They there are I may not be completely addressed to the amendments as opposed to the original, but. So cut me off if you think that that's a problem under 2330 40 credible indicia of law enforcement authority. It says proof of identity. And a person has credible condition. They have both proof of identity and proof authority. Proof of identity and authority may be determined simultaneously when the government identification and then you crossed out, such as driver's license, possessed by the individual claiming law enforcement authority includes a name and photograph, as well as law enforcement agency affiliation and face covering. I know you got rid of the term driver's license, but do you intend that this means that pbb officers, when dealing with somebody who was doing a law enforcement thing, will always request a photo id.
171 May I respond?
172 Absolutely, yeah.
173 Thank you for the question. The short answer to that is no. So I it is accurate that what you said says that. And it's the reason, by the way, that we took out such as a driver's license is because as you if you read lower down, it says as well as law enforcement agency affiliation. And generally speaking, a driver's license doesn't have that. So that that was just a clarification. They're like, it's not generally going to solve that. And it's kind of things got copy pasted together a versions with relation to the the process, credible indicia of law enforcement authority as it relates to verification. We'll be clear about that part is an off ramp, but not the only way that it ends. And what I mean by that is the actual thing that stops an investigation, a preliminary investigation from proceeding to a full investigation as written. And this is about ten lines down from there. It's it's in the amended version. I'm not sure which version you're working on, but we're looking at b and c of the next section. So lines 190 and 211. The thing that prevents it from moving on is absence of reasonable suspicion that a crime is being committed, or is maybe or has been committed. And one of the ways out of a preliminary investigation is the presence of credible indicia of authority. So it's not required in that scenario, but it is a way out. So the answer to your question is no.
174 Okay. On that point that you just made, here's one thing. I'm the way I read the amended version, it says this section applies when a person is engaged in conduct that we unlawful for a civilian, but would be lawful, only the person was sworn law enforcement officer. When a PPB officer observed such circumstances, the officer should make reasonable efforts to determine whether the person is, in fact a law enforcement officer acting under lawful authority. When a person has credible indicia of law enforcement authority under this subsection, pbb officers want to detain, restrain, etc. Yes, but then it goes on from that to say officers will conduct a preliminary investigation period. So that suggests to me that even if they show up and somebody is wearing all the required identification, there still has to be some sort of investigation.
175 I don't think that's accurate. I understand the sequencing might lead to that in terms of the just the physical order, those sentences. And thank you, my senior policy advisors coming up here. But the reason for that sentence, when a person has credible indicia, this is line 185 to 187.
176 And may I raise a point of information? Yes. I'm just trying to understand which copy of this that we're talking on, because you've got there's there's not as many red lines in the updated April 30th. So it's a little difficult to know exactly where the counselor's at. I'm trying to understand is, is the April 30th the one I should be reading even though there's fewer red lines?
177 Yes. I, I don't know that there are fewer red lines, but I'm going to verify that. Yeah.
178 Because I'm seeing a bunch of red lines on his copy. And now I'm wondering if you guys are talking about two different copies of an amendment.
179 What I have is Kanal amendment one, as amended last night. So I still have red lines in red from the original amendment, but blue lines in blue for the changes. That's what that's what I've got.
180 Can I ask a point of information? I think related to this, the copy that says April 30th has red lines, purple and blue in it are the changes that the amendment is intending to reflect all three colors.
181 Yes.
182 Okay.
183 So this is let me I'm not really sure why there are two colors. I know why there's a third. But to answer councilor Green's question in the. If you go to the website, you go to the item. The first thing under exhibits and attachments. Proposed amendment councilor Kanal one. Updated April 30th, 2026 is the file I'm using right now. Councilor. Novick. Are you also using that file?
184 To be honest, what I'm using is a paper copy. Yeah, that says changes in blue were in for 16 changes in red. Oh, actually actually it's the opposite. Or in the new for 29. Updated for 29.
185 Okay.
186 I see different colors.
187 Yeah, we can share screen. I can.
188 Me too. I can share screen. I don't know.
189 Are we allowed to share screen? Okay.
190 Okay. Thank you counselor.
191 So the version I have online does have three, but I don't know how everybody's print copies or anything like that are working here. So can everybody see what we're looking at here? I'm going to zoom in a little more.
192 Looks good.
193 It takes me back. All right. So councilor Novick to your question you were asking about, I'm scrolling down here to line. I think it's 190 something here. Yeah, yeah. So the when a person has credible indicia of law enforcement authority under this subsection, that language is designed to assuage the concern that had been expressed earlier, that PPB officers would be interfering with people once they are confirmed to be law enforcement of some variety. But the idea is PPB officers shall make reasonable efforts to determine whether the person is, in fact, a law enforcement officer acting under lawful authority, and then it goes into verification procedures under this chapter shall be implemented. And then b describes how that goes about. And I'll note that the the colloquial I'm not a lawyer colloquial difference for those who want to understand what the difference is between a preliminary investigation and investigation. Again, speaking lay terms here, it's am I free to go whether or not the answer is yes or no? So preliminary is the person is free to go, does not require reasonable suspicion. Full investigation, which is part c further down is if reasonable suspicion exists. And that's where a person might not be free to go. And this is the potential imposter.
194 Okay. Yeah. I just want to say that based on, as you said, based on the sequencing here, I think that what you've got says that when a person is credible, an issue of law enforcement authority, there won't be any detention, but it still looks like there have to be a preliminary investigation because it just says officers will conduct a preliminary investigation period.
195 I'm going to let.
196 My policy adviser speak.
197 To that.
198 Yeah. Thank you. Jack jaden, chile, pronouns senior policy advisor. For the record, the preliminary investigation. There is a preliminary investigation. What's required during that portion, and we recently reformatted it thanks to a meeting with the public safety service area. When they looked it over and said, we really want to know what we're required to do and in what order. So it starts with alert like, like say that starting now, the preliminary investigation begins. First thing to do is alert a supervisor, then contact the potential agencies, dispatch to find out who this person could be. And then everything after that is a may they may do, and then a list of examples. That is the definition of the preliminary investigation.
199 I understand that, but what I'm trying to get at is the way I read this. Even if pbb shows up and they see that the person is like not wearing a mask and wearing identification and wearing a uniform and displaying a badge and all that stuff, they still have to then undertake something called a preliminary investigation. That's the way I read this.
200 So far. Under your example, they see somebody you said with a badge or without a badge.
201 With a badge, with everything, the whole.
202 Shebang badge. So then if if at that point they see indicia. So a badge would be in the earlier section. What's indicia. These are all things that are are informing the officer of whether this person is a law enforcement authority. So as they see things and note things, and these officers are highly trained to look for different signals that aren't listed here, they're recording those down, as it says in documentation, period. Indicia is just a list of different things that they could be looking for to, to find that credibility.
203 Okay. But I'm still stuck on. You're saying that no matter what they see when they first arrive, they still have to conduct something called an investigation.
204 Correct. And the definition of that investigation is a call to dispatch. And then anything else that they want to do in that list. If they choose.
205 Do they have to call dispatch? Even if when they show up, they see that they're wearing all the required badges and identification, etc.
206 That's not that's not the intent here. I'm trying to jump around to where you're pointing. And so I'll just we'll get some clarity on that for you, but sorry, there's obviously a lot of.
207 Yeah, this again applies to it says officers will contact possible agencies or dispatch centers to verify their authority period. And it is not I'm sorry, that's line 19394. And it doesn't limit that to situations where the person was not wearing initiative authority. So the way I read that is you always have to call the agency no matter what you see when you're there.
208 You can run that by jack jaden. For the record, we can run that by mike porter, our attorney who helped compose this section.
209 Okay. And I was about to ask something which isn't really about about the amendment, so I'll withhold it. I mean, that those are my principal questions. One thing, if I may, I want to ask is a couple of the people that testified said that this would require the when the police to call up, when they get to show up, when they get a call about ice or imposter activity, and I don't see this. This to me only applies in cases where PPB officers happen to observe that activity that would be unlawful if not for. If if if a civilian was doing it, it doesn't seem to like require boec to dispatch anybody.
210 Yeah.
211 Thanks for that. This is something that came up in one of the more recent conversations, and it's around the scoping section. So this is 183189. And part of the reason for moving that down was to where it says PPB, officer observes, was to create clarity around this because. This this, as I mentioned, came up. So I think it does not explicitly say boec. I think the the understanding here is that if someone calls in to boec and says a crime is being committed, they generally do dispatch somebody. That's, that's common practice. That's, that's a rule. And so I'm not particularly concerned about the lack of the four letters being in there.
212 Okay. So, I mean, I think that some people have testified and some people I've heard from, say, a big problem is that when people call boec about this may or may not be ice, there's a kidnaping, then nobody shows up and you're saying you don't agree with that? You think they do show up, they are dispatched.
Procedural episode · turns 213–221
Parliamentary activity detected in this stretch (see the markers above). An editor-reviewed analysis has not been published for this episode yet.
213 No, no, that's that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying the fact that we would add this in to me gives me some, some assurance that that there would be reliably that would that would occur. I know we have someone here that can probably speak to that. If we have a former boec director in the room who's now dca. But so in terms of how they'd interpret that. But I know that we don't get involved. So you and I. Councilor. Novick in the community and public safety committee, we've talked about priority levels. We've talked about we've had reference to like pro qa, the software that they use. We don't legislate a priority level. We're not getting that deep into the weeds. So there's a that's the concern here is how how deep into it do we go? If it's if we're saying PPB should reliably and consistently verify. I'm not given that statement. I think that that includes the rest. What.
214 I'm okay. I really don't understand that because what this says is we do these things when a PPB officer observes things and it doesn't say that PPB has to show up to observe anything.
215 So you're looking for more clarity on, on, on whether or not explicit language is required.
216 Yeah, I'm just saying, I'm just saying that as I read it, it doesn't address the question of what happens when somebody makes a call. I've heard the people in say, say no, we do take those calls seriously, but I know there's people in the community that say, no, they don't. So I just want to clarify that as written. This doesn't directly address that.
217 Point of order. Is bob cozzie in the room because perhaps he could answer this question. You know, what does boec do if someone says ice is abducting someone? Okay. Thank you. I just figured you'd be the person to ask rather than us arguing amongst ourselves.
218 Yeah. Bob cozzie dea, public safety and the former boec director Steve maudsley actually wanted to be here today. Unfortunately, he's ill and he did send some clarification on behalf of boec. And thank you for the question and desire for clarification. Yes, and it hasn't changed since I've been there. When boec receives a call, whatever that call is, the dispatchers process that call, they triage it and send appropriate help. It's entirely in policy, and they have reminded staff a couple times, especially surrounding the the recent federal activities, that boec is responsible to take calls, triage calls and send help regardless of if it's tied to an ice related event.
219 I mean, have you heard I mean, do you understand the folks out in the community just don't think that's true. They think that people are making calls. And when boec hears the word, the the word ice, they say, you said ice. We can't do anything.
220 Yeah. And I had heard that and asked interim director maudsley to look into that, to make sure that the staff are very clear on what the policies are and what I'd like to share with the community who are concerned about that is let me know when things like that happen, because we investigate every complaint that comes in and make sure that we're providing the service according to policy.
221 I asked for permission to do this. Since mr. Causey is here, there's something else I want to ask him that sort of has to do with the underlying and one of my amendments. Sure. Mr. Causey, the last time we had this up, you said that you thought that the requirements that are in the underlying. For what PPB does to implement this law in the state law would be costly. Is that still true, given the current version of this, or has there been changes made that eliminate any costs to pbb? From the way this says you have to comply with this law and the state law?
222 Yeah. There is a particular cost specifically for a numbered badges for PPB. I'm not sure the exact amount, but badges in particular, they're not name tags. They are their actual badges that they wear on their uniforms. And they would have unique identifiers. So in order to replace those, there is a per item cost for every police officer.
223 Okay. Now would you have to do that under the state law anyway, regardless of whether this law existed?
224 I am not sure.
225 Okay. Thank you.
226 Thank you. Councilor. Novick. Councilor. Pirtle-guiney to the amendment.
227 Thank you, council president. I, I thought when I asked previously if the purple and blue and red are all part of this, that one of my colleagues was reading from a note at the top of a version, talking about what the purple and blue each relate to, and I don't see that in what's online. So I just want to make sure that what is online is actually what we're voting on. Yeah.
228 As far as I'm worried, yes. Let me verify.
229 Okay. If it is in fact the part that's online, there's a fair amount of change here. I am.
230 If I, if I may. Jack. Jack. Robert taylor had pointed out that on our clean copy, we did not update it with the red line copy. And so this afternoon we overcorrected and hit accept all changes. And then it accepted the changes of the red line copy. So we're just going to go ahead and resend the red line copy that was there earlier today.
231 So councilor Kanal council president, I am perfectly willing to give a courtesy vote to make the version that we debate, the version that you would like us to debate. Councilor Kanal. But I just want to be clear that we are going to be voting on something that I have not had the time to evaluate in that courtesy vote is not a broader support I. I want to just.
232 And.
233 That's perfectly fair.
234 Okay.
235 I do obviously hope everybody supports the overall thing eventually, but I understand that in the context.
236 Understood. There are a lot of changes on here, and it sounds like we're getting even a new version. And I think we're moving toward voting on this today without time to look at it. So I just want to clarify that.
237 Thank you, councilor Pirtle-guiney councilor Green yeah.
238 Excuse me.
239 I move to limit the debate to those already in the queue.
240 Do we have a vote on that? Yeah. Okay. Councilor Green has moved to limit debate to those in the queue for amendment Kanal one. Does that require a second?
241 Second.
242 There we go. Councilor Green has moved to limit debate. Councilor Morillo has seconded the motion. Is that a debatable motion? No, I don't think it is. No. So can we please move to a roll call? Vote on the motion to limit debate.
243 Kanal.
244 Sorry, I was just checking something here in the in the rules. It's not debatable. Yeah. I'll vote yes. Yeah.
245 Pirtle-guiney.
246 Yes.
247 Ryan.
248 No.
249 Koyama Lane.
250 No.
251 Morillo.
252 Yes.
253 Novick.
254 Yes.
255 Clark.
256 No.
257 Green.
258 Yes.
259 Zimmerman.
260 No.
261 Avalos.
262 No. No.
263 Smith.
264 No.
265 Dunphy.
266 Yes.
267 So we have a 666 I six nay.
268 Okay. Motion.
269 The motion fails.
270 Thank you very much. Councilor. Councilor Green are you still in the queue? No.
271 I support the amendment. I hope we can take a vote on it. There's more amendments on the floor. We have 21 minutes left.
272 Thank you very much. Councilor Green councilor Kanal.
273 Yeah. Thank you. We're going to get everything updated. Thank you for clarifying that. I had not seen that. So I just want to kind of walk through a little bit of what we're talking about here. It there's a lot of clarification of terms. Councilor Novick brought up one, which is the such as a driver's license. There's a piece of, of distinguishing a little bit better when authority is being verified as opposed to identity, which is maybe in used in a colloquial sense. And so clarifying that there is updating and this is lines 55 through 80, updating the definitions of facial covering to align with the state. And that's where this amendment started, is updating to align with the state. Because our definitions were sourced from other places. And so one thing that had come up was does a, a standard issue pbe jacket, which zips up over the chin cause a problem. That issue we would have figured out. But then the state adopted a definition that figured it out for us. So literally copied and pasted that in. By the way, that also to the testimonies point retains the right to use, you know, n95s and things like that. Medical masks are completely exempted and okay, as per the state law, it updates the definition of extreme or severely inclement weather, again aligning with both the state law and the request from public safety service area updates the definition of other exemptions on like undercover covert operations, things like that. I'm a 90 to 113 just walking through now, getting some other requirements in from the state law, I believe. Yeah, in 115 to 119 as well as you get a little further down. And this is where I think the color change is relevant, we're clarifying terms and also aligning here. And this is where the the badge comes in. And the question about replacement and this got updated. I want to thank the PPB leadership who spoke to the to the question we had a PPB currently has a badge physical metal badge, right. And then a name tag nametag is a velcro patch on on it. And we had written in here originally first initial and last name. They currently use last names. So we aligned it with the directive. They already have to have it say last name so that that would not require replacing that particular piece of equipment. I recognize there'll be another question around other potential cost impacts, and I'm not trying to move that. But just that one thing we resolved. Let's see, scrolling down here again, clarification language, nothing particularly major as I'm getting down below changed like officers will preliminarily investigate to will conduct a preliminary investigation. That's that's the sort of stuff. And then adding in another piece, this is line 205 to be very clear. And this is something that councilor Novak had asked a question about in committee about ensuring that we were clear that only when reasonable suspicion develops is there the option to get to a place that can involve restriction, interfering with or otherwise depriving a person of liberty or freedom of movement through physical force or show of authority. So these are these are things that we're basically aligning with the state and then taking the feedback that we got for the operational side. I don't want to go through all the little tiny one word things, but I wanted to just clarify that particular piece. So that's what it does. Again, I think there may be stuff that you want to amend after that. Obviously, councilor Novick has put up an amendment. The idea behind this is start the debate with the updated version, because we hadn't had a chance to to do these updates between March 17th, when the committee first heard it or most recently heard it, sorry. And then when leva passed and was signed into law on March 31st, and then I mentioned everything else. So I won't relitigate reissue it. But thanks. That's that's the explanation.
274 Thank you. Councilor Kanal. Councilor. Novick to the amendment.
275 Yes. And I want to say that like. Councilor. Pirtle-guiney. I plan to give a courtesy vote to for this amendment in order to start off with. The sponsor wants to. But I just want to return to something that I stupidly missed in my earlier discussion about when officers have to conduct a preliminary investigation, which is on line 192, the previous language. When the person lacks credible initiative, authority is crossed out and now it just says pb officers will notify a supervisor and investigate the situation for potential criminal act. And again, I read that as meaning whenever pb observes somebody doing something that should be illegal if a civilian was doing it, no matter what initiative authority they have, they still have to notify a supervisor and investigate the situation for potential criminal act.
276 Do you want to councilor Morillo?
277 Yeah, I think that part of what is really important about this ordinance is preserving the ability to do data tracking on how ice is operating in our communities, because when it becomes a public report, that will also be available to organizations that do rapid response for when and how and why ice is operating in certain neighborhoods, and any federal officer or any person who is kidnaping people, who is masked, who is unidentifiable. So I think that's why it's really important to keep this. And that's part of what differentiates it from ordinances and policies that came before it. I personally feel comfortable with the amendment that councilor Kanal has brought forward, and I would like for us to vote on it, because I also feel, frankly, profoundly uncomfortable with councilor Novick amendments, which were also just filed yesterday afternoon. So I know firmly where I stand on some of these things, and I'm ready to take a vote and finish the amendments today so that we can move to a second reading.
278 Thank you. Councilor. Morillo. Councilor Kanal.
279 Yeah, I just want to clarify.
280 Councilor. Novick. Your amendment, and this is this is related to my amendment that I'm asking the question. Your amendment uses the starting point of mine to make the track changes. Is that correct?
281 My amendment uses the starting point of yours as of yesterday afternoon, so that's something I should raise, actually. I mean, what I'm going to distribute in my amendment is sort of a clean copy of what the ordinance would with my amendments, but we have not had time to go back and use your new version to do the, you know, read line on it.
282 Okay. So we can we can coordinate that based on whatever happens with, with mine, right? To, to ensure that that happens. Yeah. I think the, the text that you brought up both right now. Councilor. Novick. And earlier about when the person lacks, I think this is one of those things where it can be interpreted as if and only if a person has it do we get off of it. And therefore when it when you lack, you must continue the process. And that's the clarity that we were trying to create. And it may have created a different type of, of uncertainty around it. So I'm trying to make sure I have a version where I'm like trying to see it without track changes just so I can read the exact words. But that is something you and I had had talked about following the committee hearing on this. So I want to make sure we're. It was in response to that.
283 Okay. Seeing. No. Oh, counselor Zimmerman. Yeah.
284 I just want to make sure we're voting on Kanal one, which we heard we're going to see finally later, because I understand there was a scrivener's issue or something, but that's what we're voting on right now is an item that we don't have in front of us.
285 That did that get to.
286 It right now?
287 At this moment, that is accurate. Hopefully it will not be accurate after a few minutes.
288 Okay. And and just for that, there, there was a lot of back and forth there. So. This sounds like from your position councilors, the sponsor, this is cleanup based on a variety of engagements or conversations or hearings. Do you find any of these changes to be substantive in terms of what the outcome of the change would be? And I think you know what I mean, right? There's like something where we're like, oh, we used the wrong word, but like, are there substantive changes in here from what we had before? Yes.
289 And I can explain each and all of those, but I think I'm not going to try to undersell this. This there, there were adjustments based on liver in particular, based on liver. Yeah. There may be 1 or 2 that aren't based on other feedback. And I think I walked through.
290 Some more in compliance with, with liver.
291 Yeah. So for, for example, the definitional changes would have an impact in the sense of the, like the hood thing is no longer, I don't know if that would have been a concern. I think it's not anymore because now we align with the state.
292 Okay, I just. I was kind of thinking after leave a pass that you were going to propose an amendment that quite literally just like took a city version of, of 4138 and put it in here. This is more than that.
293 That is correct. And that is accurate. Your point is accurate. Both of them. The leave a copy paste is specific to the masking piece. I want to just be clear on that because from the identification piece we also had PPB directives. So that were source material.
294 Okay. Got it. And so does this. Does this new amendment change anything with our current laws that have to do with. Like, you know, before, before this current president trump era, right? If somebody was impersonating a police officer, that was a crime and we see that kind of cosplaying thing happen where somebody will try to pull people over, it's always really strange and kind of gross. Does this change any of those laws for the laws that they have right now, in terms of how they intervene, if they believe somebody's impersonating a law enforcement officer? Is this like another layer or above and beyond or a separate chapter? I'm trying to understand how it fits into that part.
295 My understanding, and this is legislative intent as well, is that it does not change in any way the definition of what constitutes the crime. Okay. Frankly, impersonation or kidnaping, anything like that. It also does not change what occurs after reasonable suspicion exists, meaning what a Portland police officer can and could do. We list out some, you know, you can do this kind of language, but that's within the scope of what would already be happening.
296 Okay.
297 And I'm being precise because I'm not. I don't want to I don't want to say something broad. I want to understand your question.
298 Yeah. Okay. Thanks. I, I think from an amendment standpoint. Versus the underlying, I'm sorry, it's because this is like an amendment to the underlying. I almost wanted to go into that, but I'm going to stop just on the amendment piece. Thanks you. Thank you, mr. President.
299 Thank you, counselor Zimmerman. Counselor Smith.
300 Thank you. Question some of the direction that you're giving the police to do in terms of if we're talking about ice, they don't necessarily have to do that. Even if we do put this ordinance through because we don't direct ice, that is something that congress does. And I correct on that.
301 Can I clarify which thing you're specifically referring to?
302 Anything that you have in there?
303 Anything. So I'm going to just talk through this. This in two categories. There's the mass and identification piece, which I think we've all heard about the the question around how the ninth circuit may or may not affect that. And I want to respect that there are differences of opinion on what may happen. And that also, as far as I'm aware, none of us have a crystal ball on that. On the verification piece, there is actually not direction being given to ice in any way. It's a it's a the entire section refers to what PPB will do when faced with a potential impersonator. And so it doesn't it doesn't specifically name or direct in that regard.
304 Question while we're still on this, do you believe that it's going to undermine public trust in our ability to lead as a police department? That is the direction that the mayor gave us. And, you know, I'm inclined to to to agree because you got two conflicting issues here. You got federal laws, and then you have state laws, and then you have a a local ordinance that is very similar to the state level, but it actually does a little bit more than the lever. And I'm concerned that our public safety officers are going to be confused by what they should do. And it appears that we're we're being supportive of these parallel tracks, but they actually do different things.
305 Thank you for the question. My, I this this gives me the opportunity to say, I think the purpose of this is literally the opposite of that. I also think that if you listen to the testimony that increasing public trust in local government, I don't I don't know that anything we can do here guarantees increased trust in the federal government. And I don't know that that's a realistic goal. And I want to be clear, there's a lot of attempt to there may be ancillary effects, but it's not predictable. It's not governable in that sense, but in terms of public trust. And why would we trust the the federal government right now? But as it relates to local government, I do think that that having the commitment to these rules that PPB will follow. And I think there's a premise here to some of the questions that I think is kind of strange, which is I don't assume that when we pass a law governing PPB conduct, that they're going to violate it. Okay. So I think that that once we have it and then it's followed, that does increase public trust in, in local government.
306 Yeah. And I think that the chief and through the bargaining units, we should be directing what PPB conduct is. And for me, this is this is really rubbing up against that line.
307 So just to talk about this, we wouldn't actually be be doing that because we're not actually involved in the bargaining structure. But I think that's a broader conversation.
308 Ultimately we are because we make the decision. At the end of the day, we do.
309 Thanks.
310 Okay. Thank you, councilor Smith. Councilor Koyama Lane.
Procedural episode · turns 311–320
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311 Thank you, council president. Okay, I'm trying to look at all the updates and just a couple things. Can you explain how Kanal one Kanal one has a clear definition of preliminary investigation? How is that what changes does that make?
312 Yeah, sure. It's basically the the idea of preliminarily investigate versus conduct a preliminary investigation. That's the the first thing there's some clarity in terms of moving a portion up to better distinguish between the shall, the things that that will happen and the things that may happen. There's just clarity of what we're asking and what we're not in. If they pursue the third of those options, and then there's an additional text that was designed to reflect feedback from the public safety service area, as well as from committee members, that unless reasonable suspicion exists, we, the Portland police, are not being asked to intentionally and significantly restrict, interfere with or otherwise deprive a person of liberty or freedom of movement through physical force or show of authority. So it's one of like six places where we say, basically, unless a crime is being committed, there's no interference happening with the potential impersonator, potential law enforcement agent.
313 Okay. Thank you. That's helpful. And I have what I need to vote on this amendment.
314 Thank you. Colleagues, we got three more minutes and then we are going to continue this item. So hopefully we can get to a vote on Kanal one. Councilor Morillo.
315 Oh yeah, I'm ready to call the question on this amendment.
316 Don't actually call the question.
317 Okay. Can we just vote? Great.
318 You have to be a.
319 Seeing no one else in the queue. Can we please call the roll on Kanal one.
320 I call.
321 Kanal one moved by councilor Kanal seconded by councilor Morillo.
322 Yes. Councilor Kanal I.
323 Pirtle-guiney I.
324 Ryan no.
325 Koyama Lane I.
326 Morillo I.
327 Novick with the caveat that although I think that this amendment in some ways improves the prior, in some ways, I think it makes it more confusing as a courtesy to move things along and vote. I.
328 Clark no.
329 Green I.
330 Zimmerman. No.
331 Avalos I Smith. No Dunphy. I and the amendment is approved with eight votes and four no votes.
332 Okay, colleagues, we have two minutes left. We now have an amended ordinance. We have a Novick has a number of amendments as well to introduce. And we're going to continue this item in two minutes. So. Councilor Morillo.
333 I move that we vote on all of Novick amendments as a package right now. I reviewed them all. They were filed just yesterday afternoon.
334 Okay. Councilor. Morillo has moved Novick amendments as a package. Is there a second? Second to be.
335 The slowest council of all time? If we would like.
336 Councilor Avalos seconds. Okay, colleagues. Discussion to the amendment or to the motion. Councilor Zimmerman.
337 This is inappropriate and this is a line we have seen the councilor from district three take many times when she is frustrated by debate on an item she would like to rush through. This would be the most egregious example of that and fair unfair to, frankly, the entire point of this body existing. And I think it's just bubbled over, I think with a one minute left before you want to table council president, it would be best, perhaps, that we put this to bed for the night and come back when we are better selves.
338 Thank you, councilor Zimmerman. Colleagues, I am going to continue this item to a future date with. As a continued first reading, and I am going to adjourn us for. Without objection, I'm going to adjourn us for the day. We are adjourned.