The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-12-16
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (18,501 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 Arts and Economy Committee met on Tuesday, December 16, 2025. Following roll call and a statement of conduct, the committee heard no public comment on general arts and economy issues before turning to an update on a budget note exploring an expanded partnership between the Parks Bureau and USTA Pacific Northwest for the Portland Tennis Center. City staff presented findings on operational costs, capital investment needs, and programming impacts, though some figures—particularly regarding capital cost estimates and deferred maintenance totals—were stated inconsistently across speakers. Representatives from USTA Pacific Northwest and the Vancouver Tennis Center also testified about potential investment commitments and community programming. Committee members asked questions concerning labor conditions, equity of access across districts, property ownership, and alignment with city values, including a raised concern about a national USTA policy on transgender competition. Public testimony followed from several community members supporting the partnership. The committee then received an update on development of a Storefront Support Program, including discussion of a proposed business district health index, data challenges around vacancy tracking, and stakeholder engagement plans, with public testimony from a small business owner and a Prosper Portland representative. The meeting closed with discussion of upcoming agenda items for January and February 2026, including revenue forecasting, a multiple-unit tax abatement proposal, and a proposed ban on certain force-fed poultry products. Votes, if any occurred, are recorded in the vote ledger.
AI-drafted from the session's auto-captions, reviewed by an editor — describes the discussion only; recorded votes live in the vote ledger. Captions contain errors.
0 On committee to order. It's Tuesday, December 16th, and it's 933. Clerk, will you please call the roll?
1 Good morning.
2 Green here.
3 Clerk. Here. Dunphy. Smith. Ryan.
4 Here. So, christopher, will you please read the statement of conduct?
5 Welcome to the meeting of the arts and economy committee to testify before this committee in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance the committee agenda at wwe council. Agenda slash and economy committee. Or by calling 311. Information on engaging with the committee can be found at this link. Registration for virtual testimony closes one hour prior to the meeting. In person. Testifiers must sign up before the agenda item is heard. If public testimony will be taken on an item, individuals may testify for three minutes unless the chair states otherwise. Your microphone will be muted when your time is over. The chair preserves order disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others testimony or committee deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, the committee may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony should address the matter being considered. When testifying, state your name for the record. If you're a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent and testifiers should unmute themselves when the clerk calls your name. Thank you.
6 Thank you christopher. I'm really excited today because we have two updates on two initiatives that I introduced and received full support from this council. I repeat full support from this council. The legislation went to our colleagues in the administration last spring and late summer and last spring, late summer, early fall. And now they're in the development phases. There are two items that will improve services for hard working portlanders. In today's meeting, the arts and economy. We'll hear some testimony. We'll receive a presentation on the budget note for the expansion of parks bureau partnership with the united states tennis association, pacific northwest, and we'll hear public comment related to that. Then we will receive an update from the city administration on the development of a much needed storefront support program, and we'll leave time for testimony on that as well. So, clerk, please read the next items. And yes, go ahead and read a couple of them together. Since we have people who are just here to testify on tennis center. So just let's get right into that item.
7 One public comment on arts and economy issues. No one signed up. Item two tennis center budget note update item three public comment on tennis center budget.
8 Thank you. So today we reach a milestone. The city's chief financial officer is presenting us with a report on the next steps for the city to enter into an agreement for an expanded services with the united states tennis association. Pacific northwest organization. I give thanks to jonas berry, the city's cfo. Thanks for being here. Jonas parks director sonja szymanski, for working under a tight timeline to produce the report that jonas will be sharing. And of course, priya is here as well. Sorry to have you on here. I'm doubly appreciative of their work on this issue, because I know that at the top of all of their regular duties, the city administration and operations struggle with capacity to meet new demands from council. Yet when those new demands are going to improve services for Portland, that's exactly what public servants do. This is a no brainer. The service the city would want to create a stronger bond with high performing nonprofit organization dedicated to sports education to access, particularly for students in our community. Surprisingly, the proposal received some interesting and unexpected pushback from people who want to maintain the status quo and are not concerned about change. This opportunity provides a city with a partner who will invest in our tennis programing and tennis facilities in exchange for operating the tennis center. When we first received the proposal from the usta pacific northwest, I wanted to validate that they would be able to deliver on all of the positive changes they propose. So I went on a site visit to the Vancouver tennis center, one of the tennis facilities that usta pacific northwest operates. I was actually truly it was truly beyond impressed with what we saw. The courts were renovated and fully in use. The individual hours, hourly players and school tennis program has gone up the facility membrane and the court lighting was new, was unique and it was good experience for all indoor facility. There was a there were senior players group finishing up their weekly tennis coffee gathering that they do after they play tennis. So you saw that socializing that's so needed in our community, especially when elders are retired. The facility staff was professional, respectful and attentive, and it was just such a pleasure to meet their professional tennis instructors. I spent time talking with the management and staff about the transition from the city of Vancouver. Operating the center, much like ours is now to the usta. Assuming the operations, I learned that the former city employees were retained, and the tennis pros have the ability to earn greater incomes. Now, my main takeaway from the visit was that this didn't look like a public facility. It looked like a really fancy private facility. It was clean, it was modern, it was well appointed and well managed. It's remarkable that this month that Vancouver tennis center was named the public facility of the year by racket sports industry. This award focused on the innovation and impact public private partnerships developed in the city of Portland. With that, I give you, jonas berry, to give us the update from our cfo. Thanks for being here.
9 Great. Thank you, chair. And I believe donna paul is going to kick us off.
10 Thank you. And good morning, co-chairs Ryan and councilor Green and the rest of the members of the economy committee as well. Thank you for having us here. I'm priya dhanapala, the deputy city administrator for public works. And I want to begin with gratitude to councilor Ryan for advancing this budget note and for inviting the city to explore creative aligned partnership models in a very challenging fiscal environment. And that that direction has prompted us to have a thoughtful, cross evaluation of how we steward public assets, expand community access, and also manage long term financial risk responsibly. I also want to thank cfo perry and tcas director szymanski and their teams for the leadership and close collaboration. Our work together has been grounded in due diligence and a shared commitment to asking the right questions before moving forward. I also want to acknowledge usda, pnw for engaging with us and the city staff during this initial exploratory phase, and for providing the information to support our due diligence. The Portland tennis center is a valued community facility, but it is also an aging infrastructure infrastructure with real operating and capital pressures. And this effort has asked allows us to ask whether a partnership model with usda, pnw could improve service delivery, expand access and reduce long term financial exposure while appropriately addressing labor, community and legal considerations. And our update to you today is intended to summarize the work completed to date, share high level findings and the recommended next steps. And with that framing, I'll turn it over to cfo and director shemanski to walk us through the assessment and the proposed path forward. Over to you.
11 Thank you. Priya chair, thank you again for the invitation committee. Pleasure to be here. For the record, jonas berry, the city's chief financial officer, as the city faces significant budget challenges and evolves under this new form of government, it's important that we use this moment to lean into creative partnership opportunities. In alignment with that, councilor Ryan proposed and council passed a budget note to explore potential partnership with the usta pacific northwest. So we're here today, as paul said, with a brief update on the status of that effort, which is also described in a written report that was distributed to all council members on December 2nd and is included as an attachment to the agenda item for committee here today. I want to also thank you, chair, for acknowledging the time and work that goes into this kind of an effort. The work began in July, immediately after passage of the adopted budget, with a handful of meetings including city staff including dc indo-nepal, director shemanski, ppr staff, myself and support from the city budget office and of course, our usda pacific northwest partners to gather information, to share perspectives, to perform due diligence on the proposal concept, and to look at potential costs and benefits. The result of that initial due diligence indicates there is likely benefit to city financial and service outcomes. Assuming we can get to a formal agreement on the critical details, I'll now briefly summarize a few of the different categories of information that we received and the preliminary recommendation. And this does follow for folks reading along. This follows the order that things are referenced in the report that's attached as well. So we first looked at a comparison of operational costs. Fairly simplified analysis indicates that the city currently incurs around 2.2 million in direct and indirect annual costs specific to the Portland tennis center, or ptc, as proposed, usta pacific northwest would take responsibility for all ptc operational costs. We do anticipate that the city would still incur some costs related to managing the partnership and accommodating other city priorities and expectations, particularly around ongoing community engagement and participation. But the net outcome could be a potential cost savings to the city of around $2 million annually, which is perhaps the most clear, direct and likely benefit to the city of pursuing this partnership. Second area we looked at was capital costs and benefits. The usta pacific northwest proposal would contribute approximately 2.3 million towards specific critical capital improvements at the Portland tennis center. The city believes that the actual cost requirements could be a bit higher than that amount, and that's a discussion that will continue as we move into the next phase of negotiation, regardless of the final costs and any possible share of responsibility for the ultimate capital improvements. The potential to receive over $2 million in outside funding is much more than nothing, and is as a valued benefit to the city. The third category of information we looked at was potential impacts to existing tennis programing, partnerships and sponsorships. Expanded programing is indeed one of the shared primary goals of the partnership, and it's likely that usda pacific northwest's experience and operational responsibility will support programing enhancements to users of portland's tennis system. The city also expects that current partnership and sponsorship relationships will be maintained, and that there are strong potential to expand new relationships given usta, pacific northwest, broad national and global relationships. Lastly, we know there are a few critical areas that did not that we did not explore deeply during this first phase, but that will need significant attention as the work most moves forward in the next next phase. Here. These areas include labor considerations, community engagement details, and a deep legal review. So today, in conclusion, is kind of a quick check point before we move on to the next phase in that detailed work proceeds over the coming months, the recommendation is to pivot responsibility to the Portland parks and recreation director to lead negotiation forward, with the goal of coming back to council with a detailed agreement proposal in 2026. And as cfo, I'll continue to actively support and participate in that effort. Lastly, deeply appreciative of the time offered by usta pacific northwest in support of getting us this far and look forward to continued collaboration to develop enhanced tennis related services and access to more portlanders at a more efficient cost to the city. And I'll now hand to director shemanski.
12 Thank you. Good morning. Sonia shemanski, interim director, Portland parks and recreation. That about covers it. I will just emphasize again our appreciation for you, councilor Ryan and councilors for supporting the budget note that launched us in this more structured conversation with usta pacific northwest. We have had really wonderful conversations with them where we're finding we have people in common and our tennis people know their tennis people, and we have very strong mission alignment and a lot of programing that is similar. That is all so encouraging, and we are excited to get going pretty quickly here in January with the next phase of conversation, parks bureau will be convening that and bringing a variety of experts to the table to help inform us, as we're talking in a more formal and structured way with usta pacific northwest about what an agreement could look like. And as jonas mentioned, we plan to be back to you. I haven't done this before. I don't know how long this will take, but as we will move quickly and we will be back to you as quickly as we can. As jonas mentioned, with a detailed proposal for consideration. When we're ready for that, we are councilor Ryan, I too am looking forward to getting up to Vancouver. I did not know it was facility of the year. Congratulations, but I'm not surprised. So it will be great to see that take time out in the field and directly with our partners to see what this programing looks like in action, and talk about what opportunities there are for us to partner here in Portland.
13 Thank you. First of all, thank you, jonas, and it's very exciting to get the Green light from the financial house and $2 million investment at least every year into our operations budget is something we obviously it's definitely aspirin to the headache that we all are suffering from. Looking at our budget notes in general. And thank you, director, because you gave us the Green light about the movement. And so we look forward to staying engaged with your office as we land this next. Thank you. And we'll have the representatives now come up from w sta pacific northwest. We have china kirk. She's the chief operating officer who will share about stay pacific northwest investment commitment and readiness to partner. And before I go on to the next, I have several colleagues with their hands up. Can we listen to the full presentation? Okay, great. And then we have asanjya lamas. She is the Vancouver tennis center's director of tennis who will talk about her own experience, the transition, the staff members, guests and the community served in this public private partnership. Welcome both of you. China and sonia floor is yours.
14 Well, good morning, council member Ryan. Members of Portland city council and city staff, thank you for the opportunity to be here today for the strong collaboration throughout this process as we work together to expand equitable access across Portland. My name is china kirk and I serve as the chief operating officer for usta pacific northwest. We are a mission driven 500 1c3 nonprofit and the governing body for the sport of tennis. In pnw. We serve more than 1.1 million tennis players and 300 civic and community organizations through partnerships with schools, parks, cities and local agencies. Growing the game to support healthier individuals and stronger communities. And that brings us to why we're here today. Portland has more than 84,000 active tennis players, with 77,000 more residents interested in playing but lacking year round access, with only 11 publicly accessible indoor courts citywide, Portland falls far below national standards, and this is our shared call to action. At its core, our proposal is a public private partnership with up to $3 million. If an investment by usta pacific northwest to modernize the Portland tennis center and expand access through public parks and schools. It also provides 30 plus years of stewardship through usta, pnw management and operations, eliminating both deferred maintenance costs and operational costs for the city while delivering a sustainable, inclusive public recreation model. And our approach is proven. Just last week it is mentioned racket sports industry magazine, which is the largest racket sports trade publication in the world, named Vancouver tennis center the public tennis facility of the year. That facility is also publicly owned and also managed and operated by usta pnw through a nearly identical model. As for why we're here today, and with that foundation, I'd like to share our four key commitments to you. First, capital improvements to Portland tennis center. We're prepared to invest more than $2.3 million in comprehensive upgrades to the existing indoor courts, including roof replacement, new insulation and liner, led lighting, resurfacing and technology improvements. The proposal also includes replacing the permanent dome or bubble over the four outdoor courts, creating reliable year round indoor play, and as part of the as part of the national governing body that hosts the us open tennis championships, usta can bring national design engineers and operational expertise that ensures facilities are not only functional but best in class. Number two, our proposal extends beyond ptc and into the public Portland parks. It includes a $100,000 investment to revitalize the city, designated ten community tennis hubs, advancing the city's goal of expanding affordable recreation citywide. And over time, our long term vision. Our dream would be to build even more additional bubbles and public parks throughout Portland, bringing year round opportunities to more neighborhoods. And number three, this partnership builds a strong base of access by also investing in public schools and public parks. We currently deliver after school programs in title one and public elementary, middle and high schools and summer camps for all ages and ability levels. In the public parks, we provide need based scholarships and free equipment, ensuring that no child or family is ever turned away due to cost. And finally, number four, this partnership aims to drive economic and community impact through expanding local jobs, workforce development, regional tournaments, sports tourism, while continuing to expand existing partnerships. And we are proud to share that now, for the second year in a row, usta pacific northwest was named a top workplace by the Oregonian, and this is a reflection of a team deeply committed to delivering this mission. In closing, this proposal goes far beyond a facility upgrade. It is a community centered investment in creating sustainable public recreation for generations. We are proud to stand alongside the city in this vision, and usta pnw is prepared to move forward together immediately. Thank you for your time, your leadership, and your continued commitment to Portland communities. Thank you.
15 Good morning, council member Ryan, members of the Portland city council and city staff, thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is sonia lemish and I serve as the director of tennis at the Vancouver tennis center, operated by the united states tennis association, pnw. I'm here today in three roles. As someone whose life was shaped as a city run public tennis center, as a scholarship recipient who grew up playing on a public courts and a representative of the tennis professional staff members and families we serve every day, I'm one example of what becomes possible when a city partners with usda, pnw to manage and operate a public indoor tennis facility. I grew up playing tennis in croatia and germany, where access to public courts made it possible for me to develop not just an athlete, but as a person. When I later came to the united states, it was once again a public city run tennis center that opened the door for me as a young player. I received a scholarship from the city that allowed me to train at the tennis center. That access changed the entire trajectory of my life. Years later, I returned as a tennis professional, and today I have the privilege to lead an encore team at the public tennis center. That helped me when the city transitioned operations to usda pnw six years ago, none of us knew exactly what it would mean for our future. What we experienced was a partnership that strengthened everything that already made the city special and expanded what was possible. It created more jobs, more programs, access, and a deeper community relationship than ever before. Today, more than 1000 thousands of members and guests rely on our indoor tennis center as their year round public indoor home for tennis. In a region known for rain, early darkness, having industry, best lighting, a roof that doesn't leak, and the same court surface used at the us open is truly extraordinary for a public facility, what matters most is that it remains community accessible with low cost memberships and scholarships, so that people of all ages and backgrounds can play. Our players walk in a center that is world class, welcoming and truly built for them. As someone who leads a team of passionate tennis professionals, I can say with confidence that usta pnw invests deeply in its people. This partnership not just created more jobs, but real careers. Our team receives professional development training and the support of shared services and hr, it, marketing, accounting and and tech systems. These resources allow coaches to focus on what they do best grow participation and build build lasting community relationships. It is a privilege. It is a privilege for us to represent the united states bmw and to serve the public through this work. In addition to providing play opportunities at all levels, I'd like to highlight some of the programs that reflect true community inclusion and are near and dear to myself and our our team. We offer programs for players with autism, wheelchair adaptive tennis, visually impaired tennis, special olympics, women and girls training pathways, homeschool programs, and partnerships with local high schools that include free and donated time for for both high schools and senior citizens. These are the programs the city was not previously able to deliver. And they're among the things that my team is most proud of. Every day we see how this partnership allows us to reach more people, introduce more newcomers to the sport and ensure that tennis is accessible to everyone. I stand here today not just as an employee, but as someone whose life was shaped by the public tennis, as someone who was witnessed how powerful this partnership has been for our staff, our members and our community. The Vancouver tennis tennis center is thriving. The people we serve are thriving, and the relationship between the city and the usta pnw grows stronger every day. We're excited for the opportunity to expand partnership with the city of Portland and the Portland tennis community. Thank you for the opportunity to share my story and to speak to you on behalf of our staff, our members, and the thousands of players we proudly serve.
16 Thank you so much. Sonja and also uchina. I think what we'll do is have you stay up there and have jonas and sonja come back up and dca oh yeah, there you're you're behind someone's head. Come on up. Maybe. Okay. You all can fit. Great. So councilors have questions. So I just want to make sure you're all up there on the panel in case they're directed at you specifically. Councilor Clark.
17 Thank you. Co-chair Ryan, this is really exciting. And I'm thank you all for being here today. I really appreciate your testimony. I also just want to say that this has been a long time coming, and I really appreciate your perseverance. Co-chair Ryan. It's very, very exciting to me and almost as exciting as the Sellwood community house. But actually more important, it's also really mirrors my own, obviously, my own desire to see more public private partnerships across the city, particularly in the parks bureau. I do have a couple of questions, though, about the timing. You mentioned, sonja, that you don't know exactly how this is going to unfold, and I'm just wondering if we can come up with a partnership and sign documents in order to impact our next budget. I don't know if that's a question for jonas or sonja or or priya.
18 Yeah, it's a good question. We're looking at each other because we councilor We don't know as as director schimanski said, you know, we'll do this work as rapidly as possible. My hope would be the answer is yes, that we can get to agreement, let's say, within a couple of months and be able to come back to council in the spring, which would allow an opportunity to both begin the work as soon as possible, but reflect those financial impacts into the fiscal 2627 budget. So that's the objective details, you know, tbd and developing rapidly. And so I don't know if you have more to add.
19 Just that this is a top priority. And so we will be orienting our calendars accordingly to make space to go quickly and again, with the hope that we could have something in place for the fiscal year. Although we don't need to, we can enter into a partnership effective anytime, but there certainly is value and benefit to aligning it with the fiscal year for a lot of reasons.
20 Great. Well, I appreciate hearing that, and I would imagine that you all can look at other agreements across the country. I'd be curious to to know more about those other agreements. I don't know what china said. How many. There were 300 different organizations, but seems like we can we don't have to recreate the wheel necessarily, that this is something that is normal. And I would I would encourage that. Yeah.
21 Thank you for noting that usta pacific northwest, this is the area that we are in a really lucky scenario and that you just heard from Vancouver tennis center. There are other facilities here in the pacific northwest, as well as the other civic and community partnerships. This is something that we do each and every day, and we lived these contracts so we can come to the table already with working models, working example. Every city is different. Every community's needs are different. But there's definitely those through lines. And we've got starter templates or other contracts to compare this to that I do believe could speed up that process.
22 That's terrific. Are there any others in Oregon?
23 In Oregon, there's dozens. They're going to be more with the public schools and with smaller parks. When it comes to the larger cities, they're mostly in Vancouver. I would defer to Vancouver tennis center, though, is the one that really aligns. It's a partnership that is both with the city and with the school district.
24 Can I ask one more question now down to the 1000 foot level you mentioned working on not just the tennis center, but the facilities across the city. I live within walking distance of one and Willamette park, and I just wondered how you go about determining the priority of those improvements across the city and how you would decide which ones to put a bubble over? I don't know, it's also in councilor Greene's district. I'm just curious what the what the process is for determining that.
25 Is that a question for me?
26 I think so, yes.
27 Okay. Before I answer something.
28 So with the as I mentioned earlier, so as part of the national governing body that hosts the us open tennis championships, we have an entire department at our usta national level that looks at facilities across the country. So the process really depends on blueprints from your organization. It depends on what the state of the court surface the area is. But what we've done is we've allocated a portion of our proposal to those ten community hubs. And you mentioned Willamette. That is one of the top parks. Anything I would say that has four courts or more is absolutely worth discovering. If we can put a bubble over that, the timing and the priority is something that we would work with you all in partnership. We have already provided grant dollars to that park to resurface. So the I would say the the precedence of us wanting to work with you in partnership for that facility infrastructure already exists to put a bubble over. That would be a dream. But really you have to look at every park individually. But that's where we would really tap into our usta resources, our engineers, our designers. And if that's a priority, it's already on our priority list as one of those ten community hubs.
29 Great. Well, thank you for that answer and thank you for making the improvement. And it's very, very noticeable. Thank you, thank you.
30 Thank you. Councilor clarke, before we go on, I just want to remind colleagues that we have up until 1020 to have q&a, and then we'll have some testimony for people that came up on this item. Next in the queue is councilor Smith.
31 Thank you. Good morning. Thank you for bringing this forward. This is sounds like a great opportunity. One of the things that I want to kind of get some understanding about. So you usta will take over the entire tennis and all of our parks. Is that what's happening here.
32 So usta pacific northwest is proposing to put in 3 million in investment. And how that investment is distributed is something that will really dig into the details. As jonas said, when we get into the negotiations, we get into the partnership agreement. But at the highest level, yes, we are working to revitalize Portland tennis center and also to put aside different parts of that full or the delta on that 2.3 to 3 million to invest into the other parks. So you have 102 public parks that are at different levels of playability. And the priority is council member Clark mentioned, we can resurface, can we revitalize, can we make those more accessible to the public? We are committed to doing that. But the exact how and which order, that's something that we would work through in our negotiations.
33 So where is the tennis center at, or is it just a generic name for our tennis courts?
34 You mean as far as where is it at as far as playability?
35 Yeah, yeah.
36 Right now it is playable. I would definitely say it's playable, but you have a leaking roof at Portland tennis center. You have?
37 Yeah. So it's not just one central us tennis center. You're talking about different.
38 That's correct. So.
39 I.
40 Think it's good to in this.
41 Moment and the public parks around. Yes.
42 Yeah. Councilor so you're aware that the tennis center, the structure that we were talking about initially is the one next to benson high school.
43 Okay.
44 And that's where they would be putting in some investment dollars for deferred maintenance. Okay. I could I just wanted to make sure okay.
45 So there is a tennis center and.
46 There.
47 Is a tennis center and that you're going to fix the bubble. But when it confused me, when you say we're going to look at all of them and see if it what the needs are, the other piece that I'm trying to get an understanding about is, has your board agreed to put resources forward to do this dok that out? Still?
48 That is an excellent, excellent question. They have absolutely signed off on this. They are excited about it. This in the same way councilmember Clark asked about our partnerships and previous contracts. The our board of directors has been through this process and absolutely excited to do this.
49 Great. And the other thing that I'm concerned about. So if you all take over the tennis center by benson, will those workers still be labor workers or will they be private sector workers?
50 That's a great question too. And I would pass that to jonas, as he mentioned in his staff report.
51 Okay. Yeah, it's another great question. And councilor, one of the things that is a key point that we need to continue to explore over the over the coming weeks as we dig into the details of those future operational expectations. And certainly, labor is going to be an important element of that conversation. I will note that, and maybe this is aligned a little bit councilor With your questions as well. I think we do have an advantage collectively as a team in the conversation, and that getting the start that we did and having multiple conversations to get to this point, I think kind of approaching it with a collaborative intention has really started to open the doors to have those conversations occur rapidly. So so we've got, I'll call it, kind of a parking lot of things that that were identified as these are some really big questions that we need to come back now and focus on over the next few months. So we don't have to start with identifying those. We've identified those. And that is that labor question is one of those.
52 I appreciate that because, you know, we've been losing a lot of city employees, and I would want any employee who is currently a city employee, if they were going to be transitioned into a private sector, that they would have the same kind of benefits and the same kind of working conditions and salaries that they have working for the city of Portland. I appreciate the work that you all have done to to make this a great public, private relationship. But I do want to tell my colleagues, I don't want our parks department to turn into a whole private sector kind of hodgepodge of of relationships because of money. Now, the other issue is we did a deferred maintenance assessment, and I don't know, I didn't get a copy of it, but it said that we did it in jonas's letter, that there was about $10.2 million in deferred maintenance. And so, am I hearing you correctly or did I just I missed it. Did you say that you all were going to do $2 million every year worth of deferred maintenance, or just the 2.3 to 3 million for the for the benson?
53 I believe that when jonas said that he was speaking to the operational costs that would come off of the Portland city books and us and as managing an operation would then take over those operational costs. So you've got really separate things. You have our separate transformational $3 million usda, pa investment for all of the capital infrastructure. Separate from that. That's where it gets into the day to day, which jonas was referencing, is that there are operational costs that the city would no longer incur by having a nonprofit 500 1c3 organization manage and operate that facility.
54 So then we would pass over the money. So the budget that we have for the tennis center, we would pass that over to you all, and you all would manage that particular budget.
55 So councilor My understanding of the way the relationship would, would work in the current vision is that the usta pacific northwest would take full responsibility for that operation and those costs, so we wouldn't hand the money over. We would just no longer be expending those dollars directly as a city resource. So it would be direct savings on the operational side to the city budget. We would no longer be spending that $2 million because usda would be making that commitment. I do want to clarify the difference between the 10 million that's in the report.
56 The 10.5 in capital investment.
57 Yeah. Correct. So so it's another area that there's some still due diligence to be done. The my understanding I'll say, and maybe other folks can illuminate this, but that that scope is includes many things that are beyond what's just the the specific scope of improvement included within the usda proposal. So, you know, this is a terrible example, but 10 million is renovating the whole house. 2 to 3 million is renovating the garage. That's a bad example. I apologize.
58 For that. No, I hear you so and I want to make sure because I'm a I'm a council person for district one, which I call the front door to the city of Portland, which is on the edge of the city. And it begins at northeast 82nd, and it goes far north to marine drive, and it goes east to 162nd, and it goes south to clatsop, to southeast clatsop. And so as we're doing this and you all are identifying those ten spots, I would have a full expectation that you would be renovating or improving or putting in spaces in district one. Because we are probably one of the most dynamic districts, but we have some vulnerabilities, and I want to make sure that any of those resources or if we're signing off something that you understand, that that is a priority area. For me, we have 40% of the children's of the city's children that live in my district. The average salary of a household is $60,000 a year, compared to 92,000. And the other three districts. And so I do want to make sure that we have some opportunity for our kids to play tennis, enjoy this sport, and that they won't be they, you know, tennis historically has been a a sport for people who are more affluent and they can afford to go to these tennis matches and be a part of this and get, you know, big time coaches and stuff like that. Folks in my district, they don't have that ability. I don't want them to feel like, you know, when it's a when it's a Portland parks, it feels like everyone can come, but then you operationalize it under your name and they don't feel like it's for them. They feel like it's for them. Other folks who have money and influence. And so I want to make sure that that is not the the culture at this new partnership. And that folks who who come from my district, they feel comfortable. That is so very important. I don't even know where the tennis courts are in, in, in district one and which parks they are. But I do want to speak if, if they don't have any and if they're limited, that we need to make sure that they have something that that is not just surviving, that you look at some of those places that could be thriving, because I think you leave out a lot of great raw talent who might be able to benefit from this sport. My last question, I know we're we are. Under the gun for time, but who will own the property? Will we sign away our rights to the to the actual property, to this new partnership?
59 You will not know us. W will not be. There will be no transfer of ownership. We are managing and operating and investing. And council member Smith, to your question or statement, before what you spoke of to district one speaks to the heart of the mission of usta pacific northwest. I want to let you know that all your everything in your statement aligns exactly with why we exist, what we want to do, and how that list prioritizes, or where we're able to focus outside of Portland tennis center. That is a discussion that we not only open to, but welcome. That is why we exist and what we want to do.
60 Perfect. Perfect. Excellent. Thank you for the presentation. I look forward to seeing what you all pull together over the next couple of months.
61 Thank you, councilor Smith. And I saw you ready to jump out of your skin, because in the dialog with councilor Smith as a student, that was a scholarship student, if you will. And what I was most impressed with at Vancouver center was the access and the equity gains that you made since you took over from the parks bureau there.
62 Yes. And as china stated before, we have never turned a kid down. If they didn't have money. I was one of them. My parents came from germany with just two bags, and I was very welcomed in the public space. And that's what we thrive on. That's what we our mission is. And we will make sure that, you know, the kids in, in the districts have not only an access to tennis, but also be able to have a job, you know, the the camps that we run that will provide jobs for some of those students as well. So it's kind of a circle that we that we do.
63 Thank you. And thanks for your patience. Co-chair Green.
64 Thank you. Co-chair Ryan. Councilor Smith hit a couple of my questions. So I don't really need to go into those, but I just I want to put a finer point on the question around. I think it'll be really important to understand how many unionized city of Portland workers could lose their benefits and pensions as a result. I understand there was some narrative in there about sort of a just transition, as you will, but I would encourage you to have those conversations if you haven't already had those with the bargaining unit now, and let us kind of know what that looks like so we can have that up front, not later. So look forward to that. The other piece is, you know, currently council sets rates at parks facilities by the parks directors kind of recommendation. And the tennis center gives a $500,000 in financial assistance to low income users each year. I'm encouraged to hear that usta doesn't turn away sort of needier less, less advantaged households. So curious what should this partnership be approved? What options will the city have to ensure that we've got in this partnership agreement, continued access there? Any any thoughts right now or we can take that by writing later.
65 Now we could do we could do both of those. I would say though, when you look to most specifically the city of Vancouver or any of our existing public private partnerships, I think that's a great example because we could come here and say one thing, but you can't go back and make up six years of impact and proving your partnership. And in that, as a nonprofit, we make sure that our pricing always stays accessible. And that is for district one, that is for all parts of Portland. And even there are moments where need based scholarships are the best route and will be proactive about those too.
66 I appreciate that, so we'll continue to kind of pay attention to that. Thank you. I was really encouraged to see in the report for the update that usta offers services to individuals with disabilities above and beyond what the city currently offers. That is a huge benefit potential for me and I, you know, hope parks takes notes, takes note across the broader portfolio of the work that we do to kind of see how we can learn from from usta. And I think the last one, you know, the executive has the authority to execute the contracts. And so I see in the report that it's going to come back to council for review and approval. I'm just curious, I guess, why is it sort of just in the spirit of good faith partnership between the executive and council, or is it sort of their expectation that we approve a final contract?
67 I imagine we would be back in a format similar to this, but you're correct. I think the signing authority is with the executive.
68 Thank you. So as you're negotiating this contract over the next few months and thinking through how best to proceed, I hope that you keep in mind and this is a little bit uncomfortable, but I have to raise it is that on December 1st, the usta made a decision to ban transgender women from competing with their gender in sports. And I know that that's a national level policy choice. But I'm going to want to know that if we're going to engage in this partnership with usta, that we're we're going to not ban our trans children and our trans community from participating in the in their gender sport in the city of Portland, because that would be incompatible with our values in the city. And so I didn't know if folks knew that. I just found out about it a week ago because the usta didn't really announce that. They just sort of did a quiet policy change. And so I think that as municipalities engage in these agreements, it's kind of on us to to make sure that we we're doing what we need to do to to align with our values. So I think that's all I'm going to say on that.
69 Co-chair Green, I want you to know that I saw it when it happened. I'm not just two weeks ago, but actually when it happened and it really upset me. And I had conversations with all of you. Would you like to say anything?
70 China I appreciate that that was.
71 We would absolutely like to respond to that more in detail, and we'd be happy to have formal and informal conversations at any time. This was not something that I would say that the usta necessarily decided to do more, that were responding directly to a presidential order, and this comes from the us olympic committee and all national governing bodies in the united states for all sports are required to comply. And this is where we'll need to have more offline conversations about how we can make sure that we continue to have equitable access. But I did want to make that clarification. But I also greatly appreciate you bringing that up, both council members. And that is something that we would like to continue to work through and address.
72 Thank you for that response, and I'm grateful that you acknowledge that too, and that we're aligned on that.
73 I called right away. I think it was around. Well, it was in September, early September. Right, councilor? Clerk. And we do. We're one minute over.
74 Just a quick question. I just wondered how many staff are currently in the department are working on the tennis program. Can somebody tell me how many staff are actually in the program now?
75 There are four full time employees, and I think 30 casual staff in the program for for for full time employees and 30 casual staff and director shymansky, you're welcome to correct me.
76 Largely seasonal.
77 Okay. They're like part time, 30 part time. Okay. Thanks.
78 Thank you, councilor Clarke. And thank you. Panel I think. Clerk diana, we have some people signed up for testimony, so we're going to go ahead and hear from them. Thank you for your time. I hope you can listen to the testimony and then this item will be complete. Thanks. And again I really appreciate the focus on what the savings could be to the 2627 budget. Thank you for delivering that real information. Okay, diana.
79 Thank you. Yes, we have three people signed up. They are all online. First we have ella, melissa, next, Steve eggers, and followed by suzanne bishop. Ella, if you can unmute, we can start your testimony. Thank you.
80 Good morning everyone. My name is melissa. And thank you all for allowing me to speak to you today. Just really quickly to introduce myself. I'm the sports scientist for the Portland thorns women's soccer team here in Portland. I'm a british kiwi who moved to Portland 14 years ago, and I'm a mom to two beautiful boys. My story with tennis is a long one with a variety of twists, but I should preface by saying that tennis is my haven. It has saved me more times than I can count. From the ages of 8 to 12, I was horrifically bullied in school. I hated every second of my school time because there was nothing that my teachers or parents could do to stop the relentless abuse from my peers. My light at the end of every day was the tennis court. On the tennis court. I was safe, I was happy, I belonged. I found my community of people who supported, pushed and loved me. And to be truthful with you all, it has saved my life. When I moved to America, I was terrified because I was losing that backbone. Starting high school at 16 and trying to make new friends in a new country, as you all can imagine, was hard and next to impossible. But one of my school teachers put my mom in touch with a local tennis coach running tennis clinics through the facility at lewis and Clark. I found a new home, something to ground me and some instant happiness. He then began by introducing us to the usta network of players, tournaments and training facilities throughout Portland. I met my best friend mackenzie through this, found confidence again, went on to win two district titles and a scholarship to college. I won both my district finals on the ptc tennis courts, so they hold a very special place for me. At college, I became a three time all-american and west coast freshman and senior player of the year. Without the Portland usta community, I would not have had a chance at this. Since graduating and a brief stint back in england, I came back to Portland and my husband and instantly began to coach in the Portland community. From children as young as four years old to my favorite 76 year old gary, who still has the best dropshot volleys I have ever seen. I want tennis to be their light, the best part of their day, or just a safe place for a little while. My relationship with these players is still as strong as ever because that is how time on the tennis court bonds you now. Now I get to visit me on the field of providence park. My full circle of life moment with you all is that I now step on the court twice a week with my mom as my doubles partner at ptc. We celebrate incredible moments together in a whole new way and argue over whose serve is better to let you know the significance of this. My mom had a brain tumor three years ago and started playing again for the first time since surgery on the ptc tennis courts. She was only able to hit ten gentle volleys at first, but she had a place that she could do that, that met her where she was at. Understood that tennis looks a little different for everyone and didn't judge. Ptc is the heart of the tennis community and a place for all. I'm so thrilled now to have a four year old who can't wait to start his tennis lessons at ptc and watch his journey. Having another usta facility in Portland provides the best opportunities for players of all ages and abilities to access high functioning classes, competitions and coaches. And this is because speaking as both a player and a coach, the usta does it best when you have an organization that can give you top in class support to an already incredible facility like ptc, you get a better place for everyone. And I'm so excited to be a part of this. High tides raise all ships, and I would be so proud and thrilled to know that we're giving other kids like me, their happy place. Thank you everybody.
81 Thank you ella.
82 Thank you. Next is Steve eggers. You can unmute and start your testimony.
83 Hello everyone. Thank you so much for the opportunity to do this today. I don't know why I'm so emotional listening to all this today after hearing everybody. I'm not sure what the question is. It seems like a no brainer to me. But you know, I know there's a lot that goes into these kinds of things. I grew up in southern california. I was born with a bone marrow infection and almost died at the age of six months. And one of the outcomes of that is that my left arm doesn't straighten all the way. So my parents decided to put a tennis racket in my hand at the age of four. And by the time I was 13, I was ranked nationally as a junior tennis player because I wasn't allowed to play contact sports. And for years I quit playing tennis until my wife, at the age of 55, begged me to take her to a tennis court to teach her how to play tennis. And then she went to the Portland tennis center and joined down there. And it changed her life. And I saw her coming home every day with a smile on her face. And I remembered what that was like as a child. And I went back and also joined up at ptc to start playing tennis again. At the age of 55. I have an opportunity to play at every single club in town, because I play a lot of competitive tennis on teams and without doubt, Portland tennis center. I want to is not the nicest facility in town for sure. And, you know, people comment about that when they come to play from other clubs, that our courts are dirty. The leaking roof this time of year, we're not really sure if the bubble is going to survive another winter. And if the bubble goes down, then, you know, we don't have the we lose four courts and it's already hard enough to get courts. The thing that I love most about the Portland tennis center is the diversity that is there. All kinds of ethnic groups, young people play, old people play. It's one of the reasons that my wife and I continue to play there. You know, we could probably join a tennis club if we wanted to, but we love that community so much. It has really changed our lives. Some of our best friends now we have met at the Portland tennis center. I mean, talk about young and old. I played in a tournament there to support the parks department, and I made it to the finals, and I played a 13 year old kid who beat me six love, six love, and he was the youngest person at tournament. I was the oldest, he was the shortest, I was the tallest, and he crushed me. So I think that it's a facility that does a lot more than just provide tennis. It provides a space for people to go and meet other people. And I mean, this seems just like a no brainer to me. I mean, I'm so excited for this to happen because tennis has changed my life and the lives of others. So thanks.
84 Thank you Steve.
85 Thank you. Next is suzanne bishop. Suzanne, you can unmute yourself. Thank you.
86 Hello, councilors. Good morning. I have a really brief comment. My name is suzanne bishop and I'm here representing just myself today and not any other organization that I'm involved with. I was approached a couple by a couple of Portland tennis players who play in our city parks a few months ago about the potential partnership between usta pacific northwest and the city parks, and they asked me to see if I could find anything out. Just they wanted me to pay attention to what was going on, because they were really excited about the potential for this. And I want to thank you. Cfo berry and donna and interim director shymansky, for your work exploring this potential partnership with usta pacific northwest. And of course, encourage further explanation of whether this partnership can bring in valuable outside funding for the parks bureau and help address that tremendous capital maintenance backlog at Portland parks, and further expand tennis access across Portland. So thank you for your time.
87 Thank you. Suzanne, as we conclude this item, I just want to again, thank the staff leadership for your focus and attention and for being here this morning. I know that this will come back to this committee again in 2 to 3 months, and we will be in touch with you to orchestrate that that next step. Thank you so much for being here as well with our new partners or our expanded partnership. And it was really inspiring to hear the story. And I encourage council members to take a visit to the Vancouver tennis center before you make your final decision. I think it was a game changer for me in terms of continuing to pursue this. I just can't deny this for the people in the city of Portland. And so I thank you. Next item please.
88 Item four storefront support program update.
89 I always think when you read the item, it'll take longer. Let me get situated here. So we're to the storefront program update. And it's with a lot of gratitude and anticipation that today we are going to hear from the city administration's team on the efforts to develop a storefront support program that I proposed originally back in may. We did it in one part there, and we did it in a second part because we got delayed in amendments, and then we brought it back to this committee, and it's been a very thorough process. So it was unanimously passed in the arts and economy committee. It then went to the full council. And that also did unanimously pass. And now we're developing the plan. The final plan will be completed by the end of January. The intention is to have a full assessment of what resources will take to stand up this much needed program, and this will inform the the fiscal year 2627 budget development process. One highlight that I'm currently very excited about is that we are engaging with the business stakeholder group to advise the development of this program. I want to make sure that we are building a program with their needs. This came from them. This was one example in this new form of government where it really works. You just go out on the streets and you listen to the people in your neighborhoods, and they all were saying the same thing. Almost every storefront owner I encountered was desperately pleading for the city to see them, so they don't become yet another for lease sign in our city. And so that's where it came from. And as good legislators, we listened. I brought it to my colleagues. They had empathy when they heard the very authentic testimony from over 30 people who never come to city hall. They don't have time. They're not a part of an organized lobby. They're just portlanders who love this city and are working their tails off to try to survive here. So I want to always acknowledge it came from them. And so there are a list of advisory board members. Some are here today. I'll get those to you later. I want to definitely thank councilor Smith for helping recruit out in district one. And I just want to give an appreciation for each and every one of them that have stepped up. Before I turn this over to the project management team for a status update, I want to give a big thanks to outgoing city administrator michael jordan for ensuring that the storefront support program is moving forward, and to project manager victor sanders, who's with us today, for ensuring that we will have a good plan to consider in early February. With that, I turn it over to you, victor, and your team for the presentation.
90 Great. Thank you so much, councilor. Good morning, councilors. As again, as councilor Mentioned, my name is victor sanders and I'm joined here with ann hill. Both of us work with Portland solutions, and we also have some folks in the gallery. Should there be any questions about on the larger committee that we're working with. So our purpose today is to give you an update on the storefront support resolution that was passed by committee in September and the full council in October. My goal for today is to give you insight into how we're tackling this work. We'll look at what we're scoping for this project, what data concepts we're considering, how we're engaging stakeholders, and what to expect next. This is a project that began just a few weeks ago, and is slated to end when the report is due on January 30th, with plans and actions for your consideration at the full council. Briefly, I just wanted to go over the project goal. The project team is scoping the proposed storefront support program, including defining the needed resources, funding options, policy considerations, and the citywide coordination required for action plan adoption and success. Our project team is made up, of course, of our primary sponsor, mike jordan, myself as the project manager, a steering group which I won't go through everybody here, but it's a great cross-section of a whole different variety of bureaus and groups. The city prosper Portland, of course, is involved, and then we're also interviewing and engaging with storefront owners and operators. And so there's some folks that we have that we're meeting with across the districts throughout the city. And then, of course, just as we're out in the world and of course, there's quite a bit of work with our business districts. So our work is not only informed by those that have been selected, but also those that we're meeting with on a daily basis throughout the city in all of our districts. Our overall objectives for this project is returned to you with a storefront support program model that has taken into account both these external and internal stakeholder engagement pieces. We'll scope and evaluate program element options and concepts with budget and staffing considerations. Our secondary objective is to work with the teams to see how quickly we could actually provide some potential solutions that could be implemented right away. Some of those may have cost and resource options as well, but we hope to come to you with something that we could do in very immediate term. Our commitment also includes engagement, of course, as I previously mentioned, with smaller focus groups in January to continue to refine those program elements by January 30th. A quick look at our timeline here. We've just completed our scoping. We'll talk about some of those scoping elements in a moment. And we're underway right now with our insights and engagement. Right after this meeting, I'm going out and I'm actually meeting with a couple folks in district one and in district two that own different storefronts in the city. And then along with that, we're doing design development. So concurrently, knowing we have a really compressed timeline of January 30th, we're continuing to develop these as we're meeting with folks. And then, of course, we'll deliver our findings to you in early February. I wanted to share briefly what the vision is that we've been leading with as part of this initial scoping work. Obviously, we watched, you know, the council sessions on this and the committee hearings on this, but wanted to just share with you what we've been working through, first and foremost, what we're hearing and what is likely to be agreed upon by most portlanders is that Portland storefronts are anchors to neighborhood identity and economy. We've heard from many folks that the identity they tie to Portland is in these kind of main streets that run the tangent along the major corridors in our districts and in our various neighborhoods, as well as those small store frontages that might just be 1 or 2 businesses that make up small area, small sections of our smaller neighborhoods, maybe just a corner store. These are places that obviously bring joy, commerce, and a general sense of place to folks that call Portland home. Much of this work will be using data driven analysis to define and track the issues that threaten the stability of those storefronts. The core essence of this initial work is to better understand how the city is responding, what programs or city services are working, what's not working, what's needed, including the data and those data pieces that might be missing, and how we can build a shared success model. And the next few slides. I wanted to take a look. I wanted to share with you the look at our four key elements of this initial scoping. The first is data. What do we have? What don't we have? What are we hearing from folks. So what is that data that's proactively needed to identify corridors that are needing help. We're calling this essentially kind of a business district health index. Is there a dashboard we can get to better understand what's happening in some of these districts and these areas that are that have a whole variety of issues that we keep hearing from folks on. So what type of trend items do we need to look at? Is it business license trends, crime and nuisance activity data? Walking counts? How can we use that to proactively alert you as leadership and other folks within the city that are working on these types of issues, of what negative trends might be happening, and then of course, vacancies. And we'll talk about that in a moment as well. The second piece of this is what program offers are needed to support storefronts reactively and proactively. So we have some programs that are already offering through the city and through prosper Portland. But are they missing things that are critical to keeping storefronts filled, and are business districts busy with folks? How can we proactively provide some of those items along with that? How are we responding? So one of the things we heard early on during these committee hearings and during council was a piece around, how is it that the city responds when somebody calls three one 1 or 9 one one? What is that response expectation? I think that's a really broad conversation, right? We might not get an answer by January 30th, but we want to tee that up so we can bring to you some opportunities and concepts of what that might look like to support storefronts and districts. When folks call three one 1 or 9 one one. And then of course, vacancies. So how are we measuring vacancies right now? What does that look like? Defining a storefront vacancy is one of the elements of this project as well. Those business license data is a lagging indicator, right? We kind of only know by the end of the year what our business license trends are. And so what we're really looking at and we'll share in a moment, is a data model that might help us understand a little bit more quickly, maybe in a week or two weeks. Right. What is happening in this district that is kind of sending up a signal for us to take action. Finally, how do we sustain a program that delivers trust and real outcomes for portlanders? So during the scoping, we want to kind of move beyond that mere metrics and outputs and actually look at the outcomes for these districts. Outcomes obviously take longer to measure, but they're so key to the success of any of these programs that we're doing. So I wanted to take just a pause here and really share that in my conversations with storefront owners and with business district representatives, folks, they're feeling very burnt out. And the thought of new initiatives, new programs, new big ideas. So I'm challenged in some of these conversations, talking with folks when they're really asking for some basic elements of what success looks like to them. So I one of the key things you'll see, and we won't go through our metrics completely today as we're still building them out, but is that we want to start to develop more than just outputs, but what are the outcomes that we want to see right away with this program? What I'm seeing and what I think will be really important that you'll see in our concepts, is a really comprehensive outreach and communication strategy to help folks understand not only the programs that we're currently offering, but what they can expect with any type of new program that we might be standing up and existing services that we're providing, and our level of expectation on that. So I want to turn now to this data model. You heard me talk a lot about data. And that's always a big question, right? Of like what data do we have? What don't we have. And I just wanted to kind of level set a little bit again, knowing we have until January 30th to build something out, just this kind of concept that we're looking at when we talk about a potential business health index model, the goal is to conceptually develop a model that could be used to better understand, in near real time, what's happening in our business districts or these kind of main street areas. On the screen, you're seeing every storefront that was mapped in 2016 using business license and business registry data. This was actually collected from a think tank locally called city observatory. We're able to pull similar data and track trends on a monthly basis. We're interested in kind of seeing what's changed from 2016 to to today, but we can get down even more micro on this using the state's data as well. What we don't have yet, obviously, is a more complex, which is more complex to obtain is that vacancy data. But we're hoping to fix that as part of this work. Then we want to drill down even further. Right. We want to look at how do we define a business district, how do we define a storefront or a main street, or what the bureau of planning sustainability calls centers and corridors. So if you opened up a planning book from bts, you're going to see what they call centers and corridors. These are really study areas that they've designed that in many cases have some level of zoning overlay or design overlay. That kind of speaks to those districts in our city that have a large contingent of potential vacant land or land that's eligible for commercial use, or has a high concentration already of existing storefronts. And then we overlay that again. So on the next slide, you're taking a look at our existing business districts. You can kind of see the problem now that's emerging right. You've got these smaller areas of storefronts and then these larger business districts. So as we start to build out this model, we're really kind of challenged and figuring out, okay, which areas should we be looking at here? One of the things we're also learning is that many of these business districts are inactive, or they might not be well established. Some of these areas encompass, obviously large swaths of the city. You're seeing that in north north Portland in particular. And so we're likely to see recommendations and concepts on how to best to integrate kind of this business district representation and how do we continue to kind of harness that. And then of course, there's a whole variety of of groups that are in these areas that are not necessarily part of a what we'd call a traditional business district. Right? Like they might just be a group of business owners that are working together on a whole variety of things that aren't part of our traditional way that the city might reach them. So that's a key piece that I'm, I'm dialed into on this project as well. So finally, this is a lot all at once, but it just kind of wanted to show you what we want to start to track here. You can imagine then a model that starts to add crime data. 911 call data. 311 call data, city service call data. How many calls do we get for trash or graffiti in a district? Did that district get? Was it resolved? How is that then impacting the long term outcomes for storefronts and vacancies? Are we seeing trends? What type of analysis can we do in these study areas to help us understand again, in more close, real time, what type of issues these areas are coming across? Then we can start to go even further and we can overlay other indicators, right. Parking counts, traffic counts. We're currently exploring other tools like third party data on shopping behavior trends in certain study areas to better understand. Are things in an upswing? Are they in a downswing? So on January 30th, we look forward to having the concept of this fully built out model based on real sources. So I just want to put that caveat out there. This is not kind of this pie in the sky idea. This is based on real data the city has access to, but it does take resources and time, right, for these to be built in a way that's going to be useful to you as both leadership and useful to the folks that are responding to these issues, based on the programs that we set up. Finally, the data model, as I previously mentioned, is built on some kpis. I'm not going to again run over those all today, but really, we want to get to a point where when we present a report to you, it has some of these key performance indicators to help us understand what does it mean to have success in a business district or for storefronts? What are those key outcomes of this program that that we want to track with whatever investment we put in, whether it's business license and vacancy trends, number of calls and what those resolutions look like, uptake and distribution and understanding of program offers by, by. I'm sorry, I should say the program offers that are offered by the city. How well are they distributed, what is the uptake. And then of course, the ease of navigation of the city services. One of the things we continue to hear from folks is the challenge. It is to kind of get in the front door of the city on certain issues, whether it's permitting or crime. How do we create that front door that helps people get what they need out of some type of program like this? And then finally on here is the solving the data gap. So you've heard me talk a lot about data, and we hope to have something that is fully built out. But there's still going to be gaps. And so we want to daylight those. So we're aware of kind of what those are and what resources are needed to continue to build those out. So I'll take a pause here. Next steps on this is really further engagement with our stakeholder groups. So thank you again for folks that have recommended different folks that we're talking with that are storefront owners. And then of course identifying the resources needed and bringing those report findings back to you by January 30th. So you can likely expect another session like this, probably in early February. I'm happy to take any questions.
91 Thank you victor. And we do currently have seven members of an advisory committee, and I've assured them that they will have an opportunity to be present with all of the evolution of this because they're going to give you, I think, in my opinion, better feedback than those of us up here. So with that, that's a thank you to those listening who are part of that new advisory team. And we have hands up, councilor Clark.
92 Thank you, mr. Co-chair. Can we know who those are? They're not in the report here.
93 We have seven. I'll make sure office gets them out to you. We currently have one from district one. And if you wanted to get one more we have two places for district one.
94 Okay.
95 Yeah. I'd like to know who they are.
96 Yeah, absolutely.
97 Have a couple of comments and then a couple.
98 And one of them in yours is john blumenauer, because he has a storefront and he also has a manufacturing makerspace out in district two. So he gets two. That's perfect. And you have another person who has three locations in your area. Yeah. Great establishments, bars.
99 I've toured john's facility. First I just want to make a comment and then I have a couple of questions. I, I want to echo the frustration. I guess I feel I was in a meeting last night where I heard so much frustration from small business people. When are we going to get help when something going to happen? So the sooner we can get this, the better. The other thing they said was no more plans, no more. We have too many plans, too many ideas. We just need action. So I just wanted to share that. To echo that, you've already heard it. I'm glad you expressed it, victor, but it's you can just palpate it out there all over the place. So the more we can expedite this, the better. I know it's a very complex set of impacts. I've talked to ann about multiple impacts that she works on. So I'm anxious to get this. I'm anxious to get moving. I'm anxious to make a difference for all these people that are just so burnt out. My question I two questions. I just wanted to know, have you talked to PSU about any kind of partnership with their urban studies? You know, we have their they have a parallel effort going on on transportation to what we've been doing in transportation. I wondered if there's any assistance or resources there that you can bring to bear. And the second question is you talk about neighborhoods and business districts, and I'm wondering how you approach the downtown because there's it's a business district. There are neighborhoods. And just as a quick story, I was meeting with someone you probably know, a dress shop in the pearl district who said, you know, I survived, I survived the COVID, I survived the pandemic, I survived the riots. I've survived to this point, but this is the worst year I've ever had. And I continue to hear that not just in the downtown, but anyway, just your approach to the downtown and the PSU question.
100 Thank you. I think that's a great question. Councilor and the PSU, I've had it on my notes. I think it actually makes a great capstone project and using a little bit of student labor to help us with the vacancy question, I think is actually key. Right. As we start to look at, I think both of your questions are actually they're related in many ways, which is how do we define a study area and how do we define the overlap of certain sections of the city. And we don't know the answer to that yet, but it's something that we want to to drill into in this work without being overly bureaucratic and complex, which is how do we divide up these areas to make them to make them approachable and to not have the data be so wide? Right? When we look at those business districts, they're so wide. If you were to pull all that data, it might not make total sense. And so we want to we want to tackle that. And I think it does make a great capstone project for PSU student to help us with a piece of this and to potentially look at how could this be something that's ongoing over many years. Yeah.
101 Well, my my sense of priorities is we know it's complex. We know there are lots of variables, but what can we do? What what was the action plan? What are the kpis. Just some immediate assistance. And I know that's going to depend on us when it comes to budgeting in the next year, but we need some really immediate messages and immediate action. But thank you.
102 Thank you. Councilor Clark, co-chair Green.
103 Thank you, co-chair Ryan, thanks for the update today. I've been eager to kind of see a glimpse into your thinking on this. I know it's a high priority for my colleague here, and I think this committee as a whole, I really appreciate that. You've acknowledged that the business district overlay is is like it can be muddling because it is such a I was kind of looking at the map. I'm like, this is almost the entire city. So what have we learned? So I'm really I'm eager to see how like some of the PSU student engagement collab opportunities might might get in there. The those students have have great ideas. Sometimes we don't have. I do have a question on the the vacancy indicator. I mean you've acknowledged that it's very challenging to have timely data. The business license tax data is is is backward looking and it's what is it, an annual report that's not particularly helpful for a dashboard like this. So I'm curious if you if you can share a little bit of your thinking on the strategy on that. But also if you've thought about perhaps just asking landlords and brokerage firms to to either report in their quarterly filings or or even participate as a willing partner in sharing some information that they may have on a sort of bi monthly basis.
104 For sure. Yeah. Thank you for the question. I think there's two. My mind is of two parts of this. One is that we could do a perfect model, which would take us quite a bit of time, and I think we will have to do an imperfect model to get as close as we can, which might be pulling right, like an api that helps us understand where new leases are coming up to help us give some level of vacancy. But it won't be perfect. The the best way to do it is really feed on the ground, walking the beat and really just doing the inventory, which takes time but does give us the best data. And so I we don't have the exact answer, but I, I think what you'll see us come to you with is an imperfect model that gets us very close to as good as we can in the current moment, to help us understand our economic trends.
105 No, that's I appreciate that. And, you know, hybrid approaches to sampling like that are pretty common. We've got this sort of challenge. I would just and I think I think the boots on the ground approach is right. I would just encourage you to make sure you don't oversample one area too expensive another. So it's scientific here. Looking forward to learning more. I you know, it also seems to me that in the data model an important piece of the explaining because like what's being explained is the vacancies in some sense like and there's all those different attributes traffic counts, pedestrian counts, crime 311. You know, the whole gamut. I do wonder if we should strive to measure something about asking versus final rent, because that's going to be a determinant into the ultimate vacancy rate, like just from an economic standpoint. And so, you know, I do know that there is a lot of negotiation happening between like a would be tenant and a landlord. But the spread between the ask and the final settled negotiation is an important characteristic in like whether or not something stays vacant. And that's probably a pretty important variable. So to the extent that as you're developing this api to go scrape this rental data, that could be a piece of information that you collect as well. And then finally, I think my colleague here to my left sort of mentioned this, you know, talking to the business owners, they are burned out. They're they're sort of like, why do we maybe need something new? I heard you say burned out by new initiatives, but I hope you can communicate here. What this what this does that that is new and helpful. I mean, I think I see it, but, you know, for those watching along that that could be pretty helpful. And shout out to john blumenauer at the joinery. I did tour that as well, so I'm glad he's on the advisory panel. Thanks.
106 Thank you. Co-chair Green. Yeah, it was a real wonderful gift when he said yes. Councilor Smith.
107 Thank you, co-chair Ryan. Good morning. How are you all doing? Okay. Do you think that we can provide when I say we the storefront program, provide data and incentives for those seeking to enter a new storefront. So there are so they are informed and that they're resourced and more willing to consider areas with business district health index challenges.
108 Yeah, I think councilor You might be asking, is it kind of like, well, part of the work that we're looking at is how can we coordinate better as a city? Number one? So prosper has a variety of programs. Portland planning development has a variety of programs coordinating those together. So if you are a new business owner, somebody is potentially knocking on your door or providing that resource to say, hey, here's the number you can call as a new owner, I think is key. This program might not look too deeply at at standing up, maybe new grants or new programs like that, but there are some of those already existing that you'll see inventoried as part of this work.
109 Okay. Hopefully some of this information can that that you all have released can can drive competitive competitive negotiations between, you know, our local entrepreneurs and the property owners. So I think that this is this is good. All information is good. Anything that we can do to provide to make it easier for people to actually do business is is very critical. So thank you for bringing this forward. I look forward to seeing what you're going to bring in a couple of months.
110 Thank you. Thank you. Councilor Smith. Do we have testimony, public testimony on this item?
111 There was not a an opportunity for testimony on the agenda for this item, but I can.
112 Let that happen again.
113 I can put out a verbal call to see if there's anybody in the audience who would like to testify.
114 Yeah, I know, I do. See, I don't want to put you on the spot, but I see at least one member from the advisory team here, and there's some that could be listening in. Would you like to testify or just say anything at this time? I'll say nothing. Pardon me. Come on up, bianca. Go ahead. Stay here. You'll be in meetings together soon enough.
115 If you'll just state your.
116 Name for.
117 The record.
118 And an.
119 My name is bianca youngers. I own bing spa on alberta street. And I appreciate all of you. Being here and supporting us is really important. And I think the thing that I like that I'm hearing the most, victor and I were talking about it yesterday is and I know it's going to take a little bit of time to get there, but really supporting the businesses that are here right now. We're talking I'm hearing a lot of support about vacancies. And I'm, you know, we're going to be vacancies. So let's triage what we have. First, the businesses that are here before we I hope that before we start concentrating on the vacancies. And I think that in like being a representative representative, I think that I could help, you know, going down the street and with each district. And I think we know a lot about the vacancies and can say when they left and how long they were there and why they left, if that's helpful.
120 Thank you. You're such a great resource, and I do think we can overthink who the organized business districts are. I think we had some old models that were connected to neighborhood associations. Some of them are still leaping along. But and what I've noticed is a lot of organic ones that have been popping up over the years. And this gives us an opportunity to build relationships with those I know, and has quite a few of those relationships I know that prosper portland's here and their small business office that just got launched a year ago is actively engaged in this. And if if you want to come up for prosper Portland to add to this conversation, that would be great. But I think the overall theme is no more planning to plan like let's it's an sos, save our storefronts, save those who are currently still surviving. I have met so many, I just have to make these comments at mississippi street. Just a couple weeks ago they were in pain. They were telling stories about. They were worried when the snap benefits weren't ready for them. These are not high end business folks. These are working class portlanders that put all of their heart and soul in every penny into this, and we have only increased costs for them, increased overhead on security, increased the tax burden tremendously over the last six years. While they have seen their income go down. And so they're barely making it. And so we're going to see more for lease signs if we don't do a red alert on this. And I know that you all know that I'm seeing head nods. And I appreciate that. This is a time for the city enterprise to show what we can do, to show what we can do when we think differently, when we look at systemic change, when we use data not just to admire it, but to operationalize it, how to bring that data down to the ground. And please don't let perfection get in the way of good.
121 Yeah, I think if we simplify it and bring it back to the old school ways that we used to do business and trust each other and, you know, just yes, let's not overthink it. Like we need safety, you know, that's the major, major concern, I think. I think victor was saying that too, you know, and then if we can get if we have safety and we and we feel safe and we can go along, you know, police supports, trained police support, things like that, I think we could really start to move forward and take a breath. And like the shop owner, the dress shop owner was saying, it's true. It's the hardest. I've been in business for 25 years and this is by far the hardest year we've ever had.
122 Thank you. Thank you for taking time to be away from your storefront. I know that's a big lift.
123 Thank you so much.
124 For doing. We have a few more questions, councilor Green. That's a new hand. Okay. Co-chair Green.
125 I just wanted to respond and say thank you for coming up and sharing that. I think it's really important for us to be very clear that I think, and you're the champion for this, but I'm supporting it because I think it is a it is a by focusing on the vacancies, what we're trying to say is how do we keep people from becoming vacant. So you like, you made it even more simple than that. And I just I wanted to share a conversation I had with john blumenauer. And he was saying that, you know, the biggest challenge that he's had, aside from some of the other safety concerns and some of the other kind of livability concerns, is that it's it's the foot traffic that has fallen way off and everybody's business a little bit different. But that's like a common theme, I think, in these districts. And so figuring out how we can break this logjam to get the sort of engine going again and get these spaces leased up, that will contribute to public safety. Feeling of improved public safety will contribute to broader economic demand that benefits all of us. And so I really appreciate your willingness to share with us and and think about us all being in this together. Thanks, co-chair.
126 Let's stay with this dialog for just a second. So two things. When we were out at mississippi, we heard this comment just before COVID. It was common every week where they would have someone come in that said they just landed at the airport and now they're on mississippi street. We're on the way to the airport. We want to make sure we came to this neighborhood. None of that has happened over the last five years. So when we had a meeting recently, I had a meeting recently with travel Portland. I shared that story. So how can we get tourism back? Because that was a big part of, I think, walk in traffic. Correct. And so those stories were just repeated over and over again. Another one is that Portland used to punch up above the average in terms of people who would spend money in a store as opposed to online. And since COVID and since other unrest and since our public safety crisis, it's flipped. That's not the Portland we want to live in. That's not the Portland that attracts people to move here and to spend money here and to keep our city vibrant so we can pay for all the programs that many of my colleagues want. So I just had to underscore a few of the things that have been said. Andrew, did you want to come up and say anything from prosper Portland? I think it's important since you have the small business office and you have public servants that are paid by the taxpayers to focus on this issue directly, that we could hear from you.
127 Thank you. Councilor appreciate it. I'm andrew fitzpatrick, director of economic development at prosper Portland. First, I just wanted to thank you for your leadership on this issue, and thanks to the committee for hearing an update on the work that's being done. Prosper is on the steering committee and deeply partnered with everyone that's kind of leading this effort from the city administrator's office. So I think it is kind of a whole of city effort and to supporting these storefronts and just want to double down on what bianca had said about the critical nature of supporting existing businesses. We're hearing from them every day through our small business office, but through all of our programs across the agency, frankly, obviously, safety and livability are top of mind for everybody across the city. And so everything that we can do to be the intake mechanism for that, but then also collaborating across the city to get people responses that they need to just operate their business and earn a livelihood. That's what we're really here to do. In terms of the vacancy piece. Yeah, we we have imperfect data that comes from brokers, basically commercial real estate industry. We usually use costar, but we know that that's not exactly precise to every single commercial corridor or business district that we're talking about. So I think the thing to do would be maybe to marry, as councilor Greene said, maybe to marry up the commercially available data with perhaps some boots on the ground, as it were, so that it's a hybrid approach. I think that makes a lot of sense, and perhaps we can even think about partnering with some business districts, whether they be formal or informal, to do some of that work that augments in a sensible sample or something that would make sense to get a better picture than what your commercial real estate brokers might be able to provide. So we're here, embedded in the work, and looking forward to bringing forward a plan that we can execute with our partners here and appreciate Portland solutions and victor for what they're doing in terms of bringing us all together. Thank you.
128 Thank you so much. I appreciate it, andrew. Any final comments from my colleagues?
129 Can I just.
130 Yes.
131 Councilor thank the small business person. I can't remember your name, but I remember you've been here multiple times to talk about what's happened at your small business, and it was really compelling. And I just want to express my appreciation for you continuing to be here and to engage. Thanks.
132 Yeah. And I really hope that the enterprise with prosper Portland takes a pause and look at prioritization. So we all have budget money. And there's now there are times as a leader, your leaders, to look at how you can take the budget and creatively be agile and focus on an emergency. We know how to do it. We proved it during COVID, even before all the windfalls came in from the federal government. We figured out how to do that. This is one of those moments where Portland has to show that type of agility. With our partners at prosper Portland and with all the partners of the city that we talked about, we're counting on it, and we're looking forward to hearing that momentum. I think that's the end of this item. No one else has signed up. Thank you all for being here, and we'll be in touch soon and often.
133 Thank you. Thank you.
134 Colleagues, this wraps up our meeting. Our next committee meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, January 13th, 2026. There are two agenda items scheduled from prosper Portland. One is the cully action plan and the other is on enterprise zones. The January 27th meeting has a tentative legislation from councilor Green's office, and if you'd like to speak about that, the floor is yours.
135 Thank you, co-chair Ryan. Just as a sneak preview on the second meeting of action economy, my intention is to bring forward for a first hearing a code change that will prohibit the sale or provision of certain force fed poultry products. So aka foie gras. That's about five weeks now. So if you love that idea, please lend me your support. If you hate that idea, also please let me know. And so that will be the first time that we that the city council will consider it will have a debate and talk about it in this committee and see where it goes from there. But thanks for giving me the opportunity to sort of preview that a little bit and hope you all have a merry holiday season.
136 Thank you, councilor Green, co-chair Green. Councilor Smith has her hand up.
137 Thank you, co-chair Ryan. Thank you, co-chair Green, for your leadership this year. I just want to say this has been a really cool place to be now that I'm getting my sea legs on, you know, the things that we can do and can't do. I don't know if you all check your emails while you're sitting up here, but I get flashed of an email and I just got an email from ruth in the the city budget office, and we just got the forecast. And it's a lot of information to digest. And I was just wondering to the two co-chairs, could you try to get ruth, peter jonas, our cfo, on the docket so that they can explain this given an email does not do it any justice. We got three different attachments. And I think and and as I'm looking at the attachments, I'm thinking, okay, well what about this? Okay. How how does that relate to this or that. But I think for, for us we need more than just a email and some sort of explanation at the top of the year, so that we're really understanding this forecast and its fullest. Impact and what that looks like for us next year. Can you all put that on the agenda?
138 The basic answer is yes. And it's very important that we look at upcoming revenue forecasts, especially. This is the committee that's focused on how we can generate more revenue. We're in a revenue crisis. Yes. And so the lens you will have on it would be different than perhaps the finance committee, because we have to help the rest of our councilors also understand the importance of revenue streams. And so we will look at it from that lens. We will also have some presentation early in the year from eco northwest that brings in real crisp data. That should not surprise us. So we shouldn't be wondering about these lagging indicators because we get real time information about the fact that our business licenses are down. Our property taxes.
139 Probably should have had them on our agenda since we had so much time left over, but I don't think it would have been enough time to really get into it the way we need to.
140 And yes, to what you requested. So we.
141 And we need to see if we can coordinate. I don't mean to be to, to really be so pushy, but I think we need this in January. I think we need to have this in January. The second thing that I'm going to be bringing forward a resolution to change the multi-program. I don't know if you know about that. It's the the multifamily. Tax abatement program that a lot of property owners in the central city area benefit from a total tax break. And as I was looking at the code and looking at who else gets it, as we're talking about storefronts, when you get out to 82nd and it requires you to have like 20% or 30% of your new project development, which now you can use existing multi projects to get the tax abatement. But after 82nd, you only get to get the tax abatement on the 20% that are affordable. And so I think we need to talk about that a little bit. And I want to put that on the schedule. Also in in January February because there's a discrepancy. There's a disparity disparity in terms of property owners who are in district one. They can get they don't get the same full property tax abatement through the multi program as folks who are in the central city area, and I know that was set up so that there's like $15 million used over five years. It's $3 million of tax abatement and there's a cap. But as we're talking about housing, I think that we need to make sure that those property owners and that they're building in district one to get the full property tax abatement. So right now, if there was a developer who's who actually is taking advantage of the sdc waivers, if they put a new if they want to do their capital stack and they're using the multi program, they're only going to get 20 to 30% of the property tax abatement. I believe they should get the full property tax abatement. So I want to have that conversation. I want Portland housing bureau here and I want to work with them to to do that going forward.
142 Councilor thank you for bringing that up. And I am also on the housing committee, and I think that there's some hybrids here that we're discussing because please send us an email on what you just mentioned. So we have we can track it. Councilor co-chair Green.
143 Thank you. I'll be brief because we're trying to wrap up. I just wanted to say, you know, we do have the first meeting of January is fully packed to take up items from prosper Portland that are very important around enterprise zones that connect to the cully action plan, that connect to this broader discussion. You know, if there is time on the January 27th after my item, I do think we can we can talk about that. But I guess my encouragement would be for the committee is every time that you come to the meeting, I think the lens, as councilor Ryan has said, the lens is really about how can we generate economic activity and growth, whatever our topic area. And so it's not necessarily just about making a space to have a hearing, but rather to say we're leading on the discussions here. We will early in February, as you said, we're going to have those presentations from our partners with the forecasting entities in town to talk about the big pieces. And the last thing I'll say is whether you think it's a good thing or a bad thing, the west side of tif does not include the big pink block. And so if if we do see growth and that was a good value play for the new owner, that's going to flow to our coffers in the general fund. So I, I'm encouraged that we're going to go into the year with some Green shoots. So thank you.
144 Councilor clerk.
145 Mr. Co-chair, I just can't help to say this, but why would we spend time on foie gras when we should be getting the economic analysis, the overview of the budget, the kinds of things that councilor Smith is saying? If you could postpone that, I would appreciate that. Consider that. I just don't think that's a high priority for the city, necessarily.
146 Well, we we have to align with the forecasting period from the metro chamber and echo northwest, and that is in February. And the foie gras ban is is an economic issue that is very important to people in our community. There are a lot of animal rights activists and vegans who have been asking for something like this. So we will hear it in January.
147 I'm curious about the economic impact, so I appreciate that.
148 Thank you. Colleagues. This has been really good dialog. I want to rein us in a bit because we want to be transparent about what we're discussing. I will underscore something that just happened today, though, the tennis center conversation, the storefront legislation was absolutely about e drivers. We have increasing amount of families who are giving up on Portland. And one reason is because it's expensive to live here and their services aren't as good. So you better believe when somebody has a kid that wants to play tennis and they notice how Vancouver does it compared to Portland, does it. That's another opportunity for that family to consider making some money and moving across the river. Because we all know that economic equation. We have to take this stuff seriously. So that's an amenity that families desire. And I keep learning how many tennis players there are in Portland. And then, of course, the storefront one. Our city has delayed too long and providing support for them. We took them for granted. We no longer can take things for granted here in Portland. We've lost that. So we have to start really showing up with humility to serve those who are actually bringing in revenue to the city. So I thank you today for that very focused economic driving conversations that we had. Is that a new hand, councilor Smith?
149 Yes.
150 And as much as I'd like to be able to say I know everything about everything, I don't even know what a guy is. I'm sorry. What is it?
151 It's. It's a delicacy that is served in french restaurants primarily. And it is produced by force feeding animals. It's an animal cruelty issue. And. But the reason why it's before this.
152 Committee too much on this since it wasn't on the agenda.
153 Okay.
154 We just I just asked a question. He brought up something that I have no idea what foie gras.
155 I have to because I have it has been questioned why I'm bringing it forward to this. And it is in the purview of the arts and economy committee. Okay. So if I ever want to hear it before council, it needs to come before a committee. So it doesn't make sense to bring it governance. Right. Thanks.
156 Thank you, councilor Green, I appreciate it. You need to take me out somewhere so I can look and see what it looks like.
157 Well, I just want to thank everybody. This was a great meeting. Happy holidays to you and yours. And a special thanks to the clerk's office represented today by you, diana, and also to our council operations staff represented today by you, christopher. We really I speak for everyone up here. We really appreciate all that you do for the council, and I hope that you and your families have a great holiday season as well. I will now adjourn the meeting of the arts and economy committee.
158 Thank you.