The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-06-24
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Session summaryEditor-reviewed
On June 24, the Portland City Council held a work session on the Parks Levy, described as the second such session, with the stated goal of providing enough direction to staff to draft levy language for the council's July meeting ahead of a possible November ballot referral. Participants noted the current levy expires in July 2026 and discussed involvement of the Portland Parks Foundation, the Intertwined Alliance, the Trust for Public Land, labor organizations, and business groups in the process. City administration staff presented background on how levy funds interact with the General Fund, vulnerability to tax compression, and a range of illustrative funding scenarios (described as Restoration, Restore and Maintain, and related options) with rates discussed inconsistently across the session, generally falling between roughly $1.27 and $1.60 depending on assumptions, plus a no-levy comparison scenario. Topics covered included capital maintenance backlogs, cost recovery for programs like swim lessons, partnership and volunteer models, new facilities such as the North Portland Aquatic Center, community center hours, and long-term funding strategies including a possible future bond measure. Council members discussed preferred rate ranges, generally clustering between $1.40 and $1.50, though figures were stated inconsistently. No votes were taken during this work session; any future votes and their outcomes are recorded in the vote ledger.
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0 Efficiencies?
1 But I know there are some that director baer raises.
2 When you say we've itemized it in a free for all.
3 Great. And it is 932 on June 24th, I am going to open a work session of the Portland city council. Colleagues, we are having a second work session on the parks levy today, and our goal coming out of today is actually to have enough direction for the team in front of us that we can get a levy written to bring to our next council meeting. So I want to frame up our conversation today with a few things, including acknowledging the urgency of the timing. The current parks levy expires July 2026, and to get this on the November ballot, we need to move it out of our meeting in July. July 16th and 17th council meeting. The benefit of a July ballot I know a number of folks have asked about waiting is that we have more time to plan for our budget, knowing what the state of the levy is. So it really will be helpful to future us if we can do this over the next few weeks and have a strong conversation about what we want our park system to look like with voters over the fall leading up to a vote in November. Before we get started today, I just want to thank a couple of people who have been a part of the process and who have joined, joined the process since our last meeting. The Portland parks foundation, who is at the table before us, the intertwined alliance and the trust for public land have been working with the parks bureau for a few months now, trying to put together all of the background information that we need so that we can make the right decision over the next few weeks. I also want to thank a couple of key stakeholders who have come to the table over the last month and are helping to provide some feedback as well to the team before us. The parks alliance, who I believe submitted a letter of support at one point, the metro chamber. Various labor organizations, including the laborers local 483, represent many of our parks employees, as well as afscme, the labor council have all been talking with the team before us about how they can be involved in in helping to pass a parks levy as well. I think we've all heard from our team that we need to build the broadest tent possible, and that the best path to portlanders being willing to support a parks levy is to have strong support from validators who care about parks and point of order.
4 Jamie Dunphy can't hear anything.
5 Okay, let's pause for a minute. Thank you. I did not see that. What?
6 We should have it resolved now.
7 Okay. Hey, Jamie, can you give us a thumbs up if you can hear me?
8 I don't know how to do a thumbs up, but I can hear you now.
9 Perfect. Thank you. Councilor. I'm sorry about that. Thank you for jumping in there, councilor Avalos. So our goal today, what we're trying to aim toward is providing direction to the team before us to dca. Schimanski, to be able to draft a levy for us so that when we come back in July, we have a strong levy that we can send to the ballot to have a conversation with voters about and build support for. I want to note before we get started, that we did a lot of work in our budget to protect parks, especially parks maintenance. One of the biggest changes that this council made to the mayor's proposed budget was to restore funding for parks maintenance, something that many people at the dais feel very strongly about, and that we know many portlanders feel strongly about most of the funding, not all. Some was permanent, but most of the funding we were able to restore was one year funding. So as we have conversations today and talk about what it would take to restore funding for parks, including maintenance, I just want us to keep in mind that part of what we're talking about is making sure that the restorations that we all just worked hard to find are things that we can continue into the 26, 27 year fiscal year. And after that, I am going to stop here and turn it over to dr. Schimanski, I believe, or noah, are you running the presentation?
10 Going to our administrator first?
11 Okay, mr. Jordan, we're going to turn it over to mr. Jordan. I apologize, city administrator jordan, to give us a little bit of background on how parks uses the levy and what that funding stream looks like. We'll then turn it back over to folks at the table in front of us to go through a few scenarios and help us understand what some of our options are. We'll talk through some of the decision parameters and what we need to keep in mind as we provide some guidance today, and then we will open it up for conversation amongst ourselves. And I'll note that because we are in a work session, not a council meeting, we are not voting. We are not making a formal decision today, but we are providing guidance so that our team knows what to draft to bring before us. When we do have the opportunity to vote in a month. Mr. Jordan, go right ahead.
12 Thank you, madam president, and members of the council. For the record, mike jordan, city administrator. I have a very brief and high level remarks and will pass it to dci shymansky to be able to take you through some of those scenarios at a little deeper level. I guess a couple things I'd like to remind not only council, but the public may be watching the levy you're considering right now is really not an additive thing for new service. It is really something to maintain service over the next five years. The levy is an integral part of the current service level funding for the parks bureau in the coming years that you just passed a budget for the levy will account for around half of the funding to the parks bureau. The other half, or not quite half, but the other big part being the general fund, along with some fees. The levy outcomes that you are purchasing with the levy are vulnerable. There are vulnerable to future pressures on the general fund. They're also vulnerable to the economic situation of the city. You're well aware that the current value of particularly high rise buildings in downtown are causing compression of the levy, and under measure five laws, that pressure is first on levy's. And so this levy is subject to that compression. It's a little difficult to predict what that will be over the course of the five years of levy. So there are some vulnerabilities that you need to consider as you're thinking about the size of the levy and the outcomes you're looking for from the levy. The sustainability of the parks bureau and, and by extension, the sustainability of our current general fund appropriation for the coming fiscal year is challenging. And I think you all have gone through a couple of months of really learning deeply about those challenges. Those challenges will be even more significant next year because of the one time money, as the council president mentioned, not only in parks but in other areas of the general fund. I think the last thing I'd like to say, just as kind of advisory to you as you think about this issue, is that the operation of parks programs, the maintenance of parks facilities, the day to day quality of the facilities and the programing that parks deliver are not really the issue you're grappling with right now. In this work session, you're grappling with a really high level fiscal challenge. And I hope you keep your keep your thoughts at that. You're looking at a five year planning horizon for the financial stability of both the parks bureau and of the general fund, by extension. So this is a really big challenge, and it's a really big decision for you. And it's a high level fiscal decision for the city. So I know that the staff have done a really an amazing job at putting together different scenarios. And I know that you all have values that you bring to this conversation. I'm looking forward to where you all land. And I know, I know that we'll end up in a good place. So I'll turn it over to shemansky and can't wait to hear about all the scenarios.
13 Okay. Thank you. Welcome. Good morning. Thank you for inviting us back. I'm sonya shemansky. I'm deputy city administrator for the vibrant communities service area. And I'm going to talk to you a little bit. And then I'm going to show you a few slides with the scenarios that mike mentioned. And then we're here to support you in your discussion amongst yourselves. As the council president said, what I'm going to briefly talk about is primary factors that drive these rate calculations. A few practical considerations you may want to keep in mind as you're considering the right package. And then, of course, we'll show you the scenarios that illustrate ways you might construct a package. First, I want to say I want to give you an update about the numbers over the course of this conversation, which is about six months long now with you, we've used the rate required to sustain current service levels as a point of reference through the budget process. As mike just mentioned, you made and the council president mentioned you made decisions that changed our current service level, which in turn changed that baseline number. The net of all of those adjustments. As we understand them today, things are still being reconciled. Is that the rate to sustain the current ongoing level of service is $1.27. We were talking $1.60 before. It's lower now. Also, as the council president said, I want to emphasize much of that is one time. And the dollar 27 rate assumes that that funding will expire after this next year. So it really only captures the ongoing investments which would level off after this coming year into 2627 from that starting place within our known universe, there are not a huge number of drivers that significantly impact the rate in either direction. Of course, as you know, new or expanded services push it up savings, push it down. A few examples are that actually a pretty comprehensive list is that new investments in capital or daily maintenance quickly push it up smaller items like pool or community center facility hours, partnership based work, community grants, other summer and teen programing also push it up, though to a lesser degree, for new facilities that are scheduled to open over the next five years. The associated operations and maintenance, to the degree they're carried by the levy will push it up. You have a policy choice, if you'd like, around whether that is carried by the general fund as an alternative, that would drive it down. And lastly, new partnership based operating models could push the rate down, as could new creative revenue generation. Those are a little bit less quantified and a little more dependent on how we approach and structure it, but those are ways that the rate could go down.
14 Capital maintenance.
15 I said that, yeah, we'd like to emphasize that investments in capital maintenance, in order to really make a difference on that front, do quickly drive the rate up because they need to be material. All right, a few considerations and then we'll do scenarios. Two key factors to keep in mind. First, and I really don't want to belabor this, but I do want to continue to be transparent about what renewal or no levy at all looks like. Assuming no separate additional funds of renewal at the current rate of $0.80 translates into a budget where all of the current cuts are kept, all of the one time investments that you've made do expire after this coming year, and where you take an additional 30 plus million dollars in cuts next year. A scenario with no levy. All of that is true, except you're looking at about 85 million instead of 35 million in cuts. Next, we're going to go to our slides. Hi, claire. Thank you for being here. Can you get our slides up? Next slide. So I'm going to remind you quickly what voters told us most recently in our polling. They told us something we all know and feel every time we're with community, which is that they love their park system. And they told us that they're willing to keep investing in it with a dedicated levy. Up to a point. You can see here that there is strong support, including with positive messaging and particularly after positive messaging. Next slide claire, that said and you've been briefed on this as well. There is meaningful price sensitivity as you climb up the ladder. The tipping point that people smarter than me have identified is about at that middle row, $26 a month or $1.40. You can see majority support there is within the margin of error for the poll. And creeping up from that takes you into different political territory. Next slide claire. And finally they told us they reinforced for us something we know, which is that they really value everything that parks does plus minus. There's really pretty universal support for things that the parks bureau provides to community. But certain themes consistently rise to the top, including in this poll access for low income families, daily and preventive maintenance, neighborhood parks and nature. So we're going to go next to the scenarios, and then we're going to take a big pause for questions. So we were asked to generate example scenarios for you as a starting place for your conversation. These are illustrative and they're not recommendations. They are not suggestions. They're here to show you how you might go about putting a package together. You received them yesterday in spreadsheet form with an asterisk that I'll explain in a moment. And we're going to look at them here at a really high level. They reflect priorities we heard from you, which align with priorities. We heard from community and the priorities of the bureau. The asterisk is we corrected an error yesterday, which council president actually corrected in her own remarks as we were doing the math, we had not accounted for the 2.1 million from urban forestry that was reinvested in park maintenance. Wonderful news. I wish we could do that every day. It brought the rate down by $0.03. So everything else in what you received is true. But each of these summary numbers is $0.03 lower. Okay. 3 to $0.04 lower. Thank you. Scenario one of four is called restoration. And it it does as it says it restores funding levels for programing maintenance and community grant line items, including those that were temporarily restored. What it does not do, as referenced here, is make any new investments in capital maintenance or in partnerships work, so that gets you to a rate of $1.37. Next slide claire. This scenario includes expanded maintenance investments by committing 10% of the overall levy funds to capital maintenance, which could include bathroom and playground repairs that we know are highly visible and highly meaningful and impactful in our neighborhood parks. And it restores service levels for routine maintenance like bathroom cleaning and trash pickup. It does not emphasize programing, and so it does not include restoration of funding for programs or pool and community center hours. That nets to $1.48. Next slide claire. And here we've got the final two. We have a restore and maintain scenario with a little bit less capital maintenance. So this buys you everything in the first two scenarios. But it it does not commit 10% of the levy to capital maintenance. It commits $6 million a year, which is $0.10 and about 7% on the rate. That's $1.47. And then finally we have here a scenario called restore. And these are not punchy titles, but they're meant to be descriptive and clear. We have the restore and maintain scenario, which has a kind of overall reduction layered into it. So it's a modified number three. And this is a an example showing you all the ways you can mix and match. This scenario includes some maintenance, restoration, 6 million a year in capital maintenance summer camps but not nature programing, restoration of community center hours but not community grants. So it's a it is a mix and match. And that was based on what we've heard from you. But there are not endless ways to do that. Certainly there are other ways to do that as well. One final note and then I'm done for now, which is all of these scenarios do assume that the levy will be funding all of the new operations and maintenance costs that come online over the five years of the levy, as new facilities and spaces open. And that's about $0.08 on each of those rates. Do I miss anything here? Okay, that's it for my piece. I think probably we'll leave the slides up unless you prefer differently.
16 Let's leave them up. And colleagues, we do have some time for discussion. But before we get into our own discussion, I just want to make sure there aren't technical questions about what we've seen. So I'm going to run through the three folks who have hands up and just see if these are questions about the data and information before we get into the values discussion. Councilor Green are technical questions. Go right ahead.
17 Thank you, madam president, and thank you for presenting today. Just in terms of the tool. And as we kind of work through this for the discussion, row 12 I think on all the tabs is the philanthropy, volunteerism and new partnerships, $1 million. I'd just like to understand a little bit how that how that kind of plays into this. And then I'm also a little bit not sure I fully understand what the kind of row 16 levy funding toggle, I guess my understanding maybe you can clarify. I think I understand if you put a one in that you're reducing it by 5 million, because you're assuming that we're not going to use levy funds to pay for ongoing o&m over the five years. Is that what it's doing? Thanks.
18 I need to know.
19 Why don't you.
20 Introduce yourself? I'm noah siegel, I'm a working on contract with the Portland parks foundation to provide extra capacity in bringing information.
21 Can you move your mic closer? Noah? Sure can. Thank you.
22 So, noah siegel, working with the Portland parks foundation. So working backwards, that is correct. Before the passage of the current levy in 2020, it was council policy to fund added capital facilities, be they pools, community centers with general fund. So they would assign increased general fund to that. When the levy passed, that burden shifted at the direction of council to the levy. So that assumption continues forward. We have a number of facilities that are not subject to the sdc freeze because they're already underway, including the north Portland aquatic center and some others. So this is assumed that we'll cover the levy, will cover those expenses. It costs about $0.08 on the levy. If you were to change that policy, it would reduce the levy rate, but it would create an, you know, a future unfunded mandate on the general fund. So that's just a choice of where you want to put that money, that challenge. On your other question, jessica may chime in here. We were trying to be responsive to desire among a number of council members to activate partnerships, external partnerships. And we do think there's some investment that would need to jump start that. Not too much, but in terms of an additional fte and some some organization in the office to sort of get that going. We have also estimated that it could bring in about $600,000 revenue in a year. So that is, you know, that's our hope. And then embedded in that line 12 is also the renewal of community grants at about 450,000 a year. So we thought that those ought to maybe be linked together. They don't have to be. But the activation of external partnerships and the renewal of community grants from the last levy, that's what is included in that $1 million estimate. I should I would like to emphasize all of these numbers are rounded and estimates. Yes.
23 Thank you. That does address my question. I was like alarmed by why? Why is it $1 million for one fte? But I see that you're you're lumping in some other categories. Thank you.
24 Councilor Novick.
25 Thank you, madam president. I have three big questions. One is I thought that we were continuing to assume a sort of blended funding model where the levy and the general fund together pay for things. But when you talk about the new capital, the new capital projects, it sounds like you're saying only the levy pays for those. Is that an exception, or can you just explain that?
26 I don't think it's an exception. The blended funding model is assumed. It is more a device to talk to you about scale of investment. I do know in the referral we need to be somewhat precise about where funds will go. So it would include a row that said capital maintenance 6 million. But you're right in the under the hood it is it is blended and not that simple okay.
27 So when you talk about o&m funds for capital projects that will open by 2030, comprising approximately 0.08 of the levy rate, you're really saying that we're assuming that between the levy and general fund, we will pay for those things, not that the levy itself will specifically pay for those things as a set aside.
28 Correct?
29 Okay. And then.
30 One, sir.
31 Go ahead. Good morning. Councilor sarah huggins. I'm with the parks bureau. Just to further clarify a little bit on that point, previous to the parks levy, when parks opened, new assets, say a new park or a new aquatic center, its general fund allocation would increase by its operations and maintenance amount. So, say a general fund might go up $5 million if that's the annual operational cost, and it would be an increase of the general fund. Over the course of the last five year levy, there has been no increase from the general fund when new assets have opened. So when park Lane park opens, there is no additional general fund that's going to the parks bureau to now empty the trash and take care of the playground at park Lane park, just to use an example. So. So it is true that it is blended, but in this proposal you have a policy decision to make. What these numbers show would be potentially a scenario where there continues to be for another five years. No new general fund asks as facilities come online.
32 Does that answer your question?
33 I think it does. So it's not like technically the levy will say the levy pays for these things and nothing else. It talks about the things that we'll talk about, the things the levy helps provide. Yeah. Now on those capital projects will open by 2030. Can you give us some examples of like some of the big ticket items and how much they cost?
34 Yeah, we have the north Portland aquatic center. That's about $100 million coming online year five. Very late in the life of the levy we have, I might ask you, sarah. To come.
35 Back up.
36 We've got some very exciting projects on the side of the river at darcelle plaza, about 10 million. We've got the old town skate park that is in the teens of millions. What else is really high dollar amount?
37 Can you clarify? I mean, I assume those are the capital costs. I mean, what what are the annual operating costs of some of those things?
38 We have a lot of information about that. Go ahead.
39 So for example, the annual operating cost for the old town skate park is estimated at $450,000. The annual operations cost for the north Portland aquatic facility is estimated at $6.4 million annually. I'm just scanning for some of the larger ticket items. The annual operations and maintenance costs associated with future broadway corridor park are estimated at $342,000.
40 And it adds over the five years to about 10 million in new o&m needs.
41 So actually, I mean, we referred to the levy as like possibly maintaining current service levels, but really it would help us sort of go beyond that to fund things that are not current but will exist in the future.
42 Not existing, but planned. Yeah, yeah.
43 The other question I had is that when you talk about capital maintenance, it's my I think that you're talking about maintenance projects that aren't sort of daily maintenance stuff, but also probably aren't like big fat, you know, $10 million items. It's sort of a range of things that count as capital maintenance or daily maintenance, but are kind of in between.
44 Is that correct?
45 That is correct. It depends on the scale. We have certainly large scale capital maintenance needs, but if you're looking at, say, a $6 million or $10 million investment per year, that would be able to fund things like playground replacement replacements and repairs, those are estimated at about 2 million each. Restroom rehabilitations and repairs, those are about $500,000 each. So it could fund a number of those sorts of big capital maintenance projects throughout the park system.
46 And there are some stakeholders that have been particularly vocal that we should. I mean, my understanding is that probably the advice we got six years ago was that we should be spending 60 million a year in capital maintenance, and obviously we're not going to do that. But my understanding is there's some stakeholders who've been very vocal on the idea that we should at least be putting some money into capital maintenance. Is that right?
47 Yeah. I think everyone is in strong agreement that we have a serious liability. Sarah, you should stay in capital maintenance that far exceeds what could be addressed in this levy. You know, it's been estimated at $600 million. There's a lot of stuff in there. You know, those are things that probably need to be addressed. I know that councilor Clark is looking across the city at capital. You know, the backlog of capital projects, repairs. So this, you know, wouldn't be wouldn't have a huge impact on that overall number. But it does reflect that this is really a high priority for portlanders. We saw it in the polling. We saw it. We heard it in our conversations in community. They want to see some of these things repaired. So it gets us, you know, whether we do 10% or $0.10, the kinds of things that sarah is referencing sort of get us moving. And it puts a place in this levy going forward that we reserve for capital maintenance.
48 Thank you.
49 Councilor canal.
50 Yes, thank you. Two technical questions. One relates to the partnerships. You mentioned that 450,000 was the community grants of the million, which means 550,000 would be the cost of the setting up of the philanthropy volunteerism section of it. I think the interest that I can't speak for all colleagues, but my interest included that that this might save money. And I think if I'm comparing that 550,000 to 600,000, am I correct in saying that your modeling shows we would save a total of $50,000 a year?
51 I mean, I think that do you want to speak to partnerships?
52 Yeah, I'm jessica Green, I'm the executive director of the Portland parks foundation, the there's kind of two pieces in this partnership line item. And it's also kind of plays to a lot of the conversation that has been held over the last few months around partnership. There's two partnerships in the room right now. There's like the big capital investment partnerships, and then there's all these on the ground partners that are that parks are leveraging relationships with to increase the level of service. And so all the after school programing that's happening, or restoration work that are happening in partnership with organizations, volunteers as well as staff, and then there's large capital investments by companies and corporate and philanthropy that we've seen a drop in recently with investment into the public private partnership space. So what this is doing is investing in both the partnerships that currently exist. And then it's also taking into account funds that haven't necessarily been secured. And so I would say that line item in there is low. But we would like to see it higher as time goes.
53 I'm hearing you say also specifically partnerships for operations or. Yeah, running spaces that we would have operating models that are partnership based. That is a priority. That is assumed in my mind as an area of emphasis and focus going forward, separate and apart from this conversation. And yes, those can save money. They take work to get going and they can help us continue providing services when we have less of our own money. They're great leverage plays. So that's a third dimension. And just to put a finer point on it, there are places where partnerships cost money. There are places where they make money, there are places where they save money. And like noah said, it's a big round number.
54 Sure.
55 I just want to emphasize that last point. This is I mean, even compared to the other numbers, this one is a very round number just designed to facilitate a conversation about whether this is a priority in this levy. And if we get direction, we can go back and refine what's in that. But I think it's helpful to just precipitate this conversation.
56 Thanks. And then the other question was to you about you mentioned north Portland aquatic center. And as one of the examples of things that are coming online where operational costs are built in, are there any assumptions about the interstate firehouse built into this?
57 I don't think so.
58 So with the current parks levy, the interstate firehouse cultural center was funded for part of it's in a blended funding model, funded for its operations and had ongoing support. It also funded the fcc study. The out of that study, as I understand it, there is a capital project going on the bureau's capital project list, but that's not built into the assumption as a capital project that this new levy would fund.
59 Is it anticipated that that capital project would complete by the within the lifespan of this levy, and that there would be post capital operational expenses that the levy would cover?
60 I will need to look that up. Just one moment, please.
61 Okay. I won't hold the floor up, but come back whenever. Thanks. Madam president.
62 Councilor Clark, questions about the presentation.
63 Thank you, madam chair. I have lots of questions.
64 I think we're going to have several rounds of conversation about this. So just at this moment, I just wanted to thank you, first of all, for acknowledging that we are we have a budget note and we are interested in partnerships, strongly interested in in leveraging that. I think that's going to require more time and culture change in in the bureau, if you don't mind my saying so, I think it's going to take more time. But my radar went up when you said, and I think councilor Greene's did too, when you said $450,000 for the skate park for annual operations. I have no idea how you came to that number. And you don't have to tell me right now, but I would hope that that is an example of something that can be partnered with community group to help operate, maintain that park, as well as potentially the darcel park. It just seems like a pretty high figure to me, and I hold out a lot of hope for our ability to find partners, a range of partners, and I know that takes time, but I wanted to appreciate your acknowledgment of our support for that.
65 We will have a partnership model at darcel with clean and safe, which has been wildly successful at director park, and we're so excited to see how they activate and help us make the most of darcel.
66 So you're thinking that maybe that can extend to the skate park?
67 Anything is possible. And well, since you asked, I do think a big look at our downtown mostly hardscape spaces with an eye toward the question of whether consistency in operating models would get us more. I don't know the answer, but I don't know that we've asked that with real depth yet. I see you looking at me. Do you have a comment about that?
68 Me no, not right now.
69 Well, we do have fledgling models underway across the city that hopefully we can build on and transfer that success around the city.
70 Yeah. Agreed.
71 Yeah. And I guess I will just add so building on that and councilor Clark and hearing that there are opportunities to build on and one of the conversations that the foundation has been having and would like to have with the broader community and our friends and partners, is just exactly that and start to building out this model of how we all learn from each other in a in a way that is actually really successful. Example of this is the community partnership program that is levy funded, and how they've built out this model of partners meeting quarterly, learning from each other. It's very responsive in the sense of what's working and what's not within the program. And I think it's a model that we can continue to build on with friends groups and like our broader volunteer community to be able to have more regular check ins and cross-pollination, as well as cross learning and being able to communicate among both city and the organizations. Because you're right, there are a lot of really successful models out there, and there's a lot of growth opportunity. And it's like, how do we just do this all together and let everybody invest in our park system? But yeah, so we're excited about that.
72 Great, I appreciate that. Thank you.
73 Would you like me to Morillo.
74 Oh I'm sorry. Do you have the answer to.
75 Councilor Kanal question? Perfect. Let's take that.
76 So the fcc building is not funded. It is a project on the list, but is an unfunded project. So it has no operations and maintenance currently in the five year forecast.
77 Councilor Morillo.
78 Thank you, council president. Thank you all so much for this presentation. This is really helpful for us as we make this tough decision. I think something that kind of struck me throughout this discussion is just some of the new things that we have coming up that have not been created yet, and I know there's a lot of planning for them, but it's a little stressful to hear about the aquatic center, for example, and just the high cost of some of these things when we're struggling with maintenance. And I know part of that is the pools of money that we have to work with, and the fact that some of those can only be used to build new things instead of to maintain them. But what would the levy look like if we're using it just for maintenance of existing things and removing the cost for creating and implementing new parks, programs and projects?
79 Yeah. I mean, I think then you would go back to scenario one on the slides, and that was the starting place was $1.37.
80 And you.
81 Take out and you would take out $0.08 for the new capital facilities. And then just a reminder that would not include an additional investment in capital maintenance. So that would be your kind of absolute baseline to restore or continue what you funded one time this year and keep that as a level going forward.
82 Okay. Thank you. Yeah, I think I mean, it's kind of painful to see some of these cost comparisons to be honest. Like I'm generally in favor I think of moving higher on the levy. And hopefully our business partners are going to be supportive of that because we need them to be team players here for our city and not do attack ads on the parks levy. And it's also, I think, quite painful to see that it would be around $30 a month for people who. I don't know. I worked as a snack advocate before, so sometimes $30 a month was make or break for people. So I think, yeah, I, I just really struggle with how parks has been handled overall and how we keep creating new projects to maintain that we don't seem to have funding for. But I guess that's an aside, just a note in general about how I think we need to manage this in the levy in the future.
83 Can I can I ask maybe you what is $0.80? Because that slide tripped me up thinking we were talking about $30 a month. And I don't want to diminish the amount of a dollar for a family, but what's the increment?
84 It's up. So 15 is the baseline from $0.80. So that would be the additional amount. That said, I really appreciate you saying that councilor That I do think that the financial burdens are real and people have price sensitivity right now. And so it's a balance. They also really value these services. So I appreciate you bringing up that tension. And I do want to just emphasize cutting across some of these questions. That and coming back to what administrator jordan said. Some of these things, you know, we have to make collectively a fiscal decision about what level we want to bring in to sustain parks and recreation and support the general fund. Some of these things are longer term questions around how we administer parks, how the things we the things you're mentioning councilor About how we bring on new facilities or how we explore partnerships, I think it would be and this is a new council, I think, enshrining some of those things in the resolution that goes with the referral and defining some work plans for really addressing those things would be very helpful.
85 Thank you. Counselor. Did you have additional comments? Okay, councilor Avalos, great.
86 Let me start with can you put it back on the slide? It was kind of one of the first slides that had the 180. I'll keep going.
87 One before the.
88 Other way. Clear.
89 First one. One of the first ones.
90 Yep yep.
91 Here it was okay. So I want to start here. I mean I think that as I said at the last meeting, I'm going to keep putting my stake in the ground for the 180. And I want to talk through that. But looking at this slide, I guess maybe what I remember just just on memory and I'm sure it's in this slide show somewhere too, but it seems like the level of support tends to remain kind of in a similar place, you know what I mean? Like from what I can tell and from all the conversations we've had. So I just want to note that I just feel like there's been a lot of like, oh, like drastically is going to be horrible if it's 180. But I don't know that that's what this is saying. So I just want to confirm, like, am I reading this correctly, that this is regardless of the fact that 180 obviously feels scary, that it does still have some pretty strong support. Is that how I'm reading this?
92 Yeah. A couple of comments back. First of all, that 180 number would now be lower because I think probably going back to the scenarios, the dollar 51 maybe would be a good starting place, maybe a little higher. Even so, somewhere under $1.60 as opposed to $1.80 because we sustained some cuts to general efficiencies. Central services through the budget process, the urban forestry money, etc, so that that ceiling has come down probably to somewhere around $1.60 from $1.80. The reason we tested $1.80 was that was, at the time, the amount it would have taken to sustain all existing services and adding in capital maintenance improvements. So we wanted to know what the upper limit was. This at 52% support with soft, relatively soft support. It's not a great starting place for a levy, but I do think that we started at the highest number. And as you come down in the amount, we see increasing support. So I'm optimistic that somewhere in there there is a sufficient votes to pass the levy. And but finally, to your point, councilor, that is correct, that no matter how we frame the questions, no matter what kind of messaging we hit it with, the support for the levy was pretty stable. People know what it is. They know what they're getting. They're deciding whether they can afford it or not. That's really what it is.
93 Okay, I appreciate that. Yeah. I think ultimately I remain pretty steadfast in feeling that we need to add value if we're going to go to the voters and ask them to do anything that it needs to be worth it, and it needs to be something that they would be able to see. You know, in the conversations we were having with the cuts. I mean, sure, some of those numbers change because we made some changes in the budget, but a lot of them are one time changes, so those don't feel secure to me as far as using that as a way to measure like what a good starting place is, I wouldn't consider that a measuring place. That's just my opinion. But I do think that, you know, as we're looking at. Not only this levy, but preparing for this next budget that we all know is going to be equally brutal. And I'm curious, like from the perspective of parks, I guess, like, what? How are you going to couple this levy with some discussions on what are the ways that we can make some alignments, adjustments to the dollars. Again, this is like big picture. And obviously I know we're going to get in the weeds this year as we talk about the budget. But I just kind of want to understand what is the plan over this next year, if any, to start figuring out what are some places where we can find some efficiencies, or there's been a lot of discussion around the way that the parks budget is structured and the staffing and how you know who's doing what. So I guess I just want to get a sense from you of like, how how are those conversations happening in parallel? Because regardless of what we do with this levy, it's clear that we need to make some adjustments for our budget, for every budget, really. But I just want to get a sense for where that conversation is headed.
94 Yeah, such a good question. Three things maybe that I think will occur that speak to that one. The bureau will have to figure out how to implement this budget. You've adopted amounts, but that's not a complete picture of how they'll manage into it and absorb and accommodate having fewer people potentially doing fewer things. So there's a lot of conversation to be had about how to reshape into that new size and continue doing as much good as possible within that scope scale, I should say. Number two, the direction you provide here about the levy will start to give a sense of what a future scale might be so that the, you know, the earlier you do that, the more time very smart people have to plan for those scenarios and how they might again, at their official new scale, think about growing potentially into whatever scale you direct here through all of those lenses that you mentioned. And then thirdly, citywide, everywhere you look, there's a citywide conversation happening about this or that thing that we do and how to do it better with the amount of human and budget resource that we have. And all of that flows into parks. And a lot of that will be landing this fall. So that's another layer of these are all kind of blobby shapes to me. But, you know, it's another kind of input to incorporate as they're figuring out, you know, how big are we? What are we really centering. And then how do we best do that. So there's going to be a lot of action, I would say, over the next handful of months on that.
95 I can I add one thing to that, which is I just want to emphasize the work that I've been doing with the foundation and the intertwined alliance. We've been speaking to a lot of partners, including labor, business, community groups, and there were in addition to the one time money that was found, there were significant savings and reductions in the mayor's budget and then in the adopted budget that brought down overhead significantly in the in the proposed. So I just wanted to acknowledge that those savings were found and sustained and for the most part, centered frontline jobs for priority preservation. I know that some of our labor friends are listening to this. So that was a high priority. And I just wanted to acknowledge that those savings this year were included or included in the updated numbers.
96 Okay. And then lastly, I just want to speak a little bit to partnerships. I'll start by thanking councilor Clark. I think that budget note was really good. And you know, in general, absolutely. We need to talk about how we create these better partnerships. And yet, I was at a wilkes neighborhood association meeting and we were talking about wilkes park. And people are you know, it was in the middle of the budget season, and they were essentially asking me like, well, how can we help? How can we help to clean the park? And how can we be a part of that? I love that spirit, and I think we need to be really cautious about what we are asking of the average portlander. They are paying money to their government to provide a service, and I don't want us to go so heavy on this side of like, well, let's just fill it with partnerships. Let's fill it with volunteers again, absolutely needed. We need to increase those partnerships. But I'll note that those kinds of partnerships are going to really benefit communities that can have the time and the money to do it, and that's not district one. And so I worry about leaning so much on that that we say, well, we're all going to do it together. But then the working class families in my district who are needing these parks and these services just to get by, they don't have extra time to come do a cleanup of the park. Right. So I just want to appreciate the spirit while also cautioning us to be very, you know, be very intentional, I guess, about what we are saying when we talk about partnerships, because, you know, I love, you know, I have people all the time who are like, I want to help and I want to volunteer and I want to do things, and that's great. But also, your government should be delivering the service you pay for. And I want us to keep that crystal clear in this conversation. And I think that leads me to like, look to my colleagues to say, like, we really need to talk about revenue. We just keep cutting around these edges. We keep asking, you know, everyday portlanders to increase the amount that they're paying to government. And there are a lot of people in Portland who are benefiting and are not paying their fair share. And I'm demanding that we really look at that because frankly, I'm just really sick of telling poor people who are already scraping to get by that they need to pay a little more to get the bare minimum that their government should provide. So I really think we need to change our mentality a little bit on this, I guess, you know, obviously we're here talking about this right now. We need to deal with this right now. But I'm going to always be a voice of like, yes, partnerships. But who does that benefit? It doesn't benefit working class families most of the time. And I want to protect their ability to also benefit from the public good. So I'll leave it at that. Thank you.
97 Can I.
98 Briefly and then.
99 I see a lot of interest in responding.
100 Yeah. If you want to comment please.
101 I also want to make sure we get to a few more questions.
102 I'm just so grateful that you said that. And one of the ways no one should be voluntold that they you know, they don't get it if they don't do it for themselves and where people want to and can contribute and grow the denominator, they should. And if we're staying centered on our priority communities, then that extra capacity flowing in over here helps us deliver and continue delivering and deliver more over there. So I, I think it can be positive some. And if we keep what you just said in mind. So thank you.
103 And I just want to speak to the priorities that are in the existing levy around partnerships. And they're really powerful and they're really advancing equity and prioritizing communities that are historically excluded, that don't have as much level of service. And it has really elevated a lot of the level of service and parks. And it's now led by communities themselves. And so I just if you haven't had a moment, I do think it's a really, really powerful thing that is coming out of the levy. And again, it's like, how do we continue to use this similar model more citywide?
104 Councilor I.
105 Think you are transitioning us into the next part of our conversation with those remarks, but I see councilor Novak's hand up. Councilor do you have any other questions about the slides before we use councilor Avalos? Perfect transition there.
106 Don't mess it up. Don't mess up the transition. Okay?
107 Go right ahead, councilor.
108 I'm still a little confused about what the incremental cost to taxpayers is. I thought you were saying that it's 30 additional dollars, but then you said that the baseline for $0.80 is 15, which would suggest that the increase would be 15 or less. So can you please clarify that?
109 Yeah, that is correct. It's the latter. That's it's the cumulative. It's the total amount per month that would be paid. So they are already paying the equivalent of about $15 a month on the 80 cent.
110 So if we went to like $1.50 or something that people would be paying an extra 1350 or something like that.
111 Yeah. Next slide. Yeah.
112 Thank you.
113 Thanks, councilor.
114 So colleagues, we have just over an hour left scheduled today. And we need to do two things. We need to. Tighten in on a range of the rate. And we have a few examples before us and what they could buy. And I believe that I think the slides that were sent out do have the correct numbers on them. So we're looking at the right numbers here that have been adjusted. But we also need to provide guidance on areas of emphasis and how we would like the parks levy implemented, essentially how we want to use the parks levy to help drive the next five years of what our parks bureau looks like. And that's the conversation that I think a few folks have started to touch on. And I'd like us to start there, because I think that will help us drive toward a rate a little more effectively. So I'd like to move us into a conversation probably more with each other than with our guests, though we do have both the folks at the table and some other experts in the room if we need them to talk through what our vision is for parks and how we want the language that is in, the resolution that comes before us, and the levy that goes out to voters to help frame what parks looks like moving forward. We've talked about partnerships. We have scratched the surface of deferred capital maintenance. And those, I'll call them midsized projects. Right. This is not the daily maintenance of cleaning bathrooms, but it's also not the large scale deferred maintenance of fixing entire community centers that might be contained in something like the levy referral. There have been some questions, not today, but I know in past conversations about access pass and programing and who we're serving and how around community center hours and how we maintain our natural spaces and our trails. And I'd like us to take 30 or 40 minutes to just have any discussion we need to have together about how we would like to use the levy to set up what the next five years of parks looks like for our city. Councilor Clark, you put your hand up quickly. Do you want to kick off that conversation?
115 Well, I clearly have opinions.
116 Go right ahead.
117 I assume everybody here does just right out of the chute. I would say that my priority for the levy is maintenance. And I when the mayor asked all of us for our priorities when he was putting together the budget, I said maintenance, which we restored during the budget process. But that's a high priority for me and maybe for some other people here. But I feel like I'd like to have a broader conversation about getting off this levy merry go round. It's we need we really need a bigger strategy. And I'm hoping that, you know, I feel some sense of urgency around this. I understand that I'm not happy about it, but I hope that we can buy some time to actually have a bigger look at both the operations and maintenance and the capital needs of our parks. And I'm sorry that our chair of finance isn't here today, because I would like to see that committee take this up as a as a project. But we need a comprehensive plan for how we're going to deal with operations and how we're going to deal with that $600 million backlog in in capital needs. That's that's something that really concerns me. And it fits right into the resolution and budget. Note that we're we've passed on asset management. Parks is definitely a part of that. And I'm hoping that the finance committee and my colleague here, councilor Green, can work on a geo bond measure in the future. That includes parks. That's not exclusive to parks, but includes parks. And I think we have a model. I don't know why the past city councils have not done this or have ignored this, but the Portland public schools really offers us an example of how this can be done. You know, they had a 30 year plan. They they go back to the ballot to renew their their bond every several years. They have a list of projects they want to do. We should emulate that. We're not we're not there yet, but we need to have that conversation. And parks needs to be part of it. So that's my longer term vision for parks and all the bureaus that have asset needs, capital asset needs. I don't know if this is the time to ask questions. I can come back to questions around compression.
118 If I think this is a good time to ask that question.
119 Okay, well, I did have a question for the team there at the dais. You know, I want to understand with the downtown property values underwater and being in compression, just have you done a risk analysis? Have you do you do we know what how compression is going to impact what we're asking for here, not just for parks but also for the rest of our partners that have levies?
120 Yeah. Those are that's interesting. Those are two different questions. I can speak better to the second one than I can to the first one. I don't know what the forecasts are for the next few years of revenue and downward compression on levies.
121 I don't. Sarah does go to her next.
122 Okay.
123 Go to her next.
124 I'll just speak to the second one which is on. There are three other relevant property tax levies that are affected by compression with with an well by the existence of the Portland parks levy and then the increase of it. One is the Portland children's levy, part of the budget of the parks levy reimburses the children's levy for the loss to compression. The other two are the Oregon historical society and the metro parks and nature levy. They are current. It would increase the impact on each of those by about 0.5%. So, you know, the budget of ohs is much smaller so that the impact is a little larger. It goes from 1.5 to 2%, and the metro is from 0.5 to 1% of the total. So there is an impact. But you know, depending on your point of view, it's somewhat limited. There is I will note that there's no impact on Multnomah county libraries because it's a separate district. And I just point that out because that has been discussed in previous council conversations as a path for Portland park. So just mentioning that on the larger compression issue, great.
125 And just for additional context, the dollar amounts that relate to that are about $100,000 a year at $1. 40 levy for the Multnomah county, Oregon historical society, or about $200,000 per year for the metro parks and nature levy. And then in terms of the amount, sorry.
126 Thank you, sarah, that's just so important. I was benchmarking that at the dollar 40 level just to pick a number. So it would be less if it were below and more if it were above. Thank you so much, sarah. Yeah.
127 And sticking with sort of the dollar 40 figure, the amount of compression lost based on sort of the levy extended versus the levy received is about $35 million a year. So the figures that we're showing you in revenue is actually the actual revenue we would receive after that compression was accounted for. So that those are the figures we've been using is after that compression amount.
128 Okay. Good. Good to know just one other comment. And actually, noah, you you prompted this. I think when we take a future look at, at our revenue, our revenue needs for parks as well as for other assets that we might want to look at, other models, how we partner with Multnomah county, how do we partner with metro? Do we need to have that conversation again about a parks district, you know, do a bond that is not vulnerable to compression? What those kinds of things. I'd like to entertain that conversation. I'm hoping that maybe the finance committee will take that up to look at different models for this, so that we can get off this kind of merry go round that we're on and operations. So thank you. Thank you for that.
129 Thank you. Councilor, I hear a strong emphasis on maintenance and also an ask that after we pass this levy or refer this levy to the voters to pass, we spend those five years thinking about long term funding. I do want to note you brought it up, and I should have noted before, we have a few colleagues not at the dais today. Councilor Dunphy is online listening. We have councilor Ryan had a death in the family, unfortunately, and had planned to be here, but was unexpectedly out. And our colleagues, councilor Zimmerman and councilor Smith, had conflicts that they couldn't avoid. So I know that many of those folks have members of their team here listening into the discussion today to make sure that they can bring back what they hear, and they'll be adding their feedback, I'm sure, as well, once they're back. So, councilor Green, did you have comments on what you hope to see in parks as we move forward and how that relates to what we emphasize with the levy?
130 I do thank you, madam president. I think for me, as we get ready to refer this thing, I think that the language of the referral, the resolution, should really articulate a positive vision that's very specific for what this levy will do. And I think what I've heard that's most compelling is that we do need to be investing in capital maintenance or maintenance. And I think a specific type of maintenance, really, it's like what's about to fail, let's prevent it from failing. And I think there's a good like fiscal stewardship lens in that. And I think unless we're really willing to communicate very clearly to voters right now that we recognize that maybe the city has not been the best steward of, of funds in the past, but we can still be the best steward of funds going forward. It's going to be hard for folks to go along with this. And I think that the polling, you know, 55% is very dangerous for support. That's very dangerous. And so I think just philosophically, what I'm thinking is that it there does need to be an emphasis on maintenance that we do need to keep these programs, like you need places for kids to have swim lessons. You need you need program offerings. But it's okay to also say we're going to come up with a fee system. That seems fair too. I've heard from some families is like, I'm happy to pay $5 more, even $10 more for something, and we can do it on a sliding scale basis, but just have it be available for me. So if we articulate that we're investing in doubling down and kind of program offerings, while at the same time. Doing doing some, taking care of some backlog and maintenance, then I think that's a strong signal. And I think also, let's not start new things with this parks levy. We have to stop growing our our liability side of the balance sheet. So that's the kind of vision piece I think for me. But I think in order to sell this, we also have to do some parallel work this summer. One of those things I think we need to do is really press on some of these assumptions about what it costs to maintain these things, like the $450,000. I raised my eyebrows and you caught that councilor Clerk for the skate park seems wild to me, and not because I think staff has done poor work, but because, like, what are the assumptions there? Because this is a brand new skate park. If it's $450,000 in annual maintenance, I don't know. Something doesn't add up there for years. You know, the Burnside park was maintained by a community of volunteers and skaters, probably for free. And I think we can probably get to a model that's a lower cost offering there. It doesn't necessarily mean outsourcing it to clean and safe, but it but it could be something that's saying, look, we don't need to spend that much and assume that much right now. When we think about the north Portland aquatic center, I do want to note that the north peninsula review last November published an article talking about how the original cost is $50 million, and then it went to $102 million because of inflation. And I quote here from at the time, director, it was a desire to deliver a first class, full service aquatic center. So it really did expand in scope. And I know that there were some estimates to fix columbia pool that were like 5 to $10 million. So I think if we can go out to voters and say, let's just fix what's broken and stretch our dollars, then we can sell this thing, I think in a much easier way. That puts us on a more, I think, financially sustainable path for the next five years. I think that we should have world class offerings, but if we're at a point in time where you don't have a bottomless well of money, we need to be thinking about how to how to kind of be good stewards of that. I'll note also that the that, the that the pool, the columbia pool. I think part of the reason that the desire was to, you know, shutter it and then build something new was that we were seeing about a half $1 million a year, $450,000 a year in operations and maintenance cost over and above what it recovers. But the new center is going to create $6 million in new operations, maintenanc
131 Oh, no.
132 I'm doing something wrong. This is what I was.
133 Good morning. We got back before morning. I am told we are back up online, so we are reconvening council. It is 1125 councilor Dunphy. Can you hear us?
134 I can hear you. Can you hear me?
135 We can hear you. I am going to take that as a test that the stream is actually working. Colleagues, when we left, we were in the middle of a discussion about what we wanted the future of parks to look like and how that might relate to what we put in a levy. My team right now is checking with staff to see how long we can go this morning, but I am going to assume that we are good until noon, or as long as we can keep a quorum given all of your schedules. So we are going to try to get in as many more comments as we can between now and then. And councilor Dunphy, you are up. Go right ahead. Point of information.
136 We do have the homelessness and housing committee at noon. So I just want to make sure.
137 Oh sure do. Okay. We're going to check on how much turnover time is needed. Okay. Councilor Dunphy, go right ahead.
138 Thank you. I will go as quick as I can. Colleagues, in the last two weeks, I've had two deeply affirming Portland experiences the opening of park Lane park and the opening of the new, renovated Sellwood park shack. Parks are our front door to the community. They are the way that most people interact with government on a daily basis, and I am so deeply proud of our our parks system. But as my other colleagues have already said this morning, we simply must maintain what we have. For me, parks are a vital part of our community safety and our public activation system. In east Portland, as with every other part of the city, but especially in east Portland, when bathrooms are are locked up and dysfunctional, when the splash pads are broken and unusable. In the summer, when the playground flooring is crumbling and unusable, kids can't do it. Parents and families don't use these parks, and when the grass is grow long, they become attractive places for bad behavior. They become places where public safety quickly degrades. And so my priority really is to make sure that we are taking care of the things that we already have, rather than trying to build things anew. We have fundamental funding challenges with this bureau, and I don't know what the right answer is, and I really look forward to working with my colleagues about figuring out what the long term solution is, including a bigger conversation with the state about how we use sdcs. I cannot stand how we open these beautiful new parks and spend hundreds of millions of dollars, only to let them eventually rot. So for me, my priority right now is, is embodying some way that we can maintain what we have. Otherwise it will simply get more and more expensive. As we saw just a couple weeks ago with the lawsuit that we settled over someone inappropriately hanging a hammock from a light post that was was insufficient. They shouldn't have been hanging the hammock in the first place, but the light poles should not have broken. It does make me deeply concerned. I mean, I am. I'm excited for north Portland to get an aquatic center, but the price tag certainly makes me nervous. And east Portland would also like an aquatic center. So for me, I want to make sure that whatever we do land on really embodies the idea that we are taking care of what we are we already have, and taking care of it for the purposes of public safety. We need to invite the community back to the public square. If we are ever going to get back to the kind of Portland we know we deserve. So those are my comments for now. I will also just ask, I suppose, and this is maybe a dumb question, but do we have any reason to wonder if a square, if a round number, rather a round number of our parks renewal, our levy renewal would do better than an odd number? I'm thinking. I mean, is $1.40 different than $1.38? I know it's different for us on the end, but in terms of the ability for it to get passed, I am most concerned about getting something passed rather than what the dollar is. And we will figure out how to spend those dollars as long as we have some good guiding principles. So those are my comments.
139 Noah, do you want to just comment briefly on whether the round or square number matters more than the jaggedy number for voters?
140 I would venture a guess to say it doesn't matter at all the numbers that they will pay attention to is, first of all, is it a tax increase? In this case we're talking about an increase. So that's significant. Then what is the cost to the average household per month. That's what they'll look at. That might help if it's a round number. But the rate not so much okay.
141 Thank you. And councilor Dunphy, I'm hearing a strong preference to make sure maintenance is a priority, and also a strong preference to make sure that we are looking both at the need and at the ability to pass something there. So thank you. I'm going to get myself to make sure everyone has time. Councilor Koyama Lane would you like to go ahead?
142 Yes. Thank you, council president. This conversation feels helpful and I agree with almost everything I've heard from my colleagues. What's been helpful for me is to have some clarity in kind of separating some of our shorter term versus longer term challenges issues, and then also responses, strategies. I think I had thought about it, but I think to just have a little bit more clarity, and I'm kind of making two different lists here. I agree that we need to focus on maintenance, make sure that portlanders have access to our park spaces and programs, and it also helped me just to think in terms of shorter term and longer term. Thinking about the funding, thinking about how that like levy merry go round. I like how you described that. Councilor Clark is it's necessary. And it is this shorter term thing that keeps coming up and to think about how can we also, longer term, have a 30 year plus plan where there's a vision shared and maybe those it's not one or the other, but that we understand that this is a two, two pronged approach. I also what councilor Avalos brought up about using volunteers and community engagement. It really resonates. And it's something that I think a lot about. I think it's a it's a fine line and it's something we have to make sure we're being really careful about. It reminds me, in my 16 years as a public school educator, seeing disparities and differences between when I taught in district two at fabian school, compared to district three at sunnyside environmental school. And like what the capacity is from the caregivers and the community, what they can give and doesn't mean that either of those caregivers loved their kids more or less. It is has to do oftentimes with privilege and resources. And at the same time, I also know that it doesn't mean, you know, when I taught at sunnyside, I also still found ways to have caregivers engage in both places. So thinking about ways to do it, but also keeping the keeping an eye on it, and also being aware that we don't want to be relying on volunteers to be doing the work that that really their people aren't qualified to do or are really is part of our skilled workforce. That where there are folks that have these strong union jobs. And so I when I think about bringing in community members, and I feel like this does align with what councilor Clark has said, it's mostly about like including and engaging and helping people feel a sense of ownership and belonging. It's not necessarily tied to here's the exact cost savings. And it's like a big part of it is about engaging and empowering. And that might be another piece to it. And I also know that just because people want to volunteer doesn't mean that necessarily. It's always helpful. There's a lot of resources and time and energy that goes into like training volunteers. And so anyway, I, I'm thinking a lot about that piece about how to be strategic and make sure that we fill some gaps, but that we're not, that we're also aware of unintended consequences. And know that just because someone says they want to come and help teach kids how to read every morning, doesn't mean they actually can do it. You have to like, help people and train them. So I know similarly with how we're using our volunteers and other spaces to so like longer term maintenance and like the backlog also makes a lot of sense. And having a comprehensive plan and that longer term piece that sounds great and just kind of that bigger picture strategy. So seeing both of those shorter term and longer term as being separate and also connected is really important. And I am hearing from a lot of folks that maintenance and really the things that our community members are experiencing, like the communities facing supports. So the and experiences. So things that community members go and they interact with folks to do swim lessons or they're using the playgrounds I see preserving those and maintenance for those things really important.
143 Thank you. Councilor. And I'm writing down the note about reliance on volunteers and making sure that we have enough staff to do work, as well as exploring the opportunities to do more with volunteers, and the importance of maintenance and keeping track of both the short and long term funding needs. Councilor Green.
144 Why don't you do your thing first and then I can come after if there's still time, because you've ceded space for the rest of us.
145 Thank you. And I am noticing that you have spoken here, haven't you? So I'll just note, colleagues, that I agree with everybody I've heard speak, that maintenance is really important, and we need to use this as an opportunity to get a handle on maintenance in our parks. And I think it's important to note very specifically that when I think about maintenance, I'm thinking both about maintenance of our assets. I have young children. I have directly experienced the issues with bathrooms and broken playgrounds, and also the maintenance of our open spaces, and to acknowledge that when we cut back on the maintenance of our open spaces in order to prioritize our our built assets, the cost of recovering from that is also more than if we keep up on that maintenance. So I think it's important that as we try to figure out the right funding level, we don't sacrifice one for the other. I think that the additional, the $0.10 or 10% absolutely needs to be for capital maintenance. And we need to make sure that we're maintaining all of our parks assets, both built and natural spaces. I also am a fan of the options that give us a little bit of programing. Buy back. A few of you have heard me go on. Probably at too great a length about the difference in cost between parks, summer camp programs and private summer camp programs. With the calculations that I did for my district two colleagues. To give them an example, I came up with a difference of something like, if you're sending your kids to camp all summer, if they're going to parks camps, you are saving upwards of $2,000 per kid compared to the average private camp. And the hours at parks camps are longer and allow for something more close to a full workday. So while I do think that maintenance absolutely must be the bulk of what we do with this levy, I'm supportive of the options that allow us to do a little bit. Maybe not everything, but a little bit on the programing side as well, so that we can buy back some of those things that make substantial differences in working families lives, like camp programs. When we talk about the $0.10 or the 10%, I think that's a really important piece of this. That's certainly not going to catch us up on this $600 million. I'm looking to make sure I got that number right in backlog of asset maintenance that parks has, but it could help us keep that number from growing significantly. If we have a new source of money, where we are chipping away at some of those most immediate problems, which allows us to then have a conversation about how we address the longer term deferred maintenance at a different time, in a different way, without that number growing substantially. And I think it's really important to do what we can there, even if it doesn't get us as far as we know, we need to eventually go. So I'm very supportive of the proposals that include either that $0.10 or 10%. And I just wanted to note all of those pieces. I definitely fall in the category of let the need drive the rate to an extent. I think what we need to do and what portlanders are willing to do is more important to me than any number on the page, and we just need to figure out what that balance is of what we need to do and what portlanders are willing to do. Councilor Green. Should we continue moving to folks who haven't had an opportunity to speak? And then I'll come back to you in just a moment, okay? Councilor Kanal.
146 Thank you, madam president. Thank you everybody, for coming and presenting. I forgot to do that earlier when I asked questions. Big picture. I prefer the restoration option with a couple adjustments that might get it closer to the rest. Restore and maintain. So basically checking all the lines as they exist right now in the spreadsheet. But lines 11 and 16 and then putting some, but not necessarily the 6 million into line 11. For those who aren't seeing it, line 11 is capital maintenance, which I believe is at the larger than ten k per project level. And line 16 is where we would start to abandon our assumptions about new things already in motion, like northport and aquatic center. I want to start by noting that parks has had clean levy audits on the current levy. I want to commend director long, the current team, the whole team on generally being a good steward of levy funds. I agree with a caveat to councilor Green's point that we shouldn't be creating new liabilities. The caveat is that I know that district one needs more investments, not necessarily for this particular vehicle, but in general. I want to add to the conversation a little bit more emphasis on the need for cost recovery, in particular around swim lessons and swim classes. Not everyone can do this, but I know when I was knocking doors in north Portland talking to parents last year who were telling me they had to move or drive their kids to Vancouver for swim classes because of a lack of capacity, many of them offered to pay the full cost of swim classes, full cost recovery. To help expand that capacity, I had parents offer to come at different times of the day. I even had a couple parents say they'd pay triple. This is not a question I asked. This was volunteered to me to open up two slots for someone else. And I think this needs to be a part of our conversation. Ensuring cost recovery, possibly by enabling people to pay more later in the registration process to create more capacity. And I'll note also that swim lessons are not just a nice to have recreational program. They're life safety in a city that's bounded by two rivers, shaped by water, and is increasing access to our waterways over time and again, I want to highlight that differentiation. On June 2nd, we talked about above the $10,000 line and below between bigger and smaller maintenance levels. I think line 11 is designed to be the greater than 10,000 per project level, and I definitely do want to put some money there. But focusing on those later lines in the spreadsheet on bathrooms, trash, Green space maintenance as well, and let the future bond conversation be the driving force on the $600 million backlog. Councilor Avalos Avalos mentioned giving new value. I know that's something the council president brought up as well. So I have a couple ideas I wanted to put in for this, some of which might be too granular to list, but I think our ideas, many of them, are district two. St. Johns community center should be open on Saturday. Like nearly every other community center, charles jordan community center should be open on Sunday. I do want to build in the interstate firehouse, cultural centers, post capital operations into the later stages of the levy. We should be investing in reducing the size of mill ends park so we can reclaim the title of smallest municipal park in the world, which I wanted to make sure I said before councilor Novick got to it. And broadly speaking, I agree with councilor Dunphy about recreation, and I want to invest in longer, larger community center hours and programing to achieve both recreation and public safety goals. I think once those boxes are checked, the rest can go into that capital maintenance line to address what the council president, I think councilor Green said preventing assets from moving into the $600 million backlog and expanding that through the preventative maintenance projects that might be above the dollar ten or the $10,000 level. My back of envelope calculation is that we got to somewhat of the same place, about $1.49 or so, with somewhere in the ballpark of 9 or $0.10 going into that capital maintenance line, as opposed to the full amounts that are in those specific sheets in the spreadsheet. But I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm pretty flexible on the exact dollar amount level, as long as that recreation and those lower lines in the spreadsheet are prioritized. Even if I think we got to somewhat of the same place as a couple of my colleagues. Thank you, madam president.
147 Thank you, councilor, and I believe everybody else in the queue has spoken to some of their priorities. So I'm going to use your intro there as an opportunity to move us a little earlier than I thought I was going to be able to, to encourage folks to think about cost also. We're not voting today. This is a work session. We're not going to get to a the majority of council is okay with x number. But as I look at the slides before us, we have options here. And again these are just representative. But we have options that range from $1.37 to $1.48 in cost. And we have some information about the way that voters support different levels of cost. And so if you have a strong opinion on doesn't matter the cost, let's just buy what we need versus what matters most is where voters are at versus I want it as high as possible so we can continue to do more or as low as possible, because I want us to be careful with doing more. If you have strong opinions here, if you can point in a direction, I think that would be helpful. Councilor Kanal was saying up to $1.49 gets what he's looking for. Personally, I'm looking at scenarios three and four because it's important to me to be able to do both some additional maintenance and some of the restoration we've looked at, and I'm looking at those two different numbers and thinking about whether I have a strong opinion. I'll weigh in a little later between 142 and 147 that we've been shown, but would love as folks are getting back in the queue to hear any direction you have on numbers as well. Councilor Green, go right ahead.
148 Great segue, because I was back in the queue to give some numbers. I, I think that I feel most comfortable at a number that's close to a buck 40. I'm willing to go up to a buck 50. I don't think we can pass this buck buck 50, and I think I'm willing to do a buck 40 because I think there's a huge opportunity for us to push back on what the numbers are really for the capital maintenance backlog. I mean, I've seen some folks back out into a $430 million backlog based upon some, some figures being counted. As you know, stc eligible. I think also we can, in the resolution, put some guidance on priorities. I really 100% support this idea that we need to be offering programing. I think you have to noticeably improve people's lives when you do things in a very short amount of time to get them on board with the larger project. So that's where I'm at. I think that we can make some choices that offer a lot of value at a buck 40, as long as we are willing to kind of push back on some some cost assumptions.
149 Thank you, councilor. Councilor Clark.
150 Thank you, madam president. S talk about rates, I was going to fail. We have to go with a winning strategy. We can't afford to fail. We don't want to have to come back in may and deal with cuts. So I'm probably more on the conservative side of the ledger here. Closer to dollar 40, dollar 42. I also think we need to look at this in the context of what else is coming. We don't know what what's going to happen between now and November. I know we're going to be talking about other revenue measures for other kinds of issues that are they're going to come before us depending on what happens at the state legislature with the transportation package, we may be facing a real crisis there and may have to look at alternative revenue. So lastly, I would say that several years ago, the governor came to town, told us not to raise taxes for three years. I have no idea where the governor is right now. I would like to know more about how she feels about us going to the ballot for an increase in the parks levy. So with that, I'll just say that I tend to, on the side of caution and concern that we put something on the ballot that we can pass.
151 Thank you, councilor, and I'll just note for all of our colleagues that I have reached out to the governor's office, I let her know about a month ago that we would be having a conversation about a parks levy, and I let her know earlier this week that we would be having that conversation today and would be getting a range of options somewhere in the I think I said either 120 to 1 50 or 1 30 to 150 range and to please let let me know, let us know if she had concerns. We've not spoken directly since I left that message, but my staff and her staff have connected as well, so I don't know if she has concerns, but she has not yet expressed them to my team and we have reached out to let her know that we would be having this conversation for exactly the reasons that you stated. I think it's important that given that she did declare that moratorium, that we're communicating about our actions here, councilor Novick.
152 I've got a few questions for staff and fellow councilors on the issue of cost recovery. I wanted to see if our parks folks could address. We, the mayor, did increase fees for certain things. So how far have we gone in the direction of increasing cost recovery? And do you think that we can go further without affecting people who can ill afford to pay more?
153 We can go further. It's complex policy making, and you have to make assumptions about how market behavior will respond. But we can and should and are going to have to take the time to be more precise. With the mayor's guidance about increasing it. And we can I mean, we should absolutely keep talking about that.
154 So is that something we can look at some numbers on before July 16th, so we can make assumptions about our number for the levy?
155 Likely not okay.
156 A question for councilor Green. You said you'd be comfortable with the buck 40. And you said that you're curious about whether we really have a $600 million backlog. I don't see I'm actually not sure how that translates. Are you saying that you wouldn't want to? I don't think we need to spend 6 million a year addressing the backlog, depending on how big the backlog is.
157 May I direct response?
158 Please? Go right ahead.
159 It's sort of a it's an indirect connection. Basically it's you know, if the urgency is, oh, we have $600 million backlog and we think it's actually closer to $430 million based upon some, some analysis that members of the community have given me, then we might be able to make the same amount of progress on a backlog at a lower number and be able to shift some of those monies towards the other priorities. But I would also like to share that I'm my office is working on trying to expand our our interpretation of sdc allowable uses. So I think there's work that we can do over the summer to stretch our maintenance dollars.
160 Okay. I just want to react to that and say that I think that 6 million a year is a piddling amount, whatever the backlog is. And so I think we have to commit something to it. I also have a question for our district two councilors, which is a couple of us have indicated that we would be okay not paying for the north Portland aquatic center with this levy. And I'm kind of assuming that both of you would say that. That's a terrible idea, but I wanted to verify that.
161 Councilor would you like to go first? I have a strong opinion here, so.
162 I think it's probably the same as mine. So but I do think it's a terrible idea. I'm in the queue and I'll give you more later on.
163 My opinion is actually less about being a district two councilor, and more just about money and how we do things at the city in general. If we don't account for costs somewhere, whether in the levy or in general fund or split between the two, then we're going to have more assets come online that we can't afford to use, and we're going to have more budget crises down the road. And given that I don't see new money appearing for us in the general fund anytime soon, and I didn't see us very willing to cut costs on many things this time around, I think it would be highly irresponsible for us to not account for the cost of any new asset, not just this one coming online in the future.
164 Councilor I'm not talking about not accounting for it. I'm talking about just not doing it. Prospective. Just we just don't open the north Portland aquatic center.
165 You know, we should have a further conversation offline. But I think about how in parks you have your neighborhood park that is your small swing set open patch of land, you have your regional park, which maybe has some more, some more draw to it, some ball fields, things like that. And then you have your destination park, which is one of only 1 or 2 in the city that have the asset there. And I've been thinking about our pools that way too. You have your outdoor pool for your general part of the city. That's fun in the summer. And then you have your community center with an indoor pool that can be used year round. There's fewer of those, and we don't yet have that citywide asset for when we need big spaces. So I I'd love to have a further conversation with you offline about how this is part of a citywide need that we don't have right now.
166 Okay. Thank you.
167 Councilor Morillo.
168 Thank you, madam president. I guess I don't feel the need to acquiesce to the governor's request that we don't do anything regarding taxes or the parks levy, because I wasn't elected to defend her positions. I was elected to defend district three and district three really loves parks and wants to make sure that we're taking care of them. I would also say that she has not done us the honor of really consulting us on preschool for all, something that's really important to my constituents as well. So I don't think that should be a barrier to us in making decisions that we were elected to make. My main concern was that the $30 increase, I thought would be quite heavy for constituents, but given that we heard that it's going to be closer to $12, I feel comfortable with that. And I think that we need to ensure that we do have money for maintenance and other projects. So I'm personally leaning more towards the 147 at this point. I also think that we really need to ensure that business groups and the metro chamber have a very clear understanding that the reason portlanders choose to live in the city, and the number one reason that they stated in the insight survey for living here is access to natural spaces and parks. This is what makes our city incredibly beautiful. It makes it worth living in. And in a time where the federal government is pitting people against each other, we need public spaces where people can congregate and get to know their neighbors. So I hope that we will be able to have a good working relationship with them on that, and that they will understand that our parks are a huge asset for businesses, and to make our city a place where people actually want to be. So I'm leaning towards the 147. I think that we I agree that we probably can't go over 150 just given the polling, but I think that we have to we have to try and our parks are facing an existential threat right now. So that's where I'm at.
169 Thank you, councilor Councilor Kanal.
170 Thank you madam. Thank you, madam president. So just to clarify, earlier, I was saying 149 was, I think, the maximum of the range I was looking at. I think it depends how much we put into the capital maintenance side. I'm also open to doing a $1.40 again depending on what we're prioritizing. I generally just want to let the bond conversation drive maintenance and the levy conversation drive operations for now. While I also agree completely with councilor Clark that we need to get off the merry go round over the next five years, and I understand this conversation is around parks, and it's fair to say d2 has more assets in community centers relative to the other three districts, and that the aggregate of d two, three and four has more Green space assets relative to district one. There are other topics where we've chosen to invest in other districts more. And that's okay. I just want to point out I don't want to have my district both left out on sidewalks and paving and not have the new parks programs that we're talking about be be possible separately. This not just about districts. I want to defend the importance of the interstate firehouse cultural center to the black community, regardless of what district or frankly, city people live in. Now, I want to defend the importance of saint john's community center and the future north Portland aquatic center to the people in northwest Portland who come up because it's the closest, it's the closest to them. And I think we've talked about this where some of my district wanted to defend Montavilla, even though it's in district three, because it's the closest one to them. Based on where you live, district lines don't necessarily reflect what's closest to you. On the parks cost recovery issue. I just want to add that we do have really great access discounts. And this is not about raising the cost on the people who can't afford to pay more. It's providing a new tier of higher cost registration spots for those who can't afford to pay more, but can't find a spot, and allowing those above recovery level registration spots to subsidize lower cost programs for everyone. And I know this is a conversation that's been had at a lower level or a lighter level, I should say, at the parks board. I know that because I helped start it there myself. I cosigned councilor Green's point about the sdcs and expanding their allowable uses. And then just one last thing on the north Portland aquatic center, I think I want to get out of the scarcity mindset associated with we need to have everything be at the bare minimum level. That is possible. I think it's okay to say that that we should have a world class facility. I think that's a thing we should strive to. We have to be responsible about the finances with it, and that's good. But as I've been saying, for what feels like forever now, we can have nice things and Portland deserves them. Thank you, madam president.
171 Councilor.
172 Councilor Avalos.
173 Definitely agree with that last point of councilor Kanal. I have been pretty open about my feelings that we need to go as high as we possibly can. I don't feel as spooked, I guess, by the polls. I think that the polls do show that there's some appetite, and I think that there is potential. I've already stated, and I'm serious, that I'm committed to ensuring this levy success. And we'll put all of my, you know, people power into it. Just listening to what my colleagues are saying. I mean, it definitely sounds like the average is more in the one 40s. I would I mean, I'm only one person, so I think I'm outnumbered on that front, but I would feel most comfortable with the 150 at a minimum. And I think just to buy a couple more cents up above these couple of scenarios that have been provided, I would not accept anything under 140 for sure, but 150 is really my starting place at this point. Thanks.
174 Thank you councilor Councilor Koyama Lane.
175 Thank you council president I agree, I want to go as high as we can where we also really think we can win. I'm also looking at scenarios two, three, four. So that's 142 to 148. And coming back to what councilor Kanal just said, I agree that we can focus on preserving things like the access discounts and also really support kids and families that already qualify for free and reduced lunch. I know that's a way that a lot of families can get the support that they need, and I don't know if this is in your wheelhouse as a consultant, but I'm actually interested in like, what are some good slogans we can have depending on what numbers we land on? So I'd be interested to hear. I'm like joking and not joking there.
176 Maybe we can get back to you with some slogans. Councilor Novick. Do you have comments you can make in 30s or less?
177 Yes. I just wanted to note that if we go below 147, then we have to either cut something or we have to say that we're not going to invest in capital maintenance. So we'd have to decide what that is.
178 That's right. And I think I heard across the dais today things that were more priorities, not things that folks were more interested in cutting. But I think the blanks are the are the spaces where folks might be willing to cut what I would ask our team at the table to do over the next week or so, as you write out some language for us to look at, noting that it needs to be filed pretty soon is to take the remarks you heard today and the things that are priorities, and figure out what it is we heard. Push as high as you can and push as low as you can within those priorities. But if we really focus on the need, driving the cost, what it is to hit the priorities that you've heard from councilors that we would land on as a number. And I did hear most people naming numbers between 140 and 150. Councilor Avalos I'll note the exception that 150 was really your floor of what you'd like to see. The 140 was the floor of your comfort level, and to see if there's something that gets us counselors priorities and lands in that area to bring back to us colleagues, we need to end because staff have said they can turn this room over in 15 minutes for councilor Avalos committee meeting. So I'm going to cut us off here. Thank you all for the time today for this discussion. I think we got a fair bit of the way toward where we need to be in terms of being able to bring something to this body at our July meeting to send to the ballot. So thank you all for being a part of the conversation. And with that, I will close our work session. The horses that.
179 We had a technical hiccup in this work session that just happened. So we will be starting at 1215. Thank you. Absolutely.
180 That's not.
181 Over in the office.
182 Yeah.
183 Not yet, but perhaps kind of towards the third item when it's a presentation and they kind of have some discussion, but. And if not, 230 is fine. I had a pretty big breakfast. So say that again. I have a feeling I'll probably just get the tie sauce all over the m