The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-08-06
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (34,958 words), shown in readable case and split into speaker turns. Speakers are not yet identified (colors just separate consecutive turns). Auto-captions can contain errors — check the recording for anything that matters.
Session summaryEditor-reviewed
Portland City Council convened its regular session on Wednesday, August 6, 2025, with roll call establishing attendance of the full body. Following the statement of conduct, the meeting recognized visiting high school students and proceeded to agenda approval, with several items pulled from consent and one item rescheduled to September. Public communications included testimony on policing and small business safety concerns, city affordability and tax burden, homelessness policy and shelter timelines, and general council performance since the transition to the new form of government. The City Administrator presented a monthly report, prompting discussion of budget note tracking, general fund revenue figures that were described inconsistently among speakers, homeless services spending, and processes for appropriating grant funds. The council then acted on a consent agenda and several regular agenda items, including a police retiree-rehire letter of agreement, an eminent domain authorization for a transportation safety project, a resolution directing development of a unified housing strategy, and a resolution requiring a citywide asset management strategy. Discussion also covered a proposed council rule on tie-breaking procedures, a property trade between city and state transportation agencies with an added emergency clause, and confirmation of appointments to the Portland Clean Energy Fund Committee and the Portland Utility Board. Votes occurred throughout the session, with outcomes recorded in the vote ledger. The meeting recessed to continue the following afternoon.
AI-drafted from the session's auto-captions, reviewed by an editor — describes the discussion only; recorded votes live in the vote ledger. Captions contain errors.
Procedural markers in this session
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0 Good morning. It is 932 on August. Wednesday, August 6th I am calling to order today's city council meeting. Keelan, could you please call the roll Koyama Lane.
1 Here? Mario? Here. Novick here. Clerk. Here. Green. Here. Zimmerman. Here. Avalos.
2 Present.
3 Here. Smith. Canal. Here. Pirtle-guiney here.
4 Did you say me?
5 You scared? I think we skipped councilor. Ryan.
6 I'm cool. Ryan.
7 I'm out.
8 I'm so interested in how you're going to vote under my name for the rest of the meeting.
9 Oh, we all are. Yeah.
10 I'm here as well.
11 Thank you.
12 Thank you. And I believe. Is that lauren back there? Hi, lauren. Could you please read our statement of conduct? Yes. Thank you.
13 Welcome to the Portland city council. To testify before council in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the council agenda at wwe Portland. Agenda. Information on engaging with council can be found on the council clerk's webpage. Individuals may testify for three minutes unless presiding officer states otherwise. Your microphone will be muted when your time is over. Presiding officer preserves order disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others testimony or council deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, council may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony should address the matter being considered. When testifying, state your name for the record. Your address is not necessary. If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent. Virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the council clerk calls your name. Thank you.
14 Thank you very much. Colleagues. We have a number of agenda items before us, but before we get started, I do believe we have some guests from one of our high schools here today. The centennial constitution team is here with us.
15 Sorry.
16 Oh. Central catholic. I'm sorry. I thought my colleague said centennial. That's my bad hearing. The central catholic constitution team is here with us today. Thank you all for being here. It's great to have guests at our meetings. We hope that you enjoy getting to watch some of our deliberations. And I know some of our colleagues were following your season on the constitution team this past year. We hope it's a great year this coming year as well. Folks from the district, do any of you want to add anything?
17 Just thanks for being here. It was fun to. It was fun to say hi to you quickly this morning. And you might see on social media that there are a lot of internship opportunities in city hall. And so it's maybe something you can be looking forward to doing at some point. Glad you're here.
18 So it's an honor to have you here as a former central catholic constitution team coach myself, and as a 30 year friend of jeff stuckert. And I need to tell you what, jeff stuckert story back in the 1996 wide Smith senate race, it was a very negative campaign. And then the polling showed that people were really tired of being negative. So ron widen's entire campaign for the last three weeks was about he was how he was only going to be positive. And jeff stuckert, who at that point I think was maybe 21 years old, somehow was aware of an ancient song from like the 40s called accentuate the positive they're afraid of, which is accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative. Don't mess with mister in-between. I don't know what that last part means. And so because of jeff zucker, that was the theme song of the winning campaign and doubtless the key to victory.
Procedural episode · turns 19–27
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19 Thank you. Councilor councilor Morillo. Are you in the queue?
20 Yeah. Hi everyone. So good to see you. I did not realize that you were a constitution team coach today, so I just learned something new about councilor Novick. I was on the constitution team as well, and I thought it was such an incredible opportunity to learn about our country's values and what we're supposed to stand for. And I could not imagine a more important thing for you to be studying right now in this political moment. So thank you for everything that you're doing, and I look forward to seeing how you use that knowledge to fight for our democracy alongside us in the years to come.
21 Thank you, councilors, and I'll note that we have a number of other students here with us today as well. And one of the best parts of breaks from school, summer and other breaks is that we get to have students joining us from all sorts of different schools and all sorts of different ages of kids who are here. So thank you all for being here with us today. Colleagues, we are moving to agenda approval. I will note that two items have been pulled from consent, and we've actually gotten a request to pull a third item from the consent agenda, item eight, which needs to have an emergency clause added to it. So I'm going to ask that we pull item eight from the consent agenda, as well as items nine and ten that have already been pulled. We had a request to reschedule agenda item 14, which is vision zero to September. I believe 17th is the evening meeting in September. In order to have more time to organize supporters, to be here, to speak to the importance of vision zero. So those four items are being moved around on or pulled from the agenda. Is there a motion to accept the agenda with those changes?
22 Moved?
23 I'm going to take that as a motion from Novick and a second from Dunphy. Can I take that? Okay. Is there are there any objections to approving the agenda as amended? Okay. Seeing none, can we adopt by unanimous consent? Fantastic. Thank you. The next item on our agenda is public communication. Keelan, could you please call up our guests today?
24 First up for public communications, we have karen cherry.
25 Welcome, karen. Thank you for being here.
26 Thank you.
27 My name is karen cherry.
28 I'm a lifelong Portland resident, a resident owner in district four and a member of stadiumred. And today I'm speaking in regards to my business as a business owner in district four. For all those councilors that are wanting to defund the police, I've testified multiple times during the budget session that we should not do that. And I have evidence right here, 120 page books filled out completely with people that have done wrong to my store in the since November. I now have ten cases currently of people that were arrested since April. At my store. I had an incident last night where somebody tried to steal from me and I tried to citizen's arrest him, and he pushed his way past me. And if it were not for the Portland police that found the guy and apprehended him, this guy would have gotten away with it and did some other crime to some other business or some unsuspecting person. So I'm going to look you all in the eye and tell you to stop saying that the police are bad and that we need to defund them because there's criminals on our street every single day. And I am proof right here of all the cases, that right now I'm having to testify at grand juries Monday. Testify grand jury for a guy that tried to light my business on fire because he didn't get $40. Businesses around my business are closing in droves. It is a desert of business. I'm trying to hire employees, but I have these incidents that happen all the time, and nobody wants to work at our store because it's dangerous. And you guys go around and say the police are bad or or defund the police, but they're the only ones that are stepping up and taking action on these people. So when's it going to stop? When are you going to realize that these people are so important to our community because there's so many bad people walking around our streets that you have no idea. You try running a business in downtown Portland and tell me that we don't need police. People are getting killed. People are getting stabbed, businesses are getting ruined. And I'm proof. So I encourage any one of you to come to my business and work for a couple hours and see what I've been experiencing. Thank you.
29 Thank you karen.
30 Next up we have rob galanakis.
31 Welcome. Thank you for being here.
32 Thank you. Good morning, councilors, and thank you for your time. My name is rob galanakis. I'm a district three resident, pta president, neighborhood association board member, bike bus, pdx organizer, soccer coach, and most importantly, dad to these two amazing kids I dragged here this morning who can finally tell their friends they're on youtube. I grew up in new york where sports fans hate their sports teams. Giants missed the playoffs. Bums. Knicks lose the championship. Bums. Mets go down in game seven. Bums. The biggest culture shock moving to Portland 11 years ago was seeing how we respect our teams and their players. Even when things don't go our way. I'm supposed to sit here and bend your ear about something bothering me like a new yorker should. Maybe I've been in Portland too long. I'm instead going to tell you that the city is moving in a direction that has me more excited than ever. Portland over the last decade was coasting on the fumes of former glory. The last administration blew one of the great American success stories with a total lack of vision and leadership. But our leaders have changed. We finally have a mayor who is willing to stand up to nimbys and cite homeless shelters in the face of opposition. We had a budget process that was community informed and transparent. We have a viable plan to finish our sidewalk network, support for alternate emergency services and urgency for zoning reform, renewed commitment to ending fatalities on our streets, and maybe even an mlb team at an amazing location. But and you knew there'd be a but, the years ahead are going to be even more challenging. You know this is true, so I won't go into it here. Cuts are coming that are going to make this budget cycle look quaint. But if you ask anyone who's navigated through a recession, here's what they tell you. Focus on your fans. You don't focus on your fans to protect your ego. You focus on your fans because they know you know they're the ones who come through. So many of us are working so hard to make the city better, but you lose fans when you're spending time courting haters and skeptics. You cannot have fans of both a bike network and abundant free parking, fans of low cost housing and large single family lots, fans of equitable social services and low taxes. Splitting the difference between fans and haters only burns out your fans and encourages your haters. Focus on your fans. Keep the traffic diverters in northwest that are being removed without public process, and reduce traffic on greenways citywide with more modal filtering. Focus on your fans immediately. Pursue inner eastside for all zoning reforms before interest rates drop, so we're ready to build more housing. Focus on your fans, permit community installation of crosswalks and daylighting. Make free outdoor dining permits and plazas a permanent part of our city's streetscape. Focus on your fans. Put protected bike lanes on sandy to recommit to the urban ideals that made Portland a model city in the first place. Focus on your fans. We're here, we're working, and we're rooting for Portland. Thank you for your time.
33 Thank you very much.
34 Next up we have nadine mazursky joining us online.
35 Welcome, vadim.
36 Oh thank you. Good morning councilors I'm here to address a crisis that threatens the very soul of our beloved Portland. It's escalating. Unaffordability this issue, driven by high costs, burdensome fees and excessive taxes, is acting, is actively driving away good jobs and preventing new residents from calling our city home. First, let's talk about the cost of living. Portland. Overall cost of living is a staggering 17% higher than the national average. Housing and property taxes in particular are major barrier, costing 40% 46% more than the us average. Beyond housing, daily essentials like groceries, transportation, healthcare are also significantly more expensive here. This relentless accumulation of expenses is widely described by residents as, quote, death by a thousand cuts. Compounding this, our city's cumulative tax burden is simply unsustainable. We are currently facing a proposed 75% hike to the parks levy. This is just one example in a long list of incremental increases when you combine city, county and state levies, Portland residents can face a combined income tax of nearly 14.8% for middle to income from middle to upper income families, earning between 50,000 and 150,000 annually. Portland's effective tax rate is notably the second highest, surpassed only by los angeles. For families earning more, Portland has the highest effective tax rate in the country, unless you make more than 250 million, in which case new york city is higher. In a recent best states to move to report, consumer affairs ranked oregon's affordability as 47th in the country, followed only by hawaii, new york and california. This ranking was based on regional parity, price parity, median income, median housing costs, and as a share of income and the state tax burden. Of course, costs and taxes are higher important than other parts of the state. This substantial burden is reportedly driving families and businesses out of the Portland area, and keeping families and businesses from moving here. This economic fallout is clear Oregon job growth is stagnant, ranking just 23rd nationally at 1.1%. Our city's population has declined by nearly 6% in 2000 since 2020, meaning that more people are moving out than moving in these. This isn't just numbers, it's a brain drain of young career building families and a loss of vital human capital that our city desperately needs for future prosperity. Councilors, we must act decisively to stop the squeeze and reverse these trends. I urge you to prioritize lowering taxes and fees. This means critically reevaluating property levies, exploring alternative funding, implementing aggressive cost cutting measures within city bureaus. We must also streamline regulations and advocate at the state level for comprehensive tax reform that makes Portland competitive. Again. Our future depends on making Portland a place where everyone can afford to live, work, and build a life. Let's ensure our city remains vibrant, diverse and prosperous for generations to come. Thank you.
37 Thank you very much.
38 Next up we have alan combs.
39 Welcome, alan. Thank you for being here.
40 Thank you.
41 All right.
42 Good morning, president pirtle-guiney and councilors. My name is alan combs. I've lived in district three for 25 years. Mayor wilson received a strong mandate from Portland voters over 40% in the first round. I don't think anyone on this council received even 25% of the first round show of support. He earned that support from Portland residents by presenting a clear, positive message to end unsheltered housing, unsheltered homelessness by December 1st, 2025. That deadline is just 120 days away. As a resident, a voter and person with a day job, I've been tracking as best I can how the council is supporting this plan. I don't see any partnership for success and said I see diversionary tactics and foot dragging. What would show true support, the support that portlanders want. Let me highlight a few. First, given the impact of give impacted neighbors a bone, the backlash in district fours, old town, pearl, and slabtown neighborhood may seem as classic nimbyism, but honestly, what did you expect since the mayor and city staff can't even describe how you will keep the streets safe and clean around the shelters? Where is councilor? Where's council on adopting stronger engagement zone ordinances? Or at least putting forward a model good neighbor agreement? The best mayor wilson and his head of Portland solutions could offer is that they could call into biweekly problem solver meetings with the city's environmental environmental management team, or pmo. I mean, honestly, I mean, are you kidding me? Second scale, why are we only talking about 1 or 2 sites in one district? Where's the plan to scale this program up? Where can you leverage existing relationships with neighborhood councils and get the plan communicated? Third, legal teeth council passed its daytime camping ban in 2023. Where's the plan to implement it citywide? Implementing it should be easier now, since the martin v boise has been overturned. But why haven't you worked with state lawmakers or your legislature teamed with lawmakers to get house bill 3001 15 amendment amended. Why does city council actively work to keep it? Unempowered fourth, safety first pedestrian deaths continue to disproportionately impact the unhoused before my eyes and the staff of the city impact reduction team, I see unhoused campers being forced to move their tents from one prohibited block simply by moving a couple blocks over to a worse block, in my case, along high speed cesar chavez boulevard, an area where camping is explicitly prohibited. Why does council's so-called vision zero not incorporate ordinances or emergency measures to increase the ability of law enforcement to get unsafe encampments moved? And why is there still no plan to mandate transport of people who chronically camp in prohibited areas to available shelters? Finally, real coordination and leadership. If this is a mandate of the mayor, why haven't you been having weekly meetings with him in special sessions, putting him on the agenda of a council committee, as is, I think, going on next week with housing and homelessness is I just see as a cynical move for delay. Council president pirtle-guiney, I urge you to schedule weekly full council sessions focused on unsheltered housing until we see measurable progress. You have 120 days. Thank you.
43 Thank you very much.
44 Next up we have todd littlefield.
45 Welcome, todd. Thank you for being here.
46 Thank you. How come I didn't get a welcome?
47 I did actually say a welcome as you were walking up. I'm sorry. Go right ahead todd.
48 Todd littlefield d1. Just my observations and reviews of the first several months. I was supposed to come here and talk about training advisory council, but that has some more process to go through. What are your responsibilities? Oversight, budget policies, oversight? What have you done? Have you determined if the bureaus are the right size? How do you pass a budget without answering? Digging deep, talking with the ground floor employees and working your way up to the dcas you all relied on the dcas. It's backwards. It's impossible to achieve true accountability and oversight to budget. You passed one, albeit with little oversight. You raised taxes and fees, which creates inflation for those who can least afford it. In a city with the second highest taxes in America. If you ask residents, are they pleased with the amount of tax and fees they pay for the service? They receive? Answer is probably no. Policies. You passed a noise ordinance. That's your priority, your focus. Portlanders understand we have a new form of government with almost all new city councilors. You all have a lot of work to do. You all have a lot to work through. It was to be expected. Not a lot would be accomplished, but to complain you have to sit for two, three, five, eight hours in a day, a couple times a week. How do residents react? I think most residents, myself included, had really high expectations, believe they were going to finally have representation. District one has no representation, at least not Lents. Zero of our needs or concerns have been addressed, much less resolved. Council president, all things considered, you've done a fantastic job. Lastly, lastly, what must you focus on? Have you talked to the residents who have left Portland and asked why? Why did they leave? Have you talked to the businesses who have left and asked them why have they left? How many jobs have left? There are many, many more residents looking to leave. There are many more businesses on the brink of or closing. Their answers must guide your priorities and what your focus must be. We need you to succeed. Thank you.
49 Thank you very much for being here today with us.
50 That completes communications.
51 Thank you. Keelan colleagues. The next item on our agenda is the committee referral list. Since our last meeting, I have referred a proposal to amend small donor elections code to adopt recommendations from the Portland elections committee, commission to governance, amend parking space reservation code to allow for flexibility in distribution and responsibilities to transportation and infrastructure. Authorize the use of disparity studies to inform and support minority contracting opportunities to labor and workforce development. Appointments to the revenue division. To the finance committee. Assessing property for system development. Charge contracts in the private plumbing and private plumbing loan contracts to the finance committee. Amending city code to reduce permit submittal requirements and temporarily suspend development upgrade requirements to the housing and homelessness committee. The next item on our agenda is the city administrator report. Mr. Jordan, would you like to go over some highlights?
52 Sure. Thank you, madam president, and members of the council, you have the report. I believe it came to you last week. A few changes. We've added a budget note tracker to the report, so you'll get that monthly. It kind of shows when during the fiscal year we're engaging on those. And I know many of you know that there's also other either small groups, working groups of the council that are working with staff on a number of the a number of the notes. So it won't be the only communication, but wanted to make sure we're keeping up with all the notes on a regular basis. Second, you'll see in each service area that we spend an awful lot of time talking about the problems we have and the things we need to do. But wanted to add just a little shout out in each service area to somebody who's doing a good job or is accomplished a milestone. So I wanted to mix in a little bit of upbeat news into the into the monthly report. So you'll see that there. And I mentioned this last month, but we're still kind of under construction. But I expect in September that you'll have an addendum to the report that will be about all the contracts that we are issuing at the city. So with that, I'll give you some time back, but I'm happy to answer questions if I can.
53 Thank you, mr. Jordan. Colleagues, are there any questions about either mr. Jordan's overview or the written city administrator report this month? Councilor Koyama Lane.
54 Can we hear the shout out?
55 Of course. Of course you can count. Oh, hear a shout. I'm sorry. I thought you said you were going to give a shout out.
56 I'm if you can. If you can do it quickly.
57 I was ready for that.
58 You know.
59 Maybe. Let me pick one here. So special thanks to the state team for their work during the recent legislative session. Working with professionalism, clear communication, collaboration and tireless hard work, I wanted to thank them for their work. Also, the federal team, as they continue to navigate all of the challenges that I know you are all well aware of. You may or may not know, and certainly the public may not know this, but the city of Portland, in my 40 years of experience here, has not always done so well at the state legislature. It is not necessarily a friendly place to the city quite often, but even in a difficult budget session in the state legislature, the city of Portland probably did as well, if not better than they've done in many, many years. And so a big shout out to that state team. It really they really did a huge job this year. So thank you.
60 Thank you. Councilor Green.
61 Thank you, madam president. I just want to give a shout out to the city administrator. Mr. Jordan, I really appreciate the inclusion of the appendix a, the budget note tracker. I know that city council included a lot of budget notes in addition to the mayor's proposed. This is a really helpful dashboard to get a sense of not just where we're at, but also the array of issues that that are considered. And I think it should be a really useful tool. Colleagues, for how we sequence our committee work over the next year. So thank you for that.
62 Thank you.
63 Thank you, councilor, councilor Ryan.
64 Yes.
65 Thank you, madam president. Hello, city administrator michael jordan, on that note about the budget notes, I'd like to hear from you what you think would be the best course of action as we work with bureaus where, say, one of us brought the budget note to you, we're obviously attached to it. This is a new day. I want to hear from you what that looks like.
66 Thank you. Councilor. You know, we've tried to set up a bit of a protocol that the deputy city administrators of the service areas or the kind of the primary point of contact, although I certainly understand that all of you can and should reach out to staff if you feel there's a piece of information that you should be getting from them directly.
67 But when we do that, would you suggest what emails that have a cc to the city to the dca?
68 Yep, definitely. And we are obviously with 7000 staff, it takes a little time to build a new culture, but we are encouraging also the staff to make sure the dca is involved or at least understands when we're working on something with council specifically to the budget notes. I know that many of you have particular interests. I'll say, by way of example, we've had the officers, the communications, engagement and equity officers reaching out to a subset of you who had budget notes that had to do with the realignments that were going through with those service areas, if you will. And I think that is and certainly there are counselors here that know a lot about that and would invite their comments. But I think that's a step forward in our ability to have a cross branch relationship about how we move forward on these budget notes. I will say of the 29 budget notes, there are probably 17 ish of them that are. I hate to say this, but probably no brainers. We're going to do them. We're going to get them done. We'll get them, get get the information, make the changes and information to you and all the rest. There are about a dozen of them that present some challenges. Either their deadline challenges, their challenges in the information that needs to be gathered to actually make progress. Some of them involve resources that we're struggling to figure out how we do. So we'll be reaching out, particularly to those sponsors of those 12 notes, to talk about how we can move forward more effectively and get to the end that you were trying to get to with the note.
69 Thank you for distinguishing between the no brainers and the challenges. And when would we expect?
70 I think you can expect contacts during this month outreach regarding those those budget notes.
71 I appreciate that.
72 Thank you. You bet.
73 Thank you, councilor Councilor Kanal.
74 Thank you, madam president. Thank you for the report. Mr. Jordan. I've noted for months that this is an iterative process and I expect it to be perfect would be unfair. So I want to take the time to recognize the specific progress you and your team have made with gratitude. First, the budget note tracker. I appreciate the proactivity of it. And, you know, not waiting for us to ask to see how each one was going. Second, I wanted to highlight the information on the relaunch of the repair restore grant, which councilor Ryan proposed, and I'd also proposed putting funding back into for the budget. I appreciated the shout out to ovp, and I think it's a good opportunity to take the time to say that the work of the office of violence prevention, among many other parts of the city, is part of why gun violence in Portland is tracking at pre-pandemic levels for the first time since 2020. I do have some questions and I'll keep it to three, just there's three that are part of the budget notes I introduced as tbd needs more discussion. Should we be expecting to be reaching out to us for that discussion? Yes. Okay. Second, can we expect some detail on zimmerman's 17, which is the budget note related to ice by next month?
75 I would I would say yes, but I would have to check in and see where we are on that. Okay. I don't know. Off the top of my head.
76 Okay. I'm happy to follow up. That one's marked as you or robert taylor, so I'm happy to follow up with whoever.
77 Thank you.
78 You'd prefer. And then the third thing you mentioned in the up at the top about the. Decommissioning of the sunderland rv park, there was a budget note that was proposed from the district two councilors that that didn't end up getting considered due to time constraints on the budget process. Asking for information on that process is the first part of page two decommissioning it, and I wanted to get a better piece of information, if possible, about the progress towards that and what the plan is for the rvs that would have gone there is that I know we didn't do that, but I because of the we didn't have a chance to vote on it. But I wanted to ask either online or offline and if we can include at minimum my colleagues on from district two in that information.
79 Okay, I've been talking to the mayor.
80 I can have a Portland solutions reach out and we can work on that with you. Certainly. Thank you. You bet.
81 Thank you, madam president.
82 I have some updates. Okay, cool.
83 Councilor Smith.
84 Thank you, madam president. Thank you, city administrator, for our report this month. Looks like we have some some good news. The general fund revenues are up by 52 million ahead of budget projections. When did the city administrator become aware of that?
85 I can't answer the question, madam councilor. I can, maybe I know jonas is here, but I'm not sure where or when that became evident that there was. And I'm not even actually sure the dynamics behind that statement. So I'm going to have to look into it.
86 Yeah, I wanted to figure out if it was before or after the budget, because those are $52 million that we should be appropriating. And will those dollars be pushed to the fall bump?
87 Let me get back to you about that.
88 Okay. Homeless services costs appear to be up by 18% to date. What do you believe is driving this cost of increase?
89 I don't I don't know what's driving the cost at this early stage of the year. So let me get back to you about what's driving cost. It's possible that we're certainly I know we're bringing on shelter services at a pretty heavy clip this time of the fiscal year, trying to meet the mayor's goal of 1500 beds by December 1st. So I would imagine that we would be spending at a higher rate than what would be an even amount in the budget across early in the budget year.
90 Yeah, I don't mean spending at a higher rate. There was a note that said that it was up 18% in. My last question is how can we learn? I want to better understand how to do this, because I did a 912 spec in February, but I want to find out how can we learn more about the sources and purposes of the 100 active and pending nonfederal grants that total $291 million? What I was specifically asking for in my 9/12 amendment was to know line by line, where the money is coming from, what date it came in, and what is it supposed to be used for, and to have it put on the agenda so we could appropriate it?
91 My understanding, councilor from your previous piece of legislation is that we would be periodically bringing budget amendments to you for. Any grant monies that hadn't already been appropriated. So I can look into that.
92 Right. And so I guess what, I'm under the nonfederal grants in your report, you identified $291 million that has not been appropriated to a particular bureau or department. And going back to my 912, it it asked for as soon as the money comes in within 15 days. And that leads me to my last question. Should I put that in ordinance form? Because I did do it in resolution, because I don't think that the administration is following the 15 days we requested that within 15 days of those funds coming in, they should be noted. Instead of waiting for your report, your monthly report, I don't think that's fair to add those, we need to know which ones are the difference.
93 Let me have somebody come to you specifically regarding that. I believe we've interacted a number of times on that issue over the past few months, and.
94 I thought that we were supposed to be noted in council meeting, not over email, not in a meeting that we should be notified within 15 days of new money coming in and how much it is and where it is supposed to go, and so that we can appropriate those dollars as they come in, especially this $52 million that I'm really concerned about, that we have more. I was told that it was, you know, more property tax money came in than we originally thought. And I'm really concerned that this money was known about before the budget. And we had some struggles at the end of the budget of trying to do a balanced budget and to find out that we have $52 million that we should have been appropriating. And now we're we have 52 million to the good. I don't think that's that's appropriate.
95 Thank you. Councilor, I don't believe that we had 52 million that we didn't know we had, or if we knew we had it, we didn't account for it in the budget process. So let me get back to you on that.
96 Thank you. Did you have something to say, cfo?
97 Yeah, councilor Just was going to just state exactly what what city administrator just suggested. I'm not aware of money that's above forecast, and certainly there isn't any that's not been appropriated in the budget that council just passed. So I look forward to I can follow up with you and staff to figure out kind of where that miscommunication is happening.
98 And okay. And that's great because I know the beti monies don't come in until late, and sometimes we get more money from the business community than we originally thought, but those dollars should come back to council so that we can appropriate those dollars. And I just want to make sure that they're not just sitting in a fund so that the mayor can appropriate them for, for fiscal year 2627. That is our job to do for this fiscal year. And I want to be clear on that, that that is our responsibility.
99 Yeah. Understood and agree. And I would also just flag for council and for folks in the room and watching. We will have that discussion with council in the fall for that fall adjustment.
100 Right. That's what my original question was. Was this money going to be pushed over to the fall bump?
101 Yes.
102 I just wanted councilors to know that this is our money to appropriate, not the mayor's money to put in a contingency fund or to put in his homeless efforts.
103 Correct. So any additional resources, if any, that are available, will be up for discussion by council and decision by council in that fall adjustment ordinance, which is still being scheduled for this for this fall.
104 Thank you.
105 Mr. Berry. I think now that we've had the discussion up here, once we have an answer about what those funds are, we should make sure to send that out to all councilors so that everybody has the same information.
106 Madam president, if I may.
107 Go right ahead.
108 I want to make it clear to councilor Smith and to the council. Everyone is well aware that nobody gets to appropriate money. But this council. Nobody.
109 Thank you, mr. Jordan.
110 I know what my job is.
111 Is some follow up information that we'll get out to everybody. And, councilor Smith, I know there have been a number of conversations about how to make sure we get the information from your 912.
112 In a timely manner. Yeah.
113 Understood. I'm happy to help make sure that we are all getting the information that we voted for there, if that's helpful. And follow up, I councilor Koyama Lane.
114 Thank you, madam president. I just wanted to highlight and shout out both you, council president and city administrator jordan, who I know have had many conversations and done a lot of work to talk about how to make this report easy to read and align with what we need to see. Not the content of it, but the different sections. And I know that that all of the time spent on that collaboration is really important. And we see it here. I want to shout out that work that is oftentimes invisible work that we don't always see and can can go unseen. And we all thank you from the benefits of it, because we see how that came out in this report. Thank you.
115 Thank you. Council vice president councilor Kanal.
116 Yeah, I apologize, I forgot a question or two here. So just to clarify the claims information and I'm looking at page 13 with the water bureau and police settlements, I know we have some coming up for both of those. That doesn't include anything that we're talking about today or tomorrow. Correct. The amounts. No.
117 I don't believe so.
118 Thanks. On page 21, there is a item that is marked as the mayor's office, which is the fifth line alleges ordinance criminalizing unhoused portlanders is unreasonable, cruel and unlawful. And it's marked as bureau resolved for a total of $255,000. What would be the best way to get information on that? In an open meeting?
119 I would say through patrick hughes at risk management would be the best way to get information about any of these line items, including that one.
120 Great. Thanks. And then just to clarify on a comment that you just made, actually, as we're shifting speakers. When there was an item reported where there was an agreement made by the mayor's office with ODOT that ODOT would pay for the creation of a fence to harden an area under 405 from camping, but that the city would commit to the ongoing maintenance of that. And so, just in line with the comment you made about only council can appropriate dollars, we haven't voted on that. So how does that square with the idea that we can enter into multiyear funding commitments?
121 Well, councilor, I thank you for the question. I haven't looked at the agreement. That particular intergovernmental agreement, but most all of our agreements as a matter of form, if we're making a commitment over multiple years that there is a non appropriations clause in the agreement, and if this council chooses in a future year to not appropriate for enough money for the to meet whatever obligation the city has signed up for that there's a non appropriations clause in those agreements if they're multi-year.
122 Meaning effectively that if we would not put money in the budget for that, that the contract.
123 If you so chose to not appropriate that we would not have to meet the obligation in that agreement. And that that's pretty standard form for all of our multi-year agreements. Thank you. You bet.
124 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Smith, did you have something additional?
125 Oh, yeah. I just wanted to add the fact that the mayor and the city administrator, they do have the ability to go into contract and write contracts without our. Ability. One of those contracts was the permitting contract with the state of Oregon that they went into agreement with even before we finished our budget. So those kinds of things, it gives us this feeling that we're not being told all the information, even though you do have the ability to write contracts and to go into contracts. But I think it was just a little bit too early to go into that contract. And we had not even voted on the budget. And so we took our permitting process and we subbed it out to the state of Oregon. But they do have the ability to write contracts without our knowledge.
126 Thank you, councilor, for pointing that out. And I think generally we are trying to make sure we find out about those, even if it is after the fact. But you're right that sometimes that information is after the fact. It's not asking for us to weigh in. It's letting us know what has occurred. Colleagues, any other questions for mr. Jordan or should we move on to the next agenda item? Okay. Thank you, mr. Jordan. Colleagues, the next item on the agenda is approval of the consent agenda. As a reminder, agenda items eight, nine and ten have been pulled from the consent agenda for discussion at the end of today's agenda. Keelan, could you please call roll on the balance of the consent agenda?
127 Koyama Lane I Morillo. I Novick. I Clark, I Green. I Zimmerman I. Avalos I Dunphy. I Smith. I know. I Ryan. I pirtle-guiney. I with 12 votes. The consent agenda is approved.
128 Thank you keelan and colleagues. We're now moving on to our regular agenda. Keelan, could you please call the first item on our regular agenda. Item 12 authorize letter of agreement with the Portland police association to grant the chief of police authority to offer five sworn members a fourth year of service in the retire rehire program.
129 Thank you. And colleagues. This is an emergency ordinance. There is not a committee staff summary or committee chair report because we received an update on this agenda item in executive session. We do have representatives from the from bhr here today. If there are any additional questions. And keelan, do we have anybody signed up to testify on this agenda item?
130 We have one person signed up.
131 Okay. Let's see if there's any technical questions or if anybody needs a refresher first. Then we'll hear public testimony. And then we can move into council discussion. Councilor canal.
132 Thank you. I have two technical questions. One is how many people in total participate in the retiree hire program in Portland police? And the other question is, do any other bargaining units in the city currently have a retiree hire?
133 So I'll need to defer to chief day.
134 Could we have you introduce yourself for the record?
135 That would be helpful. Good morning, madam president. Council members anne marie kevorkian with labor relations. And I'm joined by police chief day and chief assistant chief mcmillan. And so I will defer to them for the answer on the total number of retirees in the program. But to answer the question that I can in terms of retiree hire programs, yes, many of our collective bargaining agreements do have provisions for a retiree hire program.
136 Go right ahead, chief.
137 Good morning.
138 Council president, vice president, mr. Jordan. And my name is bob day. I'm chief of police, city of Portland. And thanks for the opportunity. I've invited also assistant chief amanda mcmillan to.
139 Join me this morning for that specific question. Councilor program has been in existence since 2016, and we have had a total of 105 members requests to participate, and out of that, 91 have been accepted. So 13, 14, roughly around 10% were denied. We have currently 19 in the retiree program as it exists right now. That includes the five that you are considering today, 12 of which are detectives. One is in an officer or I mean potentially a sergeant in our special resources division one three are at central precinct one in our intelligence unit, one in traffic and one in the in labor. So that's the breakdown for where we are right now. The five that you're considering today for our investigations. And one is a sergeant assigned to central precinct. Also for the benefit of the conversation, there are out of the remaining 14, none of them would be eligible to participate in this exception that's being granted by the law. So in other words, there's there are three ways that you can be retired, rehired. You can sign up for six years, you can sign up for two years, or you can sign up for one year that's authorized each year following for three. I'm asking for a fourth year for these five simply to maintain our status in investigations. But there is nobody else in the program who will time out, so to speak, in this time period between now and June 30th. So these just these five are the ones that are are being considered. Thank you.
140 Thank you. Can I.
141 Go right ahead?
142 Thanks. I appreciate that information. And it's also really helpful to know that 12 are detectives. I think that's that's a really helpful piece of information because this can kind of seem. Relatively anodyne and administrative because we extended the old council, extended the contract last year, and this law simply extends the retiree hire. And that's that's helpful. I will have other questions, but I think they're less technical. So I'll wait. Okay.
143 Thank you. Colleagues, any other information we want to make sure to get before we hear from members of the public. Okay. Any anything else that you want to make sure to share with us before we hear from members of the public?
144 I don't believe so. I mean, we've covered everything previously in our executive session. There's some bullet points up here on the screen for you, just sort of giving you the context and history about how we made an amendment in a letter of agreement to add a three year option in 2024. And then what the purpose of this agreement is a little bit of an explanation on the benefit, but other than that, no.
145 Madam president, I just wanted to add a big thank you to anne marie labor relations. I started this chaos a little bit in my zeal to maintain our staffing levels, and seeing as councilor Kanal mentioned, the benefit and investigations. And so I put a little bit of a cart before horse, and they've been gracious enough to work with me and also for your time to consider this. So thank you for that. And this is a hopefully between now and then through negotiations for next year's contract, this will be made more clear and solidified.
146 Thank you very much. Ellen. Why don't we go ahead and call up the portlander who has signed up for public testimony?
147 We have mark paris joining us online.
148 Mr.
149 Good morning. Can you hear me?
150 Yes, we can go right ahead.
151 Great. Good morning. Council. My name is mark paris. So you see him pronouns. And a member of the group Portland copwatch. Today the mayor is asking you to allow chief de to extend the retiree hire contracts for four detectives and one sergeant. The mayor says this is an emergency because of a need to mitigate staffing vacancies and avoid a lapse in assignments for Portland police association sworn officers in the program. The ordinance also states that there was no community involvement, and that this action is largely internal to city government processes. And thank you for not hiding this on the consent agenda. During the listening session for damon lamar johnson that was held by the Portland committee on community-engaged policing two weeks ago, many community members brought up concerns about the city's collective bargaining agreement with the ppa. The community is very interested in how police officers are vetted and compensated, so there should be community involvement with these items. The term retiree hire is misleading. None of the officers in ppb's retiree hire program show up as ever, having been retired in the dps cg iris system, even though law enforcement agencies are required to submit a separation form within ten days of an officer separating from an agency, when an officer enters this program, the city must not be notifying the state that the individual has retired. A more accurate term for this program would be collect your pension and salary simultaneously, or cypass or just double dipping. Combined, these five employees bring in more than half $1 million per year in pension from the city's pay as you go fund. That's half $1 million above and beyond their regular salaries. It's not so much whether any of these five individuals should be allowed to have a fourth year of double dipping, but rather whether the cypass program provides any benefit to the community members that PPB has sworn to protect and serve. Is it good policy to entice sworn officers out of retirement by allowing them to collect double pay? Has there been any analysis of the effectiveness of pb's retiree hire program, and if so, what metrics were used? Or is it sufficient for PPB to allege, as this ordinance does, extreme difficulty maintaining sworn staffing levels? Despite the reported 1537 sworn applicants to PPB in 2024 last may. When PPB asked to expand this program, chief day told council there's a robust review process for admittance. They only accept officers who the community can be proud of, and that it's at his sole discretion which officers get admitted. Detective Eric kammerer is a participant in the retiree hire program. Judging from the amount of money paid out and still to be paid by the city for detective kammerer's actions, it would be difficult to claim that community is proud of him. In his testimony last may, Dan handelman of Portland, copwatch, suggested that the city put in writing the chief's criteria for an officer to enter the program. That has not happened, or at least it is nowhere in the ordinance or attached exhibit. Tomorrow, you'll be asked to approve two settlements for police brutality and incompetence. One of those is a Portland police brutality record of $3.75 million for the killing of manny Clark. The other is another settlement for the actions of retiree hire participant detective kammerer. Three months to the day after you approved a $375,000 settlement for his brutalizing of a community member in March, council president pirtle-guiney stated during the index newspaper settlement, I never want to hear that we have to settle for the same issues more than once. One way to keep the same violent, dangerous cops from brutalizing people is to let them retire and not rehire them. Chief de rehired Eric kammerer, and now he's asking you to extend these five individuals contracts for another year. Thank you.
152 Thank you. Mr. Pass. Any other public testimony.
153 That completes testimony?
154 Okay, colleagues, this is filed as an emergency ordinance. Is there any discussion? Councilor. Ryan.
155 Yeah.
156 I have a question. We had three people up to give a presentation to. We just not want to hear that. Or was that the complete presentation? We went councilor Kanal questions and went to testimony. Now we're discussing. I'm just concerned that I didn't get to hear their presentation.
157 Councilor over the course of the last number of months, we have generally not repeated presentations at council that we have heard in other forums. We get an overview, often depending on the agenda item of discussion that happened in other forums like committees, especially if those are places where not all councilors are present. But in order to ensure that we have time for robust discussion and hearing from the public, I have asked and have said to this group repeatedly that it would be the practice and have not heard much pushback, that we not repeat presentations that we have heard elsewhere.
158 I understand the time constraints. We've had a lot of conversations about that. I think what I need then is a heads up when there's a when there is a presentation that even though I'm not on the public safety committee, I should then do that homework prior to this meeting.
159 It's this is an agenda item that we were briefed on in an executive session, and that I believe councilors had time for additional briefings on.
160 It, was briefed in an executive session. The public doesn't always attend the subcommittee meetings. So I think we do have a transparency issue here. Council president.
161 It sounds like we can have additional discussion about where we receive different types of information. Thank you. Councilor. Anything further?
162 No. Okay. Council.
163 Yeah. I would have loved to at least hear a brief presentation. Three people came up taking time out of their day to be here.
164 And, marie, would you like to give us just a brief overview of the discussions that we've had and the information that you've shared?
165 Sure.
166 Did you want me to put the powerpoint back up?
167 Or if you want to put up that slide that had the information that you were sharing, sure. If that's going to take you a little a little more time, don't worry about it.
168 I think I, I think I'm finally.
169 And the chief also and the other person just for q&a. They're here for that. Correct.
170 Okay.
171 I think if councilors have questions for them, they certainly will come back up.
172 Okay. Yeah, just a brief overview. So this program is already an existing program that's provided for under the ppa collective bargaining agreement, the retiree hire program. In 2024, the city entered into a letter of agreement with the union to add a new option called option d for sworn officers to have a one year assignment at the sole discretion of the police chief and the police chief could extend those again at his sole discretion, for a one year period up to two extensions, and so the duration of the participation in option d would be limited to a total of three years. These members that we are extending previously came from a different option, option b, which limited participation to two years. They were granted a third year and the request from chief de to extend for a fourth year is to, in part mitigate staffing vacancies. Avoid the lapse in assignment for these five individuals and as the chief mentioned previously, these are the only five retired members who are eligible during the duration of the contract. To have this fourth year extension. I think that's essentially sort of where we're going with this whole thing. I don't have a lot of additional information, but I'm happy to answer questions if you have them.
173 Thank you. Counselor. Anything further?
174 No, I just appreciate the transparency. Thank you.
175 Councilor Kanal.
176 Thank you, madam president. So I have three questions. Two of them relate to risk management, but related to the conversation that just happened, I, I want to clarify that this did not come to the public safety committee and public safety committee in any way. It went only to executive session. And I agree with your broader point, councilor Ryan, about transparency in this. And I think the I shared the concern that was raised in testimony about the conversation or the description filed by risk management in the description of this document, specifically in the impact statement under community involvement. I think having worked in community engagement and public safety for years, the idea that there is no public that that this is largely internal and there's no public interest is laughable. I think it is possible to say that we can't do it because it's a labor agreement. If that is the case, I'm comfortable with it saying that in the future that that this is the public involvement is not really a part of labor bargaining practices. If that's the case, let's say that. But I think the idea that it's not that it's entirely internal is a little misleading in terms of implying that there's not public interest in anything involving public safety in the city, and bargaining is a core part of that. I am inclined to support this item because of the need to align multiple actions. We've taken colleagues. We had a vote taken by the last council to create new tif districts, but they didn't create the new debt service funds, right? So we had to take these six votes. That seemed somewhat irrelevant. But because they were effectively just doing the other part that wasn't done in the first document. I view this similarly to that. The last council extended the bargaining, the actual collective bargaining agreement. This is not included in that. And we're completing it. The substantive decision was the extension, so I'm inclined to support it. But I did want to raise that issue. The other thing I wanted to note is that I think this this is an emergency, but it's a it's a it's a process created emergency. So from the perspective of emergency ordinances, I think if we would be able to get to a place where we could have these take effect before two of the five officers involved are on unpaid leave right now, that would be helpful so that we're not in this situation. Neither of those are relevant to my vote. The third question I have does relate to one of the things up here that was that was brought up in testimony. The lawsuit, the first of the two lawsuits tomorrow that we'll be settling has, as the named defendant, one of the officers outside of these five, one of the other 14 officers that are in this program. So I do think it's appropriate to ask first to the to risk management and then filing these, if we can get the case name in the document that is presented to council in the future. And secondly, if we could get the information, which I'm sure there already is some written information about what the criteria are, I would love to receive that for the future. It's not relevant to my vote today on this document, but I, I think that that latter question is for pb. The first one is for risk management. And I hope those are fair questions just to help inform us in the future.
177 I appreciate the feedback. We'll we'll work on getting that information for you.
178 Thank you.
179 Thank you counselor. Colleagues, as a reminder, we are trying to have all of our comments and debate in the debate portion of our discussions, rather than during our votes. Is there anybody else who has any comments, questions or discussion about agenda item number 12? Councilor Morillo.
180 Yeah, I just wanted to say I agree with some of my colleagues have stated about we were briefed in executive session, but there are barriers to that for folks in the community. And this is a high interest issue. So it's something to be discussed. I don't think this is just part of our regular procedures, as we're working out the kinks on that. But I think something that stood out to me in the executive session that I just wanted to state for the public, in case it was of interest, was that there were a variety of options for folks who applied for this, who did not receive it because they had used force. And so I appreciate that the bureau used their discretion to make sure that no officers who had used force were given the opportunity to be a part of the retiree hire program. And I think that's just important to emphasize. So thank you.
181 Thank you, councilor, for noting that, councilor Ryan.
182 Yes, thank you, council president, for reminding us our new way of doing business here, of making our comments before the vote. We are moving more towards a style like in Salem. In regards to that, I just have a few comments. We all know that staffing up and filling vacancies at the at PPB is important to maintain safety and mitigate overtime. Further, this is a simple step to help that cause and aspirin for this chronic headache, if you will. I support the low because it will provide stability to police staffing while they are trying to fill those vacancies, rather than create a bigger staffing hole. If more officers leave the force, police got behind in hiring a few years ago when recruiting staff was cut, and that has had a lasting impact, and we are dealing with that, that today. I remain hopeful for a future when our city can experience greater safety and livability provided by adequately staffed police bureau. I will be supporting this, obviously.
183 Thank you. Councilor. Any other questions, comments or discussion? Seeing none keelan could you please call the roll?
184 Koyama Lane I Morillo. I Novick.
185 I.
186 Clark I. Breen a. Zimmerman I.
187 Avalos I.
188 Dunphy I.
189 Smith I.
190 I Ryan. Hi pirtle-guiney. I the ordinance passes with 12 I votes. Thank you.
191 Keelan could you please call the next agenda item.
192 Item 13 authorize. Bureau of transportation to acquire certain permanent and temporary property rights necessary for construction of the 82nd avenue glisan and davis signal improvements project through the exercise of the city's eminent domain authority.
193 Thank you, keelan and colleagues. As a reminder, while we've moved some of these types of land transfers to consent because this is an eminent domain agenda item, we have put it on the regular agenda. I believe we do have a committee staff report. Claire. Thank you very much. Go right ahead.
194 Good morning, madam president and councilors. For the record, claire adams, policy analyst and staff to the transportation and infrastructure committee. The ordinance before you document 2025 286 was heard in the transportation and infrastructure committee on July 21st, where it was referred to council with a recommendation to pass the ordinance authorizes the bureau of transportation PBOT to acquire specified property interests through exercise of the city's eminent domain authority in order to complete traffic safety improvements along 82nd avenue at the intersections of northeast davis, northeast everett, and northeast glisan streets. The ordinance allows PBOT to initiate negotiations for permanent or temporary construction easements and extend offers of just compensation to affected property owners. The permanent easements will facilitate the construction of ADA compliant sidewalk improvements, pedestrian walkways, and traffic signals. The full impact statement on this item includes information on community impacts and community involvement. No verbal or written testimony was submitted on this item prior to committee action. And that concludes the committee staff summary.
195 Thank you. Councilor clerk, do you have anything to add?
196 Thank you, madam chair. I'm happy to add to this. I think claire's done a great job of describing the project. It's really necessary in that corridor to provide these kinds of improvements, and I have to really applaud PBOT and their outreach efforts with all the property owners in the area. They've done a great job. And in fact, I think some of the property owners in the area that could be subject to eminent domain, but I don't think we're going to get to that point, are very enthusiastic about these improvements. They see the need for it and they're all on board. So that was really good news to the committee. So I don't think there's going to be any eminent domain issue with this actually. But it's just a backstop. Thank you.
197 Thank you very much. Councilor Smith. Do you have questions about the summary?
198 Thank you, madam president. Yes, I do, I do, thank you. Do we have any displacement issues with any of the residents along the way? On 82nd, will we be displacing any residents?
199 Councilor Smith that question did come up. A council member asked that in committee. I don't know if it would be more appropriate for me to have PBOT staff come up and answer that question. It was something was discussed or if it's appropriate for the chair to respond as well.
200 Councilor Clark, I don't believe there are any councilor Smith.
201 Any residents.
202 You said that you think there is.
203 I would say based on what was discussed and when staff were asked, they indicated there was no displacement. And the properties are also commercial properties that are impacted in that area.
204 So there are businesses that are going to be displaced.
205 I don't know the specifics of the business, but they name that they were commercial properties.
206 I.
207 I believe we have dca donna paul here. If there's anything that you'd like to add in answering this question, you're welcome to come up. I'm not sure if we have the bureau director, so I'm looking to you.
208 Thank you. Council president. I would for the record, this is for public works. And we have brianna or the PBOT capital project manager who is involved in this project, who will be able to answer those questions.
209 Okay. Thank you.
210 Thank you.
211 Good morning. Councilors. For the record, my name is brianna or capital project manager at PBOT. To the question, will any residents be displaced? No. The amounts of property that we are looking to acquire are for both temporary construction easements and small areas where we are expanding the sidewalk, so no impact to any buildings. These are just sidewalk areas, okay.
212 And so there are no businesses that will be displaced for any period of time.
213 That's correct. The construction does not include impact to any, you know, main entrances or buildings.
214 Thank you. Thank you.
215 Colleagues. Any other questions about the committee staff summary or chair report? Councilor Ryan yes.
216 Thank you, council president. Thank you, councilor Smith. I have a question along those lines. I heard what you said, but I, I just want to relay an experience. Perhaps when we do work at businesses and close down. But their profit margins go down considerably during the construction. What is our commitment to those local businesses when we do work, how do we communicate with them so they can have some certainty? Along northeast broadway in district two, there's a lot of frustration with the work that's been going on along there because in their opinion, they're not getting the communication as thoroughly as they'd like. They're not getting the certainty that they wish they had. So I think that we do need to provide better customer service when we do these projects. I think at the end, people are happy. I think the residents in district two, especially the pedestrians in irvington, are excited to feel safer when they're walking around northeast broadway. But can you tell me a little bit about your continuous improvement on how you communicate with those businesses when they're not closed down, but they're definitely impacted by the work?
217 Yes, absolutely. I'm also the project manager for the broadway pavement project. So happy that you used that as your example. Sure. You want me to speak up? Okay, so for communications during construction, we do collaborate and work closely with each business to let them know when there will be specific impacts right in front of their building, especially any, you know, temporary pedestrian access point detours and anything that would impact a driveway or entrance and absolutely understand the frustration of district two with our broadway work. It's been a long construction project, and because the nature of the work, it's been hard to. Predict essentially when we will be complete with each phase of that project. And so I think for 82nd avenue, you know, the work that is right in front of these businesses is primarily sidewalk widening, which is a little bit more predictable than some of the ADA corner ramp work. And I think it'll it'll go quite smoothly. We also don't have full paving on 82nd avenue. As part of this project. We have segments of paving, but not as impactful paving as we're as we are completing on broadway.
218 Just curious, and I'll set up a meeting with someone in your team with the dca about this further. But when we do go well beyond the deadline and the uncertainty becomes lingers, and it does have a big economic impact, what has the city in the past ever provided some relief, some support? When we're in those situations.
219 The kinds of support that we're providing is, is regular communications with both businesses and the business association. We also are happy to promote businesses through our channels as desired. That's the types of support we're able to provide.
220 I think with recent projects, of course, northeast or south north or south northeast division project that we've heard a lot about and also southeast, sorry. And also the northeast broadway. I think we have some scars out there that need some healing. So I just hope going forward with this project, we've learned from those mistakes.
221 Thank you.
222 Thank you, councilor, councilor Clark.
223 I appreciate your comments, councilor Ryan. And having worked on, I worked for an agency that did these kinds of improvements throughout the city. Hello. He's not listening to me.
224 The rest of us are.
225 Council councilor Ryan one. One of the things I was going to offer that we have done, or we did at TriMet when we did these kinds of projects, and there was a level of unpredictability is that we organized our staff to go and patronize all of those businesses, and that's something I would encourage us to consider. And you might even think about organizing that. I'd be happy to participate in some of the businesses along broadway that are impacted. If that's something you're interested in.
226 It is. I know there's a lot more capacity in PBOT than there is in my office, but we will make sure that we do this as a partnership. Yeah, because I think it's something culturally the city has to get behind when we take on these projects. So I love that. And I think as a city, one city, right, we have to figure out how to anticipate that and be more proactive going forward. So thank you, councilor Clark.
227 Councilor Clark, thank you for that suggestion. I heard our staff from PBOT say that they do try to promote businesses. If businesses are interested in perhaps councilor Lunch trips can be an addition to that promotion where we can help to push things out through our channels as well.
228 Do that all the time.
229 Okay, colleagues, any other questions? Okay. And keelan do we have any public testimony signed up?
230 No one signed up.
231 Okay.
232 Thank you all for the overviews today. Councilor Kanal did you have discussion?
233 Yeah, I was waiting to hear whether or not there was testimony before I made a comment, which is I'm curious.
234 Would you like our guests to stay up here while you make your comment?
235 You might have a response. I want to give you the chance. I don't want to say get up. Okay, but my question is how? How can we both say that we did a bunch of outreach and that our outreach was well done? And between the committee and here and I believe in writing, there was no response from any of the people affected. And so I guess I'm not I'm not. Maybe this is one of those things that's so boring that it's not it's not likely to require or to justify anyone spending the time to write in or come here today. But I think in the absence of information as to when things were sent in the impact statement, I would just love to kind of daylight that concern that I have and I'm seeing councilor Clark might have thoughts.
236 So. Clark, would you like to respond to that?
237 Sure. Thank you, councilor Canal. I can assure you that in the committee we did a very thorough look at this. And actually I want I said earlier, I want to applaud PBOT in their outreach in this effort, but the business owners in the impacted area on 82nd street are enthusiastic about this improvement. They recognize the value of it and they're not being severely impacted. The eminent domain is just a backup in this situation. I think they're all cooperative, if you can correct me if I'm wrong. But that was the impression that we got in committee that they've done excellent outreach. If you look at the report, you can see they've set up booths, they've done all kinds of activities and met with all of them. So I'm really confident about this, that they all recognize the need for this project. They want this project.
238 Councilor Kanal note that one of our colleagues in district three, and I believe this project is in district three, was nodding as councilor Clark said that.
239 Yeah, I guess maybe then the concern is more about having it in the record. I think that would be helpful for the future. I'm I think many of us are particularly sensitive around eminent domain, and I think it would be helpful to have that documented. But I do trust and defer here. So thank you.
240 When PBOT does outreach, do you notify businesses about when things will be before city council so that they know, without having to do the work themselves, to find information when they could come? Speak to us about some of these eminent domain processes?
241 Yes, yes we do. For the right of eminent domain processes. We sent out mailers for the council date.
242 I'm sorry. The volume I think, was a little low.
243 I'm so sorry. Yes, the mailers were sent out about the council date.
244 Okay. Thank you, councilor Smith.
245 Yes, madam president, thank you so much. This project is also in district one, and I have had. Folks talk to me from the business community and send in emails about their concern that their business is going to drop. This has not been a 100%. People are thinking that this is 100%, but for the most part it is very well received. But I have had some concerns from people who own businesses in that area that that think that this whole thing is going to cause their businesses to go down. So we should not say that this is 100% for everyone who's going to be involved with this.
246 May I just respond? Thank you, councilor Smith. I, I appreciate that. I think that there's going to be more concern up and down 82nd street when the brt project starts. That's when the rubber is going to hit the road, so to speak. When it comes to access to all the businesses and how we how we do a weave out there, I'm not I'd be interested if there's anything specific to this project, but I think the larger community concern will be the businesses all up and down 82nd street. When we do, when we build the brt.
247 Yeah, well, like most constituents, they don't know the difference between the brt and this project. They just know that something is happening on 82nd. They don't know the difference between the 2 or 3. But I just wanted to let folks know I do have some concerns. That's why I asked concerns about being displaced. Having been a huge supporter of folks being recognized who have been displaced in other places throughout the city, like the albina folks, I want to make sure that we are not doing something that's, you know, disproportionately and we're not helping them overcome some of the some of the issues that they may have with with this construction. So and I do believe for sure that there is more support for the project than not, but I will not be willing to say that there has not been some concerns that they have voiced to commissioners.
248 Thank you, councilor, for adding in that information about what you've heard directly as well. Colleagues, is there any other discussion? Okay. Seeing none, I'll note that this is a first reading on a nonemergency ordinance. While the record for oral testimony is closed, I believe the written record stays open. So if there are people who are watching, who are have an interest in the affected businesses, who want to make sure that council hears from you, there is still time to submit written testimony so that we see that before our vote on this item. Thank you all for the additional information today.
249 Thank you.
250 Keelan. Could you please call our next agenda item. Item 15 require the city administrator to assess and align existing plans and the development of a unified housing strategy for the city.
251 Thank you. And I'll note we did just skip agenda item 14, which will be heard on September 17th. So this is agenda item 15. And I believe claire, you have a committee staff summary for us.
252 Again, madam president and councilors, for the record, claire adams, council policy analyst and staff to the homelessness and housing committee. The resolution before you document 2020 5-2 12 was heard in the homelessness and housing committee on may 27th, where it was referred to council as amended, with the recommendation to be adopted. The resolution requires the city administrator to assess and align existing plans and strategies adopted by the city of Portland to address housing, homelessness prevention, sheltering, and other related efforts toward the development of a unified housing strategy for the city. The unified housing strategy must be designed as an implementation tool with clear measures of success, and must identify existing and needed funding to facilitate implementation. The resolution further directs the city administrator to provide periodic updates to the council's homelessness and housing committee, and to submit a draft of the strategy to the committee no later than December 1st, 2025. I will note the committee adopted amendments prior to moving the item to full council, and those amendments are summarized in the full committee staff summary posted online. The full impact statement of this on this item includes information on economic and real estate development impacts. As far as public testimony in committee for people testified during the committee meeting on may 27th, and one person submitted written testimony on this item prior to committee action. General themes of the testimony included aligning the city's work as part of a regional approach to addressing housing insecurity and homelessness, age friendly policies to support housing options for older portlanders, and taking inventory on existing accessible housing supply. And finally, the need for workforce opportunities for veterans experiencing housing insecurity. And that concludes the committee. Staff summary. Thanks.
253 Thank you, councilor Avalos. You were both chairing this committee and also are the carrier of the agenda item. Would you like to add anything in either of those capacities?
254 Absolutely.
255 All right. Thank you colleagues. So today, alongside vice chair of the homelessness and housing committee and fellow co-sponsor councilor Dunphy, I'm excited to introduce the unified housing strategy resolution, an effort rooted in urgency, coordination and long overdue clarity. We're excited to bring this to you after it passed unanimously out of the homelessness and housing committee in may. The goal here is simple. Now that we have eliminated the siloed form of government, this resolution asks the city administrator at the direction of the mayor to lead the development of a comprehensive, actionable, unified strategy that aligns all of our existing plans, defines clear roles and measurable outcomes, reflects community input and racial equity. Strengthens partnerships with the county, metro and the state, and charts a path toward the 120,000 homes Portland needs by 2045. The need for a unified housing strategy is long overdue. Portland has been in the middle of a housing crisis for over a decade, and it touches every part of our city. Housing costs continue to rise faster than wages. Over half of renters are rent burdened, with 1 in 4 severely so. Homelessness continues to grow, with nearly 15,000 people experiencing it in 2025. And meanwhile, fewer homes are being built. In fact, we're at the lowest level of multifamily housing construction. Since 2011, the city has been doing a lot of great work to address the crisis. Today, we have dozens of strategies from homelessness, response to housing production, zoning reform to workforce development, climate plans to racial equity goals. But they're spread across departments, bureaus and elected offices. Sometimes they work in harmony, but too often they don't. The unified housing strategy sets us on a path, and it says, let's stop working in silos. Let's align what we already have. Let's get more efficient and effective at solving problems. Let's name our gaps and fill them. And let's set measurable goals and be accountable to the public for achieving them. I just returned from my trip to atlanta, georgia with mayor wilson, where we spent time learning about the cross-jurisdictional and deeply collaborative systems that atlanta is implementing to end homelessness, and we left there inspired to bring that spirit of creating a unified vision back to Portland. We've heard from stakeholders across the spectrum, community based organizations, housing providers, county partners, and even other city staff, all calling for better coordination and a clearer sense of direction. But we're not starting from scratch. We're building on the immense work that's already been done, but pulling it into one clear living strategy that can guide our city from crisis response to long term solutions. Because housing shouldn't be a patchwork, it should be a plan. It should be a promise, and it should be a priority. So I urge my colleagues to support this resolution and help us move Portland toward the safe, stable and affordable housing future that we all deserve. And with that, I will go ahead and pass it over to councilor Dunphy to add his remarks.
256 Councilor Dunphy, go right ahead.
257 Thank you. Thank you, councilor Avalos. I'm proud to stand with you in this effort, introducing this resolution. And I'm thankful for your leadership because this unified housing strategy represents something, as you said, that Portland has needed for a long time, a single framework that pulls us out of siloed thinking and brings coherence to our housing efforts citywide. Because housing is foundational, it touches everything from public safety to economic stability, from climate resilience to educational outcomes. Without stable housing, we're fighting upstream in every other area of policy. And yet the tools we use to address housing have long been fragmented and at times inconsistent. This strategy helps us get our house in order. It's the obvious next step needed in this promise of this, in the promise of this new form of government breaking down silos and improving processes while not reinventing the wheel, it offers a shared roadmap for how we'll move forward when it's rooted in measurable outcomes, transparency and coordination not just across city bureaus, but with our regional partners and communities. The resolution doesn't pretend that the city can do it all or has all the answers, but it rightly acknowledges that an enormous amount of work has already gone on in this city, and that we have an essential role to play in convening partners, aligning policies with implementation, demanding outcomes, and leveraging our limited resources where they can have the most impact. It's about moving us closer to the same goal a Portland where everyone has access to safe, stable and affordable housing. So I'm grateful to all the staff, advocates, and community members who have pushed us to think bigger, act faster and lead more collaboratively. I fully support this resolution and urge my colleagues to do the same. So thank you.
258 Thank you, councilor. Councilor Novick, did you have a question before we move to public comment?
259 What's it?
260 I have a question. I don't know if it needs to happen before I move to public comment.
261 Give it a shot.
262 All right.
263 The question is, councilors, how do you imagine this strategy will differ from the housing production strategy that the city adopted last year, which had input from multiple bureaus and also some input from outside jurisdictions?
264 Well, this plan is about combining the entire spectrum of shelter to housing continuum into a plan. Right. So yes, the housing production strategy is a part of it. It's named in the resolution as one of the documents of many that will be included in the unified goal, but it is one part of a larger continuum. That and that is the goal we're seeking in bringing all of those pieces together so that we're including, you know, the work that the mayor is doing around sheltering all the way up to homeownership and housing production. Did you want to add anything to that?
265 Yeah. Additionally, there are there are great goals and plans in things like some of prosper portland's plans included in some of pbot's plans about how, where and how housing should be prioritized. Residential infill project, the comp plan 2035. Some beautiful pdfs that are sitting on desktops all across the city with really thoughtful goals and a lot of community engagement, but not unified under even the housing production strategy. So this is really about wringing out the towel and seeing what all the parts of work that has already been done, and then being able to identify where those gaps still exist.
266 Councilor Novick did you have a follow up question?
267 I would like what are some of the what are some of the gaps that the housing production strategy didn't address? What are some of the what are some of the bureaus or outside entities, etc. That weren't involved in the housing production strategy?
268 The point of this resolution is to identify the gaps in all of the strategies in, in an entire collective strategy, right. So the housing production strategy is just one piece of the larger continuum here. And the goal, the whole point of this resolution is we're asking the city administrator with the direction of the mayor, as they are already doing this work, right. They're getting the silos out. They're trying to get coordinated strategy. This is giving them the direction from council. They will need to come back to us to get final approval from essentially the plan. And it's going to include those kinds of things like identifying the gaps that remain. So it's not necessarily that we're saying that, you know, these documents. Well, I guess what we are saying is that these documents have gaps across all of them, and we want to make sure to consolidate all of those and, and align under this new council. Right. We have a new vision for what we want to see out of housing in general. And so we want to give ourselves a chance as new legislators to drive that conversation. And in uniting with the executive branch and the legislative branch. So working in partnership to develop that vision together.
269 And I.
270 Think that some specifics, for example, the housing production strategy was really focused on fbs work getting dollars out the door and on what is now permitting and development work. It wasn't it didn't really talk about the shelter to housing transition. It didn't talk about some of the it didn't include some of the work that we already have around housing preservation. It's the underlying goal is that we should just have one place that we know where all of these things live, and they just don't currently don't live in one place.
271 I appreciate those specifics. Thank you.
272 Councilor Smith.
273 Thank you. I just want to say, I want to thank you all for your leadership on this, because this is so important to so many people, particularly for folks who are in district one. And I would also appreciate if you all would identify opportunities, opportunities where the gaps are by district, so that we will be able to understand what's going on in our community. And the other question is, I saw de oliveira looking like he wanted to say something about some of the gaps. I think you all probably handled it after he looked very intently at coming up to the to the dais. But also we should in addition to, to all of the plans that we have here, we should also look at the ways in which the state of Oregon is spending their cdbg money in their home dollars, and include that in the in the comprehensive plan, because they also have those dollars that impact the city of Portland.
274 Thank you. Great feedback. Agree. And let's make sure that we get some district specific information. And yes, a big part of this plan is identifying all the funding sources, right. Because we know that we need more money. So this is a chance to observe everything that we have and what next steps we can take.
275 Excellent. Thank you.
276 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Green questions.
277 Yes. Thanks for introducing the resolution. To introduce the plan. I did notice and appreciate that social housing is referenced. As you know, obviously your co-sponsor of it that that makes that tracks. I guess my question is in thinking through this, we're in the middle of the housing bureau doing that study. And then this is due by December 25th. So how do you imagine the sequencing on that interaction with social housing working out?
278 Yeah, I mean, social housing is one of those pieces, right. That will be included in the plan. And they are doing it kind of in parallel with a little bit of a different timeline. But the goal is, you know, especially when we're talking about funding, we're talking about what the landscape looks like to incorporate some of the work that's already been doing that they will be doing around social housing, but it'll kind of all lead up to a larger plan. And when you think about the timeline too, right, this will need to come back to us anyway for further review. So there will be more time to discuss the way that those things integrate. But absolutely. I've been assured by fb director hissrich that that is a huge part of what she wants to include in this plan, because it's a vision that we've set forward as a council by passing that resolution.
279 I appreciate hearing that, and I guess my last comment would be that I hope, I hope the outcome of this, in addition to looking at gaps, it's also looking at areas where we're doing duplicative work. And in terms of like the kind of resources in our community and the scarce dollars. And so we really need to make hay while the sun shines, while while our community still wants to put up for that, which I think is important to consider. So thank you.
280 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Koyama Lane questions.
281 First, thank you so much for your leadership on this. This is very important. Looking at the presentation that you all made in committee. Well, I really like the umbrella. I really would love that for us to have one housing plan and for us to all be working together to clarify this cool venn diagram, that's the city of Portland plan, is that.
282 What are you saying?
283 Sorry.
284 Oh, yes. Yes.
285 So it's part of what? We're hoping to have one big housing plan eventually.
286 Exactly.
287 And just to clarify, so the city administrator, this would require them to assess and really make sure we have our house in order in the city. Will the city administrator be directed to think about how we eventually are moving towards a big one housing plan, or how we're working with these other jurisdictions, or is that separate?
288 It's a little separate. This is kind of the first phase. So our goal here is to just get our ducks in a row and what within our control. Right. And then the goal is that once we have that we will be able to go to the table with our partners and have a better idea of the role we want to play and what we're asking of our partners. So that'll be the next phase. So it's not included in this resolution. And in fact, I was originally calling this the one housing plan and we changed it to be the one housing plan is going to represent what will be in combination with other jurisdictions. The unified housing strategy is portland's version of it. So that's why we changed the names a little bit to reflect that.
289 Great. Thank you for explaining. It seems like a good next step of many steps that are needed, and I'm very excited about the part of working with our colleagues more, making sure we're aligned. Thank you.
290 Councilor Ryan. Questions?
291 Yeah.
292 I think these are we're doing technical questions now before testimony.
293 We do have at least one person signed up.
294 I'll hear that and go after that.
295 Okay.
296 Okay. Seeing no one else in the queue. Keelan, could you please call up our testifiers? And. Claire, thank you very much.
297 Sarah ratcliffe.
298 Welcome. Thank you for being here today.
299 Good morning council. My name is sarah radcliffe and I'm here on behalf of habitat for humanity Portland region. Habitat supports the concept of consolidating the various plans and strategies on housing into a single guiding plan that lays out the city's priorities. However, while we appreciate the productive partnership that our program has had with the Portland housing bureau and the funding that we've received for specific projects, the city's articulated housing strategies over the years have largely left out homeownership. And that leaves us with a little concern that consolidating these various plans into a unified housing strategy may only cement the exclusion of homeownership. Homeownership means both a roof and an asset at a fixed, affordable mortgage promises 30 or more years in the same neighborhood without increasing housing costs, and that is an anchor during uncertain times. Homes and condos for sale are not more expensive to build or finance as compared to homes for rent, and many of the same families who qualify for subsidized rental homes could also purchase their own homes. If we only had more inventory in the 2 to $300,000 range, two thirds of habitat Portland region homebuyers have incomes between 35 and 60% of area median income, and we receive hundreds of applications for every dozen homes that we build. Despite the overall lack of focus on homeownership and written strategies, the city is midstream on a few policies that could really move the needle on homeownership, and those strategies are captured in the city's comprehensive housing production strategy, which, as you've discussed, was approved just last summer. First, updating portland's inclusionary housing program so that it works on the condo side and doesn't inadvertently suppress condo production. Second, land banking to unlock small, often overlooked lots which are perfect to create middle housing, homeownership development, and also to prevent displacement. And third, community land trusts to create a path for homeownership for households with incomes below 80%. Am I and we hope that these good policies will carry forth in the city's unified housing strategy. So thank you for your consideration.
300 Thank you so much for being here today.
301 That completes testimony.
302 Okay.
303 Councilor Ryan, would you like to kick off discussion?
304 Sure.
305 Thank you, council president. Thank you, councilor Avalos and Dunphy, I've had the pleasure of being in a couple meetings on this topic, and I appreciated your questions, councilor Novick, because that was my line of questioning at times in those discussions, I am noticing that some of the conversations we had in the last meeting, I don't see them. I don't see those attachments. I thought that we had conversations about, actually the testimony from the last person. I know that we did do land banking when I was housing commissioner. I also know that we talked about homeownership a lot during that venue. We also talked about plans that we had going from streets to stability, which ultimately is homeownership. So I am wondering where that landed. I also I have the floor. I want to mention that goals and targets were discussed, and I thought that would be an attachment. And then finally, some of pledge their pledge to study rental regulations. There's a reference to that in the housing social housing study. And I think that's relevant as well. So then we're about the rental regulations. Yeah. We passed whether there's rental regulations that are passed. Those have impact. I just want to make sure that's part of the study as well.
306 Yeah. Thank you councilor. So what councilor Ryan is referring to is we spent some time at the last committee meeting discussing essentially some broad objectives. For that we will give to the bureaus who are putting together this plan. Ultimately, I decided not to attach it as an exhibit because there's still some work to be done on it. And it's just kind of a more iterative approach. And there's some bringing in of other staff that we need to do to assure that we've got the right targets. So it's not that it's gone away, it's just that it'll be a more further discussion that we'll be having in committee to continue developing. That should not hinder what this does. This just sets the clock right to begin. Because that's the biggest thing is we're we're a little behind on timeline. And we want to make sure to get that into their hands. And the directive to them, which, you know, they've already been obviously very prepped and they're ready to do it once we pass it here. But that discussion about the overall objectives is going to continue to happen in committee, and we'll be working on bringing that forward.
307 Okay. I was when I voted yes, I, I was under the momentum and enthusiasm of those things being added. So it was I was a little surprised.
308 Yeah. Well, when we first voted on the resolution, we didn't have those objectives. So that was what. And so we brought that forward just in the last few weeks, because again, as we were after we passed the resolution, at first it was like, okay, let's we were talking with staff and said, let's identify a couple more areas to be more specific. So that kind of was happening after the passage and again, didn't feel it was tied to the resolution. And just we wanted to have more time to discuss that in committee.
309 And councilor Are you adapting the timeline or for this?
310 Yeah, I'm in talks with the staff about that. If we're going to kind of figure that out offline and just make sure. But we're.
311 It doesn't.
312 Look realistic at the moment. That's why it seems a little bit it's not realistic at the moment. I'm wondering if we should extend it just a little bit.
313 We're going to.
314 Keep talking about that, but we don't have to make that decision right now, okay?
315 That's what we were.
316 I'd like to hear in the next committee meeting from the dca about that point.
317 Yeah.
318 Councilor I put myself in the queue to make a few comments, but I, before I make my comments, just want to ask you about that last piece with councilor Ryan. This is a resolution, so it's not going in code. But if there are changes being made to the timeline for it, I think that this body should adopt those changes. What is your plan moving forward for any changes to the timeline, and how you foresee those conversations going that you're having with the bureau?
319 I had some preliminary conversations. Dca oliveira, do you want to come up and just speak to that a bit? Ultimately, we didn't put forth a change in the timeline today because we felt like we could adapt to that. But if we if I'm hearing differently from you dca, then.
320 For the record. Thank you, councilors, for the question. We appreciate the timeline because the urgency of an emergency requires us to contemplate.
321 All the things we have.
322 As already been stated, we are.
323 Pulling together.
324 Existing plans and resources.
325 We're not.
326 You know, building something new. I think December 1st is appropriate for us to sit set as a target to get back to the committee, where I hope we can have a conversation for refinements required. But I think because we're building on existing work, the housing production strategy and other plans like social housing plan being developed will probably be continuing to refine this as we go. The emergency is such that probably probably requires iterative planning and thinking on this, this idea at all. So I think we have work to do even after December 1st. I hope that answers your question, councilor.
327 Thank you. And while you're up here, I just want to express my gratitude to you, the housing bureau and all of the other staff who have worked on the many different plans and proposals that are being brought together. I know that there has been a lot of work that has happened at the staff level to try to move our housing work forward, that our colleagues are pulling together here, and I want to make sure that that work is acknowledged as well.
328 So thank you.
329 Council president, if I may, I want to just acknowledge councilor Avalos and Dunphy for bringing us in early on to the visioning of this. So it felt collaborative so that when we receive the direction from the resolution, we have a running start to implement. So thank you both for your leadership in that way.
330 Thank you.
331 Councilors, thank you for your work on this. I wasn't planning to put myself in the queue, but after hearing from the testifier from sarah at habitat for humanity, I just wanted to elevate some of what she said. I think that as we move forward, this plan helps us to bring together a lot of pieces. But there are a lot of other pieces in our housing work as well. And that homeownership piece, I think is very important. Land banking is something that will set us up to be more successful in the future. I know that's a part of some of the plans that are in here, but I do want to make sure we're elevating that. And I think that there is a lot of work to do to make sure that in Portland, we're focusing on family sized units in our our housing stock. We have seen some articles of late that Portland has some of the smallest size of new units coming on the market, and I want us to be a good place for families to live in the future, not just folks who are looking for studios and small one bedroom apartments. So I just wanted to elevate those pieces so that as this work moves forward, we can make sure to include homeownership, housing for families, families of all sizes, including multi-generational families in the work that we're doing as well. Councilor Zimmerman.
332 Thank you.
333 It was mentioned in the introduction that this was strengthening the relationships with Multnomah county metro and some others, and it kind of goes to that graphic. This is a question I kind of brought up when it first came to the housing committee during our joint last joint meeting between the city and county, one of the county commissioners had asked if they could get a briefing about this one big housing plan. And since they're on your document, I'm just wondering, has Multnomah county received any sort of collaboration or briefing yet at the commission level?
334 Kind of speaking to how I answered councilor Koyama Lane Koyama Lane question one. Yes, I have talked with in particular, counselor or I guess, commissioner Edwards, about this. In fact, we talked about it when we were at Elana a little bit. And what I emphasized was that this is our first stop, and that when it gets to the part where we're doing it with the county, that's the that's the next part, right? So they are aware they're standing by that. That's coming.
335 Thanks. I'm I'm thankful that you did that. That's great. The one of the, one of the reasons and I think similar to what councilor Ryan noted for my supports out of committee was for this kind of conversation to happen at council. I thought it was an important thing that needed to move to full council for conversation, really, with the hope that there be some meat on these bones. I'm still really lost at what this is. I think it sounds well intentioned, but I'm a little cautious in terms of what we're actually directing in terms of workload. I haven't heard that, you know, from the administration that they thought that their housing production strategy was a failure or in need of, you know, the, you know, emergency intervention by council. And so I haven't I'm not seeing any new meat on these bones since it left committee in may. And so I guess I want to give you the opportunity. One, you are saying right here that the timeline should be adjusted, but in this resolution there's a timeline. I think there is in the original document. Is it still December 1st though?
336 Yeah, and that's what we just spoke about with dca oliveira that.
337 I get that. But like we're saying that we can change it. But after we vote on it. And resolutions do have some sense of a binding. And I'm okay dca right now. But to my point is, I think that it seems like this has left committee, but not much has occurred since then. And those questions about ownership that have been brought up were the kind of questions that I think I'm happy that we're having that conversation. But ultimately I just want to I want to be able to support this. But I'm I'm cautious for a couple of reasons. And my caution is coming from that. I'm not sure who you're going to invite to the table to come up with these solutions. And I say that in part because I think there's been some hostility in that private development can't be a part of the solution. And I, I want to give the chance to let's correct that record if that exists, because I'm coming from the standpoint of it's going to take private development, public investment in the types of units that private won't take care of. But but telling some that they can't be at the table, that they're not part of the solution. I worry that we're starting off on the wrong foot in what I think could have been, or should be the right direction, but for a resolution that I already feel is a little weak in terms of meat on the bones. And then to start off on the wrong foot, I have more caution today than I did when it left committee, and I was hoping it would be the inverse of that, and I just wanted to offer that up to the two sponsors, as if there's any thoughts.
338 I'll jump in and say that. Thank you. First of all, I first I didn't I was of the impression that we're not supposed to change the language of a resolution after it's been voted on by committee, so I didn't think that there would be.
339 To that point. I think that councilor Ryan hit on it. We were expecting to see some amendments or thoughts, and councilor Avalos said that she chose not to bring those forward. And so this is exactly what left committee. So you're right. But it was there was, I think I'll call it a gentlemen's agreement that there might be some new stuff that came into this. And I'm not seeing those amendments being proposed.
340 Gotcha. Thank you for clarifying. To the to the broader question, you know, thi, historically, the city has not has created plans based off of what we do and how we are trying to encourage the private market, how we facilitate the private market and how we spend our dollars. And from my understanding of this, this is really about how is the government capital, see city of Portland thinking about housing and then how are all of our regional government partners thinking about the housing continuum and. Process improvement is not specifically considered as part of this right now. This is more so about like, what has the city already said we're going to do, said that we should try to do and said that does or does not work? And then how do we bring in our regional government partners to be a part of that? I don't think that it is hostile to the private sector, but it's just that this is not an intended tool for them, but rather a tool for us and our counterparts at different levels of government to be able to understand how does shelter meet street services, meets transitional housing meets, you know, the person buying their first home? And how do we spend our time and dollars and build our permitting? I think that there's a lot of work that we do desperately need to bring the private sector in, and in fact, there will be some a series of policies that I'll be chief sponsor of with regard to how we regulate and how we permit, that are deeply informed by the private sector and both at the staff level and the elected level. Talking about how those things for this tool specifically, it feels like this is more of us, as I've said a couple of times, and it's not actually an appropriate thing because we're talking about housing, but us getting our house in line. Those conversations need to happen. They need to be a part of the table. Councilor Avalos and I were also part of the convened multifamily housing group that the governor and the mayor put together. You're not wrong that they're an important part of this important voice, just that this isn't that tool, in my opinion, or how I was thinking about it.
341 Thank you. Councilor Avalos. Did you want to add anything or should we move on? Okay. Councilor Zimmerman, anything additional?
342 I, I appreciate that response. And I think that the hostility that that we show to different members or different communities when we're talking about a plan that's being at least visually identified as an umbrella, is an important note for us to take, because the umbrella shouldn't have holes in it, right? Where some some will be under it but get wet because we don't actually mean them. So I would just I think the conversation about is innovative from a city perspective, because it's not one we have generally from shelter to housing. Right? Because that's not our line of business. That's the county's line of business. So it's an important part of our community. It's an important part of life, particularly in this day and age. And so I'm open to making sure that we have some alignment there, but then having it or trying to have some sort of one housing plan without without the county early in, I feel like we're saying some talking points, but I'm not sure really what we mean by that. So that but but I am I am trying to take this on. I think your intent and where you're going with it, I. I guess what would be what is your expectation in terms of what kind of work is going to have to take place at the bureau level to achieve the so be it resolves in this resolution, right? If this is a directing of work, I here's my caution. I think we're going to get a rubber stamp plan on December 1st, or we're just going to get a repackaged thing that already exists in other places. And so if this is actually going to be a meaningful document and, and usually for a meaningful document for a city council, I would say it gives me things that I can when I approach the next budget, I have items to fund or to prioritize or new ordinances to pass. What do you think from your perspectives as the chairs of this, will we or sponsors of this excuse me, will we see that drive us toward action items or like punch sheets versus cute ideas in the clouds? Right. I'm looking for punch sheet things we can do. And I'm curious on where you want to go with that with the bureaus.
343 Well, first I would just say I think we've structured this resolution in the same way that many other resolutions have come forward, like the one we did on transportation. That is like directing the executive branch, right, to collect the to synchronize and collect and bring a vision back to council. This will have to come back to us no matter what. So this is just this part of a passing this resolution is just one small step in the chain of events that we're going to need to be doing over the next few months. But I'd like to invite de oliveira to talk a little more about what we have been doing, to give some context to councilor Zimmermann's question.
344 Thank you, councilor Daniel. For the record, we have the existing housing production strategy. It's been acknowledged already that staff in many bureaus are already working on, and that is agnostic to private sector or affordable housing. This is improving our codes. Sdc's looking at different interventions for existing renters. But it's just a slice. As a reminder, the housing production strategy was designed as a response to the states for dlcd, the department of land and conservation development. So it had a land use focus. We threw some other things in there, but it wasn't comprehensive. So meanwhile we have other directions, like for the social housing plan. We are also contemplating permit improvement, but it's also it feels very like laser beam, like we're tackling these things we know we need to tackle, but we don't have a north star. And oh, by the way, we have the existing tif committees that are getting onboarded. You'll be contemplating that committee later this, this fall that could be developing action plans with a housing component. What's their north star and how would this help shape that story. So I can tell you of a lot of work happening. Good work. But it lacks that solidarity of vision on how we're going to contemplate a broader housing strategy is really great. I stand by it. I was the director of bts when we developed it, and it wasn't comprehensive. Part two is and this is where we're trying to get to that tackling of the county and not just the county. By the way, councilor Also metro. Metro has an outsized role to play in our housing goals. They influence us, they fund programs. We need to bring them in as well. Like what do we have shared priorities from their perspective and ours, again, not just from housing production, but that sheltered housing continuum that we've been talking about. That alignment needs to happen as well, because I don't think we're perfectly aligned all the time from top to bottom in that organization as well. Long story short, I think we have to get our house in order, as has been said before, so that we can actually have those meaningful conversations. Because I can tell you right now, and this is not criticism anyway, but staff at different levels of the city and the county and metro are having very different conversations, but we haven't agreed on what our shared alignment is, and that's no criticism. That's just the way our system works right now. I would like to see us, and I have outsized role to play in that. A little bit more alignment first and my service area and then across the service areas with you all so we can have those conversations. That sounds like gobbledygook, but I think it's lacking and it shows in how we do our projects right now.
345 And one last note, as it relates to the punch list you mentioned, that's that's exactly what the resolution is bringing back to us.
346 Councilor zimmermann. Okay, councilor Green.
347 Thank you. I just want to I had some comments I wanted to reflect on from testimony, but I just want to thank you, donnie, for flagging that connection with the tiff committees that are being stood up. I mean, that's a significant source of the upstream funding for housing production, whether it's affordable or market or something else. So really appreciate that. I'm glad to know that that's been a coordination there. And echo echo, echo the metro coordination problem I mean this is housing scarcity is a regional affair, not just not just the city of Portland thing. So I think that's great. I wanted to make a couple comments on home ownership, because I think there were some salient issues raised. And I'm I think to the extent that those comments can inform the plan, I think it'll be better for it. But it has been the primary mechanism by which working class families and households have been able to accumulate wealth. And so having a lack of that in recent years has been pretty detrimental to households who have been left out of that, and particularly households of color. I would also say the 30 year mortgage is itself a price control scheme for homeowners. And so when we think about things like rent control and say, oh, this is this is absurd, this is unprecedented. Just remember that 30 year mortgage is rent control for homeowners. And that's important to remember. I agree with council president's suggestion that what we're really missing here is bigger units that a family can grow into. When we talk about the population dynamics and migration dynamics in our county, if you look at the census data, what you find is the people who move to the county typically are earlier in their careers and are early in the household formation process. They are not necessarily married or they are not necessarily a household of children. And then they they get older and then they grow in their careers, and then they have children, and they find out that they can't afford to raise a family in this city and to spill out into to 2 to 3 bedroom apartment or aspire to homeownership. And so they leave Multnomah county. They go to Clark county, Clackamas county, Washington county. That's the primary driver of that migration flow. And it's a cost of housing problem. And so I really, really echo all of the things that I heard. I really appreciate sarah's comments on on the need for kind of lower cost housing production strategies in there. So and I have I have confidence that that your vision that the co sponsors vision of this plan is to really try to bring these conversations together. So I just wanted to lay that on the table and I will stop talking. Thanks.
348 Thank you. Counselor. Councilor Morillo.
349 Thank you council president. Yeah. Councilors Avalos and Dunphy, I really appreciate you bringing this forward. I think that for too long, we've had a lot of great city plans that have been developed and research by staff that have just sat on the shelf and not been utilized. And I think this is a really great way of addressing that without reinventing the wheel. I also want to say that I don't think that this council is hostile to developers. I think that we are looking at a variety of options. This is the council that just waived sdc costs, right? So to say that we're hostile to developers because we're exploring any other housing options like social housing or anything else that the government should be responsible for, I think is a mischaracterization of attempts to work together with a variety of different options that we have, because the prior council and I would say historically overall has only worked with developers. So now when you're seeing a shift where we're going to work with everybody and try to think of some solutions outside the box, suddenly that's being hostile to people? I don't think so. You're just seeing a shift in governance and power and the city being accountable to our constituents based on what we have the power to do. And I think that that is the right direction. And I don't see anything in this resolution that would prevent us from doing that. So again, I'll emphasize this is the council that did waive the sdc fees so that developers could have a more easy time helping us build housing in the city. And I look forward to supporting this. I also think I get a little confused sometimes with my colleagues based on their critiques, both on vagueness and specificity and policy. Either something is too vague, so therefore it might be doing something unintended that we're concerned about, or it's too specific. And then there are concerns that there's secret code language that is actually trying to do something sneaky and get past all of us. And so I think we have to decide and what we want out of policy. And I think this one has to be a little bit open ended so that we can explore the options before us, because things are rapidly shifting based on federal dollars. We don't even know what the state legislature is going to do on August 29th when they reconvene. And so I think that we actually need that flexibility to address some of this, and I look forward to supporting it. Thank you.
350 Thank you, councilor. Councilor canal.
351 Thank you, madam president. And I, I have the misfortune once again of following councilor Morillo, who said a lot of what I would have said in particular, the point about when you write a document, it's like schrodinger's resolution. Will it be too specific or will it be too vague? You don't know until the box gets opened and you only find out, well, at least councilor Avalos and I do often when we hear from from a colleague on it, whether or not we're being accused of being sneaky or not. Having said that, I really support this resolution on the whole, and I'm excited to get into the conversation here and appreciate the points that that councilor Greene made as well, about affordability, which has been brought up multiple times today. I have a question that's specific to the document, which is, you know, there are parts of plans that maybe are so focused on another thing, but have a small part of it that may not be as relevant to the universe of what is trying to be unified in that venn diagram. And I wanted to ask about the parts related to renter's rights. So is that intended to be included in this, or is that something that is sort of a recognition that those exist, but outside the scope.
352 Absolutely intended to be part of it? We are really looking to create a broad vision that is just completely from people who are chronically homeless and are struggling to get by, folks who are renters. And there's a component of how to protect and preserve their ability to stay housed all the way up to, you know, obviously, building more housing and then just preserving affordable housing, that kind of thing. And then of course, homeownership, getting people on the path to that. So there's so many different parts of different bureaus across the city that touch all these different aspects, but they're all working in in collaboration on this resolution. So we've specifically tapped all the bureaus that touch any part of housing. And we're they're all going to be part of the discussion and the formation. It will include those pieces for sure.
353 Great.
354 Thanks. Yeah, I didn't prepare a lot of comments on this one, because it seems like a very obvious thing to me personally. And I think the comment that that councilor Dunphy made. And by the way, I want to say your present, the slides you put together, I love that immediate connection of problem statement to whereas in there I was really helpful for me in not being a committee member to catch up on that. To councilor Dunphy's point about getting our own house in order. That makes sense. We have been, I think, rightfully accused of being 26 bureaus in a trench coat. I think getting to the point of having one first for service areas in a trench coat, which would be a huge improvement, and eventually one city is an important part of this process, and where it has often been most evident, is in the planning, where multiple bureaus may have a plan on the same thing that was prepared, and then collects an immense amount of dust on a shelf. And so I'm very appreciative of this. I think for those who might not understand what the impact of work like this is, it is the step that enables the thing that is deliverable and is visible to the public, but is often ignored as we try to, maybe as historically, councils have often just gone for the project that is immediately obvious without figuring out that alignment before. So I'm really grateful for the focus and the patience you brought to this, and excited to see the outcome of it once we pass it. Thank you, madam president.
355 Thank you, councilor. Councilor Koyama Lane.
356 Again, I deeply appreciate the work of the councilors bringing this forward and of the housing and homelessness committee. I'm glad we're taking this issue up today. We know it's a big one. It's an important one. It's one that our constituents care a lot about. I see this discussion we're getting to have together as a full council, as a good first of the discussion. Definitely not our last conversation around this. And we know that housing and homelessness, the housing and homelessness crisis is a manifestation of big systemic challenges and injustices. So we know we have to keep approaching this in terms of long term efforts in a way that recognizes that. And I do think we've made a good start at the highest level. You know, we have the mayor's of intervention and with the mayor's commitment, and it is time for us as council to be thinking about how we're focusing upstream, thinking about prevention, structural change that can really make some long term, long term changes. So I I'm glad that we're talking about this, moving this work forward. And thank you again.
357 Thank you. Councilor colleagues, is there any other discussion? Okay. Thank you. Dr. Oliveira. This is a resolution. So we take a vote today. Keelan, could you please call the roll.
358 Koyama Lane? I Morillo. I Novick. I Clark. I Green. I Zimmerman. I Avalos. I Dunphy.
359 I.
360 Smith I.
361 No I.
362 Ryan.
363 No no.
364 Pirtle-guiney I.
365 The resolution is adopted with 11 votes and one no vote. Thank you.
366 Keelan. Could you please call our next agenda item?
367 Item 16 requires city administrator to develop citywide asset management strategy to establish priorities and practices to address asset management, maturity and financial planning gaps. Welcome back. Claire.
368 Do you have a committee staff report for us?
369 Yes, I do.
370 Go right ahead.
371 Thank you, madam president and councilors again, for the record, claire adams, council policy analyst and staff to the transportation and infrastructure committee. The resolution before you document 2020 5-194 was heard in the transportation and infrastructure committee on may 12th, where it was referred to council with a recommendation to be adopted. The resolution requires the city administrator to develop a citywide asset management strategy that standardizes the city's approach to managing its infrastructure and assets. The strategy must incorporate best practices, include expertise across city bureaus, and identify potential funding opportunities to address deferred maintenance and capital project needs. The city administrator must submit the citywide asset management strategy as a report to council no later than September 30th, 2026. Additionally, the resolution requires the city administrator and chief financial officer to develop a proposed strategy for citywide general obligation bond program that is paired with the asset management strategy and to be submitted to the finance committee for review by December 31st, 2026. The full impact statement on this item includes information on financial and budgetary impacts and analysis, economic and real estate development impacts and community impacts and community involvement. Five people testified during the committee meeting on may 12th. One person submitted written testimony on this item prior to committee action, and one entity submitted written testimony prior to the council agenda, posting. The general themes of testimony that the committee heard included addressing the city's deferred maintenance backlog with a sense of urgency, response to recommendations in the asset management audit published in April 2025. Ensuring implementation. The implementation timeline aligns with the fiscal year 2627 budget cycle. The use of gis systems in asset management mapping, urging the study of best practices in peer cities to inform this work. The need to identify a variety of funding sources to pay for infrastructure improvements, and finally, consideration of a requirement that new projects forecast long term maintenance costs, including the maintenance of street trees. And that concludes this committee staff summary. Thank you.
372 Thank you. Claire. Councilor Clark, you both chaired this committee and also are the carrier of the resolution. Would you like to add any details in either of those capacities?
373 Sure. Thank you, madam president. This is actually the first issue that we took up in the transportation and infrastructure committee. Way, way back, probably February. I think it was the first thing that we explored. So it's been a long time coming here, and I hope some of you are not tired of hearing about it, because I talk about it all the time. But obviously we have a huge backlog of needs in Portland, something to the tune of, I don't know, over $1 billion a year of a backlog. We own about, I think, $80 billion worth of assets in the city. And most of those are in the public works arena. But you might not think about some of the other assets that we own that are also behind, like five or our telecommunications system. All the spectator venues and facilities, in addition to the roads, streets, water, sewer, all the things that you, you imagine. But we've underinvested in these assets for decades. We've had no strategy as a city. We have not had a common methodology across the 26 bureaus for how to address our asset management. We've had multiple auditor reports kind of slapping the city on the wrist, saying, hey, what are you doing about taking care of what you have? Which is really a back to basics message. That's important to me. So we need a clear, unified planning and financial strategy, which this addresses both. And it requires that the city come back to us. It's a good, good year. It's a lot of work. And then three months later with a finance plan that would address how we're going to pay for and prioritize what assets we're going to address. So plenty of time to put it together. And if you read in the city manager's report, the first step is actually already been taken. There is a I think I put $30,000 out of my council, my particular budget, into an effort to get some help on this, put out an RFP for to help design this process across all the bureaus. And tate white, who's actually in the audience, is going to be leading that effort. We all remember her from the transition times, and it falls under the dca. Sarah morris's service area. I'm happy to give lots more detail or put more meat on the bones. If people want meat, I think it's I don't know what the trenchcoat analogy was, but this is this has got a big trench coat, so I'm happy to answer any questions and would really appreciate your support for this.
374 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Green questions for the carrier.
375 I, I don't have questions, but I just want to offer my full, wholehearted support for this. I think it's great leadership. I think it's it shows the urgency that we face in this city when it comes to our balance sheet. I, you know, this is the nerdier part of me, I suppose, but this I have. I very excited to support this resolution and I'm grateful that you brought it forward.
376 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Avalos, questions for the carrier.
377 Well, you know how I feel about unified strategies. So I am super supportive and really grateful for how you're leading in this. It's absolutely an area that we need to get our, you know, ducks in a row and make sure that we're finding the right revenue streams. Our infrastructure is crumbling, and I've been grateful for your leadership and your committee to and also the way that you work with the bureaus. I've noticed the way you are collaborative, and I think that's really important leadership. So I just want to commend you for that. And I will absolutely be supporting this. Thank you.
378 Councilor Morillo discussion or questions. Just affirmations, I guess.
379 Okay. Let me check really quickly with the council clerk, since I think we're moving into folks wanting to just discuss this, do we have anybody signed up for public testimony?
380 No one signed up.
381 Okay, great. Then let's just move boldly ahead. Councilor Morillo, go right ahead.
382 I don't have any questions because I got the whole presentation already, and I've had the pleasure of getting to see you in action. And you are just the infrastructure queen, I think, is what we should herald you as now. So thank you for all of your work on this. I think it's really important. And I you know, I was just reading articles about how many of our bridges are going to collapse during an earthquake, and the county is having to address that right now and looking for funding for it. And we have so much important infrastructure that we need to take care of. So I appreciate your focus on this. It's the invisible work that's not as sexy and fun as a ribbon cutting, because everyone loves that. But this is the stuff that will keep our city thriving for decades to come. And I'm just very appreciative of you.
383 Thank you, councilor, councilor Smith.
384 Thank you, madam president. I want to thank my chair of the transportation committee. You did bring this up in February, and I so support you on this and the leadership that you bring to give us a unified vision and, and, and some workouts and in terms of what we should be doing and not to give. City administrator jordan any, any additional heartburn. Multnomah county is responsible for all the Willamette river bridges, and we are not. So we don't have to come up with any money for that. So I'm sure he's happy about that. We actually Multnomah county owns 26 bridges, and that's a whole nother story for the underground of Portland back in the day. But at any rate, thank you so much for your for your leadership. Thank you for bringing this to our attention and using your resources to put your money behind what you believe in.
385 Thank you, councilor. Councilor Novick.
386 First of all, following up on councilor Smith's comment, I want to take personal credit for the fact that Multnomah county still has the bridges because when I worked for dianne linn in 2001, there was a discussion of shouldn't the city take over the bridges, their transportation asset? And I advised chair linn that if the city and county ever went to war, the city has more guns, and if the county controlled the bridges, at least that would give them an advantage. There's I wanted to comment on two the be it resolved on number six inclusion of options and opportunities for funding, including but not limited to raising revenue or allocating funding. I think it's very appropriate to ask the executive to help with that, but I just want to note that I think it's going to be largely council's responsibility to identify politically feasible options for funding and to provide the political will to seek them. I just had one wording question about item five incorporation of sustainability and climate resilience may be included to ensure portland's infrastructure is prepared to meet the challenges of a changing environment. May sounds inherently optional, so I was just wondering if that is in fact meant to say, hey, executive, you might talk about this or you might not.
387 I think I'll look to you to push that.
388 I mean, would you be comfortable with a friendly amendment to say will or should.
389 Show.
390 Or shall.
391 Councilor if absolutely necessary?
392 Councilor Novick would you like to propose that, or would you like to just put on the record that that is at least your intent as this moves forward, and you'll be looking for that in the report?
393 I will be. The latter.
394 Okay.
395 Anything else? Councilor? Councilor Novick. Is that all? That's it. Okay. I want to thank councilor Clark for bringing this forward to council. We know that Portland has a massive backlog of maintenance issues, but we don't always know how. They all connect across bureaus, and we have not always had the discipline as a city to make these issues a priority because they're not fun, they're not exciting. They are critical to ensuring our city's future, our budgets, future, and that Portland remains a great place to live. This is an issue that I've talked about a lot and councilor, I just want to say out loud on the record that I am so grateful to you for taking it up, because otherwise it would have been on my list for this year. And I'm happy that we get to move it forward and appreciate all the work that you've put into to getting us this product, that we can move forward. An asset management strategy will ensure that our city truly takes stock of our maintenance backlog across bureaus, something that we've struggled to do in the past. I know I frequently hear from constituents about the critical needs that our city has, but we don't have a comprehensive plan that allows us to standardize and approach across the city, identify our best practice, and prioritize where we get the greatest public value at the lowest life cycle cost for our assets. I appreciate the inclusion of the sustainability and climate resilience language in the plan. I'll add to councilor Novick statement on the record that I also will look for this to be included in the final reports that we receive back. And it's my intent and my vote that this be part of the work that's done. I think it's important to keep that lens in mind. I also think it's important that as we standardize a list, we make sure that this is an equitable approach. This is an opportunity to make sure that we don't just hear from people who have the most access to getting the city's attention about the assets they care about most, but that we can look across all of our assets, something I know many of our bureaus do, but we don't always do across bureaus. I wish the report that we were getting was coming back to us sooner. But councilor Clark, I know that you've worked hard with the bureaus to ensure they have the timeline. They need to allow us to really identify the full need. I would say that if bureaus are able to do the work faster and can bring something sooner to the full council or the committee, it would be wonderful to see that sooner so that we can get to work as quickly as possible, and make sure that we don't let assets fall further into disrepair. I am so enthusiastically supportive of this. This is exactly the type of work that brings together good government, back to basics work, and our need to look forward at our city's future and take steps to make sure that it is the most responsible and the best future for portlanders possible. So thank you very much. And councilors, I look forward to seeing the next steps as we get that report back. Councilor Ryan.
396 Thank you so much, council president. Thank you, councilor Clark. As it's been said by everybody, I too appreciate your leadership on this important item, and we'll need from the administration to ensure that we are good stewards of the many assets we have as a city. Like the previous resolution, this will evolve quite a bit, and I thank you for your leadership to get it started. On that note, I don't know if this has been offered. It's been it will be five years in September that I've been on council in various in various evolutions, and we did an infrastructure tour about when we could finally not be at home. And it was one of the best things that happened that the staff organized. And it was a real eye opener. And I hope that we have that included in this time span between now and when this comes back, that all of us are offered, that I appreciate the focus on districts, but I also would encourage us to look at the bigger picture, including maybe separate trips that take people up to bull run, but it's was really one of the most insightful things that was offered in training. Again, two years in about a year and a half into being in office, we were offered that, and I hope that we can allow that to occur again with all of us. I will be supportive. Thank you.
397 Thank you, councilor, councilor Clark.
398 Councilor canal have his hand up as he.
399 Does councilor Kanal would you like to go ahead? Since councilor Clark gave the introduction.
400 That's okay.
401 With you. Yeah. Thanks. So first, there's a pop culture trope in which two kids stand on top of each other's shoulders and wear a trench coat in order to portray that they're tall enough to ride the roller coaster or an adult when they're clearly children, and two parts pretending to be part of a whole when they're not. And that's the in a trench coat analogy. I have wanted to explain that for a long time up here because it's come up a lot. Thank you for the opportunity, and thank you for the opportunity to talk about asset management as well. I know it's a focus area for you, and although a lot of people say it's boring, I watch councilor Clark light up often in talking about asset management, and I appreciate it immensely. I had a couple questions about the implementation side. They're not really for the, the councilors, but there's one that is which is about the timeline. And I appreciate the council president's comments on that. There is a connection here with the idea of a bond, and the timeline would mean that that bond would not be able to be referred in 2026. So is the intention here that we would have the portion of this conversation that might relate to a potential bond referral be for 2028? Is that is that the desired timeline here? If there were to be a conversation around that?
402 Well, thank you, councilor Canal. I don't think I want to really address that specifically just now. And I think that the results of that work will come to the finance committee at some point. There are those of us that are going to be working on that. With jonas berry in in the background, but I don't want to be specific about when. And we push the date out because we have so much on our plate right now. We need to see what happens in November. We have some other conversations about revenue before we get to a discussion of a general obligation bond or whatever we're going to use. So I don't want to be specific about that right now.
403 That's fair. I'll just mention for the sort of conversation I'd love it to include the need to really overhaul and probably replace the fire training center and station two out in east Portland as a priority for me in that conversation. My question to administrator jordan, I think, is that the city's organizational chart included, I believe, new in 2024, a citywide asset management office. And I wanted to understand, has that been hired? Is it resourced? What exactly happened with that intention?
404 Thanks for the question. Given all of the dynamics in our budget and given the changes in organizational structure and continuing evolution of that structure, we've asked tate to be the point person to help build that office. We are doing a similar thing. Council approved a position in my office to begin to work on performance management. We are looking at gathering assets from across the city. Assets. I shouldn't say that human resource from across the city to try and build those offices, but similar approach to each. I know that in response to this resolution, there will be staff from across the city, particularly the asset owning bureaus, but those from across the city working with tate to make this resolution real. And I think out of that experience, we also will be able to say, how should we staff a central strategic asset management office so that it can perpetuate that? And the idea always was to have a relatively small group of folks who would grow the practice, if you will not not necessarily manage assets, that's done by bureaus, but grow the asset management practice and mature it across the entire enterprise. You've heard me in the past say that we have a very uneven approach to asset management across the city. Water bureau is probably almost near self-actualization, and many of us are searching in the wilderness for food and shelter and everywhere in between regarding the maturity of the of that. But that's what we're asking tate to kind of spearhead this year. But there will be resource from across the organization working on it.
405 Thank you for that information and for the good news about the strong leadership over there. And I think I'm going to be very excited to support this. Thank you.
406 Thank you, councilor, councilor Novick.
407 In response to the comment that some people see routine infrastructure maintenance as boring, I just wanted to once again express my regret that no major studio is taking john oliver up and a suggestion that there should be a summer blockbuster movie about routine infrastructure maintenance. There is, however, a trailer for such a hypothetical movie that you would find when you google john oliver. Infrastructure a trailer featuring Steve buscemi and edward norton, which is delightful and would provide an awesome starting point for such a movie.
408 Thank you, councilor. Councilor Koyama Lane.
409 Thank you for your leadership on this, councilor Clark. I know it's something that you've been talking about for months. I believe it's one of the first things I heard you talking about when I first met you, and appreciate your commitment to zooming out, looking at the big picture, thinking long term, this is really important, and I'm grateful that you've you're continuing to focus on this.
410 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Clark, did you want to go ahead or should.
411 We just a couple I want to respond to some of the things I've heard right ahead. Climate resilient bureaus is something I talked about when I ran for office. I wanted to make sure that the bureaus were climate resilient. So that is a priority for me. Even though the language may not be perfect, I do think that we'll get progress reports along the way. So we're not just going to sit for a year and not hear about what's going on. So I think they'll probably be in our tni committee, and we can certainly bring progress reports to the full council if there's a lot of interest in that. And infrastructure tours, I think is a great idea. Some of us have are planning to go on an ibr tour, but to broaden that I think is a great idea. Councilor Ryan. And I just want to add on to what the city administrator said is there has been councilor Kanal a kind of an informal group called the city asset management group. I think it's going to evolve into the city asset management office at some point. So rest assured, you know, there have been staff working on these issues. It's just as mr. Jordan said, it's just been very uneven. Lacking involvement by certain areas. So but thank you all for the kind words, I appreciate it. Now I just need your vote.
412 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Green.
413 I won't hold up to hold us up too much longer, but I'll just say on the finance side, while I think it's premature to talk about the timing, I think my expectation for the report is that we'll inform a very robust bond placement process, because when you can identify what your bond is going to pay for in terms of the quality of the infrastructure, you have more liquidity in that market. So I'm really looking forward to us partnering with the dco on that and paying for the things that we deserve for our future generations. And to councilor Novick, there's a very exciting movie about infrastructure and it's called chinatown, but it may not be the type of excitement you want.
414 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Koyama Lane, are you back in.
415 The queue quickly?
416 The other thing I forgot to say is I noticed that many jurisdictions, many politicians talk about, oh, the old council, they kicked the can down the road. And then I remember one time I think it was councilor Green who said something, probably in a more eloquent way. But let's not be a group that people talk, say that about us. Let's not do that thing where we're kicking the can down the road, and this seems like it's very important. And part of that, and also seems like something we can be united around that we all agree, hopefully all agree is really important.
417 Thank you.
418 Councilor Novick, I see you back in the queue, but I know that you've spoken twice already and we're trying to limit.
419 People, right?
420 Is there any other discussion? Okay. This is a resolution. So we have a vote today. Keelan could you please call the roll.
421 Koyama Lane I Morillo. I Novick.
422 As a member of a former council that kicked the can down the road, I'm very proud to vote for this resolution.
423 I Clark.
424 I Green a. Zimmerman I. Avalos I. Dunphy I. Smith I. Ryan I. Pirtle-guiney I.
425 The resolution is adopted with 12 votes.
426 Colleagues we have three more for more things on our agenda. We are scheduled to end at 1230. And I have heard loud and clear that we need more breaks when our meetings run a little long. So I'm going to ask that we take a ten minute break, come back and try to get through the other four things on our agenda by 1:00, which means that we would run a half an hour late, but no more than that. There are four things, because we pulled three things off of the consent agenda.
427 We can do this.
428 I hope we can do them all quickly.
429 Is their ability to table anything to tomorrow with tomorrow's agenda?
430 Tomorrow's agenda is pushing the limits right now, time wise. So if we do that, we'll have to bump the last item on the agenda tomorrow, which is the 9/12 agenda, which I don't think we want to do.
431 Okay.
432 Just a question is there is there room for any of the stuff other than that item on next week's special meeting. Should that be called?
433 We can certainly look at that if we need to tomorrow. But right now I'm trying to manage us through this, and I want to make sure folks who need it get a break. I'm trying to do better there. So let's take ten minutes. Let's be back here at 1220. And then let's see if we can do those last four items in about 40 minutes.
434 I believe, and I.
435 I just think it's funny sometimes. It's okay.
436 But do we have. Oh this is the second reading. Okay, colleagues, I am going to call us back to order as I try to round up a few other people. But we are at quorum keelan could you please read the next agenda item. Item 17 amend council organization and procedure code to include council rule on tie breaking.
437 Thank you colleagues, this is a second reading. Is there any discussion before we move to a vote? I see councilor Smith's hand up, but she is not here.
438 Well, so.
439 Vice president Koyama Lane, would you like a moment? Councilor Smith, was your hand in the queue for this agenda item?
440 Which agenda item?
441 Agenda item 17 amend council organization and procedure code to include council rule on tie breaking. This is a second reading of an ordinance. We are moving to a vote if there is not discussion.
442 Well, you know I have some discussion about this.
443 Go right ahead, councilor.
444 Thank you, madam president. My discussion on this is the same. The charter says, do I have to read it again? We're changing the charter, y'all. We have folks who sit on this council who chaired this this charter, who knows exactly what it was meant to do. And now we're changing code because our city attorney has decided that it's not all issues before council, it's just certain issues that the mayor can break the tie on. We have plain simple language in the charter, and now we have decided to be the charter review committee and to change it, because that's what we want. But we know very well why that was put in there. And so I will not be supporting this. And I think that it is a bad precedent to set to supersede the charter. And I think if we're really clear, we should have had some other interpretations of the charter other than our attorney. We should have had other attorneys in here because I'm afraid that we're going to get sued. For not following the charter and following the direction that we've been given. So, no, I will not be supporting this.
445 Thank you.
446 Councilor. Councilor Koyama Lane.
447 Thank you, council president. Colleagues, just as a quick refresher, bringing this to you all to amend council organization and procedure code 3.02.030 to include specifics and include a council rule on tie breaking. You'll remember that this is an issue that many of you have requested to be discussed as soon as possible. This specific ordinance passed out of our governance committee on may 5th. Thank you to our city attorney, robert taylor, for your collaboration and support in working on this. And thank you to all my colleagues up here who have offered your perspectives and your thinking in the development of this ordinance. Thank you to those that are on the governance committee. Thank you to councilors canal and Avalos, who have come before our committee to share their perspectives. Just want to note multiple times they've taken time to come to our governance committee, even though they don't sit on it. Thank you so much. I love it when people want to talk about governance. And thank you to everyone for the thoughtful conversations on July 17th that we had where we passed this ordinance to a second reading, as amended. I look forward to hopefully adopting some specifics on tie breaking today.
448 Thank you, councilor Colleagues. Seeing no one else in councilor Kanal.
449 Sorry I couldn't find the button. I thank you, madam president. I had a concern around part of what councilor Smith raised. I am willing to accept, and I have accepted the idea that matters before the council and matters of the council are distinct items. And so things related internal to council rules, including the election of president, vice president, things like that are outside the scope. But I think we had two good examples of a resolution that came before us earlier today that are outside of the context of purely internal council items. The asset management document, the unified housing strategy. And I think that those are things that if I was personally writing the charter today, I would not have the mayor break a tie on if it was up to me. But the great news about ballot measures is it's actually not up to me. It's actually not up to us. In my view. I think that we're obligated to follow what the ballot says. And in my understanding is that the charter that was adopted has a requirement for the mayor to break ties on things that are not purely internal. So that relates to resolutions and reports as well. If they're not specific to council procedures. So I can't support it the way it is, although I do agree with every other part of it because of the debate that's happened. I'm really grateful to the council vice president for the work on bringing this forward in particular, because this got amended in a lot of different ways in governance. And so you've had the difficult job of sort of shepherding it when it was different things at different times. As a result, I did put up an amendment. I will be proposing it. I'm going to do that right now. And it adds two words to the document. This is sorry. It is on the website in the item. It's the first list under it. It just adds where it says cast the deciding vote on final passage of non-emergency ordinances and quasi judicial matters. In between those it adds comma resolutions, comma reports. Those are the two words. And I believe that that is what is necessary to meet the requirements of the charter. So I'm going to propose that amendment. I do want to note that doing this during a second reading does require would make it require a third reading. I want to be super transparent about that, but that is my reasoning. So I will. In j one, the mayor cast a deciding vote on final passage of non-emergency ordinances. It would add resolutions, reports, and then it continues. And quasi judicial matters where the vote by council is tied 6 to 6.
450 Thank you. Online.
451 It is online.
452 It's the.
453 First online.
454 Colleagues, is there a second? There's a motion on the table.
455 Second.
456 Okay.
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457 Councilor Novick seconds. Councilor Clark, are you in the queue for discussion to the motion on the table, which is the motion to amend? Councilor Smith, are you in the queue for discussion on the motion to amend?
458 No.
459 Is there any discussion, councilor Avalos?
460 Yeah. Thank you, councilor Canal, I appreciate your reasoning. I think I honestly don't have strong feelings about it. Like I honestly could see myself supporting this. I think that the reason makes sense, so I'm inclined to support it, especially if that would help get you to yes on the rest of the resolution. At the end of the day, I've made my thoughts clear on tie breaking. In general, I think that. I think it's going to be rare. Honestly, I don't I think we talk about it in this way, like it's going to happen in every single vote. I don't believe so. So I see this making this adjustment that councilor Kanal is suggesting as an okay compromise to me. So I don't know. That's not a great argument, but I guess what I'm saying is cool. I'm down.
461 Point of order. We have had several votes that tied in the last seven months. If the clerk could you tell us how many tie votes we had.
462 That information?
463 I don't have that information right at hand, but okay, I can get it.
464 I would like to clarify that because I disagree with councilor Avalos. It's going to happen several times.
465 It has happened a number of times, I think mostly on amendments, not on final items. But you are right.
466 I think it includes everything.
467 But I.
468 Can tell you it's at least I've put up six proposed amendments that have that have tied and failed six.
469 Six.
470 Four in the budget process and two in the in the spring bump. So it's at least six. And there have been more. But they were all amendments, as you put it.
471 Yes.
472 Councilor Morillo to the motion on the table. The motion to amend.
473 I'm fine with this change. I think that what we need to anticipate is that when we make this change, it's going to encourage more tie votes so that people can get a certain outcome, depending on who the mayor is, if they're being strategic about how they're calculating out what's going to happen based on what people have said and their positions. I'm also curious, as the language is written, and maybe this is a question for you, robert taylor, if this implies that the mayor. So I thought that according to charter, the mayor would be only casting tie breaking votes on things coming for a second reading, like the final product. And this seems to imply that it would be before then as well. But maybe I'm misreading that.
474 Yeah.
475 Mr. Taylor, would you like to address that?
476 Thank you.
477 For the record, robert taylor, city attorney the as the rule is, is currently drafted, this would give the mayor the ability to break a tie on final passage and would not give the mayor the ability to break a tie on procedural motions, like a motion to refer or table or amend. And then the amendment that has been suggested by councilor Canal would allow the mayor to cast the tie breaking vote on reports and resolutions on final passage. In addition to ordinances and quasi judicial matters.
478 Thank you.
479 Counselor. Anything further? No.
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480 Counselor. Koyama Lane.
481 Thank you for specifying tha, mr. Taylor. When you were helping us, as me, as the governance chair, originally draft this rule, you did include resolutions and reports and that draft. So I am inclined to support this and feel open to it. I have a little bit of concern that we'll have more tie votes because of this. I really don't like the idea of it being used strategically, politically. I really hope that we would strive to have code that makes things run well, and is something that is going to make sense many years from now. I am also willing to try this, and would hope that if this just gets weird that we could look at it again. And if the mayor seems to be breaking ties on his own stuff too often that we can address this. Do you want to say anything about why in the draft when we when you first gave recommendations, you included reports and resolutions?
482 Yes. Thank you, madam vice president. Yes. When we originally wrote it, we did include the mayor would cast the tie breaking vote on final passage of non-emergency ordinances, quasi judicial matters, reports and resolutions to be. Inclusive and. Try to reflect that idea in the charter that the mayor cast the deciding vote on items. And that would be the full list of the items.
483 Colleagues I put myself in the queue just to note that there's been significant work done on this, and if it is the will of council to add this back in, I don't have any problem with that. I think there was some discussion at points about not including resolutions and reports, because we didn't want the mayor voting on things that were directing the administration to do things like resolutions, or on reports that were really our ability to provide some accountability to work coming out of the administration, and that it didn't make sense to give the mayor a tie vote there. But if we want to add that back in, I'm not concerned with it, but I just want to raise that significant work has been done. And there had been conversation about these two items and specifically whether they should be in or out and why. And I want to make sure that that discussion isn't lost as we move forward trying to do something quickly today. Councilor Smith.
484 Thank you, madam president. You know, we can't have this both ways. The charter says that the mayor can bring resolutions forward. So now you don't want to give him an opportunity to have the tie breaking vote when you add it. So we can't have it both ways. So he does. I could see if he didn't have the ability to bring resolutions forward, then you wouldn't want him to break the tie on a resolution, but he can bring them forward, so why shouldn't he break a tie on it? Why shouldn't he break a tie on all the things that we bring forward to council? As suggested? The other piece is keelan just a point of order. The last time we talked about this, do you still have the language so that people who were not watching two weeks ago can see what is in the charter right now and what the plain language is?
485 I can see if we can.
486 See if we can get that put up there. So I want people to understand what this is and what we're adding to and what we're not. It's very plain language. It's very clear that he is to break all ties. And so we're getting very cute with putting resolutions forward and then trying to put in code to match our resolutions when it didn't even it's already in code, it's already in the charter. And if we're going to start reworking the charter on every single thing that we get an interpretation on, that we become uncomfortable with, there's no there's no reason for us to have a charter. And I think that we could have some more clarity if we had people who were on that charter committee to see what the intent was, and that would help us a whole lot better. If we're going to go to a third piece, I would like to have people who could testify who were on that charter review committee, who could say, what was your intent when you when you put this in there?
487 Thank you, councilor. And we do now have this up on the screen. Is that something that we're able to share with folks who are in the room also? Perfect. And thank you for highlighting the specific item in charter.
488 No ambiguity.
489 Councilors Clark Morillo and canal I believe those are old hands that are raised. Is that correct? Okay, councilor Kanal, go.
490 Right ahead.
491 Thank you, madam president. For those who couldn't see it at the top, that is an enumerated list that begins. The mayor has the following responsibilities. Responsibilities. I'll note which we've already talked about that side of it. I just want to step back for a second. The charter has to be voted on by the people, but I think it's part of a broader conversation, which is why do we have so many ballot measures in the first place? When you look at other cities, they don't. We have more and we have a lot of restricted funding through ballot measures, and there's a reason for that here in this particular metro area. And the reason is that there is a pattern and practice of us deciding we know better when people tell us what they want. When you sit up here and then when governments don't listen, people write their own laws and that can lead to some problems, right? We've seen that at the state level with statewide measures that have maybe not been fully baked because they weren't written through a normal legislative process. That's not what happened here. There was a seven decade long processes to get out of the old form of government and change it here. And I don't want to repeat the patterns of the past by deciding we know better. I agree completely with the argument that if we were to that, it is a little strange, I think personally, to say that we're going to direct the mayor to do something. We're deadlocked on it. The mayor decides if he is directed or not. I completely agree with that. I think that we should change the charter then, and I imagine that at some point it has happened in the past, that there's charter cleanup, that following a ten year cycle where we put up a charter amendment, you follow it up. In fact, I think we did do that in 2024 or maybe 22, a small a smaller ballot measure that cleaned it up. There's a couple little tweaks that got made and I I'll defer to my colleague, councilor Avalos on that. But but I it's I know it's happened in the past I know it's happened in other jurisdictions as well. And so I would be perfectly comfortable going back and saying this is what we'd like it to be. But I think we owe it to voters to try to do the thing they told us to do for a couple years, try it out and say, with our expertise up here, this little piece hasn't worked, and we'd ask for your consent through a vote of the people to adjust this one piece of it while keeping 99% of it intact. And so for me, getting back to the original text that was shown on screen matters before the council, in case of a tie when the mayor cast the deciding vote, we've already had the conversation around what, in case of a tie, means what when the mayor casts the deciding vote means what? The responsibility that's the header to this whole section means matters before the council is the part that we're having a conversation about here. And I, I think that our city attorney explained it about as well as we can as to why resolutions and reports should be included. So I'll conclude my comments on this amendment there.
492 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Dunphy.
493 Thank you. You know, listed among the enumerated responsibilities of the mayor is not attend every city council meeting. It seems unreasonable for him to also have to sit through these just in case of a tie for a lot of things. And I don't understand exactly how we would if there are things, you know, I mean, if we make it that the mayor is responsible for or if we collectively agree that the mayor is responsible for breaking all ties, are we obligating him to sit here with us through all of these things, or are we just have to move all of our our tie votes to a new council hearing in the future and then wait for that vote to happen again? Logistically, how would these things work?
494 Council vice president, did you want to address that?
495 Sure. In our the first reading, an amendment passed which is j2, that says if the mayor is unavailable either in person or virtually, to cast the tie breaking vote on final passage during the meeting, the result of the tie vote is deemed inconclusive. If the vote on final passage remains inconclusive at the end of the meeting, the matter will be automatically postponed and rescheduled to the next council meeting for the sole purpose of the mayor casting their vote, the mayor is not present. It would be considered a no vote as in subsection j3, so if you care, you better work hard to help make sure the mayor's at that next meeting.
496 Thank you. I forgot about that part.
497 Colleagues seeing no other discussion in the queue. Councilor Clark, is that an old hand?
498 Okay, well, on the original.
499 On the original. Okay. Got it. Keelan, could you please call the roll on the amendment, which would add the words, resolutions and reports between non emergency ordinances and quasi judicial matters in j one and I will note that if this amendment passes, we will either need to hold this over for a final vote at the next meeting, or add an emergency clause to it.
500 I maria.
501 I.
502 Novick I.
503 Clark no. I Zimmerman. I. Avalos I. Dunphy I. Smith I. Canal I. Ryan I. Pirtle-guiney I.
504 The amendment is approved with 11 yes votes and one no vote. Thank you.
505 Keelan councilor Clark to the original motion on the now amended ordinance.
506 I just wanted to say that I did appreciate councilor Smith's comments, and I think that the charter is open to interpretation. And we go this route, we get sued, we get some clarification. So I'm sympathetic, but I'm going to I'm going to vote for this.
507 Thank you.
508 Colleagues, is there any other discussion or any other amendments to propose? Councilor Ryan.
509 I just want to clarify once again that this is the sole purpose of the mayor voting. No. We don't get another bite at the apple.
510 The words here are for the sole purpose of the mayor casting their vote.
511 I just wanted.
512 To make sure that was clear.
513 Thanks.
514 Any other discussion? Councilor Zimmerman.
515 If you could please just clarify where you just where you just quoted that from, madam president.
516 J two the second to last or the middle sentence in that paragraph says if the vote on final passage remains inconclusive at the end of the meeting, the matter will be automatically postponed and rescheduled to the next council meeting for the sole purpose of the mayor casting their vote.
517 So. I voted against this amendment previously because I liked the original, which was if it dies, it dies. If the mayor's not there, I would like it to better. So there's a sentence here that says that. During final passage during the meeting, the result of the tied vote is deemed inconclusive. If the vote on final passage remains inconclusive at the end of the meeting, how do we how are we interpreting that? Does that open? What I'm taking that is, is there might be a second bite at the apple for if we called the mayor down, is that what we're taking that to say? Because at the end of the meeting makes it seem like the matter remains open potentially for three hours. And I'm just curious where folks are at on that.
518 I will tell you, councilor, that my assumption was that because an individual can change their vote at any time, that somebody on council, a councilor, might choose to change their vote, a councilor who missed the vote might come back to the meeting and ask to be able to change their vote at that time, and that there are reasons where, without additional debate, the final vote could change. But I'd like to.
519 So I want to interrupt there just quickly. I appreciate that. Right. Because I think we have heard previously that once the clerk begins the sentence to reread the vote, that that is no longer our ability to change. So in, in, for instance, you could cast your vote. And if I, sitting in my chair wanted to quickly interject, you know clerk, I'd like to change my vote. That's a changeable vote. But once the clerk says six six, that no longer remains open. And I think it's worth getting some understanding for what this part of the sentence means, because it's very different from what you all amended a couple of weeks ago, which was a period at the end of the sentence, which is it dies if he's not available.
520 I believe that somebody can change their vote by allowance of the body. The body can allow somebody to change their vote even after that time.
521 But that's a vote to suspend the rules to change. Then your vote. If we could get some clarification, that would be helpful given the fact that this grew.
522 Up during the roll call vote at any time before the vote is announced by the. The results of the vote are announced by the clerk. Any member can change their vote as a matter of right. Once the vote count has been announced by the clerk, then it requires unanimous consent of the body to change your vote. And there is a possibility if a vote is 6 to 6, it's been announced by the clerk. A motion to reconsider could be heard on that. It has to be moved and seconded and voted on. And so that would be a way to revive that item. And then once you've revived it, you could refer it to committee or table it or postpone it to a different day. So when the rule as drafted now talks about if that six six stays that way til the very end of that meeting and nothing else has happened to it, then it would get automatically rescheduled to the next meeting, and the mayor gets to vote on that.
523 Thank you for the clarification. My last question if this ordinance fails today, what what is our current procedure? And if you could outline that, I'd like to better understand and have it very clear for what this is addressing and what would change.
524 Good question. This is on second reading. It's a nonemergency ordinance. It's been amended. So there there cannot be a final vote on this today. It would have to be scheduled to another meeting for a final vote on the nonemergency ordinance. So there won't be a final vote on this today. So that's the first point. And then the second point is if council does not adopt any specific rule regarding tiebreaking procedures, then council would operate under the advice that that has been given by my office that you've been operating under so far, which is mayor does not break ties on amendments or other procedural matters. Mayor does break a tie on the final vote of matters that would include non-emergency ordinances, resolutions, reports, quasi judicial matters, and that if the mayor is not there that day to break the tie, then the item fails that day.
525 Thanks. So given that it's changed and we won't be taking a vote today, I just, you know, I voted against this amendment and I and I think I will if this comes back unchanged again because of those changes to number two here. I don't plan to support this because I'm coming from the perspective that if the mayor is not here, that is the end of the item instead of the holding over. And so I just want to indicate that clarity for colleagues.
526 Thank you.
527 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor, we're going to move to councilor Dunphy. I don't know that he's spoken yet.
528 This is my second time speaking. Total. Just.
529 Okay, then, councilor Smith, go right ahead, I apologize.
530 Thank you. I just want to clarify, councilor Clark, that I did vote for the previous amendment because I want a wider range of things that the mayor can break the tie on. But I will be voting against this for the final vote on the third on the third reading, because I don't think it's proper and I don't think that we should be in the business of reworking the charter outside of the charter review process.
531 Thank you, councilor. Councilor Dunphy.
532 Thank you. I had a question for possibly robert taylor, possibly lauren mcguire. You mentioned specifically that if a tie vote on land use items would require the mayor's vote, but does that put us into a timeline issue? I know that often those are time bound with the city requiring to respond, and if we have to reschedule to a future date, does that screw us up in terms of notifications and land rights through the land use process?
533 Yeah, I'm yes, that could become an issue if we're up against I mean, it's going to be fact specific. So whether or not we're up against 120 day deadline, I anticipate that if we were in that scenario, if we had a matter that needed to be decided that we would and would recommend that the mayor attend. In fact, I think that that has previously occurred in one of the land use hearings where he did sit through it for that purpose, because that would put the city at risk. But I think we would plan for that particular matter.
534 Okay.
535 I councilor Smith, are you back in the queue? Okay. Colleagues seen no one else in the queue and hearing no one offer any additional amendments. I am going to move this to an a third reading or a new second reading, if you will, at our next meeting. Keelan could you please call the next agenda item.
536 Item number eight declare city property as surplus and authorize a property trade between the Portland bureau of transportation and the Oregon department of transportation.
537 Thank you, keelan. And I don't believe we have a committee staff summary presentation today since this was pulled from consent. But, councilor Clark, you presided over the committee meeting on this. Is there anything you'd like to share.
538 Before we do that? Can we just hear what was the reason this got pulled? Yes, I'm lost.
539 On that.
540 I apologize, I pulled this off of consent, counselor. The. The administration asked that we have the opportunity to consider an emergency clause. This is something that they would like to be able to enact immediately. I was going to let councilor Clark give an overview, and then I can explain why they'd like the emergency clause. But I think the background on what this does will help. The explanation of the emergency clause.
541 Okay. My explanation will not be very elegant. Okay. But what I recall is that in this trade, it allows the safe rest village to expand. And I believe they they need to make the property exchange in order for them to have people habitate there. So they I think they already have the units up, but there's nobody living in them in this expansion. But there's a complication which doesn't involve this. We can talk about it another time with the international school because they they care for the piece of property that's now in pbot's control that will become ODOT. And that's going to be an interesting relationship. How that works out. And we as a committee or council may want to intervene, but that that was the main reason is just to allow people to live there now.
542 And that's the reason for the emergency clause. Councilor ODOT has requirements in their. In their equivalent of code that does not allow them to have people living on ODOT controlled property. By doing this swap and making this PBOT property instead, we can have the safe rest, village expansion. And because the new pods have actually been placed on the property, and the only thing right now preventing people from living there is the nature of who owns the property. We had the administration come to my office and say, could council consider putting an emergency clause on this? If so, we could move people in virtually immediately, as opposed to needing to wait for not only a second reading, but 30 days after that for implementation, we could get people housed within the week, is what I was told, as opposed to 1 to 2 months from now. Keelan since this was pulled, have we had anybody sign up for public testimony? Okay. Then colleagues, I would move that we adopt an emergency clause to agenda item eight. The nature of the emergency would be in order to move forward with expansion of capacity within our within our shelter services programs as soon as possible.
543 Second.
544 Colleagues, is there any discussion on the motion? Okay. Seeing none keelan, could you please call the roll.
545 Koyama Lane I.
546 Maria. I Novick.
547 I Clark I.
548 Green. I Zimmerman. I Avalos. I Dunphy.
549 I. Smith I.
550 Know this is on the amendment right. No.
551 Yes.
552 No Ryan. I pirtle-guiney. I the amendment is approved with 11 yes votes and one no vote.
553 Thank you. Colleagues, is there any discussion on the underlying ordinance. And I will mention that we do have staff in the room. If there are questions about the program or the expansion specifically. Councilor Zimmerman.
554 Yeah, I guess I have certainly been around plenty of property swaps from one government to the next. I would like to understand why we feel it is necessary. Is there just a bountiful reason that ODOT feels it needs more property in this area? What future plans does it have? Or are we just creating another hole for government that's not going to do anything? I don't get it. I do get why Portland wants to take ownership. I also think the governor could quickly make it authorized for this land to be used currently by ODOT. So I'm okay with Portland taking it, but I don't understand why Portland is having to give up. This is not shares we have this time, and I'm sensing a strangeness here. Thanks.
555 Please go right ahead.
556 Hi.
557 I'm david mceldowney. I'm the real.
558 Property services division manager for PBOT. You're correct. It's not quite houses. It's a 6040. We're joint owners in this property. This was once the harbor freeway. And. We had done the original trade so that we could set up the safe rest village. And from that original parcel, the city took 60% of the land. Odot took 40% of the land. And so now they own 100% of that parcel. We have 60, 40 on the other side. So we're divesting our interest in that parcel to take their full interest in this other parcel. In the long run, it's going to be much better for the city because at the end of the day, down the road, we can turn around and develop that for affordable housing. We will have complete control of that site. So it makes a ton of sense for the city. Odot does not want that property. They know the international school is interested in that property. Their plans are to move it forward for sale as soon as they can. Once they get control of that, we still have other property out there that we will tackle next and try to detangle that 6,040% relationship.
559 That's really helpful. I want to make sure I am understanding that we have the 6040 piece, but this is eventually moving both entities into 100% ownership on different, different pieces so that we're not tangled on a single parcel.
560 That is correct.
561 Okay. That's really helpful. I, I just think it's an interesting philosophical need for, for ODOT to think that they can sell this to the international school. I find that a little off putting. I find that in this area. And frankly, in a time when I think it sounds like ODOT is pulling back from its money that they pay us to clean up their own areas. I'm not supportive of this. I think that the swap makes sense from our housing or our sheltering perspective, but I don't see an overarching need why ODOT needs to be made whole. I think we use those terms sometimes because that seems like what's fair. But I don't get why ODOT needs to be made whole in this situation, given that they aren't going to do anything with this parcel. So thanks for making it so clear. That's please. It looks like.
562 If I may interject to that too, similar to the city where we have adm 13.02, which is our surplus process, the state has a similar process, and I believe the current order is first they have to offer that to affordable housing providers and then secondly to government agencies like the cities, so long before the international school has a shot to buy it. We would have an opportunity if that's what we desired to do.
563 Okay. That's helpful. I there's part of part of me that thinks that in these areas where the state government or the federal government came through and took swaths of city governments, particularly ones that have now grown up to be quite urban, that this these parcels should rather be just deeded to instead of negotiated for. But I understand and appreciate that that clarification. So thanks for that. And but ultimately I am appreciative of getting control so that if this is appropriate to expand, we have that option. And I think that's that's the important underlying piece here. But thank you.
564 Thank you very much, councilor Clark.
565 I just want to comment, councilor Zimmerman, that I agree with you. There's no reason really for ODOT to have that piece of property. They're not going to do anything with it. And I'm really worried about how they're going to approach the international school. They're going to probably ask them to buy it. And I don't think they have the money to buy it. They take care of it right now for PBOT they mow it, they have the kids play on it. I don't think they have any real plans for its future, but I think we need to keep our eyes on what the impact is going to be with the international school and weigh in if possible, with with ODOT. Do you have any comment about that?
566 Right. The international school had requested use of that. That parcel, and my staff worked with them to create a lease so that they could use that parcel. Pbot generally mode and maintain that parcel, even though ODOT was a partial owner. We saw the benefit in that because they would be an on site steward of that site and theoretically save us the cost to mow it. So we allowed that use. But the long term plan was that we would look to get that back on the tax rolls and, and to the public, you know, or, you know, out there for whatever use affordable housing, the school something.
567 Did the international school put the fence up?
568 Yes. We allowed them to put a fence up.
569 Thank you.
570 Councilor, councilor Ryan.
571 Yes.
572 Thank you, madam president. Kevin, is that your name?
573 I'm david. Kevin.
574 Sorry I didn't catch it. Okay? You're not the contact. I just want to acknowledge. I see brandi out there, that I was the commissioner in charge in 2021. When we were working on this. It was very complicated. And I appreciate that you're bringing this technical update to us. And so we can stay focused on the emergency that we have on our streets and extend capacity. So thank you. I'll be very supportive of this.
575 Thank you. Colleagues, is there any other discussion to the underlying now emergency ordinance? Okay. As an as an emergency ordinance this requires nine votes for passage. Keelan, could you please call the roll Koyama Lane.
576 I maria. I Novick. I Clark. I Green. I Zimmerman. I Avalos. I dunfee. I Smith. I no. I Ryan. I pirtle-guiney. I the ordinance passes with 12 votes.
577 Thank you colleagues keelan could you please call the next agenda item.
578 Nine appoint members to the Portland clean energy fund committee.
579 And colleagues. Again, because this was pulled from consent, I believe there is a committee staff summary online but not a presentation today. But councilor Morillo, I believe you presided over this meeting. Is there anything that you'd like to share with us?
580 Yeah, I think that I always look to you sometimes because I can't remember everything that happens. Everything moves so quickly in this building. But as I recall, there were no concerns with any of the applicants. They were all really wonderful. I think we had a wide variety of voices and people with different lived experiences and backgrounds. So just, I think, generally very supportive from the committee about these applicants.
581 Great. Thank you. And you know, I should probably start to councilor Zimmerman's point previously with the reason it was pulled from consent, I believe, councilor Kanal you pulled this from consent, anything you wish to share?
582 Reasons I've stated before. I also have some questions on the process here. And I think in light of the recent news around federal grants and program. Adaptation that may or may not occur, I think it's important to make sure that we are talking to people, that we're going to be asking for advice about their ability and willingness to advise us on how to ensure, in particular, racial and gender equity on the programing that we do as a city. And this is one of the more important committees that we have in the city. So I wanted to have that opportunity. I think it's important that we all discuss it.
583 Councilor colleagues, is there any discussion on the report? Counselor Zimmerman.
584 Thanks. Or if the members were here, are previously they've been here. Are they here? No.
585 Okay.
586 I don't believe so. We do I was going to say we do have somebody from pcf here. If you'd like to hear from the program.
587 That would be great. I just have a single, single question that I've started asking various appointees. Thank you, mr. Barrasso. In the process of recruiting and bringing folks on to a committee like this, are you asking a question? It's funny because they're not the ones. So I'm going to ask you, are you asking the question, are you or any member of your household receiving funds from this board in which you're about to disburse funds?
588 Council president counselor Zimmerman for the record, my name is sam brosseau, program manager for the Portland clean energy community benefits fund. Councilor Zimmerman, yes, we do ask the question regarding conflicts of interest around whether any, the individual or any member is any member of their household, is aware of any projects that may have come before them. And so that is a question. And then knowing that obviously as things go on, things may change. We do training with them so that they're aware that at any point, any decisions, any recommendations are coming up that they've got to be clear on stating their conflicts of interest. So that's something we both ask at the front end and then actively monitor through the process.
589 Okay, that is good and it sounds good. I want to make sure I understand those. So the presence of a conflict does not by default disqualify a person from sitting on this piece of board.
590 Correct. The presence of a of a conflict does not outright. They make recommendations on the climate investment plan, not funding decisions. That was a part of the change. However, that is something at a larger scale. We evaluate on the committee just knowing that both from a perspective of optics, not just optics, but making sure that we've got a balanced committee so that how do I the scope and scale of such investments are wide. And so we certainly ask so that we understand at the front end whether any obvious conflicts exist, knowing that over time things may change, and there may be other topics that come before the committee that may create those presence of conflicts of interest, but correct the inherently at the front end, just having a potential conflict does not disqualify a member from serving.
591 I'm comfortable with potential. I just mean like, does you or somebody in your in your household work for an organization who is being funded by this organization? That's really what I'm trying to get at. And if that came up, did any member say yes to that question that is being proposed for membership today?
592 The one of the members. Andre lightsey walker, works for metro. Now, we have funded not metro directly but projects that metro is engaged in. So metro isn't receiving direct funds, but we funded projects with TriMet that they're engaged in. So that was there's a peripheral relationship there. But but not directly. No.
593 I think that's a great example of the nuance of what a conflict could be. So thanks for that example. Given that I'll be supportive if that had been, you know, my spouse runs the nonprofit who gets those funds, that would be a different answer. But I appreciate that because what an interesting and nuanced position going to another government. Thank you for those. Thank you for asking that question when you do vet people. And thank you for coming up today.
594 Thank you.
595 Thank you, mr. Barrasso. Councilor Kanal.
596 And if you could I don't want to. Yeah, I appreciate the questions from councilor Zimmerman immensely. I have two questions for you. And, you know, one of them would have been for the members. I think maybe one thing we should look at doing in a rules sense is, is when we pull things from consent, maybe having those at the beginning in future might be a good idea, because I don't like the idea of having appointees. Wait. The question I would have asked the members and I have a question for you after that is, you know, as this is going to be a high profile type of situation, as we talk about whether or not one of our voter approved programs might need to adjust the level to which it supports underprivileged communities. Historically, disenfranchized communities, do you believe, based off of your conversation with these four individuals, that they are capable and willing to take that on and do so in a in a place that may invite some public scrutiny in a way that invites that public scrutiny, I should say.
597 Thank you. Council president councilor Kanal. Yes, we've been clear both the nature and certainly while we recruited these committee members before this conversation started, we've been clear around both just understanding the profile and the nature of the program. And that certainly inherently has a lot of scrutiny, engagement with community members. They serve as conduits and members of the community as voices for the for the program and maintaining sort of that north star alignment and oversight of the fund. So I believe they are both ready and aware, although this explicit conversation certainly came up in the past month or so. Prior, you know. Well, well, well, after they'd been placed on they'd been they'd been in process for the, for the appointment to this body. So I believe in the context of the conversations we had leading up to this moment, they're aware and we have been in the interim, continuing to have those conversations, knowing that they'd come before them.
598 Thanks. And then my other question, which would have been to you as program manager director, anyway, two of these folks that are being reappointed, their terms expired in September 2023. Have they been serving absent approval since then? And if so, basically what happened here? How is it possible that we're getting reappointments nearly two years after the fact?
599 It's a it's a wonderful question. That's correct. They have been serving in that time. And part of this comes from the prior administration had initiated in the council form of government or commissioner Form of government. In the prior administration, there had been they had initiated a broader overhaul of its approach to advisory body confirmation. And so this is particularly for oversight bodies like PCEF. And so while that effort certainly was well intended, it did result in substantial delays across multiple committees, including the PCEF committee. So they continue to serve in that in that span of time. And then that form of government sunset folks that were in that form of government providing oversight to the program and leadership to the program are no longer here with this body. And so we're now just catching up on those appointments. So essentially, they've been in limbo since the last administration. And now we're finally closing the loop on that.
600 Yeah, I.
601 Don't love that answer, but I understand it and I appreciate it. Thank you, madam president.
602 Thank you. Councilor colleagues, is there any other discussion on agenda item nine? Okay. Seeing none keelan, could you please call the roll.
603 With this appointment confirmation motion?
604 It's a report. This is a report. Do we have a motion to adopt?
605 So moved second.
606 Okay. Keelan, could you please call the roll?
607 Thanks. Koyama Lane. I Morillo. I Novick.
608 I.
609 Clark. I Green.
610 I. Zimmerman. Avalos I. Dunphy I Smith.
611 I canal.
612 Thank you all for your service.
613 I Ryan I. Pirtle-guiney I.
614 The appointments are confirmed with 12 yes votes.
615 Okay. Keelan could you please read our final agenda item?
616 Item number ten. Appoint and reappoint voting members to the Portland utility board.
617 Thank you. And I'll do this the right way this time. Councilor Kanal anything to add about why you pulled this from the consent agenda?
618 Yeah, again, standard reasons. I think the other thing here is there's still going to be a labor vacancy on this committee. And I wanted to understand what the what's going on with that and why we're not filling that spot in public.
619 Okay.
620 Thank you. And, councilor Clark, I believe you presided over this meeting. Anything that you'd like to share about these appointees?
621 Only that we were very impressed by the caliber of the applicants. And I'm sorry, councilor Kanal. I don't remember the what the date is. Does my vice chair remember what the delay was on the labor appointment? I'm sorry, I don't, but.
622 Councilor Morillo sorry.
623 Could you repeat that?
624 Yeah. Do you remember why there was a delay on the labor appointment to the public? I don't remember, I think they're still searching, but they they've got a very impressive group of people. We should be proud to have them on the public.
625 I don't recall either. I'm sorry.
626 Okay.
627 Anything else to add, councilor Clark?
628 Okay.
629 And it looks like we do have folks here from the public who may be able to answer that question. Councilor Kanal if you'd like to get an answer to it.
630 Thank you.
631 President and councilors.
632 My name.
633 Is amy archer.
634 Masters, and I'm the analyst that supports the Portland utility board through the city budget office. The labor represented vacancy is still under recruitment, so the unions oversee the recruitment process specifically for that position. And so they're still working on that, particularly with new union coming on board and others that just is still in process. So we'll be coming back to council at a future date once we have that position identified. And then the ex officios that also can be filled at that time.
635 Thank you very much, colleagues. Are there any other questions or is there any discussion about the report? Councilor Novick.
636 I just want to give a shout out to bob jenks of the citizens utility board, who came to me and nick fish ten years ago to suggest that we have a Portland utility board at a point where nick was the commissioner in charge of water and bts, and we took him up on his suggestion. We're happy for it. We're happy about it.
637 Thank you. Councilor, any other discussion? I'll note that we do have one labor representative in the room, and I saw a thumbs up when we got that explanation about why somebody hasn't been put forward yet.
638 Thank you. There was a yes.
639 I from my angle. I saw a thumbs up. Councilor Kanal did you have anything additional?
640 I just.
641 Wanted to say I agree with everything councilor Clark said about the caliber of the appointees from reading their bios. Thanks.
642 Is there a motion to adopt this report?
643 So moved, second councilor Clark.
644 And thank you, councilor Canal, for the second keelan. Could you please call the roll?
645 Koyama Lane I. Maria. I. Novick I mark a.
646 Green Zimmerman I.
647 I Smith. I thank you for your service.
648 I Ryan. I pirtle-guiney. I the appointments are confirmed with 12 yes votes.
649 Thank you very much colleagues. I appreciate you hanging with us, running a little bit over time today to be able to get through that all. We have a busy agenda tomorrow afternoon in a recessed portion of this meeting as well. We will see you all then. And I will recess today's meeting to tomorrow afternoon.