Portland City Council Regular PM Meeting

4:17Good evening, everybody.

4:20We are beginning today with a pre-gavel from Councilor Kanal.

4:24It is not part of our formal agenda, but it is part of our livestream and an important part of our evening together tonight.

4:32This will be about 10 minutes, and after that we will open up our formal meeting.

4:40Councilor Kanal, I will pass it off to you.

4:43Thank you, Madam President.

4:44I am proud to sponsor today's pre-gavel in celebration and observance of National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week.

4:51Our 911 call takers and dispatchers are our city's first first responders.

4:56They are the lifeline and reassuring voice in an emergency for both our community members and our public safety responders on the scene.

5:04Our 911 centers are staffed with hardworking, skilled, and highly trained people 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

5:11Thank you.

5:12My policy advisor and I recently had the privilege of being hosted for a 911 sit-along at the Bureau of Emergency Communications, or BOEC.

5:19I want to thank our hosts Taylor, Courtney, and Amanda.

5:22Thank you for all your valuable work and for patient explanations for my staff and I. Portland's 911 center also answers calls for more than just the city of Portland.

5:32We answer for all of Multnomah County, including Gresham, Troutdale, Fairview, and Maywood Park.

5:36And to anyone listening out there who'd like to join the BOEC team, recruitment is opening in May.

5:40I'll save you the time, Director.

5:42You can go to Portland.gov/911/workfor911 to learn more.

5:49911 Is also part of a larger response network.

5:51Many know that I'm passionate about that response ecosystem as co-chair of the Community and Public Safety Committee.

5:56Director Cossi, who we're going to introduce in a moment, famously says that they're the Bureau of Emergencies, not non-emergencies, and launched the first-ever transition to move some of the non-emergency calls to 311.

6:08And in the face of limited resources and national staffing shortages, it's essential that we ensure the right response.

6:13Thank you.

6:14Is dispatched at the right time to reduce the burden on 911 and its call takers.

6:19And I'm grateful for Director Cossi's leadership on that.

6:21So with that, I'll pass it over to Director Cossi and Carolyn Welch, Senior Dispatcher and PPA Workgroup Leader.

6:27Following that, we'll have remarks from Community and Public Safety Committee Co-Chair Steve Novick, as well as Councilors Loretta Smith and Jamie Dunphy.

6:34Welcome, Director Cossi and Carolyn.

6:36Great.

6:36Thank you, Councilor Kanal.

6:38It's really a privilege being here tonight.

6:41Madam President, and City Council.

6:44I'm Bob Causey, Director of the Bureau of Emergency Communications, and this week is National Public Safety Telecommunicators Appreciation Week.

6:52That's a mouthful.

6:53We call it NTW for short, National Telecommunicators Week, and we at BOEC greatly appreciate being recognized for the important life-saving work that we do every day.

7:05Our call takers and dispatchers are the first First responders.

7:10They care deeply about our community.

7:12They are the calm voice during a caller's worst day, and they have a tremendous impact on our collective welfare.

7:22I brought one of our telecommunicators here with me today.

7:25I'd like to introduce Senior Dispatcher Carolyn Welch.

7:28Good evening.

7:30My name is Carolyn Welch.

7:31I'm a senior dispatcher at Boeck.

7:34Thank you, Councilor Knall, for inviting me to speak at the pre-gavel.

7:38I'm here to represent the group of call takers.

7:40I'm Deputy City Administrator Priya Dhanapal.

7:40I'm one of the emergency telecommunicators and dispatchers that serve Portland and the greater Multnomah County at the Bureau of Emergency Communications.

7:46It is an honor to be here today while we celebrate National Public Safety Telecommunicator Week.

7:52It is true that we show up 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, regardless of what is happening within our community, our personal lives, or even the weather.

8:00It is a calling that requires diligent effort to maintain a positive work-life balance.

8:05Being exposed to the daily traumas of the community can have an impact on not only us as individuals, But on our families as well as our loved ones.

8:14We appreciate Councilor Kanal for inviting us today and all of you for taking the time to recognize and celebrate the work we do.

8:20We're also thankful for the support of our union, the Portland Police Association, as well as our partnership with BOEC's leadership and City Labor Relations.

8:28Last but not least, we could not successfully do the work that we do without strong working relationships with the other entities we serve alongside police.

8:36Thank you.

8:37Fire, AMR, Corrections, Road and Maintenance Workers, and the countless other labor groups within the city and county.

8:44Once again, on behalf of our membership, thank you and happy National Telecommunicators Week.

8:52Thank you, Councilor.

8:58I believe we are turning to your co-chair next, is that correct?

9:01Councilor Novick.

9:05I just wanted to express my amazement at the job you do.

9:09I mean, like you said, you're dealing with people in incredible stress, incredibly emotional situations, and it's your job to get them the help they need as quickly as possible and get off the phone as quickly as possible.

9:22And most of the time you don't know what happened.

9:25So it's always seemed to me like your job requires the technical skill of an air traffic controller and the emotional resilience of, I don't know, Meryl Streep.

9:34Um, it just seems to be just— it, it must be an— I mean, it, it just amazes me that people can do this job day after day, year after year.

9:42So I just wanted to say thank you so, so much.

9:45Thank you.

9:48Councilor Smith.

9:50Thank you.

9:51Thank you, Madam, Madam Chair.

9:54Um, my name is Loretta Smith.

9:56I'm from District 1.

9:57I'm one of the 3 councilors, and I want to say It is so good to see you and to know that there are individuals and neighbors who are, um, working at 911.

10:11And you are those heroes who wear headsets and you play a critical role in our emergency response system.

10:18And I strongly support the well-paying jobs, Director Calzi, and I believe that telecommunications is a viable career path Thank you.

10:28Especially for those who are brave and committed and dedicated to serving their community.

10:34The jobs that you offer are a pathway for young people and those without a college degree to earn a very good wage, nearly $32 an hour.

10:45It's hard, it's, it's hard to look at it as work, but for those who answer the call, you will receive competitive benefits Yes.

10:54And you will be able to have the, um, the knowledge and the professional development that they offer.

11:02Director Bob Casi, I want to take a moment to recognize you and your leadership.

11:07You oversaw the Bureau of Emergency Communications, BOEC, during the height of the pandemic when there was a hiring freeze and citywide demonstrations while calls and volumes of calls reached record highs and staffing levels suffered, but you prevailed.

11:25This was not just a local issue in Portland.

11:28It was part of a national 911 staffing shortage.

11:32Yet, Bob, you managed to turn things around.

11:35Under your direction, you increased the training division, expanded training academies, and resolved our staffing.

11:42So I want to say kudos to you.

11:44And as a result, call response times, they have dramatically improved.

11:48Thank you.

11:49For 30 years, you have dedicated your career to emergency communications.

11:53Your leadership centered on care and compassion.

11:58It sets the tone and the stage for exceptional staff that you lead.

12:02You have left a lasting impact on Oregon's largest 911 system center and on every life that you have helped to save.

12:11So I thank you.

12:12It is an honor to know you and to watch you work.

12:14Thank you.

12:18Thank you, Madam President.

12:22Dr. Qazi, to your whole team, just sincerely thank you.

12:26Anyone who's lived in Portland in the last few years has known that our 911 system has been under serious stress, serious understaffing, and it's led to some really tough results for our community.

12:38People are calling you on the worst days of their lives, every single day, all day, and the people who you have answering the phones are dedicated professionals who are doing their absolute Thank you.

12:46Thank you, Mayor.

12:46I want to thank all of our city employees for doing their absolute best.

12:47Thanks to the leadership of you and your team, we're seeing the increased call times decrease.

12:54We're seeing better call time responses.

12:56We're seeing better service for the community.

12:58And it is reinstilling that sense of confidence in our system to be able to be there when people call on the worst days of their lives.

13:08So thank you to all of your teams for being such an important part of the first responder system and for Thank you.

13:18I would like to mention that, you know, our folks like Carolyn and so many others at BOEC, they're the ones doing most of the heavy lifting.

13:27So I really want to lift them up because it is Telecommunicator Week after all, and I'm so proud of my team.

13:33Thank you.

13:35Thank you, Director.

13:38Yes, thank you.

13:40I just wanted to take a moment, Director Costi, to acknowledge your vulnerability earlier today.

13:45And I really took your comments to heart when your staff levels were low and the calls were at a peak and you had to force overtime.

13:54That was your reality.

13:56And I can only imagine that the shame that you mentioned was real.

14:00I remember going out there over 2 years ago and spending— I don't think you could get rid of me, it was so exciting.

14:05And I was there for 2 hours and just really want to hold your team for, for hanging in there.

14:10Thank you.

14:10Those of you that have hung in there, you inspired me on that 2-hour visit back then, 2 years ago, when it was kind of at the peak, and you continue to inspire me and make me proud today.

14:21So thank you, and I really appreciate you being vulnerable earlier today.

14:25Happy, happy week.

14:27Happy celebration.

14:28Thank you.

14:30And Carolyn, please do make sure that your colleagues know how much we all appreciate the work that you do.

14:36Councilor Kanal, would you like to close?

14:38Yeah, thank you so much.

14:40And I just want to recognize also that the entire bureau was recognized at the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials, APCO, Western Regional Conference, which was hosted here in Portland in March.

14:51I had the privilege of hearing your talk, Director Casi, there.

14:54The Deputy Director of BOEC, Steve Maudsley, is the conference co-chair as well.

14:59And I also just want to say I learned more in a couple hours than I could have possibly imagined from Taylor and Courtney while we were there.

15:08And so I really appreciate that.

15:09Thank you.

15:10And with that, I will close out this free gavel and pass it back to the president.

15:14Thanks.

15:15Thank you.

15:16Thank you both for being here.

15:18Thank you, Councilor Kanal.

15:20And I will open our official council meeting for this evening.

15:26It is April 16th at 6:11 PM.

15:30Councilors, we have a very full agenda.

15:34We have a number of contentious items.

15:37We have a number of things on the agenda that your colleagues have brought amendments for.

15:45So it is going to be a long evening, possibly at times a heated evening.

15:52And I just want to make sure that we all are ready to be as concise as possible and move things through while also taking the time that we need to have the conversations that are important to move this process forward.

16:05And To folks who are here watching and are going to be with us through a long evening, please know that we do this because we were asked to have conversations in public, and we know that sometimes that's hard, but it is really important.

16:19It's a critical part of the work.

16:22Keelan, could you please call the roll?

16:25Kanal.

16:26Here.

16:26Here.

16:28Here.

16:32Here.

16:33Here.

16:35Zimmerman.

16:35Here.

16:36Avalos.

16:37Present.

16:37Dunphy.

16:38Here.

16:38Smith.

16:40Here.

16:41Here.

16:42And Mr. Taylor, could you please read our rules of order and decorum?

16:48Welcome to the Portland City Council.

16:50To testify before council in person or virtually, you must sign up in advance on the council agenda at www.portland.gov/council.

17:02Information on engaging with council can be found on the council clerk's webpage.

17:07Individuals may testify for 3 minutes unless the presiding officer states otherwise.

17:13The microphone will be muted when your time is over.

17:17The presiding officer preserves order.

17:19Disruptive 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.

17:31If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given.

17:35Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting.

17:38Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass.

17:43Additionally, council may take a short recess and reconvene virtually.

17:48Your testimony should address the matter being considered.

17:51When testifying, please state your name for the record.

17:54Your address is not necessary.

17:57If you are a lobbyist, please identify the organization you represent.

18:01Virtual testifiers should please unmute themselves when the council clerk calls your name.

18:06Thank you.

18:11Thank you.

18:12The first item on our agenda is agenda approval.

18:16Are there any Requests to amend the agenda?

18:24Okay, do we have unanimous consent to approve the agenda?

18:30Great.

18:34Next item on the agenda is public comment.

18:37Keelan, could you please invite up the folks who are here with us tonight?

18:41First up, we have Addie Smith.

18:49Addie is joining us online.

18:52Welcome, Addie.

18:52Please introduce yourself and go right ahead.

18:55Hi, my name is Addie Smith, and as you guys can see, I'm at your old meeting place.

19:00I went to the wrong place.

19:01I wanted to be there in person to deliver this message, but, uh, I'm at your old office, so whatever.

19:08Um, today's April 16th, 2025.

19:11Today I'm speaking before the Portland City Council, and I'm speaking about problematic Portland as well as the state of Oregon, and that landlords and attorneys and judges in Multnomah County are violating House Bill 2001.

19:23Before I begin, I want to address something that has been circulating across this country.

19:28I want people to know that Democrats in Oregon have done the same thing to African American men and women that Trump administration is doing to Kilmar Abrego-Garcia.

19:37Councilmember While innocent African American men and women aren't being sent yet to El Salvador, they are being incarcerated for crimes they didn't commit and are spending lengths of time in jail, either awaiting sentencing or being sentenced to jail time after proving their innocence by racist judges like Ricardo Montaka, Kathleen Proctor, Eric Boucher, Brandon Thompson, and Judge Andrew Irwin, who gives attorneys and judges probation after they've been convicted of either watching child porn or selling child pornography.

20:07Councilmember Herbold.

20:09Or participating in child porn.

20:11These judges are in Washington County Circuit Court, but the racism and discrimination and violations of the laws of the state of Oregon are being executed by judges throughout the state with impunity.

20:21They aren't being held accountable for violating the laws of the state or the laws and rights of the defendants who come before them, oftentimes due to absolutely no investigation by police and deputies in this state.

20:32African-American young men are languishing in jail for years in Oregon for crimes they didn't commit, and Governor Tina Kotek does absolutely nothing about it.

20:41I believe nationally it is time for us African Americans to leave the Democratic Party— the Democrat Party.

20:47I don't believe— I don't mean leave this party to be part of the Republican Party or part of the Green Party.

20:53It is time for us to establish our own party while Trump is burning this country down.

20:58It's not just Oregon.

21:00A Democrat-led state that innocent African Americans are languishing in jails.

21:03It's also Washington State, California, New York, all Democrat-led states.

21:08These same states wherein Democrats are seemingly outraged that Trump has sent innocent people to El Salvador but are silent when judges and police do it in their own states.

21:17In Oregon, African Americans make up less than 2% of the demographic, so the politicians don't care about our votes because they don't impact the electorate.

21:26But nationally, our votes Determined House, Senate seats, judges, and the presidency.

21:3231.78% Of people voted for Trump.

21:3430.84% People voted for Kamala Harris.

21:3836.33% Of people did not vote.

21:401% Of the people voted third party.

21:42While the majority of people voted for some— someone other than Trump, that 30%—.

21:4836% Of people who stayed home did so because Kamala Harris refused to stop sending bombs and money to Israel to commit genocide.

21:55Councilmember Once again, Democrats are hurting Black and brown people and still expecting our vote.

22:00Why?

22:01Because Trump is so much worse?

22:03It is time for African Americans to leave the Democrat Party.

22:06Our rights under the law, our children, our lives, our neighborhoods—.

22:10Abby, thank you.

22:11I'm so sorry, but we need to make sure to stay on time tonight.

22:14Thank you for being here though with us.

22:18Next up, we have Audrey Zunkel de Corsi.

22:25Welcome, Audrey.

22:26Please introduce yourself.

22:27Hello, um, good evening.

22:29My name is Audrey Zunkel-Dekorzy, and I am speaking tonight as a private citizen.

22:35I am before you to address the Leaf Day program.

22:39PBOT, it's time to turn over a new leaf.

22:44I know that's cheesy.

22:45Okay, um, at a moment of tight budgets and at a moment of newly unified administration of city services, this is the moment to reset How our city does fall leaf sweeping.

22:55For some quick background, 5 years ago I lived in a house with one street tree that dumped its leaves by Labor Day, so when our leaf day rolled around, around Thanksgiving, it was not so helpful.

23:05Then 3 years ago we moved all of 11 blocks away to a block not covered by leaf day.

23:11I now have 5 mature maples lining the street, and I get to rake the street leaves myself.

23:17We live on a greenway, so thousands of cyclists ride past every day contending with slippery wet leaves all fall and winter.

23:25And spring, they're still there.

23:28I submitted my written testimony earlier today to you by email, including photos as evidence of what the streets look like along this route— caked with mush, slippery, and unsafe.

23:392 Elementary school bike buses roll along that very same slippery street, and up in the balcony you can see 2 of the wonderful kids who ride their bikes to school along this unswept, leafy bike route.

23:52Vice President Tiffany rode with us one of those days.

23:56This is unfair and it is inequitable.

23:59I also submitted as evidence the map of the leaf day zones where you can see which neighborhoods are covered and which are not.

24:06There is not one in District 1.

24:09We can do better.

24:11So let's have urban forestry talk with PBOT.

24:13Can Portland meet our goals of expanding Portland's tree canopy if we're only sweeping the leaves from the trees in some neighborhoods?

24:21It was one thing when residents paid for the leaf day, $15 a year, I think, but now it's free, which means I am paying taxes to fund someone else getting a service I don't, and this is mostly benefiting wealthier neighborhoods.

24:35Every Portland neighborhood deserves to have its streets swept, but if budget cuts mean we can't sweep everywhere, then we should prioritize bike routes and safe routes to schools, or rotate.

24:46Every year, there's different solutions.

24:50There's lots of ways we can make our streets safer for bikers, especially our youngest riders.

24:54I support the 500 is Plenty initiative to reduce car traffic on greenways.

24:59Street sweeping would be another way to make bike travel safer in every part of our city.

25:04Maybe this can be partly funded by PSF even.

25:08So I want to thank city workers who clean our streets, who might be worrying about their jobs.

25:12Their work is important.

25:13We have plenty of work for them to do.

25:16I will submit my letter also to Mr. Jordan in hopes he can direct reconsideration of this program.

25:21And I want to thank you for your attention on this.

25:23You have so many important things on your plate.

25:25We see you.

25:26You're working hard.

25:27Thank you so much for your service.

25:31Thank you for being here.

25:33Next up, we have Jeff Weitzel.

25:43Welcome, Jeff.

25:44Please introduce yourself and go right ahead.

25:46For the record, my name is Jeffrey Weitzel.

25:49Councilors, President Pirtle-Guiney, thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

25:54My friends, if more Portlanders were biking around our city instead of driving for their daily trips, it would be to Portland's great benefit.

26:03Cleaner air, less congested roads, fewer lives lost in car crashes.

26:08We'd also have fewer potholes.

26:11Bikes need much less road space than cars, and they do barely any damage to pavement, so our roads budget would go much, much farther.

26:20None of this is news to the Portland Bureau of Transportation.

26:23Since 2009, a key planning goal in Portland has been that a full quarter of commute trips be by bike by 2030.

26:33Despite this laudable foresight, Despite Portland's world-famous bicycle culture, the number of cyclists recorded in PBOT's annual bicycle count fell almost every year from 2014 to 2022, and we are still 46% down from the peak.

26:51Here in the bicycle capital of North America, something has gone terribly wrong.

26:57Councilors, this is now in your hands.

27:00If we want the clean air, safe streets, and well-maintained pavement promised by thousands of Portlanders trading their cars for bikes, something must change.

27:11Our 2035 Transportation System Plan imagines streets with almost as many bikes on them as cars.

27:18If we're serious about that, and we should be, we must make our streets as welcoming to bikes as they are to cars.

27:26Any rider from 8 years old to 88 should have the ability to bicycle anywhere in the city without fear.

27:32Thank you.

27:33Those are different streets than we have today and a different city, a better city.

27:40This year of budget crisis happens to be the perfect time to get things moving in the right direction.

27:46Cyclists feel safer and happier with other cyclists.

27:50This offers us a virtuous circle.

27:53Tempt 1,000 new riders onto their bikes with inexpensive measures like commuter bike buses and flower pots on greenways to slow and divert cars.

28:02And the next 1,000 bikers will come easier, and the 1,000 after that easier still.

28:08Attend to this virtuous circle and you can build up a lot of forward momentum on the cheap.

28:14PCF grants could buy us even more.

28:18My friends, Portland loves bikes.

28:21We all know that.

28:23I believe that someday Portland will have more, even more bikes on its streets than cars.

28:27And those streets will be a party.

28:30Vision Zero will no longer be a vision.

28:32The asphalt will be like silk, and PBOT will have all the money it needs.

28:37Councilors, I ask you, keep the virtuous circle of cycling in Portland turning.

28:44Keep the bike numbers going up and to the right.

28:46It will take attention and courage and creativity, but our city will be the better for it.

28:51Thank you.

28:53Thank you so much for being here.

28:56Next up we have Brandon Morgov.

29:04Brandon, please introduce yourself and go right ahead.

29:11Can you hear me?

29:12Okay, I can hear myself.

29:13Um, we can hear you even a few inches back from there.

29:16Okay, welcome to take a seat if you'd like.

29:18I feel more comfortable like this.

29:19So this is my first time in City Council.

29:22My name is, uh, Brandon.

29:23I'm here to talk about, um, homelessness and some plans to address it.

29:28This is the first day I can get here and maybe the only day for quite a while.

29:31Summer's coming.

29:34First off, I'll also thank the first responders.

29:36They came within like 3 minutes when I had to Narcan someone the other day, and they actually talked me through the process of resuscitating.

29:42So I can attest they did their job well.

29:45And as far as the leaves, I mean, maybe in the parks if they just kind of left some of those leaves by the trees and then Transported those workers to the places that need leaves.

29:53You know, that'd be good for the trees and probably good for the streets.

29:55But as for the homeless, Mayor Wilson's plan, I don't believe is sufficient.

30:04I believe he seems good on paper.

30:08I'm looking forward to see what he has to offer.

30:11But unless the city changes its kind of attitude and approach towards the homeless, it ain't gonna get better.

30:16And so here are my points.

30:17Thank you.

30:18First off, I think to help the homeless, identify who does and who does not want to be on the street.

30:24If someone doesn't want to be on the street, good.

30:26Those are the first people who should get out.

30:27Some people like being on the street as a way of life.

30:30I don't advocate for it, but— so my second point, and on the first point, the city of Portland can absorb some homelessness.

30:39No homelessness is like authoritarianism.

30:41A city that is willing to have some homeless is actually a healthy city, I believe.

30:45Councilor Smith.

30:47Jesus said the poor will always be with you.

30:49Okay, number 2, uh, come up with a way to enlist more Portlanders, uh, to work at microvillages or shelters.

30:57Um, and I'm going to call this— I mean, you have plenty of people working DoorDash and Uber every night, and yet you can't staff a homeless shelter during a winter ice storm.

31:06Uh, there definitely needs to be more calling out Portland on its general attitudes for the homeless.

31:11Maybe you can have 20 bike rides Uh, point number 4, when people are trying to get their lives together, you might want to check on them a bit.

31:29I mean, imagine you're a poor person and you go to like an Oxford House and the person running the Oxford House is corrupt, which in this day and age can be— can quite happen.

31:38You got to have some people go there and investigate.

31:40You don't want to have a vulnerable person who's gone through All this stuff to try and get their life together being in a corrupt place.

31:45And I've been around, I've been homeless myself for a couple years off and on.

31:47Thankfully I have a place now, but I can attest that does go on.

31:52These are not empty words either.

31:56What I'd like to say is, if one thing that's important, this town needs more of a focus on low-income, on helping there be less low-income people and less of a focus on there being more low-income housing.

32:10And these are not empty words.

32:11I just got back from today working to try and create a program for the homeless in another town, not picking up trash, mind you, a program that's actually kind of putting them in a beneficial mindset where they can learn and grow.

32:22And I also have a plan to turn Lloyd Center into a hybrid housing for the homeless as well as a shopping center.

32:30And I have a written-up plan for that, and I sent it to all the papers.

32:33They didn't publish it or any of my other stuff, which has legitimacy.

32:37Thank you.

32:39And so if I could, if I could pass off either of these—.

32:42I'm sorry, can I help you, ma'am?

32:44I was going to finish one more point saying I would like to pass off to the city councilors an essay I wrote on turning Lloyd Center into affordable housing, as well as a general plan I have.

32:56It's like called the Morgan Proposal, for lack of a better term.

33:00If you go ahead and send that to us, I'm sure folks will take a look at it.

33:03I know that I will.

33:04Thank you so much for being here with us.

33:07Yeah, so in here is a— it's my plan, the Morgan proposal combined with my plan to turn Lloyd Center into affordable housing.

33:15Thank you.

33:18Next up we have Alan Combs.

33:34Alan Combs?

33:40It doesn't look like they've joined us.

33:43Okay, well, thank you so much to our 4 speakers.

33:45We appreciate you being here with us, um, sharing important messages.

33:49This is an important time for us to hear about things that aren't otherwise on our agenda.

33:55The next item on our agenda Item 3 is the committee referral list.

34:02And right now our committee referral list are all things that have actually been heard already.

34:07This list, as we councilors file things earlier and as the administration gets things filed earlier, will hopefully contain more things before they are before committees so that we can use this opportunity to give people notice about what might be coming on our agendas.

34:22But you will see that we Uh, put forward, um, a few items that I, I won't read through because they are on today's agenda, as well as, um, an amendment to the Portland Permitting and Development Fee Schedule that has gone through the Finance Committee, revised transportation fee schedule that went to the Finance Committee, uh, adopting rates and charges for water and water-related services.

34:51That went through the Finance Committee.

34:53Revised sewer and stormwater charges that went through the Finance Committee.

34:59Fees and charges for water system development and water-related services to the Finance Committee.

35:07I apologize, I'm skipping the things that are on the agenda tonight.

35:11Amending the code to consolidate noise enforcement and improve fairness and consistency in noise regulation that went to Community and Public Safety.

35:20Repeal the authorization of the city attorney— I'm sorry, repeal the authorization of the city attorney to appeal the judgment in the Kelly Jones as personal representative for the estate of Michael Townsend versus the City of Portland case went to Community and Public Safety.

35:37Um, and I believe the rest of these— oh, and direct funding for the Workforce Pre-Apprenticeship Program and Summer Works Youth Employment Initiative Went to Labor and Workforce Development.

35:52The next items on our agenda are on the consent agenda.

35:58Keelan, I believe we've had an item pulled from the consent agenda, is that correct?

36:03One item was pulled, item 7, 2025-138.

36:07Thank you.

36:08And councilors, items pulled from the consent agenda go to the end of our agenda unless anybody would like to make a motion to put this item elsewhere on the agenda.

36:18This is the confirmation of the appointment and reappointment of members to the Portland Elections Commission.

36:29I would like to make a motion to add this to the top of the agenda.

36:33To the top of the regular agenda.

36:36Second.

36:39Councilors, there's been a motion to move this to the top of the regular agenda.

36:45Councilor Koyama Lane motioned, and I'm sorry, who seconded?

36:48Councilor Clark.

36:55Any discussion?

36:57Okay, Keelan, can we do this by unanimous consent or do we need to call the roll?

37:01I think unanimous consent.

37:02Are there any objections or do we have unanimous consent?

37:06Objection.

37:07We have an objection.

37:07Okay, then let's call the roll.

37:09Okay, Canal.

37:12Ryan.

37:16Sorry, uh, aye.

37:19Koyama Lane.

37:20Aye.

37:21Murillo.

37:22Aye.

37:23Novick.

37:24Aye.

37:25Clark.

37:26Aye.

37:26Green.

37:27Aye.

37:28Zimmerman.

37:29Aye.

37:29Avalos.

37:31Aye.

37:32Dunphy.

37:33Aye.

37:33Smith.

37:34Aye.

37:35Hurdle-Guiney.

37:35Aye.

37:37The item is moved to the top of the regular agenda with 11 yes votes and 1 no vote.

37:42Thank you.

37:43So we are on the consent agenda, and I apologize, there's nothing else that has been pulled from the consent agenda, correct?

37:53That's correct.

37:54Okay, Keelan, can you please call the roll on the consent remainder of the consent agenda?

37:59Aye.

37:59Aye.

38:05Aye.

38:06Aye.

38:07Aye.

38:08Aye.

38:10Aye.

38:11Aye.

38:15Aye.

38:17The consent agenda is approved with 12 yes votes.

38:21Thank you.

38:21So we are now moving on, councilors, to the regular agenda, and the first item on the regular agenda now is Agenda item 7.

38:31Keelan, could you please call the agenda item?

38:35Item 7, confirm appointment and reappointment of members to the Portland Elections Commission for terms to end April 30th, 2029.

38:45Thank you, Keelan.

38:45And councilors, because we don't generally have committee staff summaries on appointment agenda items, I am going to turn to Councilor Koyama Lane.

38:56Who was the presiding chair over the meeting when this agenda item was heard in the Governance Committee.

39:02All right, thank you, Madam President.

39:05So the 4 Portland Elections Commission volunteers at the Governance Committee that the Governance Committee has recommended for confirmation today are part of a 9-member volunteer commission which implements and evaluates the Small Donor Election Program.

39:21At our April 7th Governance Committee meeting, we had the opportunity to hear from these passionate volunteers One a reappointment and 3 new appointments.

39:29And the committee voted unanimously to recommend their appointment.

39:33For those of you that are not steeped in City Hall business and Robert's Rules of Order, I wanna explain a little bit about consent agenda.

39:40Each council meeting, we have what is called a consent agenda, which allows us to approve several items with one vote.

39:46We include the opportunity to unanimously approve volunteer committee appointments, Yes.

39:52As a council using the consent agenda.

39:56So when these volunteers come to us, they've gone through a thorough vetting process.

40:01First, they're vetted on the executive staff side, the executive side by staff.

40:06Those names are brought forward to the mayor, and then the mayor's office recommends them for appointment.

40:12Then these names go before a city council policy committee that relates to their volunteer work there.

40:18At least in the case of my committee, I think this is happening in other committees as well, we hear from the volunteers all about their interests in the work and relevant experience.

40:28These committee meetings are public meetings.

40:30Councilors do not have to be on that policy committee to vet a nominee.

40:35You, any one of us can come testify.

40:38You can ask committee members to ask a question on your behalf.

40:41You can watch the hearing live or after the fact.

40:43You can submit written comment.

40:46You can see who's been nominated.

40:47You can do your own research.

40:49So once that policy committee has heard all of the questions and comments, Signed off on the volunteers, that list of volunteer names then comes before us here on the full— on the consent agenda.

41:00The hope is that after all this vetting and acknowledging the extensive work of the committee and the volunteers, they can be unanimously approved by the consent agenda process.

41:12Now, if needed, a councilor can pull these committee volunteer appointments from the consent agenda and say, no, we need more discussion.

41:18Thank you.

41:20And if you've been to the last few meetings, you'll see that my colleague Councilor Kanal is pulling all of these off of the consent agenda as a matter of principle.

41:29And I want to acknowledge that I do truly appreciate how passionate and principled my colleague is.

41:35We've spoken at length about his reasoning for this, and I do understand it.

41:39And at the same time, I'm tasked as the chair of the Governance Committee to streamline things for our— these These roughly 80 different volunteer bodies so that all of us can get down to policy work.

41:52Our governance committee has worked hard on a forthcoming resolution to formalize the process that I just described for you today.

41:58You'll be seeing it soon.

42:00And because of what I've heard from dozens of past and prospective volunteers, it's— what I'm hearing is that adding another layer of bureaucracy is making it harder for volunteers to feel like they can participate.

42:12Councilor Thank you.

42:12So these are people that are already donating their time to do really valuable and important work for our city.

42:18Anyone who comes to these Wednesday City Council meetings know that we have very packed agendas, and our constituents are begging all of us to get to work.

42:28We have many people here who I think are ready to give public testimony on other agenda items that we have on our list.

42:36We have a long meeting ahead of us.

42:38I feel strongly that it does not serve our volunteers or our constituents to go over things that have already been discussed publicly and on the record.

42:46So with love and respect to my colleague, Councilor Kanal, I would ask that we respect our volunteers' and constituents' time by reserving discussion on appointments for when it's truly needed and not in order to make a point at every single council meeting.

43:01And with all that in mind, Madam President, I call the question.

43:05Second.

43:06Okay, we have I believe we move straight into a vote when a question is called.

43:15We don't have discussion on that motion.

43:17That's correct.

43:18And because this is a report, um, we may need a motion to accept the report and a second before we can take the vote.

43:27I think this is a vote to call the question.

43:30Oh, okay.

43:30Yes.

43:34Are we doing a vote to vote right now?

43:38This is calling the question.

43:40Yes, I'm sorry.

43:41I usually state what these are.

43:42I apologize.

43:43Calling the question is a vote to vote.

43:46And I believe that when we call the question, we don't have discussion first.

43:49That immediately triggers a vote on whether or not to vote.

43:54Okay.

43:56So this is the vote on the motion to call the question.

44:01On the motion, I vote no.

44:02Ryan?

44:04Aye.

44:05Aye.

44:06Aye.

44:06Clark?

44:09Aye.

44:11Green?

44:11Aye.

44:12Zimmerman?

44:13Aye.

44:14Avalos?

44:15No.

44:16Dunphy?

44:18Aye.

44:18Smith?

44:20Aye.

44:20Bertolghini?

44:21Aye.

44:23With 10 yes votes, the— Motion is approved.

44:27Councilors, that moves us past discussion and to the vote on this agenda item.

44:34I will need a motion and a second to adopt the report, and then we will move into—.

44:39Move to adopt the report.

44:40So moved.

44:42I think I heard a movement from Councilor Zimmerman and a second from Councilor Ryan, though I also heard Councilor Kanal say a second after that.

44:51I believe we have Zimmerman and Ryan first for the official record.

44:54Just wanted to acknowledge my colleague.

44:57Sorry for the confusion, Keelan.

45:00Can you call the roll?

45:01And we are now voting to adopt the report and confirm the recommended appointments from the mayor.

45:13I will keep this streamlined.

45:15Madam President, if we have to have fewer, better supported, more empowered, and therefore more meaningful volunteer bodies, we need to ensure that council engages with the top We also need to guarantee public participation in this process.

45:29I support the appointees.

45:30I have this entire time, and I wish that we had a process that better reflected that going forward.

45:36And I look forward to working with my colleagues who are on the Governance Committee to ensure that.

45:40I vote aye.

45:42Aye.

45:43Aye.

45:45Aye.

45:45Aye.

45:48Aye.

45:48Clark?

45:49Aye.

45:49Green?

45:51Aye.

45:51Zimmerman?

45:52Aye.

45:53Avalos?

45:55I agree with Councilor Kanal.

45:57I am concerned about what this process is setting up because I do think that us vetting volunteers who have very big roles and make a lot of big decisions too, and I don't agree that that process going just through committee and us I barely have enough time to do my own committee.

46:20I expect to come to this meeting and be able to make a vote and have the ability to have an informed vote.

46:25And that requires some further vetting.

46:27So I disagree with that premise.

46:30Agree with Councilor Kanal that I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna vote for this 'cause it's not about those people.

46:34And I, as somebody who has put hundreds and hundreds of hours, know very much the burden that we put on community members.

46:40But for that same reason, I also know the responsibility that community members have.

46:44And if we're gonna put the burden on them, we need to make sure that we're doing it in a way So I'm voting aye, but I want to continue the discussion about this process in the future.

46:55Aye.

46:56Aye.

46:58Aye.

46:59With 12 aye votes, the appointments are confirmed.

47:04Thank you, Keelan.

47:05Councilors, our next agenda item is an item that we've heard a few times before, um, the Ordinance to ban AI— I'm sorry, to ban price setting through AI in housing.

47:22Keelan, could you please call the agenda item?

47:25Item 9, amend affordable housing code to add prohibition of anti-competitive rental practices, including the sale and use of algorithmic devices.

47:35Thank you.

47:36And councilors, you'll remember that we We had to cut testimony short when we first heard this agenda item and offered the public 2 additional times to come forward and complete the testimony list.

47:48This is the second of those times.

47:50So we will move right now into picking up on public testimony where we left off after the last meeting.

47:58Keelan, could you please call up folks to testify?

48:02Yes, thank you, Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney.

48:04First, we have Jenna Knobloch, Amy Walsh, and Christine Orlandi.

48:13Thank you for joining us tonight.

48:17All right.

48:17Hi, my name is Jenna Knobloch.

48:19I'm a renter in Southeast Portland, and I'm also someone who has experienced housing precarity too many times in my life.

48:28And I'm here to call on you to pass this ban on algorithmic price fixing.

48:34First, it's clear that it's a real problem.

48:37I learned from RealPage's own testimony here that they are already setting prices for 18% of units in Portland.

48:44That's almost 1 in 5 units, far too many.

48:48And according to RealPage's own materials, they are, and I quote, driving every possible opportunity to increase price even in the most downward trending conditions.

48:59Councilmember Loretta Smith.

49:01That is not a fair market, and this is further distorting what is already a losing market for renters.

49:11Secondly, I really am failing to see any downsides here for landlords.

49:16For all the bluster about unintended consequences, I've not heard a single real-world example from the DOGA investigation or the other cities with this on the books.

49:27For all the discussion about barriers to building new market rate units, I've never heard price setting come up as a barrier.

49:34The fact is landlords have been setting prices just fine for a long time without colluding.

49:42In fact, it was just in the news, I was just reading just now that RealPage lost and is settling in North Carolina where they're agreeing to stop using the practice.

49:52There are real consequences for tenants.

49:55The Oregon Community Foundation found That for every 10% increase in homelessness, there's an associated 13.6% increase in— or 10% increase in rent is associated with 13.6% increase in homelessness.

50:10Trump's Department of Justice is not going to protect us from price gloating.

50:14We are all depending on you, so please vote yes on this sensible policy.

50:19I'll remind folks, I'll remind folks, I just want to remind folks that we can't have clapping and other interruptions.

50:30You're welcome to do jazz hands, thumbs up, thumbs down, other silent indications of support or opposition.

50:40Amy Walsh, Christine Orlandi, Sarah Fisher is joining us online.

50:50Welcome, Sarah.

50:55Sarah, you're muted.

51:06Sarah, if you're on the phone, try star 6 to unmute.

51:14Okay, we'll come back to Sarah.

51:16Next up we have Michael Park.

51:21Spencer Trum, Eric Hagstedt.

51:30And I believe one of those guests is making their way downstairs right now.

51:42Keelan, while we wait, is Sarah ready?

51:45Um, it looks like Sarah's still muted.

51:57We want to call the next couple of people.

51:59Sure.

52:00Let's see, next up we have Marion Drake, Greg Frick, Keely Coke.

52:25Next we have Leah Belton.

52:30Spencer.

52:40Go right ahead.

52:40Thank you.

52:40I appreciate it.

52:41Introduce yourself and jump right in.

52:45Good evening, Council President Pirtle-Guiney and members of the Portland City Council.

52:49My name is Spencer Trumm, and I'm here today on behalf of State Representative Zach Hudson.

52:54Representative Hudson's district represents Oregon's 49th House District.

52:58This includes parts of East Portland and Gresham, as well as Troutdale, Fairview, and Wood Village.

53:05I'm here to urge you to pass the ordinance prohibiting algorithmic rental price fixing.

53:10Nearly half the households in Representative Hudson's district are rentals.

53:14Between 2019 and 2023, over 60% of those renter households were forced to spend more than 30% of their income on housing.

53:22In other words, the majority of East County residents are forced to pay too much in rent.

53:27One way to limit the damage caused by out-of-control rent is to ban the use of AI algorithms to set rents.

53:35ProPublica's reporting reveals how software companies help landlords and property managers coordinate rent increases.

53:40Their algorithms aggregate non-public data from landlords and supply them all with the same analysis to maximize rent yields.

53:47The result?

53:48Spiraling rent inflation, community displacement, and harder lives for working families.

53:54Our senior U.S.

53:55Senator Ron Wyden used a good word to describe the arrangement by which companies use algorithms to raise prices and control housing as a commodity.

54:04That word is cartel.

54:06Jurisdictions across America have recognized the threat posed to consumers by predatory rent-setting algorithms.

54:13City councils in Philadelphia and San Francisco have passed ordinances like the one proposed here in Portland.

54:19And I'm pleased to say that Oregon has joined a federal antitrust suit against RealPage But housing unaffordability is an emergency across the state, and our city governments must play their part to protect Oregonians.

54:31This ordinance has attracted a great deal of attention and support.

54:35I urge you to listen to the voices of rent-burdened Portlanders and prioritize their need for shelter and dignity over landlords' profits.

54:42The degree to which Oregonians are burdened by rents is unfair, unsustainable, and unacceptable, and it must stop.

54:49Please pass this ordinance without delay, and thank you for your time and consideration.

54:52Thank you.

54:54Thank you.

54:55Please go ahead and introduce yourself and then jump right in.

54:59Hi, my name is Leah Belton.

55:02I support the ban on algorithmic rent pricing.

55:06I am here for myself, my fellow renters, and East County Rising, which serves District 1 and East Multnomah County.

55:14We are deeply concerned about the housing and eviction crisis.

55:19A 2018 City of Portland assessment on gentrification and displacement highlighted East Portland's unique vulnerability.

55:29East Portland has had the most rapid increase in housing costs citywide since '08, the year I graduated from Reynolds High.

55:39Over 14,000 low-income, cost-burdened renter households live in East Portland, and they're being pushed out in Parkrose and Rosewood.

55:49Black and brown Portlanders are being displaced the fastest.

55:54Institutional racism and historical redlining laid the foundation, and today the use of algorithmic price-fixing tools continues this displacement.

56:05You have the power to slow this displacement.

56:09Please do not give in to misinformation and scare tactics.

56:14Help us pay reasonable rents instead.

56:18Vote yes on this ordinance.

56:20Do not water it down.

56:23Banning price-fixing algorithms to close a collusion loophole will not tank the housing market.

56:31Algorithmic price-fixing tools enable our capital to be mined out of our community with ease.

56:40Help us keep our money in our local economy.

56:45East County Rising and I urge you all to vote yes on this ordinance and protect the people who actually live in this city.

56:55Thank you for your time.

56:57Thank you for being here.

56:59Uh, next up we have Colin Fawn.

57:04Laurena Guyette.

57:07Natalie Hutchinson joining us online.

57:14Right ahead.

57:15I'm here.

57:16All right, um, good evening.

57:18My name is Natalie Hutchinson.

57:19I am a grad student in the architecture program at PSU, and I'm here to speak in support of the ordinance banning AI, um, AI price fixing of rent.

57:29Portland's soul is defined by its people— the artists, the families, the small businesses, and the neighbors who make our city unique.

57:36But the use of algorithmic devices in the rental housing market threatens to push neighbors out.

57:43As a tenant, I live in an affordable housing building where AI-based price-fixing software like Yardi is used.

57:49In the 11 months that I've lived in this building, I've witnessed— it was 22 evictions on the first day.

57:56On the original day of this testimony, but today it's 24 evictions in this building.

58:02This is a clear example of the harm these practices cause, and it is unacceptable.

58:06Renters deserve grace, not exploitation, especially in today's economic climate.

58:12To the tech companies behind these algorithms, these practices of manipulating prices and destabilizing our housing market are just not just unethical, they're harmful.

58:21We won't allow you to turn our city into a market for profit at the expense of its residents.

58:26The small landlords, you are an essential part of keeping Portland weird and special.

58:32By setting rents reasonably, you ensure that our city remains diverse, inclusive, and vibrant.

58:37Supporting fair and affordable pricing benefits everyone— your tenants, your neighborhoods, and our city as a whole.

58:45Furthermore, I urge all renters to join renters unions and stand up for your rights.

58:49We need to hold landlords And developers accountable for their actions.

58:53This ordinance is just the first step in ensuring that our city remains a place where residents can thrive.

58:59Today I want to lend our community's bravery to the City Council in facing these current issues head-on.

59:04I'm confident in the leadership of the City Council to make the right decision for Portland's future.

59:08I urge the council and Greater Portland to support this bill to protect our community from the harmful effects of AI price fixing.

59:14Thank you.

59:16Thank you.

59:17Thank you.

59:18Go right ahead.

59:19Hi, uh, my name is Lorena Gayette.

59:22I am speaking in favor of this ordinance.

59:24Um, I did have previous testimony, but I decided to scrap it in order to rebuttal some of the misinformation that was presented at the previous council meeting.

59:31First, in response to the claim that the software is not price fixing, or like RealPage, uh, it was reported in 2022 that RealPage executives have been quoted as taking credit for a 14% increase in rent and referral referring to landlords who refuse to increase rent as idiots.

59:48Employees state landlords who want to charge reasonable rates have an empathy problem and have admitted to disincentivizing landlords from doing so, even kicking some landlords off of the software.

59:58As a Latina, I took offense to the idea that this ordinance would prevent generational wealth from developing in Black and brown communities when demographics for this city show that more than 60% of Black and Hispanic rent— are renters in Portland, meaning that the biggest hurdle for our communities Is being rent burdened and first-time home buying.

1:00:16What percentage of them do you think are landlords?

1:00:19We need to ensure that all of our community is protected, not just those who are able to invest in property.

1:00:24And you are being presented with a false dichotomy that we must either focus on building homes or regulating costs.

1:00:30It is important to state that not only can we do both, but we must do both.

1:00:35Under normal conditions, more housing will bring prices down, but RealPage and software like it are built for the purpose of disrupting these types of market forces.

1:00:43Thank you.

1:00:44All the housing in the world means nothing if we allow software to run rampant and remove any incentive to lower prices.

1:00:50This ordinance is a necessary preventative measure that needs to be applied yesterday.

1:00:56Also, as a request, Councilor Zimmerman, you have asked the same questions in the Housing and Homelessness Committee as you have in general, in the general meeting.

1:01:03I would like to request that you maybe write down some of the things so we don't have repeat answers in order to be respectful of our time.

1:01:09Thank you.

1:01:12Thank you very much.

1:01:13Thank you for being here.

1:01:18We'll go back to Sarah Fisher.

1:01:22Sarah, welcome.

1:01:23Please introduce yourself and you can start your testimony.

1:01:28Thank you.

1:01:30Good evening, Councilor—.

1:01:32Council President Pirtle-Guiney, Vice President Koyama Lane, and councilors.

1:01:38Um, do I need to do something to turn my camera on?

1:01:43Yeah, Sarah, if you accept the, uh, promote to panelist.

1:01:54Yep.

1:01:57All right.

1:02:03Are you ready?

1:02:05Go right ahead, Sarah.

1:02:06And even if you can't get your camera on, we've got a picture of you on screen.

1:02:09Okay.

1:02:10My name is Sarah Fisher, and I'm an Episcopal priest serving Hope and Bread Street Church and St.

1:02:16Aidan's Episcopal Church, both in East Portland.

1:02:19I'm testifying for myself today.

1:02:22While much of my work is with people currently living on the street, I know, as you know, That our housing crisis is about much more than homelessness.

1:02:33I've lived in Portland for almost 40 years, and I've lived in every quad—.

1:02:38Quadrant of the city.

1:02:40I have been a homeowner, a renter, and a landlord.

1:02:44About 30 years ago, a family member was visiting, and she said something I have never forgotten.

1:02:50She said Portland feels like a city that really cares about the people who live here.

1:02:55Thank you.

1:02:56And does things for the enjoyment of all of its residents.

1:03:00When we talk about a boom loop, reviving Portland and making Portland a better city, I think this is what we're talking about: giving the impression to all who come here that we care.

1:03:14This anti-algorithmic price-fixing ordinance does that.

1:03:19The simple truth is that this is about putting people before profit.

1:03:24If this is not a moment in history to put people before profit, I do not know what is.

1:03:33My husband and I own a small apartment complex in Southeast Portland.

1:03:39We do not participate in RealPage, so I guess we're one of these stupid landlords, or any other algorithmic price-fixing service.

1:03:47Our apartment complex matters to us.

1:03:49Yes, especially as we consider retirement.

1:03:52But I am here to say that it is possible to have a healthy investment property without making it impossible for everyday people to live in our city.

1:04:03I urge you to pass this ordinance.

1:04:06Thank you.

1:04:08Thank you, Sarah.

1:04:10Next up, we have Zach Voss.

1:04:15Tessa Cole, Meg Bender Stefanski, J.M., Riley Martz, Haley Nissen, Will Spaulding, Heather Riggs.

1:04:42Thanks.

1:04:43Hannah Brooks Olson.

1:04:48Jeremy Baird.

1:04:53Go ahead and introduce yourself and you can begin your testimony.

1:04:58Good evening, Madam President, councilors, um, hardworking administrators.

1:05:05Thank you for letting me come back to testify.

1:05:08I am Reverend Heather Riggs, pastor of Montavilla United Methodist Church in Southeast Portland.

1:05:16I'm here to speak in favor.

1:05:18I want robots to clean my house, not to raise my parishioners' rent.

1:05:25Many members of my congregation are either elderly and struggling to survive on a fixed income, or are young adults struggling to find jobs that pay enough to cover the rising costs of living.

1:05:40My church includes a queer young adult group for whom affordable housing is literally life-saving because they cannot depend on their families for the kind of support that most parents give their young adult children when they are starting out in life.

1:05:58This ordinance will not impact small local landlords who can't even afford to pay for these algorithmic programs.

1:06:08As has been already stated during the discussion of social housing, this ordinance will also not stop developers from building affordable housing, since for-profit developers have no intentions of building affordable housing because it just doesn't pencil out to build for lower rents when we have higher building costs.

1:06:32This ordinance will help to prevent the large corporate landlords from using AI to collude to raise rents in an already stressed housing system.

1:06:43Let's do the right thing for the majority of Portlanders, not the right thing for the minority of those who are already making enough money.

1:06:54Thank you.

1:06:56Thank you.

1:06:58Go right ahead.

1:07:00For the record, my name is Jeremy Kuda-Baird.

1:07:02I'll give a little bit more of a personal testimony.

1:07:04I'm a resident of Portland City District 4.

1:07:07I'm a research and development chemist who is employed in the building industry specializing in the science of developing housing materials.

1:07:15My partner is a medical student going to OHSU pursuant of an MD.

1:07:19We moved here in the last few years in the pursuit of a better life from Idaho.

1:07:22Where AI price fixing has caused the price of rent to far exceed the price of labor.

1:07:27The lack of regulations in that state have allowed this inequity to grow considerably throughout my life while growing up there.

1:07:32Before coming here, we only heard rumors of Portland being something that it isn't, and we don't regret coming here at all.

1:07:38The city has been amazing.

1:07:39We've decided that we'd like to stay here permanently and add another scientist and a doctor to the community.

1:07:44But the rent increases have been making it impossible to save money and even think about being able to save up to afford buying a house in this area.

1:07:50Even with the higher paying job that I have right now.

1:07:54We have already had to move once due to rent being exacerbated by the AA price fixing since we've come here.

1:07:59I know this is a part of why it has gone up because all of my slightly older coworkers who make the same amounts, same salary as me, are able to do what I am not.

1:08:10And that's because of a steep increase in rent since they bought houses, which conveniently happened after software companies like RealPage started existing.

1:08:18Thank you.

1:08:19So we have a decision to make once my partner graduates on whether or not we can afford to live here or even in this country when she becomes a medical resident.

1:08:26We have been putting off having a family or even getting married until we have the money to do either correctly.

1:08:31Our main expense is rent, and it's not even close competition.

1:08:36We look for the cheapest place to live, and it doesn't exist.

1:08:38I hope everyone will vote to prevent us from being priced out of our favorite city before we can even start to build a life here.

1:08:45Thank you.

1:08:47Thank you so much for sharing your story with us.

1:08:51Next up, we have Rowan Spellman, Michael Shanks, Richard Bulkovich, Brent Hoffman, Jordan Lewis.

1:09:11Tyler Fellini is joining us online.

1:09:17Tyler, you're welcome to come off mute and begin your testimony.

1:09:22All right, uh, good evening, councilors.

1:09:24Um, I, uh, I want to say that I think it's incredibly telling that the most ardent, uh, opposition to, uh, this AI ban has come from, uh, you know, multi-unit property owners.

1:09:35I think that's incredibly telling.

1:09:36I hope that, uh, It's also a shame that so many people were not able to be here tonight.

1:09:44I recognize, you know, the bureaucratic process being what it is.

1:09:46It's slow and steady, and I do hope that you will do your due diligence to capture those people's statements because, you know, I believe that they had something worth saying, and I hope it gets heard.

1:09:55With that, I should have said this at the beginning.

1:09:59I am a registered lobbyist for and the executive director of Portland Jobs with Justice.

1:10:03Councilor Mitch Green.

1:10:04And I am just here to express my support for the ban on AI price fixing.

1:10:10And with that, I'll yield the rest of my time.

1:10:13Thank you, Tyler.

1:10:13And thank you for remembering that lobbyist disclosure.

1:10:17I know folks sometimes have a hard time remembering it.

1:10:20Go right ahead.

1:10:21Please introduce yourself and begin your testimony.

1:10:28Oh, me?

1:10:28Yeah, go ahead.

1:10:31Me?

1:10:32Hello, City Council.

1:10:33My name is Jordan Lewis, and I'm a renter in Portland Stadiumhood.

1:10:36I'm testifying here in support of Councilor Morillo's algorithmic price-fixing ban.

1:10:41Something that frustrates me about this conversation is that every turn we have to consider the plight of the precarious landlord.

1:10:47It's not that I don't believe a landlord can be in financial precarity, but this is a rhetorical technique that hijacks the conversation and de-centers the precarious tenant.

1:10:55The most precarious landlord necessarily owns a house, which puts them above the average tenant financially.

1:11:00I want to talk about how popular this policy is.

1:11:03I talk a lot about city politics in a lot of apolitical group chats.

1:11:06You will not imagine the excitement I got when I brought up this policy in there.

1:11:10I have landlord friends, friends who own their place and rent out rooms.

1:11:14This policy does numbers in those group chats.

1:11:16No one gets more excited about this policy than my landlord friends because policies like this alleviate I think this will alleviate a lot of the guilt that they might feel as landlords.

1:11:23They almost want this more than I do.

1:11:25And while I'm not sure if I can get my friends to care about climate policy or transportation like I do, when I tell them who voted no on this, they will remember it.

1:11:33This is meat and potatoes anti-gentrification policy.

1:11:36It shouldn't be that hard.

1:11:37Let's pass this very first step so we can move on to some more interesting stuff.

1:11:41The housing crisis is a multifactorial situation, and a lot of regular Americans bear some responsibility in it.

1:11:46I echo the concept of a housing cartel mentioned in previous testimonies, but people love a simple villain like RealPage.

1:11:53This is the lowest hanging fruit there is.

1:11:55It's practically on the ground.

1:11:57If we can't pass an algorithmic rent fixing ban, which really just brings software in line with a 100-year-old antitrust law, how are we supposed to challenge the housing cartel and build the housing supply that we need if we can't even do that?

1:12:09Thank you.

1:12:09Councilmember Thank you for being here.

1:12:14Next up we have Adam Shippey, followed by Lee Shelton and Claire Knudsen.

1:12:27Adam, go right ahead and introduce yourself.

1:12:29Yeah, my name is, uh, Adam Shippey, District 4.

1:12:32Um, you know, my 20s I was homeless.

1:12:35I think there's only one person on this council that has like Thank you.

1:12:38I have firsthand personal experience with how humiliating, dehumanizing, and violent that can be.

1:12:44The people that were homeless alongside me are not here to speak to this council right now because they are dead.

1:12:52Suffice it to say, my circumstances improved, not through some stupid bootstrap ideology, but just through sheer luck, right?

1:13:01A couple years later, I was lucky enough to marry a beautiful woman, and in 2011, we rented an apartment in Southwest Portland That had 2 bedrooms, it was 1,900 square feet, had a balcony, in-unit laundry, uh, 2 parking spaces, and a freaking storage unit for less than $1,000 a month.

1:13:23Less than $1,000 a month.

1:13:24It was so affordable we were able to save money.

1:13:27We saved money, and with the assistance of her family, a couple years later we put a down payment on a house that we bought for $265,000.

1:13:34No, no, no, $257,000.

1:13:36Right?

1:13:37I love my house.

1:13:38I still live in my house.

1:13:39But like, that story, that story about someone who rose out of circumstances that could have killed them and got to the level of comfort that I have right now, that doesn't get told anymore.

1:13:50That's not possible.

1:13:52And these price-fixing algorithms are a huge part of that.

1:13:56And I think everybody at this council knows that.

1:13:57And if you don't know that, I question who you're listening to.

1:14:01I've heard a lot of disingenuous arguments 2 weeks ago I really did, by people who were paid to be here, but I didn't get to speak.

1:14:09But I'm speaking now, and I just want to say the landlords are going to be okay.

1:14:14They are.

1:14:15They really are.

1:14:16And most of your constituents aren't landlords, and they're desperate and they're angry.

1:14:21So please pass this.

1:14:23We need it.

1:14:24Thank you for being here and for sharing your story.

1:14:30Next up, while Lee Shelton Welcome.

1:14:44Go right ahead and introduce yourself, and you can begin your testimony.

1:14:48Hi, I'm Jesse Dillon.

1:14:50Um, City Council members, thank you for being here.

1:14:52Staff, thank you for being here.

1:14:54I really have great admiration and respect for anybody who volunteers to engage in this process.

1:15:00So thank you very much.

1:15:03My name is Jesse Dillon, and let me be clear, I absolutely do not support price fixing.

1:15:09I don't support monopolistic ideals, but I also do not support this amendment.

1:15:17There are flaws to the amendment, and I am very concerned that it will cost me as a housing provider to increase rents to cover the costs because I'm going to be sued for frivolous lawsuits based on the way that it's written right now.

1:15:32I'm a mother, a U.S. Army veteran, a business owner, and a housing provider.

1:15:37I take great pride in all of the roles that I fulfill, and I have a strong set of personal values that guide me in my decision-making.

1:15:43I hold those values near to my heart and encourage those around me, as well as expect my staff, my colleagues, and my children To reflect on their personal values and live them each day with each decision they make.

1:15:56My favorite personal value is integrity.

1:15:59Do the right thing even when no one is looking.

1:16:02Today I urge you each to exercise integrity in your position as Portland City Council members.

1:16:08You are elected by the citizens of Portland to do what they cannot do for themselves, to collectively ensure the local government does the right thing.

1:16:17Thank you.

1:16:17If you vote yes for this amendment to the Affordable Housing Code, it will have an unintended consequence of increasing the cost of housing, and it will entice frivolous lawsuits to be filed, resulting in housing providers in the city of Portland to be uninsurable.

1:16:30I've lived in Portland for 18 years.

1:16:32I've been a housing provider for the same amount of time, and I'm very proud of the work that I do as a housing provider.

1:16:38It's tough, though, because I have to balance running a business with making really hard decisions related to the employees that I care about and work hard for me, as well as the decisions that residents.

1:16:49Rely on me and my staff to provide them with safe, warm, and habitable homes.

1:16:55I wish I had 20 more minutes, but I appreciate your time.

1:16:58I'll submit the rest of my comments online.

1:17:00Thank you.

1:17:01Thank you very much for being here.

1:17:05Next up, we have Christina Dirks.

1:17:09Mike Semko joining us online.

1:17:12Mike, go right ahead.

1:17:14Thank you very much, Council President and members of Thank you, Mayor.

1:17:17Good evening, members of the Portland City Council.

1:17:19I really appreciate you allowing us to testify this evening.

1:17:25I do represent RealPage.

1:17:26I'm Vice President and Associate General Counsel there.

1:17:31There's a lot of misinformation about pricing software in general.

1:17:36All we do is market analysis with a pricing suggestion.

1:17:41We do not set the rents.

1:17:44In most of the Sunbelt, in fact all of the Sunbelt right now where we have our largest market penetration, our software is recommending lower rents.

1:17:54That's from Arizona all the way across the South.

1:17:57We can count maybe Denver, Colorado as part of the Sunbelt.

1:18:00They'll be happy to know all the way up through Virginia.

1:18:03Our software is recommending in a lot of cases double-digit rent decreases.

1:18:08Okay.

1:18:09And that's not because of the software.

1:18:11It's because of the market dynamics at play in the Sunbelt right now.

1:18:16And that is, they've built a lot of new housing.

1:18:20That is the only way to lower rents.

1:18:22And I feel for people who are having to deal with high rents.

1:18:25I really do.

1:18:27But the only way, uh, to lower rent is to build more product.

1:18:32That's it.

1:18:33Um, You know, our software really just applies math to data.

1:18:43And what this draft ordinance does at the present moment, it doesn't ban price fixing.

1:18:51It bans the use of datasets and applied math.

1:18:58Essentially what you're doing is you're banning a math tool.

1:19:02That's not going to help anybody.

1:19:03It certainly won't help housing providers.

1:19:05And by the way, it won't help your residents either.

1:19:11If we're a cartel, we're the worst cartel in history because where we have the highest market penetration, rents are falling.

1:19:18And where we have very little market penetration, rents are rising.

1:19:23Thank you.

1:19:24Thank you for being here today.

1:19:26Next up we have Colin Brown, Joe Hovey, Rajesh Venkachalappathy, Lena Mayapool, Holly Hamilton.

1:19:53Antonia Januzzi Thomas.

1:20:00Jordan Byers.

1:20:05Catherine King.

1:20:10Welcome.

1:20:12Go ahead and introduce yourself and you can begin your testimony.

1:20:15Thank you for the opportunity.

1:20:17My name is Catherine King.

1:20:18Good evening.

1:20:22My name is Catherine King, and I'm a rental owner since 1997, and I have had rentals in Districts 3, 2, and 1.

1:20:29My company, KJK Properties, P.C., is located in District 1.

1:20:34We have managed rentals since 2003 in all 4 districts.

1:20:38Our company needs rental data software in order to be—.

1:20:42To best serve our clients who own 220 rental doors in the Portland metro area.

1:20:47As a rental owner for 29 years and the manager of many rentals before clients since 2003, I wholeheartedly oppose this policy.

1:20:57Housing providers are your existing clients and voters.

1:21:01Without housing providers and housing willingness rentals, you lose vitally needed housing stock.

1:21:07We simply cannot encourage our owners to continue selling out their rentals.

1:21:12We have lost significant housing stock since 2015 when the first rent control ordinance went into effect in Portland.

1:21:19Small owners and professionals that house Oregonians cannot work without data.

1:21:24We are not colluding to price fix.

1:21:28A housing provider cannot provide housing without relevant data.

1:21:35An appraiser cannot accurately value homes without relevant data.

1:21:40How can Fred Meyer price eggs without being able to see the data on their inventory and suppliers and the demand in the market?

1:21:48They cannot.

1:21:49The easiest housing stock for renters is the housing stock you already have.

1:21:54The easiest housing stock for renters is the housing stock you already have.

1:22:00We have driven out the majority of investment in Portland already, and we have been bleeding rental units.

1:22:05I currently have 8 listings for sale in total that are all rentals that owners are selling because they no longer support having rentals in this policy environment that fails to see that biting the hand that feeds the housing stock is not the right answer.

1:22:20Supply and demand drive pricing.

1:22:22You are adding to the lack of supply issue.

1:22:26Thank you.

1:22:26I'm sorry, we just have 2 minutes per person, but I appreciate you sharing your testimony.

1:22:30Testimony with us.

1:22:33Alicia, Alicia Morisseth.

1:22:37Eamon Rutherford.

1:22:41Ionda Allen is joining us online.

1:22:49Please go ahead and unmute yourself and begin your testimony.

1:22:56Hi, can everyone hear me?

1:22:58We can, yes.

1:23:00Yes.

1:23:00Hello, Council.

1:23:01First and foremost, um, thank you so much for taking time out tonight to hear me.

1:23:06My name is Yande Allen.

1:23:07I am the Director of Community Engagement and Advocacy at the Community Alliance of Tenants.

1:23:13Um, I am encouraging the passing of, um, the prohibition of AI being used to Increase rent, excuse me.

1:23:25At the Community Alliance of Tenants, we get calls every day.

1:23:30We are interacting every day with tenants across the state who are struggling to stay within their housing, who are struggling to afford the thought of even moving, much more re-signing a lease that is being increased, or—.

1:23:46Please forgive me, so sorry.

1:23:49Who are struggling with the thought of being able to stay in their homes much more, what their lease renewal will look like.

1:23:58And I'm just encouraging this council to please take the considerations as proposed by other people who have come before me and people after me in consideration in hopes of passing this ordinance to make sure that we are keeping people housed and we are not exacerbating the already ongoing crisis within the city.

1:24:19Thank you for joining us tonight.

1:24:24That completes testimony.

1:24:27Okay, well, thank you for everybody who showed up multiple times to wait for your turn to share your testimony with us.

1:24:34I know that the scheduling of this has been hard, but I am glad that you were able to be here tonight and that we were able to hear from you.

1:24:43I believe Councilor Morillo has a motion to make on this agenda item.

1:24:50Thank you, Council President.

1:24:52I just want to start off by thanking everyone so much who has come multiple times to City Hall to testify.

1:24:59It means a lot to us how engaged you are in the process, that you've come to committee, that you've come to full council, and it's just immense how much you guys care about your community and what's going on in it, and I'm extremely grateful for that.

1:25:13I also wanted to say that just this past week, an article came out that said that in the 5 hours since opening the waitlist on Tuesday, Home Forward received nearly 7,000 applications.

1:25:25And our 2024 Portland Insight Survey just came out, and it showed that 72.4% of Portlanders told us that affordable housing was their top issue.

1:25:35Thank you.

1:25:38It's kind of with a heavy heart that I have to say this, that there's some new litigation elsewhere that touches on similar issues with the algorithmic price-fixing ordinance.

1:25:49And I wanna assert that the litigation is not determinative of what's going to happen here, but it's worth us keeping an eye on and being responsible stewards of policy and maintaining good conversations with stakeholders as we look into it.

1:26:03So while the council is facing other immediate priorities like the upcoming budget, It makes sense to me to keep this item in the committee for further discussion.

1:26:13So with that, I move to refer item 9 back to the Homelessness and Housing Committee.

1:26:18Second.

1:26:20Is there any discussion on the motion before us to move this agenda item back to the Committee on Homelessness and Housing?

1:26:32Seeing no one in the queue, Keelan, could you please call the roll?

1:26:37Just to verify, that was moved by Councilor Murillo and seconded by Koyama Lane?

1:26:43Correct.

1:26:43Councilor Koyama Lane.

1:26:44Thank you.

1:26:45Kanal?

1:26:48This is on the motion to refer back to committee?

1:26:51Correct.

1:26:52Yeah, I can't say I'm an expert on the litigation, but I think on this particular thing, I'm very happy to follow my colleague, my renter colleague's lead on it.

1:27:01So I will vote aye.

1:27:04Aye.

1:27:06Aye.

1:27:09Aye.

1:27:11Really appreciate the testimony tonight and look forward to seeing this item again when it comes back to us.

1:27:17Aye.

1:27:18Aye.

1:27:20I also appreciate the testimony tonight, and I'll just acknowledge that, uh, the chief sponsor of this has done an incredible amount of homework, and I'm just going to take her lead on something like this.

1:27:29So, uh, I vote aye.

1:27:34Aye.

1:27:35Thank you so much to all of the folks that come out to really express what is clearly a need in our city.

1:27:42Um, and as chair of the Homeless Assistance Housing Committee, I really want this bill to work.

1:27:45And so I'm eager to bring it back to committee, make sure that it can succeed, and I'm looking forward to it coming back to council.

1:27:51I vote aye.

1:27:53I'm disappointed, uh, that we don't get the resolution tonight, but I look forward to working on it With my colleagues in the Housing and Homelessness Committee, I vote aye.

1:28:04Aye.

1:28:06Thank you to everybody who is here tonight and the folks who have shared their stories and their both support and concerns over the last few times that we've heard this.

1:28:15We know that housing costs too much in Portland.

1:28:19We know that that's a challenge up and down the West Coast, but it's one that we feel particularly acutely in our city here.

1:28:27I appreciate the sponsor working with all of us to ensure that we can address this issue in the best way possible and look forward to continuing to work on this ordinance and also on the many other steps that I know we need to take to address housing affordability broadly in our city.

1:28:48Aye.

1:28:4912 Yes votes.

1:28:50The item is referred back to council.

1:29:00Councilors, we are moving on to agenda item 10.

1:29:06Keelan, could you please read the agenda item?

1:29:09Amend the FY 2024-25 technical adjustment ordinance and make other budget-related changes.

1:29:17Thank you.

1:29:18And we do have a committee staff summary for the technical adjustment ordinance.

1:29:25I see Christopher Hare is here to share that with us.

1:29:28Christopher, go right ahead.

1:29:30Good evening, Madam President, Madam Vice President, councilors.

1:29:35For the record, my name is Christopher Hare, Council Policy Analyst with Council Operations, and I serve as staff to the Finance Committee.

1:29:41The emergency ordinance before you, document number 2025-1, Councilmember Herbold.

1:29:47Thank you, Mayor.

1:29:47Councilmember Herbold, I'd like to introduce Council Bill 120, which was first discussed in the Finance Committee on March 24th as a presentation.

1:29:51It was later considered in the Finance Committee on April 1st as an emergency ordinance where it was referred to council with a recommendation to pass.

1:29:59The emergency ordinance amends the FY 2024-25 appropriation schedule for certain expenditures across various budgets— across various funds and amends the number of authorized positions in the FY 2024-25 revised budget.

1:30:14The amendments to the FY 2024-25 appropriation schedule allocates resources from a general fund policy set-aside reserve to draw down $3.5 million from the projected police overtime buydown set-aside.

1:30:28It reduces $6,078,879 from FY 2024-25 bureau budgets to be carried into their respective FY 2025-26 budgets.

1:30:40Second.

1:30:41There are additional adjustments representing internal transfers, realignments, and other adjustments that do not impact the general fund discretionary or contingency balances.

1:30:55The amendments to the FY 2024-25 revised budgets reduce 1 FTE from Portland Fire and Rescue and 1 FTE from Portland Police Bureau, which are then realigned as an additional 2 FTE under the Office of the Deputy City Administrator.

1:31:06Thank you.

1:31:09Additionally, one FTE is being removed from the Portland Police Bureau to fund the conversion of a limited-term position into a regular permanent position within the bureau.

1:31:18The ordinance will change the appropriation in 47 funds by a net reduction of $1,777,925, primarily as a result of balancing the beginning FY 2025-26 funds and other resources.

1:31:33Thank you.

1:31:34There's also a net increase of $3.46 million to the general fund.

1:31:38The net change in FTE from this ordinance is the reduction of one limited duration FTE.

1:31:44An emergency clause has been added to this ordinance to enable the implementation of the adjustments without delay.

1:31:50The full impact statement on this item includes a financial and budget impact and analysis and information on potential community impact and community involvement.

1:31:59There was no verbal or written testimony on this ordinance prior to committee action.

1:32:02Thank you.

1:32:02This concludes the committee staff summary.

1:32:04Thank you.

1:32:05Thank you, Christopher.

1:32:07Councilor Zimmerman, is there anything that you would like to add as the chair who presided over this meeting?

1:32:14No.

1:32:14Okay.

1:32:16Um, this is an agenda item that came from the mayor's office, from the administrative side, so we don't have a council I think moving to discussion is great.

1:32:38Thank you.

1:32:38Okay.

1:32:39Keelan, is there any public testimony signed up?

1:32:42No one signed up.

1:32:43Okay.

1:32:44Councilor Kanal, you are first in the queue.

1:32:47I have a question and then a comment, if that's all right, Madam President.

1:32:50Yes, and we do have budget office staff here with us today if anybody has questions that they need answered from our budget office staff.

1:32:56My question, yeah, it may go to either of you.

1:32:58My comment definitely will require budget office staff.

1:33:02So my question is, if you could just give a little bit more clarity.

1:33:05We use the phrase drawdown, Christopher.

1:33:09The amendments to the appropriation schedule allocates resources from a general fund policy set-aside reserve to draw down $3.5 million from the projected police overtime.

1:33:18Can you just clarify for the public what that exactly means, and then I'll make my comment after that.

1:33:24Sure.

1:33:25Yeah, I can be here.

1:33:26Yeah.

1:33:27For the record, my name is Ruth Levine.

1:33:28I'm the director of the City Budget Office.

1:33:30So the drawdown term— so just for general background, the $3.5 million was put into policy set aside by the previous council in the fall bump in 2024.

1:33:45And excuse me, it was put there to sort of as a pot of money essentially that would be available to the council based on updated projections around overtime in the police bureau in the spring, which is now.

1:34:04And so essentially the idea behind it was to sort of be able to wait and see and provide flexibility based on how, you know, certain events, specific events including like the election, panned out and how their overtime generally was trending.

1:34:24And so this ordinance would draw it down, meaning it would take it out of the policy set-aside, which is contingency, and put it into the police bureau's budget.

1:34:35You can't— nobody can spend out of contingency.

1:34:38Which means that it requires a council action to move funding out of contingency into a bureau's budget in order for them to be able to spend it.

1:34:45And so that's what that drawdown term refers to, is just moving it from contingency into the bureau's budget.

1:34:51Thank you.

1:34:53Thank you for clarifying.

1:34:56I, Madam President, I would like to propose an amendment, and I will send this over to— I think I have sent it over to the clerk, but if there's more information I need to give, it's a motion to make the following adjustment Councilor Dan Ryan.

1:35:08I would like to move that the council approve the adjustments to the supplemental budget as proposed to change general fund return decision packages to general fund carryover decision packages within the public safety service area.

1:35:17It would reallocate the policy set aside in the general fund by $737,427 to change a general fund return Portland Fire and Rescue carryover for firefighters as general fund return to a general fund program carryover for the Portland Fire and Rescue Department.

1:35:33Yes.

1:35:34Thank you.

1:35:34Councilmember Herbold.

1:35:34I move that the City of Portland Fire and Rescue program carryover for firefighters and reallocate the policy set aside in the general fund by $100,000 to change the general fund return that's marked PX Contact Survey General Fund Return to a general fund program carryover for PX Contact Survey Program Carryover.

1:35:54And the amendment would also include updating exhibits 1 through 5 as needed to reflect this change.

1:35:58I don't think it So I can speak to it, but I wanted to put that forward.

1:36:04And what this— can I clarify one thing?

1:36:07Please.

1:36:07This is allowing Portland Fire and Rescue and the Public Safety Service Area to use money that is already allocated to their budget this year, next fiscal year, because they have been unable to spend that money in this fiscal year for reasons that are particular to each of those 2 things.

1:36:27It's allowing them to use their existing money for that purpose across the fiscal year line.

1:36:33Does that make sense?

1:36:34And you can clarify, Ruth, if I didn't say that clearly enough.

1:36:37Okay, thank you.

1:36:39So essentially, councilors, right now this money is coming back to the general fund.

1:36:43It would become part of the funds available as we begin our budgeting.

1:36:47In some cases, we allow bureaus to carry funds over into the next fiscal year.

1:36:53Rather than having the money come back to the general fund for future allocation, which could be to the same thing or to something else, this would carry that over and ensure that it was reallocated for these same purposes.

1:37:05And Councilor Knoll, can you just restate what the 2 purposes are, what the 2 lines are that you are making this change to?

1:37:13Thank you.

1:37:13And for those who wanna follow along, the best place to look at this is Exhibit 4 in the middle of the first page, there's a big table.

1:37:22And can I share screen or have you do so, Keelan?

1:37:26Either way is good.

1:37:28Uh, yeah, let me see if we can pull it up.

1:37:33And for folks who are following along, um, this is linked if you look at our agenda, um, which is posted online.

1:37:43You're going to agenda item number Councilor Dan Ryan, you're on the agenda item number 10.

1:37:47And then when you get to that agenda item, you're scrolling down to the exhibits to Exhibit 4.

1:37:57Keelan, let me know what you prefer.

1:38:00Yeah, we're pulling it up.

1:38:01Thank you.

1:38:02Give us just a second.

1:38:03So for those who have it up, and when you see it, you're going to see a table that has a row— sorry, a column with a lot of money that's being removed from this fiscal year's money allocations, and then a second column that has the same amount for many of those things.

1:38:22And that's money that's being carried over or rolling over from this year to next year.

1:38:28There are several lines, however, that do not roll over.

1:38:30They have a zero in that second column.

1:38:34And this is in the middle, the middle big table.

1:38:38There's those 4 that you see kind of together that have a 0 in the right column.

1:38:42It's the middle 2 of those.

1:38:44And my amendment would basically be to put the $100,000 in the left column also into the right column for PX contact survey carryover and the $737,000 there for the next line for Portland Fire and Rescue over.

1:38:58This would allow, and I'll explain each one of them, they're 2 together.

1:39:02It's money that would be used for one-time training costs for firefighters.

1:39:05Yes.

1:39:06Which would do 2 things.

1:39:09It would allow them to pay the cost of training firefighters, which takes 10 months roughly from recruitment to being able to be in the traveler pool, picking up shifts and reducing overtime.

1:39:22And it would also give certainty to Portland Fire and Rescue today, not in June, which would mean that it is more likely that they could get that recruitment done very early in the fall.

1:39:32Thank you.

1:39:32Fiscal year, which is really critical because 10 months from the beginning of this fiscal year, in May of next year, we have a 27-pay period which will lead to a retirement wave.

1:39:44So having recruits ready to go when the retirements hit, as opposed to 2 months after the retirement hit, is the main benefit of doing this now as opposed to later.

1:39:53Also, we don't know if it would be done later, but assuming even if it was, it's better to do it now.

1:39:58That's the $737,000.

1:40:00The $100,000 one is a contact survey program, which would implement a customer service post-incident event when a community member interacts with the police.

1:40:14This is something that was recommended by the community— sorry, compliance officer community liaison for the settlement agreement for Portland Police.

1:40:24It was then recommended by the Portland Committee on Community Engaged Policing.

1:40:28That recommendation was endorsed by Chief Day and Mayor Wheeler.

1:40:32It was a workshop, a work table was set up to create an RFP, a request for proposal, to find a vendor to implement this.

1:40:39That work was done, including labor, including a lot of partners, which we can speak to.

1:40:43Some of them are in the room.

1:40:45And then it went to procurement, and there was a delay at procurement.

1:40:49And as a result, the RFP would not get done in time for them to use the money So this would allow them to continue using that money into next year and avoid the entire project getting shut down.

1:41:01And that, I think, is a success.

1:41:03I can speak more if anyone has questions.

1:41:06Thank you, Councilor.

1:41:07Ruth, are you able to share with us whether these are requests that were made by the DCA and then zeroed out in a decision by folks in the administrator or the mayor's office, or whether these are requests Yeah, I can—.

1:41:26They were requests that were made by the service area.

1:41:29The reason they were zeroed out was simply that we were trying to apply a pretty strict lens on carryovers.

1:41:36So we were looking at things that had actually begun this fiscal year and just didn't— wouldn't be completed this fiscal year.

1:41:44So, you know, that was the rationale behind that.

1:41:47Thank you.

1:41:48Thank you.

1:41:49Councilor Smith, you're in the queue.

1:41:52I think we need to have a second before we move to discussion.

1:41:55Okay, sorry, you're right, Councilor Zimmerman.

1:41:57Thank you for catching me.

1:42:00Okay, we have a second from Councilor Avalos.

1:42:03Councilor Smith.

1:42:05Thank you.

1:42:06Uh, a couple things I want to get some clarity on.

1:42:10So these other dollars, they also put the spring bump in here, right, as a part of this money?

1:42:17Councilor, I'm sorry, I believe we're doing discussion to the proposed amendment right now.

1:42:22To the proposed—.

1:42:22I should have asked.

1:42:23Okay, I'm sorry.

1:42:25So again, my, um, answer is still the same.

1:42:31We should not be working on Budget 25-26 before we have a chance to look at the entire budget.

1:42:40Yes.

1:42:40And the DCAs, the mayor, the city manager, whoever brought this forward, the city budget office, I was going to say the same thing.

1:42:51So no, we should not— until we find out what the mayor's budget is, we can't be acting on— there may be something more important than this, Sameer, that we have to do for money pieces.

1:43:06I don't have a problem with policy, but money pieces, you have to wait until the budget is dropped.

1:43:14And so that's where it begins and ends.

1:43:17And the other piece is, if the, if the department wanted this, they've had more than enough chance to ask for a budget modification to ask for this money.

1:43:27But doing it in this way, it's, it's a real sneaky kind of way to do things.

1:43:30Councilor Loretta Smith.

1:43:31Councilor, this is the regular technical adjustment.

1:43:36It's equivalent to what was the bump before.

1:43:39And the question at hand is whether we should carry over funds that had been allocated last year or whether we should allow those funds that weren't spent to be part of our beginning balance.

1:43:49And that's what I'm saying, Madam President.

1:43:52We should not because it is causing us to make a decision about 25-26 early.

1:43:59We're taking that money because ordinarily that money would be pushed over as one-time-only money or ongoing money for the next budget so that the mayor could do what he needed to do with it.

1:44:11And until the mayor drops his budget, I don't know that this is an emergency right now.

1:44:18Thank you, Councilor.

1:44:20Councilor Zimmerman.

1:44:22Thanks.

1:44:23Um, well, it took a minute to follow along.

1:44:25I think I'm there.

1:44:26I think I know what lines we're referencing, Councilor.

1:44:29Um, as the chair of the Finance Committee, this is the very first minute that I'm hearing of this.

1:44:35Um, Portland Fire and Rescue, the DCA, Mr. Myers of Public Safety have not brought this up to me.

1:44:40This is not something that, that I've heard of, and they— I do not remember any testimony from them at the Finance Committee regarding this Technical adjustment, what used to be called a spring bump.

1:44:51So I, I am, um, I would like to, to highlight this moment as to underline what Councilor Smith has said.

1:45:05I look at this page and I say, yes, some things are carried over.

1:45:09Those are not always my most preferred method, but what I see from that is that that indicates to me that the executive branch of this government has said they They see some reason why it needs to be carried over, either because the work has already started.

1:45:22It's very likely that they're going to be proposing it as part of the upcoming budget.

1:45:28But it is stark to me when the executive branch pulls back something that isn't going to be spent, that is representative of a previous council, and now we're getting something zeroed out.

1:45:37And so having not heard this case, having not heard from the executive branch on why this would be an important Amendment and addition, and recognizing what $837,000 is in terms of opportunity for our upcoming work in the coming weeks, I would really encourage my colleagues not to support this amendment.

1:46:01This type of work is a very robust and important conversation, and I think that the committee structure continues to be tested about whether or not we're going to do the real work in committees so that we bring products to this council for, for consideration that have worked through some of the details instead of— I see no chief of fire here.

1:46:21I would like to understand what the chief of fire would do with this money if I put it in her pocket tomorrow.

1:46:27I can't do that from this position, and I won't be supporting the amendment because of it.

1:46:32As fun as it is to talk numbers with our budget team, they are not our operational team.

1:46:36And so I think that this amendment also looks like putting money into the pocket of a department who's not asked for it, for a mayor who's not asked for it.

1:46:43And I think it sets a precedent that, while we haven't set a ton of precedents yet, I think it's important to think about.

1:46:50And I hope that you will all give these programs the right time, the right conversation, and an operational look at a different date.

1:46:59But today's amendment is— and this technical adjustment is not the time for this.

1:47:05Thank you.

1:47:05And so I would urge everybody strongly to vote this amendment down and pass the technical adjustment.

1:47:11Thank you.

1:47:12Thank you.

1:47:13And if there are questions for the department, while we don't have the bureau directors online, we do have Stephanie Howard who will be joining us in just a few minutes if needed.

1:47:26Councilor Kanal and Smith, you've both spoken, so I'm going to jump to Councilor Green.

1:47:31Councilor Green, to the—.

1:47:32I put my hand up on the table, but that's fine.

1:47:36Thank you, Madam President.

1:47:39Just to understand your intent a little bit more clearly, is your thinking that, yes, these programs may not have been started yet and that's why they're moved out of one bucket into the other, but that if we don't do this adjustment, we risk— well, introducing a risk that the whole plan will fall apart?

1:48:00Is that the idea in your thinking?

1:48:02It's like a continuity Um, may I respond?

1:48:07Go right ahead, Councilor.

1:48:08Thank you.

1:48:09Yeah, I'm, um, I'll just clarify, uh, for the, the, uh, $100,000 portion of this, yes.

1:48:17Um, so the, the $100,000 is to spend on the pilot, uh, project, the initiation of the survey itself.

1:48:25The planning has been going on, and it has involved people Yes.

1:48:29Including, let's see, it included a staffer from the mayor's office, representatives from the PPA and the PPCOA, Portland Police Bureau leadership, Community Safety Division leadership, which is now the Public Safety Service Area DCA's office, the city attorney's office, a representative from the Portland Committee on Community Engaged Policing, and a representative from the Training Advisory Council.

1:48:50They were working through that.

1:48:51They're coming up with the RFP.

1:48:53And then procurement was delayed, which has to do with the ongoing labor conversations we had earlier this year.

1:49:02And as a result, the RFP never got out in time for money to be actually spent by June 30th.

1:49:09Okay.

1:49:10And just to clarify, and I'm concerned that evidently people might not be aware that actually the only reason that it exists in this table at all is because it was in fact requested.

1:49:21If the bureau director had never asked for it, it would never have been in this table.

1:49:24So that is just factually incorrect, and I want to make sure that's clarified.

1:49:29There are a million things that are not put in, but if you want to see why it's in the left column, it says Bureau Requested Adjustment.

1:49:37That is the header for the column.

1:49:38Thank you, Councilor.

1:49:40So with that in mind—.

1:49:42Councilor, can we pause for one minute?

1:49:44I just, I want to clarify that, which is I'm gonna have to follow up with Ruth because—.

1:49:47That's not true.

1:49:47My understanding was that any dollars that are returned or that are not going to be spent are returned in this way, whether or not they're requested.

1:50:01So, and then Councilor, we'll get back to your question.

1:50:03I apologize.

1:50:04So I think maybe both things are true.

1:50:08Let me see if I track.

1:50:11It is true that the bureaus did initially request this.

1:50:16We went through a process, and again, the lens was really strict on focusing on true carryover.

1:50:25This—.

1:50:25We're trying to transition from sort of the former spring bump where we had a pretty, I would say, expansive conception of what carryover was intended to be.

1:50:37And to a much more slimmed-down version of that.

1:50:43And that was kind of the lens that was applied.

1:50:45So that's why— and I think the idea is, yes, this can still be considered in, in the '25-'26 budget process.

1:50:53The money will— would, would be essentially returned to the general fund if this amendment is not adopted, and then it can be considered by the mayor and then by you all in the '25-'26 budget process.

1:51:07So that was the idea with the carryover, was to keep it really— was to keep it really narrow.

1:51:11So it was requested.

1:51:12It was not put forward by the mayor and city administrator in the version that came, that was filed and was brought to the Finance Committee.

1:51:21Um, hopefully that clarifies.

1:51:24Thank you.

1:51:25Thank you, Councilor.

1:51:26Go ahead.

1:51:26Thanks.

1:51:27Uh, let me just finish my My question and comment here.

1:51:33So I understand the finance chair's argumentation, but what I'll say here is like, whatever— we do have the power to do this.

1:51:41We can make decisions to change this document.

1:51:44That is within the scope of City Council's power.

1:51:48If—.

1:51:48Let's suppose we voted yes on your amendment, there's nothing to prevent the mayor from issuing something that reverses that, and there's nothing to prevent this council from reversing that too.

1:51:56During the Budget Committee.

1:51:58So 6 in one, half a dozen in the other, as far as I'm concerned.

1:52:01So it's a statement of, as I understand it, Councilor Kanal's intention to champion a program which I'm going to be doing throughout my tenure on this council at every, every month of the year.

1:52:13So I'm prepared to support the amendment.

1:52:18Madam President.

1:52:19Councilor, I want to make sure we hear from folks who haven't spoken yet, but I promise we will get Okay, I thought I was next in the queue.

1:52:26Councilor Avalos hasn't had a chance to speak yet.

1:52:32So first, I'll say that, uh, I said this in the Finance Committee, that in general I was not a big fan of the fact that I felt we were being given a document that needed a rubber stamp and didn't really have the opportunity to discuss why these changes are requested, how they fit into larger bureau directives et cetera.

1:52:50I said also in the Finance Committee, I recognize the just, you know, patch year that we're in and that some processes we're going to need to continue to refine.

1:53:00But I'm stating that because it's relevant to me to what I'm about to say, which is that I think that this amendment raises some foundational questions, kind of building off of what Councilor Green is saying on if a bureau makes a request, right?

1:53:14Let's just put it that way, because they want to discontinue a program, let's say.

1:53:18Yes.

1:53:18Yes.

1:53:18But the council decides that that's a program that is a priority to the community, do we get to direct the bureau via a budget allocation to reprioritize that program?

1:53:27I believe the answer is yes.

1:53:28I also don't think that our only measurement of making budget decisions should be does the bureau want or not want it, because it is our job as the electeds to combine both the expertise of our hardworking staff and consider their recommendations and to represent our constituents and their priorities.

1:53:45So in general, I just want to challenge this concept that this isn't the place to have this discussion, that we don't get to make this decision, and that we don't, with our bureau— or I'm sorry, with our budget decisions— get to redirect bureau priorities based on what we believe we're representing for our constituents.

1:54:02All that being said, based on the arguments that Councilor Kanal has mentioned, I am definitely inclined to support approving this.

1:54:10Thank you.

1:54:10And I think on the back end, I want to follow up with the administrative side and the mayor and the bureaus to just understand what happens in a situation like this where we, again, we say we want this direction with these dollars.

1:54:23And is there a negotiation process?

1:54:26I don't know what that looks like yet.

1:54:28But my larger point is I do believe we have the power to do this.

1:54:31I think Councilor Kanal has made an argument that is compelling to me about why those programs should be prioritized and funded.

1:54:37Thank you.

1:54:38And I think I'm leaving on the table this broader question about how we're going to be using our authority as electeds when making budget decisions to direct bureaus to do work that we believe represents our constituents.

1:54:51Thank you.

1:54:53Thank you, Councilor.

1:54:54Councilor Clark.

1:54:56Thank you, Madam Chair.

1:54:57Did we—.

1:54:58Did you discuss this in the Public Safety Committee, Commissioner?

1:55:02No.

1:55:04This came to the Finance Committee.

1:55:07It's a technical adjustment ordinance that touches a number of different policy areas.

1:55:11I understand that.

1:55:12I, I meant this whole issue that you're talking about.

1:55:14No, we weren't— no, and we weren't aware of it at the time that the, uh, the agenda was set for the Finance Committee.

1:55:23Sorry, for the, for the Community and Public Safety Committee.

1:55:25Okay, the most recent meeting, it was not given to—.

1:55:28We had no ability to react in the time frame necessary to get it on the But we will have a chance to work on this when the budget comes to us after May 5th.

1:55:37We will have a chance to look at how we spend FY25-26 revenue at that time.

1:55:42This is FY24-25 revenue.

1:55:45Right.

1:55:45I understand that.

1:55:46But we will have another chance at this when the next— when the mayor provides a budget.

1:55:52This could be part of the mayor's budget.

1:55:55We don't know yet if these programs will be included in the mayor's budget.

1:55:58But we'll have an opportunity to make that decision.

1:56:02Absolutely.

1:56:03This is beginning to feel to me like the former commissioner style of government, that we're in a different form of government now.

1:56:14And I think this is really inappropriate at this time.

1:56:18I understand where you're coming from.

1:56:20I understand you want to do this.

1:56:21I understand the rationale.

1:56:24But it seems to me it opens up the door for the different bureaus to come to us anytime and ask us for things outside the process of a, you know, city manager form of government and a legislative body.

1:56:37We're going to have our opportunity to do this.

1:56:40This just doesn't seem like the right place or time to make this kind of change.

1:56:45Thank you for listening to me.

1:56:49Councilor Novick.

1:56:53A question for Councilor Kanal.

1:56:55What would you—.

1:56:57Just to make sure I understand this, do you think that it's reasonable to draw a distinction between the survey and the PF&R program carryover?

1:57:08Are you more worried about the survey never being completed than you're worrying about the PF&R budget?

1:57:14I think they're both valuable and I put them up together.

1:57:17I don't draw a distinction in terms of the importance of either.

1:57:20Okay.

1:57:22I just was wondering if you might think that the survey might be more at risk.

1:57:26I mean, I can speak to what— well, I can't.

1:57:30The request from the bureaus actually does say what they believe the impact would be of not doing this.

1:57:37And I think they could probably— those words speak for themselves in many ways.

1:57:41I also know that we have Elizabeth Gallagher from Portland Fire and Rescue online who can speak to that and who has her hand raised.

1:57:49As well as Stephanie, who is— sorry, your name's showing as Stephanie Howard as well.

1:57:54So at any point we could reach to that.

1:57:56But I did send Keelan the request from Portland Fire and Rescue, which speaks to that.

1:58:03I can also send the other one.

1:58:06So I want to respond to the idea that we can deal with this in the context of the overall '25-'26 budget discussion.

1:58:15The fact is that when the mayor proposes a budget, then if we propose adding something in, we're going to have to say let's take something else out.

1:58:24Right.

1:58:24So that will put us in a more difficult position in terms of arguing for something than arguing for it now.

1:58:30So although I understand Chair Zimmerman's process point, I sympathize with Councilor Kanal's point that This is— well, I don't know if you even said this, but I think that, um, we put these dollars more at risk if we don't deal with it now and deal with it later.

1:58:49Uh, so frankly, I'm not sure actually how I'm going to vote, but I just wanted to make that general point that, you know, the mayor has enormous power in this system despite the fact that he doesn't have a vote, because he writes the document first.

1:59:03And if we vote to change his document, We're going to make somebody mad and somebody else happy.

1:59:09But as Machiavelli said, the people who lose are always angrier than the people who win whenever there's any change.

1:59:14Um, so I just wanted to put that philosophical thought on the table.

1:59:19Thank you, Councilor.

1:59:22I am next in the queue.

1:59:24I agree, Councilor Avalos, we have the budget authority.

1:59:27We can make these changes.

1:59:29And I will just say, when this came before the Finance I had the opportunity to see it for the first time there.

1:59:38My initial thought was, why on earth are we carrying all of this over?

1:59:41Is there anything that we could actually not carry over so that we have more flexibility, more opportunity to think about our priorities as we begin the budget process, and more money in our general fund that we have gotten back through the technical adjustment ordinance?

1:59:59Councilor I didn't make an amendment to do that because I didn't want to take funding away from programs that were already in progress— in process.

2:00:07I think these are both important things, and we do have the authority to make the change if we want to.

2:00:14Um, I do want to share though that I will be leaning no.

2:00:20My mind could be changed, but certainly leaning that direction because I think it's important right now to Councilor Ryan, I believe you were next in the queue, but your hand is now down.

2:00:35Did you have something you wanted to add to the discussion?

2:00:39Yeah, I'm just trying to track it here at home.

2:00:42I did notice that the Chief Jackson was on, so that intrigued me.

2:00:46I thought it would be helpful to hear from her since her name was brought up.

2:00:53Rightly so.

2:00:56Thank you, Councilor.

2:00:56And I believe we have both folks from the DCA's office.

2:01:01I'm not sure if DCA Myers is on or not, but I know that Stephanie Howard is and also the chief.

2:01:08Mike or Stephanie, would either of you like to say something or invite your bureau staff to say anything?

2:01:17They don't.

2:01:17Well, uh, Council President, uh, this is, uh, DCA Myers.

2:01:21I'm the Deputy City Administrator for Public Safety.

2:01:24Uh, with regard to the context survey, and, um, I'm a bit reserved to have discussion with, um, the council here without the mayor present— there's been a lot of discussion around, um, the mayor's proposed— but the context survey discussion We had talked at length about it not being what we call shovel ready, and proposing that we would defer to putting that in the mayor's proposed.

2:01:55Now I cannot speak for the mayor.

2:01:57I will just tell you what we conversations that I have discussed.

2:02:02The intent is to at some point fund the contact survey.

2:02:07It is important to us, and Stephanie, if you want to.

2:02:10Can you add context to that?

2:02:11I know the DOJ settlement is important.

2:02:13Can you add context to that?

2:02:14Then I would like to talk a little bit about the additional funds for extra firefighters.

2:02:21Yeah, I can just speak to the contact survey.

2:02:24I think Councilor Kanal did a great job of overviewing kind of the history and where we are in that process.

2:02:30And as many of us know, procurement is incredibly, incredibly busy and Has a very small staff, but it is still very much in progress.

2:02:39I think what I mostly want to say is that I don't think this is reflective of any intent of whether the contact survey program moves forward.

2:02:47I think you know in the DCA's office, certainly, I think with the mayor's team and I think with our other public safety leaders, I think there's absolute unity in wanting to move that forward, whether it comes from the mayor's proposed or if we retain the budget.

2:03:08And Stephanie, I don't know if you know this or not, and Council President, I think this is important as we make decisions collectively as a group.

2:03:19There's a group not represented here, and that is the labor group.

2:03:24And, you know, there is some interest in making sure that we have conversation with labor and that they are represented.

2:03:28Okay.

2:03:29Even around a contact survey, as benign as it may seem to all of us here, about bargaining that.

2:03:34And I think the union president might suggest that he is not done bargaining this issue, and something for you all to be aware of.

2:03:42This is a very— we just need to be very careful as we go forward, make decisions.

2:03:48And just to be clear, we do have our labor representatives in the workgroup that's been working on this, so we're keeping them very much involved in the Thank you.

2:03:58And I should flag for you both that, um, your, your firefighters president is in the room with us, uh, watching this discussion.

2:04:08Okay, Madam President, going back to the queue, I have Councilor Kanal, then Councilor Smith, then Councilor Zimmerman.

2:04:15Councilor Kanal, I promise we'll get back to you.

2:04:18Councilor Smith.

2:04:20Um, actually, could— so, uh, I'd actually like to hear from Fire first.

2:04:25But while we're doing that, Keelan, could you put up the request that they put up that I sent you?

2:04:31I'm happy to go after them because DCMeyer said—.

2:04:34Madam President, there's a, there's a process issue here right now that I need to talk about before we have everybody give testimony that they're walking on eggshells about.

2:04:43Councilor, we are in discussion on the amendment, right?

2:04:47I believe if you have a process question about the amendment Okay, go right ahead.

2:04:53First of all, if the DC want— DCA wanted this, he would have put it up.

2:04:57He didn't.

2:04:58He's being nice.

2:04:59The mayor put this up.

2:05:01So unless we pass the original, his can't pass.

2:05:05He can't supersede it.

2:05:08I mean, the mayor put this on so that he could use those dollars for him to make plans and do his budget, period.

2:05:22And yes, we can do this.

2:05:24We can actually do what you're saying.

2:05:26But we have said as a council that we were not— you told me, Eric told me that I couldn't put money issues in before the mayor dropped his budget.

2:05:37And it's just simple.

2:05:38It's a process.

2:05:38You can't put, put money stuff in before the mayor drops his budget because all he's going to do if he don't like what he sees, he's just going to take it out.

2:05:46So what's the purpose?

2:05:47Councilor, what is the process question?

2:05:49That's the process question.

2:05:50There is a process that goes along with this.

2:05:53There is a process.

2:05:54The technical adjustment ordinance is part of the new regular process.

2:05:58So—.

2:05:59Yes, and we were not given an opportunity to know that this was the spring bump money.

2:06:04This went through finance.

2:06:05We should have had a work session to explain what this was, and that's the process question.

2:06:10Why didn't you do that?

2:06:11Councilor, I'm happy to talk about having more work sessions.

2:06:16I had significant feedback that we were having too many work sessions early on.

2:06:22We have committees to hold conversations about things, and there are many committees I'm not in that I'd like to be engaged in conversation on, and I have to trust my colleagues or show up to those committees or watch them.

2:06:35So— I know I disagree because that was about Springboks.

2:06:38Yes.

2:06:39We needed to know about the spring bump.

2:06:40It was hidden in the Finance Committee.

2:06:42We should have had a 2-hour, 3-hour conversation just like we had to say, here's the money that has come into the, to the city since we last did our budget.

2:06:51And that is the process issue.

2:06:54And, and this is the reason why we're in this argument right now, because nobody had the 30,000-foot level to say, give us some more information.

2:07:01Don't slide it through Finance and try to get it through here like nobody Thank you, Councilor.

2:07:10Councilor Knoll, you'd like to hear from our folks from Fire before you speak, is that correct?

2:07:15I can just say, if Chief would like to jump out, I'm sorry that I read the name instead of actually looking at the picture there.

2:07:22This, what's on the screen on Zoom, is the request from Fire.

2:07:28So again, this was requested by Portland Fire and Rescue.

2:07:32As was the other thing by, uh, the Office of the DCA.

2:07:36Um, so, uh, I, I just wanted to make sure that that was flagged.

2:07:41I don't know if there's anything, Chief, you'd like to add, but I, I would like to hear.