Portland City Council Special Meeting 08/13/25

7:12Good afternoon.

7:13Good morning.

7:14Good morning.

7:15It is 10:33 on Wednesday, August I am calling to order a special meeting of the Portland City Council.

7:26Um, Rebecca, could you please call the roll?

7:29Koyama Lane?

7:30Here.

7:31Morillo?

7:33Here.

7:33Novick?

7:34Here.

7:35Clark?

7:35Here.

7:36Green?

7:37Here.

7:37Zimmerman?

7:38Here.

7:38Avalos?

7:39Present.

7:40Dunphy?

7:40Here.

7:41Smith?

7:42Here.

7:43Ryan?

7:44Here.

7:44Pirtle-Guiney.

7:45Here.

7:47Thank you.

7:47I'm here too.

7:52Apologies, I didn't hear that.

7:53Thank you.

7:54Thanks.

7:56Um, could we please have our attorney go over the rules of order and decorum?

8:02Welcome to the Portland City Council.

8:04To testify before council in person or virtually, you must sign up in advance on the council agenda at www.portlandoregistration.org.

8:15W.portland.gov/council/agenda.

8:15Information on engaging with council can be found on the council clerk's webpage.

8:19Individuals may testify for 3 minutes unless the presiding officer states otherwise.

8:24Your microphone will be muted when your time is over.

8:26The presiding officer preserves order.

8:28Disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting other testimony or council deliberations will not be allowed.

8:39If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given.

8:41Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting.

8:44Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass.

8:49Additionally, council may take a short recess and reconvene virtually.

8:53Your testimony should address the matter being considered.

8:56When testifying, 1, state your name for the record.

8:59Your address is not necessary.

9:012, If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent.

9:053, Virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the council clerk calls your name.

9:10Thank you.

9:10Thank you.

9:12Thank you very much, colleagues.

9:15We have 2 items on the agenda today, and we are adjourning our meeting in about 3 hours, but then we'll reconvene tomorrow at 2:30 if we have not concluded the business that we have before us.

9:30Before we open up those 2 items though for public testimony and discussion, I'd like to just take a moment for something not on the agenda.

9:42Do we need to approve today's agenda first?

9:45Am I skipping this?

9:46Yes, item 1 is agenda approval.

9:47Okay, I apologize, colleagues.

9:49Item 1 is approving the agenda.

9:51Actually, before we do that though, I'll do this before we go to approving the agenda.

9:57I just wanna take a moment because we had a new staff person start, our Council Operations Manager, Dana Richardson, on Monday.

10:07And I know some of you have had an opportunity to meet with her I think for some folks that's coming later this week still, but I just wanted to give Dana an opportunity to introduce herself in this setting.

10:21For folks watching or in the audience today, Council Operations is the group that does a lot of the support, especially for our committee meetings.

10:30And we had an interim manager when we started who was here on a limited duration, intentionally came out of retirement to work with us short-term.

10:41So Dana, welcome.

10:41Thank you.

10:42Thank you.

10:42Dana is our first permanent Council Operations Manager.

10:45We are very glad to have her, and I wanted to make sure we had an opportunity again for folks on Council who hadn't had an opportunity yet to meet Dana, to get to hear a little bit from you, and also for the public who are watching to just know who you are, given that you do, and your team will— your team does, and you will do so much support for the work that we do, but often behind the scenes.

11:07So please go ahead.

11:09Thank you for this opportunity, uh, Madam President, uh, Madam Vice President, and councilors.

11:14As the president mentioned, this is my 3rd day on the job as the Council Operations Manager, and I'm pleased to be here and eager to learn how my team can support this council in its success.

11:26As you probably know, I lead a team of 10 folks that are here for policy development and analysis, whether that's in your committees, in your districts.

11:35We have capacity in communications and coordination as well.

11:39So our brand is really simple.

11:41We're here to work for you, each of you as councilors, as the councilor— as the council as a whole.

11:47And I'm really privileged to be here today.

11:49And I told— I was told y'all will go easy on me, at least for now.

11:54Perfect.

11:57Thank you so much, um, and welcome.

12:01I think this is the first time that we've gotten the opportunity to, to have you here.

12:07I'm not sure if you were watching the committees earlier this week, but welcome and thank you for being here and being part of the team.

12:13Thank you.

12:13Good luck.

12:17Okay, colleagues, the first item on our agenda is agenda approval.

12:22There has not been anything taken off the agenda or any requests to reorder the agenda.

12:28Do we have unanimous consent for agenda approval?

12:34Okay, as we move into our agenda today, we have 2 items, um, adopting an ordinance on our council meeting schedule and a resolution establishing a new council committee structure.

12:52Both of these items have been discussed by the full council in work sessions, but this is the first opportunity we'll have for public testimony.

13:00I'd like to open up, Rebecca, both items together so that if folks who are signed up to testify are interested in testifying on pieces of both, they can do that just one time and make sure to have a little bit more consistency amongst remarks there.

13:16Would you please open items 2 and 3?

13:19Item 2, adopt council regular meeting schedule pursuant to code subsection 3.02.010.C.1.

13:28Item 3, establish new city council committee structure.

13:32Thank you.

13:34And colleagues, we don't have our normal introductory overviews on these items because they were heard in work sessions.

13:44So if there are not questions before we begin, I'd like to move us straight into public testimony.

13:51But if there are any clarifying questions or amendments that haven't been filed that folks would like to share before we do so, now would be the time.

14:00Councilor Kanal.

14:01Thank you, Madam President.

14:03I just wanted to make sure that potential testifiers were aware I had pre-filed an amendment and I'll officially move it here.

14:09It's filed as Kanal 1 to the adopt council regular meeting schedule and it's a package that is based off of the feedback heard at the work session.

14:19Thank you.

14:20Thank you, Councilor.

14:21And colleagues, if you haven't had a chance to look at that, that has been filed.

14:25It's been up for about a week.

14:27And I know we had some discussion that was straightforward and everyone was on the same page and some where there were some divisions.

14:33I think Councilor Knoll tried to capture the things where it was mostly straightforward and folks were on the same page.

14:38Correct.

14:39Thank you.

14:39Okay.

14:40Thank you, Councilor.

14:42Councilor Smith.

14:43Thank you.

14:44Thank you, Madam President.

14:48I did want to add an amendment that would include having Wednesday meetings and on the 3rd Wednesday having only one night meeting.

14:58So would I do that here or would I do that after?

15:01You could absolutely do that now.

15:03So that would be a floor amendment, and I'm trying to skim through this to see where that would go.

15:09I believe that would be in the first, therefore, A2, where it says on the 2nd and 4th Wednesday of each month at 6:00 PM.

15:19And you would amend?

15:20And I would amend that to have all meetings on Wednesdays, and on the 3rd Wednesday we have a night meeting so that we don't have to have 2 night meetings.

15:29So this— I'm sorry, go ahead.

15:31Oh, I was seconding that.

15:32Is that a motion?

15:33It's not.

15:35I haven't— I did it from the floor.

15:37No, I know, but where were you just— Council President, you were saying— you were suggesting it could go somewhere.

15:41Where were you saying?

15:42On page 2 of— and I'm, I'm sorry, I'm working off of Councilor Kanal's proposed amendment right now rather than the original, but on Page 2 of Councilor Kanal's proposed amendment.

15:54Now therefore, the council directs, A, council meetings will occur.

16:00I believe, Councilor Smith, 1 would say on each Wednesday of the month at 9:30 with a recessed meeting, and then 2 would say on the 3rd Wednesday of each month.

16:16Yes.

16:17We have 2 meetings, one in the morning, one at night.

16:22So you're not proposing a 9:30 and a 6:00 PM on that 3rd Wednesday?

16:25Yes, I am.

16:26You are proposing both?

16:27Both.

16:27That every Wednesday we have a 9:30 and—.

16:29Not every Wednesday, but the 3rd Wednesday.

16:33Every Wednesday we have a, a, a city council meeting, and then on the 3rd Wednesday we have a night meeting as well as a day meeting.

16:42So the resolution would read every Wednesday a 9:30 meeting, the recessed session at 2:00 PM on Wednesday or 2:00 PM on Thursday, and a 6:00 PM meeting on the 3rd Wednesday of each month.

16:55Correct.

16:56Rebecca, are you capturing that or do you want somebody to send this to you?

17:01We do need the language sent.

17:03Okay, we'll work on that.

17:05Okay.

17:05So that's been seconded by Councilor Ryan.

17:08And I apologize, I don't think I heard a second to Councilor Kanal's original amendment that is here.

17:18Second.

17:19Thank you, Councilor Green.

17:24I guess I'm trying to understand, are we— because Councilor Kanal's is an amendment, so are we adding another amendment?

17:30Correct.

17:30So are we now in Councilor Smith's amendment?

17:33We are not in debate right now, but folks are putting amendments on the floor so that our testifiers know what the options are that they're responding to.

17:40Got it.

17:41Is there anything related?

17:48We have not had a consistent practice of having to offer amendments, but it is something that we have sometimes done in order to allow folks to know what is under consideration.

17:58I'll note that there are 2 amendments filed on the council committee structure as well, one by Councilor Dunphy and one by me.

18:10We'll talk about those more when we get to that discussion.

18:14But for folks who are testifying, I would assume that those are both in play as well.

18:20I feel like— did you have something to add, Councilor Caramelline?

18:24Yes, I also will be bringing a floor amendment that I just finished today, and we'll print— I printed out for everyone around making— as we are looking to have weekly council meetings currently, it takes— can take up to 3 months for an item to be placed on the full council agenda.

18:49And I am looking to make an amendment to change that to 45 days as we will be meeting twice as frequently.

18:58Okay.

18:59Thank you, Councilor.

19:01And that's a floor amendment, but it looks like you have it on paper.

19:04Can you make sure that the clerk's team has it?

19:06Absolutely.

19:07Thank you.

19:08Councilor Morillo.

19:10Yeah, I just wanted to request—.

19:12Councilor Morillo.

19:14Can you hear me?

19:16Yeah, can you pause for one minute?

19:17Was there a second to Councilor Koyama Lane's amendment?

19:21And if not, we can do that later.

19:22Okay, I hear a second.

19:24Councilor Morillo, go right ahead.

19:25I apologize.

19:26No, no worries.

19:27Thank you.

19:27Sorry, I jumped ahead on that one.

19:30I'm just requesting that folks send an email with the updated amendment language so that we can all see it written.

19:36I think that's helpful for me.

19:38Also, I just wanted to say if I have to be camera off for a bit, just dealing with some chronic back pain today, and I don't think the public wants to see me laying on the floor.

19:47So thank you, Councilor, and we absolutely understand.

19:52And I'll send an email your way right now.

19:55Councilor Knoll, are you back in the queue?

19:57Yeah, I just wanted to clarify, uh, because when I first mentioned it, we hadn't done the second yet.

20:02The intent behind that amendment was the amendment I put forward was to be friendly.

20:09So I'd ask if my co-sponsors to that, to the ordinance, would be willing to accept the Kanal 1 amendment that was emailed out as friendly.

20:17Okay.

20:19I see nods yes.

20:22Okay.

20:22Councilor Novick.

20:24I just wanted to note that I'll be proposing an amendment to the committee structure as well, which my staff is going to be emailing to the clerk shortly if they haven't already.

20:33And then we'll distribute copies of it.

20:35Can you give a 2-second so that folks testifying know what that is?

20:41It would involve striking the idea of, actually I don't think that in the, it's formally referred to as a leadership committee, but it replaced the idea of the council president meeting with all of the committee chairs with an idea that committee chairs will meet with their counterparts in committees that have sort of overlapping jurisdictions.

21:00And only have one committee meet with another at a time, and the council president and vice president could attend those meetings.

21:06Because my idea is that the point of committee chairs meeting with each other is to exchange information.

21:14And I think that that's important when you've got sort of overlapping jurisdiction.

21:19But I don't— I think that it causes public meetings problems and also kind of exclusivity problems if there's a group of 6 people that meets, and then by definition they can't tell any of the other 6 what they met about because that would violate quorum rules.

21:35So I just think that we could achieve the goal of transmitting information without having a leadership committee.

21:43Thank you, Councilor.

21:46Councilor Dunphy.

21:49Thank you.

21:49Very briefly, just colleagues, I sent an— or my team sent an email around about this yesterday, but with regard to the committee structure, You'll note that the resolution as filed is pretty bare bones, and that was an intentional choice.

22:02I had— we pulled out any of these sort of contentious pinch points that we didn't have unanimity around.

22:11For example, vice chair or chair, vice chair versus co-chair models.

22:15And I have subsequently filed amendments so that we can individually have an up and down vote on either of those.

22:21The intention is that if the council decides that chair, vice chair is the model to go with, great.

22:28If this body decides that co-chairs are the model to go with, great.

22:31If we can't come to an agreement, it defaults to a position of maximum flexibility for the president.

22:37So as we get into this, that is what you will be seeing filed in on the item itself.

22:43So just wanted to clarify that.

22:46Thank you, Councilor.

22:47And was there a second to Councilor Novick's proposal?

22:52Second.

22:52Thank you, Vice President.

22:56Councilor Kanal, are you back in the queue or is that an old hand?

22:58Okay, that's okay.

23:00So for folks watching, I know that was a flurry of information very quickly.

23:06I'll try to summarize, and if I've missed something, please colleagues jump in.

23:11We have an underlying proposal on council meetings, which was debated in a work session, an amendment from Councilor Kanal, which has been proposed and seconded, which would capture thank you.

23:22—Some of the conversation from that work session.

23:25An amendment from Councilor Smith that we are getting written up, which has been seconded, which would change the meeting schedule to include a weekly morning meeting and once-a-month evening meetings.

23:39And an amendment from Councilor Koyama Lane, which has been seconded, to decrease the amount of time before the council president must schedule something at a council meeting from 90 days to 45 days.

23:52We have an amendment that is under Councilor Dunphy's name, which a few councilors' staff helped to put together, that is a bit of a bare-bones capturing of the conversation around committees from our work session.

24:07We have a proposal that I have put forward based on some conversations since that was put together with a number of councilors around another way that we could think about committees.

24:17Thank you.

24:18And a proposal put forward by Councilor Novick for that second item, the committee item around how our council's leadership meets with committee chairs.

24:31Did I miss anything?

24:33Okay.

24:35Just clarifying that that amendment was friendly and not seconded the package on the first one that I put forward.

24:43I think that we need to vote on it and not just accept it in.

24:47Okay.

24:49Just given the extent of it.

24:50But I do— I thought I heard a second on—.

24:52It was seconded.

24:53Okay.

24:54Okay, thank you.

24:55Okay.

24:56There may be other changes as we discuss that folks want to bring forward, but for our community members who are signed up to testify, this at least gives us a starting place for what the breadth of the debate is So with that, seeing no one else in the queue, Rebecca, could you please call up our first testifiers?

25:17Our first testifier is Terry Harris, followed by Donna Cohen.

25:22And excuse me, President, do you want to go to 6 minutes each or 3 per?

25:28Because we're combining the 2, do we have anybody else signed up to testify?

25:32No, these are the only testifiers.

25:34Give a little more time since we're opening it up on both at the same time.

25:39Yes, thank you.

25:40Mr. Harris, welcome.

25:42Yeah, you know, my Governance Committee testimony on Monday went 14 minutes, so cutting it in half is going to be, you know, just great.

25:53I appreciate the opportunity, um, as always, um, and I've had a lot of time to sort through all of this stuff, and I appreciate putting all the amendments out there.

26:06I'm going to testify as generally as to not get into the weeds of all your amendments.

26:12Um, in my assessment, the council's problem— and this is important— um, with committees and with meetings runs deeper than what scheduling consolidation or jurisdictional realignments are going to fix.

26:29You have some fundamental problems, fundamental questions around the role of committees and council the procedural structure to implement that role effectively, and providing meaningful, meaningful public involvement within that structure.

26:46Unless and until the council commits to an approach to these interconnected problems, the committee system and the council will continue to struggle.

26:57The starting point for your committee structure discussions should be a recognition that committees are a solution and not a problem.

27:06So I have 4 pages of written comments in your files.

27:14That is not going to fit my 6 minutes, so I'm going to hit the highlights here, the headlines if you will, and will be available to answer questions.

27:26First of all, an increase in regular meetings is not going to solve your workload problem.

27:32The detailed work of committee— detailed work of governance needs to be done in committee in parallel.

27:42In addition to establishing the new committees, the council should commit to actually using them, and a committee of the whole will help you do that.

27:53Um, I had, you know, 14 minutes on committee of the whole and governance yes.

27:58On Monday.

27:59Um, and I'll just say that you have some experience with that.

28:04Your budget committee operated as a committee of the whole.

28:09You took testimony in the budget committee as a committee of the whole.

28:14You did your amendments, you did all of your adjustment in the budget committee as a committee of the whole.

28:20Then you convened from the budget committee to the regular council to pass a budget bill.

28:28So that's the experience.

28:30That can help you with broader discussions other than the budget if you implement it in rules.

28:38So that's all I'll say about that.

28:42Verbal comments and agency presentations on legislation or legislative items should be generally necessary only once, and it should be directed almost exclusively to committees.

29:00If the public is here to give input to the council on a legislative item, they need to know that their input is being heard in the right place at the right time by the right people.

29:13Doing two hearings is confusing that.

29:17And if you want to do things in parallel, you need to have that input in committee where the work is really being done, and that's early on.

29:26If you need a full council to hear a hearing, use a committee of the whole and do all the committee work at that level.

29:36Don't make people come twice because they don't know which, which hearing matters.

29:42I agree.

29:43And that will save you time overall so that you don't have presentations over and over again.

29:54Committees need to be structured to make recommendations to the full council that have consequence.

30:01They should be able to move things to a consent calendar or just kill things outright in committee.

30:10Finally, on—.

30:13To operate effectively, and you're going to have full council meetings weekly and not biweekly, you're going to need more committee hearings.

30:23The committee hearings bimonthly are not going to be enough.

30:27So you will have shifted the procedural bottleneck into committee now.

30:34I'd suggest that you can have long-form and short-form committee hearings alternating weeks so that long-form you can have lots of testimony and discussion on big things, and short-form you can do the quick little code fixes and things that get your eyes on it, but it doesn't take as long.

30:56Miscellaneous considerations in these last 55 seconds.

31:01Governance and finance probably ought to be its own committee.

31:05And not be relegated to a committee of the whole or full council thing.

31:09There are lots of small little nitpicky things in government governance and finance that deserve committee attention, not the attention of all of you every single time.

31:22The internal service rates discussion needs not be an entire council conversation.

31:32But it does need attention in a committee.

31:34The subquorum leadership group is a good idea, but its membership shouldn't drive the number of committees.

31:40There is some finesse that can be had to avoid your open meetings problems, and maybe Councilor Novick's amendment might address that.

31:515 Standing committees and a committee of the whole is a nicely sized thing.

31:55And 10 seconds, committee chairs and vice chairs, are preferable to committee co-chairs.

32:03Only 9 seconds over.

32:04Thank you, Mr. Harris.

32:06We appreciate hearing from you.

32:07I know you've spent a lot of time thinking about these topics.

32:15You're good to approach, Donna.

32:18Next we have Donna Cohen.

32:20Okay.

32:20Welcome.

32:21Thank you for being here with us today.

32:23Thank you.

32:24I'm going to take a breath in between the 2 testimonies, if that's okay.

32:30So, um, morning, Council.

32:34My name is Donna Cohen.

32:36Uh, I'm a resident of District 2.

32:40I present workshops on civics to adults.

32:43In the how to engage with your elected officials part of my Citizen Activism 101 workshop, which I presented at Midland and Albina branch libraries this summer.

32:54I have always been pleased to say how fulfilling it is to speak to one's city council, county commission, et cetera.

33:00Would you show the picture, please?

33:03This is a picture I show of when several of us came to council about a very serious, as in people were dying, traffic safety issue in St. Johns.

33:14Our t-shirts, by the way, signified the project we were working on.

33:16Thank you.

33:18At the time, I'm actually on the schedule there, but I had spoken before and a new person wanted to speak from the neighborhood and we swapped, something which can't be done now.

33:28I don't quite understand that.

33:30Now I add a picture showing the slow process of the public communication process, unfortunately.

33:38Prior to 2025, my experience was that I could request a slot to speak to council and get scheduled within a week to a month.

33:45Yes.

33:46The current wait is, is over 2 months, and you're lucky if you can grab a spot at all.

33:51And the waitlist option, which may or may not prove useful, is exclusive to those who can get email alerts from their phones and respond within as little as 4 to 5 minutes.

34:01I kid you not, I have timestamp evidence of waitlist opportunities and when they are fulfilled.

34:08And not everyone has the luxury of flexibility for last-minute cancellations for a slot either.

34:13As outlined on the webpage description for this agenda item, there have been less than half the opportunities for open public comment with the new council meeting structure.

34:22Being able to speak to council on matters which council has yet to discuss or even be aware is critical.

34:28Council definitely needs to meet more frequently and thus provide more opportunities for the public to speak on any topic.

34:36Um, yes, the proposed ordinance will do just that.

34:38Thank you.

34:39As someone who participated in forums during the creation of the plans for the new city government and was on the speakers bureau for Portland United for Change, I was impressed at how often the issue of communication between the public and the city council was brought up.

34:51I commend city council for recognizing the issues addressed by the proposed ordinance.

34:55We're still going through growing pains in our new government— with our new government, but you're clearly trying.

35:01Thank you for the proposal to increase council meetings and thus Public communication with council.

35:11Okay, so now the, um, second ordinance on policy committees.

35:20Um, in regard to the policy committees, there is a discussion of whether to reduce the number of committees from the current 8, whether to increase the time allowed for the meetings, and whether to make sure there is someone from every district on all policy committees I am in support of all these changes.

35:36One of my main concerns is that there has not been enough— there's not been time scheduled for open public communication during policy committee meetings.

35:44For example, I have some thoughts and some research to share with the Housing Committee but have had no opportunity to share them.

35:49I wrote to all the committee members, received no response.

35:53I wrote again, indicating a second attempt, and received response from 2 councilor offices, both directing me to the agenda page where there was no option for open public comment.

36:04Neither is there an email specifically for the committee.

36:06In other words, the public is totally shut out for anything but an agenda item.

36:11Another example is that, as the issue of life and death impact to tens of thousands, not only in District 2, but all those who have family members that work at the port facilities and Rivergate Industrial Area in District 2, namely that the North Peninsula will be completely severed from the rest of Portland after the quake to come, possibly for months.

36:31This should have been able to be presented to the Transportation and Public Safety Committees.

36:37It is a separate issue from the CEI overall.

36:40By not being able to do so, we saw the siloing of efforts to solicit monies from the legislature, one effort by the mayor and the city as a whole, and another by the community on the North Peninsula, just D2 councilors and our state legislators.

36:53Thank you.

36:54Imagine how that looked to the State Transportation Committee.

36:58Now some of our leaders on the North Peninsula are seeking a Zoom meeting with the mayor and some of you councilors to smooth this out for the upcoming special session.

37:06We want to be on the same page.

37:09We have received an answer— as of yesterday, we had only received an answer from one office, Councilor Murillo, and today we heard something from D2.

37:18Uh, and I dropped off something in the mayor's office and Councilor Clark's office today.

37:24Public Communication and Policy Committees will allow input on new ideas to those council members most involved with the topic and overall provide more opportunities for public communication with, communication with council because the proposal to increase such time with the full council only brings us up to the amount that was available under our prior form of government.

37:45Thank you for your time.

37:48Thank you very much for being here, Donna, and for sharing all of those ideas.

37:51Thank you.

37:53That concludes testimony.

37:59Colleagues, I think we've heard a number of additional ideas, some of which have been part of our conversation and some of which have not yet thank you.

38:12Thank you, Councilor Herbold, for that update.

38:12We appreciate that.

38:12We appreciate the information that we get from both Terry and Donna.

38:16I would like us to focus first on the first agenda item, the ordinance before us, and open up discussion on— sorry, I'm losing my page here— open up discussion on the ordinance to adopt council regular meeting schedule pursuant to code subsection 3.02010.

38:44We have a few amendments open, but I would like to start with the amendment that Councilor Kanal has put on the table.

38:51He was the first to propose one.

38:53It also generally relates to the discussion that we've already had.

38:57Councilor Kanal, are you in the queue to speak to that amendment?

39:00I can be.

39:01Okay, why don't we start there?

39:03Thank you, Madam President.

39:07Colleagues, uh, today we are introducing an ordinance which would return council to scheduled weekly meetings.

39:12It's being proposed by Councilor Dunphy, Councilor Avalos, and myself.

39:16Uh, we talked through the document at a work session last week, and based on those pieces of feedback heard from colleagues, uh, I have proposed an amendment which has been, um, agreed to by both co-sponsors as well.

39:30Thank you.

39:31To reflect your feedback in it.

39:34It does not reflect the things that were points of contention, as the council president brought up.

39:38I think we can debate those subsequent to this amendment, but it does reflect everything that was discussed that was a consensus position or near consensus.

39:49So I'll just walk through it briefly.

39:53The key points here in the council findings, Section 1, It adjusts for the dates and times that have been updated since this was written in May.

40:06It removes references to July.

40:07We're past July now.

40:09It adds into the findings the dates that we had scheduled special meetings.

40:13And the key points are in the now therefore the council directs.

40:19And it removes D, E, and F entirely.

40:22Okay.

40:23From it.

40:25This is the removing the no executive sessions may be scheduled on Thursday between 2:00 and 5:00 PM unless with the written consent of at least 9 councilors.

40:33I'm realizing as I read this, and I'll mention now to Rebecca, sorry, Section C should also be removed.

40:40That's based on feedback there.

40:42So we'll send you that updated file.

40:45It removes the references to meetings on July 2nd and June 21st.

40:48Yes.

40:49That was Part E. And it also removes references to the budget-specific work sessions that are— and meetings that we'd already scheduled, which was Section F. So it narrows the field back down to the creation of a new schedule that has weekly meetings on Wednesday, the soft stop on, um, at 9 o'clock on evening meetings, and then there's updates to the impact statement to reflect everything I just said, and you can look down there.

41:18Finally, although this was not discussed, I did take the opportunity to clarify one item in the second and third to last lines of the impact statement, which just had the word folks, and I expanded that out to emphasize who folks refers to, which is community, councilors, and staff.

41:34That was not discussed, but I figured it was— it made sense to update through this process as well.

41:41So that's what the amendment would do.

41:42I'm happy to take any questions on it.

41:44Again, this was, uh, my interpretation with colleagues based off of the full council feedback in the work session.

41:51Thank you.

41:53And this was seconded.

41:54And this has been seconded.

41:57Thank you, Councilor.

41:58Colleagues, is there any discussion to the amendment before us as described by Councilor Kanal?

42:07I guess my question is, are they— is it— sorry, point of order.

42:11Because it's friendly, is it an amendment that we have to approve or no?

42:15I think that this is extensive enough that we should vote on it, just with all of those removals.

42:20Um, I hope it moves quickly, but I think we should vote.

42:24Uh, Councilor Zimmerman, was your hand up?

42:28Go right ahead.

42:29Thanks.

42:30Um, Councilor Knoll, I appreciate the detail in which you listened at those work sessions and, and C, D, E, and F being out, um, is enough for me to support this amendment and make this the new underlying baseline document.

42:46I also plan to support, uh, you know, Councilor Smith's, but this is, I think, a better start if that is, um, if it's going to go forward.

42:55So I just want to say thanks for that, and, and you'll have my support on this amendment to the and I'm not sure if everybody heard it, but just to clarify, C is not in the underlying file, but C should be removed as well.

43:06That's an error on our part when we sent it in.

43:08So I'd ask Councilor Green if you're okay with friendly amending this amendment to include the removal of C.

43:14So essentially the therefores would be A with the removal of the date and B, and that's really what we're talking about here.

43:25Correct.

43:25Thank you, Councilor.

43:26Councilor Koyama Lane?

43:28That was almost exactly what I was going to say.

43:30Thank you.

43:33Councilor Smith?

43:35Thank you, Madam President.

43:36I am in favor of weekly council meetings and generally supportive of Councilor Kanal's proposed amendment, which appears to meet several of our shared goals.

43:46One area of concern that I have is with introducing 2 evening meetings, Yes.

43:50Considering the, the increased costs and the toll evening meetings have on our support staff, that, that would not be the most optimal way to go about it.

44:00In the financial and budgetary impact section of the amendment, it is suggested that the proposed changes would occur parallel to a corresponding reduction in committee meetings in a way that would mitigate, cancel out, or even exceed the budget increase from the additional full council meetings.

44:19But since its submission, the current best proposal for a subcommittee structure includes 5 standing committees down from 8, which would not reduce committee meetings or meeting time enough to be proportional to weekly council meetings as proposed.

44:34It seems that the only way to mitigate a substantial increase in cost without rejecting the proposal would be to limit evening meetings to once per month.

44:43Councilmember Smith, Individual council offices may be able to hold office hours in the evening on an individual need— needed basis to increase opportunities to, uh, engage with the public.

44:55And engagement is important and it's critical, and I've, I've heard a lot about that.

45:00So that's where I'm at about the, the current proposal.

45:05Thank you, Councilor.

45:07Councilor Clark.

45:09Thank you, Council President.

45:11Um, I agree with Councilor Smith, but I also had a question.

45:15So if this passes today, when does it go into effect?

45:21So this is an ordinance that does not currently have an emergency clause.

45:25So we are considering amendments today, but unless somebody introduces an emergency clause, this would actually move to the calendar on September September 3rd for passage.

45:37Non-emergency ordinances go into effect 30 days after passage.

45:42I have scheduled out on our calendars, or I have had the clerk hold time on our calendars, every Wednesday morning moving forward, and we have been scheduling those as special meetings.

45:57So it would be my intent, if it appears that we're moving in the direction of passing this to begin implementing a schedule as close to this as we can get through special meetings immediately upon passage.

46:09But it would not go into effect until 30 days after passage, which would either— or 30 days after passage, which would likely be September 3rd, I believe, is that first Wednesday of the month, unless we were to add an emergency clause today.

46:24Okay, I was thinking October.

46:26But maybe I'm— am I calculating that right?

46:31October.

46:31October 3rd would be the effective date if it was 30 days after passage on September 3rd.

46:36Okay, but you're basically scheduling as though it were the real thing.

46:40We have been scheduling special meetings to allow us to get through our work without running overtime for the last few weeks, and I would intend to continue that practice unless I heard from folks can you talk a little bit about the budget impact and what that means for the Council Clerk's Office?

47:03I can do my best, and I also may phone a friend as I start to talk because I would—.

47:10Just a point of order.

47:11I want to make sure, because I'm a little bit— I want to make sure we're talking about the amendment because then we have the overarching vote.

47:18And I know it was friendly, but that could be confusing because— and I'm sorry, Councilor, but like right now as it reads with 2 night meetings, I'll be a no vote on the overarching document.

47:30But this amendment I think is an improvement to the overarching document, so I plan to vote for the amendment.

47:36I just want to clarify that because it is a strange friendly amendment but substantive.

47:40Let's do this, Councilor.

47:41There is a fair amount of data that we've been sent about cost of previous meetings, and I'm going to see if we can get somebody from our city operations team here to talk specific numbers on costs when we get back to the underlying ordinance.

47:56So let's hold on the answer to that question, but I'll make sure that we have information at least as good as what I can share and hopefully better.

48:04Okay.

48:04Once we're through this amendment.

48:05Let me just say that I, I don't feel a real sense of urgency right now before the end of the year to have these meetings.

48:13I'm not feeling that kind of sense of urgency, but I am really concerned about the impact on staff, not— and not just the clerk staff, but all the other staff that we have come to this committee as well.

48:25Just put— I'll put that out there.

48:26I'm very concerned.

48:29Thank you.

48:30Councilor Kanal?

48:33I, I just, uh, ask for, if you could, uh, Madam President, take Councilor Zimmerman's point, because it was a point of order, that that's— this entire conversation around evening meetings is sort of separate from the amendment we're currently discussing.

48:46Correct.

48:46So I do want to talk about it.

48:48I just want to separate the conversation, and I just ask for that point of order to be acted upon.

48:55Thank you, Councilor.

48:58Any other discussion to the amendment?

49:00Okay.

49:03Rebecca, could you please call the roll on the amendment from Councilor Kanal, which among other things removes, uh, C, D, and E from the enacted language, and F?

49:18Can I ask a point of order?

49:19Okay, we're, we're voting on the overall—.

49:23We're voting on Councilor Kanal's amendment.

49:26Okay, which would remove the original—.

49:27His original C, D, E, and F, among other changes.

49:31Based on the conversation last week.

49:32Okay, I'm sorry to be dense, but when are we gonna vote on Councilor Smith's amendment?

49:40Presumably that will be— I have that written down as the next thing on the list in the order things were proposed previously.

49:44Just wanted some reassurance.

49:47Me too.

49:47We will get to have the conversation on night meetings posthaste.

49:53Rebecca, could you please call the roll?

49:55Just one point of clarification.

49:57This is Canal 1 for document 2025-300.

50:02Yes.

50:02Plus C.

50:04Canal 1 plus C, which was a floor amendment to Canal 1.

50:07We're removing C as well.

50:11Koyama Lane?

50:12Aye.

50:13Murillo?

50:15Aye.

50:16Novick?

50:17Aye.

50:18Clark?

50:18Aye.

50:19Aye.

50:19Zimmerman?

50:24Aye.

50:25Aye.

50:26Aye.

50:28Aye.

50:30Aye.

50:34Aye.

50:35And the amendment is approved with 12 aye and 0 nay votes.

50:41Thank you, Rebecca.

50:42Colleagues, we did have 2 other amendments that were proposed previously to this ordinance.

50:48Councilor Smith, do you have the written version of your amendment?

50:52I don't have a— Madam President, I don't have a written proposal other than the fact that, um, what I said earlier, to have all council meetings on Wednesdays starting at 9:30.

51:09The 3rd Wednesday of the month, we have 2 council meetings, one in the morning and one in the evening.

51:16Thank you, Councilor.

51:17And there was a second to that, I believe.

51:20Okay, colleagues, is there discussion on Councilor Smith's amendment?

51:25And Rebecca, we are working on getting that in written form for you.

51:29Councilor Zimmerman.

51:31So thank you, Councilor Smith.

51:32I plan to support the amendment.

51:34I, I think it is the underlying change to the document that couldn't get me to support weekly meetings, uh, as the I've said before, the largest city in Oregon should have weekly council meetings.

51:50I feel very strongly about that.

51:52There's a lot to continue to fix.

51:54And I also appreciate the consistency that you introduced by not having an either/or on that 3rd Wednesday, but having an increase.

52:06And I appreciate that.

52:07I share Councilor Clark's concerns about the urgency and timing and the impact on staff.

52:15I think one of the important things for, for anything, both the public and the staff, is predictability.

52:22And this will be predictable.

52:23And I think that that's a really good step in the right direction.

52:26So if this— I'll vote for the amendment, and I do hope it passes.

52:31And I think if it does, that we have a reasonable meeting schedule coming up potentially.

52:35Thank you.

52:35Councilor Dan Ryan.

52:40Thank you, Councilor.

52:42I want to note 2 things.

52:44Um, there's been a lot of conversation about cost, and I appreciate, Councilor Clark, that you brought that up.

52:51Um, I do believe, and I'm waiting to hear back, that having 2 meetings that day, um, Could increase costs because of the length of the day.

53:05What I've heard from staff is that if we go from 9:30 in the morning— and we've discussed this when talking about committee schedules, so I hadn't talked to them about it in the council context, but I'm, I'm taking that information from talking about committees to council— if we have a day that goes from 9:30 in the morning until 9 o'clock at night, that's about a 16-hour day for staff when you include the prep and wrap-up time.

53:31And that creates a fair amount of additional cost for some of the teams that support us.

53:38I am very supportive of narrowing down to one evening meeting for a lot of reasons, including the impact on our staff.

53:49I had put in our budget and was pleased to see council support 2 evening meetings in our budgeted for, thinking that one of those would be for committees, but that we would have one evening council meeting.

54:03I'm very supportive to moving to back to one evening council meeting.

54:06I do have some concerns about the long day of the, the morning meeting still being scheduled on that day.

54:13Councilor Zimmerman, I hear your argument about predictability, but I just want to raise those cost and staffing concerns.

54:19Thank you.

54:20Um, so that we're making an informed decision.

54:23Point of order, Madam President.

54:26Um, is there something in the charter that says we have to have one night meeting?

54:30Where, where did we get that from?

54:32It's in the charter?

54:35It is not in the charter.

54:37I believe that it was added in code around our schedule.

54:42Okay, okay, perfect.

54:44But I'm willing— I, I'm willing to accept a friendly amendment that would put it on another day so we don't have a night 19-hour day.

54:50But I just, I just think that, um, whatever day we put it on, it's going to link— it's going to still extend that day, even if we change it to Thursday or Tuesday or Monday.

55:02If we were to not have the morning meeting that day so that our support teams could come in later that day, essentially work with their supervisors to flex their time, so we would have, depending on if there were 3 or 4 weeks in a month, either— rather, if there are 4 or 5 weeks in a month, have either 3 or 4 morning meetings, but the day that we had an evening meeting, not have a morning meeting.

55:25The trade-off is we would lose the consistency that Councilor Zimmerman has mentioned.

55:30That would address the concerns that I've raised.

55:34Yeah, it would be great to hear some more discussion about that and what that would look like.

55:39Councilor Clark.

55:41Well, I, I would just say it's a long day.

55:44If we could start that day at 2:30 or something like that.

55:47We've done that in the past, I think, our others.

55:50Um, maybe you— should I make a friendly amendment to that?

55:55I've just—.

55:55Would you accept a friendly amendment to your amendment just to, to not have a, a Wednesday morning meeting and just substitute it with an evening meeting?

56:03No, to keep the evening meeting, but not start in the morning.

56:06We can start in the afternoon.

56:07On the 3rd Wednesday to not have a morning meeting.

56:10Exactly.

56:12I'd be okay with that if that's what people believe is good on the staff.

56:20Councilor Clark, can I recommend that we hear, because there are a number of folks in the queue from others, and have you come back and offer that friendly amendment after we hear a little more discussion?

56:28I'm very supportive of it, but—.

56:30That's great.

56:30Well, that's not why I got myself in the queue, but it was just— for the moment.

56:35What I really wanted to ask you about, Madam President, is just— you made the comment about evening meetings for committees.

56:44I'll be interested in that, that we hold that option open for committee chairs to have evening meetings.

56:50And I don't know how that factors into our budget or how we get permission to do that, but I just want to say that I think we should have that option.

56:59Thank you.

56:59I'm happy to discuss my thoughts on that more when we talk about committees, or we can wait, get through, see where we land with committees, and then figure out implementation.

57:08Thank you, Councilor.

57:08Councilor Koyama Lane.

57:11I also am interested in what it looks like for one of those 2 evening council meetings to be subbed out for a slot for possible evening committee meetings.

57:22I'm not saying that I'm one way or the other, but I'm interested in what that looks like and the cost from my understanding, it would be a lot less more.

57:30I do think while I am a morning person, we do see higher engagement and attendance in the evening.

57:36If it also is to support our committee work, that could also make sense to me.

57:43Thank you, Councilor.

57:43Councilor Novick.

57:46Yeah, I agree that we shouldn't be having anybody work 16-hour days.

57:53I rather like the idea of having— always having Wednesday morning meetings.

58:02So I would— might be comfortable with having the night meeting be on a different day, like Thursday evening.

58:10That means we have more overall meetings, but it might help us use the night meetings in a more targeted way for topics which we know are going to have lots of public I mean, I think that maybe we could do just fine having the one meeting a month being a night meeting and not having it every Wednesday morning.

58:31But so I'm sort of teetering between those two.

58:33Do we have 3 morning meetings and one night meeting on a different night, or do we have 4 morning meetings plus a night meeting on a different night?

58:44As to the idea of starting the meeting, Councilor Clark's idea of starting the meeting at 2:30, I do not like the idea of our meeting from 2:30 to 9 at night.

58:52I don't think, don't think that we function well when we're meeting 7 hours straight.

58:59Thank you, Councilor.

59:00Councilor Avalos.

59:05I think that when it comes to evening meetings, for me it's more about what the goal is.

59:11And to me, the goal is increasing the participation of I obviously understand the logistical restraints, the feelings of— I definitely agree that there's no way I could support this amendment that currently, as it states, would be a full day, right?

59:29A whole morning and an evening meeting.

59:31I think that's more untenable for both staff and for us.

59:35But the broader goal of this amendment being reducing our amount of council meetings from 2 in the evening to 1, I do not support.

59:45I understand and respect the staff impact, but also this is a new council, we have new expectations, and I don't think that our desire to increase the people's voice and representation in council should be prohibited by a staffing issue.

59:57So I will not be supporting this amendment.

59:59I would like to continue to have 2 evening meetings, or I would like to, I guess, start since we don't currently have that.

1:00:06I want to increase the amount of opportunities people have to engage with us in off hours.

1:00:15Thank you, Councilor.

1:00:18Councilor Zimmerman, have you spoken to this amendment?

1:00:21Ryan should speak.

1:00:22Okay, perfect.

1:00:24Councilor Ryan.

1:00:26Council President, I like the consistency we're offering Portlanders with council meetings on Wednesdays, with one Wednesday being an evening meeting.

1:00:34I think that would simplify this.

1:00:36You like that friendly amendment?

1:00:37Yep.

1:00:38Councilor Smith likes that friendly amendment.

1:00:41Is that the same as the amendment Councilor Clark was proposing, or are you proposing something different?

1:00:46No, no, it's, it's different.

1:00:48So, okay, why don't you lay it out for us?

1:00:49This one, C, is we have a council meeting every Wednesday.

1:00:53One Wednesday a month we have council after dark.

1:00:56You know, we have an evening meeting.

1:00:58Sorry, college football's starting soon.

1:01:00Yeah.

1:01:01So, Councilor, that would be instead of a morning meeting that day, we would have the evening meeting that day.

1:01:06Yes.

1:01:07And then I think that provides— council meetings are, are on Wednesdays, and then once a month we have an evening one.

1:01:12Excellent.

1:01:14Okay, are you offering that as a friendly amendment?

1:01:16I am, especially now.

1:01:17Okay, and Councilor Smith, I believe, has accepted that.

1:01:20And who was our second on the— Councilor Ryan, you were the second on Councilor Smith's original yes, absolutely.

1:01:27Amendment, correct?

1:01:28Perfect.

1:01:29Okay.

1:01:30So this has been changed.

1:01:33This proposal has been changed by a friendly amendment to be one evening meeting a month, and we would not have the morning meeting that day.

1:01:46And I believe that this has been proposed for the 3rd Wednesday.

1:01:51Is that correct?

1:01:52Yeah, whatever it was earlier, it was the 3rd.

1:01:53Yeah.

1:01:54This offers consistency for Portlanders, offers efficiency for our staff, and also it's cost sensitive.

1:02:01Thank you.

1:02:02Councilor Zimmerman.

1:02:05Thanks.

1:02:05I, I think that's a fine, friendly amendment.

1:02:09I think it brings up an important piece here, and this is, this is why I care a lot that we have one night meeting.

1:02:14And it really gets to, we can either talk about supporting the employees who support us, or we can take action to support the employees who support us.

1:02:26And I think that taking action to limit the number of night meetings is one of those actions that reduces strain on a pretty significant apparatus to keep this animal alive.

1:02:38Um, it also really matters— there, I just want to highlight, there are a couple of with this many consistent meetings on every Wednesday, we have got to have a clear stop time on more days.

1:02:58We have, we have blown the finish line on more meetings than we've met it, I feel like.

1:03:04And I think that, that, that trend has reared its head in this document alone just by outlining the 9 PM stop time.

1:03:11Councilor Dan Ryan.

1:03:11Stop time that was highlighted.

1:03:13There's obviously an appetite for that, which if, if the presiding officer is able to hold these times and be consistent on that, that's part of why I was okay with both a morning meeting and then a night meeting, because I, I think it would be unhealthy to go from 9:30 until 9 at night.

1:03:33But 3 hours and then many hours later, starting 6 hours later, starting again, that sent— that felt palatable.

1:03:37Thank you.

1:03:38But I like the change that's been made.

1:03:40But it still has this underlying piece of, I think, reducing chaotic schedules, recognizing that a lot of folks keep us working and keep this dais alive, and that we, in the way we do or do not find the end of a meeting and think, We have to get through it.

1:04:07Most of the time, there will always be another meeting.

1:04:10There are very few things that can't be tabled until the next meeting if we've blown through it.

1:04:15And I recognize that that will happen, but to some other councilors' points, we're going to have so many more opportunities for this.

1:04:22I think we need to lean into it and do our, our best to apply the principles about the nighttime meeting of finish up the last item.

1:04:29Thank you.

1:04:31Or finish up the item that is open and then call it and apply that as much as we can stringently.

1:04:37And I'm not in favor of putting it in code, but I think it is a presiding officer's prerogative to help us stick to those timelines.

1:04:44It's about a 3-hour, maybe a 4-hour at most when we have these daytime morning meetings.

1:04:49So I think that we should take seriously, both in this conversation as well as when we get into committees, the impacts that we are having on the rest of the support staff who keep this council alive.

1:05:01Thank you.

1:05:04Thank you, Councilor.

1:05:05Councilor Smith, we'll get right back to you, but we've had 2 people join the queue who haven't spoken yet to the amendment.

1:05:10Okay, Councilor Kanal.

1:05:12Thank you, Madam President.

1:05:13I will be voting no on this amendment.

1:05:15I appreciate that it has been improved, I think, by Councilor Ryan's friendly amendment to the amendment, but I think the underlying point Councilor Sameer Kanal.

1:05:23Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

1:05:23I think the point that Councilor Avalos raised is still compelling to me.

1:05:26So I just want to step back for a second.

1:05:28We budgeted in the budget for 2 evening meetings of some part of the council per month.

1:05:34That's already approved.

1:05:36It has been funded.

1:05:38There were some parameters on that that needed to be created around not having a 6 o'clock meeting end up going till 11:13 like our first one did, that the point that the portion of the document which Councilor Zimmerman just mentioned, the soft stop, addresses.

1:05:54The question here is not whether we have 2 night meetings a month or 1, because it's not about— that's not the underlying question.

1:06:02The underlying question is whether that second evening meeting is for the full council or would be reserved for a committee.

1:06:08Either way, it's funded and it is going to be staffed.

1:06:11That's already approved in June, that there would be 2 meetings a month.

1:06:14Thank you.

1:06:14Some portion of this council in the evening, whether it's the full council or a committee, is yet to be determined.

1:06:21Um, secondly, the consistency argument— it is equally consistent to say morning, morning, evening, morning, or morning, evening, morning, evening if it's the same thing every month.

1:06:34Neither is more consistent than the other.

1:06:36Um, so I think as long as the adoption of this ordinance in some form will create that consistency in a way that improves upon the current practice, which I appreciate from the Council President, of augmenting our additional schedule with special meetings.

1:06:51Okay.

1:06:52So given all of that, the real question here is fundamentally, do we want a second meeting in the evening to be for a committee, which would be inconsistent which committee it would be, right?

1:07:03That would change over time, which would be not necessarily— we have no understanding of what the process for yes.

1:07:10Determining that would be because we haven't built one yet.

1:07:12Um, or do we want it to be for where the people come, which is the council, which is the full council as it has been for decades and it should remain?

1:07:20Um, and I have seen the patterns of who comes and how many people come in the evening for the full council versus the daytime meetings, and it is very, very clear that there is more appetite for the evening meetings on the whole.

1:07:36And I, in particular, after, as the council president has noted, her choice to schedule, I think in a really good way, those items that are of public concern primarily in the evenings.

1:07:47So with that said, I'll be voting no on it.

1:07:49I think we need to retain the idea that this entire purpose of this enterprise is to feed, is to serve the people.

1:07:58And we've already addressed much of the staff concerns, but fundamentally, Councilor Smith.

1:08:02We've lost the fact that, that having people be able to come and testify here before their elected representatives, all 12 of us, is the underlying purpose of, of this entire enterprise.

1:08:12Thanks.

1:08:15Thank you, Councilor.

1:08:15Councilor Morillo.

1:08:19Um, Councilor Kanal actually answered most of my questions.

1:08:21I was going to ask logistically what it's going to take to adjust the budget, uh, if we were to have 2 evening council meetings.

1:08:28So hearing that we have already budgeted for that makes me feel better about this.

1:08:33I completely agree that we do need to have more evening meetings because there are very different types of people that are able to attend in the middle of the day versus people who are— who I've seen come at council at evening meetings.

1:08:46I am also perfectly fine with Councilor Ryan's friendly amendment to this.

1:08:51I think it was common sense.

1:08:54And I agree with Councilor Zimmerman as well that there— we do need to have some limits so that people are at their best when we're on the dais and that our staff can also, you know, have lives that they are organizing around work and they know exactly when things are going to end.

1:09:09But overall, we do want evening engagement for council meetings and ideally one day for committee meetings as well.

1:09:16So I'll be supportive of this.

1:09:18Thanks.

1:09:20Thank you, Councilor.

1:09:22Councilor Novick.

1:09:25Yeah, I just, I think that the number of items where it's the people want to come in the evening to talk about them is limited.

1:09:35So I just intuitively think that having one night a month is going to be enough to satisfy that desire.

1:09:43And I'm curious if Councilor Avalos or Councilor Kanal can come up with examples of in the past 6 months of an item which should have been heard at an evening meeting but was heard at a day meeting, and therefore you think that that limited what would have been robust public input.

1:10:03Councilor, would you like to respond?

1:10:05I don't want to use my second attempt, but—.

1:10:07Okay.

1:10:10Councilor Avalos, would you like to respond briefly?

1:10:13I don't have a specific example.

1:10:15I don't think I need one.

1:10:16I don't think we've even gotten— we've even scratched the surface of the types of topics So I'm looking to the future of how we're setting up a system for people to engage with us.

1:10:29So I don't think that an example is necessarily relevant.

1:10:32I don't have a specific one other than, I guess, the second Councilor Kanal to say this one is probably the best example I come up with on the spot.

1:10:42Councilor Novick, anything further?

1:10:45Councilor Koyama Lane?

1:10:47I'd like to start with saying I do appreciate, Council President, how you've been intentional about putting items that seem to have a lot of public interest for evening meetings, scheduling them then.

1:11:00I like the idea of having the option to be able to, for the public to meet us, come meet, come before us 2 times a month in the evening.

1:11:13I— it's— we don't necessarily have to use both of those, especially as you're very intentional about scheduling.

1:11:22They could always be taken off the schedule.

1:11:25It's always easier to take something off the schedule, cancel it, than to try to fit it in.

1:11:31As this is now, I do not plan to support it without seeing that it's in writing and it's clear that the public could meet us in the evening 2 times a month.

1:11:46Councilor, are you referring to having a committee slot in writing somewhere, or are you referring to council meetings when you say having something in writing?

1:11:57Having a committee slot and having a real clear outline of what that would look like and how committees would sign up for that.

1:12:04I know that part of the next thank you.

1:12:15Councilor Smith.

1:12:18Thank you, Madam President.

1:12:19I, I think it goes back to what Councilor Zimmerman said.

1:12:22If we start taking things off the agenda, then people don't have a sense that this is a regular occurrence.

1:12:30Yes.

1:12:31So putting things on and off as we feel, that's, that's not a, that's not a good option.

1:12:36We need to be able to give the public 3 days, 3 days a month when we're going to meet, and then that one day for the evening.

1:12:44Now, there are going to be some extraordinarily special meetings that may not be a committee meeting or may not be a, um, a council meeting that is of public interest that we might need to have a an evening meeting that all of us are here for.

1:13:04So it may be a work session that people are highly interested in that we have at night.

1:13:10So I think we need to have the flexibility to do that.

1:13:14But I think, as Councilor Ryan said, his friendly amendment is probably our best bet to keeping things very simple and having a routine.

1:13:25Thank you.

1:13:26So that people can get used to a routine of when we're actually meeting.

1:13:30Because right now we don't have that.

1:13:32It's all over the place.

1:13:34Thank you, Councilor.

1:13:38Councilor Dunphy, I don't believe you've spoken to this amendment yet.

1:13:40I have not.

1:13:40Thank you.

1:13:41You know, colleagues, I am going to be supportive of the Smith Amendment as changed.

1:13:46I am not right now inclined to have 2 evening meetings a month.

1:13:51I don't think that we have yet demonstrated as a body that that is necessary.

1:13:54We have the budget in order to have 2 evening events happen, meaning a council meeting and potentially a committee meeting, potentially a special hearing.

1:14:04We can always change our rules.

1:14:05We will inevitably change our rules in the next 6 months when we decide that what we're agreeing on today isn't working for us.

1:14:14I don't feel like we have yet reached a point in our flow where that is quite necessary.

1:14:19So I will be supportive of having one evening meeting.

1:14:21Councilor Dan Ryan.

1:14:22I also am very supportive of the idea of intentionally building in space for committee meetings in the evenings, especially because I think as we progress this conversation further, we will see the definitions of why we have committees being a little bit more clear.

1:14:37And so I will be supportive of this amendment.

1:14:39Thank you, Councilor.

1:14:42Councilor Clark.

1:14:46I'm sorry, did you call me?

1:14:48Okay, good.

1:14:50I just want to remind people that it's not just the council clerk's office, it's not just BTS, and it's not just security that is supporting us.

1:15:00It's all the people in the bureaus, and we have seen them here.

1:15:04We don't always see them here because they're over in the Portland building listening to us and being on call in case we have a question.

1:15:11And we forget that those are costs too, that all those— I'm afraid we're going to burn those people out.

1:15:17And that's an ongoing concern I have, if we haven't already burnt them out by our endless debating about things.

1:15:26But I'm pro the one meeting, just be clear.

1:15:29Just want to remind people.

1:15:31Thank you, Councilor, for bringing that up.

1:15:33I do think that that's one of the places where the impact difference between committees and Council is clear.

1:15:42Councilor Morillo.

1:15:46I just wanted to push back on the idea, or maybe answer Councilor Novick's question regarding matters of public interest, because I think that there have been quite a lot, but we haven't always had an opportunity to do an evening meeting.

1:15:58The top 3 that came to mind for me were the Zenith resolution, the algorithmic price fixing ban, which I will be bringing back.

1:16:07Anything regarding ICE right now is going to be a huge matter of public interest.

1:16:11The Portland Street Response resolution, the Albina settlement, any of the police settlements.

1:16:17I'm sure we will have a lot of people coming in if we have it more publicly available.

1:16:23So I think that there are a lot of matters of public interest, and what I have seen in my committee meetings, even with people who I agree with and like, is that the people who can come and testify generally are either wealthy, retired, Or they tend to be lobbyists for organizations and they're paid.

1:16:41And again, those could be people I agree with and like, but you get a different type of person that comes in in the evening meetings.

1:16:48And I think that that's really important and valuable for us as a council to hear, because during our committee meetings too, it's different when the full body of council is hearing the testimony than it is when someone is reading off to you.

1:17:02Thank you.

1:17:03Hey, the staff summary says that 12 people testified and they were all strongly in favor of this because of XYZ.

1:17:09That doesn't have the same emotional impact for us as legislators and leaders as it does when you are face to face with your community and you have to answer them and you have to look them in the eyes and say yes or no on something.

1:17:20So I think that, um, overall having 2 evening meetings that we have already budgeted for is reasonable.

1:17:28I think there will be lots of matters of public interest as long as we thank you, Councilor.

1:17:38I hesitated to get in the queue, but I do think that it's important to note that as we talk about accessibility of meetings, evening meetings are really important.

1:17:47There are people who can come who can't come during the day, but we shouldn't assume that people who work are better off coming to an evening meeting than during the day.

1:17:57We have members of our community who work shift work.

1:17:59We have members of our community who work in, um, hospitality and entertainment industries for whom a daytime meeting actually can be better.

1:18:08Um, and I just want to make sure that we are not making assumptions about who has access to what types— times of day, um, thinking only about people who work 9 to 5.

1:18:20Well, yes, I think I was talking— Councilor, it was a broader comment.

1:18:26Yes, I do have a written up, um, amendment, and I, I'd like to move to amend this ordinance by replacing A1 and A2 with the following.

1:18:39Number 1, on the 1st, 2nd— on the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and any 5th Wednesday of each month beginning at 9:30 AM 2.

1:18:50On the 3rd Wednesday of each month beginning at 6 PM.

1:18:55And amend the ordinance by inserting a new Section A.3 and renumbering the current A.3 to A.4.

1:19:06Any regular meeting that is recessed with unheard agenda items will continue at 2 PM the following Thursday.

1:19:13Second.

1:19:15That is just the housekeeping rule that I didn't have in before.

1:19:20Thank you, Councilor.

1:19:21And if your team can share that with everybody and get it to the clerk, that would be helpful.

1:19:26Thank you.

1:19:27Councilor Kanal.

1:19:30Uh, 2 things.

1:19:31Thank you, Madam President.

1:19:32Um, first, I appreciate the point you made, Madam President, and I— it gave me an opportunity to, to mention why, because I was asked earlier, why is it alternating for first and third, second and fourth, as opposed to some other form of configuration there.

1:19:46And it relates to your point about shift work.

1:19:49And I remember I've worked retail, I've worked hospitality, I've had different schedules.

1:19:55Ordinances are generally heard in 2 successive meetings.

1:19:57So having the opportunity for one of those 2 meetings to be in the evening allows for at least those regardless of schedule to take part in some way in part of that conversation.

1:20:08Thank you.

1:20:09And so I do think that that variety, as Councilor Murillo brought up, is vital to ensuring that everyone can participate.

1:20:17The other thing I'll note, and I was not aware of this until Councilor Smith just read the new text, is that we would be eliminating the Wednesday afternoon recessed meetings in the text that was just read.

1:20:29And so, yes, because the third part, the new A3, says that any A meeting that was recessed with unfinished items would be resumed at 2 o'clock on Thursday.

1:20:41Right.

1:20:42Which means that the 2 o'clock that you can see currently in A1 as currently read, recess session of a Wednesday morning meeting will be held at 2 PM on that Wednesday.

1:20:52So that Wednesday meeting for the 3 or 4, however many Wednesdays a month in which there is a morning meeting, would go away with this amendment, which is another reason I think that, that it, it should be, um, voted no on.

1:21:07Thank you.

1:21:08Thank you, Councilor.

1:21:09Councilor Smith, are you raising your hand with a correction on your amendment?

1:21:13Right, we would still, even on the, on the morning meetings, if we need to, um, if we need to recess, we still have the ability to do that on Thursday at 2 o'clock.

1:21:24Right now and on the So in the proposed calendar ideas that have been sent out, Councilor Smith, we have the option of a Wednesday afternoon recess or a Thursday afternoon recess.

1:21:39That's in code currently.

1:21:41We haven't generally used the Wednesday afternoon recess, but I could foresee us using the Wednesday afternoon recess after a morning meeting.

1:21:51We would not use that Wednesday afternoon time after, on weeks when we had an evening meeting on those weeks, we would obviously just use that Thursday afternoon time.

1:22:01So I think the question is whether you are intending to limit those options or whether you're intending to maintain the status quo option of a Wednesday or Thursday afternoon recess except on weeks when we have an evening meeting.

1:22:15Yes, that sounds good.

1:22:18Councilor Zimmerman, Can you enter this conversation?

1:22:22Because I think that that would— is he for a point of order?

1:22:27Yeah, so I think that your amendment with the Thursday option is, is the important part here.

1:22:32I mean, I think that this— what we're getting at here is the, the Wednesday option, basically 2 hours after maybe we took a break on the current Wednesday, is, is not a great practice.

1:22:46Right.

1:22:47It turns into an all-day meeting, and I think that's part of what we're solving here.

1:22:51It allows the presiding officer to say, come back on the Thursday, and I think that's a healthier rhythm instead of take your half hour, because we never seem to end when we should, and then come back 30 minutes later.

1:23:07That is where we're in these all-day meetings when they should have just been a morning meeting.

1:23:11And so I think Councilor Smith's option of Thursday is the important and not this doubling up on Wednesday piece.

1:23:20Right, because it says any regular meeting that is recessed with unheard agenda items will continue at 2:00 PM the following Thursday, whether it be a night or a morning meeting.

1:23:31I think that's a healthier rhythm for everybody involved.

1:23:39I also would like to— my— the reason I really had my hand in there was to say that I think that's a good idea.

1:23:43I don't even know what we call it anymore, but limit debate to anybody in the queue and let's move on to a vote.

1:23:48Thank you, Councilor.

1:23:49I think that it is important for folks to see this in writing because it's making more changes, Councilor, than you had originally shared.

1:23:57If my staff is listening, please send that to the clerk.

1:24:01Okay, do we have that in the mail?

1:24:02And send it to the entire council.

1:24:06It sounds like we may have just sent that out.

1:24:09Thank you.

1:24:10Okay, thank you to Elijah.

1:24:14Councilor—.

1:24:15Okay, this— that's it.

1:24:15No, this is the same thing.

1:24:16Okay, so let's give everybody a minute to look at what is in writing here.

1:24:22I believe that everybody has had at least 2 opportunities to speak to this.

1:24:31Can I—.

1:24:32Councilor Kanal, do you have I hadn't finished, but this, this was— I got interrupted at the end there with the information, so can I finish the thought?

1:24:42Please.

1:24:43Uh, in 2024, this council met 36 or 45 hours a month.

1:24:49This is assuming the normal cadence of 3-hour, um, meetings with the recesses built in, and that was the maximum.

1:24:56Sometimes they didn't take the recess meeting.

1:24:58In 2025, we met 15 hours a month.

1:25:01This proposal, the underlying ordinance would go back to 30 or 39 hours a month.

1:25:06So it's still fewer than in preceding years.

1:25:08And that's because there's no opportunity for 2 recess meetings on an evening meeting.

1:25:14And the amendment that's being proposed right now, given that reduction of the Wednesday recess time, would reduce it to 24 or 30 hours a month, which is a significant change from all of the underlying numbers we just discussed, it reduces— we'd be adding only 9 hours of full council a month, which I think, given that we have increased the number of filers from 6 to 14 people who can initiate a document here, and we've increased the number of people who debate and discuss those proposals from 5 councilors, including the mayor, to now 12, there is a need to ensure that we're not going so far lower than what we've had in the past, uh, not to mention the underlying needs that was brought up in the testimony around public testimony.

1:26:07Thank you.

1:26:11Thank you, Councilor.

1:26:14Colleagues, are there any other comments?

1:26:18I, I would just—.

1:26:23Councilor Smith, correct the math on that, because if you add the Thursday meetings, that's an— that's another 3 hours, and 3 times, um, 4 is 12.

1:26:35With the other 4 meetings, that's 24.

1:26:40And but we do have the ability, if we need to, to go over on the Wednesday morning meetings.

1:26:50So, okay.

1:26:55Thank you, Councilor.

1:26:55I see no one else in the queue, and I think we have all well more than exhausted our 2 speaking points each.

1:27:01Rebecca, could you please call the roll on Councilor Smith's amendment, which I believe we now all have in writing?

1:27:16Sorry, I'm pulling it up.

1:27:22No.

1:27:28No.

1:27:30Aye.

1:27:31Aye.

1:27:32No.

1:27:35Aye.

1:27:38No.

1:27:39Aye.

1:27:41Aye.

1:27:42No.

1:27:47No.

1:27:47Aye.

1:27:48And the amendment is approved with 7 aye and 5 nay votes.

1:27:55Thank you, councilors.

1:27:57Colleagues, I believe Councilor Koyama Lane had proposed an amendment which has Councilor Koyama Lane, would you like to speak to that amendment?

1:28:08Sure.

1:28:09Thank you, Madam President.

1:28:10So as part of the discussions that we're having around streamlining committees, possibly adding council meetings, I'm proposing an amendment to Section 3.02.020 titled Council Agenda to change the deadline for items being heard to be moved from 3 months to 45 days.

1:28:31There have been concerns raised about the length of time council items take to come before council once out of committee.

1:28:39I hear some of these concerns.

1:28:41For example, as the timeline plays out, attachments may become irrelevant as well as losing urgency, and momentum can be lost on the issue itself.

1:28:51With this proposed council regular meeting schedule that we're suggesting, Today, we may no longer need the full 90 days.

1:28:59So goals for reducing that timeline include increased transparency and efficiency and limiting the amount of time needed for staff to track the status of any individual item and be ready without notice to present.

1:29:14So I look forward to this discussion around what you all think around this.

1:29:18Thank you, Councilor.

1:29:20And we do have a second on that already.

1:29:22Colleagues, is there any thank you, Madam President.

1:29:30To me, this seems pretty straightforward and sensible.

1:29:32We've doubled the amount of— we will double the amount of council meetings.

1:29:37We should be able to schedule those within 45 days.

1:29:39So I will plan to support these.

1:29:41Thank you.

1:29:48I'm not so certain.

1:29:50I guess that we need to do that, that maybe we need to implement the additional council meetings first and then come back and reevaluate this.

1:30:01Um, so I'm torn.

1:30:04Um, I think I'll probably vote against it and hope that we have time to really see if our new, uh, council cycle works to, um, facilitate rapid movement.

1:30:16I don't know that we need to zero in on 45 days.

1:30:23Thank you, Councilor.

1:30:23Councilor Ryan.

1:30:25Thank you, Madam President.

1:30:26My concern here is that, have you had a conversation with Michael Jordan or the DCAs about your amendment?

1:30:37I have not.

1:30:37That's, that's, thank you.

1:30:39And the reason I would want to talk to them about that, because I think what I keep hearing is the workload challenge.

1:30:46I also know Council President has reason to weigh in on why, as Council President, she's made some of those decisions.

1:30:54But I really think what I'm experiencing is sometimes we're not connecting with the staff who fundamentally have to implement what we're passing.

1:31:03And if we don't have time to socialize it and then work with them, it sometimes takes more than 45 days.

1:31:09Councilor yeah.

1:31:12So right now, that's my hesitation why I'd vote no.

1:31:14I hear that.

1:31:15And I know that as governance leaders, we've talked about this idea and that was something that you brought forward, which is something that makes a lot of sense.

1:31:23So I know my team has reached out and started to ask about those conversations.

1:31:27I haven't gotten to have them yet.

1:31:29And what you're saying is very valid.

1:31:31Thank you.

1:31:31I so appreciate your candor.

1:31:32Thank you.

1:31:33Thank you, Councilor.

1:31:35And I'll note that City Administrator Jordan is out this week, but acting in his stead is, um, um, I believe we have Sarah this week acting in his stead.

1:31:48I apologize, I was thinking through the schedule because there's a few different people.

1:31:52Um, I'm seeing if she's available to weigh in on that, Councilor.

1:31:55Councilor Smith.

1:31:57Thank you, Madam President.

1:31:58And I, I would say ditto, ditto, ditto to Councilor Clark because we don't know the flow, and then we have to add this extra layer of if we're changing the committee system.

1:32:08So it's going to be harder to get out of committee.

1:32:10We're going to be in committees longer.

1:32:12So that's going to be a strain.

1:32:15So I would suggest us getting into the flow of what we're going to be doing in terms of our infrastructure.

1:32:21So we know if 45 days is the, the actual timeline, and we may need to expand it to 120 days.

1:32:29I don't know, but we need to figure out how to how to manage what all this, all these new changes and look to see if our levers that we're trying to put in place, if it's going to be appropriate.

1:32:40So I agree with Councilor Clark.

1:32:43Thank you.

1:32:46Thank you, Councilor.

1:32:47Councilor Green.

1:32:50Yeah, I just wanted to note that most of what we'll be doing when we do policy development is pre-referral to the full council.

1:32:58And so when we engage with the bureaus, it is important to engage with them early as we develop our policies, and then that gets referred to our committee, and then we pass it out of committee.

1:33:09And so I don't think we're shortcutting the engagement with staff by moving the referral from committee to full council to 45 days.

1:33:18And I think it gives us an opportunity to clear some bottlenecks that we have in the city right now.

1:33:23As many of my colleagues have said, we want to be the city of yes, and it's hard to imagine being the city of yes if we have a really long lead time in passing policy.

1:33:32And so that's why I support the 45 days.

1:33:36Thank you, Councilor.

1:33:37Councilor Kanal.

1:33:39Thank you, Madam President.

1:33:43I'm confused by the conversation around whether or not we would need to ask I am confused because once something has been filed, the filer, whether it's a part of the administration or it's a city councilor, obviously wants it to be discussed.

1:34:05And so having this backstop of it can't be longer than however many days it is, is a protection for that individual and for the content to ensure that it happens.

1:34:15Councilor Dan Ryan.

1:34:16But I think what we're hearing here is really the tools of status quo bias, because the tools of status quo bias are using process to impede progress.

1:34:25Did you run this by someone that's not material to the conversation?

1:34:29Is one of those things.

1:34:30And I'm just baffled by the idea that if the administration or a councilor is putting it forward, they wouldn't want it to be on the agenda faster.

1:34:39So that's not about the number of days specifically.

1:34:43I think that's a fair point.

1:34:44But it is about the conversation.

1:34:46I'm just very, very confused by that.

1:34:49And its applicability here.

1:34:51As it relates to Councilor Koyama Lane's amendment, I appreciate this conversation because we are talking about this in the context of how many hours of council we have.

1:35:01We can't act at the pace that the people want us to act right now.

1:35:05And that's not primarily because of this.

1:35:08It may relate to the number of days.

1:35:08Councilor Koyama Lane.

1:35:09I think it does to some degree, as we saw with Councilor Dunphy's proposal on changing the noise code, and that was the only reason that that ended up getting on the special meeting agenda that week.

1:35:22But primarily it's because we move slower than the mayor and we are unable to be as responsive to the needs of the people as we'd like to be.

1:35:32Part of that's by design.

1:35:34The mayor is designed to act faster, but part of it is because of the underlying needs for this entire ordinance.

1:35:40And I think because the day count relates to that, this is relevant to that conversation.

1:35:44I'm not 100% certain where I'm at on it.

1:35:47I'm likely to vote yes at this moment, but I do think it's worth saying we should be looking at a council agenda that reflects the needs of the people as council sees it.

1:35:59And I feel like we've had a lot of time go towards the mayor's proposals and the administration's proposals, which are important and have had the other part of our government, meaning councilors, have to wait to have whenever the gaps, whatever the scraps are left at the table on the agenda from the mayor's side.

1:36:19Thanks.

1:36:21Thank you, Councilor.

1:36:23Councilor Zimmerman.

1:36:25That was quicker than I expected.

1:36:28Okay.

1:36:32I guess I have said multiple times when we've written code, when we've written council rules, that I'm not a big fan of putting a lot of specifics in what a presiding officer or what a chair or vice chair does because I value the decision-making of that person, and it's part of how I judge them in their role.

1:36:52And so, And I know there's differences of opinions about how much authority or what the role of council president is that exists on this dais, but I am counting on the presiding officer of this council to have an idea for the breadth and extent of all things coming to this council and making the best decision for what comes next.

1:37:14And so by adding this 45— so to be clear, I was against In December and January, I was against the 90 days, and that was a compromise.

1:37:24And now this 45 days is just that much more of how much I would be against it, because 45 days in our work, given the nature of, of everything that comes, I think, um, eliminates my ability to say the presiding officer has decision-making abilities on this.

1:37:42And it means any person could do the role because you just say, oh, we're coming up on 45 days, this thing has to go forward.

1:37:50Councilor So I think there are times when a perfectly well-meaning piece of legislation is going to bump up against that 45 days, but given what we're in the midst of, it may be a bad time for council to take it up.

1:38:03And I use this topic specifically that we're on today.

1:38:07If this had hit its 45-day mark on May 23rd, I think it would have been chaos for us in the midst of a much bigger mission, which was and so I think 90 days gives, gives a great deal of flexibility and still gives us as councilors a serious backstop that is not too far in one direction.

1:38:31And so I want to just caution everybody in that I think the presiding officer has a role, and that role is a little bit of a bigger picture, an awareness of a bigger picture than maybe we all do from our 5 different perspectives.

1:38:43Councilor and so for that reason, I think 45 days is well-meaning, but actually in implementation could cause us pretty significant problems down the line.

1:38:53So I hope that we don't support this amendment, and I hope that we lean on the presiding officer to give us a reason or to help us politic something if we need it to come more quickly instead of continually using the rules, because I think we are inherently in politics.

1:39:10Thank you.

1:39:10And we are in the business of convincing other humans to get a thing we care about passed, or at least heard.

1:39:18And you want to listen to—.

1:39:22We will only use, uh, the rules if we're not good at the politics.

1:39:27And so I just, I just offer that up.

1:39:32Thank you, Councilor.

1:39:34Um, colleagues, we have DCA Morrissey stepping in, who's our acting city administrator this week.

1:39:41And, um, DCA Morrissey, you have DCA Oliveira in the room as well if you want to phone a friend.

1:39:48The question for you both that was posed by Councilor Ryan, um, what we're discussing right now is whether the current requirement that a presiding officer schedule something at council that has come out of committee, which is a 90-day requirement, something has to be schedule that council within 90 days should be shortened to 45 days.

1:40:07And whether— I'm paraphrasing Councilor Ryan, so if I paraphrase incorrectly, please step in— whether something that is coming from a councilor, so not something that the administration has brought forward, but something coming from a councilor coming out of committee and then being heard and presumably passed out of council within 45 days, is a a requirement that would work for the administrative side, or whether there are times where you all would want us to take more time in order for you to have more time to prep for that presumably being passed and coming to you for implementation.

1:40:43Thanks, Councilor.

1:40:44Was that an appropriate summary?

1:40:46Yeah, better than I thought.

1:40:46Okay.

1:40:47So for the record, this is on.

1:40:51I don't believe it's on.

1:40:52Is it green now?

1:40:52It's on now.

1:40:54So for the record, DCA Sarah Morrissey, she/her pronouns.

1:41:00My response would be that it depends on the context, and it is highly dependent on how the staff have been engaged.

1:41:07If the council office needs to develop policy, if it is impacting a budgetary element that needs analysis, it's just highly contextual, dependent on the volume of work and complexity.

1:41:24That the item has.

1:41:25So whether it's, I'd say, right, if a council member is bringing forward a resolution, I feel like that would be fine in the 45 days or less.

1:41:35I think if it's an ordinance, any type of land use, any type of major budgetary impact, that would take a more coordinated, significant time.

1:41:47And so I think it just depends on the scope.

1:41:49Thank you.

1:41:50Scale of the impact of whatever council is working on.

1:41:54And then also I would say, how much have the teams on the administrative side been involved, whether it's providing analysis or developing code?

1:42:04Again, just depends on what the ordinance would be.

1:42:10Thank you.

1:42:19Thank you, Madam President.

1:42:20Thank you, um, um, Assistant DCA Sarah.

1:42:25I was just getting ready to say that, that we have 2 things at our disposal as a commission, and the reason why we would need to talk to the administration and the mayor's office is to ask them, um, whether this is a resolution, an ordinance, if they could get things out quicker.

1:42:41Because what I find is the issue is that there are all these emergency ordinances that we should have had earlier.

1:42:48And if we had that time earlier, that 90 days would have been really nice to have.

1:42:54Secondly, we always have at our disposal the 9/12ths.

1:42:59If there's an emergency, if there's something that needs to go on the big council, then we have that ability to put those items forward.

1:43:06And I think we should use that.

1:43:09Councilor Smith.

1:43:11We should use that lever sparingly, but we do have it at our disposal.

1:43:15That would help with this, this, uh, 45-day thing that, that folks may think that we need right now in, in code.

1:43:24I, I just don't think that we need it.

1:43:26Thank you.

1:43:29Thank you, Councilor.

1:43:31Colleagues, I want to speak to this just from the experiences that I've had as the presiding officer over the last 7 months, and we have had some things that have come right up to the deadline.

1:43:41The reason that we have had that has been the combination of less frequent meetings and, for the most part, the budget period.

1:43:52Mm-hmm.

1:43:53When things were coming right up to the deadline was during and immediately after our budget process.

1:43:59And my intent is never to drag things out to the very end unnecessarily.

1:44:06I am looking forward to, if the underlying passes in some form, having the flexibility of more regular meetings so that we can be more thoughtful as a body about what is at a night meeting versus a day meeting, what is paired together and not paired together.

1:44:26We had an unfortunate pairing of—.

1:44:28Councilwoman Loretta Smith.

1:44:28I've had to move a lot of agenda items recently that I would've liked to avoid, but because of deadlines, wasn't able to.

1:44:35And my hope is that things don't come up against the deadline.

1:44:39I worry that if we shorten that deadline, which I understand having that backstop in case you have a presiding officer holding something, I worry that by shortening the deadline too much, we end up when we're in the middle of the budget process, or if we have a really meaty item takes up time in a number of council meetings to get through the full debate, that we could end up in a situation again where our presiding officer in the future has to arbitrarily move things around in a way that isn't what the body was hoping for because of the deadline.

1:45:14So I just want to share that perspective.

1:45:21I think I and future presiding officers can work with whatever this body wants to choose, but not having that flexibility while a backstop that I think provides folks a guarantee that presiding officers won't play games with their measures does limit our ability to be thoughtful about how we bring things forward.

1:45:47Thank you, Madam President, and thank you, DCA.

1:45:51Thank you, Councilor Hersey.

1:45:52Thank you, Councilor Hersey, for the clarity.

1:45:53I'm, I'm quite concerned about, uh, the budget, the impact that we have on, uh, the staff and all the different bureaus, uh, particularly the ones I work with.

1:46:04There's— we do so much work.

1:46:06Um, and thank you, Council President, for reminding us about, um, the kind of backlog we had during the budget process.

1:46:16I think it's a good reminder and there's nothing that says that we can't bring things forward more quickly now, especially that we're going to have more meetings.

1:46:27And I guess I'm lucky that you waited a little while to call on me because I was feeling a little heated about some of the comments that were made regarding how the people want us to act and the needs of the people.

1:46:41I think the people want us to provide some leadership on economic revitalization in this city, that they're waiting for us to deal with those larger issues and affordability and homelessness and those kinds of things.

1:46:58I think we're way behind in offering leadership on economic revitalization.

1:47:04I just want to put that out there, that I think that's what the people are waiting for us to do.

1:47:08But that's just a side comment.

1:47:09Thank you.

1:47:10Thank you.

1:47:12Thank you, Councilor.

1:47:13Councilor Koyama Lane.

1:47:18I really appreciate this great conversation.

1:47:20I think a lot of really good questions and concerns, comments have come up.

1:47:26Just want to remind everyone that currently it can take 3 months for something to come to committee and then another 3 months for it to come to full council.

1:47:36So that is 6 months.

1:47:39I think we need to ask if that feels right.

1:47:43I've seen some of those concerns pop up with different items from many of us up here, wanting our agenda to come to full council.

1:47:53And I saw that, I saw conversations around SIP where folks are really wanting that to get on the full council, around the noise code, around a few other things.

1:48:02I think that's a good point.

1:48:03I really found my colleague Councilor Zimmerman's point interesting around the timing piece, especially with budget.

1:48:11That does make sense to me that we do want to be able to maintain flexibility.

1:48:16And I have seen some ways that Council President already has been able to be flexible and frankly reasonable if you have a conversation with her about an item that is in the queue, being able to talk about that.

1:48:34And also, when it's getting close to the 90 days, there are some workarounds.

1:48:39I've seen items that are close to the 90 days and we can put it on the agenda and take it off, or we have a conversation if the members who are introducing it are open for that coming later.

1:48:52I hope, and I invite everyone to really zoom out and think about this as I'm trying to be as politically neutral as possible and think about how long do you think it makes sense for legislation that you might want to bring to come to make it through.

1:49:08I also am reviewing code and seeing that, I mean, when something is coming to the full council, it has already passed out of committee.

1:49:16So there's been debate, it's passed, it's met the administrative requirements in coordination with the auditor.

1:49:23Thank you.

1:49:24And so for me, part of this really is math.

1:49:28If we are going to be meeting twice as frequently, there should be an expectation that Portlanders expect that we are getting through business faster, which is something I'm hearing from staff also, that we need to be getting through stuff faster.

1:49:47Thank you, Councilor.

1:49:50Councilor Novick, I don't believe you've spoken yet to this issue.

1:49:53Actually, I'm pausing.

1:49:54I'm sorry, I don't believe Councilor Dunphy has either.

1:49:56Councilor Dunphy, go right ahead.

1:49:58Thank you.

1:49:59Yeah, I am going to be supportive of this amendment.

1:50:01I, you know, Council President, I think you have done as great of a job with the situation as we could.

1:50:08I think that you're exactly right that meeting frequency and the budget has screwed everything up.

1:50:13I am also the author of 2 ordinances that this body has passed.

1:50:16That both approached the 90-day mark, and we had very limited tools to be able to adjust with that.

1:50:23I'm also noting that the written testimony, though it is anonymous, one-third of the testimony in the— on this item is specifically that this council has not acted with the urgency that the moment calls upon.

1:50:37So anything that I think we can do to increase the, the turnover time for these things is going to be leading towards the values that we are going to.

1:50:48I firmly believe that this council president and future ones— well, I don't know about future ones.

1:50:53I know this council president is working with the best intentions towards getting things scheduled and that we are doubling the number of council meetings.

1:51:00So I think building in some additional urgency in our time is reasonable.

1:51:06So I will be supportive of this amendment.

1:51:07Thank you.

1:51:09Thank you, Councilor.

1:51:10Councilor Novick, had you wanted an opportunity?

1:51:13Uh, I just wanted to, um, see the actual text of the amendment in context again.

1:51:17I think Councilor Karamalelis said she'd send it to me.

1:51:20Yes, I sent it to him on Teams.

1:51:22I don't see it.

1:51:23Thank you.

1:51:23I'll let you two figure that out.

1:51:25Councilor Avalos?

1:51:28I agree, um, with the framing that Councilor Dunphy just shared.

1:51:32I think that if we're making all of these changes to increase the amount of time that we have to do our business.

1:51:38It only makes sense to decrease the amount of time it takes for our business to get on the agenda.

1:51:44I obviously understand the challenges of agenda setting, and yet the urgency that everyone seems to want, I think, can only really happen if we are pushing ourselves through our systems to ensure that we're moving our items more quickly.

1:52:00I get that there's a level of discretion that any council president needs, and yet but, you know, again, the combination of adding more time and the fact that we need to be moving more quickly, I think it's important that we make this change right now.

1:52:13And we're setting up our future, right?

1:52:15Because all of these things that we're describing that we've experienced in the first few months are, I think, in a lot of ways an anomaly.

1:52:21They are a product of a growing new— growing our new government.

1:52:29And so I'm looking at this I think that we need to take into consideration that we're making a lot of adjustments right now to ensure that we are working with both urgency but also working in collaboration through our committees to vet these policies, so I don't see why we can't shorten that timeline from committee to council.

1:53:02I think all of the extra layers of working with the bureaus and all those other variables that were being discussed, I think those variables get worked out in committee.

1:53:11We specifically have a structure in committee that things can stay in committee as long as they need to to get the work done.

1:53:16By the time it's done by committee, it needs to get on the council agenda.

1:53:19Waiting 90 days is way too long.

1:53:22I think with the addition of more time of council, We should approve this amendment to ensure that things coming out of committee are moving through our body more quickly.

1:53:29So I will be supporting it.

1:53:30Thank you, Councilor.

1:53:32Councilor Smith, I apologize.

1:53:33That's, that's okay.

1:53:34So we're changing our structure and we're having twice the amount of meetings, right?

1:53:41So this particular amendment is solving for a problem we don't have yet.

1:53:46Let's let this work through the next 3 months to see what these new excuse me.

1:53:53Sorry.

1:53:54Um, what these new, um, meetings will give us, I guarantee you that we'll see things come up on the, on the, on the big council quicker.

1:54:03So I don't like to solve for problems that we don't have right now.

1:54:06We've changed our structure, so let's give this structure an opportunity to work.

1:54:11If after 3 months it's still a long time before we get to the big, uh, council, then this, this is an appropriate amendment.

1:54:18And I want to say for the record, I'm a chair of the Labor and Workforce Committee.

1:54:22It has never taken 3 months for anyone to get on, on my calendar.

1:54:27Never.

1:54:29So let's, let's just give it a chance, you guys.

1:54:32Let's stop solving for problems and nuance.

1:54:36Thank you, Councilor.

1:54:40Uh, Acting Administrator, is that what we're using?

1:54:42Morrissey, uh, did you have anything else to add?

1:54:45It sounded like there might have been some other yeah.

1:54:49Hi, thank you.

1:54:51So I also wanted to share that for specifically, I would like to flag just from a staff capacity standpoint, it is already pretty challenging to make sure that we have the ability to really have the— we need the time to have the accuracy so we can give you correct information and ensure that we can implement with accuracy and be effective in the ordinances or the rules that you are all making.

1:55:17I will also share that Title 33, so that is a really hard one to have a 45-day time turnaround, especially that's around planning and zoning.

1:55:31If there are anything that have to require updated findings, we do need more than 45 days to do that work.

1:55:39And so I would just urge for the for staff who are really working hard to ensure you have as much.

1:55:46Complete information and that things are done on time and with accuracy, that we take that into account.

1:55:54So I would just voice that to help support the staff's work.

1:56:02So just to clarify on those code changes, the reason that staff need additional time is about creating the record in case those are appealed.

1:56:13Is that the type of change you're referring to?

1:56:14Correct.

1:56:14So creating updated findings.

1:56:16Is especially with Title 33, staff definitely need more than 45 days.

1:56:23Thank you.

1:56:26Councilor— I'm looking at my list, I'm sorry.

1:56:28Councilor Green, I don't believe you've spoken to this yet.

1:56:30Go right ahead.

1:56:32Thank you, Madam President.

1:56:33Acting DCA or CA— DCA Morris, you raised an interesting question for me.

1:56:41In your view, does staff need more than 45 days between the time that an action has passed out of committee to then be considered at full council, or do they need more than 45 days just in general to develop this policy?

1:56:56Thanks for the question.

1:56:57I think it depends on what the action between committee and council is.

1:57:01If you do have to do, like I said, updated findings related to land use and zoning, they do need more than 45 days.

1:57:09I think, again, it would just depend okay, that's very helpful.

1:57:18Thank you, Councilor.

1:57:19Councilor— Councilor Kanal, did you just leave the queue?

1:57:25Yeah.

1:57:25Okay.

1:57:26Councilor, um, Ryan.

1:57:30Thank you, Council President.

1:57:32I want us to keep this in mind.

1:57:33You know this better than anyone, Council President.

1:57:35There are demands that are being made by the city attorney's office.

1:57:36That come from the administration, from the executive, that are time-sensitive to keep the operations of the city moving forward.

1:57:44So I know that you have to factor that into the calendar.

1:57:47And so I just wanted to make sure that we lift that because those are urgent.

1:57:51And, uh, DCA Morrissey, would that be a fair statement?

1:57:56Yes.

1:57:57Thank you.

1:57:58And so I just don't— that's another reason why we need that flexibility on new items coming in thank you, Councilor.

1:58:08Councilor Kanal.

1:58:10Thank you, Madam President.

1:58:14I think that it's— this is a point that's been raised a couple times, um, and when we talk about staff, what we're really talking about here is bureau directors and above, DCAs, uh, city administrator, all of that.

1:58:25Most of the time, the people doing the filing are not city employees.

1:58:29Um, below that level, uh, there may be a deputy director, I suppose, as well, um, or that has to have approval.

1:58:35So we're, we're talking about who, who's dealing with the, the filing timelines and waiting here.

1:58:40Obviously there's a lot of other staff that work on it too, but I want to, I want to just be clear that we're not talking about, um, rank-and-file staff doing the filing without it already going through a large process, um, to get to that point.

1:58:56I think what's interesting here is the assumption that what council puts forward is not urgent.

1:59:01That's what I'm struggling with, is this implication that only what the administration puts forward is urgent.

1:59:09I do not question its urgency or its importance.

1:59:12What I question is the implication that what council puts forward, generally informed by the people that we talk to in those town halls and evening meetings and in our emails, is not urgent.

1:59:23Councilor are not urgent too.

1:59:26And I'm concerned that, you know, we're going to be in a situation— we're talking about let's wait 3 or 4 months.

1:59:32We're going to be in a situation in the next 3 or 4 months where we're going to have hopefully some sort of legislation about ICE.

1:59:39I do not want to be voting on that in 2026.

1:59:42I would like to be voting on that in 2025.

1:59:44And there's going to be a need for us to address those things and everything that Councilor Clark mentioned.

1:59:52Thank you.

1:59:52Which I agree with completely on economic development and homelessness and all those issues too.

1:59:58And those might be filed by us.

2:00:01They might also be filed by the administration, and both are urgent.

2:00:05And this implication that what we file is not urgent, that really is troubling me with this whole conversation.

2:00:11It's less relevant to the number of days, and I really appreciate Council President's comments because your experience, Madam President, is relevant to this.

2:00:19Thank you.

2:00:20In a very direct way, and I'd love to know, because you mentioned that you wouldn't want to limit it too far, if you have another set of days, another number of days that might make you personally more comfortable with it.

2:00:31Thanks.

2:00:33Thank you, Councilor.

2:00:35I actually am in the queue specifically to reply to that.

2:00:38Yes, I just, I want to clarify because what my colleague just said was that the deadlines that are our acting city administrator was talking about would only affect directors and above.

2:00:50And my understanding from what I heard, and I want to make sure this is accurate, is that what you were describing, Acting Administrator Morrissey, is that on land use and code items where staff need to have a record before we pass something that our attorneys can then use if those code changes or land use items are appealed through the land use system that can stand, that can hold.

2:01:19If there are committee changes that are significant that would require staff, frontline staff, who are the people who write those documents, to make changes to those documents, we would need enough time for those frontline staff and the attorneys to work together to change the documents before council debated to make sure that the record could hold if those were appealed in a land use process.

2:01:46So we're actually talking about the needs of frontline staff and our non-management attorney team to do work so that the findings accurately reflect what council has asked for in an appeal so that we can actually win in court.

2:02:03Is that— we're talking about frontline staff, is that accurate?

2:02:06That is accurate.

2:02:07Okay, thank you for clarifying.

2:02:08My comment was not in response to the DCA's comments.

2:02:12My comment was in response to earlier colleagues who were talking about who is the burden being placed on staff who are filing the item.

2:02:20I agree completely with everything you just said.

2:02:22Okay, thank you, Councilor.

2:02:26Councilor Ryan, you've spoken twice, so I want to make sure we hear from others.

2:02:30Councilor Zimmerman.

2:02:33Thank you.

2:02:34Um, I, you know, in listening to this conversation, I'm not getting the sense from, from other councilors that, that anybody is conveying less urgent, more urgent.

2:02:49And so I'm not, I'm not hearing that.

2:02:52But if we have a 90-day backstop, which we currently have, We have a presiding officer who can always put something on the agenda day one.

2:03:03That window to me is, is serving an important role right now, and I'm not, I'm not bothered by, by going to the end of that window.

2:03:12But I would also say in terms of urgency and flexibility, as was noted earlier with the 9/12 option, if something is so urgent but the presiding officer is so against it, I guess I have to debate whether or not there is enough consensus around an item being urgent that one cannot get 9 people to say we must hear it now.

2:03:40And I think that that is a healthy debate.

2:03:43And a lot of this council is split.

2:03:45And a lot of this council, we're going to have these debates that, um, that are, are important debates even when we disagree with each other.

2:03:53I think that's a good point.

2:03:55But for the things where we are united in that their urgency is there, and if we have a council president who is the one stick in the mud who doesn't want to move it, I think we still have the tools to do it.

2:04:05So to Councilor Smith's point, I'm not sure of the problem we're solving here.

2:04:09And for those things that don't have 9 people saying they're urgent, then healthy, timely debate is important and 90 days to me seems very reasonable for that.

2:04:22And, and so, um, yeah, again, I think, you know, this, this amendment to the overarching baseline document would be pretty concerning.

2:04:34Thank you.

2:04:35Thank you, Councilor.

2:04:36Councilor Morillo.

2:04:40I just want to address a few things that I heard earlier.

2:04:43So for one thing, 90 days is not acceptable when people are suffering and we have to get legislation passed for another thing, there were some comments about this is politics, not rulemaking, and so therefore you have to build consensus.

2:05:00I would say that we are a pretty, pretty split council on many issues, and actually, Councilor Zimmerman, you and I are probably on the opposite ends of the spectrum, so the irony of that coming from you is not lost on me.

2:05:13But the value implication that we need to have in this is that we need to be able to Uh, a majority vote to pass things for the people when we are representing very different types of people is not a value that I necessarily think is needed.

2:05:26There are going to be times where I'm going to pass things with 7 votes, and that is fine with me because, uh, actually passing legislation that is going to help people who I am choosing to represent, who happen to be the people at the very bottom of the ladder, uh, that is my priority.

2:05:42Thank you.

2:05:44So the 9/12 vote only has utility to a certain degree to rush something through.

2:05:51Sometimes you just need something to be on the agenda and you know that you're going to get 7 votes and you're going to call it a day.

2:05:57And we are absolutely required to move with urgency on some of these issues.

2:06:04I have heard every single person here at one point or another absolutely berate the council president or be extremely Councilor critical of the council president's handling of Sameer this.

2:06:09Councilor Smith, I'm Kanal.

2:06:09Sorry.

2:06:10Councilor Sameer Kanal.

2:06:10Councilor Sameer Kanal was extremely angry that they could not get their item on the agenda because we did not have enough time.

2:06:15And the idea that the administrative side of council gets to completely bog down our agenda so that we can't, as the legislative body, pass legislation is a huge problem.

2:06:27Everything that Councilor Kanal laid out means that we are essentially forfeiting our power as a legislative and and we are the people here who are representing every single district, every single type of person in Portland.

2:06:45We have a wide variety of perspectives on this council for that very reason.

2:06:50So the 45-day limit is not unheard of.

2:06:55This is, I think, very reasonable given that we're going to have more meetings.

2:06:59I understand the concerns about certain land use issues.

2:07:00Councilor Smith.

2:07:01Issues or different code changes that staff need delays, maybe that can be an amendment or something to the code.

2:07:08But overall, this is— we are required to act with urgency.

2:07:12So I hope that we can get on board with this.

2:07:18Thank you, Councilor.

2:07:18Councilor Novick.

2:07:20So I have to say, I don't feel prepared to vote on this today.

2:07:24I mean, I was just looking at the existing language and I'm probably dense, but it's not clear to me that it assumes that something has to have a chance to come through committee before the 45 days starts.

2:07:40So I'd want that to be clear.

2:07:42I also think that it should be, if we adopt this, it should be at the option of the filer.

2:07:48Because if the filer, after consulting with the administration, realizes, yes, it's going to take 60 days to write up findings on a land use issue, Right.

2:07:56Then the filer should be able to say, okay, then I'm waiving the 45 days.

2:08:02And maybe that's enough.

2:08:03I mean, it seems to me that it's sort of a question of who do you trust?

2:08:08Do we trust the filers not to rush things when they shouldn't, when there's issues like, you know, a complicated land use issue?

2:08:16Or do we trust the council president to bring things forward in a timely manner?

2:08:21And I think you can argue it either way.

2:08:26So I just wanna say that as of right now, I'm kind of confused.

2:08:32Councilor, was there a motion there for us to do anything different or just expressing your thoughts on where we are right now?

2:08:39Just where we are right now.

2:08:40I don't feel prepared to vote today.

2:08:42Okay.

2:08:42I'd wanna think about it more.

2:08:44Thank you, Councilor.

2:08:46Colleagues, seeing no one else in the queue, Yeah, I—.

2:08:54This is likely not going to pass.

2:08:57I understand that.

2:08:58DCA Morrissey, I appreciate you sharing the needs of DCAs and bureaus.

2:09:07Uh, I know we've had many conversations as leadership about ways that we can work on the flow, make sure it's I think it is known that we need to figure out how we're working in tandem a little bit better and how to collaborate.

2:09:25I hope that this can come up for another conversation.

2:09:28It's clear that it's very controversial.

2:09:30I see staff members running around and talking to DCAs, and some of you might want to be careful because I sit right next to Council President and I can see exactly what you're sending to her.

2:09:39Council President, um, Councilor Knoll, are you in the queue for debate?

2:09:48Okay, uh, seeing no one else in the queue for debate, Rebecca, could you please call the roll?

2:10:00Coyomelín?

2:10:01Aye.

2:10:02Murillo?

2:10:03Aye.

2:10:04Novick?

2:10:07A worried no.

2:10:08I mean, I might be a yes tomorrow.

2:10:10I just don't feel prepared to be a yes today.

2:10:12Don't let them shiver your timbers.

2:10:15Clark?

2:10:16No.

2:10:18Green?

2:10:19Yes.

2:10:20Zimmerman?

2:10:21No.

2:10:22Avalos?

2:10:24Aye.

2:10:25Dunphy?

2:10:26Aye.

2:10:27Smith?

2:10:28No.

2:10:29Kanal?

2:10:30Aye.

2:10:34No.

2:10:34No.

2:10:35The amendment fails with 6 aye and 6 nay votes.

2:10:39Okay, colleagues, there were no other amendments that were put on the floor prior to debate, um, so we are now at debate of the underlying, now amended twice, And the queue is open for comments, debate, questions, or further amendments on the underlying ordinance.

2:11:13Wait, the meeting's good.

2:11:14Let's vote.

2:11:17I, I'm, I'm going to mention one thing first just because I want to make sure we're all aware.

2:11:23In A3, there's language that says when a meeting falls on a legal holiday, the meeting will be held on the next succeeding business day at the same hour.

2:11:33I just wanna note that depending on how we set up our calendar, there could be some complications there.

2:11:40I don't think that it's enough to vote against this, but I wanted to note that that is something that we may have to come back to at a future time.

2:11:49We have done field amendments.

2:11:54Okay, seeing no one else in the queue.

2:11:57Rebecca, could you please— oh, Councilor Avalos.

2:12:00Sorry, um, for the last minute.

2:12:03I guess I just want to make a broader point.

2:12:06I think what has emerged in this discussion is something we've been talking about since the beginning, which is what is the purpose of the council?

2:12:13How does the people— how do the people interact with us?

2:12:17What is the way that our policies move through?

2:12:19And ultimately how are we demonstrating that we are being responsive with urgency to the communities that put us here?

2:12:28I am just overall concerned that we do not share a similar value, it seems, in increasing the people's voice in our chambers.

2:12:39And I just want to put on the record my disappointment.

2:12:43I think that we continue to look at systems as being neutral when they're not.

2:12:47Councilwoman Loretta Smith.

2:12:49In fact, we redid this entire form of government because the way of being was very exclusive to the very communities that we now have represented on this council.

2:12:58So I would encourage us to look holistically at our systems and remember that we instituted this new form of government to increase the people's representation, and making decisions to not add more nighttime, to not increase the urgency in our timelines, go— is antithetical to that overall outcome.

2:13:17So I hope we continue to reflect on how we meet that goal.

2:13:21I will continue to push us to do so.

2:13:23Thanks.

2:13:26Thank you, Councilor.

2:13:29And I moved to call roll momentarily thinking that we were on an emergency item, but we're not.

2:13:38So we will hear this at our next meeting.

2:13:40Councilor Knoll, did you have anything to add?

2:13:42No.

2:13:43Okay.

2:13:44Seeing no one else in the queue, we are going to move this to second reading at our September meeting and close this agenda item.

2:13:58We do have another agenda item open today, colleagues, establishing the new committee council structure.

2:14:08This is an item that we debated in a work session, and following that work session, a number of councilors asked that our colleagues who had brought forward proposals on our committee structure sit down together and try to capture what those proposals were.

2:14:29Okay.

2:14:31Councilor Dunphy has put forward an amendment that captures that, which is kind of the most boiled-down version of what folks thought they heard from our colleagues.

2:14:46There are also amendments to that, as Councilor Dunphy mentioned, to build back up.

2:14:51I have put in an amendment with an additional idea for fewer committees following conversations with a few people as well as with some of our staff around how we might set up a structure.

2:15:05The idea of having 4 committees seemed like an option that we should also consider.

2:15:10So I tried to capture how we might get there based again on the conversation that we had heard.

2:15:18And Councilor Novick has an amendment which is now posted, described earlier.

2:15:24Councilor Novick.

2:15:26Around how chairs or co-chairs might meet with our presiding officers.

2:15:35Councilor Dunphy, how do you want to go about taking on the amendments that you have put forward?

2:15:48Well, I'd like to approach them individually.

2:15:51I think there are 4 separate issues that I think require each an up and down vote from this body.

2:15:58I can briefly outline all 4 of them if that's helpful and we can discuss them in order or we can go through one by one at a time.

2:16:04I think that there is— I am noting a potential conflict between Dunphy Amendment A and Novick's amendment just in terms of language.

2:16:17And so we may need some clarification as we get further into this process.

2:16:21But however you would like me to approach this, I'm happy to.

2:16:25Why don't we do them one at a time?

2:16:27And colleagues, I just want to note also that there are some calendars posted as supplemental information.

2:16:33I mentioned in an email to everybody, but we'll just put on the record as well.

2:16:36None of those are meant to be an official calendar that we are adopting, but just a way to give everyone an idea of how our workflow might look.

2:16:46As informed by staff in Council Operations and the Clerk's Office on what workflows would fit best for our supporting teams depending on some of the choices that we might make today.

2:17:01Councilor Dunphy, why don't you go ahead and introduce your first amendment?

2:17:05Sure.

2:17:06Well, I'm also wondering whether or not we should take your amendment first because to some extent, some of my amendments do speak to there being 5 committees.

2:17:17And so I'm happy to— well, I guess whatever the body thinks, but I'm happy to start us off, or unless you wanted to take yours first.

2:17:27Let's— I'm looking at what you have.

2:17:33I think other than C, we can probably move forward with your amendments.

2:17:37Okay, great.

2:17:39At least do A and B.

2:17:40Let's do A and B.

2:17:41So Dunphy Amendment A.

2:17:42This is us calling the question on whether or not to have a co-chair model or a vice chair model or chair-vice chair model or maximum flexibility.

2:17:53For the purposes of my amendment, I am proposing that the City Council have a chair-vice chair model for the committees with the responsibilities outlined for each of the chair and the vice chair and the responsibilities for both.

2:18:08Second.

2:18:09I'm happy to read it out loud, but folks also can read.

2:18:11All right.

2:18:13And Councilor, can we pause for one minute?

2:18:15Did we— I think that previously I hadn't taken seconds on these since there were multiple in this document.

2:18:22So I want to make sure as we go through these that we do get a second on each of them.

2:18:25Sure, absolutely.

2:18:26Just briefly reading Dunphy Amendment A, it reads that D2.1, each committee shall be administered by a chair and vice chair.

2:18:38Subsection A, the chair's responsibilities shall include: I, leading each committee meeting.

2:18:44Double I, 2, I guess.

2:18:46Representing each committee on the leadership team and communicating upcoming topics from the administration to the vice chair and other members of the committee.

2:18:55Section B, the vice chair's responsibilities shall include chairing committee meetings when the chair is absent, Chairing temporary or joint committee subgroups as needed to tackle subject— specific subject areas.

2:19:08Section C, both chair and vice chair shall be responsible for tracking policy implementation within the administration to ensure policy goals are reached and collaborating on committee agenda topics and coordinating with councilors and staff to bring salient issues to the committee.

2:19:23And I would entertain a second.

2:19:25Second.

2:19:28Seconded by Councilor Koyama Lane.

2:19:31Councilor Knoll, are you in the queue to debate Dunphy Amendment A?

2:19:35No, Madam President.

2:19:36I'm in the queue to ask a question.

2:19:37Just a clarifying question.

2:19:39Go right ahead.

2:19:41What is the leadership team?

2:19:42I didn't see that anywhere else in this entire document except in a whereas.

2:19:47That's a good point.

2:19:50It seems like in the foundational piece of information for this one, so I just wanted to understand it better.

2:19:57That is a good point.

2:20:02Councilor Dunphy, do you prefer to leave this as is?

2:20:05Do you prefer—.

2:20:06Oh, sorry, I think that's sort of implied.

2:20:09I guess it would probably need to be in Section E. I think that is Section E. It's functioning.

2:20:16It's not referred to explicitly as a leadership team in Section E, but the committee the committee chair shall convene with the council president to coordinate agendas, priorities, overall strategy, and on convening ad hoc workgroups as needed, which is in the underlying.

2:20:28It is not explicitly called a leadership team, and I'm happy to omit the language or add it back in.

2:20:38Councilor Dunphy, do you prefer to add the term leadership team to E, or do you prefer to take that out of Dunphy A?

2:20:44I think I would prefer to take it out of Dunphy A.

2:20:47Okay, so it would read representing each committee and communicating upcoming topics from the administration to the— oh gosh, that doesn't read right.

2:20:59Okay.

2:21:02You could say representing each committee in Councilor—.

2:21:13Sure, I will just omit 2A.

2:21:17Just take that out and just keep communicating upcoming, right?

2:21:23Like, yeah, sure.

2:21:24Yeah, uh, actually that's a better option.

2:21:27Uh, I would omit the words representing each committee on the leadership team.

2:21:31And so the chair's responsibilities include communicating upcoming topics from the administration to the vice chair and other members of the committee.

2:21:40Okay.

2:21:41Omitting the first half of the sentence.

2:21:44Got it.

2:21:45When Councilor Koyama Lane comes back, we'll make sure that that's a friendly.

2:21:49But in the meantime, let's move forward there as is.

2:21:52Colleagues, is there any debate on the amendment?

2:21:57Councilor Ryan?

2:22:00Yes, thank you, Madam Chair— Madam President.

2:22:04Councilor Dunphy, I wanna hear from you why you like the chair-vice chair model as opposed to the co-chair model.

2:22:11I've experienced both and I experienced them a bit differently, but I find a lot of value in the one that I am a co-chair in.

2:22:21And I think what we're getting at here is there's a direct correlation between, this is my assumption in reading this, that you like the chair-vice chair model because it supports this leadership team that we're learning about?

2:22:34I, I, on the one hand, yes, I think that the ability for us to have a greater ability to coordinate with the president, vice president, and the work that is happening in the committees in a structured way makes a lot of sense to me.

2:22:46I think that the co-chair model is confusing to the public in a lot of ways.

2:22:50I think that in a lot of circumstances I'm seeing it work very well for some of our colleagues, but I don't know that that is I think that's a good point.

2:22:57I don't think that is necessarily a sustainable model depending on future councils.

2:23:05And I think it's just broadly generally a confusing model.

2:23:09I think that it, to some degree, I just think that a hierarchy makes sense with regard to communication and leadership within a committee.

2:23:24I worry that to some extent it is not— the co-chair model isn't inherently for the health of the body, but rather for the health of egos of elected officials.

2:23:35I think that if everybody is a leader, then nobody is a leader, and it doesn't matter at that point.

2:23:39And I think we aren't able to move forward with any sort of strategic vision for the broader body.

2:23:46Okay, thank you.

2:23:47I think what I need to hear from maybe perhaps I'm in the queue, and why don't I address that then, just so that I don't cut in front of others?

2:24:01Are you comfortable with that, Councilor?

2:24:03I think I'll just end with a statement that we're clearly, you know, divided.

2:24:06The media's picked up on this of late, of course.

2:24:09I think it's really important to have balance no matter where we're going with this.

2:24:13And if there's a room where it's happening, which is this executive team or this leadership team, then I'll be— the new fight would be about ensuring we have some balance there.

2:24:24Just had to put that into the record.

2:24:28Councilor Novick.

2:24:29We talked about this a bit in a previous meeting, but I like the co-chair model.

2:24:35I think it works well where it's being used.

2:24:39And so I don't want to remove that as a possibility.

2:24:42I also think that, you know, it might be about egos, but I think that it's going to be a lot more difficult for people to vote for a new committee structure if only 5 people are going to have gavels.

2:24:54And there's a reason— I mean, avoiding a bloodbath is a reasonable thing to think about.

2:24:59I also, as I said earlier today, I don't think that— I don't see the value of a leadership team.

2:25:06For one thing, I think that this this is a council that doesn't consist of people who generally follow leaders.

2:25:12I think they're more aligned with Bob Dylan's line, don't follow leaders, watch the parking meters.

2:25:17And I think that having a mysterious leadership team making decisions that they by definition couldn't share with other people because that would violate public meetings law would be a problem.

2:25:27So again, my amendment proposes that we just sort of, I don't even know if this is necessary to write this down, that we can have—.

2:25:32Councilor Smith.

2:25:36Thank you, Councilor.

2:25:46Councilor Smith.

2:25:50Thank you, Madam President.

2:25:52And Councilor Dunphy, I'm trying to figure— I was looking at your Dunphy A.

2:25:59Now, does that include that there must be a committee referral report?

2:26:01Be only— you said at least one chair from each committee.

2:26:07Is, is that a part of your, of your proposal?

2:26:11Uh, yeah, there would be a, a chair and a vice chair for each committee.

2:26:15Okay.

2:26:15And from each, uh, district?

2:26:17Uh, that is, that is Dunphy B.

2:26:18We will—.

2:26:18That's Dunphy B.

2:26:19Go to that in a second.

2:26:20Okay.

2:26:20So that's what I was wanting to talk about.

2:26:23I, I just want to say for the record, I think that, um, in terms of condensing confusion or, or, or less confusion, that changing this whole committee system, whether it be to your Dunphy A or, or B, I think we should actually wait to do these kinds of things until the top of the year because we agreed not to change presidents every 6 months.

2:26:49And I think making all these different changes is confusing to the public.

2:26:54I like the idea of where we're at right now, and then we change it at the top of the year.

2:26:58Thank you.

2:26:58If there's going to be a change in president or otherwise.

2:27:01I think we just confuse the people too much.

2:27:04And if we're talking about our bureaus, now our bureaus have to go through another level of understanding, new chairs, the whole nine yards.

2:27:16So I'd like to stay where we're at.

2:27:20Thank you.

2:27:22Councilor thank you, Councilor.

2:27:28I think I'm next in the queue, so I'll address Councilor Ryan's question and wanted to mention one other thing as well.

2:27:35Councilor Ryan, in terms of the leadership team, I have foreseen using that space not for substantive conversations about what we want to do on items in a way that Councilor Novick has suggested, yes.

2:27:50Which might absolutely violate serial meetings laws if people talk to each other.

2:27:57But as a space, for example, to say if we have an evening committee meeting, allow chairs to come together and talk about what items they have coming up on their agenda where they might need to use an evening meeting space to take more public testimony and who has things coming up more quickly and how do we figure out who could use that time, um, this month, next month, the month after.

2:28:26Those more, um, administrative items, um, things like how are folks managing testimony in their committee and are there new practices that we want to put in place where it's helpful to have everybody in the room and having it really be a more administrative space than substantive space.

2:28:48So I think that it would be very helpful to have for those reasons.

2:28:53I think that as council president, I have run into a number of situations where I would have liked to be able to very quickly sit down with all of the committee chairs and say, hey, here's an idea.

2:29:06Hey, here's a thing that I think we should be doing differently in terms of how how council and committee work together.

2:29:11When we have backlogs of items, to be able to sit down with everybody and hash out some of those things would be helpful.

2:29:18Right now, I try to do that in one-offs when they come up with specific committees, but I think it would be fantastic for me as a leader to have that space.

2:29:27If we decide not to have that space, that's okay.

2:29:29We haven't had it.

2:29:30I can move forward without it.

2:29:31But those are the types of reasons that I would like to have that space.

2:29:34Thank you.

2:29:34May I ask a follow-up?

2:29:37Sure.

2:29:38Okay, I appreciate what you just said.

2:29:40My question is also about the composite, 'cause you seem to be in favor of a chair, vice chair, not co-chairs.

2:29:47And if shared leadership of the co-chairs can figure it out on who to bring to that meeting, say it's monthly, why would there be opposition to that?

2:29:57And my point is also that I really think it's important that we have balance in that group.

2:30:01And I would worry if all the chairs were from one side of this aisle that seems to be emerging.

2:30:08Thank you, Councilor.

2:30:09And I'll move into the other things I wanted to say generally and why I joined the queue.

2:30:14And I think that that might address some of what you just raised.

2:30:19Colleagues, I'm not supportive of this amendment because when I first brought forward to you all a committee structure, Councilor Smith.

2:30:27When I talked about the committee structure with some co-chairs and some chairs and vice chairs, I said that I was doing so very intentionally to create the precedent that we could have either one.

2:30:37As we think about changing committees, I think it's very possible that we could have a situation where we have only chairs and vice chairs.

2:30:44But I don't want to write that somewhere because I think that that undoes the precedent setting of saying we are okay with having either of these things.

2:30:53Sure that whatever this council needs in the future and whatever a president of this council needs in the future, they can bring forward as a proposal to the body as a whole to vote on.

2:31:04And I don't want to arbitrarily say we shouldn't do one or we should always do the other.

2:31:11In terms of balance, I want to address that point, which is not something that's here.

2:31:18This is just about do we want Councilor Smith.

2:31:19Thank you, Mayor.

2:31:20I'm not proposing to change what our committees are.

2:31:20And if this passes, then our code would require me to bring forward a proposal to this body on committee membership, which I would intend to do at our first meeting after the recess.

2:31:32But this change would create winners and losers.

2:31:35It certainly would.

2:31:36Decreasing the number of chairs means that— or the number of committees means that we would decrease the number of folks around the dais holding gavels.

2:31:46I think that's a point that we all need to go into this knowing.

2:31:51We need to be open-eyed about that.

2:31:53To Councilor Dunphy's point, when everybody leads, nobody leads is perhaps the right approach.

2:31:58To Councilor Ryan's point, when you give everybody an opportunity to lead, you have more voices.

2:32:04I think that those are both very valid points.

2:32:10I do, because I have heard away from this dais from a number of people concerns about how I might approach leadership moving forward.

2:32:19Just want to state for the record, for all of you and for others listening, that I have tried to approach this work from the start, and I shared with some of my colleagues before any of us were seated, before my name was out there for council president, that it's how I would approach my work in any position here.

2:32:38Trying to make sure that many voices get heard because I generally think that when you listen and respond to your opposition, you come up with better policy.

2:32:47So I hope that as we go through this, I don't have folks impugning my values and the way that I would approach things by suggesting that I would intentionally politically create a system where we have Councilor Smith.

2:33:05I would not have all chairs from one perspective or another.

2:33:09I don't believe that there are only 2 perspectives on this council, but I certainly would not pull all from one or the other for a leadership team that I was creating at a time when I'm leading this body.

2:33:26Councilor Knoll.

2:33:29Thank you, Madam President.

2:33:31I agree completely with everything that Councilor Ryan said in his previous comments.

2:33:35So maybe we're not as divided as we might say.

2:33:40I have a question just to clarify, Madam President.

2:33:45Your description of what you would use a theoretical leadership team for, my understanding, and I'm gonna use a very specific quote here, is that that would not include, quote, any determination, action, vote, or final disposition upon a motion, proposal, order, resolution, ordinance, or measure on which a vote of a governing body is required.

2:34:04And, and that is because you're talking about administrative uses, and that's my understanding.

2:34:10I don't want to hold you legally to it, but my understanding of your, your, uh, uh, thematic approach to it, I think that squares as those are 2 separate ideas, right?

2:34:19We wouldn't be using that to deliberate upon things that whether or not to pass or fail an item.

2:34:26My intent would not be to bring forward items like that.

2:34:30I don't wanna speak to what somebody might do in the future.

2:34:33Fair enough.

2:34:34I appreciate that distinction.

2:34:36I quote that, that's from the public meetings law, state public meetings law.

2:34:41And it is my— it's my way of saying I'm not sure that a leadership team needs to only have 6 people on it.

2:34:49Because I'm not sure the public meetings law applies to the idea of sharing information in the first place.

2:34:54That's immaterial to my reason for opposing this amendment, but I do think it's relevant information too.

2:35:00And that's ORS 192.610, Section 1, Part 2, as retitled in the most recent update to it.

2:35:11So I think that that's one framing piece of information.

2:35:15Thank you.

2:35:15Bless you.

2:35:16And so what I, what I would say is the 5 co-chairs who are current— 5 councilors who are currently co-chairs all spoke in favor of the co-chair model last time, uh, when we did the work session.

2:35:27And I'll just point out that working with, uh, Councilor Novick has been, um, very— a good experience for me.

2:35:34And part of the reason why is it forces us to actually subsume our egos in some ways to, to talk with each other because we have different approaches We have different networks and knowledge bases.

2:35:45And so that act of creating, of co-creation of an agenda is actually, I think, healthy for elected officials who, I don't know if anyone out there might guess this, but it occasionally happens that an elected official has an ego.

2:35:58I think so.

2:35:59So I think we're in a good place with that particular thing.

2:36:03And I agree with the approach that Councilor Smith brought up around letting this kind of play out a little bit.

2:36:09Until— on at least this specific issue, until New Year's.

2:36:14And also Councilor Zimmerman's previous point about not over-limiting the role of the council president, because that's what this would do before that second resolution that would have to come up.

2:36:25So those are my reasons why I'll be voting no on it.

2:36:29The other point I'll make is that even if the goal was to achieve a 6-person or fewer the only distinction that seems— the only 2 distinctions that seem to be happening here between a chair and a vice chair, one is whether or not they're a part of this leadership team or not, and the other is whether or not they're swapping the gavels, or one is always the primary and the other is always the secondary if the first person's not present.

2:36:59And that latter one does not appear to be a high priority to anybody.

2:37:02I think it's a good idea.

2:37:04Correct me if I'm wrong.

2:37:05So even, I even think the goal of that could be achieved by just designating one of 2 co-chairs in that scenario as the person who goes to a hypothetical leadership team should one be created in the future.

2:37:18And I'm very open to Councilor Novick's other comments on whether or not to structure it that way as well.

2:37:22And I'm looking forward to that amendment, but I'll be voting no on this one.

2:37:25Thank you.

2:37:26Thank you, Councilor.

2:37:27Councilor Murillo.

2:37:31Thank you, Council President.

2:37:32I was going to say that I also agree with Councilor Ryan, so maybe we can start a tally sheet of when we agree and maybe make a bingo game out of it.

2:37:41I think that co-chairs are really important.

2:37:43I don't think it's about ego, though I agree a lot of elected officials run for office because we think we're so special.

2:37:49But the co-chair model I have found actually creates a much more balanced committee because and what, for example, I've had a really great time talking with Councilor Novick as co-chair of the Climate Committee.

2:38:09I think we have different relationships within community, within government, with different experts and who we choose to bring to the table.

2:38:18And I think that that has strengthened our committee and made it really just brought a wide array of voices to the table that we would have not otherwise had.

2:38:25Thank you.

2:38:25We wouldn't have had otherwise.

2:38:26So I have found that the co-chair model brings a lot of balance and nuance to the work that we do, and I think it's really important.

2:38:35I also just firmly disagree with the idea, like, at the end of the day, when you have a gavel, you have power over what gets heard.

2:38:43You have power over who gets a seat at the table, who— what gets put on the public record.

2:38:49It is a huge power to have.

2:38:50Councilor Smith.

2:38:51So I think that good leadership is actually being able to learn how to share power, and especially under our new government structure where we have different districts that we're representing and such a wide array of voices at the table, we have an opportunity to share power in a way that we never have before.

2:39:08And I think that we should seriously consider that.

2:39:11So for those reasons, I'll be a no on this amendment.

2:39:17Thank you, Councilor.

2:39:18Councilor Koyama Lane.

2:39:21Thank you, Madam President.

2:39:23With many of these things coming up, I am trying to balance what might be best for this body and our needs in terms of how we're working together and our culture and our flow, and then what I would imagine would be best down the road, put in place for many years.

2:39:41That's attention for me, just to be transparent.

2:39:46This idea of how to bring in more councilors, whether it's leadership team or just in general into some meetings, I don't think that's controversial between us.

2:39:56I think it's something we're talking a lot about and maybe have some different ideas of how that could look.

2:40:01On Monday mornings, we meet with the mayor and all of the DCAs and do some sending of Committee, uh, sending of— sent their items to different committees.

2:40:13Maybe that's a place where other folks can step in, maybe not.

2:40:17Um, maybe part of this is having primaries for DCAs, which is something that I heard from Mr. Jordan that could be helpful.

2:40:24I'm not sure about what that looks like.

2:40:27I am— I'm not sure if that actually should be in code or outlined in code.

2:40:30I think that's something that we want some flexibility with.

2:40:33And I feel similarly with chairs and co-chairs.

2:40:37If I'm being honest, what I think is best for down the road for clarity is chair and vice chair.

2:40:43And I'm leaning more for the health of this body for there to be some more flexibility, especially as we are trying to build some trust and figure this out.

2:40:54So right now I am a no.

2:40:58Thank you, Councilor.

2:40:59Councilor Green.

2:41:02Thank you.

2:41:03I went into this not really knowing where I was going to land on this because it's such a hard one for me because I see— I can see it both ways.

2:41:12I really can.

2:41:12It's quite efficient to have a pretty expected hierarchy.

2:41:15I'm sorry for my leisure wear.

2:41:17I wanted to wear a Western shirt today.

2:41:19I realize that now I'm on the camera.

2:41:22But I've been convinced by this argument.

2:41:25I mean, like the co-chair thing and Council President, sorry for the levity.

2:41:29Council President, you, you raised some really important, um, things for us to think about, which is that the job that you have is to balance things and to think about what is for the best health of our governing body.

2:41:45And based upon who gets elected to these positions, you're not necessarily going to be able to solve that equation in a rigid model.

2:41:54Right.

2:41:54So some years it may be, maybe all chairs and vice chairs.

2:41:59Some years it may be all co-chairs.

2:42:00But I think there needs to be a degree of freedom to kind of wiggle in that space.

2:42:05So I think at this point I am leaning— I am, I am prepared to vote no on this, um, to keep that flexibility.

2:42:13But I also wanted to say another thing was, was I, I don't think that we should impugn the council president's motives.

2:42:20On who gets assigned to these seats.

2:42:25I think she has tried to balance things.

2:42:29I may disagree with the theory of change and that balance for the sake of balance is what's for the best of all of us, but I see the balance nevertheless.

2:42:38And I think that if I was ever in a situation where I didn't think that my thank you, Councilor.

2:43:00Councilor Novick?

2:43:02I just wanted to say that I think that the theme of we don't have to write everything down is one that we can apply to a lot of the issues here, like in terms of what Councilor— Vice President Koyama Lane was talking about, that we don't have to write Lane everything down.

2:43:12Was saying about being useful to have, or what you, Madam President, were saying about useful sometimes to have chairs in meetings with the executive.

2:43:23It doesn't necessarily have to be all the chairs all the time.

2:43:25I mean, if they identify what issues they want to talk about, you could ask a couple of the chairs of a couple of the committees to come to that meeting.

2:43:31So I think that instead of like saying there will be a leadership team that shall do this, I think you could achieve the same goal by being a little more freewheeling.

2:43:43Thank you, Councilor.

2:43:43Councilor Avalos.

2:43:48Coming in, I think that my feelings towards this amendment were of support, and I do generally, um, still think that it would be good to have a more clear, uh, clear delineation of leadership.

2:44:03And part of it is because I'm still grappling with where are we headed as a So I think that's why this vote is complicated for me, because I think I was coming in feeling that this would be the best option so that it would clear the way to make more sense logistically for what a leadership team could look like.

2:44:22Because I don't think that this whole, like, co-chair and then we pick one, I don't think that that's equitable, or I think that would be a little bit messier.

2:44:31Councilor Loretta Smith.

2:44:32That being said, I think in the beginning when it was originally proposed as a, like, we should keep it flexible so that each committee could have its own structure, it's clear that councilors are experiencing that in different ways, and I think that's okay.

2:44:49And I definitely agree with Councilor Morillo's points just around, like, what shared governance looks like, and I can see that argument.

2:44:58I see both of the arguments.

2:44:59And again, I kind of came in leaning towards this.

2:45:02Councilor but I guess now I'm leaning away from it just for the sake of what I'm seeing is the spirit that everybody is bringing to how they're seeing the flexibility.

2:45:11And I guess I'm, you know, still curious how this all lands as it relates to a leadership team.

2:45:16So that's a big reason why I wanted to support it in the first place, but I guess I will not support it now due to where the discussion has headed.

2:45:25But thank you, Councilor Dunphy, because him and I have talked a lot about this, and I definitely agree with the spirit of what you were doing.

2:45:32I think based on what I'm hearing from my colleagues, I'm inclined to not support it.

2:45:36So thank you, Councilor.

2:45:39Councilor Clark.

2:45:40Uh, thank you, Madam President.

2:45:42Um, I, uh, support the amendment.

2:45:46I think it's very confusing for the public to have co-chairs.

2:45:50Who do we contact?

2:45:51You know, I know we're in the process of birthing a new government.

2:45:55I don't want twins.

2:45:56I just want one, uh, one council chair.

2:46:00Councilor Dunphy.

2:46:04Councilor Kanal.

2:46:06Just one quick point here.

2:46:07Um, in the earlier item, I guess it was testimony for both of these, we had a, a piece of testimony that said that we don't have committee emails.

2:46:16And I think that this would help a great deal with any potential confusion that exists with the public, uh, alongside some of the other work we're doing to shorten the URLs So it can just be CAPS instead of council-and, you know, all that.

2:46:30Um, I think having a single point of contact might assist with the, um, the ability for a community member to— or, or frankly anybody— to reach out to, uh, co-chairs by saying, here's an email, goes to capscommittee@, and it forwards automatically to Councilor Novick and I.

2:46:47It's not a real email address, but I'm suggesting something like that, um, to assist with the ability to contact, um, co-chairs together.

2:46:54Thanks.

2:46:58Thank you, Councilor.

2:46:59Colleagues, seeing no one else in the queue, Rebecca, could you please call the roll on Dunphy Amendment A?

2:47:12Councilor Moline.

2:47:17No.

2:47:18Morillo?

2:47:20No.

2:47:22Novick?

2:47:23No.

2:47:24Clark?

2:47:24Yes, aye.