Portland City Council Regular Session

5:02Good morning.

5:03I am calling to order today's Portland City Council meeting.

5:06It is 9:31 on Wednesday, September 3rd.

5:10Rebecca, could you please call the roll?

5:13Koyama Lane.

5:16Here.

5:17Here.

5:18Novick.

5:18Here.

5:19Clark.

5:19Here.

5:20Green.

5:20Here.

5:21Zimmerman.

5:22Here.

5:22Avalos.

5:24Present.

5:26Dunphy.

5:27Here.

5:27Smith.

5:28Here.

5:29Here.

5:30Ryan.

5:31Here.

5:32Herdalkeeny.

5:32Here.

5:34And could you please read our rules of decorum?

5:38Thank you, Council President.

5:39Welcome to Portland City Council.

5:41To testify before council in person or virtually, you must sign up in advance on the council agenda at www.portland.gov/council/agenda.

5:52Information on engaging with council can be found on the council clerk's webpage.

5:54Individuals may testify for 3 minutes unless the presiding officer states otherwise.

5:59Your microphone will be muted when your time is over.

6:01The presiding officer preserves order.

6:03Disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others' testimony or council deliberations will not be allowed.

6:12If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given.

6:14Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting.

6:17Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass.

6:21Additionally, council may take a short recess and reconvene virtually.

6:24Your testimony today should address the matter being considered.

6:27When testifying, state your name for the record.

6:30Your address is not necessary.

6:32If you are a lobbyist, identify your organization.

6:35And third, virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the council clerk calls their name.

6:39Thank you.

6:41Thank you, colleagues.

6:44Our first agenda item today is agenda approval.

6:49Uh, no changes to the agenda have been proposed other than the removal of one thing from consent.

6:56Are there any other changes to the agenda?

7:01Seeing none, do I have unanimous consent to approve the agenda?

7:07Okay, thank you.

7:09The next item on our agenda is public communication.

7:13Rebecca, could you please call up our first guests this morning?

7:19First, we have Nathan Anderson.

7:26Good morning, welcome, and thank you for being here.

7:28Thank you.

7:37My name is Nathan Anderson.

7:38I prefer being called Lyra, she/her.

7:42So what I would like to discuss is that we are clearly living in unprecedented times, and that I think that I would like to speak on the matter I believe all of us can agree is a threat to our Constitution and the rights that it guarantees us as citizens and residents of the United States of America.

7:59That matter being the actions committed by the agents of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the discretion of the Trump administration.

8:07As of late, we are seeing numerous reports and incidents of our neighbors and fellow residents, even citizens, being abducted by masked agents with no warrant, no crime that they are being detained for, and no representation to be spoken of in any court of law, a right that each and every single person even those who are not United States citizens are within our borders is guaranteed under the 5th Amendment of the United States Constitution.

8:33And as of now, we are watching members of our communities taken from us in our schools, our religious establishments, our workplaces, our restaurants, our courts.

8:41Even their homes can provide no sanctuary.

8:44Men and women, young and old, and children by the hundreds are being either forcefully deported or detained in concentration camps.

8:51Councilmember with even the support of the National Guard being used to suppress the population, such as in Los Angeles on the 8th of June.

8:59And currently the Capitol itself is under military occupation by our own armed forces.

9:04And now there is talk about the National Guard being sent to Chicago as well.

9:08And even more concerning are the comments by the Secretary of Labor about eventually sending an occupation force to Portland.

9:15And I can assure you it will not stop there.

9:18These incursions by the National Guard have nothing to do with curbing crime, but it has everything to do with control and curbing dissent in favor of the secret police that is the ICE and its agents.

9:29This is not just a violation of our First Amendment rights, but it is the— it is a clear attempt— is the administration's desire to occupy the country they are sworn to act as the sovereign defender of.

9:41Yet instead, they wish to invade our cities as if they were part of a foreign nation.

9:46Making an official— essentially making an unofficial declaration of war upon their own people.

9:51Yet despite this, despite the many violations and the clear attempt for the destruction of constitutional law and the rights of the people, Congress sits by and does nothing.

10:00Even the outspoken members do little more than hope that America will vote out a man who openly makes attacks and punishes those who challenge his authority, and the Supreme Court indulges itself in its mockery of justice through corruption.

10:13Our representatives in the federal branch have abandoned us, but we do not need to fall with the rest of this crumbling state.

10:19We have no reason to submit to the will of a man who refuses to uphold his oath of office.

10:24And with this in mind, I urge us to peacefully stand united against the clear threat of a deranged and illegitimate tyrant for the peaceful independence of Cascadia, where we will stand for the rights of the people and declare that the consent of the governed is an undeniable truth.

10:41Thank you.

10:41Councilor Thank you very much.

10:44Addie Smith.

10:50Nathaniel Hudson Hartman.

10:56Lynn Handlin.

11:02Fisher Jamison.

11:07Welcome.

11:08Thank you very much for being here with us.

11:13Thank you, councilors.

11:14And for the record, my name is Fisher Jemison.

11:17I had originally signed up for this testimony slot a couple months ago to complain about the street plaza at 31st and Division being removed.

11:25Since I moved to Division 5 years ago, that had been one of my favorite summer happy hour spots.

11:29First, a COVID-safe way to escape my apartment, and later, just a great place to enjoy the weather and read a book or wrap up work.

11:36I'm still a loyal Imperial Brewing customer, but with the plaza gone, the energy on that corner is gone, and you can tell that the level of foot traffic at the businesses fronting it is down significantly.

11:48At the time, I had a lot of questions about the rationale for the removal.

11:52The city cited fire codes, with no one really having an answer for why fire code required the removal of this plaza, but not others that take up the full length of a city block.

12:02But over the last couple months, it's become apparent that this is part of a consistent pattern.

12:06Some issue is flagged with a piece of pedestrian infrastructure, and the city has no way to resolve that issue without just removing the infrastructure entirely.

12:16We're seeing the consequences of this everywhere.

12:18In the places I visit, I'm seeing fewer pedestrian plazas and less outdoor dining.

12:23The vitality of our streets is suffering as a result.

12:26Portland feels quieter and emptier.

12:28Less like a city where you could go for a stroll after a meal and stumble upon a small business you'd never visited before, and less like a city where you'd want to open a small business to take advantage of the foot traffic in your neighborhood.

12:41I don't think this is an outcome that anyone is looking for.

12:44I don't think city staff wants this, and I doubt anyone on this council wants it.

12:49Even if there are some disagreements about exactly how our streets should be configured, I think everyone recognizes that our walkable neighborhoods are the backbone of this city's economy.

13:00What I do think we're dealing with here is a regulatory system that was never designed to allow anything besides parking spaces and car lanes on our streets.

13:09During COVID we recognized that we were in an extraordinary moment and we needed to throw out those regulations entirely.

13:16As COVID restrictions were lifted, we didn't take enough time to truly reevaluate the rules we had for how we could use our streets.

13:24I wanna first echo testimony from Harper Haverkamp of Strong Towns a couple months ago, who called for easier and more standardized permitting as a solution to this problem, but I think we also need to go further.

13:35Portland is going to end this year with fewer street plazas and outdoor dining spaces than we started with at this rate, and we need to treat this like the emergency it is.

13:45We need amnesty for non-conforming structures permitted during COVID and a complete moratorium on the removal of plazas and outdoor dining structures without approval from this City Council.

13:56Then We need to properly revisit how these structures are regulated and create a real transportation funding stream to allow PBOT to maintain them.

14:07Thank you for listening, and thank you all for working to save our streets.

14:11Thank you very much for being here today to share your concerns.

14:16That concludes public comment.

14:19Thank you, Rebecca.

14:22Colleagues, the next item on our agenda is the committee referral report.

14:26Bear with me, it's a little bit long this week.

14:29I referred approval of the comprehensive plan map, zone map, and Title 33 amendments related to the Portland-Gresham Urban Service Boundary Amendments Project to climate resilience and land use, as well as directing the city administrator to approve a new Portland-Gresham Urban Services IGA to climate resilience and land use.

14:49I referred adopt the Portland Urban Forest Plan to climate resilience and land use, authorize Bureau of Transportation to acquire certain temporary rights for construction along 102nd Street Aye.

15:01Motion passes 102 to 115 and on Shaver to the Finance Committee.

15:06Initiate foreclosure action at 8315 North Wayland to finance.

15:11Initiate foreclosure action on 5130 Southeast 84th to finance.

15:16Initiate foreclosure action on 3821 Northwest St. Helens Road to finance.

15:22Initiate foreclosure action on 1822 Southeast Cesar Chavez Boulevard to finance.

15:27Initiate foreclosure action on 1810 Southeast Chavez Boulevard to finance.

15:31Initiate foreclosure action at 1625 Southeast 35th Avenue to finance.

15:36Initiate foreclosure action on 1541 Southwest Market Street to finance.

15:41Initiate foreclosure action at 1140 Southeast 139th to finance.

15:46Initiate foreclosure action at 1541 Southwest Market Street to finance.

15:50Initiate foreclosure action on 12229 Southeast Sherman to finance.

15:59Declare property located at Southeast 21st and Powell surplus.

16:01Second.

16:03Yes.

16:04For sale at fair market value to finance, amend small donor election code to governance, amend parking space reservation code to transportation and infrastructure, authorize use of disparity studies to inform and support minority contracting to labor and workforce development, reappointments to the Revenue Division Appeals Board to finance, assess property for system development charge contracts and private plumbing loan contracts to finance and amend city code to reduce permit submittal requirements for upgrade requirements to Homelessness and Housing Committee.

16:40Colleagues, the next item on the agenda, because this is the first meeting of the month, is the City Administrator Report.

16:46Mr. Jordan, would you like to give us an overview or, um, provide any highlights from your written report?

16:53Sure.

16:54Thank you, Madam President, and welcome back, everybody.

16:56I hope you had a good break.

16:58Um, the report, uh, The report, as you have, is a still-evolving document for sure.

17:07A couple of things to note.

17:10The very last page of the report is the first— excuse me— report from the Chief Procurement Officer on contract awards over a 30-day period prior to August 20th in this particular case of the report.

17:26Thank you.

17:27Hope to continue to hone this and make it more useful to all of you.

17:32So please, any feedback that you have would be helpful.

17:37I will note also the first appendix is the budget note report.

17:46I mentioned last meeting that I would be, or last report I should say, that I would be reaching out to you if in fact we are not already in a conversation and making progress on the note.

18:01I have yet to do that.

18:03I apologize, and we'll be doing that very shortly to get to those which aren't already scheduled to be making progress.

18:11And then the last thing I'd like to mention, Madam President, is under the category of this report being an evolving document, we have noticed that both the narrative parts of the report as a whole And the individual narratives of items continue to grow.

18:30And we have some staff who are novelists in another life and are wanting to make sure they're getting the words into this report.

18:40So your feedback on any of those kinds of things, the form, the length, the content, any feedback you wanna give us, I would appreciate that in trying to make this as usable as it can be over time.

18:54Thank you.

18:55And happy to try and answer any questions.

18:57Thank you.

18:58Thank you, Mr. Jordan.

18:59I had also known that the— noticed rather that the report was growing in length, and I appreciate you noting that.

19:06I think we need to continue to work toward the balance of making sure that we all get all the information that we need, but that we also have it in a readable, digestible format in the time we have between when it's published and this meeting so that folks Speaking of which, I see Councilor Smith, your hand up.

19:26Do you have a question for Mr. Jordan?

19:28Yes.

19:29Go right ahead.

19:29Thank you, Madam President.

19:30Thank you, City Administrator Jordan.

19:33I appreciate the report.

19:35One of the things that I could suggest is that if we could just have, since the last time that you did the report of all the monies that we, instead of going all the way back to January 1st every single time, start with the previous month, what, what has been done since the previous month that you gave us the report.

19:54That might kind of put it down a little bit.

19:57Sure.

19:57So on page 2 of the report, it outlines plans to approve the Purdue Pharma bankruptcy, um, and we're joining a settlement to receive payments, uh, from the Sackler family, and we're also joining a settlement for payments from 8 smaller smaller opioid manufacturers.

20:18Could you explain that, and will that have an impact on the $9.5 million that we're receiving right now from the opioid settlement?

20:27I guess I might defer regarding legalities of the settlement to the city attorney or someone else who might be here for that.

20:35But as far as the actual proceeds are concerned, I don't think that these new— joining these new settlement agreements will affect the $9.5 million at all.

20:45Because we're going to be getting that for the next 18 years, right?

20:48Quite a while, yes.

20:50And so do you know which specific opioid drugs we're filing against this time?

20:56I do not, and I don't know if Lynley—.

21:01I don't, I don't know either, Councilor, but we can get back to you on that if you'd like a report.

21:05Thank you.

21:08One last question.

21:11I was looking at the Grants Division piece and I also noticed that there was no mention of the PCF, the dollars being taken away, the RFPs, the grantees that received those dollars.

21:30And I know we were going to talk about this, and we've talked about it in a smaller group, but I had no idea that all of the PCF grants that were awarded were going to be taken.

21:39Councilmember Smith, the Willamette Week had an August 28th, uh, report where it says that, um, the PCF grants were emailed that RFPs were canceled due to the mayor's July 31st executive order.

21:56And this was the first time that I learned that all of them were going to be revoked.

22:00I knew that some programs as a result of the, um, executive order were going to, but just curious why we didn't have an update or report on the, the PCF under the grants department?

22:12Yeah, my understanding, Councilor, is that we are going through— City Attorney, along with Office of Equity and Human Rights and Procurement, are going through all— and I'm sure PCF staff are involved in this too— are triaging what I would call all of the grant or contracts that are in flight.

22:35In other words, they've gone through some process to award.

22:37The PCF contracts?

22:39Yes, PCF and other contracts also.

22:43This was a specific request, and that's fine.

22:46We can follow back up.

22:47And just one last question.

22:49I was looking at the Chief Equity Officer note.

22:51So is this, this new job application, is this Jeff Selby's current job or is this a person that's going to report to Jeff Selby?

23:00It is that job.

23:02Jeff has been in it on an interim basis for some time.

23:05And why?

23:08Well, when we, when we restructured 2 years ago and created the officer's position along with comms and, and climate, um, we had, we had always assumed that there would be a recruitment for that job.

23:24We have had one and it failed, and so we're attempting to do that again.

23:28I kind of like Jeff.

23:29I think he's been doing a great job.

23:31I like Jeff too.

23:32And I'm just not sure why he's been doing this job for 3 years and not being considered of being appointed for this job, and then we have to do this national search.

23:41Happy to discuss it offline with you, Councilor, if you wish.

23:44Yes, I understand.

23:45I understand.

23:46Thank you so much.

23:47You bet.

23:49Thank you, Councilor Smith.

23:50Councilor Kanal, did you have questions for Mr. Jordan?

23:53Yes, Madam President.

23:54Thank you.

23:54Go right ahead.

23:55First, to give feedback to your question— first, thank you for the report.

23:59To give feedback to your question, I think longer is I think that is very helpful for us, and I'm happy to indulge the novelists by reading it.

24:07I also think, you know, you may end up having to do an executive summary to kind of, you know, square that, and I'm sure you've thought of that.

24:15I also wanted to just ask about getting more information about some of the IGAs that the city is involved in over time in the report, and I'm happy to follow up with you with more information on that.

24:26Sure.

24:27I'll just quickly mention the concern around the equity comment made me think about the importance of talking about these core services realignment a little further as it relates to the degree to which it pulls these branches of work up from the bureau to the service area, or whether that continues all the way up to the central side.

24:51And so that's where I think there hasn't been a lot of conversation around equity yet.

24:55Thank you.

24:56As it relates to some of the other disciplines.

24:59And I'd love to have council be a part of that conversation.

25:04And then just while I have the floor, welcome to the new fire chief.

25:06Thanks for shouting that out.

25:07And thanks to Interim Chief Jackson for her service during the transition as well.

25:11And then for those who are interested in violence prevention, we are— and I appreciate it being highlighted— that the recruitment I've been asking about since January is live for the Office of Violence Prevention.

25:21Thank you.

25:22Program Manager.

25:23And you can find that and all the other city jobs at governmentjobs.com.

25:26Thanks.

25:28Thank you, Councilor.

25:29Councilor Green, did you have questions for Mr. Jordan?

25:31Go right ahead.

25:33Thank you, Madam President.

25:34Thanks for the report once again.

25:36I also like the length.

25:39I do read them.

25:40I'm curious if a future iteration of this report would, Give us an update on the status of the Zenith franchise agreement investigation.

25:52I appreciate that.

25:52Thank you, Councilor.

25:53You should have an update in your inbox this morning.

25:59I sent one this morning to update Council on the status.

26:06If you wish, I can very briefly here let you know that we had a discussion A couple of months ago around, well, maybe more than a couple now, around the getting of outside counsel to oversee and help with the structure of the investigation that we're doing under the franchise agreement.

26:26We now have that and it's in your report.

26:29We now have that outside counsel on board.

26:32The staff have met with them once already to go over all of the materials that we have gotten from Zenith under the franchise request.

26:39Thank you.

26:40And the work that was done by PP&D to do inspections on some of the physical changes that were concerns also about permitted work that was done there.

26:51And so all of that data is being brought together with the outside counsel to go over.

26:57The note that you have says that we hope to finish all of that work by the end of the calendar year with the outside counsel.

27:05Okay, thank you for that, and I look forward to reading that report in my inbox.

27:08That concludes my questions.

27:10Thank you, Councilor.

27:11Councilor Ryan, did you have questions for Mr. Jordan?

27:14Thank you, Madam President.

27:15Good morning.

27:16Uh, Mike Jordan.

27:17My question is to make sure that under grants, um, we're implementing the somewhat recent code that we passed in 2024.

27:25My office led it, so of course I'm attached.

27:27Um, we didn't have anything— we didn't have discipline that had, uh, this in our records, which was that we need to have current financial documents, and we need to have a current listing of their board members.

27:39And for some reason, the city didn't have that checks and balance, and we were sending out grants without that due diligence.

27:45So I'm not in that role anymore, and I'm not micro in it, but I could ask you this question right now to make certain that we are doing that with fidelity.

27:53I'm— my understanding is we are, Councilor, but I'll get back to you and make sure.

27:58Thank you.

27:58I appreciate that.

28:05Councilor Koyama Lane, do you have a question for Mr. Jordan?

28:09Yes.

28:11Um, I also want to thank Councilor Smith for bringing up the Office of Equity and Human Rights, which is very important.

28:18We know over the years we have seen that office being cut almost in half, and as we are having constituents come and speak to us all often, including today, about the threats that we're facing.

28:31It's really important that we are working closely with that office, that we're making sure that council is in communication and working with the administration.

28:41So I would encourage the administration to be working with us as much as possible.

28:47Council President and I have been talking about this since we've been sworn in.

28:53This is something that I have been taking a lead on.

28:56Thank you.

28:56And especially as we're leaning on that office for things like the executive order and different things that are coming up, it's— I would love to hear the plan of how to make sure that a national search isn't taking a year, but that we have a good plan to make sure we can act really quickly and nimbly because this is very urgent.

29:17And I would love to talk more offline.

29:19Thank you.

29:21Thank you, Councilor.

29:22Councilor Smith, are you back in the queue?

29:28No.

29:28Okay.

29:29It's a legacy.

29:30Okay.

29:32Colleagues, that concludes questions about the City Administrator report.

29:37Mr. Jordan, thank you for putting this together for us every month.

29:41And I think you heard from a number of folks today that we prefer more information.

29:46Got it.

29:47So, you know, let's not, let's not have folks go on at such length That we can't digest at all.

29:54Colleagues, the next item on our agenda is a time-certain item that is scheduled for 10 o'clock, so I'm going to have us take up the consent agenda first.

30:03Item number 7 was pulled off of the consent agenda, so it has been moved to the end of our regular agenda.

30:11So we are approving the rest of the consent agenda.

30:15Rebecca, could you please call the roll?

30:18Koyama Lane?

30:21Aye.

30:22Morillo?

30:23Aye.

30:23Novick?

30:24Aye.

30:25Clark?

30:25Aye.

30:26Green?

30:27Aye.

30:27Zimmerman?

30:28Aye.

30:29Avalos?

30:30Aye.

30:30Dunphy?

30:31Aye.

30:32Smith?

30:32Aye.

30:33Aye.

30:34Aye.

30:34Aye.

30:35Aye.

30:43The consent agenda is passed with unanimous consent.

30:47Thank you.

30:48Um, and we still have a few minutes.

30:50Rebecca, are we able to move on to agenda item 8 while we wait for the time-certain item?

30:57I see Lindley nodding yes.

30:58Okay, could you please call agenda item 8?

31:02Authorize Bureau of Transportation to acquire certain permanent and temporary property rights necessary for construction of the 82nd Avenue Gleason and Davis Signal Improvements Project through the exercise of the city's eminent domain authority.

31:16Thank you.

31:16And colleagues, this is a second reading, so if there is not further discussion, we will move directly to a vote.

31:24Okay, seeing no one in the queue, Rebecca, could you please call the roll?

31:29Koyama Lane.

31:29Oh, I'm sorry.

31:31Okay, go ahead.

31:33Aye.

31:34Murillo.

31:35Aye.

31:36Novick?

31:36Aye.

31:37Clark?

31:38Aye.

31:39Green?

31:39Aye.

31:40Zimmerman?

31:41Aye.

31:41Avalos?

31:42Aye.

31:43Dunphy?

31:43Aye.

31:44Smith?

31:45Aye.

31:46Khan?

31:48Aye.

31:49Ryan?

31:49Aye.

31:50Pirtle-Guiney?

31:51Aye.

31:52And the ordinance passes with 12 aye votes.

31:56Thank you.

31:56Could you please read the next agenda item?

32:05Amend Council Organization and Procedure Code to include council rule on tiebreaking.

32:12Colleagues, this is also a second reading, so unless there is further discussion, we will move to a vote.

32:18Seeing none, Rebecca, could you please call the roll?

32:21Koyama Lane?

32:22Aye.

32:23Murillo?

32:24Aye.

32:25Novick?

32:26Aye.

32:26Clark?

32:28Aye.

32:29Green?

32:29Aye.

32:30Zimmerman?

32:31No.

32:34Avalos?

32:34Aye.

32:36Dunphy?

32:36Aye.

32:37Smith?

32:39No.

32:41Kanal?

32:41Aye.

32:42Ryan?

32:43Aye.

32:44Pirtle-Guiney?

32:45Aye.

32:46The ordinance passes with 10 aye votes.

32:49Okay, and I believe we are We are 1 minute to 10, so Rebecca, could you very slowly call agenda item 5 for us?

33:17Amend city code to reduce permit Submittal requirements and temporarily suspend city-imposed development upgrade requirements.

33:29I think we've got about 20 seconds.

33:35That was great.

33:35That was very slow.

33:37Um, while we wait for another couple of seconds, I believe this came out of the Homelessness and Housing Committee And that we have a committee staff summary from Claire.

33:50Is that correct?

33:52And we are at 10 o'clock.

33:53So Claire, if you would like to go ahead and give us that overview, that would be great.

33:58Thank you, Madam President and councilors.

34:01For the record, Claire Adamsick, Council Policy Analyst and staff to the Homelessness and Housing Committee.

34:06The ordinance before you, document 2025-314, was heard in the Homelessness and Housing Committee on August 12th, where it was referred to council with the recommendation to pass.

34:16The ordinance directs the adoption of the findings of fact report and the code alignment project recommend— recommended draft.

34:23The recommended draft proposes amending 4 chapters in Portland City Code related to upgrade requirements and site alterations for development projects that meet a specified project value threshold.

34:34The proposed code amendments include the following: for Title 11, Trees, Suspend street tree planting requirements for additions and alterations until January 1st, 2029, and reduce tree plan or minimum tree planting size requirements in certain development situations.

34:50For Title 33, Planning and Zoning, suspend nonconforming upgrade requirements for all projects until January 1st, 2029.

34:57For Title 24, Building Regulations, suspend requirement of seismic evaluation reports for projects that meet or exceed a specified thank you.

35:05Thank you, Mayor.

35:05This ordinance would modify the specified valuation threshold in buildings constructed or renovated prior to 1974.

35:10And for Title 17, public improvements, apply a partial waiver of street frontage improvements for projects that propose significant alterations of a building that do not result in increased occupancy.

35:21The ordinance further clarifies the applicability of the amended code to development projects under land use or permit review at the time the ordinance takes effect.

35:29The full impact statement on this item includes information on financial and budgetary impacts and analysis.

35:34Economic and real estate development impacts, and community impacts and community involvement.

35:404 People testified during the committee meeting on August 12th.

35:433 People submitted written testimony on this item prior to committee action.

35:48The general themes of this testimony included streamlining permitting to support development and revitalization of commercial spaces, a suggestion to focus future work on infrastructure-related costs and impact on the city's housing production goals, And finally, a request to extend the 2-year grace period to allow additional time to bring nonconforming development up to code.

36:08And that concludes the committee staff summary.

36:11Thank you very much.

36:13Councilor Avalos, you were presiding over that meeting.

36:15Do you have anything you'd like to add to that summary?

36:18Not much other than to say that I'm grateful to my colleagues for putting together this effort.

36:24It is the first of many steps that our committee is going to be taking on code revision reform.

36:29This one was kind of the low-hanging fruit, and I think it signals our intentions to really dig in to remove as many barriers as possible and make sure that people can get housing built.

36:40So I'll pass it on to Councilors Morillo and Dunphy if they want to add anything, because they are the sponsors of the bill.

36:47Councilor Morillo, Councilor Dunphy, I believe you brought this jointly with the mayor.

36:50Is there anything you'd like to add?

36:52Councilor Dunphy, go right ahead.

36:54You know, this is a really thoughtful process.

36:56I wish I could take more credit.

36:57I'm sorry.

36:57I don't want to take credit for it, but it was some amazing staff work that's been going on since November.

37:01This is looking at some of those things that are just sort of silly in our code sometimes.

37:06If you're adding a bathroom, why do you have to add trees?

37:10We love trees, but that certainly adds a level of complexity and cost when we're trying to get things moving in this city.

37:18This is not speaking specifically to development of new apartment buildings necessarily.

37:23This is more about a lot of the neighborhood-scale improvements that we want to do to try and make sure that we are getting this city moving in the right direction.

37:31This is a temporary suspension.

37:34I think this is also going to have some longer-term conversations in that interim to make sure that we are actually aligning the code in a proper way and ensuring that our values are met as a community and that our safety and quality are established, but that we aren't running into those continued buzzsaws of—.

37:53The code.

37:54Conflicting bureau requirements and triggers.

37:57So I'm excited to see this as a first step for this council and a continued demonstration to the community that we're really serious about getting things built and getting this city moving forward.

38:07So thank you.

38:10Thank you, Councilor.

38:10Councilor Murillo, anything to add?

38:13Ditto to everything that Councilor Dunphy said.

38:15And truly the staff deserve all the praise and all the flowers for this because this is exactly what government should be doing.

38:21Common sense changes that will help modify buildings in Portland that already exist and just make people's lives easier and better.

38:28And that is what I think good government should be doing.

38:30So really grateful for all the work that was put into this by staff and excited to support this.

38:36So thank you so much for making it easy for us to do something good for the public.

38:40Thank you, Councilor.

38:41Colleagues, we do have a few people signed up for public testimony, but are there any questions about the staff summary or the overviews before we move to hearing from the public?

38:51Councilor Clark.

38:54Councilor Ryan.

38:55Thank you, Madam President.

38:57Forgive me, colleagues from the committee, as I repeat myself from the committee meeting.

39:01I'm really excited about this work to continue, and of course I'm all in for this legislation.

39:05It's a very wise step.

39:06It's also been a long journey since 2021 when, along with Commissioner Maps, we started the Permit Improvement Task Force.

39:15We included all 3 other Commissioner offices.

39:18And that was the first time in Portland's history that it was done in such a comprehensive collective way.

39:23And one of the best things we did, our office sponsored hiring Terry Tyson in the '21-'22 budget.

39:29And then we followed up with adding 3 people to that team.

39:32Yes, this is exactly why this is moving along, 'cause we put staff in the budget to be working on this project.

39:38It didn't start in November.

39:40I'll have to edit the comment made by Councilor Dunphy.

39:42It started years ago.

39:43Thank you.

39:44It's been a long journey.

39:45And so I just wanna acknowledge Terry.

39:47Where are you?

39:48There you are.

39:48Like, wave or something.

39:49Stand up.

39:50And is your team here?

39:52Are they here?

39:53They're all next to you.

39:54All right.

39:54Congratulations to all of you for this hard work.

39:56Yes, acknowledge them.

39:59Anyway, it's grateful that the last council approved this budget item so we could continue this along.

40:04I appreciate seeing the suspension of upgrade requirements includes many of the most common complaints I've heard from homeowners.

40:10Thank you.

40:10And small businesses around Portland for the last few years as barriers for staying in business and also for expanding location in our city limits.

40:19When we're looking at some of the key culprits of the code clutter, I do want everyone to listen to this on the dais, which confuses staff, as you can only imagine how it confuses the customers.

40:28One of the key culprits is linked to the last-minute walk-on amendments from elected officials.

40:34My hope is this council will not continue this uncharitable legacy.

40:37Thank you.

40:40Thanks.

40:40Thank you, Councilor.

40:41Councilor Smith, did you have, um, questions while we still have Claire available?

40:47Yes.

40:47Um, thank you so much for, um, presenting.

40:51How will we ensure that PCF, um, tree planting efforts are aligned with the code alignment plan?

40:58Councilor Smith, I think that's a question better answered by, um, the staff who worked on this project.

41:05Okay, Councilor Smith, would you like to ask that now, or should we save that for discussion?

41:09We can do it under discussion.

41:12Okay, do you have any additional questions?

41:14No, ma'am.

41:14Okay, President, can I just ask a quick question and then come back later?

41:18I just want to ask, um, why, uh, what was the rationale behind the sunset?

41:26Councilor Dunphy, is that something you'd ask the city administrator to weigh in on, or is that something that you'd like to take you know, I don't have the specifics at this moment.

41:35I think if we can get staff to respond to that.

41:39Why don't we have somebody come up from the staff team that's been working on this?

41:44I don't know if that is DCA Oliveira or if that's somebody from the department, from the bureau.

41:50Perfect.

41:54We'll get a couple of these technical questions out of the way and then we will Hear from members of the public who are here to speak to the ordinance as well.

42:04Go right ahead.

42:05Good morning.

42:07For the record, Morgan Tracy, senior planner with the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability.

42:13I think in response to the question about the rationale behind the temporary suspension, as you may be aware, the complexity of our codes when you yes.

42:24When you put them all together, there are fine threads that sort of bleed into one another.

42:29As you start to unweave this code, there's potential for unintended consequences, and we want to be able to best understand how those consequences will play out.

42:41So as we started developing alternatives to this temporary pause, in other words, revising the thresholds, right-sizing the thresholds that would apply to these development situations.

42:52We quickly learned that there were a lot of different ways to approach it, all with different consequences, either positive or negative, that all required further study and analysis.

43:03We also recognized that there was an immediate need for action and we didn't want to delay.

43:09And so we took the approach of putting in a pause for the, for the moment to give staff time to further evaluate what that more permanent solution would look like and better understand what those consequences were at the back end.

43:23Also, we are in a moment here in our economic climate that may change over time.

43:30And so we want to be able to better respond to that as those conditions change over the next several years as well.

43:43Thank you.

43:43Anything to add?

43:45Okay, I think he covered it.

43:48Um, Councilor Smith, because we have staff up here now, would you like to return to your question?

43:51So I want to go to my original question.

43:53How will we ensure PCF tree planting efforts are aligned with the code alignment plan?

44:02Thank you, Councilor Donnie Oliveira, for the record.

44:06Uh, Councilor, the, uh, Urban Forestry Program working with Portland and Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund staff work with community advisory panels that inform like where our tree planting is going to go.

44:17This code is really designed to speed up like our internal processes, but it would have no bearing on how we like distribute and plant and maintain our urban canopy.

44:25Okay.

44:26And, and just one last thing, Donnie.

44:28Um, with, with suspension of these requirements, are we losing revenue?

44:34Councilor, that's a question that's sort of a how long is a string type of question, meaning This program really is an opportunity to speed up our processes.

44:42There may be material impacts in infrastructure that's currently financed by the private sector when they're doing— like, I think there was alluded to, Councilor Dunphy's mentioning of the tree program when someone's doing a tenant improvement in a building.

44:54Where we may see impacts is the ADA ramp requirements.

44:58That could be a material impact to that infrastructure, but at a very small— I think we said 15, approximately 15 a year.

45:04Yeah.

45:05But again, that's all dependent on how many projects are coming into the city.

45:08If there's no projects, we have other issues.

45:12Okay, we sure do.

45:14Yeah.

45:15Thank you.

45:19And Councilor, I'll draw your attention to the analysis from the City Budget Office, which does have a nominal potential increased cost.

45:32Listed for some work that is currently funded through construction projects, but it's all very small.

45:38Okay.

45:41Okay.

45:42Councilor Kanal, did you have questions for staff before we hear public testimony and move to discussion?

45:49Yeah.

45:52Yes, Madam President.

45:53The question I have was related.

45:54It's just the only number that's cited here is the $500,000 that would be foregone revenue in the context of ADA ramps.

46:02What's the overall dollar amount that would be foregone revenue?

46:09Well, again, for the record, Morgan Tracy, Bureau of Planning and Sustainability.

46:14That's a hard number to quantify.

46:16Again, as Donnie alluded, it is dependent on how much development is— the city is experiencing.

46:22So So sort of taking these 4 pauses in order, we can start with the nonconforming upgrades, which are requirements that are applied to different development situations.

46:35It's all onsite improvements like bike parking, landscaping, those sorts of things.

46:41So there's no direct financial impact to the city for the loss of that.

46:44It's more of a trade-off in terms of the public benefit that's lost.

46:50For the street tree planting requirement, there's no, again, no mandate that the city backfills the lack of those trees being planted.

46:58But we do have the PSAP funding that is more than making up for that offset.

47:05The seismic evaluation report, again, is an applicant cost.

47:08It's not a city cost.

47:11And the street frontage improvement, I think, is the one element that really has Some bearing because the city is under obligation under a court settlement to provide a certain number of ADA ramps per year.

47:22And if the development community isn't providing some portion of that, we are still obligated to make that—.

47:27Meet our commitment.

47:29So that's the one area where there is that potential for direct financial implication back to the city.

47:36Maybe I should clarify, and this is, I think, more specific to the second of those 4, the street tree.

47:42And using— I'm assuming that you have a model based off of— you said it's variable based on the amount of development.

47:48But if we had an exact continuation of where we're at now, I'm assuming there was a model made on this.

47:54And then secondly, as it relates to street trees, I'm talking about that there is a cost that would be— cost is not necessarily the right word here.

48:02There would be an obligation to maintain the level of planting to maintain and grow our canopy.

48:07Yes.

48:08Regardless of it being a legal obligation through a settlement the way Creek is.

48:12So in order to maintain that, I assume there was a model made about the cost.

48:18I'm waiting for my urban forestry partner to join me.

48:21Of course.

48:21Not trying to— yeah, thanks.

48:29Thank you for joining us.

48:30Go right ahead and introduce yourself.

48:31Sure thing.

48:32Hi, everyone.

48:33Brian Landom with Urban Forestry.

48:35Thank you.

48:36So we did look at what the anticipated impact on tree planting would be as a result of this.

48:41I think what we've seen is that we're in sort of a diminishing return period for regulatory code-required tree planting.

48:51We've seen an increase in the number of projects which are triggering the tree planting requirement, but there actually isn't space for a new street tree to be planted.

49:01And so we're anticipating maybe a few hundred fewer trees be planted every year, but we're planting several thousand street trees through the PSF program.

49:09And that is directing trees not where private development dollars are going, but where trees are needed most.

49:21Thank you.

49:23Thank you, Councilor.

49:24Councilor Green, did you have questions at this point?

49:27Just for discussion.

49:28Okay.

49:29Councilor Dunphy, did you have questions for this time?

49:31Yeah, just for the public and for my colleagues around the table, I want to just sort of put a finer point to this.

49:36If you are a homeowner and you want to add a bathroom in your basement and say you want to spend $25,000 on this— please don't quote my math, I'm not a math guy— but say you want to spend $25,000 adding a new bathroom to your basement, city code right now requires you spend about $2,500 on street trees.

49:53It's a trigger.

49:54That at a certain dollar a point, if you are spending more money on an existing structure, renovating something, adding a mother-in-law unit to your basement, whatever it is, it automatically triggers this requirement.

50:06And so if I'm, as a homeowner, you know, renovating my bathroom, suddenly I have to add trees.

50:12Not that trees are not a bad thing, but it's not directly related to the action that is happening inside of your home, and it becomes an obstacle that some people just say, screw it, I'm not going to do it.

50:19I think that's a good point.

50:20Screw it, I'm not gonna bother renovating my bathroom at this point.

50:24So that is really the goal of these things, is to look at those opportunities where folks are wanting to do the work in their homes, in their businesses.

50:32There's another example that I can give is, for example, the nonprofit Friends of Noise is attempting to open an all-ages music venue in an old strip club in North Portland.

50:42Because of the amount of money that they spent on the inside of it, They were required to redo the curb cuts on the street in front of it.

50:50And that was an additional, I think they said some $25,000 or $30,000 that they had not raised and they were not ready to be able to pay for, for curb cuts that were out of compliance but were also pretty good still.

51:03There are examples like that across the city where our good intentions are actively stopping us from getting new businesses and new development and getting people to work to improve the built environment.

51:15So, As I had said earlier, I know this is not about walking back our commitment to street trees.

51:22As we heard, thousands of new street trees will be planted.

51:25And the reality is that we need more street trees in my part of town, District 1, where people aren't having the extra capacity to add a bathroom to their basement.

51:33We don't need a whole lot more street trees in Laurelhurst right now.

51:37We need them in Powellhurst.

51:38So this will continue that work and also hopefully allow folks to to make those improvements how they want.

51:46So thank you, staff.

51:49Thank you, Councilor.

51:50Colleagues, I don't see anybody else in the queue for questions for the folks before us, so I'll let you all go back to your seats.

51:57Thank you very much for being here today.

51:59And Rebecca, could you please call up members of the public who have signed up for public testimony?

52:05First is Wade Lang.

52:17Welcome.

52:18Thank you for being here today.

52:19Good morning.

52:20Uh, for the record, my name is Wade Lang, and I'm here today representing the Building Owners and Managers Association of Oregon, or BOMA.

52:28Uh, BOMA is a commercial real estate organization representing over 40 million square feet of commercial real estate in the state of Oregon.

52:35BOMA is in full support of the code alignment project, simplifying the permitting process to make it more efficient has always been a goal of our membership.

52:45Just as important, the amendments within the code alignment project will reduce the cost of a tenant improvement project while also reducing the timelines for completion.

52:55As I'm sure you're all aware, the commercial office industry in Portland is hurting.

53:00It is important for building owners to move a new tenant into their buildings quickly and economically.

53:05Thank you.

53:07The code alignment project will certainly help in this process.

53:10Nonconforming requirements often take owners by surprise, costing their projects more than expected and delaying their completion.

53:18The code alignment will help bring more certainty to their projects.

53:22Portland office buildings need this type of incentive to help reduce the vacancy rate within Portland.

53:28We also support and offer our help in developing long-term Code alignments.

53:34I was serving on the Portland Planning Commission when the code alignment project came before us in June.

53:39While we only looked at changes to Title 33 and development regulations in Title 11, we unanimously passed these revisions.

53:47It is the right time for this move forward, and we hope it will ultimately lead to a more efficient and transparent permitting process.

53:54Thank you very much.

53:55Thank you for being here.

53:59Kelly Ross.

54:01Welcome.

54:05Please introduce yourself and go right ahead.

54:07Sure.

54:08Good morning, Madam President and councilors.

54:10My name is Kelly Ross, and I'm here this morning to represent NAOP, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association, and here to voice our strong support for this ordinance and to also express strong appreciation to city staff for developing this and bringing it forward.

54:30I also want to highlight for you a letter that I believe was submitted to the clerk last night or this morning that's signed by 10 other business organizations expressing support for this.

54:42We believe strongly that the delays laid out by this ordinance will continue Portland's aggressive actions that have previously been made to improve and speed up the permitting process for commercial development, and in so doing will help bring new tenants to commercial spaces that are currently vacant.

55:02So thank you very much and encourage your aye vote.

55:05Thank you very much.

55:09Michelle Schultz.

55:10Michelle is online.

55:13Welcome, Michelle.

55:16Hi, can you hear me okay?

55:17Yes, we can.

55:19Great.

55:20Good morning, Madam President and members of City Council.

55:23Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today.

55:26My name is Michelle Schultz.

55:27I'm a licensed architect, principal, and owner of GBD Architects.

55:33We are a Portland-based firm headquartered in District 4, and we're proud to have helped design and revitalize many parts of this community.

55:42We love working here and want to keep investing in Portland's future.

55:46But right now we're seeing a slowdown in development, especially for renovations and additions, caused by complex processes and financial hurdles that make it harder to improve and adapt our existing buildings.

55:59That's why I'm here in strong support of the code alignment project postponement.

56:04I also want to acknowledge and thank city staff for their hard work for shaping this proposal today.

56:11By temporarily suspending By suspending certain upgrade requirements for alterations and additions until 2029, CAP removes redundant regulatory hurdles, streamlines permitting, and allows property owners and small developers to move projects forward quickly.

56:29It provides immediate relief without compromising public safety while still maintaining transparency and accountability.

56:36This is more than a technical fix.

56:39It's an economic catalyst.

56:41CAP will make it easier to invest in existing buildings, activate vacant spaces, and support both small businesses and Portland's urban core.

56:51It sends a strong message that Portland is open for business, committed to revitalizing our neighborhoods and downtown, and ready to partner with the community to create a vibrant, livable city.

57:02Thank you, Deputy City Administrator Donnie Oliveira.

57:04As a board member of both NAOP and BOMA, I also want to highlight, as Kelly did, that this perspective is not mine alone.

57:12A broad coalition of local business and community organizations have submitted a joint letter to support as part of this written testimony.

57:22This coalition recognizes that CAP provides common-sense, time-limited relief that will reduce cost I urge you to support the postponement so that important projects can proceed now instead of stalling and disappearing.

57:42This is a crucial step to keep Portland moving forward.

57:46Thank you very much for your consideration and support today.

57:50Thank you.

57:52That completes testimony.

57:54Thank you, Rebecca.

57:56Colleagues, we now have an opportunity for further discussion.

57:58I'll note that this is a non-emergency ordinance.

58:02So we are discussing today and then moving to a second reading.

58:05There's not a vote today.

58:07Councilor Clark.

58:09Thank you, Madam President.

58:10And I would be interested if there's any interest in making an emergency ordinance.

58:15There may be support for that.

58:16I think I feel some sense of urgency around this.

58:20But before we talk about that, I just want to thank Councilor Ryan for the work that he did in the past to bring us to this point.

58:28And to thank the committee under the leadership of Councilor Avalos and all the staff to bring us to this point, because I feel such a sense of urgency around this.

58:38So many of us who ran for this position heard about these roadblocks, experienced them personally in our neighborhoods, among our friends, some of the— what some people thought were really ridiculous requirements when they did want to add a bathroom.

58:53So I really appreciate that.

58:55I also feel a great sense of urgency around what's the next phase, what's the next step we're going to take, and can we expedite that.

59:05So I appreciate that because I know that we do still have things on the books that stand in the way of progress, whether it's a small project or a large project.

59:16And I've experienced that personally in my neighborhood.

59:19So thank you.

59:20Councilor Smith.

59:20Thank you for that.

59:21And thank you to our witnesses who, um, uh, I paid attention through the whole process, I think, and, and really appreciate your being here today.

59:29Um, I don't know if there is any interest in an emergency, uh, move to, to implement this immediately.

59:36Um, I would make that proposal.

59:43Councilor, are you testing the waters and hoping folks will weigh in on that, or are you well, I'll propose an amendment that we actually make—.

59:50Put an emergency clause on this.

59:52And when we make something an emergency ordinance, we need to list what the emergency is.

59:58The emergency is that without these changes, we have impediments in the code to development, to economic development, the kinds of things that we've heard from our witnesses today.

1:00:10I see a bit of a— A meeting going on over there with some of our attorneys and our DCA.

1:00:16May I jump in quickly?

1:00:17Please.

1:00:18It's my understanding that the implementation date in the ordinance is October 1st because there's an agreement on land use that there will be 2 set implementation dates for PB&D.

1:00:28Okay.

1:00:28So it's not— having this as an emergency doesn't necessarily—.

1:00:33Thank you, Lindley.

1:00:33I appreciate that.

1:00:34I withdraw my suggestion.

1:00:36Thank you, Councilor.

1:00:40Thank you, Madam President.

1:00:43I would've voted for that 'cause I appreciate your spirit here.

1:00:47I'm prepared to support this, colleagues, for a number of reasons.

1:00:50But before I get into that, I just really want to thank PP&D and acknowledge, frankly, the stance of urgency that they've taken.

1:00:59You know, over the years, I think this part of our city has taken some punches and been blamed for a lack of development in this city that are frankly not true.

1:01:08Largely external macroeconomic conditions.

1:01:12Doesn't mean though that we can't look internally and say, how can we do better?

1:01:15And they have been doing better.

1:01:17Recently they helped move a school that was right next to the ice facility in record time so that school could open up before the start of the school year.

1:01:28And that— those kids are still in that school, and that was heroic work by PP&D.

1:01:33So this is just more of the same.

1:01:34So they deserve some applause for that.

1:01:35Thank you.

1:01:35For that, but not right now because that breaks decorum.

1:01:39Okay.

1:01:40I think that there's a couple things that are interesting for me just from an economic standpoint.

1:01:44One is that— and Councilor Dunphy, you sort of highlighted this with your vignette— that if you create a regulatory requirement or cost that is overly burdensome, then people have an incentive to evade that requirement.

1:01:59And, you know, I'm not going to name anyone, That I know, but it is true that people do try to avoid pulling a permit for work they might do inside of their house if it becomes something that is really hard to comply with.

1:02:14And I think we have an interest in making sure people comply with our regulatory requirements, pursue it, pull a permit in good faith, and then we get that revenue, and then we have sort of this partnership with a built environment that that's consistent with our comprehensive plan and our codes.

1:02:32I think this helps us get closer to that.

1:02:35I also really like the model of pairing a temporary pause in a very targeted way in our code with a more thoroughgoing review, because as the gentleman had mentioned, it is kind of a ball of yarn, so to speak.

1:02:51And I'm more interested in moving swiftly to adjust the crises and the emergencies that we face in our economy than sort of you know, tackle it all up front.

1:03:00So I think that's actually a really good model, and this is— I'm prepared to support more of that in the future.

1:03:06On the infrastructure cost, I mean, that's a very real thing for us to think about, but I'll note that we passed a bond earlier in our tenure this year that sort of bond financed much of that ADA obligation, and that's going to be supported in part by general fund revenue.

1:03:23And so if we can do things like this that allow an increase in commerce and economic activity, that was going to support our general fund revenue.

1:03:30So these things are interconnected in that regard.

1:03:34And I also think this, this could help solve some of our vacancy rate issues.

1:03:37I know Councilor Ryan is concerned about this as well as the co-chair of the Arts and Economy Committee, as well as my District 4 colleagues who, you know, when we go downtown, we see a 30% vacancy rate.

1:03:48So if you're able to do a tenant improvement at a Thank you, Councilor.

1:04:04Councilor Zimmerman.

1:04:06Thanks.

1:04:07All the points that have been brought up are really, really important and great.

1:04:10It just makes me think, you know, when we talk about foregone revenue relative to a code cleanup, I think in the context of a code cleanup, it wasn't ever foregone revenue.

1:04:23I think this is just the end of us robbing people for erroneous actions.

1:04:27And so this is exactly the right thing that we should be doing for residents of Portland, because I don't think we really had a right to any of that money to begin with.

1:04:35If you get to the reason of a code, a code is about safety, right?

1:04:40We want the bathroom that's installed in the basement to be safe, to be something that the next owner Can have faith that it was installed in a way.

1:04:47And any incentive to not take a permit out because of cost reasons gets us further and further away from safety.

1:04:54So if you think about some of those basics about why does a code exist, this is really moving us in the right direction.

1:05:00And we have 1,000 miles to continue going.

1:05:04And so that's really important.

1:05:05And I appreciate the staff perspective of there are sometimes some unintended consequences, and I invite—.

1:05:12Thank you.

1:05:12As we bump into those, I invite that opportunity to polish it and clean it up more.

1:05:18To the sponsors, I appreciate your work on it.

1:05:20I'm glad it came to the committee.

1:05:22And then I also just want to flag on here the danger of setting things like a $25,000 threshold.

1:05:31Some of you know that my first job out of college was working for the Multnomah County Assessor's Office where I would inspect homes.

1:05:36I was a residential property inspector.

1:05:38Oh, wow.

1:05:39And Measure 50 allowed counties to increase the property assessed rates of homes if they did more than $10,000 in a year in changes— remodel, siding, etc.

1:05:56It was designed to be about major remodels, not general upkeep of a property, which general upkeep of a property is the thing that keeps low and medium-income families in their homes for the long time is you're able to keep it up.

1:06:11It also said $25,000 over a 5-year period.

1:06:15So if you do siding, maybe a roof, these are all normal things.

1:06:20Except those mean— those numbers mean absolutely nothing like they meant in 1997 to that they do in 2025.

1:06:28Because to replace a roof on a little ranch house, Will cost you $25,000, and yet that's considered by law to be regular ongoing maintenance.

1:06:36But today that would incite a new tax assessment, which is out of line with where we're at.

1:06:42I bring that up because the cost of extra improvements— that when we put that on there, the cost of improvement should not trigger more things to be done.

1:06:53It is a way in which we ensure that those who are able to do things are only those who've got the deepest pockets.

1:06:59Thank you.

1:07:00Residential infill is not being completed by regular, normal Portlanders today.

1:07:04It's being completed by people who have the money to do all the other extra stuff.

1:07:09So anytime we slap on an arbitrary number like $25,000 and we don't connect it to inflation, we will bump into this in 25 years.

1:07:19We will bump into this in 5 years.

1:07:23We have this terrible, I think terrible, habit in a lot of things at the county, at Metro, at the city of setting a number but not attaching it to anything to grow with time and space and, and projecting what it means 5 years, 10 years, and 25 years down the road.

1:07:40So great improvements, looking forward to more of them.

1:07:43Thanks to the sponsors.

1:07:44You all should vote yes for this and defend yourself if you want to vote no.

1:07:50Thank you, Councilor.

1:07:52Councilor Zimmerman.

1:07:54Um, colleagues, as Councilor Zimmerman noted, we have a habit of essentially upgrading our city through small projects that, uh, developers or individuals at times take on, on their properties.

1:08:10And that's a, a habit that we are moving away from, but in the short term, there are some real real implications of doing that.

1:08:20And we've talked about some of those today.

1:08:23And so I just, I have a question for our colleagues who sit on the committee.

1:08:27The testimony that we heard today was all positive.

1:08:29The testimony that was reported on from committee was all positive.

1:08:33Did you as committee members debating this have any outreach from organizations expressing concern either about the short-term consequences of this shift away from A policy in the city where we upgrade our infrastructure through tacking on costs to small projects around our city to hopefully an approach where we actually take on those costs more holistically and strategically as city costs.

1:09:04Either folks concerned about tree canopy in the short term or upgrades to our streets, or anybody who was concerned with I don't recall any—.

1:09:20Receiving any negative testimony, written or verbal, from anybody.

1:09:24And I also, thanks to the really diligent work of our staff who did this, there was a lot of proactive outreach that was done ahead of that.

1:09:33And my understanding is that while not everybody was thrilled with the idea of having to pay for the parking, thrilled because there is some concern that the city may backpedal on some of our values.

1:09:44That was not— that was a broader concern, as I understand it, and not specific to anything in this.

1:09:51I don't recall any other negative testimony or—.

1:09:54Yeah.

1:09:55Okay.

1:09:56And I see heads shaking from some of the other committee members, shaking no.

1:10:00Thank you.

1:10:01I think a move like this is the right direction and the right thing to do.

1:10:04To do, but I also have some concern about us following through on our commitments to make sure that we continue to fund things like our tree work and our street development work.

1:10:14And I know budgets are tight, so I just wanted to make sure that we hadn't heard any negative concerns there.

1:10:19Thank you.

1:10:21Councilor?

1:10:22I just wanted to add as well, yeah, we did not— I don't recall receiving any negative feedback during the committee meeting, nor has my office received any major concerns.

1:10:31And as co-chair of the Climate Committee, who converses with climate advocates quite often, I can tell you that they are very aggressive in letting you know if they don't like something.

1:10:39So, and I think that's a good thing.

1:10:41So I have not received any communications about that.

1:10:45And again, I really wanna emphasize that if we're talking about the efficient allocation of resources, people who have worked on this for a long time, researched it, done the outreach, have recognized that that this is all going to be best accomplished through the Portland Clean Energy Fund as opposed to through individuals who are going to be planting trees.

1:11:06That's just not an efficient way of managing a city and making sure all of our infrastructure is being overseen in one collective manner that's going to be much more organized.

1:11:16So this is, in my opinion, going to actually improve our tree canopy if we do it the right way, and I think that we can and will.

1:11:23So thank you for that.

1:11:25Thank you, colleagues, for the thorough answers to my question.

1:11:29I can be even more excited to support this knowing that we didn't receive any concerns.

1:11:34Councilor Kanal.

1:11:35Thank you, Madam President.

1:11:37Sometimes I think questions I may ask from the perspective of due diligence are interpreted as oppositional, and I want to take the opportunity to clarify that that's not the case here.

1:11:47I agree with what Councilor Murillo just said.

1:11:49Thank you.

1:11:49I appreciate what was said about the more efficient way to ensure tree canopy expansion being separate from private developers on an individual project-by-project basis.

1:12:00There was one piece, and this is sort of the underlying reason that I asked the questions I did, of oppositional testimony in writing.

1:12:07I think it came in after the committee hearing, so it wouldn't necessarily have been discussed there, although I don't actually I think we have the date available on the written testimony easily.

1:12:21And it talks primarily about the frontage side of it.

1:12:24So I did want to just kind of explore that, and I appreciate the staff doing that.

1:12:29That being said, I am inclined to support this, and I'm looking forward to the conversation developing and when we get to it in the next meeting.

1:12:39Thank you, Councilor.

1:12:40Councilor Koyama Lane.

1:12:41I'm excited about this for a number of reasons.

1:12:44I also want to thank the staff, the former commissioners, especially the one that's sitting here, all of your work on this, and also the committee that took this up and those who are introducing this.

1:12:56I think this is a great example of finding where there are bumps, challenges, and figuring out how to problem solve.

1:13:05How do we tweak the code to make sure that we're actually serving Portlanders better.

1:13:11I've been on some tours and I have seen where some of the code is not helpful or it's not meeting our goals.

1:13:18We have some big goals about the climate crisis.

1:13:21We need to make sure that we're not just checking boxes and folks are planting one little tree in a small area of concrete that will be dying soon anyway.

1:13:30So this is a great example of, okay, instead of throwing out an entire program, How can we make little tweaks to benefit everyone and not give up on our goals?

1:13:41So I am— I feel really excited that there are so many different folks at the table excited about this.

1:13:49And I— we know that it's always going to be more exciting for us, things to be polarizing and for things to seem more dramatic than they are and to make it seem like we're always on different sides.

1:14:02But would just like to highlight that this is being introduced by the mayor, Councilor Morillo, and Councilor Dunphy.

1:14:08And this very much is about helping make sure that we can have development upgrades.

1:14:16And so I don't want to hear that some councilors never care about economic development or developers or landowners, homeowners, because here we go.

1:14:26Yeah.

1:14:29Thank you, Councilor.

1:14:30Colleagues, seeing no one else in the queue, uh, we will close discussion on this agenda item and it will come back at our next meeting on second reading.

1:14:41So, uh, Council President, because this is a land use item, we need to continue it to a time and date certain.

1:14:48It is my understanding that it is likely there will be a special meeting on the 25th.

1:14:53If that's the next one, would you like to identify with the clerk a date and time, please?

1:14:59Colleagues, assuming that our next agenda item passes and we are moving to weekly meetings, my intent was to have us have a special meeting on the 24th.

1:15:08I had said that we would have special meetings to have weekly meetings until that ordinance was implemented and those weekly meetings were part of our regular schedule.

1:15:18So yes, Yes, why don't we move this to the 24th as a time-certain item on that agenda?

1:15:24And as I say that, I'm looking into the crowd to make sure— okay, thumbs up from DCA Oliveira that that's not too late.

1:15:34Perfect.

1:15:39So 9:45 on the 24th.

1:15:42Perfect.

1:15:43Thank you very much for catching that, Lindley.

1:15:47Okay, we will move this to a second reading at 9:45 on the 24th of September at a special meeting, which I don't believe has been posted yet.

1:15:57But colleagues, you do have a hold on your calendars, and for members of the public, that will be posted soon.

1:16:04Rebecca, could you please read the next agenda item for us?

1:16:07I know you may need a minute to write down the land use details there first.

1:16:10Yes, Council President.

1:16:14The next agenda item is item 10, adopt council regular meeting schedule pursuant to code subsection 3.02.010.

1:16:24Colleagues, this is a second reading, so unless there is further discussion, we will move to a vote.

1:16:30Okay, seeing none, Rebecca, can you please call the roll?

1:16:35Koyama Lane.

1:16:36Aye.

1:16:39Aye.

1:16:41Aye.

1:16:46Aye.

1:16:49Aye.

1:16:50The ordinance passes with 12 aye votes.

1:16:58Thank you.

1:16:59Could you please read the next agenda item for us?

1:17:03Item 11, amend parking space reservation code to allow for flexibility in the distribution of responsibilities.

1:17:14There we go, mic on.

1:17:14Thank you.

1:17:16And colleagues, this is a first reading, so I— Claire, you beat me to it.

1:17:20We have a committee staff summary.

1:17:24Madam President and councilors, again for the record, Claire Adamczyk, Council Policy Analyst and Staff The ordinance before you, document 2025-301, was heard in the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on August 11th, where it was referred to council with a recommendation to pass.

1:17:40The ordinance amends Portland City Code Section 16.20.460 related to parking space reservation to enable PBOT temporary street use permitting staff to reserve on-street parking spaces in metered areas.

1:17:53Second.

1:17:53The ordinance also allows a permittee to request that the city install parking reservation signage in non-metered areas as appropriate.

1:18:02The full impact statement on this item indicates no anticipated financial and budgetary impacts, nor economic real estate impacts, nor community impacts.

1:18:11No verbal or written testimony was submitted on this item prior to committee action.

1:18:14And that concludes the committee staff summary.

1:18:18Thank you, Claire.

1:18:19Councilor Clark, you were presiding at this meeting.

1:18:21Do you have anything you'd like to add?

1:18:23No, it's very straightforward.

1:18:25It's just shifting staff who can do what.

1:18:27It's pretty simple.

1:18:28Unfortunately, we have to go through all this process to make that happen.

1:18:34We have some opportunities to make things more efficient in the future.

1:18:38Colleagues, are there any questions for either Claire, Councilor Clark, or perhaps the city administrator?

1:18:44This does come from the administration before we move to any public testimony.

1:18:52Thanks.

1:18:53I'm hoping that somebody can help me answer the question about why something like this is coming to council, but the extension of the parking hours was an action that the mayor could take unilaterally.

1:19:08We voted in our budget, and it was a split vote, but we voted on our budget about increasing the parking rates And I understood that.

1:19:17But then to hear that the extension of the hours was something that did not have to have any council action on has caused me some confusion when this, what also seems like a very mundane activity, is now coming to council.

1:19:33So clearly I'm taking the opportunity to inform the public that it was not this council who extended your hours, but also I do need clarification for where we weigh in and where we do not weigh in.

1:19:47And I'm just exploiting the opportunity of parking being on the topic.

1:19:52Thank you, Councilor.

1:19:53Mr. Jordan, are you able to help us understand the difference here?

1:19:56Because I have also received a fair amount of feedback about the extended parking hours and hadn't recalled that being in the actual materials that we voted on.

1:20:11Yeah, I struggle a bit myself, but my supposition would be that there is something in current code that designates these assignments in some way, shape, or form regarding parking enforcement or parking management.

1:20:29And that's my guess as to why it's in code and we've come to you.

1:20:35As most of you know, and Councilor Ryan suffered through, we did waves of code change late last calendar year to try to remove things that were administrative and put them in administrative rule rather than keep them in code.

1:20:53I assure you we did not catch everything.

1:20:56And so this may be one of those instances, so.

1:20:58Thank you.

1:21:01Thanks.

1:21:01I appreciate that answer, and I certainly would expect that there will be many of those that come up.

1:21:08I think that while we go through these first few years of this change, being as transparent as we can about it is helpful.

1:21:15This one is just the controversy du jour or month, and so I took the opportunity.

1:21:22So thanks, Mike.

1:21:23Yep.

1:21:25Councilor, anything further?

1:21:27Councilor Kanal.

1:21:28Thank you, Madam President.

1:21:30Um, first, I appreciate Councilor Zimmerman bringing that topic up, and I, I would like to, to talk about this somewhere more, um, because it, it is something I've also heard about.

1:21:39Um, relatedly, it— my question for the, the sponsors here is, why does this need to even say parking enforcement or temporary street use permitting as opposed to city staff?

1:21:51Why does it need to be as specific as it is, even if we're adding a second enumeration?

1:21:56I understand that there's some context where, you know, we don't want to be telling, saying any city staff will do something that there's a reserved ability to do, for example, law enforcement under state law.

1:22:06But in this particular case, it seems a little bit broader, that it's not necessarily a question of legal authority.

1:22:15It's a question of our assignment of authority to within the 7,000 staffers of the City of Portland, which groups will do it.

1:22:21Yes.

1:22:22And I'm curious why it needs to be stated at all.

1:22:24Thanks.

1:22:29Councilor, is that— so this came from the administration, Mr. Jordan.

1:22:33I think that I saw DCA Dhanapal walk in, though I'm not sure if she's still here.

1:22:39Do you have somebody who you'd like to have come up and help us with this?

1:22:46We're pausing for just a moment.

1:22:49Madam Chair, can I just interject here for a second that I think your question, Councilor Kanal, is a much bigger question than just this particular situation.

1:22:59And, and per Councilor Zimmerman's comments, this really requires a different kind of look at, I think, in terms of both the code and where we have purview and where we don't.

1:23:11These are larger issues than just good morning, this is Priya Dhanapal, DC for Public Works, and I believe the question is about the parking code hours and the— is that correct?

1:23:29Sorry, I was just walking in.

1:23:31I think there was a question that has both a broad and a narrow piece to it.

1:23:36The broad piece I think we need Mr. Jordan to answer, and the narrow piece perhaps you, about how specifically we assign roles to staff.

1:23:47Would you like to repeat the question more, more specifically than that, Councilor Kanal?

1:23:52You're about 95% of the way there.

1:23:54Why does it need to say these 2 entities at all, as opposed to city staff will, is the question.

1:24:02We have Matt Crumb from PBOT who can talk specifically about the thank you, Councilor Connell.

1:24:10Matt Groom, Portland Bureau of Transportation.

1:24:13The code historically has always had parking enforcement officers were the key piece staff that were in charge of all metered areas.

1:24:21Through time and efficiencies, we've learned that the staff that does the temporary street use permits can do that, freeing up the time for the park enforcement to do their job.

1:24:30We still, obviously, as an agency and a bureau, want to have the appropriate people out in the street doing that work.

1:24:36And so opening it up to anyone is, you know, is a situation that we're not prepared yet to go.

1:24:41We could expand it in the future depending on what we looked at, but right now these staff are the professionals we feel can do it.

1:24:47Thank you.

1:24:48And just to clarify to Councilor Clark, we're not proposing an amendment.

1:24:50I'm just trying to understand here.

1:24:52So yeah, thank you.

1:24:55Thank you, Councilor.

1:24:56Councilor Ryan.

1:24:57Yes, thank you, Madam President.

1:24:58I'm just a big fan of role clarity, and it makes sense that PBOT employees are doing work that aligns most with their areas of responsibility.

1:25:05We need to make sure that our parking enforcement teams are focused on the highest priority work that includes managing the city's right-of-way.

1:25:12Our parking enforcement teams play a big part in managing that.

1:25:15Critically important work is addressing our city's growing challenges in every neighborhood around abandoned vehicles on our streets.

1:25:22We all get a lot of calls about that.

1:25:24And the teams also have a vital role in connecting individuals living in those vehicles with service providers.

1:25:29I had the pleasure of working with PBOT when we opened Sunderland, and you were really a game changer in how we were able to get people into the Safe Rest Village there.

1:25:40We found that the county's outreach workers were quite inadequate, and so we really did have to rely on PBOT.

1:25:46So I'll always thank you for that.

1:25:48The teams that you have are vital role in connecting individuals living on the street.

1:25:53The streets are stable— the streets need to be stable and safe places for all Portlanders.

1:25:57We want to make sure that we increase PBOT's capacity to do this work.

1:26:01I support the parking space reservation responsibilities moving over to temporary street use permitting, and of course I'll be voting aye on this.

1:26:09And I think it's really important when we have PBOT operational issues, it helps when we just get a little more context because it's kind of up there at the top of the list.

1:26:17Councilmember Herbold.

1:26:19Thank you.

1:26:31This discussion has now made me wanna weigh in on the specificity of the staff.

1:26:38I appreciate your answer on making sure that, hey, we want this to be like still very targeted to a certain type of staff, but I think it's important to note worker.

1:26:45But I think that should be something that, in my view, would fall to administrative rulemaking.

1:26:52And so I, I don't think I necessarily want to amend your code proposal today, but I think like the next time when we do a code cleanup package that's kind of largely administrative in nature, we might look for an opportunity to, to revisit this section of the code and, and strike these specific roles and say, you know, as described in administrative rule such and such as appropriate.

1:27:15And so I think there are some areas in our city where we want to be specific about who does what work, and that makes sense.

1:27:22But I, as I think through this, you know, temporary street use permitting staff as a label itself might change, but it's— but then, but now it's written in code.

1:27:30And so just wanted to kind of offer that for you to think about, Mr. Jordan and Priya.

1:27:36So thank you.

1:27:36Thank you.

1:27:39Thank you, Councilor.

1:27:40Councilor Zimmerman.

1:27:43Um, yeah, I think that, uh, having been a deputy city administrator in a couple other cities, the idea that my public works department— I only had a certain employee who could put a sign up— is absurd to me.

1:28:00But this is the Portland way, and I think that this idea that only PBOT The fact that not bureaus' employees have the ability to cover a sign is another example of us not really breaking out of our old bureau model.

1:28:18And I don't think we should continue to support— one, I don't think this should be in code.

1:28:26Two, I don't think our codes that do exist or administrative rules that do exist should Further the silos of the bureau model.

1:28:34The bureau model, I think, should continue to be archived.

1:28:41We are in the department model now, and the service area is the word we use, but the Public Works Department is what I care about.

1:28:47I care about the perspective of that DCA most of all.

1:28:51And so, um, the city and employee whether it be the secretary of the director or the parking enforcement officer or whomever got the stapler, the duct tape, and the sign is what makes sense to normal Portlanders when we say, oh, we're going to block off the road for XYZ permitted use.

1:29:11So I understand the purpose, the spirit of it.

1:29:14It also is still a little bit too protectionary for me, and I'm not going to be supporting the protectionist side of this because I think that's what this is doing.

1:29:22And so I will look forward to Uh, an additional code cleanup, and I think probably a code excising, and then we'll just cut this out and just get back to rationality.

1:29:34Thanks.

1:29:37Thank you, Councilor.

1:29:41Colleagues, this is a first reading of a non-emergency ordinance.

1:29:44I don't see anybody else in the queue, so we will close our discussion for today and move this to second reading.

1:29:55Thank you all for coming up last minute there.

1:30:01And Rebecca, I believe that is the last item on our agenda, is that correct?

1:30:05Oh no, item 7 from the consent agenda.

1:30:07Thank you.

1:30:08Can you please call up our last item?

1:30:09Item 7, reappoint Adam Abplanalp and appoint Greg Freeman to the Revenue Division Appeals Board.

1:30:16Thank you.

1:30:18And colleagues, because this came off of consent, we don't have a committee staff summary presentation, though there is a committee staff summary posted online.

1:30:29I will turn to our Finance Chair, Councilor Zimmerman.

1:30:32I believe you presided over this meeting.

1:30:34Is there anything that you'd like to share with the group?

1:30:38I am checking some notes quickly, and thank you for coming up, but we were unanimous.

1:30:43I know that speaking for myself, I'm asking the question for most of our boards now if them or any member of their household receives any money from any of our groups.

1:30:52And those answers were no here.

1:30:53So had the support of Finance.

1:30:55And with that, I would say if the staff has anything, Madam President, I'd invite that.

1:31:01Please, do you have anything you'd like to share with the full council before we move to discussion?

1:31:05Not at all, unless you want me to go over the presentation that I went over at the Finance Committee.

1:31:11Um, I don't believe we need a full presentation.

1:31:13I'm seeing some heads shaking no.

1:31:15If you want to just share with us the brief reappointment versus appointment, why these 2 individuals were chosen.

1:31:24Yes, perfectly.

1:31:25Yeah, so we have 2 RDAB members that have expired, and so we have one that we are reappointing.

1:31:31His name is Adam Alplanac, and I'll just do a little brief Intro on him.

1:31:36So Adam, he is a— he's the current RDAB chair.

1:31:40He's a licensed CPA, managing partner, and CEO of Cobalt PC.

1:31:44He has served on various tax accounting legal committees and boards, and he has served the public and city well in the past, and we strongly support his reappointment.

1:31:54And then Craig Freeman is our new appointment.

1:31:57He's a licensed CPA, senior manager at Geffen Mesher.

1:32:00Thank you.

1:32:01With more than 20 years tax professional experience.

1:32:04And this board position also requires approval from Metro by, um, IGA, and they have approved.

1:32:10And we believe Craig would make an excellent new board member.

1:32:17Thank you very much.

1:32:19Uh, colleagues, do you have any questions?

1:32:26Uh, Councilor Zimmerman?

1:32:31Thank you, Madam President.

1:32:33Thank you so much for introducing, um, the reappointment.

1:32:36I think I am— I'm so always thrilled when, uh, people use their, their expertise to, uh, to help us in a public way.

1:32:45So I thank you for bringing that forward, and I appreciate the work.

1:32:50Thank you, Councilor.

1:32:51Councilor Kanal.

1:32:53Thank you, Madam President.

1:32:54I had a couple questions.

1:32:55First, these appointments are retroactive to January 1st.

1:32:59Can you speak to why that is and if these 2 individuals have been serving since January 1st?

1:33:03So I believe they have not been meeting since January 1st.

1:33:07I can't not be— I'm not sure exactly because I have— I'm new in this position, but I know we did cancel a recent meeting.

1:33:16I think they were supposed to meet in May and then again Maybe August or so, and they didn't meet then.

1:33:23And as for why, multiple reasons.

1:33:26We had a lot of turnover in revenue, and then I believe with the City Council, it takes longer to get to here.

1:33:32And so that was another factor.

1:33:35Okay, so first, welcome.

1:33:36Second, thank you.

1:33:38Oh, and I never said, I'm Slietah Holt for the record.

1:33:40Sorry.

1:33:40Thanks.

1:33:42And I think that makes sense here.

1:33:44I think I'll mention for the administrator for future reference, if folks are not going to be meeting, we should just date their appointment the date of the council appointment process so that it's clearer to the public when someone starts.

1:33:57And especially for those groups, some of which have rolling term lengths, hopefully that gets fixed in the long run.

1:34:03But for right now, some of the appointments have rolling term lengths that can allow them to serve longer without a different concern.

1:34:09Councilor Dan Ryan.

1:34:11The second question I had, you've, I think, already answered, so I will stop here through the process of the discussion of those meetings that were canceled.

1:34:19Okay.

1:34:19And also, just to let you know, we do have 2 more positions expiring at the end of the year, but we will see you guys in a couple months, so we won't have to worry about people serving when they're expired.

1:34:32Thank you.

1:34:33Thank you, Councilor.

1:34:34Councilor Novick.

1:34:35Ms. Halt, I have no reason to think that you would have the answer to this extremely frivolous question, I'm an old guy.

1:34:42When I saw the name Applenalp, it brought on a wave of nostalgia because Robert Applenalp was a crony of Richard Nixon's.

1:34:49In fact, Nixon was vacationing at his house in the Bahamas when the Watergate burglary took place.

1:34:53And not that I would hold against him at all, but do you have any idea if Adam Applenalp is any relation to Robert Applenalp?

1:35:00I have no idea.

1:35:00I would encourage you not to engage.

1:35:08Thank you, Councilor.

1:35:09Councilor Ryan, maybe a question that our staff can answer.

1:35:14Yeah, thank you, Madam President.

1:35:16I just wanna say, first of all, I'll support these folks.

1:35:18I have a question though, Councilor Kanal.

1:35:21I thought you would pull things if there was a dissent in the committee.

1:35:25You're gonna pull everything off consent even if it's unanimous in the committee?

1:35:31May I respond?

1:35:32Yeah, I'm asking him directly, so go right ahead, Councilor.

1:35:34Thank you for checking.

1:35:35Yeah, I'm not— to be clear, the only things I'm pulling off of consent agenda relate to appointments to advisory boards and commissions.

1:35:41So there's plenty of things that remain on there, such as the minutes.

1:35:44I think the consent agenda on the whole is a very important tool.

1:35:48As it relates to this, that's, uh, to board and commission appointments, it's not necessarily relevant whether or not it was unanimous or not because 7 of us are not on a committee.

1:35:59I think in this particular case, and there's a question around the importance of certain bodies as they relate to hearing appeals.

1:36:09So this particular one on the transient lodging tax appeal, for example, I've talked to some of the hotel owners who had questions around how that works and how they could go about addressing those.

1:36:19So it's more about the need to ensure that yes.

1:36:23That the board or commission is accurately reflective and that we are engaging with this process so that if and when later on, because this has happened, as I think you probably know better than the rest of us actually, that often there'll be a recommendation that is not necessarily heeded by the City Council.

1:36:42And part of the conversation is, well, we didn't really worry about who got appointed.

1:36:46We're going to worry about who got appointed.

1:36:48And so we're going to have to engage with those recommendations.

1:36:51Because we picked who got appointed.

1:36:53So that's the underlying conversation there, and I've laid it out in more detail in the past, so I'll stop here.

1:36:58For some reason, on my 2-week break, I wanted to ask you this question, so thank you for answering it.

1:37:03I think this does— when we get back to our lovely dialogue about committees and such, I think we need to have more further dialogue about this.

1:37:12I know for me, if it's unanimous and I still have a question, I feel comfortable going to the chair.

1:37:17Chair of that committee and doing dialogue with them.

1:37:20And I just think that this does take up time when we're constantly pulling things off consent.

1:37:26So that's all.

1:37:27So I just wanted to bring that up because we have a lot of efficiency things coming up.

1:37:30We just approved meeting every week and we still haven't addressed the need for how we get more efficient with our committees.

1:37:37So it's just a relevant topic at this moment.

1:37:40I agree with you on that last piece.

1:37:41I'll just mention the Committee of the Whole conversation does relate very directly to this one, and I'm happy to have that.

1:37:48Thank you, Councilors, for that discussion.

1:37:49I'll note, Councilor Ryan, just because you brought up the idea of something that was unanimous, that through conversations with a few of our colleagues, one thing that I have been toying with is the idea that if something comes out of committee unanimously with no public comment in committee, we can assume that it's probably relatively non-controversial.

1:38:12Everybody was present for the committee hearing that maybe regardless of the type of content, those things should go on the consent agenda.

1:38:20And that's something that I'd be happy to separately from this meeting hear folks' thoughts on.

1:38:28So we do have the opportunity to use consent in more effective ways to help us be more efficient.

1:38:34Councilor Zimmerman.

1:38:41I have to echo Councilor Ryan's concern, and I, I, I want to use this committee— this is a finance committee who generally deals with, if you looked at what was referred to committee by the council president today, some very mundane stuff, right?

1:38:57But there are 3 members of Peacock on that committee, and if you don't trust me to come talk to me about the people we appoint to an oversight, you've got part of your caucus as well.

1:39:08And I, and I just encourage us to think about if you have concerns, true concerns, instead of grandstanding concerns about a membership, a person's membership on an advisory body, and that vote was unanimous at Finance, that there are colleagues to talk to that can avoid Sometimes we have those people show up here in person and then they are put to the back end of a 5-hour meeting.

1:39:35And I think that volunteer service is important.

1:39:38And, and when you first brought this up at the beginning of our time together about highlighting volunteer service, I appreciated that part of it.

1:39:46It seems to have gone somewhere down kind of a, a hill to die on in a way that is becoming Um, it seems erroneous.

1:39:58It kind of seems like a chance to ask questions of a thing that you're always going to vote for anyway, and it doesn't seem like it's highlighting the service.

1:40:05But I would respect anybody who wants to pull something from consent because you think the committee or any one of us missed something, or you've got a deep concern about somebody's conflict of interest.

1:40:14That's why I'm trying to think about the questions I ask when I'm on committee on these boards about a person and their household and if they're involved in the thing they're advising But I think we're all trying to do that from some perspective.

1:40:25But if we do that in committees for one another and then always will bring stuff here and make everything that goes through committee go through 100% of the same presentation, I— to Councilor Ryan's point, our use of committees seems moot.

1:40:45And that is concerning for me in terms of where are we going to trust each other.

1:40:49I think that I have said from the beginning that I was hoping that there are people— like, I use Councilor Clark as an example.

1:40:57I am so glad she's on Transportation, right?

1:41:00Because she has far more interest in that than I, and skill in that, than I personally do.

1:41:06And I like to take the lead from her.

1:41:10I would like to be able to extend that in other places.

1:41:12But if we continually say the committee can't speak for me because I wasn't at it, I just think that we're— let's use this consent agenda and this placing of people on advisory committees as an example of, I'm not sure that committees are going to be able to work for us in the future if we're not going to at least give some deference to one another and the committees who dove in.

1:41:33And I just say that again with the Finance Committee is made up of Councilor Avalos, Councilor Novick, Council President Pirtle-Guiney, Councilor Green, and myself.

1:41:42Councilor I cannot think of a more diverse political spectrum of people to represent the city's needs on that committee for a variety of very boring topics and a few occasionally nice fun topics.

1:41:59So maybe I'm taking it too seriously because it's a Finance Committee thing today, but boy, we just keep doing this in the time when we're thinking about committee future.

1:42:08Councilor I don't know what future we have if this tiniest thing continually has to be pulled off consent when it should not have been.

1:42:17So I'm done.

1:42:17Thank you.

1:42:18Thank you, Councilor.

1:42:21Councilor Kanal.

1:42:22Thank you, Madam President.

1:42:25I think the beginning and end of that statement, which is longer than we would have spent on this if we had just pulled it.

1:42:33So if we're talking about efficiency, That's an important note.

1:42:36The beginning and end of this is, I think, relevant here because the comment that this is the tiniest thing is particularly concerning.

1:42:43These boards are much more important than they're often treated as, especially the ones that have direct ability to influence things such as hearing an appeal.

1:42:52We've spent a great amount of time on conversations around what it takes for a homeowner to be able to address certain things when they're trying to build a bad Or something like that.

1:43:02Tax appeals are going here, including not just for homes but also for hotel owners, for example.

1:43:07So there's a lot of things that come to this particular board that are relevant.

1:43:11And then on the, on the front end, I'll note that I would happen to disagree pretty strongly that the items that were referred to finance were mundane.

1:43:22We had 11 foreclosure actions, a declaring of a property as surplus on Authorizing it to be sold when we are not fully having the conversation around land banking yet.

1:43:33And also an eminent domain authorization that have been sent to finance.

1:43:39I think this, I think it might be a little bit overmodest in terms of explaining what that committee is having referred to it.

1:43:47So I'm excited to get into this and in the conversation around the committees.

1:43:51So I'll stop here.

1:43:52Thank you.

1:43:54Thank you, Councilor.

1:43:56Councilor Clark, would you like to weigh in on this discussion?

1:43:59I sure would.

1:44:01Uh, thank you, Madam President.

1:44:03I, um, just set aside this particular, uh, these particular appointments, but what this conversation says to me is that we really need some marriage counseling.

1:44:18You know, we, we really need, we really need to have some sort of process, which we discussed earlier, and I don't see it moving forward at this point, but some way to work together to find our common values and develop an agenda that we can all agree on and what we want the committees to do and to try to build some trust around here.

1:44:42We, we, we— I think we all ran for office because we wanted to make this system work.

1:44:48And we want it to all pull together.

1:44:50And I just, I don't see that happening right now.

1:44:54So I know that we're gonna talk about this on the Governance Committee at some point.

1:44:58I hope we are.

1:44:59Revisit the committee issue, revisit the need for some sort of facilitation.

1:45:05But that's just what this conversation says to me.

1:45:08And I just had to throw that out there.

1:45:10So thank you.

1:45:11Thank you for the opportunity.

1:45:13Thank you.

1:45:14Thank you, Councilor.

1:45:15Councilor Avalos.

1:45:17Thank you for this discussion.

1:45:19I just want to weigh in and say that I share a lot of Councilor Kanal's concerns about how we talk about certain things as being mundane, as being minimal.

1:45:31I, you know, each individual thing we could debate, but I think the broader philosophy I disagree with, and I think it is important that we are having this discussion about the way that we operate, the way that decisions come to this body.

1:45:45You know, absolutely am willing to have a thorough debate about the role of committees and all of that, but I think I often hear this debate being shrouded in this concept of, well, we have to trust each other.

1:46:00And I will continue to say that it is not about trust.

1:46:03My job isn't about trusting all of you.

1:46:05My job is to speak for my constituents.

1:46:07My job is to weigh the decisions in front of me and use my judgment coupled with the voices of my constituents to make decisions.

1:46:14So if I'm not on a committee and you are bringing something to this council that I ultimately have 1 of 12 votes on, then I deserve to have all of the information that I need to make that decision.

1:46:25It is not about the 5 of you, because at the end of the day, 5 does not make 7, and 7 is what passes things.

1:46:31And this body here, we make decisions, we pass them.

1:46:33Councilor Loretta Smith.

1:46:33With a vote of 7.

1:46:35We do not pass them with 12.

1:46:36That is not required.

1:46:38So I do not appreciate this concept of trust being used and weaponized as us saying, essentially claiming that we do not trust each other, because that's not the problem.

1:46:48The problem is not my trust in you as my colleagues.

1:46:51I do trust you all as my colleagues.

1:46:52I do think that everybody is bringing their particular skills to the table.

1:46:57But I deserve the opportunity to represent my constituents, to use my vote as I need to.

1:47:03And that for me requires information, that requires the process for me to be able to weigh in, in a way that's reflective of the people that I represent.

1:47:11So we will continue to have this conversation clearly, but I just wanna put a finer point on this concept because I am tired of being told that I should just trust people when this, at the end of the day, is politics and I have a vote and I'm gonna use it.

1:47:25Councilor Herbold.

1:47:28Thank you, Councilor.

1:47:29Councilor Morillo.

1:47:30Thank you.

1:47:32I just wanted to say, I generally, I actually disagree with pulling these from the consent agenda, and I also fully support Councilor Kanal in wanting to do so and getting more information and the values that he brings in addressing governance.

1:47:45That's part of what he was elected to do as a Model UN nerd, as we all know.

1:47:49So I'm grateful for his perspective and what he brings.

1:47:53What he's asking for.

1:47:55I also just want to say we're being a little dramatic, you guys.

1:47:58The National Guard could come in any week now, so I think the consent agenda is the least of our problems, and we can— we will all pull it together.

1:48:05It will be fine.

1:48:08Councilor I love Councilor Murillo, and I also really love governance.

1:48:25So I actually care a lot about the consent agenda and how we can use it to make our meetings run more smoothly and efficiently.

1:48:32I think it's important.

1:48:34I actually believe we have a majority of councilors that think we could be using it more, and I think that's an important conversation.

1:48:41Actually, Councilor Kanal is someone who's really open to that and has told the council president and I he wants to be part of making sure that we can get more things on the consent agenda.

1:48:52This is— this specific thing, I hope Adam and Craig, you know, this is not about you.

1:48:59This is our own issues that are being aired right now.

1:49:04This is about a difference of opinion of what should go on the consent agenda.

1:49:09We have to have that conversation.

1:49:11Some people are more interested in than others.

1:49:13We'll start with it in the Governance Committee.

1:49:14Councilor I'm—.

1:49:18We have to find a way to separate good governance and how to make things run smoothly from some of the interpersonal power struggle type stuff.

1:49:26There's a difference of an opinion between Councilor Kanal and the council president on if these should be on the consent agenda or not.

1:49:33I'm not even sure where I stand now.

1:49:35I've kind of gone all over the place, but we do need to figure out how we can get some agreement and it's not going to be everyone.

1:49:42It might be that we have the majority of folks up here that decide these appointments need to go on the consent agenda, and that's that.

1:49:54And this conversation around using the consent agenda is happening.

1:49:58We— I mean, even just looking at some of these things today, item 11, maybe some of these things can go on the consent agenda.

1:50:06I think that's a great idea.

1:50:09And we are continuing to have people who are donating their time volunteering.

1:50:16We're wasting it in all different ways to make a point, to then make a point against someone making a point.

1:50:27Let's focus on how— what should be on the consent agenda and try to move forward.

1:50:32Thank you.

1:50:33Thank you, Councilor.

1:50:39I was going to try to wrap up that conversation, but I think you did an eloquent job at it.

1:50:44So I'll skip that part of my remarks and just bring us back to the topic at hand, which is agenda item 7, which is an appointment and a reappointment.

1:50:54And I would like to express my gratitude to Councilor Dan Ryan for his Mr. Opsahl and Mr. Freeman for volunteering their time on a really important board within our city.

1:51:05Thank you for being here today in case we had questions about the applicants.

1:51:09And I'm glad that this is something that we can move forward.

1:51:14Colleagues, seeing no one else in the queue for debate, this is a report, which means I need a motion to move it forward.

1:51:23So moved.

1:51:24Second.

1:51:24I believe I heard a motion from Councilor Avalos and a second from Councilor Kanal.

1:51:30Rebecca, could you please call the roll?

1:51:34Koyama Lane.

1:51:36Aye.

1:51:36Murillo.

1:51:37Aye.

1:51:38Novick.

1:51:39Aye.

1:51:39Clark.

1:51:40Aye.

1:51:41Green.

1:51:41Aye.

1:51:42Zimmerman.

1:51:43Aye.

1:51:44Aye.

1:51:44Dunphy.

1:51:45Aye.

1:51:46Aye.

1:51:47Aye.

1:51:47Aye.

1:51:48Ryan.

1:51:49Aye.

1:51:49Aye.

1:51:51And the appointments are confirmed with 12 aye votes.

1:51:54Thank you very much.

1:51:55Colleagues, before you get too excited, I see some people closing their materials already.

1:51:59I messed up.

1:52:00I try to make sure to do that at least once a meeting, and we apparently had folks signed up to testify on agenda item 11.

1:52:09I didn't think we did.

1:52:10That is my bad.

1:52:11So I want to make sure that we give those individuals an opportunity to share with us their thoughts on the amendments to the parking space reservation code before we move forward toward the end of the meeting, and that moves forward to a second reading at a future date.

1:52:31So Rebecca, can we reopen that agenda item and call up those individuals, please?

1:52:35We can.

1:52:36Agenda item 11, amend parking space reservation code to allow for flexibility in the distribution of responsibilities.

1:52:42And the first testifier was Hugo Flores, followed by Mark Lee.

1:52:52Okay.

1:52:54And I would like to note neither testifier joined us online at any point during the meeting either.

1:52:59Okay.

1:52:59Perhaps they didn't show today then.

1:53:01I'm glad we at least had the opportunity to invite them up if they were here.

1:53:05And I apologize that we didn't catch that earlier.

1:53:08Um, Rebecca, I believe that closes out our agenda.

1:53:10Is that true?

1:53:12Okay, colleagues, um, we passed the ordinance creating weekly meetings.

1:53:20I had said on the record previously that if that passed, I would, um, start scheduling weekly meetings as special meetings until it went into effect so that we could begin that work immediately.

1:53:32Next week we have a number of colleagues who are out of town, some out of the state, some out of the country, some of whom are not able to call in.

1:53:41We also have an executive committee scheduled or an executive meeting scheduled for next week based on our previous schedule when we didn't have weekly meetings.

1:53:51So we will not have a council meeting next week.

1:53:53We will have our regular council meeting in the evening the week after that, and then I will use that special meeting option Okay.

1:54:07So I just wanted to note that since that's a slight change from what we had talked about in the past.

1:54:14With that, I will— one other note, apologies, we do have one agenda item scheduled tomorrow in our recess meeting time, so we will be reconvening tomorrow at 2:00 PM.

1:54:272 PM, which means that we are, rather than closing, recessing today's meeting.

1:54:33Thank you very much for being here this morning.