Transcript
Automatically generated transcript. It may contain errors and includes testimony in languages other than English that is not individually marked up for assistive technology.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Um, what I'm looking for is to find out if there's a lot of extra time scheduled.
Sameer Kanal
I have a couple hours this afternoon.
Michael Jordan
Oh yeah, I'm on.
Hello.
Hello.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Good morning, it is 9:31 on Wednesday, December 3rd.
I am calling to order today's City Council meeting.
Keelan, could you please call the roll?
Good morning.
Keelan McClymont
Clark?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yeah, here.
Keelan McClymont
Green?
Mitch Green
Here.
Keelan McClymont
Zimmerman?
Eric Zimmerman
Present.
Keelan McClymont
Avalos?
Candace Avalos
Present.
Keelan McClymont
Dunphy?
Jamie Dunphy
Here.
Keelan McClymont
Smith?
Loretta Smith
Here.
Keelan McClymont
Kanal?
Sameer Kanal
Here.
Keelan McClymont
Ryan?
Dan Ryan
Here.
Keelan McClymont
Koyama Lane?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Here.
Keelan McClymont
Murillo?
Angelita Morillo
Here.
Keelan McClymont
Novick?
Steve Novick
Here.
Keelan McClymont
Pirtle-Guiney?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Here.
Can we please get our Rules of order and decorum.
Keelan McClymont
Welcome to the Portland City Council.
To testify before council in person or virtually, you must sign up in advance on the council agenda at www.portland.gov/council/agenda.
Information on engaging with council can be found on the council clerk's webpage.
Individuals may testify for 3 minutes unless the presiding officer states otherwise.
Your microphone will be muted when your time is over.
The presiding officer preserves order.
Disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony, when your time is up or interrupting other testimony or council deliberations will not be allowed.
If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given.
Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting.
Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass.
Additionally, council may take a short recess and reconvene virtually.
Your testimony should address the matter being considered.
When testifying, state your name for the record.
Your address is not necessary.
Michael Jordan
We are lobbyists.
Identify the organization you represent.
Sameer Kanal
Virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the council calls your name.
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you very much.
Colleagues, we have a full agenda today.
My goal is to get through everything up to item 16, then give us a, a bit of a break for lunch, and then come back to item 16.
We have a fair number of people signed up for public testimony on that agenda item, and I want to make sure that we have Time to hear from everybody.
The next item, or the first item on our agenda, is agenda approval.
And I will note that agenda items 8, 9, 10, and 11 have been pulled off of the consent agenda.
We will hear those between items 15 and 16.
Hopefully we can get to that before the break.
Other than that change, are there—.
Yes.
Any changes or additions to the agenda?
Seeing none, do I have unanimous consent to approve the agenda?
Okay, I don't see any objections.
Keelan?
Excuse me, Councilor, you're muted on Zoom.
Oh, it sounds like folks on Zoom can't hear us.
For folks who are on Zoom and maybe can't hear us but can see the captions, we have our clerk looking right now to see if there are any problems.
We're good now?
Yeah, and I can hear you now.
Yes, thank you.
Okay, thank you very much.
Colleagues, the next item on our agenda is public communication.
I'm glad we have that fixed before we have members of the public up so that folks on Zoom can hear them.
Keelan, could you please call up Our first, um, person for public comment.
First up, we have Injured and Pissed Off.
Welcome.
Thank you for being here.
Michael Jordan
My name's Injured and Pissed Off.
Uh, before I speak, I want to Talk about a man that I was in a homeless shelter on 14th and Northrop a couple weeks ago, maybe a month.
Uh, I'm currently in the, uh, some dunes.
I can't remember the name of it, uh, right now.
But anyways, uh, the man was in a wheelchair, and I'd noticed over a couple weeks, uh, He was still in a wheelchair.
Apparently his spinal cord injuries are more severe where he can't even get to a bed.
I think that the homeless people would be outraged.
I'm sure there's other people.
I've got spinal cord injuries and even just a flatbed isn't exactly ideal for me.
Councilor Dan Ryan.
I'd always had a hospital bed, and of course with an eviction, well, I wasn't able to move the hospital bed I'd bought and lost everything in the eviction process.
Maybe that's the reason why the mayor fired the Home Forward woman.
Anyways, this, uh, Well, Emmett Week Uninvited Guest is just 4 words, and it started the process.
I had a service animal because I'm legally blind, and it was a real service animal.
I'd explained to the United States Department of Justice that his predecessor, the previous animal that I had, Was an Oregon assistance animal.
And I explained the process to him, and it's rather lengthy, but it, I assure you, was an Oregon assistance animal, just as sure as the last animal that I had was a service animal.
And that's federal law.
Federal law is supposedly to supersede state And local laws, but it was attacked 7 times in less than 6 years.
And of course, I got injured in the 7th attack, broke my left hip and fractured 2 of my vertebrae, and then was mistreated at the hospital because they ignored the spinal cord injuries and they bent my spine.
And it's— they said that it had a slight curvature to it.
OHSU said that a couple years ago, and come to find out it's 12 degrees, and I'm only 5'8 now, and I was a lot taller than that even in high school.
And I have currently 4 other blind people in my family that's legally blind.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you for being here and sharing your story with us.
Next up, we have Shannon Normington.
Shannon Normington.
Good evening.
Next we have Lacy Sutton.
Welcome.
Good morning.
Hi, my name is Lacy Sutton and I own a home at Cherry Blossom which was built by Habitat for Humanity in 2023.
I called the fire department over 2 years ago with a question.
Why don't we have fire lane, no parking signs?
Our long, narrow, dead-end road was so packed with cars, I struggled to get my hatchback through.
How was a fire truck supposed to reach us?
A fire inspector came out, measured the road, asked firefighters to test their equipment, and gave me the fire safety plan review from 2019.
It's complicated, and I'd be happy to go through this with you code by code, but for the sake of time, this is how the inspector put it.
Okay.
We found some problems on the design end and Habitat needed to address it, and they basically just built whatever they wanted to.
He told me the truth, and the fire marshal's office immediately pulled him off the case.
They investigated this for months, then closed my request for information without answering any of my questions.
When I called the fire inspector who approved the plans in 2019 on New Year's Eve, one day before Habitat's permitting deadline, he asked me What do you want?
Do you want us to come tear down your houses?
So I went to the ombudsman for help.
Their report said the plan review process for the Cherry Blossom Townhomes broke down for reasons that have yet to be explained.
Officials from the Fire Marshal's Office acknowledged that the architect incorrectly measured the height of the Cherry Blossom Townhomes.
They also agreed that the plan review process failed to catch the error.
Our review concluded that the project was approved without addressing several code requirements.
Well, that's what the report said before Habitat Portland Region CEO Steve Messinetti contacted Deputy Ombudsman Tony Green, and he took it all out.
He assured Steve the freshly whitewashed report, quote, found no errors by Habitat, but several media outlets have previously concluded otherwise.
So I'm not totally sure how that will play out.
Tonight, KOIN News will air a story about how the fire marshal denied on TV any violations at Cherry Blossom, any problems with parking, and any jurisdiction over private property, then turned around and gave us a fire code violation for not having signs.
The city's attorneys have advised some of you, probably all of you after today, not to speak with me about any of this.
Fine.
For now, I just need you to listen to me, and I need more than 3 minutes of your time.
This is a long story about what happens when a city lets an affordable housing developer build whatever they want to, and they build a death trap.
It's only a matter of time before someone gets hurt.
After 2 years of sounding the alarm, how do you think that's gonna play out?
Thank you.
Thank you very much for being here this morning.
Next up, we have Vitea Herman.
Welcome.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Thank you for having me again today.
Um, my request is the same as a couple months ago.
I'm not sure if all of you were here at the time, but, um, my request is to to hopefully have the City Council vote to remove the property at 1300 River Street from the foreclosure process to allow me time to remediate the issues on the property and move, move it forward.
I'm not sure if Michael has had a chance to provide any additional information as was requested at the last meeting.
Unfortunately, we haven't had a chance to connect.
I have not.
Um, not sure why make emails and phone calls weren't able to get a response, but, um, happy to go through and answer any questions or go through a timeline with all of you.
Um, I know you've got a busy agenda, so happy to open it up.
I'm happy to again go through the notes that I have to give you.
Um, Thank you.
Um, I'm not sure if folks have any questions.
We generally try to keep these pretty short, but if there's something quick, we can.
I will say I personally appreciate you being here to make sure that this is back on everybody's radar so that we can— anybody who was doing follow-up can continue to do so.
I have a question.
Councilor Green.
Michael Jordan
Yeah, just while the timer's ticking, I would like to ask, so you've made calls and you've sent emails to the city and have not received response, is that correct?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Well, after the last meeting, I think the request was to have Michael kind of work with some of the city departments to provide the council an update and did not get a response from him.
I have historically talked with the foreclosure department, And the building departments.
The foreclosure department isn't willing to bring it to the City Council until I have a very detailed plan, which building or changing anything takes a long time.
And I have a plan, but it's not as detailed as is acceptable to the foreclosure department at this time.
Michael Jordan
Thank you.
I wonder if it's possible to get some sort of provisional update on that during your report.
Loretta Smith
Thanks.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I know there's a lot going on.
It's, you know, in that Albina area where the 1803 Fund is bringing a lot of good plans to the area, as well as the Albina Vision Trust.
And I do have a meeting with them tomorrow to see if there's any possibility of doing something with this property that could benefit the community.
In full transparency, the permitting process To deal with the various legal entities, not only the city, but the waterways.
I think it's like 5 different jurisdictions.
It's $65,000 just for the permitting, and it would be about $1.2 million is the bid I received to do the work on the property, which is essentially pulling out all of the pilings from the property and including in and out of the river, which is what the city wants to happen, which is what I want to try and move forward.
But If I go and spend the $65,000, or even, you know, if I'm able to go through and get the million dollars to do it, it's sitting in foreclosure means that on any given month, the city could go put it up for foreclosure, like through that process, and any effort and any funds that I put towards doing the right thing here could disappear in an instant.
So that's really why my request is to get it removed out of the foreclosure process so that I can move it forward with some level of assurance that it's not going to be a waste of money and time to go through that effort.
Thank you very much, Councilor.
Thank you for the questions.
We appreciate having you here today.
Thank you.
Is there any—.
Loretta Smith
Madam Chair, point of order.
Um, I think that, um, There is probably an expectation of an answer.
If, if, if these folks could come to my office and we could go deeper into what she's asking, um, because this is just public testimony.
So can you kind of explain that?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yeah, absolutely.
Um, thank you, Councilor.
And there is— because we're limited in time, we can't, um, get into a full conversation, but it sounds like we have an offer from Councilor Smith to sit down with you.
And as you were engaging with Councilor Green, I made a note to my staff that I want to make sure we follow up as well.
So we'll make sure that at least a couple of us are following up.
Fantastic.
I really appreciate it, and I will send each of you notes and follow up and see if we can get this moved forward.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Next up, we have Addie Smith.
That completes communications.
Thank you, Keelan.
Colleagues, the next, next item on the agenda is the committee referral list.
And Keelan, there is nothing listed online on the committee referral list, though I know I made some Yes.
So I think what we will do, folks, is send that out to everybody and make sure that— I'll just give the reminder here that the committee referral list is posted online.
So for folks who are listening or who are here in the room with us who want to see that list, check back in 24 hours and we should have it updated online.
Colleagues, that brings us to the City Administrator report.
Mr. Jordan, what do you have for us this month?
Michael Jordan
Thank you, Council President.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
And I'll just note, I'm sorry, I said I was gonna note this and then I didn't.
Colleagues, this is our last month with the City Administrator report from Mr. Jordan.
And I know there are gonna be many lasts and celebrations and notes of your time here, I appreciate that you have jumped in over the last year to getting us significant amounts of information every month in these reports and fielding a whole lot of questions.
I know that it's not always easy to have us peppering you with questions about topics from across every bureau in the city.
And I know that this report is still not perfect as we work through different iterations of what we really need there.
But I've found that you've been very responsive when we do need different things here, and I just really appreciate you taking this time every month to make sure that we can air some of these questions for Portlanders as well, and not just in conversations that we have one-on-one with you.
So thank you for making sure that this is part of our work and our regular proceedings under this new form of government.
Michael Jordan
Thank you, Madam President.
As you noted, it is still a work in progress and hopefully we're making improvements.
I will note one inadequacy in this report in a moment, but the monthly report is now affectionately known in the office as the monthly inquisition, and I appreciate that.
I'm kidding.
Just a couple of notes on this report highlights.
As you noted, Thank you.
For the public, I know that the council's had an opportunity to read this, but the public doesn't always get a chance to look it up online and look at it.
And so I especially like to note when we've got a shout-out, and I wanted to note publicly the shout-out that appears on page 3 of the report for Wafa Almaktari, an immigrant and refugee coordinator in the Office of City Attorney.
Thank you.
She was selected to represent the Pacific Northwest in a national task force for Refugee Council USA, looking at 21st century practices and reimagining how we could strengthen the support for refugee communities across the country.
And I wanted to note her work.
She does great work every day, but certainly this recognition of her, of her work is well deserved.
Thank you.
Her work is worthwhile.
And so we're very proud of WAAFA.
Another thing I wanted to note, I know if you're like me, I kind of blast through these and sometimes I overlook the numbers and they kind of get lost in the text.
But I wanted to shout out to the Graffiti Abatement Program.
They were highlighting in there, in the report, the creation of the dashboard that Makes accessible a lot of the work that the division does inside the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability.
But I wanted to note in the last sentence of that report, it says that in the '24-'25 fiscal year, the program cleaned more than 590,000 square feet of graffiti.
Wow.
Now, that number is big and doesn't mean a lot to most people, but if you break it down a little bit, that's over 13.5 acres.
Now, I grew up on a farm and acres are big, and 13.5 acres represents almost the entire berry farm that I grew up on.
And so I would hate to have to clean that much graffiti on the ground of my berry farm.
So anyway, I just wanted to note, 'cause—.
Thank you.
These numbers just go by us sometimes and we don't really reflect on what that means.
So kudos to the program.
And then the last thing I wanted to note really is I think a mistake in the report.
The Exhibit D, the Chief Procurement Officer Awards Report, only had 2 items on it this month.
I know that we awarded way more than 2 contracts in this month.
And so I've spoken with the procurement officer And he is looking into an update for that.
So you'll get an updated Exhibit D to the report.
And with that, happy to try and answer your questions.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Mr. Jordan.
Councilor Novick.
Sameer Kanal
Mr. Jordan, my question is probably influenced by the fact that last night I watched the episode of Hacks where Jean Smart's character gave her final Las Vegas show.
And she decided to open up, and instead of doing her usual jokes, she spoke from the heart.
And I would just like to, I mean, invite you to give us Jordan unplugged.
If there's things that you haven't said before because they didn't seem appropriate but you'd like to get off your chest, I'd like you to just have at it.
Michael Jordan
I'll take that under consideration, Councilor.
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
We can hold on the answer to that question until the end to give Mr. Jordan a few minutes to think about what he wants to say to us.
Michael Jordan
Maybe the very end in a couple of weeks.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yeah, we'll give you an opportunity again at our final meeting if you'd like.
Colleagues, are there any other questions from this city administrator report?
Yes, Councilor— I think Councilor Green's hand went up first, Councilor Smith, but we'll get to you next.
Okay, Councilor Green.
Michael Jordan
Thank you, Mr. Jordan.
I wonder, I think from last week or a couple weeks ago now, there was some conversation about the status of the land use permit reconsideration and that there was a December 1st deadline on appeal.
I wonder if you can give us, I know it's only 2 days later than that, but I wonder if you can give us a sense of what the current state of play is on that.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilor.
I haven't gotten an update, but I did talk with DCA Oliveira about the issue last week in anticipation of this deadline.
I haven't heard anything to the contrary that would say that we haven't restarted the clock on the process.
The time was held in abeyance for the ability to get more information.
I don't think the appellant has submitted any other information yet.
At least I haven't heard of that.
And as of December 1st, the clock would continue.
I believe it's only a matter of days or weeks until that clock ends and we would move on to the next step of the process.
And I defer to somebody to come in and actually talk to you about the technical parts of how that process moves forward.
But I believe the clock is still ticking.
Thank you.
Thank you, that's helpful.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Um, first I want to say thank you for your service.
Thank you not just for your service here, but, um, at DAS and in all your, your previous experience.
Um, it has led us to this point, uh, putting together a, um, a new government one that others can follow, um, is a huge task.
And, um, I so much appreciate you taking that on.
Um, I was looking through the report and I found something very interesting that, like you said earlier, that, um, maybe a lot of our folks who are watching online, they don't get a chance to read it, but it had some really good news we could use.
Yes.
And one of the things that I took in was that parking is going to be free.
It was—.
I wish I would have known that because I didn't go to Black Friday, but parking is going to be free.
It was free for Black Friday and December 10th, 14th, and the 21st or something like that.
Michael Jordan
13Th, 14th, the 20th, and the 21st.
Loretta Smith
Yes.
Michael Jordan
So 2 weekends prior to Christmas.
Loretta Smith
Prior to Christmas.
They should know.
It is okay to come downtown.
We're not going to, um, charge you up to, uh, come and shop.
So that was, that was really nice.
And, um, last question is, um, should we have expected the, um, the administrator's report to include the $21 million that we found in the Portland Housing Bureau back in July or August?
Michael Jordan
It's possible we could have put it in the report.
It just didn't get in there, Councilor.
So we don't normally report in this piece, at least, and you're very familiar, changes in budgetary financial situation.
But we could look into that in the future and put other things in it.
Loretta Smith
Yeah, because what it did was it really set the TAO off balance.
And so when we found out about it 3 months later, We were just getting ready to take a vote the next day when I heard from, uh, DCA Oliveira, uh, who informed me, and he sent out an email.
And so I still feel like we're— our budget is not balanced, that we need to make a budget modification to acknowledge that those extra funds, because we're still out of compliance, we still need to amend the amended TAL to do to direct how we're going to spend that next $21 million.
I know that others, you know, we have some other things that people are going to do to address it, but I just want to put on the record that TAO is not complete because we still have $21 million that is unaccounted for that should be accounted in our budget for '25-'26.
Michael Jordan
Thank you, Councilor.
And certainly I'm sure CFO Biery and Ruth from CBO would be happy to talk with you specifically about how we're working on that issue.
I'm not the expert in budget law, but I do not know if we are required to go through a budget amendment because of that piece of information that we now have about balances in the Housing Bureau.
But having said that, happy to have them talk to you.
Loretta Smith
Yeah, no, no, no, I, I know we, we do.
I've done this.
I've been around this rodeo before.
And anytime you have a significant amount of money like that, $21 million is huge, um, particularly when the TAO, uh, took an account for moving, um, $18 million in encumbrances to, to agencies.
So I definitely think that $21 million is more than worthy and expected, uh, to be amended to our, uh, to our budget.
We have to.
Michael Jordan
I, I appreciate that conversation.
Loretta Smith
So thank you very much, and thank you for your service again.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Madam President.
Thank you, Administrator Jordan, for, uh, your service, for this report.
I, uh, 3 things I just wanted to highlight.
You already mentioned Wafaa Mukhtari, whose work on Welcoming Week and so many other things has been— the shout out to Holly Campbell from BOEC, and there's on page 7 the story of how she helped a person who was falling into the river over the phone out of a sailboat.
I also appreciated the shout out to My People's Market.
For those who didn't see that, My People's Market is this Saturday and Sunday from 11 to 5 at the Oregon Convention Center.
In District 2.
In District 2.
And I appreciate highlighting this opportunity for 150 vendors of color to come out and show their businesses off.
So I wanted to follow up on a couple questions that I'd asked in previous meetings.
The first one is about information on our IGAs.
I was hoping that this would be included in the administrator's report this month.
Is there a plan in place for it to be included in the January report?
Michael Jordan
That's a great question, Councilor.
I know that both procurement office and others are working on trying to be able to gather all the data to cover all of the IGAs that the city has and try to get them into some form where we can report regularly on them and be happy to have Procurement give an update on the work.
I have been informed that it is a lot easier said than done.
It is our IGA, the existence of our IGAs, I would characterize as similar to our understanding of all of our boards and commissions.
It is difficult to actually know how many there are and where they are.
And so, I know procurement's working on it.
I don't know whether it'll be ready for, uh, January, but we at least should have an update in the report of where we are in getting to it.
So I can assure you of that.
Sameer Kanal
I love that analogy because boards and commissions are often created by the mayor's office without a lot of oversight, but when council wants to create it, they get a lot more oversight.
I think that's a comparable thing here.
I would love it if we could just Just literally a list of how many there are and then iterate from there.
I think you've done a really great job of iterating on this report month after month.
In, I wanna say September, might have been October, I asked about when in the month of June your office learned about the $11 million we were not getting from the state and whether or not it was before or after June 18th.
I didn't need the exact date, but I wanted to know.
Sure.
If the information had come from the state to the mayor and administrator prior to the final vote on the budget?
Do we have an answer to that question?
Michael Jordan
I don't, but I can get it for you.
This is the $11 million that didn't come from the state?
Correct.
Right?
I'm not aware of what date we actually knew about that, but I'll try to get documentation of when we did.
Sameer Kanal
Thanks, I appreciate that.
2 Weeks ago, I asked about a couple of the questions.
Councilor Green followed up on one about the deadline for the permit process.
I also asked if you could let us know by today when the mayor's next public event was at which ICE would be a relevant topic of conversation, because people who have come and asked us about a process, that, as you noted 2 weeks ago, we have absolutely no hand in at this stage, should have the opportunity to talk to the relevant government official on it, which in this case is the mayor.
Do you happen to know when the mayor's next public event is where it would be appropriate for a member of the public who is interested in the permit issue to raise and express their concern?
Michael Jordan
I'm not aware of a public— I'm trying to understand exactly what kind of public event that would be.
Sameer Kanal
Town hall, anything.
This is what we talked about, you, you and I, a couple weeks ago on the dais, uh, about whether or not there would be an opportunity for members of the public who want us to do something but which we can't do, as you noted, um, I think very, very clearly a couple weeks ago, to follow up with the government official who can.
Michael Jordan
I can let you know when the next time the mayor will be in a town hall or something Like that.
Sameer Kanal
That'd be great.
You don't need to let me know, let them know.
But yeah.
And then relatedly, there was a question about another extension request, and this is unrelated, but it was brought up at the same time.
There was an extension request issued on a settlement that the City Council approved and expanded the EDPA II settlement, and there was a deadline for the plaintiffs to choose from a list of properties.
They contested whether the properties were valued at the level that they were supposed to be valued at.
And the deadline, they requested an extension on that.
And to date, it had not been granted when we talked about this a couple weeks ago.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
And I compared—.
Michael Jordan
From Prosper?
Yes.
Sameer Kanal
And do you happen to know if that extension has been granted?
Michael Jordan
I don't know.
If it has been, I will find out.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay.
Sameer Kanal
My last follow-up here.
Since January, I've been asking about the, January 9th, the hiring of a permanent manager for the Office of Violence Prevention and a permanent manager for Portland Street Response.
I know that Portland Street Response ended up getting put second in the order after OVP, and I know that OVP had finalists named a couple weeks ago.
Can you speak to the progress, if an offer has been issued, if anything has happened with getting us after nearly 2 years now a permanent I know it was in process.
Michael Jordan
I don't know if an offer has been issued yet.
I'll check.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay.
Sameer Kanal
In the budget note tracker, we have 2— we had a vacancy fee study that we asked for.
It was Canal 12, and it was divided.
So there's actually 2 Canal 12s that were voted on during the budget, but it's listed one together, and it's noted in there with the narrative Without narrative description, which used to be in there, I'd love to see that back, as in coordinating with sponsor status.
I haven't heard an update in a while on that, and I am the sponsor of it.
Is there something needed for me to get that moving?
Michael Jordan
No, I don't think so.
I think it's— I think at least my notes tell me that Community and Economic Development should be Reaching out to you.
It should have happened last week, it looks like.
Sameer Kanal
And this is, I think, specifically on the part that—.
Michael Jordan
This is the commercial side, right?
Sameer Kanal
It's not clear which one is which.
So it says Canal 12 and Canal 12 Ryan divide because—.
Michael Jordan
Yeah, I have a note regarding the commercial side.
Okay.
I'll make sure that they're reaching out to you.
Sameer Kanal
Okay.
And then the last thing I'll note here is I just want to completely support what Councilor Smith said about any unexpected changes to budget funds that were found, funds that were not acquired, or we've noticed that they will not be acquired or they will come in higher or lower, would ideally be put into the report at the first possible opportunity.
I think it's good not only for the council to know it, which I think has improved over the course of the year, but for the public to know it and also for that timeliness.
Michael Jordan
So thank you.
I wanna be as clear in my head about what you're asking for.
Would it be fair to say that you're asking for some kind of a budget variance report where changes from what we had expected come to light during a month?
And we would include perhaps a listing or at least some narrative about unexpected either revenue changes or perhaps even unexpected expenditure issues where we might see something coming that, or have something happen that is, I'll say, significantly out of variance of what we— and I don't know what significantly means right now, but—.
Sameer Kanal
Yeah.
Michael Jordan
Some variance in budget from month to month.
Would that be, is that what you're, I'm trying to get in my head a general sense of how we would include it in this report.
Sameer Kanal
Speaking for myself, yes, on the revenue side at least.
And I think that might be something that we're building towards.
Yeah.
But I would strongly continue to request that Putting anything in on a topical area that we're asking about is better than waiting until it's perfect.
Michael Jordan
No, I hear what you're saying.
Sameer Kanal
Because I do think that the administration has pretty clearly on most of these things improved each of these sections over the course of the year, not necessarily each month, but within a couple months.
So I do think that that's— and you can also, once you see it, you can give comments on it.
And as opposed to the theoretical exercise So, thank you.
I'll leave it there.
I have one more detailed question if there's time, but I've gone on a while.
So thanks.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
And I'll note on the question about a budget variance report that I've had conversations with Jonas Biery about some additional information in that direction.
And I know that there are some challenges as we continue to consolidate information, getting everything from bureaus that we need.
Sameer Kanal
But I think Councilor Novick's question in a couple of minutes.
I wanted to call out a few things.
Like Councilor Smith, the free parking days caught my interest.
I want to ask this.
Will PBOT be tracking the impact of those free days so that we can get feedback from retail if in fact it made a significant difference?
Michael Jordan
That's a great question.
Always tough to track a negative, something that didn't happen.
But we certainly, because the city I believe does this nearly every year, there are free parking days during the holidays.
Sameer Kanal
Right, it seems like there's more this year, but—.
Michael Jordan
There might be.
And so I can certainly ask them to do Perhaps a year-over-year tracking to see if there's much of a variance from what we have experienced in the past.
Sameer Kanal
I think it's looking at the week before, the week after.
Michael Jordan
Well, certainly we can do that for sure.
Sameer Kanal
Just something that gives us insight into the impact of having free parking days.
That's my point.
Yeah, and I think it's probably a great idea.
And thank you, PBOT, for being adaptable.
While I'm thinking about PBOT, I've been a critic of Vision Zero 'cause the results haven't been that great.
In fact, they've kind of staggered for some time, even though we've had the program up and running for 10 years.
But I am seeing a significant drop statistically this year.
Knock on whatever this is.
That it stays put through the rest of the year.
So I wanted to acknowledge that.
Finally, on federal grants, this is probably a paranoid moment.
I noticed that we're awaiting payments, some significant ones for PBOT and PBEM.
And so since it's hard to trust what's going on in money flowing from Washington, do we have any concerns that we're awaiting payment on those?
Michael Jordan
I think we have concerns about every grant that we're awaiting payment on and have already committed funds.
I think that it is displayed in the report.
Sameer Kanal
Yeah.
Michael Jordan
But as a matter of course, How we are managing the work that is being done through these grants and the exposure that we have for the work done, expenses incurred, but the grant monies have not followed or are lagging.
And, and no, by the way, for the public's sake, that's a fairly normal course.
Of course, we are not in normal times.
Sameer Kanal
Right.
Michael Jordan
With our relationship with the federal government regarding grants.
And so that's an issue that we really, I think, need to be cognizant of across the whole board, but particularly in PBOT.
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
And I can only imagine that's an additional strain and stress on the staff.
It is, for sure.
And it's time-consuming as well.
Okay, thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Koyama Lane.
Thank you, Mr. Jordan, and thank you for your service.
I don't believe you know this, but I think back often to the time that we first met, and it was at the North Star Civic Foundation.
They were bringing together many different city administrators from across the country that had transitioned their city's form of government to a new form, and you were there.
And I remember 2 things stood out to me, and one was that you were talking about how hard the transition team was Thank you.
Really trying their best to figure out what we would need and how to support us.
And to hear specifically that folks were thinking about that and working so hard, even though they couldn't imagine exactly what we would need, that inspired me.
And then I also think back often to, I remember you sharing and having clarity on how this type of transition is big and how it's going to be a lot for our city staff.
And that was even before we knew about who the President of the United States would be.
That's before we knew how many budget cuts that we'd be talking about and how hard that would be.
And I think back to that often about how you had that clarity on how we need to be thinking about how we're supporting our staff and keeping that in mind and thinking about what this would do.
So thank you for that then.
And thank you for being steady and for picking up the phone so often.
And I too hope that—.
Thank you.
You know, you don't have to give a huge speech, but I would love to hear what are some hopes that you have for us as a council, for us as a city, if you're open to that.
Yeah.
And I had a couple things that I wanted to talk about.
Well, on page 6, I love the shout out to the Community and Economic Development Service Area on the work on the Kefauri Court.
It's such an exciting example of, An intersection of green building and energy efficiency, affordable housing, supportive services that really are long-term solutions to housing community members.
And my question is, since long-term housing solutions require investment, coordination, time, I would love to know if you are able to share at all about how we're ensuring that investing in this type of housing really is connected to and Part of the mayor's shelter plan, if it is already something that's being talked about, you know, how is that being incorporated?
How are we sharing that with the community?
That's a big question.
Talk about it more tomorrow too.
Michael Jordan
Yeah, I appreciate that.
I, you know, I think we're— I'll just maybe— this is a little bit askance from your question, but, you know, we are in conversations right now with the county about The homelessness response system, and one of the, I think, biggest challenges that we face, and we will have many going into the next year that the council is well aware of, is the— I think we have focused a lot in the last few years on folks experiencing homelessness on the street, rightfully so.
What we need to do is expand our thinking on both ends of coming into houselessness and leaving houselessness.
And we aren't expending enough resource to keep people in housing and get people into housing, supportive housing.
Thank you.
And so when you look at the balance of the investments and how we are expanding the supply of affordable housing in the region and in Portland, we are clearly not meeting the need.
And I think it's the biggest challenge we face coming into this next year, both with the county and the city, in how we allocate our resources across that continuum.
Thank you.
And right now, to be very honest with you, our sheltering system is sucking up a lot of the money that we have.
And I don't think anybody believes that the point of all of our effort is to keep people in shelters.
And so I think the council and the county commission are going to have to grapple with a really challenging Thank you for that.
Yep.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I also really appreciate on page 9, the Vision Zero updates.
And like Councilor Ryan mentioned, fatalities are trending downward and we still have work to do.
We still have people who are dying on our streets.
There was recently a death last week of a longtime District 3 resident, 87-year-old pedestrian, Thank you.
I want to thank Councilor Herbold for sharing the story of Sherraine Graywolf, who was on her daily walk last week.
And that's a reminder that we have to be protecting our most vulnerable road users, including older adults and people with disabilities.
Dana Dickman is our citywide Vision Zero lead, and she has begun notifying councilors specifically in your district if there's been a traffic fatality.
And I know that she shared with me that she's open to adjusting What that information is that she provides, if you want more or less.
So this is kind of a question to my fellow councilors as we continue to see traffic deaths and serious injuries in our districts.
How much and what type of in-district reporting do you want to receive?
I know DCA Dhanapal and Ms. Dickman are preparing the first Vision Zero quarterly report, which we'll see in January, and we'll expect more information in early 2026.
Thank you.
On the Vision Zero Task Force and progress on the 2023-2025 action plan.
But that's kind of a question for councilors.
What needs do we have?
And thank you, Mr. Jordan, for your service and for bringing also the humanness to the work.
I feel like you're good at also seeing people as humans.
And there have been multiple times where, for myself and with other people, you've pulled me aside and said like, how are things really going?
So thank you for that.
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith
Thank you, Madam President.
I'm just trying to catch my breath a little bit.
I didn't think I'd ever hear you say anything about any piece of the budget being sucking up a lot of the money.
I'm still trying to gather myself for a second, but, um, Those are the, the, the suck-up has happened over, you know, really aggressively over the last 3 years, and, um, you were a part of that.
Um, I would have hoped that you would have tried to decrease those, those dollars in a way that made sense, or put them into workforce, um, to make sure that we're training folks who are in those systems.
I think the wraparound support supports are so important.
It's one thing to give people a place to stay at night, but it's altogether different when those folks have to leave at 6 AM.
They don't have nowhere to go.
And the reason why our shelter system is not working, the night shelter systems, because those folks have to wander around For another 8 hours before they can get back into our system.
And so for me, um, I would have liked a better coordination with the county to be able to use their 24-hour facilities to allow those folks to have a place to go.
The reason why we're not filling them, because they're not coming back.
They're finding someplace that they can go 24 hours, and it might be easier for them just to stay on the street than to keep jumping through all these hoops because they can't get in until 8 o'clock at night or something like that.
So that's, that's a whole nother issue.
But I wanted to put a finer point on something that we talked about earlier, and so that we're really clear, and that I know the next administration— and congratulations to, to Ray on his appointment to— not appointment yet, but, uh, being picked as our new administrator.
Thank you.
And I don't want to go into this next session without having some clarity.
In February, I put forward a 9/12 resolution that passed to direct the city administrator to report unassigned funds to council because we were not getting updates on budget modifications or money that was available.
And so you have this conversation with Sameer, as if this was a new thought.
If we would have followed that direction in a resolution— and I'm going to be bringing it forward as an ordinance so that bureau directors pay attention and the city administrator pays attention— when we draft a resolution, we want you to follow it.
And I am I'm concerned that that money that was unassigned in the Portland Housing Bureau, that Helmi did not report it to council.
She may have reported it to the DCA and to the city administrator and to the mayor, but you all failed to report it to us for about 4 months.
I have a problem with that.
And to act like there's a mystery on what we're asking— there's no mystery to it.
Councilor Loretta Smith.
We have to be very clear on this money stuff.
And you and I have been around for a long time, and we know $21 million, you have to modify the budget when you find it, and it was not in the previous budget that was approved.
So I want to be clear that you give direction to the new city administrator about by 9/12.
Resolution that I'm going to put in an ordinance, and maybe the administration, the mayor, will take into account when they know about stuff.
And Councilor Avalos, she was on to something a couple weeks ago when she said, I want to know about something when the mayor knows about it.
The mayor knew about this money, you knew about this money, and you all failed to tell us, and you put forward a TOW without that money.
You all were wrong.
Councilor Avalos, So this discussion really kind of irritated me, and I was going to let it go, but everybody knows what they're supposed to do when they find money.
This was not just money that was already in the budget and they just failed to say where it was going to go.
This was money that was not included in the budget, and you all knew about it.
So let's make sure that we get off to the right foot with the new city administrator on how we should be notified of money, and then council has to appropriate those funds.
You all just don't sit on information.
It's not right.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Madam President.
Uh, the thing that I left till later was the, the question about Leaf Day.
Um, And I'll circle back on a couple of these.
I think we've got some of the conversation around sheltering.
We've got a work session coming up.
I'm going to circle back on the Vision Zero thing in a second.
But the Leaf Day question I had was around how the public gets notified about its existence, about its scheduling.
I get a lot of comments around this and the idea that I find out about it too late to be involved kind of Thank you.
Happy to share this information.
I think one thing that I hope that we're able to improve upon next year is collaboration with council offices who have reach of our own that may be overlapping but different than the administration side of it.
And to just highlight the testimony we got in letter format as well as on a meeting back in April from Audrey's Uncle DeCourcy, who's a D3 resident that wrote in about some proposals to D3 or to Leaf Day, sorry.
And I just wanted to ask if you knew about any of the— okay, I think that's a follow-up conversation, not super urgent at this moment, but would love to have that conversation with you offline.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yeah, sorry.
Michael Jordan
No, that's fine.
I certainly can have PBOT get you information about how outreach occurs regarding Leaf Day.
Sameer Kanal
Thanks.
The thing about Vision Zero that both Councilor Ryan and Koyama Lane brought up, I appreciate this being brought up.
I do wanna highlight the great work at reporting as well as actually doing the work that's come out of that program, that team, and specifically Dana Dickman.
I did get data on this and I wanna point out that we're trending at, we have through November 26th, we have 32 traffic deaths.
We had 57 last year.
69 And in the 60s for the 3 years preceding that.
So we're on trend to go down pretty significantly.
We were— it was about 49 at this time last year because we're not comparing the full 12 months if we're looking at 2025.
I did want to point out that in the 10-year period that I received data for, only in 2018 previous to this year was a single district getting— having more than 50%.
Wow.
Of the traffic deaths.
In 2018, District 1 had 51.4% of the traffic deaths.
You'd assume it would be 25% per district if it was evenly distributed because there are 4 districts.
Only that district prior to this year, where District 2 has 50% of the current traffic deaths.
In fact, we have not trended down at all.
The other 3 districts have all had very significant reductions.
And if we had heard— or I'm sorry, if we had been listened to when we brought up with PBOT the issues on MLK, the issues of Delta Park, the issues around Trenton Street and around New Columbia and around McCoy Park, if those issues that we raised had been listened to, I think we'd be seeing trend lines down in all 4 districts.
This is an issue I intend to raise very frequently, colleagues, especially as it relates to the fact that Still, 11 months later, we do not have District 2 representation on our Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
And I think those are correlated pieces of information.
But I would love to have further conversations on how, in the absence of our representation and our district's representation in the formal council processes, we can get better responsiveness out of PBOT so that District 2 can experience the same Councilor, were you hoping for a response there?
I, I don't, I don't think this is something that Administrator Jordan himself works on, so I, I don't want to put you on the spot for that.
I, I do want to express the concern and, and give you the opportunity, but I, I'm not expecting—.
Michael Jordan
No, I, I I hear the concern and it's valid.
I'm not aware of the numbers district by district.
Certainly what you have brought up, at least on its surface, would be a clear challenge to think about why we're not seeing the reductions in that district.
I would say, and it's not to demean what you just said because I agree with what you just said, But I hope that folks who are listening and Council, I think you do understand that the proportion of accidents, deaths, injuries on the transportation system are not things you can easily correlate to geographic boundaries.
It's a function of road miles.
It's a function of the quality of those road miles.
It's a function of actual traffic.
Yes.
On streets in districts, which is not equal across all 4 districts.
So we shouldn't think that the correlation would be equal.
It does not answer your question about District 2.
And I will make a note to talk to PBOT about reaching out about those issues.
Sameer Kanal
That's fair that 25% across might not be realistic.
And this is data from the city side.
And keep in mind, these numbers should be a little— the second number of each pair should be lower a little bit because it's a shorter period.
It's 11 months instead of 12.
But it went from 26 to 10 in District 1 from 2024 to the first 11 months of 2025.
26 To 10, that's amazing.
6 To 4 in District 3, 6 to 2 in District 4, 19 to 16.
Wow.
In District 2, which is on trend to beat '19 at the end of the year again.
So the reduction we see, which is over 50% to date in District 1, by the way, as well as District 4, is incredible.
And I want to be, uh, I want to be very, very positive towards the work of PBOT and the work of everybody involved in this, um, because it's not just PBOT.
I know PPB has a hand in it.
I know there's a lot of other partners in it as well.
Um, but I, I do want to see Sure.
Michael Jordan
Fair.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Morillo.
Thank you, Council President.
I think that you were in the difficult position early on when creating committees to try to balance everyone's interests, expertise, and the districts, and that's very hard to do.
So I just wanna acknowledge that.
And I think that the work that you've done I think that when we talk about Vision Zero, we talk, you know, Councilor Ryan said it's not working.
The reality is that Vision Zero is a roadmap and it only works as long as the council actually chooses to fund those safety improvements.
And if we don't choose to do that, that's not on the Vision Zero plan or on PBOT, that's on us as legislators for not allocating the money to make our roads safer.
There's nobody else that that falls on other than us.
So I just wanna name that now.
And especially with the recent traffic death that happened just last week, week on Cesar Chavez Boulevard again in District 3.
I will— me and my team are going to be looking into in the next budget cycle making infrastructure changes to some of those key roads in District 3 to make sure that that doesn't happen.
And I know that my colleagues care about this a lot across all the districts, and I know that Councilor Clark, chair of the Transportation Committee, really cares about this issue as well.
So I know that we're committed to it.
Director Jordan, I also wanted to go back because I think it's really, what you said is really important with regards to the shelter plan.
And this is the first time that I've heard you publicly say that as well.
And I think that we have had very difficult conversations with our constrained funds about how we address this incredibly difficult, this incredibly difficult problem, especially with how we are losing funding at the federal level.
But to me, what I want to highlight to my colleagues actually in that statement is that I know that you've expressed that privately before, some of those concerns about the shelter plan and the housing continuum and the fact that if we exclusively or primarily choose to fund overnight shelters and not the services that get people into long-term housing and not the services that keep people housed, that the problem is going to continue.
But that means that for our next city administrator, The council needs to be ready to uplift and protect them when they are critical of the mayor's plan or the executive's plan.
Because if our city administrator doesn't feel safe to— or maybe that's a strong word, I'm not gonna put words in your mouth— but if they don't feel safe to be frank about some of the policies that are coming forward and the benefits and drawbacks of them, then we are not gonna be able to get everything that we can out of a city administrator and the advice and the help that we can otherwise.
And I think that's really critical.
So perhaps the Governance Committee can look into something for that.
But that's just a problem that I'm noting here.
And I appreciate your frankness and sharing that because I think it is really critical.
And I think a few of us have stuck our necks out saying that, and it doesn't go well in the media because of course everyone wants a kumbaya moment.
We got 1,500 shelter beds.
Well, guess what?
The goalpost was moved because the goalpost— the goal was to end unsheltered homelessness on December 1st.
That's not what happened.
We got more shelter beds, which is good.
We did not end unsheltered homelessness.
And from speaking with unhoused people, being there overnight and then being released in the morning is traumatic and does not actually give the stability that people need to become housed Again, permanently.
I, I also appreciate all the work that you've done with us.
I do have a lot of concerns about the administration, and I share the concerns that Councilor Smith brought up about the $21 million that we're missing.
I do think it's absolutely wild that a DCA knew about this back in August and that council didn't find out about it until after the TAO.
That is completely unacceptable, and That may not— that might not just be you.
That might be the mayor.
That might be the DCA.
But if I, as a councilor, have to continuously fight the bureaucracy, our own DCAs, our own mayor to get information about the budget, when again, the council has the power of the purse, then we are not actually a representative form of government that represents each of our districts and our districts' interests, because that means that an executive is able to make those decisions and we aren't making decisions for the public with full knowledge.
Councilor Loretta Smith.
So, um, I say that because for whoever comes next, if we don't get that information, then council is going to have to take other actions.
We have subpoena power.
We have plenty of things to compel bureaus, DCAs, and whoever else to come before us and give us the information that we need.
And I plan to fully use those powers if that is the position that I am put in, and I expect some of my colleagues will as well.
Thank you.
Later this week, we're going to have a work session on the homelessness and housing continuum, and we need the mayor to show up.
We need bureau staff to show up.
We need people to be here to answer our questions so that we can pass policies that are informed by the experts and by the head decision makers.
And so, so I appreciate you saying that, and I also want to reaffirm some of what Councilor Smith said because I think it's really important for us as a council.
And I— and final note, I will just say I am very appreciative that you chose to stay with us longer at the city to help us through a very difficult transition into this new form of government.
And it's been a pleasure getting to work with you.
And I hope that my colleagues are prepared to support the new city administrator in whatever ways that they need so that they can act truly independently.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Mr. Jordan, anything you want to note before we continue on?
No.
Okay.
Thank you.
Councilor Green.
Michael Jordan
Thank you, Madam President and City Administrator Jordan.
I neglected to begin my comments earlier by just thanking you for your long tenure service to the City of Portland.
Public service is something that I value a lot personally, and I know that it comes with trade-offs and just really appreciate your commitment.
And I know it's hard to deal with a new form of government, and I think you put it nicely when you said the monthly inquisition.
That shows a little bit of good sport about it.
But we're asking these questions because we are trying to find our footing on the oversight powers that the city— the council has.
Thank you.
That are outlined in the charter, which are, as we've talked about in the past, both informal and formal.
And this conversation is an informal aspect of that.
And I got back in the queue because I did want to speak a little bit to what Councilor Smith raised about the $21 million.
I think it's a really, really important thing that I personally don't feel satisfied on by the email that I got from DCA Oliveira.
I think that there are outstanding questions that still need to be addressed.
Thank you.
You know, personally, for my part in the amendment to the TAO effort, I think that would have gone a little bit differently had I understood that there were $21 million of available funds to be spent for the type of things I was trying to fund.
And I don't know— I have never known Helmi Hisarik as the type of person who willfully excludes information from being shared with city councilors.
And so I think this conversation conversation is sort of in some sense a signal to the next city administrator to say my confirmation vote is going to be contingent upon my expectation that that next city administrator is willing to protect staff in their need and requirement to be able to share information with city council without retribution.
And I think that's a piece that we need to engage with city council And part of why we're talking about it this way is we have not yet used our formal oversight power to engage in these questions, which is a way for us to punch through what could be a desire to stymie that flow of information.
So I think that we need to have that hearing at some point very soon.
And I think that that's in the spirit of what my colleague is getting after, because we need to be very good at understanding how these dollars are executed, how they come in, and whether there was a lapse in the process.
I need to know more information about what happened over the course of the summer with those funds.
I do not want us to have a culture in the city as one that summarily dismisses bureau directors because they uncover information that is embarrassing or uncomfortable.
That's not an effective way to run a city.
And I'm not placing that on you, Mr. Jordan, but I am saying that the next person who comes into play, needs to reckon with that expectation from this council.
And the next council president vote will depend upon the willingness to use the oversight gavel.
And so I know that we're getting long on this agenda item, but I really needed to name that piece there because these are big dollars at play, and we're setting in place traditions, institutions, and expectations for how this government should function for the next 100 years.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
Michael Jordan
Madam President, I, I know we're over time, but I'll just be— I'll be very brief.
Uh, 2 things that I guess I'd like to add to this conversation.
Uh, first of all, the council all knows this, very challenging to talk about a personnel issue in public, so I'm not going to do that.
But I also want to make sure that the public knows that the implied linkage between this money and the personnel issue you're referring to is not a complete picture.
So I just want to make sure the public understands that.
And so enough about personnel.
I do want to say, and this is— first of all, let me say most all of the questions that council has put forward today are fair things that we should try to be responsive.
So I'm— in no way did I want to make light of that in any way.
Secondly, and more structurally, it's been mentioned, and I do think there's a conversation to be had here with the mayor and the new administrator.
And I actually think it probably should be in the public's view in a work session.
Thank you.
About the relationship between the executive, the legislature, and the administration.
And how do we want that relationship to work and be explicit and public with each other about how we want it to work?
I think we've evolved over 11 months.
We have a lot more evolving to do.
There's no question about that.
But only in the last couple of months, and I actually put that on me that I should have much earlier in our experience, last spring probably, started to talk explicitly about the separation between the executive and the administration and the roles we play.
There's no question there is a solid linkage in the charter.
Okay, I get that.
But the roles we play are different and more nuanced than the language in the charter.
Thank you.
And because there's a nuance there to those roles, I think an explicit conversation where we can perhaps come to some agreement about what those roles should be in real life, day to day, not just what's printed in the charter, is really important.
And we haven't done that.
We've kind of stumbled around it.
I don't mean to demean anybody, but I think all of us, have kind of stumbled around that notion of what are our explicit roles in this quote unquote game we're playing, and how do we hold each other accountable to play those roles appropriately.
And so I know Council President and the Vice President and Councilor Murillo, we are, and Councilor Ryan, I think, or Kanal, we're in agreement conversation about that.
And I think we're gonna have some options to look at.
Our staffs are looking at producing some options to take a look at that relationship and how we should play it.
And so, Councilor Novick and others, you asked for a little bit.
This is just a little bit of what I think structurally and systemically are gonna be really important.
Thank you.
For this city's success going forward in this new form of government, I think we have to be a lot more explicit with each other and hold each other more accountable.
And I know that I jokingly said inquisition, but seriously, this opportunity, and I think some of the reason that it has evolved into this over the course of the year that we're now spending more than an hour talking about what really should be kind of a clerical thing that comes to you every month.
It's because we haven't been explicit about those roles and how we expect each other to be.
And we're learning it.
And one of the ways we're learning it is through this conversation.
And so I appreciate it.
I appreciate that we're all learning together and it's evolving.
Thank you.
And I certainly will bear my share of the fact that we're not there yet.
So thank you, Madam President.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Mr. Jordan.
And I know that's a conversation you and I have been having more and more over the last few weeks.
So I appreciate you airing some of that for all of us here and airing some of your thoughts on it.
We have about 1 more minute on this agenda item, Councilor Smith.
Did you want to close us out?
Loretta Smith
Yes, thank you, Madam President.
Um, just to kind of piggyback on what you all— you were talking about, and I think that is called separation of powers, the legislative and executive branch, and then, um, the things that we have to do as the judicial part of our job.
Um, my chief of staff was informed at a chief's meeting that the mayor wants to know about all legislation that we're going to put forward before we do it.
Now that is a clear case of separation of powers not working, and that the administration needs to understand that we're the legislative side.
We don't have to let— we're not a bureau, and to be treated as a bureau head of sorts is disrespectful, and it is against the separation of powers.
So, you know, I know that that is something that is possibly going to be in a handbook, but I will fight against it.
Thank you.
Because that is not my job to inform the administration about any piece of language that I put forward, because I can't even talk to my colleagues about a piece of legislation.
So why would I tell it to the mayor?
Good point.
Anyway, so let's move to the second piece.
But what I failed to do in my previous comments is to ask you the question, because I feel like Your office and the administration's office is not honoring my 912th Amendment.
What should I do in terms of language to put in enforcement of it?
Because I'm going to do an ordinance and the consequences if the administration fails to let us know about things that happen, like this $21 million, which is egregious.
Um, what can— what kind of language would you suggest that I put in there that enforces it and that gives consequences?
And, and where should those consequences lie?
Because our previous Housing Bureau director, she certainly could have told us.
Someone gave her direction, and I agree with Councilor Green, someone gave direction not to tell us.
Yes.
And I don't know if that direction came from the DCA or if it came from you or if it came from the mayor.
It was a combination of the 3, but somebody needs to tell us who gave that direction not to tell us about this.
And we didn't learn about it until after she had left our office.
And I am not in no way suggesting that her departure had anything to do with the $21 million, but what I'm saying is I need direction on what language Should I put in so that the administrator knows, the new administrator and the mayor going forward, they can't hide information from us about money that's lying around?
Because as we have said before to Jonas and to Ruth, you brought together a TAL and didn't even tell us what our beginning working, um, budget was.
But the mayor knew what it was, and so they put together a TAL that Supported his priorities and not our priorities because we didn't know about the money.
So please help me be better than I have been so that I can put some language in this new ordinance that would, that would require the mayor's office and the bureaus to report this money within 30 days.
We used to do that in Multnomah County when we got new money in or we did get some money.
We, we, we thought we were getting in.
We modified the budget every month, and there's this lackadaisical kind of attitude.
We'll do that in the spring bump, we'll do that in the fall bump.
But in the meantime, the mayor knows about every dime that comes through here, and we don't.
And we're the ones who are the appropriators.
And that is why this thing has gone on So long.
And I think that's the, that's the crux of it.
And, um, help me be a better version of myself so that I can make sure that I'm putting the proper language in, because no one is paying attention to my 912s.
Michael Jordan
Happy to help any way I can.
Loretta Smith
I, I just asked you, do you know, do you have any idea of what kind of language I can put in?
Michael Jordan
I do not at this point.
I'm happy to help though.
And, and I believe language in an ordinance that is intended to hold the administration accountable or the mayor or the executive accountable, I'd certainly want to have that language looked at by the City Attorney's Office.
Okay.
Because of the separation of powers issue that you noted.
Loretta Smith
Okay.
And if— and maybe that was the wrong question to ask of you, But I truly do believe that this is going to continue if we don't have things put in place to hold everybody's feet to the fire on what their lane is.
We, we know what our lane is, but people are overstepping on both sides.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
It sounds like perhaps there's some follow-up needed.
Yes.
Over the next week to get some of those answers from Mr. Jordan.
Loretta Smith
And Madam President, point of order.
Um, I do know that there is going to be a City Club conversation with, um, Administrator Jordan where he's going to have some rapid-fire questions thrown at him in front of City Club that I saw.
That's coming up in the next week or so, correct?
Next month?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
January the 9th.
Loretta Smith
Yes, so all of you all who really want the unplugged Michael Jordan, that's where you need to go look.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
January 9th.
Yes.
Thank you, Councilor.
Colleagues, I'm going to move us forward.
We're about 5 minutes behind time, but I'm— I think we can make that up.
The next item on our agenda is the consent agenda, and I will remind you that items 8, 9, 10, and 11 have been removed from the consent agenda.
It still contains items 5, 6, and 7.
Keelan, could you please call the roll?
Keelan McClymont
Clark?
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Green?
Mitch Green
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Zimmerman?
Avalos?
Candace Avalos
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Dunphy?
Jamie Dunphy
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Kanal?
Sameer Kanal
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Ryan?
Dan Ryan
Aye.
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
The consent agenda is approved with 10 yes votes and 2 absent.
Okay, thank you, Keelan.
And that moves us to the regular agenda.
Could you please call the first item on the regular agenda?
Item number 12, add detention facility impact To ensure fair cost sharing in high-impact land uses and to reduce burden on Portland taxpayers, add Code Chapter 5.80.
Thank you.
And colleagues, this is a second reading on an ordinance.
So if there is not any discussion, we'll move directly to a vote.
Councilor Smith, are you in the queue on this item?
No, ma'am.
Okay.
Councilor Clark.
Thank you, Madam President.
I think I was sort of in and out on the first discussion, so bear with me for just a moment while I ask some questions or make a statement.
First, I just want to thank Councilor Morillo for all the work that she and her staff, all the effort that they put into this.
I really appreciate it, and I really regret that there was such hostile testimony before the council, a lot of vitriol, and I really regret that.
And, um, just want to put that out there.
I'm really sorry that happened.
Um, there's no question in my mind that the protests and what's been going on at the ICE facility have required additional, uh, policing, traffic control, cleanup efforts around the facility.
And it, it's in my district.
I live a 10-minute walk from there.
I see it every single day.
And I wish there was a way to force the federal government to pay for the impact, But this administration is backing away from paying for anything.
In fact, negating grants that have already been issued by the Congress and so forth, whether it's lawful or unlawful.
And while I'm very torn, I will admit the proposal, the proposed ordinance, it sounds very good on the surface, but I think it's going to require additional resources.
I don't believe it applies to the current facility.
I'm not positive about that.
I appreciate the discussion of the Pugovian issue because I have worked for a regulator.
I know about holding polluters responsible.
So that was fun to listen to.
But I don't know how we're going to be able to afford this staffing up on this kind of thing, particularly with the federal government that's unresponsive to the impact and unwilling to pay.
So I'm not interested in incurring additional costs.
I guess that's my major concern here.
I'd rather focus on the land use side of this, which is a process that is underway, however tedious, and that we have the infrastructure for a plan to deal with that.
So I don't know if Councilor Murillo wants to respond to my concerns or not, but I wanted to put that out there that I'm really struggling with this because I think it's a good idea.
I'm just worried about the cost.
Councilor Loretta Smith.
Councilor Morillo, would you like to address that?
Yes, thank you, Council President.
Councilor Clark, I appreciate these questions, and I know that you weren't feeling very well last week, so I appreciate— or when this was first heard, so I appreciate you bringing these now.
I will just point to folks who have any additional questions, there's a fairly extensive FAQ also written that's part of the exhibits.
So I want to address a few things.
For one thing, this applies to all ordinances.
To all detention facilities, and it's specifically made to address the fact that detention facilities have unique externalities that other facilities do not.
So this is not just about the McAdam Building, it's about all detention facilities because of the unique costs that they create for our community.
The second thing that I would add is that this will apply to the McAdam Facility because there's a nuisance fee aspect of the policy.
That means that if they are— if the policy passes and it's implemented tomorrow, Any nuisances that they do, including excessively tear gassing the neighborhood, they have to pay that nuisance fee now.
Theoretically, if the McAdam Building lease has to be renegotiated, the entire detention facility impact fee would apply to them.
So that's something for folks to consider.
I would also say that I don't think that every single time I assign a new policy research in my office that I have to hire an entirely new staffer, I actually tend to just ask Susie to do some more work.
So I think sometimes I ask when the bureaus say that we need to hire more people to do more work when it's something that's already existing within their workload, I think that's something that I would question the administration of.
People need to be able to balance how we reprioritize different asks that are coming.
I think that's natural for any office or any bureau.
Councilor Smith.
And I also want to add that when we're talking about additional costs, we are paying additional costs right now.
When we have to send police to do police overtime at the ICE facility because the federal agents are excessively using force against protesters, that's a cost to us.
When we have to do a road closure, that's a cost to us.
When we have to do environmental mitigation, that's a cost to us.
To us.
And so I think that this policy will end up outweighing that, and this fee is going to be imposed on landlords, not the federal government.
Um, so I— and especially I think for you District 4 councilors, something that's really important to remember is that REACH, the building, um, for tenants that is right across the street from the facility, those folks will be getting supported by this because They're getting tear gassed in their homes every single day, and they actually sent a letter of support for this policy as well, knowing the things that they are going to be facing in the years to come.
And I understand the desire to address this through the permitting process.
I think we all know here that land use will take at minimum four years.
It's going to take a very long time to address this through the permit process, and our constituents.
Councilor Smith.
Thank you, Mayor.
I think that people can't wait for us to address the harms that are being done by detention facilities right now.
So we have to address this right now.
And I really hope that people will be able to, you know, support this.
We have limited tools in our toolkit for how to address the harms that are being done by detention facilities, and I think we have to throw sand in the gears wherever we can.
That is our responsibility as a local government.
Thank you, Councilor Murillo.
You've cleared up a few issues for me.
I really appreciate that.
It will help in making my decision.
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Dunphy.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
Just to preview, I look forward to supporting this policy, but I had a couple technical clarifying questions that the FAQ, which was robust, didn't fully clarify for me.
And I don't know if this is to Susie or possibly to the city administrator as part of a policy I will start by just asking, and if Susie wants to jump in or— okay.
So just to be explicitly clear, I understand that the purpose of this code is to charge fees that will compensate for the actual costs to the city and the community springing from the operation of a detention facility.
So the purpose of the code is ultimately to discourage negative impacts of these detention facilities, correct?
Loretta Smith
Yes.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yeah, Susie Doister, for the record, Councilor Morillo's policy advisor.
Sorry, this is kind of weird sound.
Yes, broadly speaking, yes, that's the Pigouvian model.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, so suppose that a person who is leasing to a detention facility, a detention facility operator gets a big impact fee from the city 3 years into a 10-year lease.
Would they be able to go to the operator and say, hey, could you do X, Y, and Z to decrease your impact?
'Cause I don't want to get this kind of fee next year.
Like if the facility operator did those things, could the assessed fee potentially go down?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yeah, so not only is that something that we would hope to occur, that is exactly what we would expect to occur.
That is entirely consistent with the logic of a Pigouvian measure.
It is imposing a fee on a party that is capable of Working in some manner to reduce the negative externalities produced by a certain behavior, in this case, a detention facility operation.
Sameer Kanal
Would a— in order to avoid that fee, would the leaseholder or the property owner have to break that lease?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
No, no, I don't believe so.
I mean, I think that ultimately, as long as the detention facility continues to operate, there would need to be some sort of lease that reflects that.
Sameer Kanal
I don't think that breaking a lease would avoid a fee.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Councilor, I want to just jump in here because I think that we're hearing from Susie what the intent is from the office bringing it forward.
But I do think some of these questions may be subject to rulemaking.
And I want to make sure that we're being very explicit on the record about what is intent and what is actual final Implementation.
And as we jump into these things that I think will likely be subject to rulemaking, I want to make sure that if our legal team has any input or if the city administrator has any thoughts on how implementation will go, that we're hearing those specific answers.
Michael Jordan
Thank you, Madam President.
I think that's a good delineation of the discussion.
So I appreciate Susie's answer regarding what might happen on a hypothetical moment.
And I think council needs a, I'm sure you do remember that there are really 2 components to this.
There's the fee component that would be an annual fee that we would have to do, let's say, a methodology which links certain activities or outcomes or instances around these facilities to what we would charge on an annual basis.
Secondly, to your hypothetical, I don't think The annual fee component would actually kick in in the middle of a lease.
It would either happen upon the granting of the use, because they're conditional uses, or it would happen on the renewal of a lease after it expired— when it would expire.
That would be the triggering mechanism for the annual fee.
And Susie, please correct me if I've misinterpreted it.
The other side, the nuisance side of things, is really an It's an instance-by-instance issue.
And so I would think that the landlord who gets a bill for an instance that occurs around there because of their tenant could actually work with the tenant to say, I can't have any more of these.
Or guess what?
If I am going to have more of them, they're going to be in your lease rate and I'm going to make an adjustment.
So, so that's The intent, I think, is to obviously disincent this kind of activity around these facilities.
Sameer Kanal
That makes sense.
Well, so to that specifically, and I maybe follow up on that, I know that the— well, it won't be you, the next city administrator will come back to us with a report on the methodology that we'll be using about that.
I anticipate that we will see a structure that is not specifically discouraging siting of detention facilities generally, but rather encouraging them to be managed responsibly and in a way that maximizes community benefit versus harm.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Is that right?
Michael Jordan
Well, I'd let Susie speak to intent.
I think it's very difficult.
Let's say it's 3 years from now, right?
We've done the administrative rules, we've got all the mechanisms in place.
It seems to me unrealistic that in the course of a conditional use permit, that there wouldn't be some recognition that this is a part of the environment for this kind of use, for all the players, whether it's a future tenant, the landowner, the regulators, everybody would take that into account.
And so it's hard for me to speculate how people would react, but I think they'd take this into account as they go through a conditional use process.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
And my last question is just, can we expect, the City Council expect to get an update on how the work is going at least as early as we opening up to public comment period or on proposed rules?
Michael Jordan
Yeah, I think this is, I'll say, somewhat new territory for us.
And so I would expect that we would want to come back regularly to Council 'Cause I will tell you, I anticipate that there will be questions that come up in the administrative rule process, just writing the rules, that are gonna be challenging for us.
And certainly going back to the sponsor and being able to say, okay, we got this kind of language and we're struggling with this.
Are we hitting the intent right?
Is this logistically doable?
So I expect a fairly robust conversation during rulemaking.
Loretta Smith
Great.
Sameer Kanal
All right, thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
And I just want to jump in and say that I would be fully supportive of, uh, through the rulemaking process, making sure that it comes back to council so that my colleagues can review it, give input.
I think we've already had really rich discussions with you and some folks from the bureau who would be implementing this, and, and that would be my expectation for transparency and for input moving forward in that rulemaking process.
So thank you for that.
Is there anything from our attorney's office that you want to make sure to add, or are we all right?
Michael Jordan
I think everything has been covered.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay, thank you.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Madam President.
Um, I also have a couple questions.
These are for the administrator.
They may sound like they are, uh, more about intent, but it is, it is about your interpretation, and I want to just be super clear about that.
Uh, although I do very much appreciate the work of Councilor Murillo's office Under— in 5.80030, under fee, Part C, it talks about how the revenue will be used, and it lists out a few things deliberately not in any particular order.
During the last meeting on this, Councilor Murillo clearly stated that her top priority was assistance to communities such as households and businesses for the use of this fee.
That is also my top priority should this ordinance pass of how it would be used.
And I wanted to understand from the administration's perspective, A commitment that you would use that legislative intent in how you'd start the process of developing the next steps.
Is that an accurate, fair expectation for us to have a view?
Michael Jordan
I think so.
I think the legislative intent is fairly clear here.
And because the actual language in the code is not specific, we would end up probably trying to use your intent to prioritize those things.
I think it is also important for us to, as we go through that rulemaking, to make sure that we get it right because I have a sense that there may be challenges in getting enough fee revenue to cover all of those associated costs.
And so there may have to be a prioritization of where those fees go.
Thank you.
Great.
Sameer Kanal
And then this sort of relates to Councilor Dunphy's question, but just, I'm hoping that you can commit to transparency about how those, how the funds are divvied up and that prioritization and that we're going to have a public meeting and opportunity, maybe a work session to have those conversations.
Michael Jordan
Absolutely fine with that.
That venue based on Councilor Morillo's latest, last comment to have her colleagues be engaged.
I have no problem with the fact that we could schedule a work session around rulemaking.
Sameer Kanal
Great, thanks.
I just wanna note one thing that came up in testimony that I looked into and, you know, I looked into it not knowing that it had already been addressed by Councilor Morillo's office because you all prepared very, very strongly for it.
But there was a question in testimony raised about whether or not a fee would create a new revenue stream that would result in increasing the use of police overtime for response to protests, which some of the testifiers had a lot of strong opinions about, at the ICE facility itself.
I looked into this because I believe there is a policy structure in place to guard against this hypothetical.
I wanted to just give a little transparency as to why.
It relates to to things that are not in the ordinance but that have already been approved by council, most notably the budget note which limited Canal 10, which limited the use of overtime on protests and deprioritized it relative to burglaries and human trafficking.
It's been widely reported that about $800,000 was spent on police overtime at the McAdam facility in the month of June.
We've received information from the Public Safety Service Area that from July 1st to December 1st, 5 months, $1.384 million was spent on overtime at McAdam.
That averages out to $276,865 a month, which means we've seen a 65.4% reduction in the use of police overtime at the McAdam facility.
In addition to the benefits from a fiscal responsibility perspective, that's also mitigating the concern that I had— or sorry, mitigating the concern that I heard that this funding stream for overtime would be used to increase overtime by Portland Police at the McAdam facility.
What is likely to happen instead is that this funding stream could replace general fund expenditure on overtime, and then mayor and council could, through the standard budget process, determine where to spend those freed-up general fund dollars, whether it's another priority within police or outside of police on other city priorities.
And again, through normal budget processes.
So that addressed my other concern that I heard from testifiers.
And so I wanted to clearly indicate that and say why it is that between the questions that just came up from Councilor Dunphy and myself, and that why I'm able to support this ordinance.
Loretta Smith
Thanks.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Green.
Michael Jordan
Thank you, Madam President.
I mean, I'm a co-sponsor of this, so I intend to support this, but I wanna kind of speak to some of the, I think, were really good questions that have emerged from the dais and offer my perspective.
As to why we should do it, the cost associated with standing up a program to do the administrative rulemaking, and then the intent.
I just want to remind folks that the Exhibit A to the Ordinance 5.80.010 establishes the purpose, which is the legislative intent right up front.
And the purpose really is just to establish a fair and predictable framework for addressing the public costs that are not internalized by market activity from the specific land use.
And so I don't, I don't think it's necessarily designed to discourage certain types of land use.
We recognize that there might be some detention facilities that need to be sited in our city, whether, whether or not we like this specific one or not.
I mean, I have my own feelings on it, but the idea is to put this squarely in the realm of The public economics tradition of sort of making sure that when there is a market transaction that has external costs, there is a way to recoup those costs and internalize that in some sense.
And so I see in the administrative rulemaking process the expectation that we'll use best practices from industries that actually do this.
And the industries that come to mind off the top of my head are— Sort of any area where you have environmental regulation.
So the energy economics literature is just all about this, by the way.
It's all about how do you establish a costing structure that sort of internalizes those external costs.
There are generally— and utilities do this as well, and broadly speaking, regulatory utilities.
The Department of Energy has a whole manual on this, by the way.
Okay.
3Rd edition of their public economics manual.
But there are fixed and there are variable costs, right?
And so when we think about the annual fee, I would imagine that what we are going to do in the rulemaking process is kind of look back to see what we expect a rulemaking and sort of regulatory apparatus to cost the city.
Right.
And establish that and spread that cost over the relevant stakeholders and adjust that as according.
And then if there are specific instances that we have expectation that will be sort of like, this is a spiking or a surging cost that affects the public, then that's how you can affect the nuisance abatement aspect.
And so those 2 pieces can be thought of in the same way, like a public utility will go out and set rates and say, look, there is the standing fixed cost.
Right.
Costs of having a public utility at all.
Everyone should pay some part of that who has cost causation at play.
And then there's the variable cost where the specific party should pay.
So I think that's kind of how I think about it when I supported this ordinance.
And I think that that's how the administration will probably start to engage and ask these sorts of questions when they engage in this process.
To Councilor Clark's questions, I mean, yes, it's going to cost us some money to start doing this, but I just, again, I think about the Cottonwood School that had to move and all those families were affected, and that was not free.
They had to kind of pass the hat and make that happen.
They had to hire moving trucks.
My office had to help them get that done.
The permitting department had to sort of reprioritize work to get that done.
All that had a cost.
I think the question is, is it worth it?
And I think they're still potentially facing some lingering costs from that move.
And so it'd be nice to have a fund to make them whole, as well as the letter we got from Margaret Salazar, who is pleading with us to do something like this.
And so I think, like, you know, with an $8.6 billion budget with contingency reserves all over the place, I think we could establish a way to sort of say we can stand up a program and afford that based upon a rulemaking process.
We can recoup those costs.
And that becomes a very sustainable proposition.
So that's why I feel pretty good about it.
And I think it's something that we need to do.
Thanks.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Novick.
Sameer Kanal
I wasn't here for the first reading, so I just wanted to express a concern that I would've expressed then, which is I've gone back and forth about whether to support this.
I really appreciate the creativity and the intent.
My concern is that I feel like if I were going to vote for this, I'd be voting for the principle that if a facility winds up generating lots of protests against it, then the costs of dealing— the city's cost of dealing with those protests should be assessed to the landowner through a fee.
And—.
I think that if I adopted that principle, then I would be saying that if I were a city councilor in a city with an abortion clinic and lots of protests against the abortion clinic and lots of police overtime, etc., set to deal with those protests, then I would have to support a fee assessed against the abortion clinic for the costs of dealing with those protests.
And I know that I wouldn't do that.
I agree.
Because then I'd be sort of inviting— if there's enough protest against the abortion clinic and enough city costs, then the abortion clinic will have to pay— won't be able to pay those, then have to shut down.
So I also want to note that if this fee was totally— fee/nuisance ordinance were totally limited to costs associated with a list of chemical agents, then I wouldn't have the same concerns and I'd be okay with that.
But just wanted to state that, I mean, maybe I'm Like being unduly obsessed with intellectual consistency, but that's my concern.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Can I respond to that?
Councilor, would you like a response or were you just making a statement?
Sameer Kanal
I have no problem with hearing a response.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay, go right ahead, Councilor.
I mean, I think that the, the purpose of this policy is to address the externalities that are caused by the facility, not by other things that are happening, right?
So the— with the ICE facility or with other detention facilities, we are specifically seeing unique harms that are being caused by, for example, excessive use of tear gas.
I would say that at an abortion clinic, they don't have the manpower or the ability to tear gas the neighborhood.
So I don't think that would apply.
I appreciate the concern, 'cause obviously I would be concerned about the same thing, but I do think that legislative intent also matters when we're passing policy, and I think we've been abundantly clear about what the purpose of this is.
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
May I respond?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Councilor Novick, go right ahead.
Sameer Kanal
Yes, I mean, as I said, if this was simply about the use of chemical agents and the costs associated with that, that's something that was within the control of the facility.
But the legislation specifically talks about costs including police overtime, and I don't think that we'd be incurring lots of police overtime if there weren't protests.
I think the police overtime is directly related to issues that arise in the course of protests.
So that's my concern.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Ryan.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Council President.
Before I make a statement, I want to thank Council President for advocating that this legislation will not add further hurdles to siting much-needed behavioral health facilities and to the sponsors for providing FAQs.
Thank you.
Thank you, which addressed those concerns as well.
I really appreciate it.
That was my main issue on not wanting to support this, having had a lot of lived experience dealing with the fears of neighbors when you're trying to site those much-needed facilities.
And I think we can all agree that our city and our county, since we're in last place around behavioral health services in the country, we need to continue to site such services.
So I have to trust legal really got that one right and it won't At this moment, I got to tell you, I'm torn because my heart aches about the actions of this administration and the behaviors of the feds, the ICE agents, towards innocent families being torn apart.
Yet this comes across as a highly vis— high, high visibility with low impact policy in a resource-strapped environment.
And as you all know, I tend to be a no on such things.
Further, on the surface of such, such an ordinance, it seems like a good idea.
Thank you.
Legislation will penalize a private property owner for federal actions without truly tackling the real problem, which is to keep our immigrant community members safe and ensure that they have the services they need.
Yet, since two things can be true, it also supports the Reach Housing Facility, and those residents really deserve our support.
I'm torn on my vote and appreciate the efforts to improve this legislation as it has evolved.
And I do appreciate that.
I will add the sentiments of the D4 council members are weighing heavily on my vote.
Thanks.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Uh, Councilor Green, you spoke to this already, so I'm going to jump to Councilor Koyama Lane first.
I want to express my gratitude to Councilors Green and Murillo for leading on this.
Um, I also appreciate, Councilor Novick, how deeply you consider policies and the questions that you ask, and I am going to support this.
I want to point out that this is specific to detention facilities.
And so while I appreciate your thinking and your questioning, I wouldn't be concerned about the situation you brought up, that potential, because a medical clinic wouldn't be considered a detention facility.
Sameer Kanal
Councilor?
Michael Jordan
Yeah, I just wanted to, um, engage in this important discussion around the intellectual consistency in it.
I appreciate the nuance that you're trying to raise, Councilor Novick.
I think for me, I just want to say that this is really about establishing a fee structure based upon the specific spillover harms of a specific land use.
And so in this unique case, it's very much also about protest.
But we can imagine considering down the road another ordinance that might consider a different type of land use impact fee that probably has nothing to do with protests and probably would have nothing to do with then police overtime activity, but could involve serious environmental harms to our community.
I think there's like a trucking facility in the Parkrose neighborhood that the neighbors are experiencing some regret about the diesel emissions.
Yeah.
I know that there's going to be some— there will be future developments in my district, in the Northwest Industrial District.
And if we want to be serious about mitigating the harms of climate change, but just broad environmental and ecological impacts more broadly, I think an impact facility fee is a creative tool to at least recover that cost.
And so I think that there is the possibility to stand on intellectual consistency if we just think about this very specific space.
Councilor Spillover harm by the land use itself as the thing being considered, and not necessarily the, uh, the nature of specific speech or viewpoints of people who may gather at such a, such a place, because that's, that's really sort of secondary to the question.
So I'll leave it there.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Colleagues, I also wanted to just Quickly respond to Councilor Novick's thoughts on the intellectual consistency, because Councilor, that's something that I really appreciate about your approach, and it's something that I think about in a lot of my votes as well.
How would I approach this if the thing before me were different?
And can I justify consistency in the actions that I take here?
Because I think that our constituents deserve that.
I wanted to point out 2 things that gave me some, Some assurance that this wouldn't be as replicable to, say, an abortion facility, as you're pointing out.
And I, I know it doesn't talk about protests and police activity, but Councilor Green, I think, is astute in saying that that is part of what we're looking at with certain detention centers.
Yes.
As we think about this.
And I think it's right to look beneath the hood and say, what are the harms and why are they caused?
And that is one of the things here.
But I would point out in the whereas clauses that one of the types of impacts that's talked about are road closures and traffic management.
And while that can have to do with protests, a detention facility in and of itself without protests can lead to traffic pattern Change— needs to change traffic patterns and road closures as certain vehicles are accessing those detention centers, those facilities.
I also would point out that in the code language itself, it relies heavily on language around this being a specialized type of land use.
And when we're talking about something like an abortion clinic, which would fall under health for land use types, it's harder to parse some of the differences there.
So I just wanted to note those 2 things that as I thought about the intellectual consistency gave me some assurance that this was a vote I could comfortably take.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Madam President.
I appreciate that.
I think the impact on the community of facilities like these are where my focus is.
This relates to my question.
I think that's a great question.
Loretta Smith
I think that's a great question.
Sameer Kanal
And trying to keep the focus on how the use of revenue in a cash-strapped environment, which I think is a really important thing, that we are talking about raising revenue to address these needs that otherwise we'd be addressing some of using other dollars that we, as has been pointed out, don't really have.
But the impact on the community, we've talked about the Cottonwood School, recently met with some ER and trauma nurses about both the moral and mental toll it takes on them.
To be addressing facilities like these and the impacts that that has.
I also think that it's important to note that we're talking about a pathway to implementation here that is reasoned, that is well thought out, and that will have steps in place to ensure that all of the potential pitfalls that were raised last week or 2 weeks ago now don't necessarily— don't occur.
And I'm looking forward to hearing how the administration responds responds to this in terms of, um, how after they've had time to figure out all these details, um, how they intend to do that and that conversation that we've talked about.
Um, because this is not just about our cost, but it's because of the cost of detention centers to our communities and keeping that focus in mind, I want to, um, I want to say that that to me was the most compelling argument that, that I heard about it.
The reason that I'm able to take a vote.
Thanks.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Novick.
Sameer Kanal
I just wanted to say, first of all, I expect this to pass and I respect everybody's position and I respect the intent of it.
But Madam President, in response to your point about traffic patterns, this proposal does not limit the costs that we want to recover associated with traffic patterns to only changes in traffic patterns that would not— that would occur regardless of whether there were protests.
Hmm.
And again, I think that the reason we have police overtime is that there are protests.
And again, I think as far as environmental contamination is concerned, we could address that without going— without going— again, going any further.
So I just want to reiterate that to me, this would not be before us if there were not protests at the facility.
And although I approve of the protest at a particular facility, which, you know, that's not what this is about, but I think that the kind of cost we're talking about here, many of them are associated with protests.
And again, I'm uncomfortable with the principle that we should say that a facility generates protests then the landowner should have to pay the costs associated with those protests.
I do not find any way to get past the idea that that is— I mean, for me, I can't get past the idea that I feel like I would be endorsing that principle voting for this as it stands.
And again, I expect this to pass.
I'm not going to— I'm not personally— I'm not going to feel that bad if it passes.
I'm just saying— I'm not going to vote for it.
For my own intellectual, you know, for my own moral compass, I don't feel like I can support it.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Morillo.
Thank you, Council President.
I guess I just want to clarify a few things from what was being said here, and I do wish you had been at the first discussion so we could have hashed this out when there was an opportunity to make corrections.
I hope that my colleagues will attend some of these Yes.
A detention facility requires the city to maintain elevated readiness even on quiet days, a specialized police posture, interagency coordination, emergency staging plans, and environmental monitoring capacity, chemical cleanup readiness.
These costs are structural.
They're not event-driven.
And I think that's really important to point out.
The same protests outside of a non-detention building would not generate these same costs, and this is the clearest proof of the driver is the facility, not the protest.
If we had 200 people protesting outside of a bank, a grocery store, a hotel, the city does not pre-stage riot teams, negotiate federal roles, or monitor environmental contamination, or prepare for mass medical Those heightened responses occur because the custody of human beings is taking place inside that building, and that creates a unique response from the community.
The impact fee exists precisely for land use that creates episodic but predictable public service burdens.
And so cities impose impact-based assessments on loads of things like stadiums, convention centers, nightlife districts, industrial facilities, airports.
Not because they have constant crowds, but because when crowds do happen, those facilities generate extraordinary public service obligations.
I understand that there are things that come up and sometimes we can't have these discussions, but this has been addressed at length.
There are detention facilities that have unique costs in our community, and we have— I just want to remind folks, we have very limited tools.
Thank you.
To address what is going on at detention facilities.
As a local government, we have very limited tools to regulate the federal government, which is only— you know, this policy is about all detention facilities, not just the McAdam Building.
But we have an opportunity here to do something today.
And if other people have better ideas, I would love to see them.
I would love to see some legislation brought forward.
Because there is so much time to pick apart the work that is being done extensively, legally, and with the bureaus.
And if you have better ideas, let me know.
I'd love to hear them.
I just want to note, because our colleagues' record of attendance was called into question, that many of our colleagues have had instances where they've needed to miss I think Councilor Novick is very reliable at being at most meetings.
He had filed an absence in advance because of a conflict.
You're right.
I apologize for that.
That was— you're right.
I apologize for that, Councilor Novick.
I think I also would hope that with some of these complicated policies that you are aware of, that we could have some conversations to address some of these questions too.
Sameer Kanal
Madam President, I need to respond.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
You're in the queue.
Sameer Kanal
Councilor, I do not accept your apology because you knew that I was out of town on an annual trip that I do, and I was not at— and you knew that I was out of town, you knew that I was on vacation, and your suggestion that I didn't think this was important enough to show up is insulting.
Also, I brought up this abortion clinic analogy with you directly, personally, a couple of months ago.
And I did not feel like you had any response other than, well, I want to do something.
So I also resent the implication that I never brought this issue up with you before.
And also, I would note that I've been trying to be very careful today of saying I'm going to vote a particular way based on my personal abstract moral code.
And I have not tried to be insulting, have not tried to impugn anybody's motives.
Thank you.
And you have multiply impugned me in the past few minutes, and I resent it.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Colleagues, I am going to move us to a vote here.
Keelan, could you please call the roll?
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Green.
Aye.
Uh, Zimmerman, I believe, is absent.
Avalos.
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Sameer Kanal
Oh, I'm not absent, I'm here.
Um, I really respect, uh, the dialogue that just took place.
I am concerned about unintended consequences.
I realize it's going to pass, but I think it's good to have some dissent here.
For reasons that have been raised, and we just need to be cognizant of that.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
And I'm going to vote no.
Aye.
Aye.
Michael Jordan
Nay.
Sameer Kanal
Aye.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
The ordinance passes with 9 yes votes and 2 no votes and 1 absent.
Thank you.
Keelan, could you please call Call our next agenda item.
Item 13, amend business license law code to allow sharing select business license tax information with the Bureau of Environmental Services, amend Code Section 7.02.240.
Thank you, Keelan.
Colleagues, this is a second reading of an ordinance.
Unless there is discussion, we will move to a vote.
Seeing none, Keelan, could you please call the roll?
Keelan McClymont
Clark?
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Green?
Mitch Green
Aye.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Zimmerman, Avalos?
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Dunphy?
Jamie Dunphy
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Smith?
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Kanal?
Sameer Kanal
Aye.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Ryan?
Dan Ryan
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Koyama Lane?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Murillo?
Angelita Morillo
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Novick?
Steve Novick
Aye.
Sameer Kanal
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Pirtle-Guiney?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Aye.
The ordinance passes with 11 yes votes and 1 absent.
Thank you, Keelan.
Could you please call our next agenda item?
Item 14, pay settlement of David Barron employment discrimination lawsuit in the sum of $60,000 involving Portland Fire and Rescue.
Thank you.
And colleagues, this is an emergency ordinance as a settlement.
It did not go through the committee process, but we have, um, our staff before us here to give us a brief overview and answer any technical questions.
Go right ahead.
Good morning.
My name is Anne Milligan.
I'm a deputy city attorney.
My pronouns are she/her.
With me today I have Rose Radich from Risk Management, senior claims adjuster.
David Barron began working for the city in Portland Fire and Rescue in 1999 as an entry-level firefighter.
He is now a district fire inspector in the fire marshal's office inspecting District In June 2024, plaintiff filed the lawsuit against the City of Portland alleging that he had been discriminated against on the basis of race and that he was subject to a hostile work environment.
Barron had made no prior HR complaints, union grievances, or professional standards complaints.
A professional standards investigation was opened after Barron filed his lawsuit looking into the allegations contained in his lawsuit, but Barron declined to be interviewed or participate in the process.
Thank you.
While the court determined that many of Barron's allegations were time-barred as a matter of law and not subject to recovery for damages due to his prior attorney's malpractice in failing to provide a legally sufficient tort claim notice, a handful of allegations remained that would have proceeded to trial, which was set for November 2025.
Within the time period that remained after the court ruling, Barron alleged that a coworker asked him an inappropriate question, And the professional standards manager did not sustain the allegation that he was asked an inappropriate question by the colleague.
Witnesses, including both Black and white colleagues, denied that the statement was ever made.
Barron also claimed that he and at least one other Black employee continued to fail written promotional exams.
The promotional exam is administered by an outside third-party service that exists solely to create and administer independent promotional testing services for public safety agencies across the United States.
Barron also alleged that the promotional test questions for the senior fire inspector position were unfair to him or explicitly targeted him.
For instance, plaintiff alleged that one question asked how a supervisor should go about supervising a difficult employee.
Because the written exam is for a supervisory position, the questions were based on the existing Portland Fire and Rescue general orders As well as the city's 90-plus human resource administrative rules.
The city does not draft or have access to the test questions or answers, as they are the property of the third-party testing agency.
Again, trial in this case was originally scheduled for November 2025, and the case is currently pending in Multnomah County Circuit Court, uh, pending the outcome of the settlement ordinance.
The City Attorney's Office and Risk Management recommend resolving this case for Thank you.
Colleagues, are there any questions?
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Madam President.
Thank you for the presentation.
Um, I appreciate that most of the questions I usually ask here are already answered in the presentation.
I appreciate the, uh, note, um, in the exhibit about the, uh, historical claims data.
I'll note that while the claims data from 1 year to 5 Yes.
— Tracks pretty consistently that the amounts of the claims this year have been significantly increased.
And I'm looking forward to having some of the conversations about this if we're able to get more time in our committee to look into some of the different things in the various bureaus that relate to the Community and Public Safety Committee.
I wanted to ask, there was a conversation in as part of this about performance.
And one of the things that this raised was that there are entire zones of the city, in fact, all the zones of the city, in which only a single fire inspector covers them.
And so if there is a concern about an individual who has that role not actually going and doing inspections, there is no backup.
And I wanted to know specifically, because I usually ask the question, I'll ask it both broadly and specifically here.
What has Portland Fire and Rescue done from a policy perspective to change as a result of the issues raised by this case?
But also specifically, have we started to address the issue that there is only one potential inspector for a zone of the city, and therefore if there is If that performance is not occurring or not occurring up to snuff, that, um, that there's no backup in place.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yes, I believe that we have the fire chief with us here today to answer some of those questions.
If Chief Johnson would like to come up.
Welcome.
Thank you for being here in case some questions came up for you.
Sure.
Good afternoon, councilors.
Lauren Johnson, fire chief.
Thanks for that Certainly part of that addresses a staffing issue that we would love to have more inspectors across the city and, you know, hope— are hopeful that we can get to that place.
Also specifically related to that question, we are considering revising our forms to address that.
This was a recent concern specific to this case.
And so one of the things we've talked about doing is making sure that we've got checks and balances in terms of the business owner signing off.
Thank you.
We've even kind of considered the way businesses document deliveries when they leave something at your front door.
We do, in terms of taking a picture or something that documents your physical presence in the business as an inspector.
We do have our city laptops that the inspectors perform the inspections on, and so there's time and date stamps when they're taking photos, uploading those into the system.
But we certainly agree that Based on what we've learned from these— this type of case, that we could do that better.
Sameer Kanal
And I appreciate that, and thank you so much for being here and answering that.
The other question, and it may be rhetorical, I think, you know, we heard testimony at the beginning of this meeting about a facility that had concerns around the inspection and the fire lane and signage and things like that.
I looked at the maps at 2 different times.
So I'm not sure, but I would love to follow up at a later time to determine if there is any overlap between that area of the city, because my recollection is that they're in roughly the same portion of the city, and the zones that are assigned to some of the people involved in this case, not just this case, but the 2 related cases.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I appreciate that.
Your office sent me an email this morning, and so we're planning to follow up with you, and that's something I'll certainly look into and have that answer for you.
Sameer Kanal
Great, uh, thank you so much.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith
Thank you, Madam President.
It is good to see you, Chief Johnson, before us, and, uh, thank you for coming today.
I recognize that you have been newly hired this summer and wanted to find out, are there any, uh, training and education, um, things that you plan to do?
Because this summer was a summer where there were a lot of lawsuits and court appearances about discrimination.
Are you planning to work with Human Resources with any training and education expanded so that we're not in this situation again?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yes, ma'am.
I think there's always room for improvement.
I've heard recently about the HR training that's available citywide, and one of the things we've been wanting to pursue is, is there something specific to fire?
Our work environment is different from many of our other city employees, and I want to acknowledge that that brings extra challenges that we could definitely benefit from further guidance on.
And then I want to reassure you that this starts at the top as far as I'm concerned.
You know, anti-racism equity or values of the City of Portland, their values for the Fire Bureau, and their personal values for me.
So this is something that we lead against these issues from the top.
Loretta Smith
I, I appreciate your answer on that.
Um, last question, how many, um, African-American, um, firemen do we have on, on our Portland—.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I, I've got my computer in the back of the room.
I can check that.
Okay.
And send it to you or share it with council.
Loretta Smith
Yeah.
Oh yeah, um, I don't know if you, if you know, the city attorney, assistant city attorney, if you know how many African-American fire— firemen or firewomen that we have.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I, I don't know that number currently, um, but I believe it is a single-digit percentage of overall Portland Fire and Rescue.
Loretta Smith
Okay, you think it's a single digit?
Okay.
Yes, Chief, if you could, um, send me an email, so that, that would be great.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yes, ma'am.
Councilor, anything further?
Nope.
Okay.
Councilor Koyama Lane.
I just wanted to say, you know, every settlement is unique, and the briefings that we get beforehand from the City Attorney's Office have been so helpful.
And specifically, I wanted to thank DCA Causie and Fire Chief Johnson because from those briefings you even took questions, and on Monday Haley Brunsley sent us your responses.
And so that's something that I haven't seen before, and it's been very helpful for me to, um, have all the information I need to vote yes for this.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you all.
Colleagues, anything further before we move to a vote?
Okay, uh, thank you all for being here and for the information.
Seeing no other questions, Keelan, could you please call the roll?
Keelan McClymont
Clark?
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Green?
Mitch Green
Aye.
Loretta Smith
Alvarez?
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Dunphy?
Jamie Dunphy
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Smith?
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Kanal?
Sameer Kanal
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Ryan?
Dan Ryan
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Koyama Lane?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Murillo?
Angelita Morillo
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Novick?
Steve Novick
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Pirtle-Guiney?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Aye.
The ordinance passes with 11 yes votes and 1 absent.
Thank you all very much.
Thank you, Keelan.
And could you please call our next agenda item?
Item 15, declare city property located at 1436 Southeast Spokane Street, known as the Selwa Community Center, as surplus property and authorize city administrator to dispose of the property by sale to Friends of Selwa Community House.
Thank you.
And colleagues, this is an emergency ordinance that came out of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
I believe Claire has a committee staff summary for us.
Go right ahead.
Good morning, Madam President and councilors.
For the record, Claire Adamsick, Council Policy Analyst and staff to the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
The emergency ordinance before you, document number 2025-460, was heard in the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on November 10th, Where it was moved to the full council with a recommendation to pass.
The ordinance declares the Selwood Community House property located at 1436 Southeast Spokane Street as surplus real property.
It authorizes the city administrator or a designee to execute a purchase and sale agreement attached to the ordinance as Exhibit A and facilitate the sale and transfer of the property to the Friends of Selwood Community House for $1.
The purchase and sale agreement also includes a deed restriction requiring that the property be used for public benefit in perpetuity.
Second.
The full impact statement on this item includes information on financial and budgetary impacts and analysis and community impacts and community involvement.
No verbal or written testimony was submitted on this item prior to committee action.
And that concludes the committee staff summary.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Councilor Clark, do you have anything you'd like to add?
Yes, thank you.
Thank you very much.
And thank you, Claire, for that excellent overview.
I won't repeat anything that Claire has said.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
I appreciate what you said, but just let me provide some context for this.
Back in, I think, 2019, about 6 years ago, the City Council made a decision to close the Sellwood Community House due to a lack of resources to provide the necessary maintenance that would allow the continued use of this facility.
And this is not unusual.
The Sellwood Community House is not the only place this has happened in Portland.
So that's when the Friends of the Sellwood Community House stepped in, stepped up, knowing that this facility was really a key asset in their neighborhood, in their community, and they really wanted to keep it running.
So they worked with Parks to come up with an agreement to lease the facility for $1 a year.
And since that time, this nonprofit has raised over $2 million to fully renovate and rehab this building.
It's, it's been an amazing effort.
The building was really kind of a disaster because of flooding and lots of other issues.
And right today, if you go there, it is a bustling community center full of kids, people taking classes, exercise classes, and lots of other opportunities for community meetings.
I know I've held meetings there, and I know that Councilor Green regularly holds office hours there.
But this is an example, I think, of a very successful public-private partnership, which you've heard me harp on and others here, that we need to encourage around the city.
They've managed to accomplish with this community center— it's astonishing, really.
And I think it's a model.
There's potential here for this to happen in other places around the city, and with the help of Um, the leaders at the Sellwood Community House who've been willing to do that.
I understand that today there might be some hesitation around the emergency clause, and I just want to let you know my feeling about that is that as long as the community house is in government ownership, it's more difficult for the Sellwood Community Center to raise private funds.
There are philanthropists and others who are reluctant grant things to government.
So that stands in the way, and that's why there's an emergency clause, which I hope you can support.
And I'm happy to answer questions, and I know we have people from both the Parks Bureau here as well as the Community House if you have questions.
Thank you, Councilor.
Um, let's— before we move on to questions, I'm wondering, Keelan, if we have anybody signed up for public Do we have anybody signed up for public testimony on this item?
Loretta Smith
What was that?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I'm sorry, do we have anybody signed up for public testimony on item 15?
Uh, let me check.
No one signed up.
Okay, so colleagues, why don't we take questions and discussion together since we don't have anybody signed up for public testimony?
Councilor Koyama Lane?
Okay, Councilor Avalos.
Thank you.
Um, I have a couple of questions and then I'll follow with some comments.
Loretta Smith
And then you said you have staff here to answer some of these.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
So I'll let them walk up, I guess, if they'd like, while I begin.
So I would love to have staff walk us through how this property became eligible for a $1 sale despite its much higher appraised value.
I just want the public to clearly understand each step that led to this outcome.
We'll start there.
Good morning, Councilor Avalos.
This is Priya Dhanapal, TCA for Public Works.
I'm going to refer to Dylan Paul to talk about the process.
Great.
Sameer Kanal
Can you please repeat the question?
Sorry, it's getting settled.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yes, I got you.
So can staff walk us through how this property became eligible for a $1 sale despite its much higher appraised value?
Because I want the public to clearly understand each step that led to this outcome.
And I'll add another one, which is, and what criteria were used to justify the one-time exception to the city's real property disposition rules?
Michael Jordan
Great, thank you, Councilor.
Sameer Kanal
So in 2019—.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Do you want to introduce yourself?
Sameer Kanal
My name is Dylan Paul, Real Estate Services, Public Works Business Services Division.
In 2019, when Parks was looking at— but I guess it was 2018, looking at budget forecasts, there was a decision to close 3 community centers.
So at that time, it was a commissioner-level decision to shutter those buildings.
The direction that staff received at that time were to look for partners who were already in the building to see if they could, you know, keep the work going.
And so we were actually able to put an RFP out on the street, and we were able to get 3 very qualified entities to take over these community centers and continue substantially what the use was pre-budget issues.
So I would say it was a bit of a unique situation.
It didn't follow a standard disposition process at that time, but it was the intent at that time of Commissioner, the late Nick Fish, to not have them come back into the parks portfolio.
And so in the lease agreements, there was a clause written.
I believe it's Section 39 of this lease where it says that if the city were to decide to dispose of this property, it would be we would enter good faith negotiations with the lessee for any you know purchase sale agreement that may be resultant.
And so historically, we're looking at public.
Benefit with all of our leases.
Most of the tenants that are in the Parks portfolio share similar attributes.
So it's— I would say it's not a real hard decision to find mission alignment.
Most people don't want to be in our buildings unless they already have that spirit.
So I, I think to answer your question, it was a unique process.
This community partner has done amazing things at the site, and the value of the site actually, with the investment they've put in, is somewhat offset by how much has been invested in the site.
At the time that it was leased, that work had not been done, and so there was conversation about how a purchase and sale would be negotiated, but nothing was ever formed up.
But I think the general consensus is that with the investment with what they have done with the site, the community benefit and the deed restriction, that the public will continue to benefit and that it is not a disservice to the community or a poor use of taxpayer dollars to move forward in this.
And it gives them the ability to actually have some financial security moving into the future, which might be lessened by a cash payment or So we're always looking for a balanced support.
It's hard enough to keep these centers open, so we want to make sure that the community is served first because our goal is never to generate cash revenue but to provide the services at the lowest cost.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay, helpful answer that I'll respond to in some of my comments.
But my next question is for the mayor.
For communities that don't have the same level of resources or organizing capacity, what would the process look like if they wanted to pursue something similar, and do we have an accessible roadmap for them?
Sameer Kanal
So, uh, this is a new concept for us.
Most of the land that the city holds is land that we have a plan for, and so I don't suspect that there will be a lot of sites that will come up for closure or that we will deem no longer necessary, though there are dispositions that go through the city on a fairly regular schedule.
But for the community centers that Parks has in its portfolio, I don't have any indication that any of those would not be considered to be vital and/or continue operating under Parks leadership.
So I would say the opportunities would be far and few between unless we were closing facilities again.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Can I briefly add to that?
Sonia Szymanski, Interim Parks Director.
That answer is correct to the specific and discrete question about pathways to community organization ownership.
In terms of pathways to community organization service provision and presence in the buildings, And partnership with the Bureau to provide public benefit and community spaces and programming.
They are multiple and we are working actively to build them.
We have a lot of those partnerships and we're leaning in on that to provide more availability to community groups.
Okay, thank you for those answers.
I have a couple of thoughts.
First, I'll say that I am supportive of the ordinance.
Especially because the deed keeps the Sellwood Community Center in community hands and guarantees that it remains a public space benefit forever.
So I'm really glad that that was included and explicit.
And I think this community has clearly shown years of commitment to keeping this building active and well used, and that absolutely deserves recognition.
At the same time, I want to name a broader concern.
I don't believe that this is a public And I think we need to talk about what that means.
To me, this is a full privatization of a city-owned asset, and achieving this outcome requires a community group with significant time, resources, and know-how to navigate a complex process.
And not every neighborhood has that.
I bring it up to tell you about 2 conversations I had in my district in the last few months.
One, was at the Wilkes Neighborhood Association meeting, and they were— we were talking about Wilkes Park and just issues around safety and cleanliness, and they asked me about how they could, you know, do a friends group, or they could have a way that they could help with the cleaning up of the park, and they wanted to participate, to which I appreciate.
But what I said to them, and then I also said to the Pleasant Valley Neighborhood Association a few weeks ago who had a similar question to me about what does it look like for us to have these friends groups and adopt these parks and help them, you know, remain active, clean, and accessible.
I think that intent is, uh, noble, of course, but what I said and what I will continue to say, I worry that if we put too much onus on community members to have that kind of stewardship over their parks, then my district's going to get left out.
The district that has 40% of the city's kids, the district that has disproportionately low-income working families, they do not have the time, the resources to be able to dedicate to things like let's have cleanups, let's create friends groups, right?
Let's create some kind of complicated thing where we're going to have ownership.
I get that you say that this is kind of unique, but I think it raises those questions about opening this door to this new scenario because now we're setting up And so I just, I say that because I think it's really important that we're honest about the privilege required to take on something like that.
If this path is only accessible to some communities, then we're reinforcing the inequities amongst our other communities instead of reducing them.
And since this ordinance makes a one-time exception to our usual property disposition rules, I just want to make sure that the public understands how this got from point A to point B.
Thank you.
Especially around how a property valued at almost $1 million can be sold for $1.
And by highlighting this process clearly and publicly, my hope is that all communities, not just those with capacity, can understand what steps are available to preserve public spaces in their neighborhoods.
Lastly, I'll just say again that, you know, we had a big fight during the budget as it related to parks.
And a lot of what I said back then is relevant to this message that I'm giving, which is I was concerned that East Portland's parks were getting gutted for maintenance more than other districts.
That was clear in how it was presented.
And these are— so these decisions are not neutral and they disproportionately impact our district.
And so it just is really hard for me to hear my community be like, how can we help?
And I'm like, I agree that we want to create public-private partnerships so that people can help, but if you're paying tax dollars, you should have access to that park.
You should not have to add this extra burden as community to take care of your parks.
Loretta Smith
So I just wanted to raise that.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Again, I'm going to support this ordinance, but especially as we're about to enter, I'm sure, lengthy discussions post-parks levy passage about how we're changing the Parks Bureau, its operations, how it decides what resources go where.
I'm going to continue to elevate how District 1 continues to be harmed in these discussions, and we need to reverse that.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith
Thank you, Madam President.
Um, thank you, Councilor Avalos.
I had some of those same concerns.
I sit on the, uh, Transportation Committee, and one of the concerns I had was that we were, uh, selling this asset that was assessed for $1 million for $1.
And so the first question that I asked that, um, gave me a little bit, a sigh of relief was, um, can we have first right of refusal if they try to sell the property?
And that was the question you didn't ask.
And so, um, it will come back to us if we, we will have the ability to do that.
And, um, the other piece is this is just another— I, I look at it on both sides because this is another opportunity that we can loosen up some, um, some public dollars because this is one asset that we don't have to Take care of.
Um, they have, uh, taken on the responsibility, and the fact that they put $2 million into this to upgrade the, um, the, the, the systems in the, um, in the building, I think was amazing.
And they, and they put a new roof on, on it.
So even if they had the $2 million to purchase it from us, it would've been a wash of sorts.
Anyway, um, I think that we need to figure out some, some ways in which we can put resources into like Wilkes Park and those other places to keep them clean.
Um, there, there is at times, uh, unsanctioned homeless camps along the sidewalks by Wilkes Park, but for the most part it, it stays, um, pretty clean.
So I am going to be very supportive of this public-private partnership because this is where it works.
If this community decides that they don't want to do this anymore, we will be able to take this asset back and put it on our rolls.
But for now, it is still acting as a public entity that anyone has access to, not just the folks in the Sellwood neighborhood.
So I'm pretty comfortable with this at this point.
And I just want to say to the—.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith
Our Sellwood friends who have been working on this for years, um, this is a lot of work.
This was a lot of work you all did, and it should be commended, and I thank you for that.
And, um, DCA, Jay Upheld, this, this was a, um, a great partnership that you put together.
Um, and, you know, I, I wouldn't say that our folks don't have the wherewithal to, to do these kinds of partnerships in, in the Wilkes neighborhood, because I think we do.
We just don't have the money in great, um, you know, excess to, to put towards something like this.
But I think this is what a, a great example of a demonstration project looks like.
So thank you so much for the work that you all have done over the months to, to make this happen.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Madam President.
Thanks everyone for being here.
I have 3 questions and then some comments, and I think they're primarily for Councilor Clark.
I think first, this is the first one of the dispositions that's come to us that's come from a councilor, not from the mayor, as far as I can recall.
I may be wrong.
Can you speak to why that is?
Why is this something the mayor—.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Is this—.
Sameer Kanal
I'm not— this is a deviation from the standard practice, so I'm curious as to why.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor Kanal.
I'm not aware of the standard practice.
Okay.
Um, this is something I've been working on since I was elected.
Um, I didn't have any conversation with the mayor about it, so I don't know what the standard practice is.
Sameer Kanal
I— and I'm not saying we should always have to do it that way.
I don't think, you know, we don't need their— the permission from the mayor or any of that.
I'm just curious, uh, what will go wrong What is the dire thing we're trying to avoid by transferring ownership today versus January 9th, which is the date that if this was not an emergency, it would take effect, 30 days after next reading passage?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Right, right.
I appreciate that question.
I thought I was trying to address that earlier about their— they have outstanding applications for money, for grants from philanthropists and so forth that are hesitant to provide that money.
And I don't know what the the budget, what they're planning with that money, but they're counting on some of that coming in.
So there is some time pressure there.
We can certainly ask them to come up and give us more information if you'd like.
They're here.
Sameer Kanal
That's fair.
And I think in that scenario, I think if we were to have this not be an emergency, there would be certainty on December 10th that it would transfer ownership on January 9th.
And given that, generally speaking, when one wins a grant, one does not get a check that exact moment, I think that that is even lesser because the window is only a week.
And then the third question I had is, what is the continuing part?
And this is maybe for the staff, but maybe for you as well, Councilor Clark.
What is the continued partnership that would exist after this?
Because this, to me, this is ending a very successful public-private partnership.
I think that's a great question.
Partnership by privatizing a community center.
That's how I read this.
And are we expected— are we still going to be giving city dollars to this?
Otherwise, where is the part of this that's a partnership with the city?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Well, from my perspective, it's not the end of a relationship, but we can ask the parties that because I know they continue to work with parks.
And in fact, the Sowood Community House has been working with the Parks Department to reopen the craft shack that's in Sellwood Park.
And they raised the money to do that in an agreement with the Parks Department.
So they're going to have an ongoing relationship both at the Sellwood Community House and in Sellwood Park.
But I don't know, and, and you may want to address that, Sonia.
I don't know if somebody else wants to address the ongoing relationship with Sellwood Community House.
Yeah, it's as you describe and then some.
I think I'll defer to you for Yeah, hi, Council.
Ashley Murray, the Executive Director of the Solid Community House.
A couple things I would love to chat about is just when we think about partnership, what does that mean?
And really, if we're thinking of we're something separate here at the Solid Community House, 2 things that are so important to us are partnering with the Parks Bureau and the city, 2 things that the levy was not able to address at the level a lot of our Folks in all 4 districts wanted was level of service enhancement and also maintenance backlog.
And those were 2 things when we think about partnership.
Our building is completely off the maintenance backlog, and even we don't receive any dollars from the city or the Parks Bureau at the moment.
Loretta Smith
But our mission to Portland residents, to families, and our community members—.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
We've grown our service area and who we support.
Thank you.
We served 57 zip codes this summer, both at the park and at the Selwood Community House.
So we think about partnership as not something separate, but just as a model that we are hopefully able to maybe scale citywide at some point of braided funding and really thinking about funding from the city in terms of offering this building to us that we are able to support.
We serve all people from parents of little ones up through seniors.
And older adults.
And so really we think about partnership as not separate, something separate, but as an opportunity to fill in some gaps that the levy wasn't able to address, which is maintenance.
Our building, if we were not in that building, would probably be not used at this moment.
And right now we're serving about 2,600 families every month.
And also the level of service— parks kind of divested from our zip code years ago, which was fine.
But thinking about us being a partner able to step in and continue to offer recreation and activation in our parks for anyone available.
So that's kind of how we see our partnership is not separate from park schools or city goals, but we're able to step in and support level of service for all Portlanders.
Can I just add, Councilor Kanal, that In addition to this partnership, this partnership is bigger than you might think because the Sellwood Community House and Parks Department have been talking about trying to take this model around the city.
And I think that Ashley and her staff have been willing to train other folks around the city on how to do this, resources or not, how to find resources.
They've been very willing to work around the city with this model.
Sameer Kanal
I guess, yeah, I'm— thank you, uh, first off.
And, and, uh, I should have probably led with this.
I'm a big fan of the space as well as the work that you've done.
And also, I know that members of the organization came and gave a lot of insight during the budget process, uh, for the city that was helpful, not just about Sulla Community House, but about a lot of the things we were facing with parks and community centers at the time.
And I really appreciate that.
Everything that was just described gives me a really good picture of why what we have now is good.
I'm still unclear on why the change is necessary at all, let alone on an accelerated timeline.
I don't think that this constitutes an emergency.
I'll just say that that's been answered for me.
But also, maybe you could clarify on the braided funding.
Loretta Smith
So there will still be expectation No, the city has never once given $1 to the Sellwood Community House.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I know Zimmerman, who's not here, spoken, um, was— I think he was under the impression we did receive dollars.
We don't receive—.
We're a triple net lease.
Everything that's happened to the building is our responsibility.
The only dollars right now that the city is paying to support our services is, um, the NPUB permits and oversight from the Parks Department.
Okay.
Department.
So currently right now, this moving through this process would actually save the city money, 'cause currently if we paint a room, if we put new safety exterior stairs, just for instance, we had a grant through PGE to make our building a net-zero building.
We had 15 solar arrays, took 18 months, 14 meetings, 36 emails from the Parks Department to move through all of the—.
Thank you.
Paperwork that was required on top of additional oversight from the city in order to do that work.
So right now the only staff or the only city dollars that are paid are on oversight for our improvements to the building.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, so you're saying that all those costs go away when ownership transfer occurs, just to be clear?
If I may, just to add on that, the purchase and sale agreement is really, Talks to our alignment.
The restrictions, the requirements really kind of guarantee that the same sort of activities will continue in perpetuity.
Some of the urgency is bringing the potential of deferred maintenance backlog off of the park's books.
And so while we are not directly putting money into the site, as the owner of the property, there are some liabilities that the city still carries.
Sure.
And so the partner's intent is to repair, expand, and improve not only our public-private partnership model, which is the larger workings, not necessarily just the transfer of a building, but they're looking to make this site even more secure.
So some of the urgency is around giving them the means to move that forward.
And while, you know, sometimes days and weeks don't matter as much, They've been on a really accelerated pathway, have done really good things, and it does appear that there are some potential benefits to having this, you know, if even possible, still transfer before the end of the year, but as soon as possible based off of how hard it is to find donor money in Portland right now.
Michael Jordan
So similar to when we buy property, the time is of the essence.
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
Necessity is really about when you have a property or an investor that's hot, you want to move quickly.
And so I think that's speaking to the urgency of the matter.
Yeah, yeah.
So, um, I respect all that.
That is urgency.
That's, that's not an emergency.
Uh, and I just, uh, I've been pretty clear on this from the beginning, so I, I don't think you need my vote.
Um, but I'll be upfront about that, um, that, that, um, an emergency requires something that will eminently go wrong, not the risk of some nebulous possibility.
And I— this has been building for the whole year, um, where we don't have time to review these things.
It comes to us with one moment.
And very specifically to this ordinance, there's no public testimony.
There was no public testimony in committee.
There's no written testimony received.
And the community impacts and community involvement, uh, impact statement says that the only people that were talked to were the Friends of Sellwood Community House themselves.
I, I can't imagine that the accelerated timeline was not related to the fact that nobody else from the neighborhood has actually weighed in on this in any way.
And this is an issue we've, we've heard from, uh, the D1 colleagues, I think, a lot.
But I think it applies all over the, the city.
When you don't go out and make the space and go meet people where they're at and talk to them, you will not hear from it.
And the absence of people weighing in does not constitute a lack of interest from the So the other piece of this is I am actually concerned about the possibility that this would spread.
I think if this was a treat this as a one-off, I would be much more likely to support this because I think the Sellwood Community House is unique in the city.
But I am very concerned about the idea that this is going to lead to privatizing several other community assets around the city.
So I just want to be transparent about why it is that I will most likely be voting no.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Councilor Smith.
Sameer Kanal
If there are 2 other people, 3 other people at least that are interested in amending out Section 2, I would be interested in that.
And that would probably get me to a yes.
And I want to be transparent about that as well.
And Section 2 is the emergency clause for transparency.
Thank you, Madam President.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Colleagues, I'm going to note that we do need to take a break at 12:30.
So we'll get through as much of this discussion as we can, but we'll need to take a short break at that time.
And then depending on where we are in the agenda, we'll likely come back, finish up through agenda item 16, take a lunch break, and then come back to complete agenda item 16.
Councilor Dunphy.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
Yeah, first I wanna note that I think Councilor Kanal is exactly right 'cause it's something I've been saying that a lack of response is not consent.
That said, I have an interesting connection to the Sellwood Community House for over a decade.
In 2017, I was working in Commissioner Nick Fish's office when the decision was to close the Sullit Community Center.
And that was because the government for decades had demonstrated that we were not good tenants and we were not good at maintaining our facilities and we were not providing the benefits.
And in a zero-sum environment where we have to spend money on certain things and not spend money on others, the decision was to close it because we did a bad job.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Councilor Dan Ryan.
Sameer Kanal
And the community rallied in a way that directly benefits the people who live in that community in a way that the government demonstrated we were not going to ever really show up.
I'm enormously grateful to the Sellwood Community House.
I actually owned a coffee shop 3 blocks away from where the Sellwood Community House is.
I operated it for a number of years, watched as that facility was underutilized, watched as it closed.
Thank you.
And I'm really grateful that we are now at a place where it's a vibrant asset that is also expanding.
I was at the opening of the Snack Shack as well.
I think that's phenomenal.
That's something that hasn't happened in my lifetime.
I do— so I guess I have— I'm not a neighbor anymore in Sellwood, but I certainly, as someone with deep experience in this community or that neighborhood, really appreciate this effort.
Thank you.
I also am really excited about this because I've always thought it's odd that the private sector doesn't have a larger role in the social life of our community.
We don't see a ton of, and in the ways that other major cities do, we don't see a lot of support for the arts.
We don't see a lot of support from the private sector for culture broadly or recreation or opportunities.
And I think that— I think that's a good point.
We have culturally, as a city, recognized that the lack of private sector investment means that we have to step up, and we've done a bad job, and we have not been able to equitably provide resources to the entire community.
In Sellwood, that's the opposite.
The community stood up.
They found the money in a way that the city would never have.
I've also been very clear in my time away from government That the private sector is often willing to contribute, but they don't want to give money to government.
And that, that is true again across the arts, across other cultural events, across supports for small business, for recreation.
I think that this is the right move.
I have some concern generally, broadly about disposing of any public property, but I feel a lot of confidence that A, this is not a financial transaction, this is a managerial transaction.
And B, if everything goes horribly, the city will still have a public asset that will revert back to us.
The building will not go away, but we would've allowed it to just rot and it would've just gone away on its own.
And this means now that we don't have to do the maintenance there.
We don't have to do the activation there.
And those precious few dollars that we do have in our parks budget, Can now arguably be spent in places where the public will not step up.
I think that there are plenty of other opportunities for us to try and pursue partnerships like this.
I think the IFCC, the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center, I think the city has done a bad job of finding a permanent model.
I think the community might be able to step up in a way that will attract private investment.
I think that the Woodstock Community Center is kind of just 4 walls and not being properly used.
And not activated as an asset.
And this will, you know, looking for other opportunities.
I know that there are conversations in parks about the future of the Community Music Center or whether there is an expansion into District 1 for that that may not be coming inside of a city facility.
I think that that's all really exciting.
We need to keep an eye on it.
We need to make sure we aren't Chicago selling away the parking rights.
Yeah.
I think we need to recognize that we are trying to accomplish something by leaning into community where government simply will not be able to meet the standards that we hold for ourselves.
And I think that's actually a really good thing.
This is leadership.
This is inviting the community in.
And if we don't have to put all the efforts into the Community House, then maybe that is a likelihood that in the next budget, which is going to suck, we can put more effort into the community.
Thank you.
There is fewer potential cuts happening to my district.
So I think this is a great win-win for everybody.
I'm not saying that we should do this universally and everywhere, but with great partners like the Seward Community House, I feel a lot of confidence in this.
I hear Councilor Kanal's concerns also about the emergency.
I'm less philosophically concerned about that, but I appreciate the that there is a difference between urgency and emergency.
But regardless, I'm thankful to my colleague, Councilor Clark.
She and I have had a number of conversations about these exact— this exact thing and philosophically where the city is moving.
And so I'm excited to be supportive.
So thank you for everything you've done for our community.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Green.
Michael Jordan
I'm recognizing that 12:30 is our important timeline, so I'll be brief.
I just, I just want to say that I offer my strongest support for this and also the emergency ordinance.
I hear your concerns about that more broadly.
Um, I, I think in this situation, I, I do feel like it's an emergency from the standpoint of the viability of this institution and its ability to deliver benefits to my district.
Um, this is a really important fundraising period.
Winter months, typically when you can go out and get that kind of cash.
And if you lose a month, that sets you back and it compounds.
And this Sellwood Community House is delivering not just like a third space, but it's also a preschool.
They're also having challenges with, with that, with the city as well.
And so, and the county and other jurisdictions.
And so I see this as an opportunity to step in with some urgency at a period in our city's history where a lot of the public is wondering what is City Council doing to minimize the pain And this is— SOWA Community House has stepped up to the plate to fill in that gap in ways that we have failed in the past.
So I don't need to belabor all the other questions.
I do want to reaffirm, though, that I don't see this as a precedent setting, or I should just say it differently.
I'm putting myself on notice that I am not going to go along with a broader process that would allow for the city to privatization scheme to transfer existing parks assets into the private sector.
I understand that there are some cost savings associated with that, but it comes at the expense of union jobs and it comes at the expense of public goods.
I believe in public state capacity, and, you know, all the labor unions that have ever endorsed me will remind me of this if I vote to further this.
This is not that.
This is an asset that has already been disposed of and It's guarded by the City of Portland.
And I just want to give credit to Councilor Clark.
I mean, we all have our different lanes.
We focus on different issues.
I care a lot about the Soulwood Community House, but I don't have to worry about it that much because I know that you're on it.
And the work that you did over the summer to activate the shack and help them out and clear the bottlenecks for them is commendable.
I think when we talk about this kind of spectrum between, like, lack of testimony and Lack of testimony is not consent.
I generally agree with that, but I think you also have to take that into certain context and ask a few questions like, did this come from the mayor or the administrator?
No, it came from a councilor who's been in community.
I don't know of any other— in fact, also, I'll say it, apologies to Zimmerman on the call, but there is no other District 4 councilor that goes to more neighborhood association meetings than Councilor Clark.
You're— you or your staff are at every single one of them.
And I'm not at all of them.
So all I'm saying is this came out, I think, of a desire to show up for our district, for our neighborhood, probably the most cherished third space in Sellwood that I know trickles out into our neighborhoods in ways that if I were to go knock doors and canvass and ask the question of like, do you think this is a good idea?
They'd say, yeah, why are you asking me?
Of course it is.
So that's kind of where I'm at on this.
And so I really hope we pass it.
And if we—.
Thank you.
If we can't get 9, I, you know, we'll maybe amend it and get the, get the less emergency version.
But I think we're going to get 9 today.
I hope we do.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Ryan.
Sameer Kanal
Yes, thank you, Madam President, and thank you to the public servants from Public Works, in particular Parks leadership, uh, for being here with us today.
And of course, to you, Councilor Clark, I need to hear this on the public record.
This is directed to you, Councilor Clark.
With this legislative action, will and how much money will come off the well-known deferred maintenance line item from our general ledger.
Loretta Smith
Wow.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Do you have a figure, Ashley?
I don't.
Yeah, $4 million, uh, $4.6 million is the line item, um, on that is allocated to the Solid Community House.
Loretta Smith
Wow, that's a lot.
Sameer Kanal
I was already supportive, but now I'm like enthusiastic.
Um, congratulations To you, especially to the Sellwood Community Center team.
I trust this will pass.
At this moment, you must feel really good about this because it's been a lot of hard work, and I want to thank you for that.
And I hope the reward today feels good to you.
Congratulations.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Zimmerman.
Michael Jordan
Hi, uh, Councilor Clark, thanks for bringing this.
I've told you from the very beginning, just tell me where to sign, I'll give you the dollar.
Uh, so I feel the same way today, and I'm excited about this.
I— there was something referenced earlier by a panel member regarding some concern I had for, for some finance, and I'm not recalling that.
I don't know where that's coming from, but, uh, this has been a project since we got in office, Councilor Clark, that I told you that similar to Councilor Green, I'm glad you're leading on, and I really hope that everybody.
On the dais will support us in our district for what we think is the right move at the right time with the right partners.
Sameer Kanal
Thanks.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Novick.
Sameer Kanal
First of all, I really appreciate— thank you, Madam President.
I really appreciate Councilor Dunphy's historical perspective.
I just want to add mine, which is I was on the council where every year there was a question of what are we going to close, the Sellwood Community Center or the Columbia Pool.
And the supporters of those 2 entities seemed to compete to see who could send the cutest kid to budget hearings to advocate for them.
And I'm sorry the clubby pool wasn't ultimately closed, but I was really pleased to see the community step up on Summit Community House.
In response to Councilor Avalos's questions about equity, I just wanted to note that I think it's quite possible that over the next 5 years, we're going to conclude that in order to avoid sending out another tax increase for the parks levy, Thank you.
We are going to have to withdraw some public support from some public facilities.
And one option might be to say that we're going to withdraw support from facilities that are either very high profile and/or are in wealthy communities, because we do not want to withdraw public support from parks and facilities in communities that don't have lots of private money.
So I think that's a broad discussion that we might have over the next 5 years.
Michael Jordan
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Colleagues, I'm next in the queue and I have a question and then some comments.
A few of my colleagues have referred to a conversation in committee about a buyback opportunity for the city should this property ever leave public benefit.
And I don't see that in the agreement materials.
Right.
I do see language Putting in the deed that this must be kept in public benefit in perpetuity, but I don't see any language about a buyback or a deferring back to the city.
And I'm wondering if that is part of the agreement and if somebody can point me to where that's captured, or if that is in fact intent but not legally included in the agreement.
Sameer Kanal
Yes, Dylan Ball, Real Estate Services, again.
Thank you for that question.
So the deed restriction was not completed in time to be submitted, so it is one of those documents that normally wouldn't necessarily always go to council.
Sometimes when we bring purchase and sale agreements, we have, you know, most of it, which is why ordinances typically read substantially similar.
So one of the things that's going to be added is that deed restriction, and I have that language that has So basically, they offer it back to us for a dollar if they want to sell, transfer, exchange, or grant an option to purchase or otherwise dispose of the property or any part of or interest in the property without first offering the property to the city on the terms and conditions set forth in this declaration.
Michael Jordan
So basically, they offer it back to us for a dollar if they want to sell the property.
Sameer Kanal
So Property.
Loretta Smith
The city is not going to be able to purchase it?
Michael Jordan
Um, and so that'll be, you know, recorded.
Um, and, you know, anytime anything comes up, it will be there with the title companies.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
And do we— I, I'm looking for some sort of guarantee, because if we take action today, we don't have any guarantee that that deed restriction is actually included in the sale.
I'm looking for somebody to give me comfort that that will be attached So the current ordinance does state that it will be—.
Michael Jordan
Let me pull up the language here.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Who signs the PSA?
Sameer Kanal
Well, the city administrator or designee will be signing the purchase and sale agreement.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
So all those people are in the room, and I think we would be willing to support that.
Okay.
I'm looking to you, Mr. City Administrator.
Michael Jordan
Well, does that meet your need?
Because I won't sign it without it.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I think it may have to.
Michael Jordan
I won't sign it without that deed restriction.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay, thank you.
I'm sorry to ask for that on the record, but I just— I'm being told there's something that's not here, so I, I need something clearer.
So thank you for clarifying that.
Councilor Loretta Smith, Understood.
Clarifying that on the record.
I just want to be clear because we've had some conversation about whether this is precedent-setting or not, that I don't love this.
I don't love this at all.
And Councilor Clark, you and I have had conversations about this.
We don't know what the future holds for our city.
We don't know what we will need in the future.
And in general, I am concerned with the speed with which we are willing to let go of our assets, even if they are held in the public good.
I believe in public assets as the best way to provide public good.
And I want to just reiterate that this is not a public-private partnership.
This is privatization, and it's Privatization to an entity who has in good faith held a public-private partnership and who is interested in working in partnership with us in other spaces like at the Art Shack.
But this is privatization, and that is a really hard vote for me to take, always.
I've also seen these programs firsthand.
I've brought my kid to your gymnastics classes.
I know that these are affordable community-offered classes that are in line with the work that we do in our publicly owned and run community centers.
But there's not a promise that public benefit will— public benefit is broad enough that there's not a promise that these classes will stay affordable and robust and offered to everybody across the city.
And that makes me nervous.
Not because I have any doubt that that is the intent of the organization before us that's purchasing this property, but because again, we don't know what the future holds.
I'm working with an organization in a similar situation, though not a community center, a meeting space in my own district where we're discussing how the city can enter into a long-term lease with the potential for a first right of purchase for the organization if we choose to sell in the future, but looking at that public holding of the property.
And I think that that's a better path for us wherever possible.
I also, despite all of that, believe that in this new form of government, we have districts and we know what's best for our districts.
And I'm compelled by the fact that all 3 of my colleagues in District think this is an important move.
So I am willing to move forward with a yes vote today as a professional courtesy to defer to my colleagues who know their district best.
But I want to be really clear that I do not want this to be a new standard for how we do things.
I want this to be a one-off where we have an entity that is different, where this makes sense, and not something where in the future we get a proposal And we're told, well, of course this is easy because we've done it before.
And I, I just want to make that as clear as possible to folks within the administration who might see proposals like this in the future.
Loretta Smith
Thank you, Madam President.
I, I'm glad that you brought that up because, um, I had misperceived We spoke earlier about a first right of refusal, but I know we talked about this deed restriction, uh, during the, um, during, during the, the, uh, Transportation, um, Committee.
And so I— that was the reason why I raised my hand, so that we could get an understanding of what that was and that we would have that before we actually transfer this over.
And the city administrator said that he would make And so I'm going to, um, just trust that that's what's going to happen.
So thank you so much.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Madam President.
Just, uh, 2 things here.
Um, one, I, I wanted to clarify— I said there was no written testimony or, or, uh, verbal testimony.
That's true in committee.
There's no verbal oral testimony here.
There was one piece of written testimony for the document here.
I don't mean to erase that.
And I'll note, despite it not advancing my argument, that it was supportive of this ordinance.
I just wanted to make sure that was in the record and I wasn't misstating anything there.
The other piece of it is I think it is valid, and I appreciate my colleagues, Councilor Green as well, for noting that the legislative intent here as it relates to being precedent-setting And I, I want— I, I think there are colleagues who would prefer this to be a precedent setting and colleagues who don't.
And I think many of, maybe all of them, are going to vote yes on this, uh, to begin with, um, so— or to end the conversation with, um, because I don't want to say this right before a no vote, although I will be voting no.
I have full faith that this will be run well after it passes, and I do think it will pass.
So I wanted to say that now.
Um, thanks.
Councilor Dan Ryan.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Colleagues, seeing no one else in the queue for debate, and as this is an emergency ordinance, uh, we'll move to a vote.
Keelan, could you please call the roll?
Keelan McClymont
Clark?
Michael Jordan
Absolutely yes.
Olivia Clark
Yes.
Michael Jordan
Yes.
Sameer Kanal
Aye.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Councilor Kinal?
Sameer Kanal
No.
Keelan McClymont
Ryan?
Dan Ryan
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Koyama Lane?
Loretta Smith
Nope.
Keelan McClymont
Morillo?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
My analysis of this is pretty identical to the Council President's, so I won't reiterate everything.
Um, I vote aye.
Keelan McClymont
Novick?
Steve Novick
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Pirtle-Guiney?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Aye.
The ordinance passes with 10 yes votes, 1 no vote, and 1 absent.
Okay, thank you, colleagues.
Um, it is 12:35.
I want to give us a short break.
We have told folks who are here for the appointments that were pulled off of the consent agenda that we would do those before a long break.
So unfortunately, what I'm going to have us do is take 10 minutes to give our staff a, a break at the 3-hour mark, come back and do those reappointments, and then take a longer break for lunch so that we don't have staff who we promised we would get to before our lunch break waiting around for longer.
We'll then take a lunch break, come back, and take on agenda item 16.
Let's meet back here at 12:45.
Loretta Smith
12:45.
Michael Jordan
Yeah, exactly.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Oh, sorry.
Welcome.
We are reconvening.
We have just a few agenda items to get through that were pulled off of the consent agenda before we take a lunch break, after which we will come back for the final item on our agenda.
Keelan, could you please read the next, um, the next item?
Item number 8, reappoint Catherine McLeod to the Fire and Police Disability and Retirement Board of Trustees for a term to expire December 31st, 2028.
Thank you, and I I'm gonna get to my right page here.
I believe this came out of the Finance Committee.
We don't have a committee staff summary as this is an appointment and Councilor Zimmerman is not here.
So I am gonna try to recall what happened here.
And Councilor Novick, if you wanna fill in any gaps for me, please feel free.
But I believe that we had a committee referral report conversation about this reappointment and the difficulty in finding folks who have the qualifications we need for this board and the good service of the person who has been on the board and that we had a unanimous vote.
Is that correct?
Yes.
Okay, perfect.
And please go right ahead and let us know what background we need on, on the board to be able to move this forward.
Michael Jordan
Okay, um, I want to thank you.
I'm Sam Utcherson, Bureau Director of FPDR.
I'd like to take the opportunity to thank you for considering, uh, Catherine McLeod, uh, reappointment to the Board of Trustees as a citizen trustee.
Um, her 3-year term of the board will end on December 31st of this year, and she's agreed to serve another 3-year term with us.
Um, Portland created in 1948 the FPDR plan as we know it today.
It's designed for the sworn employees of the Fire and Rescue Bureau and Police Bureau and for the benefits of the surviving spouses and dependent minor children of the deceased sworn employees.
The FPDR plan is defined in the City Charter Chapter 5.
It's very specific on how the plan operates and how the board operates and is configured.
The 5-member Board of Trustees oversees the FPDR plan.
The board is an independent public decision-making body with authorities vested to it by the city charter.
The Board of Trustees administers the plan as well as supervises and controls the FPDR fund and FPDR reserve fund.
Their duties include setting policy for the fund and plan, prescribing rules for the administration of the plan, Approving the FPDR's budget, overseeing the administration of the plan, not the day-to-day administration of the plan, that's my responsibility, but overseeing are they feeling it's being operated in a way that it maximizes the benefits and the support our members need with it.
And they also look into promoting long-term viability of the FPDR plan and fund.
The board has 5 trustees on it at this point.
We have the mayor's designee, who's Patrick— I'm going to lose my names here because I don't have my presentation with me— and he's our risk manager.
Patrick Hughes.
There we go.
Thank you very much.
Patrick Hughes, he's— that he's appointed by the mayor and serves a duration as determined by the mayor.
There is no limit on that term.
We have a fire trustee and a police trustee.
Both are elected by their Members in their appropriate bureau.
They serve a 3-year term and they have to be reelected every year after that, or we elect a new trustee on their behalf.
We then have 2 citizen trustees, one of which is Catherine McLeod.
They serve a 3-year term.
They are—.
They're required to be a citizen of the City of Portland.
They have relevant experience in pension and disability matters.
They are nominated by the mayor and approved by the city council.
With that, so Catherine McLeod has extensive public pension actuarial experience.
She has an excellent understanding of the FPDR plan and brings valuable pension and actuarial experience to the FPDR board.
She has— she is focused on post-employment benefits for public sector clients since 2008.
As an owner and partner of McLeod Watts, Catherine has provided services and certified valuations for over 300 public sector clients, including funding policy development, plan design consulting, GASB 75 valuations.
She's also a fellow of the Society of Actuaries and serves on the board of several local charities.
Catherine is an engaged trustee who reviews all board materials in detail, asks Very appropriate questions and direct questions of my staff, myself, and our actuarial firm, which is Milliman.
They are also the actuarial firm for OregonPERS.
She also provides additional information to the board and to FPDR.
We do go to her for some very— for some needed experience or guidance on how to handle certain situations.
With that, Catherine was appointed to the FBR Board of Trustees in 2017 as a citizen trustee.
She was reappointed in 2019 for a second term and in 2022 for a third term.
She also served briefly as the mayor's designee and board chair from October '23 to September 2024.
She returned to her term as a citizen trustee in September of 2024.
Thank you.
As I said earlier, her current term expires December 31st of this month.
I respectfully submit Catherine McLeod for reappointment to the Board of Trustees.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
And as Councilor Novick and I noted, this is coming on a unanimous vote from the committee.
Colleagues, are there any questions?
Oh, do we have somebody signed up for public testimony?
Michael Jordan
We do have someone signed up.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay.
So if there are technical questions, let's take those and then we will hear public testimony.
Councilor Smith, did you have a question?
No.
Okay.
Councilor Green?
Michael Jordan
It was just gonna be context, but it can wait till after testimony.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay.
Councilor Kanal?
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, just a question.
I received communication from the office into my office saying that this board, and I just wanna clarify for the record, has the ability to directly set the annual COLA for retirees.
As well as to increase the property tax portion that goes, because about a third of city property taxes go into FBDR.
Michael Jordan
Yes, they have per the charter the right to set or ask for a certain levy amount.
It's basically we are required as a bureau to provide a budget, which is estimate of all the benefits that we will pay for the next calendar year, plus our administrative costs to administer the plan and provide those benefits.
And then what we do, that's our operational budget.
Then what we do is we take any balance of the prior year's plan and subtract it out of that budget, and that is the amount that we present to the board, and the board turns around and presents to the council for a levy.
Sameer Kanal
Thanks.
The other question I, I had is, does the administrative policy 1702 on appointments to city boards and commissions apply to the FPDR board?
Michael Jordan
We just recently had a legal opinion from the city attorney's office And it was basically because of the way it is defined in the charter, the charter overrides anything else that the city applies to this board.
Sameer Kanal
So in the event that there's something the charter does not define, but that ADM 1702 does define, does, does that policy apply?
Or is it that the entirety of binding city policy 1702 is, is superseded because of the existence of charter definition?
Michael Jordan
That very specific If you have a specific question, we could— I could propose back into the City Attorney's Office for that.
But it's pretty much that we go by what the charter is and what the charter says.
And if charter omits certain things, that was probably intentional that certain things were omitted.
But I— if you have very specific issues on what you would like me to look at, I can go back to the City Attorney.
Sameer Kanal
Just one, and it's if the 8-year maximum consecutive service—.
Michael Jordan
That was specifically asked, and they feel so The charter overrules that because the charter gives 3-year terms, tells you how the person's to be elected, and has— does not touch on that, which was implied that that was not to be part of the board rules.
Sameer Kanal
And that's— you got that from the city attorneys, you say?
Michael Jordan
City Attorney's Office, yes.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thanks.
Thank you, Madam President.
Thank you, Councilor.
With that, let's hear from The person who is signed up for public testimony, and then we will go back to some broader context conversation.
Thank you so much for being here today with us.
Kevin Matches, welcome.
Thank you for being here.
Michael Jordan
Do I have 3 minutes or 2 minutes?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Uh, 3 minutes.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
I'm Kevin Matches, and I'm a CFA charterholder Thank you, Councilors, for removing this item from the consent agenda and for listening.
I'll just start by saying in 2023, there was a vote at Council for an appointment of a different citizen trustee on the same board.
And at that time I said in public comment, I had no objection to that trustee's appointment.
For this appointment, I do recommend you vote against this While the FPDR Board of Trustees is one of many volunteer advisory committees maintained by the city, it is by far the most powerful.
More than simply giving advice to the city, the board has the ability to set the FPDR Bureau's budget, to set the annual COLA for retirees, and remarkably, to increase property taxes.
That is a power that not even City Council has.
The FPDR Bureau will consume about $230 million of property tax revenue in the current fiscal year.
I think that's a lot of money.
That's about a third of total property tax revenue, as you just heard.
The city projects that this will grow to about $330 million in fiscal year-end 2030, or about a 40% increase.
This will be council's last opportunity to question Trustee McLeod's body of work on this board for the next 3 years.
The process laid out in the charter is fairly straightforward.
Michael Jordan
Trustees, quote, shall be nominated by the mayor and approved by city council, end quote.
In applying scrutiny, I encourage you to think about commitment to transparency, responsibility to taxpayers, risk management, intergenerational equity, and pension best practices.
Sameer Kanal
I also encourage you to think about the larger advisory bodies enhancement project that council has undertaken.
Michael Jordan
The persistence of vacancies on these committees was a glaring problem that went unaddressed under the prior form of government.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
For example, the city chose to maintain a vacancy on the FPDR board for a year and a half.
This was clear violation of city charter, Chapter 5, Article 2, quote, appointments or elections for unexpired terms shall be made to fill vacancies within 30 days after they occur, end quote.
On July 10th, 2024, I gave public comment to council pointing out that the mayor was in violation of the charter.
Michael Jordan
In response, the mayor asked staff why the city was maintaining a vacancy.
Staff did not have a response at that time or ever provide one on the record.
While comments by staff at prior public meetings pointed to an inability to find qualified applicants, that was no longer true by July.
Sameer Kanal
Instead, the city applied a litmus test for applicants and ultimately preferred to keep a position vacant.
Your own project proposes that candidates should not have to pass litmus tests.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you very much.
That completes testimony.
Thank you, Keelan.
Councilor Green.
Michael Jordan
Well, I'm glad we took testimony before I made my comments.
I take Kevin Matjes's testimony very seriously on this matter.
This is a person in our community who has paid attention to this very important and specific part of our Charter and our city and a significant share of our budget, perhaps better than anyone else I know.
So that testimony there just gives me a little pause.
But I did want to share what I had talked about, what happened in the Finance Committee, because I was there on that day.
I voted yes to move this person out of Finance Committee to the full council.
I wanted to talk a little bit about the discussion we had on this subject.
Actually, we did ask The nominee about their willingness to engage with City Council and the Finance Committee on big issues of reform, and specifically around that interplay between the property tax adjustment piece and the ongoing liability, the unfunded liability in some sense that the city faces, and willingness to engage us in good faith.
They said, of course, you know, Yes, we would like to.
I got the impression that their— just their old form of government just did not have that appetite.
That's me inferring that impression.
But so I don't know where I'm at now, I guess, is what I'm saying.
But I wanted to let you guys know what I had set— what I had voted, or I wanted you guys to be aware of the conversation that was at the Finance Committee at the time.
And so we can engage.
I can ask any— answer any questions that we have.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thanks.
I have a couple questions, and actually one of them will be for Director Hutchinson if he's still here, um, but I'll leave that till the end.
Um, and I guess anybody on Finance Committee might be able to answer this.
Um, there was a— I'm, I'm curious if either of these 2 issues were brought up, and this relates to— this is actually directly from Kevin Matches's testimony, uh, about a vote that was taken in January 2024.
On whether or not to even explore how much it would cost to obtain an analysis of policy reform options that could potentially save taxpayers multiple billions of dollars.
And I'm sure all of us have received the sort of why that would be multiple billions of dollars and why the trustee voted no on it.
And the other question was whether or not in 2023 and 2024, Whether the plan actuary should calculate and disclose a reasonable actuarially determined contribution, which is also opposed.
And so I'm curious, and this is what showed that taxpayer costs would be reduced by $3 billion over the life of the plan.
That's $3 billion in property taxes if a policy change occurred.
And this was also opposed by the trustee who's now up for reappointment.
Yes.
Did that get discussed in the Finance Committee?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Those specific votes did not, to my recollection.
Loretta Smith
No.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, well then my question— I don't know if Director Hutchinson stepped out.
Loretta Smith
He's here.
Please come back up.
Oh, sorry.
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, um, and, and finance folks may, may be able to, to speak to this too.
What was the recruitment process?
Normally when we see, uh, these Committee staff summaries, which there is a written one or presentation which is attached here, there's some reference to we had 43 applicants, we had 6 applicants, we did an open recruitment for 2 weeks or 8 weeks or something.
And that's not in here either way.
I don't wanna assume that there wasn't a recruitment done.
So what was the process for looking at potential candidates and narrowing it down?
Michael Jordan
For this candidate, it was strictly just a reappointment.
We did not go out and recruit for anybody else for this position.
And to go back and just address what happened for the year and a half, we did not have a full board.
We had 2 or 3 people at that time resign.
So at different points in times we had it, so it wasn't one seat continually vacant for a year and a half.
I will let you know we went out and heavily recruited at that time for those vacant seats.
We put— posted for 8+ weeks.
On our job board and got zero interest applicants.
I and other people went to some of the companies in town and asked, do you have people in your office that would be— 'cause they often push people out to participate in city events and support the city and support the arts, et cetera.
Didn't get many on that.
So we went back again to try to recruit some more.
Okay.
We also, we at one point lost our board chair.
And so the mayor, that's why Katherine was promoted up to serve as the board chair while we were trying to do it.
We also did post it a second time.
We got 2 applicants and they went through a full interview and the interview panel rejected both the candidates.
So we came back in and had to do a little bit more recruiting and we were able to get Patrick to come in and fill in that last hole.
Thank you.
So it is a process.
It does require people with actuarial or disability experience.
It does require them, surprisingly—.
Sameer Kanal
Not surprisingly, but to live in the city of Portland, which was a—.
Michael Jordan
Because we had several people that I interviewed that were interested in this position.
I asked the first question, do you live in the city of Portland?
Sameer Kanal
No.
Michael Jordan
And that just sent everybody going.
So it's hard to recruit for this position.
It's not a high-profile position that people want to do.
They don't see see it as being part of some of the issues that they want addressed in the city.
So I want to tell you, we do recruit, we do direct recruiting, we did posting, we do other things to go, and it was not ignored at the time.
It was not a conscious effort to run without a full board.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, and that's just— that's in response to the comment made in testimony about a vacancy for a year and a half.
But to be clear, for this recruitment—.
Michael Jordan
This board, we did not go out for recruitment for this one.
Sameer Kanal
Okay.
Yeah, I think the question was such a small board that has such a high level of policy implications.
And I think there has been a lack, I don't wanna say rejection necessarily because that implies an active negativity towards it, but certainly not a positive motion towards exploring changes.
So my question is, did you reach out to The Portland Metro Chamber.
I'll note the Portland Metro Chamber made a list of dozens of recommendations for the city, one of which was fixing FPDR's pay-as-you-go system.
Michael Jordan
I'm sorry, you said we're negative and not interested in that comment?
Sameer Kanal
Not interested in the reforms that have been advocated by people to save billions of dollars.
Michael Jordan
I will tell you, the board spent tremendous amount of time going over this stuff with Mr. Matches.
I can provide you with voluminous pages of the board meet— of per verbatim board meeting minutes over the discussions that we had with Mr. Matches and about his proposals after.
If you're interested in seeing what the board's opinion was and how they came up to it, that's fine.
Sameer Kanal
Well, I'm actually interested in changing the board's opinion.
Michael Jordan
Uh, part of it— part of it, they're willing to, but I will also tell you, per the attorney, the board does not have the authority to change the The board can participate in the efforts to change the charter, but they cannot originate any changes to the charter or lead changes to the charter.
That actually comes down to the City Council's responsibility.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, uh, how many times have we had recommendations from the FPDR board to the council to pursue that?
Michael Jordan
Uh, we've talked to the council.
There's been no interest in the prior council.
To do this.
So it never— nothing went very far with it.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, then let me just be clear.
So for the record, there is interest now?
Michael Jordan
Yes, I, you know, I understand there's interest, and I think the board and the bureau would be glad to participate in that if somebody wants to take and run with it.
I think some of the prior changes, not including the funding, that were made to FDR were owned by Commissioner Saltzman.
He's one responsible for making some of the major changes to to the charter, 2007, creating the FPDR 3, moving people into PERS, and also part of the committees that decided not to change the funding going forward at that point.
So there are ways to do it.
I just want to make sure that this board is not anti.
The board has listened to the options that have come out there.
They have been discussed in detail.
And like I say, there's voluminous meeting minutes on this that we can show you if you would like that.
I can.
It was, it's just the thing is, is that they do not have the authority to make the charter change and to change House Fund.
That comes down to essentially the voters have to make that change and they do it by a petition sent to the voters by the council.
Sameer Kanal
Right.
And to be clear, what I'm referring to with changing the board's position, 2 things.
One is this is the chance that we have with determining the makeup of the board's membership to see if we can bring in ideas and backgrounds and perspectives that have not historically been on the board in the past.
And then secondly, I'm referring not to changing the charter, but I'm referring to things like the vote that I referenced, the first of those, which is just determining an analysis of how much money would be saved by a policy change.
Interesting.
Just knowing that it would be $3 billion versus $300 million.
And those are the sorts of questions that we don't get to ask because our system under the new form of government has been that we don't do this unless you're on the committee.
And that committee, you know, is finance in this particular case, but it could be for any of the 8 of us or any of the 8 committees.
FPDR touches multiple committee areas of work, right?
But also soaks up Yes, they do.
That could be spent on other things.
And there's compression issues and all that too.
But fundamentally, just the sheer volume of property tax dollars that go into this program makes it worthy of this level of scrutiny.
So I appreciate the information.
I'd love to see all those things personally.
Michael Jordan
And I will say that I think Commissioner Green had— excuse me, old wording— Councilor Green had made the comment that Catherine McLeod said she'd be glad to be part of any of the committees or any of the groups that are looking into the changes.
I think she would be a valuable asset 'cause of her background in actuary and other pension funds, as well as in how FPDR works and FPDR is funded today.
I think she would be definitely one that you would want to include into that.
Sameer Kanal
I think that, yeah, just to be clear, the professional background and experience on this committee are not in contest here from my side.
I wanna be super clear about that and I should have led with that.
I'll stop here.
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Novick.
Sameer Kanal
I just wanted to be the third person to say that we did have that conversation in committee with Ms. McLeod, and she indicated a willingness to have that kind of engagement.
I also wanted to say that I suspect that previous councils have not been too excited about the idea of changing charter to change the system to save money, 'cause my understanding is that the proposals to save money over time would involve significant short-term tax increases.
So that— I think that is a conversation that we should have, and I'm glad to be in a council that is willing to contemplate that.
But I just wanted to give that perspective as to why I think it hasn't really been a big issue in the past.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor, for that context.
Councilor Green?
Michael Jordan
Yeah, I appreciate the discussion, and I appreciate you kind of reminding us of that context as well.
I think because I did put Catherine McLeod on the spot and I asked her pretty directly in this Finance Committee conversation, are you willing to work with this new council that has new ideas and wants to be a little bit more intentional on maybe going in a different direction?
She was enthusiastic about working with us.
And I think one of the specific questions I asked was like, do you think it's appropriate as a board member to engage directly with Finance Committee to have a sort of open-ended dialogue, which I know is normally outside of the typical experience you have.
And she said, absolutely, if that's council's prerogative.
And so, so in the interest of saying, look, I, I don't have an alternative person to advance here, and neither does the administration, um, we have someone who is a willing public servant.
We've clarified, I think, pretty amply what the expectations of the new council is, at least for some of us.
Yeah.
That we need to have that conversation with the public about the intergenerational trade-offs.
We're ready to do that.
I'm prepared to support the appointment.
I understand that Mr. Matshes would prefer us not to, but I think that we've had this discussion.
We've daylighted some issues around accountability and transparency, and I think I can thread the needle on that.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Moyu.
Yeah, I won't reiterate everything that was already said.
I agree.
I don't think I don't think we have any alternatives for the appointment.
It sounds like I completely hear what the testifier said about some of these issues, and I think that we have a responsibility as a council to look into it.
And I expect that the board will be operating very differently now that they're hearing that we want to dig into this issue.
So for that reason, I will be voting yes with the expectation that this is something that we are going to be engaging with very closely moving forward.
Thank you.
Councilmember Herbold.
Councilor Kanal, something further?
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, just a quick question.
Um, the next time there's a vacancy, do you— can you commit to doing a full recruitment for it in any of the 5 positions?
Well, not the— any of the 3 positions.
Michael Jordan
The, the mayor's designee is a responsibility of the mayor, and that's up to the mayor's choice to how the mayor would like to fill that position.
Uh, we did try to post that one also and got no interest in that.
So that leaves our second citizen trustee, and he's not up for, I think, a year and a half, maybe 2 years.
Whenever that is though?
Yes, we can look into that.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, thank you.
Yeah, for those who've wondered why it makes sense to have this conversation, even if the outcome doesn't change, I hope that this conversation has daylighted some of the issues around FPC.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mayor.
I appreciate the work that you've done in the workgroup and around the PDR and around the board and highlights the need to have these conversations at the full council.
I will be deferring to my colleagues, not just because of what was said in the video, which we could all watch, of the Finance Committee, but because of the homework that you've done in addition to that, which I was not previously aware of.
But I would suggest that we reach out to not only people who are involved in this work already, but as well, obviously, Mr. Matches, but, but people on the PMC who, again, there are folks out here who want to see their property tax burden lowered, and there are options that have minimal to large— they, they run the gamut of short-term investments that can yield long-term, um, reductions in property tax bills.
So I will, I'll leave it here.
I will vote yes.
Um, and again, I, I hope that it's clear to the, the applicant, to the trustee, that this is less about their individual qualifications and about how we make up a board that can help save people who will be around in decades to come billions of dollars on their taxes.
Thanks.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Colleagues, seeing no one else in the queue for debate, Keelan, could you please call the roll?
Council President, this is a report.
I think we— Oh, we need a motion, don't we?
Is there a motion to move this report forward?
So moved.
Thank you.
Is there a second?
Perfect.
I have— that was Councilor Smith motioning, Councilor Ryan seconding.
Thank you.
Michael Jordan
We're hungry.
Keelan McClymont
Clerk.
Green.
Mitch Green
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Zimmerman.
Avalos.
Candace Avalos
Aye.
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Smith.
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you for your continued service.
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Ryan.
Dan Ryan
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Koyama Lane.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Murillo.
Angelita Morillo
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Novick.
Steve Novick
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Aye.
The report is accepted with 10 yes votes and 2 absent.
Thank you very much.
Thanks for being here and answering all the questions.
Uh, Keelan, could you please Please call our next agenda item.
Item 9, reappoint Sean Wallace and appoint Penny Sweeting to the Revenue Division Appeals Board.
Thank you very much.
And colleagues, this also does not have a verbal committee staff summary, um, or an oral committee staff summary for my colleague down the dais.
Um, there is one posted online.
This came out of the Finance Committee.
And do either of my colleagues, in the absence of the chair, have anything that you want to share about the conversation at Finance?
Loretta Smith
Okay.
Okay.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
This is a pretty straightforward— we had a number of things that day, and I think this was a pretty straightforward conversation.
Jonas, are you our staff on this?
Yes.
Or do we have somebody from the Appeals Board here today?
Michael Jordan
Thank you, Council President.
For the record, Jonas Biery, Chief Financial Officer.
I know we also have folks from Revenue Bureau in the room if there are questions, but we have nothing more to share that hasn't already been provided to committee and council.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay.
And colleagues, I'll just note the Revenue Division Appeals Board here is a very narrow body of Appeals and is, I believe, another board where there are some specific qualifications that are required for service.
Councilor Kanal, did you have a question?
Sameer Kanal
Just one.
Was there a recruitment done for this?
How did you— it's a new person.
I understand the reappointment, but there's no information on recruitment, how many people applied.
Michael Jordan
Yeah, thank you, Councilor.
And I might invite Selita Holt from the Revenue Division to come up and answer that.
I believe there was, you know, recruitment as far as seeking out candidates, including reaching out to community organizations that would have qualified experience.
But yeah, thanks.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yeah, he's absolutely right.
So we actually advertised in multiple areas.
So we had things go out to a newsletter for civic life.
We had things on our city's social media, and we did do a recruitment.
We had 4 people that applied, and the person that we selected was the most qualified.
Loretta Smith
Thanks.
Sameer Kanal
In future, I'd love to see that in the community.
That's what the community impacts and involvement impact statement piece I think is for.
But also in advance, I would be happy to circulate any appointment information, any open recruitments.
I think it's an important function that not everyone knows about.
Thank you for that.
That satisfies my questions.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
And I brought questions in case you wanted to know what we asked the candidates.
I thought you might have that question.
Loretta Smith
Perfect.
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Keelan, is there anybody signed up for public testimony?
No one signed up.
Okay, colleagues, seeing no one else in the queue and no one signed up for public testimony, I would entertain a motion to move this report forward.
Sameer Kanal
So moved.
Michael Jordan
Second.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay, moved by Councilor Kanal, seconded by Councilor Green.
Uh, Keelan, could you please call the roll?
Clerk absent.
Keelan McClymont
Green?
Mitch Green
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Zimmerman?
Eric Zimmerman
Absent.
Keelan McClymont
Avalos?
Candace Avalos
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Dunphy?
Jamie Dunphy
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Smith?
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Knoll?
Sameer Kanal
Thank you both for your service.
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Keelan McClymont
Ryan?
Dan Ryan
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Lane?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Morillo?
Angelita Morillo
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Novick?
Steve Novick
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Pirtle-Guiney?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Aye.
Michael Jordan
The report is accepted with 10 yes votes and 2 absent.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
And Keelan, could you please read our next agenda item?
Item 10, reappoint Dan Floyd to Portland Children's Levy Allocation Committee for term to expire December 31st, 2027.
Thank you.
And again, this was, um, an appointment pulled off of the consent agenda.
The committee staff summary is available online.
Uh, Councilor Koyama Lane, this came out of the Governance Committee.
Were you chairing or was the Vice Chair chairing that day.
Okay, I thought that's what I remembered.
Councilor Ryan, is there anything that you would like to share about the committee discussion that day?
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, Director Pellegrino's here as well, and, uh, Dan Floyd showed up and we had a great conversation.
He's responsible, shows up to every meeting early, which is a big deal in Portland, and, uh, he does his homework.
And I think, um, it was pretty easy and unanimous.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay.
Yeah.
Colleagues, are there any questions?
And we do have Lisa Pellegrino available online if there are questions for her.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Madam President.
2 Questions.
One is, there were only 4 people who applied for this particular position.
This one's been in the news quite a bit this year.
And I'm curious if 4 people is a— has that been the pattern of recruitments historically?
Is that higher or lower than you might expect given previous trends?
I know you've been around for quite a while there as well.
That's a question for Lisa.
Yeah.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I'll agree no.
Lisa, go right ahead.
Sameer Kanal
Sure.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Happy to answer.
So just to be clear, this recruitment was done in 2023.
So there were 4 applicants in 2023.
Loretta Smith
And I would say we have—.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
It really has been all over the map all over the years.
We've gotten as many as 10 in the past, and I would say recently probably more in the neighborhood of 5.
Sameer Kanal
Okay.
And then the other question I had was, are there any other vacancies currently on this committee?
Because I've heard kind of competing info on that.
There are not.
Thank you for confirming that.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
This is not— it's not vacant, it's just he's up for reappointment.
Sure, yeah, thank you.
Councilor, anything further?
Okay.
Keelan, is there anybody signed up for public testimony on this appointment?
No one signed up.
Okay, colleagues, seeing no one else in the queue for debate, I would entertain a motion to adopt this report.
Councilor Ryan moved.
Is there a second?
Michael Jordan
Second.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor Novick.
Keelan, could you please call the roll?
Clark is absent.
Keelan McClymont
Green?
Mitch Green
Aye.
Michael Jordan
Zimmerman, absent.
Keelan McClymont
Avalos?
Candace Avalos
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Dunphy?
Jamie Dunphy
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Smith?
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Sameer Kanal
Null?
Thank you for your service.
Michael Jordan
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Ryan?
Dan Ryan
Aye.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
McLean?
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Morillo?
Angelita Morillo
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Novick?
Steve Novick
Aye.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
McKeown?
Michael Jordan
Aye.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
The report is accepted with 10 yes votes and 2 absent.
Thank you.
Keelan, could you please call the next agenda item?
Item 11, appoint and reappoint members to the Portland Committee on Community Engaged Policing.
Thank you.
And again, an item off of consent with a committee staff summary available online.
Uh, Councilor Kanal, I believe that you chaired the CAPS meeting where this came forward, is that correct?
Sameer Kanal
Correct, yeah.
So this, uh, was heard in the committee on November 18th.
4 Of us were present.
It passed, uh, with 4 votes in favor, 0 against.
I'll note that we have heard this, uh, previous appointments, unrelated people to this committee, and it was not nearly as smooth that time.
This one was very smooth, and I appreciate all the, uh, appointees, both the, uh, older ones who are being reappointed and the new folks coming in and, and testifying and introducing themselves.
Loretta Smith
Thanks.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Colleagues, are there any questions about these appointments?
And I see that we do have staff here and available if there are questions.
Okay, Keelan, is there any public testimony?
One person signed up, Anne Casper.
Okay.
Miss Casper, are you here?
And they're not online.
Okay, not seeing any questions.
Is there anything additional that either of you would like to share before we move to a vote?
Nothing to add, but happy to answer any questions.
Okay, uh, seeing none, I would entertain a motion to adopt the report.
So moved.
Second.
Okay, moved by Councilor Kanal, seconded by Councilor Green.
Keelan, could you please call the roll?
Clark, absent.
Keelan McClymont
Green?
Mitch Green
Aye.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Zimmerman, absent.
Keelan McClymont
Avalos?
Candace Avalos
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Dunphy?
Jamie Dunphy
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Smith?
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Sameer Kanal
No.
Thanks to all 8 of you.
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Ryan?
Dan Ryan
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Koyama Lane?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Morillo?
Angelita Morillo
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Novick?
Steve Novick
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Aye.
The report is accepted with 10 yes votes and 2 absent.
Thank you very much.
Colleagues, that brings us to agenda item 16.
We are going to take a 30-minute lunch break.
We will come back here at 2:00 to begin discussion on agenda item 16.
I'll note that we do have, uh, between 25 and 30 people signed up for testimony, so they will have 2 minutes each for testimony, um, after which we will move into discussion and debate.
With that, I will recess our meeting.
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
I am calling back to order the Portland City Council meeting on December 3rd.
It is 2:03, um, and We have 7, so we are going to move on to our final agenda item.
Keelan, could you please call the agenda item?
Item 16, adopt City of Portland investment policy.
Thank you.
And colleagues, this came out of the Finance Committee.
We have Christopher Hare here with a committee staff summary.
Go right ahead, Christopher.
Michael Jordan
Good afternoon, Madam President and councilors.
For the record, my name is Christopher Hare, Council Policy Analyst, and I serve as The resolution before you, document number 2025-436, was considered in the Finance Committee on November 10th, where it was referred to council with a recommendation to adopt.
Sameer Kanal
The resolution adopts the City of Portland Investment Policy per Exhibit A in accordance with the annual adoption requirements in Oregon Revised Statutes 294.135 and Section 19 of the investment policy itself.
There are no changes to the existing investment policy, which was last adopted through Resolution 336.
Thank you.
37686 On November 20th, 2024.
Minor administrative updates are included in the supplemental information attachment.
However, these changes do not alter the investment policy itself.
The full impact statements on this include financial and budgetary impacts, community impacts, and community involvement.
Michael Jordan
10 People provided verbal testimony in committee on November 10th.
Sameer Kanal
61 Individuals provided written testimony prior to committee action.
Michael Jordan
And five people provided written testimony prior to full council agenda posting.
Sameer Kanal
General themes of testimony included urging the city to adopt a comprehensive human rights investment screen with the city's investment policy, urging the city to expand the list of prohibited industries in the investment policy, urging the city to divest from companies tied to human rights abuses both domestically and internationally, urging the city to divest from specific companies including Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Nvidia, Intel, Apple, and.
Michael Jordan
Caterpillar, the city's 2016 temporary suspension of corporate bonds to Bank of America and Caterpillar due to concerns about the Dakota Access Pipeline, the U.S. prison system, and Israel, noting that the suspension has since expired, and urging the city to avoid relying solely on Morgan Stanley's MSCI proprietary environmental, social, and governance ratings when evaluating investments and seeking a broader evaluation framework.
Thank you very much.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
And this came out of the Finance Committee.
Councilor Zimmerman is not here right now, so I would look to other members of the committee to see if there's anything you wish to add to the committee staff summary.
Councilors, anything missing?
Councilor Green?
Michael Jordan
Yeah, I just want to say that we, we did have some discussion about the feasibility of amending this.
What reasonable time frames look like for amending a policy, what some of the challenges would be.
We had a discussion with, um, uh, Jonas about the risk of, of asking staff members to decide on which companies to invest in and, and, and, and how to do so.
Um, I just want to note that I, I voted no on this out of committee, partly because I heard those, those concerns in the testimony, but I, I didn't try to amend it at that time.
Because I couldn't envision a reasonable way to amend an investment policy that does take a little bit of time on the timeframe that we had.
And so I've seen that, I see that there has been an amendment filed today that is not, it's I think a clever solution that I didn't have at the time.
So that's why I voted no in committee.
And so I'm looking forward to the discussion today.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Anything further, Councilor Novick?
Sameer Kanal
Just to add to that, In the course of the discussion, I noted that I was the first member of council to propose anything like a socially responsible investment policy back in 2014, 2015.
And I talked about how vigorous the discussions were about how— my original policy was don't invest in Walmart.
But I talked about the vigorous discussions that we had about trying to expand that policy and how complicated that was.
I agreed with the idea.
It's certainly an issue that I want to take up again, but it's something where I don't think that we don't want to rush ahead to make amendments without a more thorough discussion.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Colleagues, a bit awkwardly since I'm gaveling, I'm going to take a moment for a point of personal privilege, which is weird to do when you're the one who already has the floor, but I need to declare a potential conflict of interest.
This is not a real conflict of interest, an actual conflict of interest.
Rather, it is a potential conflict of interest.
Um, my spouse works at one of the companies that the city currently invests in.
The proposed changes to the investment policy in the resolution amend only the titles of individuals and bureaus responsible for implementing the policy and don't change anything substantive.
The amendment that has been filed also does not change anything substantive with the So I don't have a current actual policy, but because further amendments could be proposed which could create a conflict in discussion with the attorneys, out of an abundance of caution, I wanted to declare this potential conflict of interest.
Under the advice of the attorneys, I am able to vote on the resolution before us.
That is correct.
Depending on any amendments that are proposed, um, I may need to go back to the attorneys, uh, for reconsideration depending on what's put on the table.
Colleagues, there are a number of people signed up for public testimony today, but before we move to public testimony, I want to see if there are any technical questions for staff.
We will of course save broader discussion for after we hear from members of the public.
Councilor Kanal, are you in the queue for technical discussion or the proposal of amendments?
Sameer Kanal
The latter.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Right ahead.
Sameer Kanal
I'll formally make the motion after testimony, but I wanted to give some initial information about the Amendment Kanal 1, which is filed if you look at the website where the investment policy is, just to outline that before testimony so the public can comment on it if they'd like.
This investment policy was proposed without any substantive changes from last year's, and there have been numerous times over the course of the year where community members have testified in support of making some substantial changes around human rights and a human rights screen on potential investments.
Christopher's committee staff report references this as well.
It's also come up in several other places.
Our policy already acknowledges that financial security and safety, stability, as well as the expected yield of investments are important vital factors, but also that we have some values-based We don't invest in oil or corrections facilities or alcohol.
But these restrictions have gaps.
We can't invest in oil, but we can invest in gas, for example.
We can't invest in alcohol, but we can in surveillance.
We can't invest in small arms, but heavy weapons like fighter jets are okay.
And these are all questions that I've been hearing and want to be responsive to.
At the same time, I acknowledge everything Councilor Green said about the importance of having a balanced approach.
Thank you.
It would be bad policymaking to ram something through that changed the policy this year, in my opinion.
And I know that that may dissatisfy some folks who've been reaching out to my office, and I recognize that.
So the amendment that I'm proposing is to the resolution, not to the policy itself, and it outlines a way forward for a pathway to an ethical investment policy over the coming months that can be implemented During 2026.
It doesn't change this year's investment policy, doesn't name any specific countries, doesn't name any specific countries, and it will not change this year's investments.
What it's designed to do is, is add a whereas clause.
It's context setting, noting what I already said, that we have some values-based parameters on investments, not just what gets the biggest yield.
And it adds 3 resolves that urge the mayor to work with interested council offices to develop options on how to implement an ethical investment policy, define the minimum goals for that, a human rights-based screen and a goal that the city doesn't invest directly or indirectly in war, human rights violations, or violations of international law, things like genocide, slavery, torture.
Urge the administration to come back to a full public council meeting and discuss those options and use feedback from that so that we can all collectively shape the next city investment policy.
And then they also encourages the mayor to do community outreach On this topic, including with relevant boards and commissions, and include interested council offices in that process so that we can co-create across branches and build something where there is the time to get it done and get it done well in the future.
So it's filed as Canal 1.
We'll have it available to screen share, but you can see it in the— if you go to the city's portland.gov/council/agenda, click on item 16, you'll see it down below.
And I will be making that I would submit that motion after the testimony, but would look forward to hearing in testimony or from colleagues what they have thoughts on.
And I can also answer questions at any time.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Clark, are you in the queue to propose an amendment or ask technical questions?
Oh, you have a question?
May I ask a question?
Yes, I do.
Councilor Kanal, I'm looking at your proposal, and in the second paragraph on the second page, you list Human rights, including those listed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
And then after that, you go on to expand some additional language.
Is all that language included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
Sameer Kanal
That's a great question.
I would say it is not.
The principles are very similar, but there's international humanitarian law, the laws of war, which should be— and if I, instead of referencing the Geneva Convention, I think most people are more familiar with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights than those other documents.
So I chose to just list that one out.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
So the other elements have taken— are taken out of the other documents like the Geneva— or this is just your own list?
Sameer Kanal
It's a pretty common series of things I've heard in testimony as well as seen in other policies.
Most of it is out of those other documents.
I will say there are pretty common elements that are protections against torture in the, um, UDHR as well.
But trying to, uh, be broad and, and encapsulate what all might be there, it wouldn't have all the concepts if we just picked either the first half or the second half.
I think that's the underlying question, and I want to be clear.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay, thank you so much.
Colleagues, seeing no other technical questions or amendments put on the table, we are going to move into public testimony.
Keelan, could you please call up our first panel of guests?
First up, we have Rod Such, Brian Kaye, Ricky King, Sammy Ortoleva, Melanie Lu.
Please go right ahead once you're seated.
Michael Jordan
Uh, hi, my name is Rod Such.
I live in District 3, and I'm active with the Oregon for Human Rights Coalition.
I'm testifying today to endorse the idea of a human rights screen for Portland's investment portfolio.
This is due to the fact that the current Portfolio shows investments in 5 corporations that have become complicit in human rights violations.
These include either material support for the Israeli genocide in Gaza, the draconian ICE assault on the constitutional rights of migrant workers, or union busting and the failure to provide a living wage For their workers.
In the case of one corporation, Amazon, we are talking about all 3.
I want to begin by thanking the 6 members of the City Council who recently signed a pledge to help ensure that our city is not complicit in Israel's genocide or system of apartheid, including via investments.
I also want to thank those councilors for seeking creative ways to ensure that Portland lives up to the promise of being a sanctuary city.
And I want to thank Councilor Novick for being the first to recognize the importance of human rights screens by creating the Socially Responsible Investments Committee in his first term when he called out violations of the rights of Walmart workers.
There is a long tradition of city councils in the United States acting on behalf of human rights, including the 1,200 city councils that took action against apartheid South Africa in the 1980s.
Recently, the cities of St. Louis, Missouri, Somerville, Northampton, and Medford, Massachusetts, Iowa City, Hamtramck, Michigan, Alameda County, Hayward, and Richmond, California, And our sister city, Portland, Maine, passed resolutions calling for ending investments in corporations profiting from violations of international law and the genocide in Gaza.
Thank you.
Brian Kaye.
Good afternoon.
My name is Brian Kaye.
I'm speaking for the Portland chapter of the Tech Workers Coalition.
The Tech Workers Coalition is a global workers' rights organization with more than 5,000 members.
Including chapters in Berlin, Milan, New York, Seattle, and Portland.
The Portland chapter calls on the council to exclude investments in companies that contribute to human rights abuses.
As tech workers, we oppose investments in Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Nvidia while they provide tech resources that aid the genocide in Gaza and ICE attacks on immigrant workers.
Sameer Kanal
Some will say that the divestment from these companies hurts tech workers.
Michael Jordan
Please don't accept it.
When agencies, tech executives, or investors use tech worker lives as their bargaining chips.
They don't speak for tech workers.
Tech workers speak for themselves.
The Tech Worker Coalition began in California in 2014 to oppose tech company militarism.
We support the No Tech for ICE and No Tech for Apartheid campaigns and the Tech Divestment Network.
Industry-wide, tech workers have risked and lost their jobs in protest.
This year, an Amazon employee was fired for protesting Amazon's cloud contracts with Israel.
Since 2024, 50 Google workers have been fired for protesting their company's supply of technology to the Israeli government.
This year, Microsoft employees protested the use of cloud services for the Israeli military.
Microsoft retaliated by asking the FBI to track the protesters, and more than 20 employees were fired.
Sameer Kanal
As tech workers, we recognize that our labor is political.
Michael Jordan
We won't contribute to genocide, mass surveillance, or unjust imprisonment.
We ask the City of Portland to evaluate its investments and do the same.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Ricky King is joining us online.
Uh, hello, councilors, council president, and mayor.
My name is Ricky King.
I'm from Northeast Portland.
I live in District 3 now.
I'm an organizer with the Democratic Socialists of America and Oregon Human Rights I'd be there in person, but there's a really bad cold going around.
I'm very sick.
Um, so the city has existing investment screens that are called overlays, explained at the Finance Committee a couple weeks ago.
I wanted to ask if investments in companies that are selling AI to a state committing genocidal violence according to the International Court of Justice, can we call those socially responsible?
Uh, that's how Amazon and Google are implicated right now in Israel's assault on Gaza.
And according to the AFSC, they also also directly and indirectly support correctional facilities.
Uh, the city holds $68 million and $26.5 million in those companies respectively.
And then thinking about Portland's divestment from Walmart proposed by Councilor Novick in 2014, Walmart isn't socially responsible.
They engage in union busting.
They paid out over $4 million for racially profiling an African-American man in Multnomah County.
But now the city portfolio includes them again, including a $34 million So what if the city had an adaptable investment overlay mechanism?
What if you could respond to Portlanders who don't want city investments in environmental violations, labor violations, or human rights abuses?
What if we could reflect our support for Palestinian, Black, and immigrant Portlanders in our investment policy?
So Councilor Novick, back in 2014, you said that socially responsible investing could spread to other cities, and it seems like it has.
Councilor Novick, I'm sorry, I didn't hear you.
It's time now to learn from other cities who have responded to the crisis in Gaza in their investments, like Northampton, Massachusetts, that divested on grounds of human rights abuses, like our sister city Portland, Maine.
So let's ask those other city halls how they implemented it, how they implemented those screens.
It's clearly possible.
Divestment worked on apartheid in South Africa, and it's what we need now.
Let's do right by the Palestinian families who are resettling here in Portland.
Loretta Smith
We need to make We sure that need we're doing right by them.
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
A human rights screen on our investments, not just for Palestine, but for those affected by ICE and the racist prison industrial complex.
So please vote yes on Kanal 1, the amendment here today.
Thank you very much.
Michael Jordan
Sammy.
Sameer Kanal
Uh, hello, my name is Dr. Sammy Ortoleva.
I'm a queer Palestinian and I'm active in the Oregon for Human Rights Coalition.
Uh, I am here because killing Palestinians is profitable.
I'm here because there is no ceasefire and the genocide in Gaza continues.
I'm here because investing in companies providing services to the genocidal Israeli armed forces, companies such as Google, Amazon, and Microsoft, is profitable.
I'm here because the city of Portland is currently lending over $100 million to the aforementioned trio of companies alone.
I'm here because this is not a one-directional relationship from Portland city coffers through corporations to the occupation of Palestine.
But a bidirectional one, as ICE deploys Israeli-developed hacking tools from Paragon Solutions to extract encrypted information on the phones of our neighbors here in Portland and across the country.
Hacking tools that undoubtedly, undoubtedly will be deployed disproportionately against BIPOC folks.
Tools that are tested on Palestinians first, then deployed here.
I'm here because there is a perverse double standard when it comes to Israel.
My Palestinian grandfather spilled blood during the Nakba.
Our village's complete destruction and my uncle's murder at the hands of Israeli forces is met with ambivalence, but demanding action to stop these Israeli crimes against humanity is questioned at every turn.
The proposed investment policy contains a list of prohibited industry classifications, which appears to be an attempt to reflect the values of the city.
Investments in small arms are prohibited.
But where is the intellectual consistency in openly stating an opposition to profiting from small arms but not major arms manufacturers?
I'm here to request intellectual consistency in the investment policy of the city.
I appreciate Councilmember Kanal's proposed amendment to the investment policy and urge you to support it.
I would like to add that I hope the process to formulate and pass a human rights screen does not take the entire calendar year until the next mandatory renewal of the city's investment policy.
Michael Jordan
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Melanie.
My name is Melanie Liu.
I'm a relatively new Portlander who loves this city, and I'm here because I believe you do too.
Right now, our public dollars are working against our own best interest.
Our investments are funding a who's who of many of our worst corporate actors, from Amazon to Walmart, from Google and Microsoft to Nvidia and Apple.
With our capital, we are subsidizing the very forces that devastate Main Streets, exploit workers, profit from incarceration and deportation, fuel human rights abuses, destroy families, businesses, local economies, and communities.
We are bankrolling billionaires— winners— billionaires profiting from ecocide, genocide, surveillance, and other abuses of power at the expense of losers: our small businesses, our workers, our immigrant neighbors, our relatives near and far, and our one and only planet.
Adopting a rigorous Human rights screen is not radical, it's responsible.
It's how we begin.
Let's then use our public dollars to build a better world.
Invest in green bonds, social bonds, regional banks, and credit unions until we build our own Portland Public Bank.
But please, let's stop bankrolling billionaires.
Thank you.
Thank you all very much for being here today.
Next up we have Sue Lewis, Curtis Bell, Mary Emerson, Lydia Kiesling, Ao Nguyen.
Welcome.
Go ahead and get started as soon as you're ready.
Loretta Smith
Sue?
Michael Jordan
Is it Sue Lewis?
No.
Curtis?
My name's Curtis Bell.
I'm a member of the First Unitarian Church, and I'm on the board of the Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East that works for the human rights of all people.
In Israel, Palestine, and the Middle East.
I don't really understand why human rights considerations should be even an issue for discussion here.
The purpose of the City Council is to provide for the human rights of all the citizens of Portland.
That's their purpose.
It makes no sense if human rights are the primary concern of this body that they would take money from corporations that are deeply involved in the violation of human rights.
If they do so, they are saying that the human rights of Portland people are my concern, but I don't care about the human rights of people in other places.
That seems deeply inconsistent and immoral.
The example of Zohran Mamdani winning the mayorship of New York City comes to mind.
He ran and one on a deep commitment to the human rights of not only the people of New York City, but also of all people, Muslims, Jews, and Palestinians, among others.
The city of Portland currently invests in Apple, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft.
All 4 of these companies provide Israel with cloud computing ability that makes the IDF possible.
And other technology as it pursues what is called and recognized as a genocide in Gaza.
If we're going to have a country and a world in which the human rights of all people matter, then we must follow Zohran Mamdani's example and commit ourselves, all of us, all organizations, to the human rights of all people everywhere.
As city commissioners, Charged with investing the resources of Portland for the benefit of Portland, I ask you to commit to the larger picture of the human rights of all people.
Sameer Kanal
Mary.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
My name is Mary Emerson, and I live in District 3.
Portland's a great city with passionate people who care deeply, and thanks to Steve Novick's efforts back in 2014, Portland's also been at the vanguard of Putting our money where our mouths are.
I appreciate that Portland has adopted a socially responsible overlay on the current portfolio, and I do applaud recent councilors' efforts to start enhancing those provisions to meet the demanding needs of our times.
The city's current portfolio of corporate debt includes significant investments in companies that provide the technology and infrastructure used at home and around the world to violate human rights.
As a city, we must make— take a moral stand.
It is not acceptable for our tax dollars to be used to enable tracking, kidnapping, and traumatizing our neighbors.
Oregon has already passed a state law prohibiting investments in any companies complicit in the genocide in Sudan.
In addition to adhering to state law, Portland must further ban investments in companies complicit in genocide and other violations of international law committed by any country.
It makes good financial sense to align our investments with our values.
The financial world is wary of investing in technologies that tear people apart and create chaos.
While there may be short-term gains based on the current political winds, these investments will lose value over time, just as investments in apartheid South Africa lost value in the '80s.
Today we have an opportunity for Portland to join over 20 cities around the country, cities, states, counties committed to divesting from human rights abuses happening now locally and abroad.
I beg you, stop funding illegal deportations, stop funding racial profiling, stop funding human rights abuses, stop funding violations of international law.
I do support the, the amendment put forth by Sameer, and I echo the comments of an earlier speaker That I hope it does not take until December 2026 to get there.
Thank you.
Lydia.
My name is Lydia Keesling, and I'm a member of Portland DSA and the Oregon Coalition for Human Rights.
I'm here to ask the city to amend our investment policy to reflect a commitment to human rights.
28 People were signed up to provide testimony on this item, FYI, but this meeting has gone long, so some of them have had to leave.
I testified at the Finance Committee meeting and heard testimony from the CFO about the logistics of applying a human rights overlay to our current investment policy.
While it's clear there will be some logistics to work out and it will involve the labor of city and council staff, respectfully, that is what it means for a government to make change.
There were people who found it logistically and economically inconvenient to put an end to child labor or develop antitrust laws or put fire exits on factory floors or stop doing business with apartheid South Africa.
But all of that was work that was worth doing, and so is this.
As a sanctuary city, one that has made public commitments to human rights, we should not be in the business of lending public dollars dollars to companies who are actively collaborating with ICE, with the Trump administration, with the Netanyahu regime, or with the exploiters of child labor in Congo or workers here in Portland.
Our current policy already prohibits investment in security services, and I would argue that some tech companies have already moved us out of compliance.
The technologies of surveillance that are used to violate human rights in the occupied West Bank and commit genocide in Gaza are also used by ICE agents to track and kidnap our neighbors.
I've seen with my own eyes the way Portlanders are being tortured by a paramilitary force using these technologies.
I'm grateful to Councilor Novick for starting the work years ago of asking if the city is invested in companies that are, in his words, evil.
I know bureaucracy is not set up to measure evil, but I'm asking this council not to pretend like there's no place where you would draw a line.
There's a reason museums took the Sackler name off their gallery walls.
There's a reason Portland doesn't hold Exxon bonds.
There are tools and experts the city can lean upon to further develop standards for ethical investment.
I'm not asking you to tear up the city's whole economic model.
I'm asking you to take some basic, modest initiative to align our policies with our values.
Please support your colleague, Councilor Kanal, in at least authorizing the city to make a plan.
Future generations will look at the atrocities of today and tomorrow and ask, why didn't people do more?
Here's your chance.
Thank you.
Councilor Kanal.
Michael Jordan
Good afternoon, Madam President and councilors.
Uh, my name is Ong Nguyen.
I live in District 3.
I would like to tell you about my friend Tala.
Here's a picture of her.
She was born in Gaza after the Israeli invasion of 2014.
Tala had severe— has severe birth defects, likely as a result of exposure to contamination left by white phosphorus bombs.
She needed multiple surgeries.
Tala will also need to have her prosthesis adjusted and replaced periodically as she grows.
Then came the 2023 invasion of Gaza.
Most of the hospitals were destroyed.
Tala could no longer get the care that she needs in Gaza.
And yet Tala is one of the lucky ones.
She's now in Portland getting care from Shriners.
Here's one of the less lucky children.
This is 10-year-old Ratab.
He is still in Gaza, in Deir al-Balah.
His right leg was amputated after an Israeli airstrike on Khan Yunis earlier this year.
His prosthesis is It's a piece of pipe held on with a string.
The City of Portland has $68 million in Amazon corporate bonds.
It's our single biggest corporate bond holding.
Amazon Web Services, AWS, provides cloud storage and virtual servers to the Israeli military.
This computing power allows them to spy on spy on Palestinians, select targets for bombing, and then watch live drone footage of the devastation.
So that is the direct connection between our investments and injuries or worse to innocent children like Tala and Rateb.
Please strengthen the human rights screen on our investments now.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Thank you.
Much for being here.
Next up we have Em Hayes, Jerry McCorkle, Betsy Zucker, Emily Hawley, Hyun Nam.
Um, hello.
I'm just another citizen of Portland here to reiterate what everyone is saying today, which is that we are at a crucial time in our history.
Um, obviously I have a bit less experience with these things than all of you, but I do know that we are living during one of the most well-documented genocides in human history.
How we invest our money matters.
Where our dollars go matters.
I understand that there are a lot of concerns about the fact that these investments of the City of Portland— the income that is generated from them allows the city to function.
It allows our amenities to work and our civil servants to be paid.
However, I think I can speak for most people of the City of Portland that we cannot place our own ease of functioning over the lives of people being actively genocided against.
Councilmember There have been many other cities who have chosen to enact stronger human rights policies in their investment strategies.
And the fact is that we can not only survive but thrive with higher regulations.
This is something that I think, as someone just recently said, looking back throughout history, we wonder why do we not do more.
Councilmember Herbold.
It is interesting to see what people say that they would have done during other human rights abuses during the past versus what they are actually doing now.
I think it is up to the city of Portland to put its money where its mouth is, literally, and adopt a significantly more robust and flexible policy that can work for this current atrocity and unfortunately the ones that will probably happen in the future.
So I know it is difficult, but now is not the time to focus on what is difficult, but what is necessary.
And with that, I just hope that you take the responsibility upon yourselves to do what you know is right, no matter how much extra work it may cause you.
Thank you very much.
Michael Jordan
Jerry.
Hi, my name is Jerry McCorkle.
Good afternoon.
I'm a Portland resident, homeowner, taxpayer, and voter, and I'm here today to urge you to vote yes to update the Portland Investment policy to better align with the values that Portland strives to embody.
No one waxes poetic about the glories of bygone Portland of yesteryear.
My great-grandparents lived through the exclusion, relocation, incarceration of Portlanders just because they were Black, Indigenous, or immigrants.
My grandparents saw the Ku Klux Klan running the Portland Police Bureau.
My parents saw the redlining and the destruction of the Albina neighborhood.
Thank you.
More recently, you and I all saw a lumber baron run— try to run this city into the ground to benefit his landed gentry cronies.
We can do better.
Your vote in favor of this policy can be a huge step forward in that— from that dark history.
Or your vote against it will be remembered when Portlanders vote against you.
Because we all know that Portland can do better, that you can do better, That this is what you were elected for.
When I pay my property taxes, I want that money to help people, to improve the common welfare.
I do wish this initiative went further.
I'm a military veteran, and much like the person who becomes a vegan after working in a slaughterhouse, I do not want my Portland taxes to support the military-industrial complex's murder of foreign and domestic civilians.
In conclusion, I know you care about the impact of your decisions and that, that, and how that impacts other people and the way we vote and live and work in Portland.
You wouldn't be here if you didn't.
So vote yes for this measure.
Ensure that your legacy in this room includes a vote for justice, a vote for peace, for human rights and the environment.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
My name is Betsy Zucker.
I live in Southeast Portland in District 3.
Um, thank you for the opportunity to speak today.
I'm here representing Portland Jobs with Justice, a coalition of over 100 labor, faith, and community organizations.
Loretta Smith
We are also a member of Oregon for Human Rights.
We have a long history at J with J of support for economic policies that strengthen labor, climate, and human rights for everyone here and abroad, including, for example, the rights of immigrant and contingent workers here and sweatshop workers abroad.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
We strongly support enacting a human rights Thank you.
Thank you, Mayor Wilson.
Michael Jordan
I'd like to turn to slide 6 on the screen for the City of Portland's investments.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
The city has a number of major investments in tech corporations which you've heard about today already.
Loretta Smith
Um, they've been identified by international bodies as clearly violating human rights through their involvement, profiteering, and complicity in Israel's actions, as well as similar involvement and support for ICE's assaults on our communities.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
These corporations, as you've heard, include Amazon, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and others.
Michael Jordan
And we still invest in Walmart with its poor record on workers' rights.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Portland, um, let's join the increasing numbers of localities around the country which have enacted ethical invest and divestment policies recently.
Loretta Smith
We will be in good company when we do so.
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Hyung is joining us online.
Michael Jordan
Hi, my name is Hyung Nam.
I'm a, um, coordinating committee member of Portland Metro People's Coalition, and I'm also one of the former members of the Socially Responsible Investment Committee for City of Portland.
I urge you to adopt the human rights screen for Portland's investments.
We created a do not buy list before when we had our committee.
I think something like that's really important.
This is what helped end the apartheid in South Africa, and similarly, we need to end apartheid and genocide in Israel.
It's important to target specific companies that, um, kind of like a boycott, even if we're not currently invested in them, like Caterpillar, because, um, whether we may invest in a particular corporate security changes depending on their credit ratings.
And I think it's important whether we are currently invested or not, that we name specific companies as part of a global campaign that we will not purchase securities from.
For instance, Caterpillar, which we have purchased securities in the past but don't currently have, has worked with the IDF to armor their bulldozers and mount machine guns on them.
And it's one of those that killed Rachel Corrie a few years ago.
And other tech companies are collaborating with not only Israel but also ICE.
We should furthermore look at our procurement policies as well.
Let's join other cities and municipalities and adopt human rights screen on investments.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Emily.
Thank you, President Pirtle-Guiney and members of the committee.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Michael Jordan
Thank you, members of the council.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
My name is Emily Hawley, and I'm a lawyer with experience in atrocity crimes investigations.
I'm currently counsel at the Sanctions Law Center, but here in my personal capacity.
One key flaw within our international legal system, which largely focuses on state conduct, is that corporations, which rival states in power, influence, and potential human rights consequences, remain largely unregulated.
Corporations are further structured to insulate from risk and evade liability.
They can distance themselves from unsavory practices like Nestlé subsidiaries' child slavery.
So relying on legal systems alone to ensure corporate accountability is wholly inadequate.
Within this somewhat anarchic system, we, the investors, the consumers, and the labor are the forces that shape these industries.
We check their malfeasance.
And we protect one another.
And the return on our investments is not just monetary.
The world we invest in is the world we create, whether we fund surveillance technology abroad that is already coming home or green energy systems.
With immigrant communities under attack and U.S. tax dollars funding genocides, we can no longer afford to look away from the true cost of our investment policies.
I'm particularly glad this proposal recognizes that human rights screening alone is inadequate and we must account for other grave violations of international law, including the laws of war and atrocity crimes.
I ask that Portland join cities across the United States in incorporating this ethical investment screening and appreciate the, the councilors who have led on this so far.
Thank you.
Thank you all for being here today.
Next up we have Rocky Cohen, Lori Mercier, Maxwell Colmenares, Olivia Cadby, Olivia Busho.
Rocky is joining us online.
Hello and Thank you to the Finance Committee and council members for your work.
My name is Rocky Cohen and I live in District 3.
I grew up in Washington County, an alumni of Portland State University, and I've lived in Portland for over 2 decades.
I'm a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, a lay leader at Havara Shalom Synagogue, and a member of the Oregon Jewish Caucus.
Because I am Jewish and a 3rd-generation descendant of a survivor of the Holocaust, I believe deeply in the words never again and in the universal dignity of every human life.
It is a strong Jewish value that we should hold our own institutions, including our city investment policy, to the highest standard.
I'm shocked that here in Portland, a city that presents itself as a bastion of progressive values, that we still don't have alignment on ensuring that our city's investments, our tax dollars, are not funding human rights abuses both at home and abroad.
I'm horrified to find out how financially complicit we Portlanders are in the ongoing genocide.
Every life is precious, and yet we are profiting from killing, from genocide, and we call ourselves a sanctuary city.
We took the right stand to withdraw our complicity in the genocide in Sudan.
It's now time to apply the same standard to any entity For example, corporate or foreign bonds violating international law.
This includes the Israeli government, U.S. immigration enforcement, and other components of the prison industrial complex.
The frameworks exist to make decisions, implement, and reevaluate our investments, and we're behind.
As a Jewish Portlander, I want to be very clear: applying a human rights lens to Israel is not anti-Semitic.
It is our moral responsibility.
Every international human rights organization has documented the Israeli apartheid and ongoing genocide.
Ignoring that while claiming to stand for justice is an abomination to my values as a Jewish Portland resident.
We must not invest in genocide.
We must, must stop human rights abuses.
This is urgent.
Michael Jordan
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Lori.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Maxwell.
Sameer Kanal
Hi all, thank you for the opportunity to speak on this, and thank you to Councilor Kanal for bringing forward the human rights screen.
My name's Maxwell Coleman-Aris.
I am a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and the Oregon Coalition for Human Rights.
I also live in Kearns, and as resident of Council District 3, had the pleasure of ranking all 3 of our sitting councilors on my ballot last fall.
And I wanna thank each of you for your work.
Councilors Murillo and Koyama Lane for your pledge to disinvest city resources from apartheid and genocide, and Councilor Novick for your work on related measures going back to 2014.
And thank you to this whole body for your unanimous vote to codify our sanctuary city status and stand by Portland's values.
I've heard a lot of good discussion today prior to this measure also about what power lies at the local level as opposed to national.
And here, there's certainly a direct power to divest from corporations that are creating chips for missiles and surveillance technology utilized by ICE and against Palestinians.
To pick one example, the NVIDIA Jetson TX2 AI processor is integrated into Elbit Systems Lineus drones, which Israel has used to kill Palestinian civilians during the Gaza genocide.
The city of Portland holds just shy of $15 million in NVIDIA investments, so it's a very relevant issue and can have a lot of Good effects to disinvest.
It's also an issue that, as others have spoken to, is directly affecting Palestinian survivors of genocide who are all of your constituents.
This is gonna be a critical next step in the work you all have already done to make Portland a city dedicated to human rights at a time of increasing cruelty nationally.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you all.
Olivia Cappy.
Olivia Bouchot.
Good afternoon, councilors.
My name is Olivia Bouchot.
I'm a member of the Oregon State Bar with experience in the civil and human rights of incarcerated Oregonians.
I'm grateful to you for taking the lead of so many other cities in the U.S. and adopting this investment policy in Portland.
As it contracts with the likes of Amazon, Google, and others, the city fails to meet internationally recognized human rights obligations.
History has taught us time and time again what this does to ignore such atrocities, to not take the stand that you know you can make.
As you know, our own neighbors, friends, family members are being snatched off the street by masked goon squads.
Councilor Loretta Smith.
Of terror from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
I can't convey the devastation that's being wrought in our communities.
The atrocities across the globe that are being presented to us daily in real time is funded by the U.S. and companies like those in Portland— that those Portland is invested in, funded, and armed.
Such investments in genocide and climate catastrophe aren't sound or viable.
The reckoning's already here, but many are running out of time.
I'm grateful to your vote— for your vote today to build a new world and an economic system that our descendants can survive.
Thank you.
Liberation is inevitable.
And each choice matters.
Your vote matters.
Thank you.
Thank you all very much.
Next up, we— next up we have Janet Wheel, Adra Ellis, Jennifer Kane, Melanie Cambron, Sally Jockin.
Go ahead, Janet.
Oh, uh, let's— Jennifer Kane joining us online.
Thank you so much.
Honorable Portland Council members, the current City of Portland investment policy needs to be expanded to include a human rights strain to the Portland investment policy.
Creditworthiness is not a measure— it is not a good measure of a human rights record.
For example, over $20 million of corporate notes the City of Portland currently holds was purchased in 2025 after the total leveling and the genocide that was livestreamed across the world in Gaza.
Other cities such as Richmond, Hayward, and Alameda, California have taken bold steps to divest from Israeli companies.
In Portland, Maine, for example, the city, quote, divests from all entities complicit in the current and ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the occupation of Palestine, and to not make, make, make any future investments, including Israeli bonds.
These are the kinds of bold decisions that are needed in Portland, Oregon, to align with our city's values as a sanctuary city, which the council unanimously supported through an ordinance to codify the city's sanctuary status in October.
Thank you, Councilor Novick, for your leadership in 2014 to get the city to divest from Walmart.
An additional thanks to the 6 city council members who have taken a pledge to ensure that Portland is not complicit in Israel's state violence.
Thank you.
Genocide, including through our investments.
As of October 31st, 2025, Portland still is issuing corporate bonds that include companies like Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Nvidia, and Walmart that are violating human rights through complicity in Israel's genocide.
We must prohibit these companies from Portland's investments.
Councilmember Herbold.
And also companies that are complicit with the abductions by ICE, as well as using technology as a weapon of war, including companies like NVIDIA, Amazon, Palantir, Google, and Microsoft.
Thank you so much for your time and for your efforts to align Portland City investments with our values.
Thank you.
Janet, Adra Ellis, Melanie, Sally.
Oh, sorry.
Whoops.
Melanie.
Okay, go ahead.
Hi, my name is Melanie Cambron.
I'm an organizer with Code Pink local chapter.
We are a feminist, pro-peace, anti-war organization.
I'm testifying today as an individual, um, and to be honest, I'm not really— well, I didn't prepare a speech, so I'm speaking from the heart.
Um, every day for 2 years, I woke up and had to see livestream genocide.
Um, I think it's really strange that a genocidal matter agenda item is put last.
This represents an emergency, not privatizing public assets.
This should be an emergency item to vote.
There's a sense of urgency that should be acted on.
As the city plans December 9th to commemorate the victims of all genocides on December 9th, I find it odd that we are acting fueling the companies that are financing these genocides.
We must add human rights screening to include tech arms.
That includes processing chips.
Um, there are other 21 cities that have already done this.
This should be a sense of emergency.
Loretta Smith
Yeah, I think that's all I want to say is that it just seems ironic to me that we're, we're about to commemorate and we proclaim that we care about genocide, but we're actively funding it.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Let's do better.
Sally.
Sally.
Sally Jocken.
Michael Jordan
My name is Sally Jocken, and I live in Portland, District 3.
Sameer Kanal
I'm active in Multnomah Democrats criminal justice and foreign policy study groups and in the Oregon for Human Rights Coalition calling for socially responsible investing.
Michael Jordan
Portland, as we all know, is a sanctuary city that aims to protect its immigrant residents.
We are a city that aims to improve life for working people in regard to housing, transportation, employment, food security, safety, and to find a real solution to homelessness.
The city needs the profits from fiscally wise investments to be able to fund needed services and improve Thank you.
But it makes no sense to acquire these needed funds by investing in entities that harm people, harm the environment, or promote violence.
The values we apply to city policy should be the same values we apply to city investing.
Sameer Kanal
For example, we can't protect our immigrant neighbors and at the same time invest in corporations that assist ICE detentions and deportations.
We can't promote safety on our own streets and then invest in companies that are complicit in war crimes on the streets of Gaza and the West Bank.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I carefully read the investment policy being considered today for annual approval, and I find many sound fiscal considerations, but no mention of the fact that Portland already has a number of screened-out categories.
Michael Jordan
Building on there being some socially responsible screening regarding the city's investment policy, I'm here today to call on council to add many other categories of corporate bonds to Portland's socially irresponsible list.
Entities that help ICE, all the fossil fuel industries, any companies that aid genocide or other human rights violations and international law, and anti-labor union-busting corporations.
Sameer Kanal
I'm very glad to learn that many members of City Council have already indicated that they want to see the city's investments align with Portland values, and thank all of you who want this to advance.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Will you please state your name for the record?
Go ahead.
Uh, hello, I'm Adria Ellis.
I'm here today as a Member of DSA and as a student at Lewis Clark College who was involved in student efforts around the amendment passed by our Board of Trustees to our investment policy.
Early this fall, Lewis Clark College's board disinvested from arms manufacturers as a means of functional divestment from Israeli human rights violations and enshrined the language of human rights in our university's investment policy.
This was the culmination of activism that involved both persistent protest efforts on behalf of students and working in—.
Michael Jordan
And working within committees composed of both students, trustees, and administrators.
Sameer Kanal
Today, the council has a hand in investing in human rights both locally and abroad and bringing the city's investment policy in line with the values of our Portland community.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Michael Jordan
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you all very much for your testimony today.
Uh, next up, uh, we have Susanna Farahat.
Susanna?
Uh, Lori Mercier has joined us online.
Lori, you're muted.
Lori, can you hear us?
Lori, can you hear us?
Michael Jordan
Lori?
Loretta Smith
Yes.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Can you hear me?
Yes, we can hear you now.
We can now.
I'm sorry, I've got laryngitis, so I sent in my written comments.
I apologize.
Okay, so you won't be testifying today verbally?
Correct.
Okay, thank you.
That completes testimony.
Thank you very much.
Colleagues, that moves us into discussion.
Councilor Kanal, you're in the queue.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Madam President.
I'm going to at this time formally make the motion to enact Amendment Kanal 1 as pre-filed and posted online.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Second.
Or second.
I think Councilor Koyama Lane beat you to that, Councilor Avalos.
Councilor Kanal, are your comments to the amendment?
I'm sorry, Councilor Novick, are your comments to the amendment?
Yes, they are.
To Councilor Kanal's amendment.
Let me try to say 2 names correctly here.
Go right ahead, Councilor Novick.
Sameer Kanal
So I'm gonna be voting no on the amendment primarily because I don't think that the administration has any particular expertise in developing an ethical investment policy.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Hmm.
Sameer Kanal
I don't think that— I think that we as council members have at least as much expertise in such a thing as anybody in the executive, and it's incumbent on us to work to develop a more comprehensive socially responsible investment policy.
So I just want to say that.
Also, I just want to mention that I obviously have no objection to the idea that we should take Human rights violations, including genocide, slavery, torture, et cetera, into account.
But I also think that it's important to consider labor violations, ripping off consumers, environmental violations.
And we'll note that many companies have more direct control over what they do to their own workers, what they do to the environment, what they do to consumers than they do over Entities they sell stuff to, well, they sell stuff to everybody.
So I think that we need to— if we're going to have a screen, we should expand the screen to include labor, environmental, and consumer violations.
I would also note that after I came up with the very limited policy of don't invest in Walmart bonds, we then had a vigorous conversation in the council and with the public over the next year about expanding Expanding the policy.
And, uh, we wound up in a situation where, um, finally, um, my colleagues decided that they didn't want to be in the business of figuring out which companies were worse, so they just banned all, uh, investment in corporate bonds, which both cost the city money and, like, made no ethical point whatsoever.
Um, so that annoyed me, but it did reflect the difficulty of this and why it's hard to come up with something there's to be consensus on.
So for example, in addition to the question of what kind of conduct do you think should be taken into account, another issue would be if you're going to go after— I mean, I am horrified what Israel has done in Gaza, and what I'm going to say does not diminish this.
But if you're going to be making decisions based on relations with particular countries, then you need to think about more than one country.
I mean, I personally would want to think about Saudi Arabia.
Which is one of the 12 countries where homosexuality is punishable by death, a country that led an intervention in the Yemeni civil war that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Yemenis, and where the leader of the country directly ordered the execution and dismemberment of a journalist.
So once we start talking— I mean, once we start talking about what values we care about, it's a broad conversation.
Once we start talking about what countries we're worried about, that's a broad conversation.
So Although I appreciate people's desire for us to move forward and do something quickly, it gets gnarly.
And I, having started this conversation in 2014, I'm eager to engage in it over the next coming months with Councilor Kanal and others who are interested.
But again, I think that has to be our discussion.
I don't think that the administration has any particular expertise in it.
One thing actually that I do agree with in the— is the last be it further resolved in Councilor Kanal's proposal.
Thank you.
Be it resolved that the council encourage the administration to conduct community outreach in advance of the 2026 City of Portland Investment Policy, including through relevant boards and commissions, and to include interested council offices in this process.
I think that it's gonna be up to us to work on what the policy will be, but I do think the administration has the capacity to help us in public involvement.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Green.
Michael Jordan
Thank you, Madam President.
Thank you to everybody who gave testimony today.
I just want to speak to— so I'm going to support the amendments for one— well, a few reasons, but the biggest and most urgent is this amendment, I feel like, is a way to get me to yes on the underlying policy, which we do need to pass to be in compliance with our state law.
When we—.
When I voted no out of the Finance Committee, I did so because of the testimony that I heard and the broad understanding that we have 4 companies that are engaged in things that don't align with our values.
I didn't offer an amendment at that time for the reasons that we're discussing, and we talked about this during the Finance Committee, that it is a little reckless and haphazard to slap something together, and you need some time to engage in this.
So I think you and I had discussed potentially working on something offline.
I've had similar conversations with other colleagues.
Thank you.
For me, this resolution is an elegant solution to the bind I find myself in, which is to say, look, we are inviting— well, we're urging the administration to be a thought partner with us on this.
But council will lead on this as much as the administration will lead in their capacity.
I do think they have technical expertise to share with us as we do this because they're the ones who manage our Investment portfolio, and they've got experience with the contractors that we would need to engage with.
I would also note that it's been pretty much precedent on this body when we do council actions, whether they be ordinances or resolutions, for one of the litmus tests to reasonableness and adequacy is like, how well did you engage with the bureaucracy on this?
So I think just on a philosophical level, I find myself in a little bit of a, a quandary because I actually personally think that council should be doing a lot more irrespective of what the administration believes.
And I just bring it forward.
I did that with the hot dog thing.
Didn't, you know, more to come on that.
But the point I'm trying to make here is that this is a path forward that I think puts a flag in the ground.
It allows me to say, yes, of course, this doesn't do it today, but it says we have a timeline here, we have a process that we've outlined, we hear you, and this is something that's going to take a few months of deliberative effort.
And I'll just leave it up there.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Morillo.
Thank you, Council President.
First, I just want to say how much I appreciate the folks that came in and testified.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mayor.
Thank you to everyone who testified today and who came and testified at the Finance Committee as people are learning where to pull the levers of power in our new form of government.
I just really appreciate all of the research that was done, all of the thought that was put into this, and how much engagement and how kindly and respectfully it was done on a very difficult topic.
I have so much appreciation for that.
I also want to be very clear that my vote to support the underlying resolution is contingent on this amendment I do not feel comfortable moving it as is.
I understand that this was brought up during Finance, and I really appreciate the work that Councilor Kanal has done to be responsive to the community testimony that came in during the Finance Committee.
That's exactly how things are supposed to work, and I'm glad that he picked up that work and outlined that so that the rest of us could hop on.
And luckily, Councilor Kanal is a human rights expert, so—.
Sameer Kanal
I am.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
We actually do have human rights experts on City Council, and we're lucky to have that.
So we also have community experts.
We have human rights attorneys who came in and spoke today who have done extensive work on this.
We have a lot of support from people who are going to come in and help us.
I think that this outlines a process that engages council, it engages the administration, and I think that this This is something that should ideally engage the community as well.
And we have experts in all of those spaces.
So I would disagree with the idea that we don't have what it takes or the expertise to do this.
I also think oftentimes there are plenty of reasons to never do something.
There are plenty of reasons to waffle.
There are plenty of reasons to make perfect the enemy of the good.
And sometimes you just have to act and you just have to do Councilor Smith.
Thank you, Mayor.
So this policy is neutral.
It does not outline any specific companies or countries, and it is neutral in that way so that we can address other countries like Saudi Arabia or any other companies that are doing human rights violations.
So because of the way that it's crafted, I think that we're going to have a very thoughtful and ethical contracting system, and this is one step towards creating a process to make that happen.
And so I don't think that we can wait any longer on this.
Again, my vote for the underlying resolution is contingent on this.
And thank you to everyone who has shown up today and who waited hours to testify.
I know that the rest of our business can get kind of long and heavy, but I appreciate you being here.
And thank you, Councilor Kanal, again for your work on this.
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith
Thank you, Madam President.
I think this is an important conversation, and like, uh, Representative— um, Councilor Murillo, um, this amendment does not identify specific countries or companies, and I think we need to have that conversation about socially responsible and ethical, um, How we invest our public dollar.
And I just want to thank all the folks who came in today to comment on this.
Your comments were— yes, they were very much appreciated from my corner of this council because I don't want us to get confused about what we're talking about.
And so in order for us to make sure that next year because I think it's too early to make the decision on companies.
I mean, they change, values change so often that you, you can't make those kinds of, uh, short snap decisions.
But I do think we need to have the conversation, and, uh, that's why I will be supporting this, um, amendment.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Ryan.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Madam President.
Uh, this is actually for CFO Jonas Biery.
Biery, could you please come up?
I have a question about our own city investment policy and how it affects our own municipal bond rating, and does it directly impact that in any way?
Um, do we have a—.
Currently we have a AAA Moody's, like, rating, right?
Michael Jordan
Yeah, Councilor, for the record, uh, Jonas Biery, the city's chief financial officer, Yes, sir, and yes, we do carry a Moody's AAA bond rating.
The bond rating assessment is based on a lot of different factors, as we've talked about at this body before, some of which— ultimately, it's an assessment of our ability to pay back our debt, to pay back what we borrow for.
And the investment policy is a piece of that.
Okay.
Very multifaceted analysis.
To the extent that, trying to be careful 'cause I don't wanna suggest any judgment or comment on the valid conversations before us today, but any actions that limit our ability to sort of generate revenue to pay back that debt is a risk.
Sameer Kanal
Yeah.
Michael Jordan
And certainly any prior, current, future limitations on our ability to invest in things limits that.
Is there a direct impact?
No.
But I do want to be clear and transparent that limitations on the policy will result in some amount, some non-zero amount of reduced revenue that requires other trade-offs.
And those may be valid trade-offs.
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
And how much staff time would be needed to implement these recommendations in the amendment?
Michael Jordan
That's a great question.
I mean, we just obviously learned about it recently, so I haven't had a lot of time to consider.
It will not be insignificant.
And I guess I would flag, as was noted by a testifier, it will take work to do that, and that work may be important.
You know, I think it was also noted by a councilor this morning that we're not in a position to say that we're going to do this.
We can choose as an organization what we prioritize.
So my answer to you, Councilor, is putting this out as something that the administration will do, led by my team, I'll say, I assume, will mean there are things that we do not do.
There are things that are possibly in motion that are current council priorities that will not happen because we don't have human capacity to do that.
That's okay.
Thank you.
This council can choose that.
I just would ask, please, to recognize that putting this additional effort will mean there are other priorities, including things already in motion, that we will not be able to complete because we just don't have the capacity to do that.
So I can't answer your question directly.
It will be a lift, and we're happy to take that lift on if that's the direction of this body.
Sameer Kanal
No, that's fair.
All of us got this amendment And so, and it was like right before a lot of us go to bed, so we really haven't had a lot of time to have discussion on this.
So we're doing it now because it wasn't a part of the committee report, correct, the amendment?
So I just think this could be then for you, Councilor Kanal.
What will be the methodology to determine the potential loss of funds in the investment portfolio with each move to cut a current investment?
Because that's the fluidity that you're proposing, correct?
Michael Jordan
Yes.
Loretta Smith
Yes.
Sameer Kanal
What's your vision on that?
Go right ahead.
Kind of taking notes on all the things to respond to, um, so I'll just answer yours and then I'll keep my spot in the queue to answer the other things.
I think that's what the process that this, this amendment outlines is designed to include.
It's one of the 2 things that I think the administration's involvement is necessary for, because only the administration has the level And so I do not intend for it to mean that the administration is driving the decision on what the ethics of the city are.
I intend it to mean that the administration is a thought partner in developing it.
And one of the ways, one of the 2 big ways, I'll talk about the other one in a second, is through giving that sort of advice.
And then ultimately it's council's decision.
Council's I think that's a great point.
Decision.
If there's a, you know, I talked to Jonas about this a couple months ago, and it's fair to say that any potential restriction on investment has a hypothetical effect on the yield that is possible.
And usually when you're adding restrictions, you are, it's a downward effect on it.
And it's, I want to be transparent about that.
That's a decision this council passed has already made when we chose not to invest in alcohol.
We chose not to invest in correction facilities, security facilities, oil, small arms, you name it.
We've already decided that there are some things that are more important than money, and we're just asking, is human rights more important than money?
And if so, how?
And I think the, the question I'm asking today in the amendment is, can we start a process to give us the information necessary so that next time we talk about this, we are able to weigh the how as part of weighing Are human rights more important than money?
And to what degree?
How much money are we talking?
What are the limits?
Those sorts of questions.
Did you have anything to add to that, Jonas?
Anything to add?
Michael Jordan
No.
Okay.
Sameer Kanal
And if we adopt our own standards, how will it be proven that a publicly traded company is actively violating our investment policy or guidelines?
What's your vision on that?
And you've led me to the second one.
The other place where I think I think the administration's involvement is important is in the specific tools.
Jonas and Bridget, our treasurer, they expressed a hesitation over the idea that a subjective decision would be made by a single staffer somewhere.
And that staffer would have to then be hauled in front of us in public to say, well, I think this company's okay, but that company's not, and here's why.
Right.
And that is a subjectivity that we've avoided by council writing 6 categories into Appendix A of the policy and the Bloomberg Industry Classification Standard system for application to that so that we know what can and cannot be invested in.
I think part of the conversation we have to have, and part of why, for those who wanted this to be more, part of why I couldn't do that in the time allotted is We gotta figure out the tools we're gonna use.
And that's a really important thing to avoid putting an individual employee in the position of a subjective decision, but instead creating a subjective decision by council on the policy and the tool, and then the objective application of that policy to potential investments.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Councilor Ryan, anything further?
No, that's good.
Okay.
Councilor Avalos.
All right, um, well, first I just want to appreciate the public testimony that we, we received.
Um, people are asking the city to strengthen our social responsibility guidelines, and that's an important conversation we need to have.
Um, I just wanted to entertain a little bit of some of the comments you made, Councilor Novick, because I was like, it perked my mind because I think you're speaking to a broader issue.
But I'll just say, um, It was not my read of the amendment that this was simply a tell the administration to go do it and then come back to us.
Sameer Kanal
So that was somewhat of what I heard in what you said.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
But I bring it up because I think it is a broader discussion we need to have.
One, about the tools we have available to us, right?
I think the format in which this was received is this resolution.
This is a way to put that stake in the ground and say, community, we hear you.
We are interested in having this discussion.
We need to put something in writing that says we're going to have that discussion and obviously get—.
Loretta Smith
You put it in writing so you can get votes, right, from councilors.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
So we agree that we need to do that thing that the amendment says.
And then I think in general, for a lot of the different resolutions and other ordinances— well, no, I'll stick with resolutions that we've passed.
I feel like a lot of us have engaged with the administration on making sure that those things are followed through on, right?
Unified Housing Strategy being a good example of that.
That was, yes, a direction to the administration saying, come back to us with some information, you know, get us the, the things that we need to make the decision to have the policy discussion.
So I just raise it because, um, I wanted to flag that it is important that we think about how we're using what's available to us.
I think Councilor Kanal's amendment is using what's available to us to make that distinction, um, for how we continue the conversation in the future.
I also think it's important that we do this now, even though, yes, technically the investment policy comes every year and we're going to have a similar discussion every year.
But again, you know, we're signaling our response to the community that we want to have a formal process with us, with community, with administrators, with experts to guide a really challenging financial and socially responsible moral discussion.
I just wanted to name that because I was— I've been processing that over the last few minutes, and I think it's important to just say that I hope that as we continue in this form of government, we continue to use these tools as a way to say this is us not only directing the administration, but it's also an invitation to work with us as the policymakers to help us shape the decisions that ultimately we do vote on, if that makes sense.
Sameer Kanal
So thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
So I just needed to say that as the annoying form of government girly.
Loretta Smith
Other than that, I really appreciate you, Councilor Kanal, for putting this forward.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I definitely agree that this amendment is important for me to vote on the underlying resolution so that I feel certain that we as a council are committing to having that discussion, not just letting it happen next year, that we're putting intention behind the effort that it's going to take to have a thorough discussion about it in the next So I'm supportive of the amendment, uh, and will vote for the underlying resolution if this amendment passes.
Thanks.
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Madam President.
Uh, thank you to everyone who came here today, whether you testified or not.
Um, thank you to everyone who wrote in on this as well.
Uh, the written testimony was, uh, in line, I think, on the whole, uh, with the, uh, the verbal testimony as well, and I, I appreciate that.
Thank you to Councilor Novick for the comments.
I do want to say I believe you when you say you care about these issues and are willing to work on this in the future, even if you vote no on the amendment.
Also, I'm going to try to respond to the comments and see if I can win you over anyway.
First, I agree with 3 of my colleagues.
Councilor Green said it, I think, first, that I personally cannot vote for the administration's proposed investment policy as is.
My personal background in human rights has informed my development of approach to Every issue, I can't separate it from human rights.
I don't have that capacity to do that.
I think about human rights in every decision I make.
To the point about labor rights and other things being included in the list, in the second resolved that I'm proposing adding, it lists items in this way: screening potential investments based on human rights, including a list.
And that including means that other types of human rights issues beyond those listed are involved in the process I'm asking.
I believe that labor rights are human rights, and, you know, women's rights are human rights.
There's a lot of different categories.
LGBT rights are human rights.
We could list things, and frankly, maybe I'd write it differently if I was doing it over again.
But I want to be clear that these factors are included even if they're not listed because of the word choice of including there.
To the point about individual countries, I agree with you.
My amendment does not list any specific countries.
My background and commitment to this is deep.
Just Just to give you a sense of a the work that quick I've done, story.
I worked as a student senator when I was in college to amend both our student government's policy on divestment and the statewide student lobby's policy on divestment.
This is in 2007.
It was originally just focused on Sudan, not by just saying Sudan and another country, but by creating a screen on this.
I don't remember which one passed and which failed, but one, one was successful.
It's been a long time.
I do think that establishing the goals and purposes and factors is the better path.
Thank you.
I do think your slippery slope argument is worth examining here.
Your history about proposing just an investment in Walmart being avoided, and then that becoming we don't invest in any corporation.
And I want to be clear here, I have no desire to get out of city investments in the private sector as a whole.
I want the city to invest in the private sector, and it's not just about yields.
The point of divestment campaigns is not to avoid investment or yields.
It is to use the leverage of your investment choices to influence behavior of the people you might or might not be investing in.
You cannot do that if you don't invest in the private sector at all.
So continued investment in the private sector is necessary for this to have any impact whatsoever.
Otherwise, it's just, as you said, it has no ethical impact whatsoever.
And finally, to the point on who should lead on this, I actually agree with you.
I that that the administration shouldn't be the ones leading on the ethical choice here, and I don't want to toot my own horn here.
But I have gone to grad school for human rights.
I do intend for my office to be one of the interested council offices, and I think the part about the administration's involvement is about two things: What tools should we use, and how would those work?
And what are the financial impacts in terms of returns on our investment portfolio as a whole of each potential policy?
And tool.
I actually updated the text of the first resolved based on my knowledge of your thoughts on that prior to— it's all reflected in here so that the administration isn't going away and coming back with options, but that interested council offices are going to be part of that conversation too.
And so to be clear, the legislative intent is that we direct the ethics, the what and the why, and they're informing us on the how as well as the how much.
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Novick, you're in the queue.
Sameer Kanal
I think that actually it might be possible for me to bring you to language that we could agree on.
My concern with the way this is written is it says, be it further resolved that the council urges the administration to develop in collaboration with interested council offices options for an ethical investment policy.
I don't think that's the way it should work.
Again, I don't think they have any particular expertise in developing options for an ethical investment policy.
If, however, it said, we urge the administration to provide feedback to the council and work with the council as the council— as council offices develop options for an ethical investment policy, I'm okay with that.
It's changing.
Yeah, I'm gonna type that up and we can figure that out as the conversation continues, but I have no issue with that.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Councilor Novick, do you have further comments?
Sameer Kanal
Well, also, I mean, if I'm going to vote for this amendment, I would like some reference to the council is interested in considering environmental policies, consumer policies, and labor policies, just Because I don't know that people automatically think of those things when they think of human rights.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Anything further, Councilor?
Sameer Kanal
That's it.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay, I'll leave it to the two of you to decide if you're going to sidebar or not.
Um, Jonas, I have a question.
I'm wondering if— and maybe this is a question for the treasurer instead.
I'm not sure, but I'm wondering if anybody from the administrative side has had the opportunity to look at the list of examples of policies that, um, were emailed out to council last— late last night.
Michael Jordan
Uh, yes, Councilor Rosen.
I, I mean, I looked quickly, uh, today, and, um, I think they provide a variety of examples of how this is approached.
Um, there are, um, important differences between many of those entities in the city.
A couple of them are endowments.
One of them is a Pension trust fund.
So by their very nature, they're gonna have very different risk and investment criteria that they're gonna be looking at.
So I just will acknowledge that.
I think as was noted by at least one testifier, there's other options that exist out in the world.
So appreciate the councilor's intent in identifying a few different possibilities.
And if directed, we'll look at those and others.
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
What I'm wondering with these examples is we talked pretty extensively in committee about the importance of having a screen that led us to some sort of outside either list or criteria.
Again, to the point that was raised today, we don't have a single staff person trying to make decisions about how to apply a screen.
And I'm wondering if any of these are examples of that.
Sameer Kanal
Yeah.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
The other entities that have moved in this direction have that sort of outside screen, or if we would be either pointing to somebody else and saying do what they do, or if we really would be putting ourselves in a situation of having to have somebody at the city making those year-to-year decisions about how we apply that screen to our investments.
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, I don't—.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I'm trying to understand that piece.
Michael Jordan
Yeah, I don't know I don't know enough about the details of how those other entities or others that were not included in that list, you know, organize or manage their portfolios.
What I would say is we would very strongly not want to be in a position where that judgment is put on a city staffer.
That's not good practice.
That's not That's just— that we frankly probably wouldn't find a human who would do that.
And so that would not be the approach that we would recommend in any shape or form.
That is the crux, and it's been mentioned a couple times in the conversation today.
The crux of the challenge is identifying, you know, where is the line drawn?
Who draws that line?
How is it identified?
And how can it be objectively applied?
In a way that meets the criteria that reflects the values of this council and this city.
So that's where a lot of the hard work will be.
And I appreciate that there are entities out there who have perhaps found a magic solution to that.
And so we would certainly look to reach out to those folks and see how they accommodate those same challenges that other governments will have.
And, You know, identify if there is an existing screen that meets these criteria.
The other thing, in addition to sort of that technical screening research, is, again, as has been mentioned by this council in this conversation, is we'll need to be really clear on where those values lie.
We've heard a variety of important considerations, and it will be impossible to identify where that line's drawn unless we have very, very clear direction about what those areas of importance are.
And of course, an understanding of what those trade-offs are.
So it will take some work.
And whether it's the administration that leads or a group of council that leads, we'll certainly have to do it together.
And it will be a difficult conversation.
We've been through this before.
I think as Councilor Novick mentioned and recalls, uh, when this came up a decade or so ago, it was a couple of years to have that conversation and come to something that felt like a reasonable resolution.
So, um, I don't want to suggest it's going to take that long, but I just want to acknowledge it is a— it's, I think, important to take the time and make sure that we get it right and recognize those trade-offs.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Jonas.
Colleagues, I was surprised, as I think some of you were, that our investment screens currently have allowed us to reinvest in Walmart and some other companies that we had previously said we were not going to invest in.
And I don't want to speak for others up here, but I know that I don't want to see our funds going toward atrocities here or around the world.
I also received an amendment after 9 o'clock last night.
I read it at 6:30 this morning.
3 And a half weeks ago, we heard this in committee.
3 And a half weeks ago, we heard these concerns, and there was some signaling that perhaps there would be an amendment coming to address that.
And then there was silence, at least to my office, and I was left with the impression that perhaps something wasn't coming, because there was that silence until 6:30 this morning when I read the amendment.
It sounds as though our staff weren't given time to see how this is applied in other cities.
And while I know that what's being proposed is an iterative process, the type of process that helps us get to good policy, and I'm being told that it's not about a single action or country or company or Value.
I'm hearing testimony that is calling out specific actions and countries and companies and values.
I don't like voting for things that have preconceived outcomes, especially when I'm told they don't.
And I'm not comfortable moving in the direction of another city or county's answer if that answer leaves somebody having to make these decisions.
In a way that we've heard from our staff they really don't want us to do.
I don't know if these examples do that or not because we haven't had the time to ask the questions that would let me know if this iterative process is truly an open-ended process to get us to good policy, or if this is really just a setup for a preconceived outcome.
And I'm not comfortable with that.
Councilor Loretta Smith.
And I just wanted to make sure to state that on the record before we vote today.
Councilor Koyama Lane.
Thank you, Council President.
Mr. Beery, can you just confirm in very simple terms that this amendment is really about us exploring our options?
We're not making any set decisions here.
It's about getting more information and hearing what our options are.
Michael Jordan
That's, that's my understanding, and I defer to the sponsor to confirm that.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay, because some of the comments that I'm hearing from my colleagues, um, it seems like we're a few steps down the road in, in the process.
Um, and I have a constituent coffee every month, and I have District 3 constituents bringing this up every time, and I know I need to answer to them and let them know that we are doing something, at least a very simple step of looking into options.
I support our body, you know, getting that information.
I don't see a reason to be afraid of really just hearing our options.
Um, and I hear the piece from folks about this being last minute, and if I'm honest, I'm kind of Type A. I like a heads up.
I like things ahead of time.
Um, and also To be fair, Mr. Biery, Councilor Kanal and I did come to you many, many weeks ago asking about what are some of our options.
And it was helpful to hear that, you know, making any big decisions right now would be complicated and would impact more than we realized.
And so I did find out about this amendment later.
I do feel like it's a very elegant way of— I mean, it's very simple of really just saying, let's just work together and hear what our options are.
And so, you know, this is, this is not a complete surprise.
And I do hear from community that, yeah, this is hard work and it's also worth it.
And I am very supportive of us doing this and hearing our options.
And thank you for your openness in being a partner if this Thank you, Madam President.
Loretta Smith
I want to, um, piggyback on what you just said because there is a, a big elephant in the room right now.
I'm voting for this not because I'm trying to get one step closer to, um, eliminating particular countries or companies, I think it's important for us to have the conversation to see what we can do.
I know that, uh, CFO Biery has said he doesn't want to, um, identify particular staff, but there's going to have to be some staff that work on this because you all have the direction, because you're already making those subjective judgments already to invest our money where it is going today.
And I can tell you, I am not willing to have this conversation— I want to have this conversation, but I am not willing to have this conversation if Michael Montgomery is not a part of it, because I trust his judgment.
He's been in this, this game for a long time, and if he's not at the table, then I, I, I don't, I don't know what we talking about here.
Michael Jordan
Yeah, Councilor, thank you for that.
And just to, just to be clear, um, No question that staff will be involved in doing this assessment.
So apologies if there's something that's misunderstood there.
And as the Chief Investment Officer, Mr. Montgomery is a key party to that conversation.
My comment was related to putting the subjective responsibility on making the—.
Sameer Kanal
Final, yeah.
Michael Jordan
The moral decision onto a staff member.
Loretta Smith
And I don't think that we have, the market on moral and ethical decisions.
I do think we owe our constituency some thought leadership here in, into getting some information.
But I want to piggyback again, this is not for me.
I want to be very clear, this is not— I'm not voting for this because I'm trying to get one step closer to taking investments out of Israel.
I want to be real clear about that.
That's not why I'm doing this.
I'm doing this because we need to have this conversation to see how we can come to some sort of middle ground in where we do our investments, because we're already making subjective, um, uh, judgments on where we spend our money right now.
So I know a lot of folks have talked to many of my colleagues about Israel, but this is not it.
This is a broader conversation that I'm trying to have, and I do not want Anyone leaving here today saying— because I got some calls and said that Councilor Smith is, uh, trying to support a resolution that's going to take money from Israel.
No, that's not what Councilor Smith is not— is, is, is doing here today.
And I don't want to give anybody a false impression on my, um, what I'm trying to solve for here.
I'm trying to solve for information to have base baseline of information of how we spend our money.
Because for sure, I am a capitalist for real.
And if we're going to— if we're going to reduce the amount of money that is coming into this city as a result of some subjective things that we're going to try to do to feel good about ourselves, that's not our job.
Our job is to bring as much money in here as possible.
Councilor Loretta Smith.
To serve the communities that we represent in the city of Portland.
And I want to make sure that we have great investments and that we have great returns.
Along the way, can we do some things that, that kind of make us feel good?
Yeah.
And I'll give you an example.
One of the things we did at Multnomah County, we started putting some of our money into credit unions, local credit unions.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yes.
Loretta Smith
Those are the kinds of things that make a difference.
You know, we have these big, large national banks who are managing all our money, but wouldn't it be nice if some local credit unions had our money too?
That part, that's the thing that I'm, I'm looking to do.
And so we are already making those investments in credit unions, but that is the kind of thing that I'm looking for.
And make no mistake, this is not about a country or about a particular company.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Madam President.
Um, sorry, just trying to make sure I get the, the text over here.
Um, so I, I appreciate the conversation that we, we had here about What we're looking at and about the process.
I would've loved to get this done earlier because I frankly, if we'd been able to do this earlier, I think we might've been able to make edits to the policy this year and actually create a human rights screen as opposed to creating a pathway to getting a human rights screen.
That was what I think would be the best course of action, but it's not possible to do that well on a short timeline.
So I just wanna fully acknowledge like that was my intention too.
I originally thought this was gonna be an ordinance.
Yeah.
I actually have slides from the administration that say ordinance on them.
I thought we were going to have 2 readings of this, and, uh, and that would give us more opportunity to weigh in on this, and that we'd, you know, need to do a different process.
So I was a little surprised when that came up.
I also thought this was going to be next week, which I'll note, next week we meet on Human Rights Day, December 10th.
Um, and that's information that I got that got updated, and I'm sure we missed out on, on another So that's just kind of both ends of it got changed a little bit.
And I think that what the timeline doesn't allow is that deep conversation.
I totally get that.
What it does allow is for us to set up a pathway to having the conversation.
And as I mentioned several times, and I think people— I don't think it makes sense to say that we haven't had time to evaluate how other cities have done it.
Do I think that's what I'm saying.
It before creating a pathway that involves seeing how other cities do it.
That's cart before the horse.
The whole point is to do that evaluation.
We don't know the answers.
That's why we're looking into it.
And I think I, I gave— I handed out, uh, and I, I circulated— you can see it on my social media, um, because they— I don't think it got filed, uh, on the thing, uh, on the website— an example list of 5 different jurisdictions.
Okay.
They're Alameda County, California, Medford, Massachusetts, St. Louis, Missouri, the California Institute of the Arts, and Lewis and Clark College.
And they are very different.
As our CFO Biery said, they're different.
Some are pension funds, some are endowments.
They are different.
And what's fascinating about them is how the applicability of a screen is still there across all these different types.
And I also want to acknowledge and be super clear, I don't want to mislead anyone.
Um, there it is factual that you're being told that this, um, amendment is not about a single action or country or company, and that there is testimony about specific actions, countries, and companies.
That's not reflected in here because this is a pathway to determining what the city should do in the future.
But in the list that was mentioned, it was also mentioned values.
And I do want to be clear, this is not a values-neutral Amendment.
This amendment does include values.
The idea that slavery is bad is a value.
The idea that we shouldn't invest in it is a value.
I, I don't want to hide that at all.
That is a value that is embedded profoundly deeply in every word, every space, every comma that is in this amendment, and I want to be upfront about that.
Um, I'm going to send the revised version of the amendment to the clerk here, um, and I will Happily accept it as friendly if my— I can't remember, I think it was Councilor Koyama Lane who called it, who seconded it.
And then I would hope we could read that in a moment.
Thank you, Madam President.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Novick.
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, I just wanted to clarify that I recognize that the language didn't call out any particular company or country.
My reference to Saudi Arabia is sort of in service of my pointing out that this stuff is going to be complicated and difficult because we can't assume that, you know, the list of 3 countries that we're worried about, we're going to wind up exploring a lot of them.
So, um, I was not accusing anybody of singling out a country.
I was just pointing out that since we're not going to single— since any discussion we have of countries is going to be broader than just talking about one.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Morillo.
Yeah, I was just hoping we could, the amendment doesn't sound very substantive.
It doesn't change much of it, but so can we read it into the record and move to a vote on the amendment?
Sameer Kanal
May I respond?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
If you'd like to read it into the record, I think we can do that.
And then we'll check with councilors and see if anybody needs to see it before we move to a vote.
Sameer Kanal
Sure.
So I'm gonna read it as it is completed and then I'll walk back through what actually changed.
It only changes the first 2 resolveds.
So this is how it would read.
Be it further resolved that the council urges the administration to work with and provide feedback to interested council offices as they develop options for an ethical investment policy and present them to the full council, et cetera.
And then the second one has a change at the beginning and end.
Okay.
Be it further resolved that the council is committed to seeking options to include for methods for screening potential investments based on human rights, including those listed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with the intention of ensuring the city does not invest in companies that enable or facilitate war, armed conflict, or human rights abuses, including but not limited to genocide, slavery, torture, indefinite or arbitrary detention, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
Humanity, as well as labor, environmental, and consumer policies and impact, and to evaluate other jurisdictions' policies as part of this process.
So the 2 changes here are in the first one, removing in collaboration with interested council offices and adding urges the administration to work with and provide feedback to interested council offices as they.
And then in the second part, It's— oh, you don't?
Yes, you can remove the for.
I am wrong on that grammar.
There's a grammatical thing.
It replaces urges the administration, which with the council is committed to seeking options to include methods for screening potential investments, et cetera.
And then adds at the end of the list, as well as labor, environmental, and consumer policies and impact.
And we can get that posted as quickly as possible or submitted to council.
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
And I just want to note that in the original posting of the amendment, there is a second or a third, I guess, page, which is the supplemental information that you referenced before.
That was originally posted by the clerk.
It's just attached to your amendment.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you so much.
So my apologies, that is not part of the text.
It is just a reference for folks to know.
I want to be clear, that would not be part of the document.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay.
Colleagues, does anybody want to see that up in writing before we vote, or does everyone feel confident continuing with debate?
Okay.
Um, I'm looking to our attorney.
Are you confident with us moving forward with the rest of debate and a vote while you wait for the written version?
We have it.
You have it?
Okay.
Councilor Murillo, anything further?
Sameer Kanal
No.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay.
Councilor Zimmerman.
Michael Jordan
Hi.
Thank you, Council President.
I am sorry I can't be there with you on this.
I am going to encourage my colleagues to please not vote for this amendment.
Sameer Kanal
Do not change this investment strategy, right?
Michael Jordan
This came to Finance for a reason.
We had a good conversation in Finance.
We adopted the staff recommendation.
I again don't want to see this council, frankly, making significant changes.
There wasn't even really a robust aspect of this conversation at the Finance Committee because this amendment didn't come to finance, and.
I actually think it is substantive.
Sameer Kanal
I actually think part of this that this is silly.
Michael Jordan
So, uh, I expect that I am pleading on some deaf ears, but I do want to urge you, if you are anywhere near a fence, on a fence, on the line, on a ledge, don't take this leap with this amendment.
Loretta Smith
And let's pass this, uh, as presented from the staff and as it Yes, uh, Madam President, um, I want to speak to Councilor Zimmerman.
Um, do you think this change changes our investment policy for this year?
But because my thought, the reason why I'm voting for this, this is about 2027.
Yes.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Councilor Zimmerman, would you like to respond?
Uh, thanks.
Michael Jordan
I think that this is a step in the direction of a larger effort to get this city's investment policies askew, and so I'm not interested in taking any incremental steps toward what I think will be a less important, less powerful, less defendable, and less responsible investment policy.
And so what I have seen is over a year, I feel like we have been hearing whispers of some need to change Portland's investment policies.
And while this may be looking forward into the next year, I'm not interested in expending city resources or city reputation in furthering what will inevitably be a lesser form of investment for us.
When we heard at the Finance Committee from our investment officers, from our treasurer, from our CFO, I was surprised just at how small the portfolio is that Portland can invest in because of some of the work That has been previously done, and I think that work has been responsible.
But I think there is a wing of interest group here that is going for a bigger step and a bigger swath to make our investment pool as small as possible and in irresponsible manner.
So, Councilor Smith, I agree with you on that, but I, I don't actually feel like, you know, baiting the hook for next year.
I, I'm not I'm not interested in helping that process along, and I think tonight would do that.
Loretta Smith
Councilor Zimmerman, as a human rights capitalist, if there's such a thing, I am it, and I will not allow us not to hear some, some information.
I think the quickest way that you can get something off your docket is you can be educated about it and you can learn more about Yes.
So that you can say, okay, been there, done that.
We, we, we, we've checked all the boxes on this.
We heard the information.
And it, it may come back that we're going to continue to do what we did this year.
But this is, this is going to be a lingering thing until we actually address it.
And once we address it and get it off of our table, it won't be an issue that's being talked about or rumored or whispered about.
We can actually deal with it, get the information, figure out what we can do, what we can't do.
But what I will not allow us to do is for us to lose any money.
Just understand that.
So this is not about— Gotta get that bag.
Yes, it is.
That's what my granddaughter said.
Gotta get that bag.
But we gotta be careful.
Let's deal with this and, and, and, and let's be done with it.
The only way we going to deal with it—.
Michael Jordan
Respectfully, Councilor, I wish that would be the truth, but when you and I were at Multnomah County, we had many of the same voices screaming about, uh, whether or not certain tractor companies were contributing to problems in the world.
We are going to have the same folks screaming about whether or not Oregon-based companies are Are good or bad.
I, I don't think this goes—.
Loretta Smith
It's not going to rise to the level of scrutiny that this particular thing is.
This is something else.
This is something different.
We're in an environment where our federal folks are basically taking over our cities and we don't have any control over stuff.
We're not, you know, and the reason why I want to have this conversation is because we're not the United Nations.
We're not Congress.
We don't do foreign affairs.
And so for us to look at this in a view that we are is unreasonable.
And I just want to have this conversation now because this conversation has happened when we were campaigning last year in '24.
It keeps popping back up.
I want to deal with it, get some information out there so that we can be done with it and go to the next thing.
I really do.
It's just too much going on, and I hate having to reach back and continue to answer these same questions.
So let's get it over with.
Mr. Chairman of the Finance Committee, let's do this and get it over with.
You don't have to vote for it, but let's just get this conversation out the way.
Michael Jordan
I have to vote for you in Alaska, Councilor.
Loretta Smith
Well, all right, we can go drink some of that in the dark, but guess what?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
All right.
Loretta Smith
But, but let's get, let's get this.
This is, this is, this is real what we're talking about, and I know there's a deeper issue here, but we need to just get this out the way.
And this is the only way that we can get this out the way.
It's not changing our current policy and what we're doing.
Uh, Jonas has already said that, that, that's not what this does.
This is giving us the conversation, the ability to have the conversation and have it now.
Uh, Councilor Novick is talking about something he put forward, a social responsible policy back in 2014, and they never heard it.
I want to get this conversation done.
We got so many other things that we need to be concerned about that needs all of our attention.
If we go on and, and support this and have this conversation, let's be done with it.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Councilor Morillo, did you have something further?
Yeah, in the spirit of being done, can I move us to a vote on the amendments Somehow you can limit debate to those in the queue.
You can also call the question, and then we would debate calling the question.
Oh Christ, okay, I, uh, limit the queue and I would love to call the question.
You could also just ask your colleague Councilor Kanal, who's the only other person in the queue right now, to remove himself from the queue, and I would very quickly Councilor Zimmerman later.
Thanks.
Colleagues, seeing no one else in the queue, Keelan, could you please call the roll?
This is on, um, this is voting on the now friendly amended amendment proposed by Councilor Kanal, which is now in everyone's email.
Which is now in everyone's email.
Keelan McClymont
Clark.
Green.
Mitch Green
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman
No.
Keelan McClymont
Avalos.
Candace Avalos
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Dunphy.
Jamie Dunphy
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Smith.
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Ryan.
Dan Ryan
No.
Keelan McClymont
Koyama Lane.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Murillo.
Angelita Morillo
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Novick.
Steve Novick
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
No.
The amendment is approved with 8 yes votes.
3 No votes and 1 absent.
Okay, colleagues, is there any debate over the now amended ordinance?
Councilor Smith, are you in the queue?
Loretta Smith
Yes.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Go right ahead.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Um, could Jonas and our treasurer, Miss Bridget, could you come up please?
Thank you so much.
Um, I appreciate you putting the investment policy together.
Um, I was looking at this and I saw on the second page where you— of the presentation, the last comment says today's action is an administrative action and there are no material changes, uh, to the existing policy.
And I was trying to figure out what is a material change.
A couple things that I didn't understand was in this last— in this amended piece, I didn't want to go deep in that, but you gave us a list of things that we don't invest in, like alcohol, um, small arms.
And so I was struck and I was like, We don't invest in small arms, but we invest in big arms.
And so large arms.
And I was like, could you all define to me what small arms is versus large arms?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Um, great question, and I'm not sure I have a, a perfect answer for you, but I will, I will—.
Loretta Smith
No, just to give me a Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
For the record, my name is Bridget O'Callaghan, and I'm the city treasurer.
As was previously referenced, we arrived at our current investment policy through a collaborative process over several years.
Loretta Smith
And so we consider it a work in progress.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
The list of criteria that you just referenced is from the Bloomberg Standard Poor's Industry Code tool that we use, and that tool has certain buckets of industry types.
The only one for arms specifically says small arms on it.
So it's not intentional that we're pulling out or segregating small arms.
That just was the only category that was there.
Loretta Smith
There are some other categories that we could look at if we want to continue with that kind of approach using the industry classification codes.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
And that would be more the defense code.
So there's some categories of defense contractors, that sort of thing, companies that specialize in those areas that would maybe get closer to what you're looking for.
I would certainly welcome Michael Montgomery, the city's investment officer, to chime in if there's something you would like to add.
Michael Jordan
Michael.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Michael, do you know what the difference between a small arm and a large arm is?
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, uh, Michael Montgomery, Investment Officer, City of Portland.
Uh, what Bridget said is accurate.
Uh, the small arms is one of the industrial classifications that Bloomberg uses, uh, to address the larger defense industry or military complex.
There is, there is underneath aerospace and defense a specific category for defense manufacturers.
So you have your military aircraft, missile and space vehicles, naval ships, munitions, and electronics.
So there that you could You know, include that in one of the prohibited classifications.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
So you choose.
Sameer Kanal
I will say the, you know, there's an overriding, you know, credit rating perspective that we place on our investments.
Michael Jordan
We invest in only the highest rated issuers.
So we're talking about AA- or better.
The vast majority, if not all of the defense manufacturers, don't at a minimum meet our investment guidelines.
Sameer Kanal
So while you could definitely include the defense in there, should a credit rating change to where, like, for example, Boeing gets upgraded to where it's an investable issuer, you know, you could prohibit that by including that industrial classification.
Michael Jordan
But generally right now there isn't a company that sells—.
Sameer Kanal
That has bonds in the secondary market or as a new issuer that, that is, that is one we could buy currently.
Much like a lot of the oil and gas firms, you know, hundreds and hundreds of them that are involved in, in oil and manufacturing of that, none of them issue bonds and very few ever raise high enough in the credit rating outside of Exxon and Chevron for us to buy.
So it's, it's, you know, definitely could include the, the defense, uh, classification into the prohibited, uh, sectors.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
So we're talking about folks like Lockheed.
Um, what's our, our former vice president?
He was the head of a big defense firm, Halliburton.
And they have single-source contracts with the federal government because they have an expertise that they do that they only do.
So are we talking about that we will invest in those kinds of companies?
Michael Jordan
Councilor, if I may, just to be clear, and I think Michael said this as well, but my understanding is within that defense category, if that were to be included, there are already zero companies that meet our credit threshold.
Loretta Smith
There's none.
So there is no— so I'm just trying to get a simple definition that I can understand.
The difference between small arm and a large arm.
But that's a— I— Well, yeah, and again, I just— Or expand the definition.
Michael Jordan
The semantics of the language that the code that is defined is called small arms.
Loretta Smith
Correct.
And that's not our language.
So it does mean large arms too?
That's the language.
It just means arms.
Well, it means arms.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
But as we just said, there's a variety of different types of arms.
And so if you really wanted to make sure we're covering all the bases, then we could add this aerospace section as well.
Loretta Smith
Okay, so that, that was my first question.
And I'm going back to page 2 that said there were no material changes made, and I'm kind of wondering why there wasn't, because I'm just going back to April.
The City of Portland lost approximately $6.7 million to a cyber scam, um, in early 2025.
Uh, they targeted the funds allocated for the Bull Run Uh, filtration project involving scammers impersonating contractors with the city and gaining access to our payment system.
This was later recovered with the help of the federal law enforcement.
And then in May 2022, we lost $1.4 million that we did not recover in another cyber fraud scheme involving tactics targeting Uh, the Portland Housing Bureau's contract to build an apartment building with Central City Concern.
Um, these funds have not been recovered yet.
And so I was just thinking, as a part of the, um, our ability to— as a treasurer, your— one of your responsibilities is to make sure that we limit our exposure to loss and those kinds of things.
And I would've thought that there were some material things that would've been changed after someone came into our system and stole $6.7 million.
Even though we recovered it, someone came to our same system in '22 and did the same thing.
And what was really very alarming Uh, when I read an OPB article, uh, Shannon, who was the head of the Housing Bureau at the time, um, she said— and I'm just— she said something like, the scammers took known weaknesses in our system and they attacked them.
That was her, that was her quote in an OPB article.
And so I'm thinking, if there are known weaknesses in our system, there needs to be some material changes in our investment policy, in our wiring ability, because I just think that— and maybe we deal with that, um, in '26, '27, but that was, that was really troubling to me.
Thank you.
Um, how we, how we deal with that.
And I was wondering why— and I don't want you to tell me specifically because we surely have some exposure issues talking about this in public— but I want you to tell me yes or no, did you deal with some of those things, um, to try to eradicate what happened to us when the cyber scammers came and took our money?
You're great.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Yes, we have taken further actions, and the Treasury Division was instrumental actually in recovering the loss that's been recovered.
I do want to make a distinction, however, between the investment policy that we're talking about today and the city's business policies, which are much broader.
The investment policy that you're considering today is the actual investment of the pooled funds when they are collected in Treasury.
We do have concerns about risk there, and we have certainly procedures in place to ensure that we are protecting the processes and, and using the best practices in the industry for making sure that when we transfer funds and when we invest in transactions that we are following the, the security protocols there.
I, I don't have concerns on from that perspective, as we do really keep a pretty tight process around that.
The challenge is when you are a large organization as the city is and we have several bureaus, it's really like having several different businesses all in one.
Loretta Smith
Yes.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
And as you, you know, it's often said that you're as strong as your weakest point.
Loretta Smith
Right.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
And so we do try our best to layer those protections.
The city has certainly invested in new technology since both the incident in 2022 as well as the most recent incident.
And those are really questions for the Business Technology Group, the BTS folks.
Loretta Smith
They would be able to provide you, again, probably in a confidential manner, but they would be able to provide you more detail on that.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
But that's really where our risk— and the city's risk is not unique.
Loretta Smith
Every large corporation and municipality in the world is being targeted.
I know.
It's, it's horrible.
And when I looked at Exhibit 1, which was our, um, investment policy, under Roman numeral 8, under internal controls, which is your responsibility, correct?
It says the city treasurer is responsible for establishing and maintaining an internal control structure designed to ensure that the assets of the city are protected from loss Yes.
Theft, or misuse.
The procedures should include references to individuals authorized to execute transactions or transfers, safekeeping agreements, repurchase agreements, wire transfer agreements, collateral depository, and a number of other things.
That is in our investment policy.
That says— that is under your, under your purview.
And that's why I was asking you, because I know you report directly to the city administrator, and I wanted to make sure that in, um, in saying that there were no material changes needed, that I felt like we had a loss, even though y'all helped to, to recover that loss.
Mm-hmm.
I was, like I said, I was struck when Shannon, um, said, uh, Callahan later said she believed the cybercriminals were able to enter through, quote, known weaknesses in our system.
And so to have a city employee say that, a former city employee saying that, that there are known weaknesses, that I think from a 30,000-foot look that you have in our internal controls, that there may need to be some structural changes that we have.
Yes.
To ensure that we don't have those big, you know, multimillion-dollar losses through cyber efforts that the bad guys are doing to everyone.
So that's where I was coming from.
Thank you.
I know the other piece with BTS and the like, but I wanted to deal with your responsibility.
And absolutely, I take full responsibility for that in my role.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I will tell you that the most recent incident was actually triggered by our controls.
So our controls caught that through the process.
Loretta Smith
Um, so you did, and, and, and to your credit, and, and I was like, you told them, you said check this thing in '22.
You told them to go back, you said the names weren't right.
That's what you were quoted in the paper, and you asked them to go back and do it, and they went back and done it.
And the name still didn't match, and they let the wire go.
But see, I would've called Ed Blackburn over at Central City Concerns and say, is this one of your folks?
You know what I mean?
I saw that in the article, and I'm wondering, because they say you have the day-to-day runnings, the wires that come in and out, why didn't they really pay attention to you?
I know they're not here now.
I don't know.
Now, some of those folks are not at the city any longer, and, um, there was a criminal investigation and there was no criminal wrongdoing.
But what I'm saying is you were on the money, and I'm wondering why these folks didn't take your, um, didn't take your words to, to heart.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
That, um, circumstance is much more complicated than, um, has been, you know, reported publicly or should be reported publicly.
Loretta Smith
I understand.
I'm happy to share more information about that with you in a confidential manner.
I will.
And so thank you.
Um, and then one last question.
In the presentation in the Finance Committee, it was mentioned that the City of Portland spent $115 million in administrative fees for fiscal year '24-'25, and then it said on the other hand that we had earnings of $28 million.
So did we really have earnings of $147 million?
$143 Million and we paid $115 million in administrative fees.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I'm not familiar with the $115 million.
Those numbers don't sound correct.
I'm not sure where those came from.
Loretta Smith
I looked at the Finance Committee and it said you spent $115 million in administrative fees.
The numbers didn't add up to me.
And then it says we had in earnings of $28 million.
For '24-'25.
And I was like, well, how did we pay the $115 million in administrative fees if we only earned $28 million?
Michael Jordan
Yeah, Councilor, I'm not— I don't see that in the presentation.
Loretta Smith
And no, no, no, it was, um, it was— you all were testifying, and that is from your voices.
That's what it said in the Finance Committee.
Michael Jordan
So yeah, I'm not tracking to what that would be.
I'm happy to go back and watch that and figure out if— yes, as I've said before, if it doesn't sound right, it probably isn't.
Loretta Smith
And just, and just to be sure, because I know how I am about these numbers, I listened to this myself and I listened to it several times.
I was like, how do we— I asked my staff, how do we, how do we pay $115 million in administrative fees if we only had $28 million in earnings from our principal?
Michael Jordan
Councilor, that doesn't sound right at all.
Loretta Smith
I sure, I sure wish we I wish the Finance Committee would have checked that while they were listening to it, because I went back, I reversed it, I heard it again, I heard it again, and I said, that don't make sense to me.
Michael Jordan
Yeah, I would just love when you notice that, please let me know.
And I'm happy to answer in exactly the moment because I don't have any point of reference for what that might be, and it's not something I'm able to answer right now, which is not great.
Loretta Smith
That's okay.
That's okay.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
And as a member of the Finance Committee, I don't remember those numbers, and I will go back also and watch that and try to remember what we were— what we thought we were hearing at the time.
Yep.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Madam President.
Uh, thank you, colleagues, for approving the amendment.
It's, uh, it's not everything.
It is enough to get me to a yes on this underlying vote.
I do want to see some other things change in the future.
I'd love to I'd love to see more of what we want to invest in, a priority for investing locally.
I'd love to see a public banking sector.
I think there's a lot of things that we can, um, we can look— work on in the future.
Um, but it's enough for me to vote on this and say yes to today.
Uh, I, you know, Councilor Zimmerman earlier said that I'm not interested in expending city resources or city reputation and furthering what will inevitably be a lesser form of investment for us.
And I'm interested in hearing whatever future amendments you may have to remove the restriction I'm open to having conversations on oil, casinos, and gaming to avoid what you're already describing as a lesser form of investment that we're already doing.
And I'm open to having conversations on that, in particular around alcohol, actually.
I'd love to make a comment on the part that Councilor Smith brought up.
It's the impact statement on community impacts and community involvement.
I really—.
This is—.
There's many things, and this is not specifically about this document.
There are many things that are being proposed from the administration that are being characterized as administrative actions.
Yes.
And then no community engagement is done on this outside of maybe the, in this particular case, the Investment Advisory Committee.
I'd love to hear more about that.
And we do have a citywide engagement officer.
I'd love to hear from that individual the same way we have Prosper, right?
And economic and real estate analysis.
I think anything coming from the administration, I'd love to hear what the Chief Engagement Officer has to say about it in this section of the impact statement.
And finally, I do think that I actually did work in disarmament as well.
So small arms are, broadly speaking, weapons designed for individual use— revolvers, self-loading pistols, handguns.
Light machine guns are included too.
They're distinguished from light weapons, which are generally weapons used by a crew, so multi-user machine guns, heavy machine guns, things like that.
They also include portable missile launchers of anti-tank missile and systems.
And those are definitions from the 2006 International Tracing Instrument.
They're not necessarily the exact words that Bloomberg uses, but they are a relatively commonly accepted definition.
And heavy weapons are generally not defined that clearly, but they're things that are bigger than a light weapon.
So, you know, all the way up to nuclear weapons.
So I think that's sort of the distinction.
There's a bunch of international resources on it, but I think those are the—.
Thank you.
I'm oversimplifying, so, you know, you can quote me on it.
But yeah, that's the 2006 International Tracing Instrument is probably the best definition that I've come across.
So yeah, in closing, now able to vote yes, looking to raise the bar by next year.
Thanks.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Novick.
Sameer Kanal
Yes, I just wanted to say I agree with Councilor Smith that it's odd that we are allowed— not allowed to invest in small arms but are allowed to invest in I appreciate the nuance.
I know that we're not going to be investing in big arms, but I just wanted to note that because we are now closely allied with the city of Chicago in opposing the excesses of the federal government, and Chicago is known as the city of the big shoulders, if we have a ban on investment in big arms, then we need to make the language clear that that doesn't mean that we can't invest in companies from Chicago.
So that's, that's just for the future.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I appreciate the nuanced clarity.
Thank you for the clarification there, Councilor.
That's important.
Colleagues, is there any other debate or discussion before we move to a vote?
Okay, seeing none, Keelan, could you please call the roll on the now amended investment policy?
Keelan McClymont
Clark.
Green.
Mitch Green
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman
No.
Keelan McClymont
Avalos.
Candace Avalos
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Dunphy.
Jamie Dunphy
Aye.
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Aye.
Michael Jordan
Aye.
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Sameer Kanal
Aye.
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Aye.
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Novick?
Steve Novick
Aye.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Colonel Guinea?
Colleagues, while I didn't support the amendment going in, I do think it's important for us to have a robust investment policy.
Um, we need to make these technical votes to continue the work of the city, so I will vote Aye.
The resolution as amended is adopted with 10 yes votes, 1 no vote, and 1 absent.
That is the final item on our agenda, colleagues, and we have a long day of work sessions ahead of us tomorrow as well.
So with that, I will adjourn today's meeting.
Loretta Smith
Aren't you on the housing and homeless committee?
You're the vice chair, right?
Sameer Kanal
I'm vice chair.
Michael Jordan
Hold on for the ride.
Loretta Smith
I'm just giving you a— just giving you a, um, heads up.
We thought you were on the housing and homeless.
Sameer Kanal
It's fine.