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.
Loretta Smith
Can you all hear me?
This is Councilor Smith.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Hi, Councilor Smith.
Angelita Morillo
Uh, this is Christina with the Council Clerk's Office.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I don't think they've opened up the room yet, but I can hear you just Okay, perfect.
Loretta Smith
I just wanted to make sure.
Raymond C. Lee III
Yeah, thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Sure.
Angelita Morillo
Good morning.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Good morning.
It is about time to start our meeting, but before we get started, we do have a pre-gavel this morning.
Today is International Human Rights Day, and I'd like to turn it over to Councilor Kanal for a related pre-gavel.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Madam President, and thank you for enabling us to request 2 human— or sorry, 2 pre-gavel ceremonies every year.
Back in January, I requested one today because December 10th is a council meeting, and also Human Rights Day, which is the annual celebration on December 10th of the anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Human rights conceptually influence everything that I do in this space, and I wanted to take the opportunity to recognize it and talk about how this lens and these concepts are applicable to local government.
So we've invited 3 speakers, and then I'll close us out over the next few minutes to just speak to that particular aspect of their work.
We'll bring up Director of the Office of Equity and Human Rights, Jeff Selby, as well as the president of World Oregon, Derek Olson.
And then after that, we'll have Councilor Jamie Dunphy and myself to speak today.
Thank you so much for everyone for being here.
And Director Selby, please, please feel free to start when you're ready.
Thank you.
Jeff Selby
Thank you, Councilor.
Community members, Council President, Council Vice President, city councilors, City Administrator Jordan.
For the record, I'm Jeff Selby.
I use he/him pronouns, and I have the privilege of leading the Office of Equity and Human Rights for the City of Portland.
I'd like to thank Councilor Kanal for inviting me to speak today.
And as he reminds us, every year since 1948, we celebrate the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to focus on protection and dignity for all people.
My team at the Office of Equity and Human Rights serves as the conscience of the city, as you will, if you will.
As you've probably heard me say before, Yes.
Equity and human rights are not separate practices or an afterthought.
They are tenets of responsible, accountable, and transparent government and are really just good governance.
We continue to encounter barriers to our work, and the hits just keep on coming.
Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that they're repealing 50-year-old disparate impact standards, which will make it harder to challenge potential bias in housing.
Criminal law, employment, environmental regulations, and other policy areas.
It is more important than ever for the City of Portland to reaffirm its commitment to equity and human rights.
Given existing and forthcoming civil and human rights challenges, we must take note of our responsibility and our promise to the many communities we serve.
We must remember our challenging history and ensure we work every day to earn our community members' trust and ensure protection and dignity for all people.
Portlanders.
I would like to thank my team and all the equity managers and practitioners in the city who move this work forward every day, often under trying circumstances.
I look forward to a unified, more focused, and robust equity and human rights structure at the city under the leadership of a chief equity officer.
I will leave you with a reminder that human rights are positive, human rights are essential, good morning, Council President, Council Members, and Mayor Wilson.
Derek Olson
My name is Derek Olson.
I'm the president of World Oregon, also known as the World Affairs Council of Oregon.
We are a nonpartisan nonprofit whose mission is to connect our community with the world through learning and dialogue on global issues such as human rights today.
We do this through public programs, K-12 engagement, and hosting international visitors in partnership with the US Department of State and US embassies worldwide.
Founded in 1950, we're celebrating our 75th anniversary this year of convening and catalyzing conversations about human rights and other critical issues.
We're fortunate to have Chido Diliwayo, International Relations Director for the City of Portland, serve on our Board of Advisors.
And with our help, our Young Leaders in Action high school group is meeting with the mayor later this week.
I was honored to be asked by Councilor Kanal, who I've worked with previously on College Model United Nations, to say a few brief remarks today thank you, Councilor Dan Ryan.
Eric Zimmerman
Thank you, Mayor.
Councilor Dan Ryan, thank you for your remarks today on Human Rights Day.
Derek Olson
As he noted, it is, uh, on this day in 1948 that the UN General Assembly issued the bold and visionary Universal Declaration of Human Rights, laying out 30 articles pertaining to fundamental freedoms and rights that have shaped our understanding and aspirations as nations of the world ever since.
It was the visionary Eleanor Roosevelt who chaired the committee that drafted the declaration.
Since its adoption in 1948, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been translated into more than 500 languages and has inspired the constitutions of many newly independent states and democracies.
Together, we can all contribute to and build essential leadership and institutions and systems that can safeguard human rights.
As the previous speaker noted, human rights are nonpartisan.
And strongly believe that a prosperous, more peaceful world is only possible through engagement and exchange, protecting and preserving every individual's humanity to ensure that every individual can live a life of dignity.
Human rights begin at home but are global.
International engagement, learning other languages and cultures, and caring about what happens around the world is not a luxury, it is a necessity.
Together we can nurture and support these rights with education, exchange, and dialogue, beginning with our youth and onto the path of lifelong learning, both locally and globally.
And to close, I invite council members and residents of the great city of Portland to join World Oregon and our partner nonprofit organizations to be ambassadors for the thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
And thank you, Councilor Kanal, for bringing this pre-gavel.
Thank you for inviting me to speak as well.
You know, I had the pleasure of meeting Jeff Selby almost 15 years ago in my capacity serving on the Community and Police Relations Committee, which was a subcommittee of the Human Rights Council.
I got to serve with— it was roughly— it was an outdated model that maybe wasn't as effective as some of the models we have now, but it was a wonderful opportunity to have community members, members of the Portland Police, and members of the Human Rights Council meeting regularly to talk about how we move forward as a community, how we ensure that we have a police bureau that centers human rights and centers the dignity and autonomy of all people.
Thank you.
Clearly these systems have moved on, but I also think that we have lost something in the years since then.
I think that the Human Rights Council brought a lot, or Human Rights Commission brought a lot to the city, and I'm really eager to see that move forward again and bring it back now with this new form of government where we think we can actually meaningfully embrace it again.
It got lost in the city in a lot of ways in the previous council.
So this is a better time than ever for us to contemplate bringing back a Human Rights Commission to this city with Councilmember Herbold.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
With so much going on at the national level, so much happening internationally, now is a time for the City of Portland to double down on our role within the global community as a leader, ensuring dignity and basic respect for all of our community members, and trying to demonstrate to the world that the picture that happens in Washington, D.C. is not the total picture of what is happening in this country, that I have friends who live far who are worried about about what is happening, worried about visiting from Europe or Canada or the Global South.
But Portland is different.
Portland values are on— when Portland values are on display, there's no one in the world that can doubt us.
And there is a reason that I choose to call this place home.
And so I look forward to working with my council colleagues on an effort to bring back the Human Rights Commission and to lead with those values.
Thank you.
Every day.
So thank you for the opportunity to chat.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you to Director Selby, to Will Oregon President Olson, and to Councilor Dunphy for speaking.
Thanks again for everyone for being here.
This year is an important day to recognize Human Rights Day, both because of the threats to human rights internationally and those in the United States.
It's often alleged that the concept of human rights is some international idea, not particularly relevant to the United States or to local government, but the concept of dignity for all human beings is vital to the American system, to Portland values, and to individual Portlanders.
And when anyone's dignity is violated, whether it's in Portugal or Palestine or Pennsylvania or Pasadena or Portland, it weakens protections that ultimately guard Portlanders as well.
And as Mr. Olson pointed out, it was an American First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, who was one of the key leaders in making the Universal Declaration for Human Rights happen in the first place.
We have in the past had larger celebrations of this day.
We need to get back to that again.
Thank you.
One way we can do that is bringing back the Human Rights Commission to bring regular Portlanders back into the planning process of this event, this day, and more broadly, the integration of human rights into our decision-making processes at the City of Portland.
Much in the way that the New Portlanders Policy Commission helps us not only plan but boost the awareness and participation of Welcoming Week, a strong Human Rights Commission can help us use this date each year to boost this entire conversation.
The Human Rights Commission had in its membership or its subcommittee membership people like Jamie Dunphy, as well as Adam Murray from Councilor Smith's office.
It is required by City Code Chapter 3.129, and I intend to file legislation and bring it back in 2026.
But beyond the commission alone, ensuring that human rights are a part of the way we think about the decisions we might make or are making at the city will help us not only ensure better policymaking, but that the impacts on each and every Portlander are taken into account.
I appreciate you all being here.
Thank you so much, Madam President.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, councilors.
Thank you both for being here.
Councilor Zimmerman, did you have a question about this pre-gavel, or are you in the queue for something else?
Okay, uh, colleagues, it is 9:42 on Wednesday, December 10th.
I am calling to order our City Council meeting.
Keelan, could you please call the roll?
Keelan McClymont
Good morning.
Clark?
Olivia Clark
Here.
Keelan McClymont
Green?
Mitch Green
Here.
Keelan McClymont
Zimerson?
Steve Novick
Here.
Keelan McClymont
Avalos?
Candace Avalos
Present.
Keelan McClymont
Dunphy?
Jamie Dunphy
Here.
Keelan McClymont
Smith?
Loretta Smith
Here.
Keelan McClymont
Sorry, thank you, Councilor Kanal.
Steve Novick
Here.
Keelan McClymont
Ryan?
Dan Ryan
Here.
Keelan McClymont
Koyama Lane?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Here.
Keelan McClymont
Morillo?
Angelita Morillo
Here.
Keelan McClymont
Novick?
Steve Novick
Here.
Keelan McClymont
Pirtle-Guiney?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Here.
Thank you.
And Lindley, could you please read our rules of decorum?
Keelan McClymont
Yes, thanks, Council President.
Welcome to the Portland City Council.
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Information on engaging with council can be found on the council Individuals may testify for 3 minutes unless the presiding officer states otherwise.
Your microphone will be muted when your time is over.
The presiding order— officer preserves order.
Disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others' testimony or council deliberations will not be allowed.
If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given.
Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting.
Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass.
Thank you.
Additionally, council may take a short recess and reconvene virtually.
Your testimony today should address the matter being considered.
When testifying, state your name for the record.
Your address is not necessary.
If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent.
Virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the council clerk calls their name.
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you very much, colleagues.
The first item on our agenda today is agenda approval.
There are not any changes to the agenda that have been filed, and nothing has been pulled off of the consent agenda.
Are there any changes or additions to the agenda that anyone would like to request?
Okay, not seeing any, uh, we will move forward.
The next item on the agenda is public communication.
Keelan, could you please call up our first guest?
Keelan McClymont
First up, we have Eugene Jackson.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Welcome.
Thank you for joining us.
Eugene Jackson
Hello, everyone.
My name is Gene Jackson.
And I guess first I'd like to say that just listening to this and then seeing the announcement for Chief Executive— Chief Equity Officer, and I'm trying to figure out— I'm so confused on that simply because we don't have DEI anymore.
I hope this is a foundation of something that's going to come in the near future.
But I'd like to say good morning again, and I would like to thank all of those who read my homeless proposal.
But I failed to mention in that proposal that it would cut down on lice, domestic violence of the homeless people, domestic violence, bedbugs, spider bites, Child abuse, rape, prevent ICE from entry, and free police up to do— deal with other criminal activities, especially drug trafficking.
It's also going to take more overnight— more than overnight shelters.
As you noticed last week, the last meeting, when Councilor Smith had mentioned that.
Clare Adamsick
Yes.
Eugene Jackson
And, uh, and mentioned at the last council meeting also how devastating the sweeps are emotionally and physically.
Uh, that was mentioned by Councilor Morillo.
Uh, something new, bold, and a real commitment to saving this city and the lives of our citizens, uh, has to be done.
Uh, Nordstrom Rack is closing, and if we lose Nordstrom Department Store, that would be like the Titanic sinking and everything around it going down in a swirl.
I love this city, and I just hate to see what it has come to.
Maybe you can start with that $21 million in other funds that the mayor had been hiding from you.
I noticed that at the last meeting, Councilor Smith's second request to the administration was to let council know as soon as they get new money in and not once they you know, hide it until they can find out what they want to spend it on.
Further, if the NFL came here and offered you a team, an NFL team here, you would find the money to build them a stadium if that's what their request is.
I am still angry and disappointed with you allowing the mayor to end DEI and prime contractor development program with a lie, which you will regret starting with more people, more lines at food pantries.
Other people in major cities would never even consider such an insidious act upon the citizens of color.
I'll just leave it there.
And except Ovation— can I just say that Ovation Coffee is looking at opening up across the street where we lost Starbucks?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yes.
Thank you very much for being here and for sharing that news.
Keelan McClymont
Next up, we have Brandon Morgove.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Welcome.
Good morning.
Raymond C. Lee III
Good morning.
Brandon Morgove
Um, I will touch on a couple of themes of the, the gentleman before me.
Uh, actually, uh, it's interesting this thing is called human rights.
That was kind of the name of, uh, what my talk was going to be, um, because I tried to put it into 10 words.
Anyways, start quickly.
First off, I'm gonna talk about 3 things for the homeless, 3 things, and then give you a brief— so first off, when it comes to the homeless, you have 2 main approaches.
Maybe the DA Nathan Vasquez, who wants to lock everybody up, and the liberal approach, which wants to get everybody houses.
What these both have in common is that one side doesn't care enough to be flexible, while the other side doesn't care enough to be hard in the right ways, and neither asks much of the general Portlander other than to raise taxes.
Thank you.
Here are 3 simple things which can help improve the homeless situation.
First one, this goes a little against the camping ban, is to give some camps temporary permits along with lockable trash cans and a trash pickup date.
I was homeless for about a year.
I would bag my trash and throw it over a fence where a business had a fenced-off dumpster half the time.
This policy could reduce the need to spend so much money cleaning up the camps and give some of the homeless who are responsible A few months to make up their own minds peacefully should allow some of them that freedom and dignity instead of the complete control you are trying to exercise.
My second issue is extending the stays to longer than 2 weeks for the medically needy homeless.
Many of them have injuries that will take longer than 2 weeks to heal.
Do you expect them to go injured to overnight congregate shelters?
Those places usually don't have the basic human amenities.
We are talking about human rights here, right?
To keep oneself clean and hygienic.
Councilor Loretta Smith.
My last issue is to get some temporary shower facilities to both the overnight shelters and to the emergency shelters.
You have like 3 shower trucks which sit idle at Cultivate Initiatives.
And hopefully you guys— any of you guys familiar with Cultivate Initiatives?
So I don't know if you guys like to go to a crowded shelter where a bunch of people don't have access to a shower.
Now, if you wonder why people don't want to stay there, perhaps get some showers there.
Anyways, get the shower trucks over to the night shelters.
Give Cultivate Initiatives $1 million out of the $22 million to create a job program for some of the homeless or those in recovery to clean those showers.
And keep the overnight shelters open earlier than 7 or 8 PM.
Open them at 5 PM most nights so people have just a little time to shower and relax for their likely hellish lives.
I'm not asking you to be kind or weird.
Raymond C. Lee III
The city just needs to be decent.
Joseph Perez
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you very much.
Raymond C. Lee III
Hey, you're welcome.
Brandon Morgove
If any of you guys want to get back to me, please do.
Mayor, I met with Rahel.
I know she has my email.
I appreciate you get back to me.
Uh, Sameer Kanal, I met Mac.
He didn't get back to me.
I have a whole plan for to build a shower facility at Gateway.
Jamie Dunphy
You want the masks clean, you want the city clean, start treating people decent.
Brandon Morgove
Human rights.
Do people have a right to shower at night?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
We appreciate your comments.
We need to hear from others as well.
Brandon Morgove
Next I want some of you guys to get back to me, please.
You want the city improved, you listen to me.
Keelan McClymont
Next up, we have David Straub, um, joining us online.
David Straub
Thank you.
Greetings, Councilor Ramey Wilson.
My name is David Straub.
They say the definition of crazy is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
I've lived in Belmont for more than 20 years, and the result is not looking good.
While the mayor made good progress on his shelter plan, adding about 1,000 beds, The unsheltered population also increased by 1,000.
Clearly something is not working, including for substance use treatment, and hasn't for a while.
And though a city should continue to be a magnet for those needing help, the help we give must change if we want a different outcome.
To start, the camping ban is an opportunity because the only way we'll make progress is by measuring what the problem is.
We should limit camping to sanctioned areas, wide open fields for now if need be.
Where people can be counted, and we have to separate out the small contingent that are troublemakers, as they have an outsized role on resident safety while also holding others back.
Put them far from downtown and wraparound services to incentivize them to engage in good social behavior.
The remainder should be given shelter but also required to take behavioral wellness classes.
We are not a charity.
We should help people 24/7 who help themselves, and we must give them the chance to do so.
Thank you.
We must scale mental health care.
For those who pass safety and socialization thresholds, I'm sure we can find community members willing to host them for a reasonable fee.
After all, there's no such thing as affordable housing, and that strategy hasn't seemed to help.
At best, there is subsidized housing, which is a cost to us all.
Instead, we can put money in Portlanders' pockets and help them convert garages, improve basements, and when a person is solid, perhaps even a spare room, all to rent.
Thank you.
We have the space already.
Finally, and most importantly, we need to make this a community event.
Aggregating a bunch of people who are struggling only hides the problem.
We need to get everyone involved.
Have them take the wellness classes too, to learn about constructive support.
Then they can integrate the unsheltered back into the neighborhoods, but unlike the abusive and disadvantaged situations from where they came, into the compassionate and independent environment for which Portland is known.
But has been unable to transition them to so far.
Let's focus on building people as much as others focus on building companies.
Emotions are a team sport, and there is no better place than PDX to show the country how elevating others can be done properly and efficiently for the benefit, benefit of all.
I'd be happy to furnish more details.
Thank you for your time.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you very much.
We appreciate hearing the proposal and the details.
Keelan McClymont
Next up we have Mark Sherman.
Mark Sherman
Phone is off.
I am so sorry for that.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
It happens.
Thank you for being here.
Mark Sherman
So much better when it happens to somebody else though.
Uh, I want to thank you guys.
I think the City Council in general does a really good job, and my comments are going to be directed toward, unfortunately, Dan Ryan.
But don't take it personal, and if you do, I'll buy you a beer sometime.
Loretta Smith
Yeah.
Mark Sherman
So it's about your email that went out a couple weeks ago that referred to the National Socialist Playbook.
I don't want you to feel that that was unique because that happened in Miami a while back when a candidate running for mayor said everybody else was using a socialist playbook.
And my favorite happened about 5 years ago in Pennsylvania where a state representative, Republican, referred to the Democratic National Socialist Party as the Nazi Party.
The USSR is all using the same socialist playbook.
And I know that you probably apologize.
I heard something about the playbook had gotten changed to like the Democratic Socialists of America playbook.
And I just wonder if you guys have that playbook, because I've been there since they founded in '82.
I don't have a playbook.
I would've had one that would've been published in Cuba.
That's how long ago I've been a socialist.
So you don't have it.
No.
But when you send that email out like that, what happens is it's called negative political campaigning and it demonizes everybody else who has the issue opposite yours.
That, if you guys are part of the HR protection system, you need to file a claim because harassing other councilors for their views during work time is not appropriate.
You're not the first.
I've seen those emails come from the mayor, but they're a little less— they're a little more tapered down.
Thank you.
And I think that's serious.
But you had a lot of cool buzzwords in there.
You talked about staying the course that Ronald Reagan said, and of course he's no longer the number one president.
And there's things like poking the bear and all the shenanigans about what you guys were doing with RealPage, even though the state, the Justice Department under Trump was also doing the same thing.
So he must be using the same playbook.
Yeah.
Which is scary, right?
As negative campaigning, that means— and I don't think you wrote that.
I think that was written by a PR firm.
And that means to me lobbyists are using emails from councilors, that there's not disclosure happening, that you're not filing campaign filings with the Election Commission.
And I think there should be an investigation in general about people when they use city emails to attack each other.
And I think that that should stop.
I got 30 seconds.
So I'm going to say, hey, I got a lot of time here.
Can I give it to someone else or can I just say you guys in general are doing a great job?
I like your coffees.
I like being— have a chance to meet you guys.
I know you're trying really hard.
I am a socialist, but I don't have a playbook.
And I really think you guys need to raise the bar quite a bit because that set it pretty low.
And like I say, if you go through Dan's email, it looks like someone else wrote that.
That's just too well done.
I'm not saying you can't write, I'm just saying that was too well done from a political—.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
We need to wrap it up, I'm sorry.
All right.
Thank you so much for being here.
We appreciate the feedback.
Keelan McClymont
Next up we have Michael Woods.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Welcome.
Good morning.
Michael Woods
Good morning, everybody.
Thanks for having me here.
Again, my name is Michael Woods.
I'm a PSU Community Urban Studies and Planning major looking to apply for the graduate school next month.
Some of you may know me.
I serve the Buckman Community Association Board.
I'm also on the TIF District for the Central East Side.
I am a fierce, often annoying advocate for pedestrians and pretty much anything non-cars.
I've lived in cities my whole life, New York, DC, Vegas, and here, and I had never been hit by a car until I moved to Portland.
I've now been hit by cars 4 times, all downtown.
First time was leaving school, actually was going to school in 2023.
Second time was leaving school in 2024.
After that second one, I decided to move downtown.
You know, why risk my body?
I'm young.
What, don't wanna, you know, risk my body?
So I moved downtown.
I now live on Park and Market.
Since moving to Park and Market, I've been hit by 2 more cars on my 1-block commute to school.
That is 1 block.
The problem, if you look at the street for context on Park and Market, there's no sidewalk and cars pull up.
Cars, when they pull up there, pull up with the entire car beyond the stop sign every single time without fail.
You go up there, you will see every single car pull up beyond the stop sign.
I don't take that street anymore.
I walk down 10th Avenue because Park is unsafe for me.
Living on Park and Market, I can't cross to the Park Blocks and I can't take the streetcar.
Angelita Morillo
Thank you.
Raymond C. Lee III
Yeah.
Michael Woods
Yeah, the street is inherently dangerous and it's unfortunate that I can't use the park blocks or take the streetcar because of that.
I wouldn't be here if I felt I had any other way to make this change.
I have sent multiple requests off to PBOT.
I've sent multiple communications out.
Never have I gotten a response back that said, hey, we'll, you know, take a look at the daylighting or take a look at the parking here.
And it's not just for this intersection because I work with other neighborhoods.
There are multiple places in Buckman that I tried.
To no avail to get parking removed from.
Yeah, my request is just please at least remove those 2 parking spots from Park and Market.
Like, it's— that's part of the South Park Block Master Plan, the 2035 Comprehensive Transportation Plan, Vision Zero.
Not those 2 parking spots kind of are a linchpin that makes that entire intersection unusable to many people.
Yeah, that's all I got.
Thank you.
Sorry, I'm a little uncomfortable.
It's a different experience being out here talking to y'all like this.
So yeah, thanks for hearing me.
I just, yeah, I'm young and it's unfortunate that even I feel uncomfortable crossing Park and Market.
Yeah, thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you for being here and for bringing that concern.
I saw nods from some of the members of our Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
So I know folks have heard this and I'm sure there will be follow-up conversation.
Michael Woods
Yeah, I've put my email in there.
I'm a PSU urban planning student, so I work, you know, I go to school directly for this, and I'm going to work to try to be kind of ingratiated in here and work with you guys more in the future.
This is kind of my first step into making a safer downtown.
Yeah, thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Keelan McClymont
That completes public communications.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Keelan, and thank you to everybody who came today to share your experiences in the city with us.
Uh, colleagues, the next item on the agenda is the committee referral list.
Um, we have referred over the last week annexation of a property on Hilltop Lane to Climate, Resilience, and Land Use, adding nondiscrimination requirements for single Thank you.
All right, thank you, Mayor.
I have 2 motions before us.
Adding code to establish a data privacy office to Community and Public Safety.
Adding appointments to our code, processes on appointments to our code in the Governance Committee.
Confirming appointments to the Portland Elections Commission in the Governance Committee.
Accessing property for sidewalk, curb, and driveway repair to the Finance Committee, 2 related items there.
Amending the intergovernmental agreement with Multnomah County for the Revenue Division to administer the School for All program tax to the Finance Committee.
Requesting the City Budget Office provide balanced program offer information for Portland Parks and Recreation as a pilot to the Finance Committee.
And a resolution to support an independent police review employees to the Committee on Community and Public Safety.
The next item on our agenda is a time-certain item that we are taking up before consent today.
Keelan, could you please Please call agenda item 4.
Keelan McClymont
Appoint Raymond C. Lee III as City Administrator.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Keelan.
Uh, colleagues, we have before us today, um, a resolution from the mayor with a recommendation for our city's next city administrator.
Um, As you know, there's been a long process that the city has gone through to, a year or so ago, gain insight from Portlanders about what they hoped to see in our city's next administrator, and then a recruitment process nationally that led us to this point.
I'd like to turn it over to the mayor to provide us with a thank you.
Thank you, Mayor Wilson.
We'll start with a brief introduction, and then we'll hear directly from Mr. Raymond Lee, the mayor's nominee to be our next city administrator.
We will turn to public testimony, and then we have about an hour set aside for councilors to ask questions, Mr. Lee, of you and, and your experience and what you would plan to bring to our city, and to have a discussion before we turn it back over to you for a few minutes of closing remarks, and then we'll move to a vote.
So with that, Mr. Mayor, would you like to kick us off?
Keith Wilson
Yes, thank you.
Good morning, council colleagues and staff and members of the public.
Appreciate your time today.
Today marks an important milestone in Portland's new form of government.
We are here to confirm the city's first-term, long-term city administrator, a role that will oversee day-to-day operations across more than 2 dozen bureaus and departments, ensuring accountability I'm proud to present Raymond Lee as my nominee for this position.
Raymond brings nearly 2 decades of municipal leadership experience spanning Greeley, Colorado, Dallas, and Amarillo, Texas.
Most recently, he served as a city manager of Greeley, where he managed 1,600 employees and a $515 million budget serving 116,000 residents.
Thank you, Mayor Wilson.
Community members.
Raymond has consistently demonstrated values-based leadership, innovation, and a deep commitment to public service, and his track record shows he can deliver results while building trust and collaboration.
A few of Raymond's accomplishments include revitalizing Greeley's urban core through public-private partnerships.
He led a $1.1 billion entertainment and housing district project with a proposed 10,000-seat arena and multimodal transit hub.
He launched Housing Solutions and Homelessness Services departments to transition residents into permanent housing.
He advanced sustainability and climate resilience initiatives across infrastructure and water systems in Greeley, and transforming development review processes to accelerate affordable housing production.
These achievements reflect the kind of forward-looking leadership Portland needs as we navigate challenges and opportunities in housing, climate resilience, and community trust.
I want to take a moment to recognize the council's direct involvement in this hiring process.
I appreciate your time and your investment.
Each of you participated in interview panels and provided thoughtful input and shaped this decision.
Your perspectives ensured that our choice reflects not only the mayor's office, but also the collective priorities of Portland's elected leadership.
This collaborative approach strengthens the legitimacy of today's confirmation and underscores our shared commitment to effective governance.
Portland is a remarkable city with passionate residents, talented employees, and a strong sense of purpose.
While we have faced and will face real challenges, this transition gives us a rare opportunity to reset, to reconnect, and strengthen how we serve the community and Portland for generations to come.
Raymond's leadership will help us build a strong foundation for this new form of government, one that is aligned, it is trusted, and it's focused on meaningful results.
Colleagues, I ask for your support in confirming Raymond C. Lee as Portland's City Administrator.
Keelan McClymont
Aye.
Keith Wilson
His experience, vision, and commitment to public service will help unlock a new chapter of safety, innovation, and shared prosperity for our city.
Now I'm proud to introduce Raymond Lee.
Raymond C. Lee III
Thank you, Mayor, and, uh, thank God for this opportunity.
Mayor, I appreciate your support and your words as we go through this process today.
This has been a very thorough process, I must say, to get us to the point that we are today.
I want to thank the council members, as I went through the interview process and hearing your questions and your comments and really trying to address some of the key things that you saw that you want to see in the first city administrator.
I want to thank the public as well too, the public and citizens of this community, the businesses of this community, the ones who have reached out to me to pull my coattails to have a conversation with me.
I truly appreciate your candidacy, your honesty, and your transparency with me as we went through this process and sharing your overall views and thoughts on how we can make a better Portland than what we have today.
This has been a monumental achievement for this city to transition itself to where we are today, and a lot of people don't understand what's all entailed in that.
This— so I give kudos.
Thank you.
To this elected body for stepping into that role and to really help move this city forward in a productive way.
Because there is a better way to governance.
There is a better way to provide services to the community.
There is a better way to help businesses grow within our community.
And the individuals in this room today are helping shape that for our community.
My career and why I've been driven to public service has really started at a very young age.
You know, I come from a family of public administrators.
My mother was a city manager.
My father spent 30 years in the Dallas Fire Department.
So this wasn't anything that came lightly.
This is purpose-driven work for me.
I truly believe this type of work is a calling for individuals to be able to step into and be able to do at a very high level.
My career almost spans over 20 years in many different positions throughout my career.
Starting from my home city in Dallas, Texas, a very progressive city where we were moving the needle to try to provide a better quality of life for everyone within that community.
Various executive and leadership roles in there to really sharpen my toolset and my skills on how to better serve a community that has all different types of needs and desires and wants and socioeconomic status within the community.
From there, I transitioned to Amarillo, which is a very different community than Dallas, but a very progressive community from the standpoint of what they're trying to achieve from a fiscal standpoint.
You know, that really prepared me of how to really set up strategic planning and develop a vision and clarity around that vision and how we were going to achieve that vision as an organization.
Transitioning to Greeley was another major milestone for me and really focusing in on how do we change culture?
How do we change an organization that is growing at a rapid pace and to provide services not only that citizens need today, but what citizens will need in the future?
All this education background, obtaining my master's in public administration and my undergraduate in public administration, Continuing education from Harvard to Cornell to Yale all prepared me for where we are today and the moment that Portland is facing today.
And I'm very excited about this opportunity.
I'm excited about what the future has in store for this great city.
I'm excited about the opportunity to be able to partner with this City Council and with the mayor to really shape what that future would be for Portland.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I must say, this is a pivotal time for this city.
There is a tremendous amount of things that are happening right now.
Portland has that spotlight, and everybody is watching how this city will be able to maneuver through this.
Is this a new way of providing services?
Is this a new way of governing an organization in the city?
This will be the test model, and all of us are in this together.
And I'm willing to be a willing partner with this council and with the mayor to help shape what that will look like for us as we move forward.
You know, I've seen local government at its best, and I've seen local government at its worst.
This opportunity is pivotal for us to be able to shape what that story is for Portland as we move forward.
And my job is how do I take the vision That this council has and that the mayor has and turn that vision into reality.
And really partnering with our great city staff and how we shape that is going to be fundamental to how we are accomplishing the vision, the priorities that you have as a city council.
I'm just gracious and humble and honored to be able to sit before you today and be a part of this great milestone for the city of Portland.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor.
Thank you for your work in bringing us forward a nominee.
And Mr. Lee, we have appreciated the opportunity to get to know you a little bit through the process and are looking forward to hearing more from you today about what your, uh, what your experience has looked like and what you bring to our city.
Keelan, do we have anybody signed up for public testimony?
Keelan McClymont
No one signed up.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay, then colleagues, we will move into a discussion.
I will note there was some feedback that there hadn't been enough outreach to try to bring people in for public testimony earlier this week, and we did make sure that the council social media pages posted something with links to sign up to try to drum up some encouragement from Portlanders to weigh in today.
But we will move forward with our questions, which I know for many of us are influenced by feedback that we did get from our constituents.
So hopefully we can pull in Portlanders' voices in that way.
What I'd like us to do, because I know there are at least a few of our colleagues with a number of questions, is limit it to your top 2 questions or comments first so that everybody can have an opportunity to ask something.
And then I assume we will have more time after that and we will get back to additional questions that everybody has, but I do want to make sure that everybody who wants to get some, some questions in has the time to do so.
Who would like to kick us off?
I've never seen us be so slow to rush to the queue, colleagues.
Councilor Novick, go right ahead.
Steve Novick
First of all, Mr. Lee, if you can figure out what the visions of any of us are individually, let alone collectively, my hat's off to you.
I think that we have like 12 different sets of visions and different topics.
And frankly, Mr.— I have to tell you that I have no idea what the mayor's vision is for the city other than building up a bunch of homeless shelters.
So look forward to your report on that.
I have a possibly unfair question, which is we've had a problem with the council and the executive in terms of figuring out how council members communicate with city staff.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yeah.
Steve Novick
Last fall, the city staff were told you cannot communicate with city councilors except through your deputy city administrators.
And some of us, particularly me, jumped up and down and yelled and screamed and said that's ridiculous.
We should need to be able to call up staff in order to get basic information to help inform our decisions.
And the mayor or Jordan sent out something saying no, it's okay to communicate with however, I know for a fact that there are a bunch of city employees who don't think they really are allowed to communicate with councilors and won't say anything until they've gone through channels.
It's not just that they'll CC their— I mean, I understand they're supposed to CC their superiors if they communicate with us, but they feel like they can't communicate at all.
And I actually had a conversation with a high-ranking official at one of our other local governments last week who said she's talked to city of Portland employees and they are frustrated with the question of how exactly they're expected to and allowed to communicate with us.
Thank you.
Allowed to communicate with councilors.
And I think that that is a— I mean, I understand concerns from the executive about councilors like telling individual line staff what to do.
We shouldn't do that.
But we need to be able to communicate with line staff in order to get information and frankly to be able to prevent us from doing stupid things that we might do if we don't have that information.
So I'm just telling you that that's a problem and asking you what will your approach be to trying to figure out a good model for communication between city staff and councilors?
Raymond C. Lee III
Throughout my career, the best thing is have a framework in place, one that we agree upon of how we move forward as it relates to communicating and getting things done.
There's a difference between asking a staff member for some information or conveying a concern that you're hearing from the public as it relates to a city service.
And developing that framework as it relates to city services and how we as staff are following up with you.
Because one of my biggest things is assuring that we are responsive to council, we're responsive to the citizens of this community, and that we're following through in what we say we were going to do as an organization.
As it relates to information and getting information to council, that is a very sensitive subject.
I think from the standpoint of ensuring that when we give information to council, that we're giving that information to everyone that sits on city council.
We've been in situations before where a council member will ask for a certain piece of information and we get that information to a city council member and the colleagues are left in the dark as it relates to how that information may inform a future council decision.
One of the key things that I'll be strong upon in ensuring that we do as a leadership team and as city staff is ensuring that when council members are requesting that information, that we're getting that information to the full body.
And the only way to be able to do that is to be in the loop of what those questions are, what those concerns are, and making sure that we have a formal process of tracking that information and getting that information to the council as a whole.
There is a million different things happening in the city of Portland.
I cannot expect for everything to hit my desk and for me to be a bottleneck in that and getting information to this body and to the mayor as a whole.
My goal is to ensure that I'm informed, that our leadership team and our deputy city administrators are informed of what's happening.
There's certain things that have a political lens to it as well that staff needs to be aware of and ensuring that we're getting council the information in a timely fashion that gets you prepared to have conversations that you are going to have in the community.
But my whole goal is to be transparent about the information that we are giving to the council as a whole, as individuals, as a whole, and make sure that we have a process in place that we can be able to track that information and be sure that we're following through on the things that we said we were going to do.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Councilor, follow-up?
Steve Novick
Yes, I just want to say that I understand where you're coming from.
However, if I ask a question to a staffer like I asked the other day, and I did CC leadership on this, how much money is the Portland Clean Energy Fund invested in bicycle-related projects?
And the response is to reply all to all councilors' offices.
Then I think that the other councilors' offices will be confused and their emails will be cluttered.
So maybe that's the best way to do it, but I just want you to answer that question.
Do you think literally every question one of us asks, that has to be reply all to all the councilors?
Raymond C. Lee III
It may not be reply all in that instance.
What I've typically done in my career, there's memorandums that we'll send out towards the end of the week or monthly to council just to keep them apprised of what's happening in the city, different things that may be of interest to them as Councilors and making sure that we're getting that information.
If that question is leading to a decision that will be coming forth this body to be deciding or deliberating on, that is information that I would want to share.
If you're just telling me, Raymond, there's a pothole at this intersection, no, uh, we will respond to that and get that taken care of, uh, as it relates to you.
But since this is an interesting dynamic, as we have 3 different councilors serving in a particular district, I would want to make sure that other councilors within that district are aware of that because they may get that same concern or complaint as well.
And we want to make sure that we're addressing that and we're not duplicating efforts as staff as it relates to communication and resolving those issues.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Anything further, councilor?
Okay, thank you.
Councilor Clark.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Madam President.
Welcome, so good to see you.
I am so pleased that you are here.
I appreciate your opening remarks.
You actually said some of the things that I wanted to say back to you about pivotal moment and culture change.
So important.
I talk about culture change all the time.
We have had growing pains, and I'm sure you know that, and we've stumbled on occasion, So I know that you're going to facilitate us, our improvement there.
My question to you is, this is an issue that's come up in the Governance Committee among a few of us, is that we have never had the benefit of a strategic planning session.
And I don't remember if we talked about this in our interview process, but I guess what I would like to know is how you would approach that.
We are working on a resolution in the Governance Committee.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yes.
Olivia Clark
To set up a strategic planning process involving you, or perhaps you leading it.
I'm not sure yet, but I'd love to have you or hear your comments about how you would do that with us.
Raymond C. Lee III
I think a strategic plan is the most vital document that an organization has.
It sets the roadmap on what are our priorities as an organization, what is our vision, And how we plan on achieving that as an organization.
And it also develops measurements, key performance indicators within that, to be able to track how successful we are as an organization.
That strategic plan provides clarity to the organization regarding where we're going.
It provides a strategic roadmap on how we plan on getting there as an organization.
This is going to be a crucial step And changing how we do business as an organization and having that as a guiding document and really using that document to inform how do we move budgetary decisions forward, how do we move policy decisions forward, and what are our true priorities as a city.
But we have to build the foundation first before we even get to a strategic plan.
We have to set the groundwork and the foundation to be able to move forward with a strategic plan and create the environment where a strategic plan can be successful, not only for the council, but for staff as well.
Right now, you know, as we build towards that, it's really going to be narrowing what are our true priorities as an organization.
What are we trying to work for in this next year or 2?
And the strategic plan, in my mind, has to be at the top of that list on really setting that direction on where we're heading as an organization.
Without that direction, we're all throwing darts in the dark and hoping that we hit the bullseye as it relates to what we're trying to achieve as an organization.
The question that we're gonna have to ask ourselves as we go through this strategic planning process is also what is the public's input into this as well?
What is their role in help shaping the future direction that we'll be heading as an organization?
And what will be our role in helping and ensuring that that happens as leaders within this organization to help better shape what the next 3 to 5 years will look like for our organization and for our community?
But it's— in my mind, it is vital.
Thank you.
That we have this document to give direction to staff and to the community of what we're doing and how we're doing it.
Olivia Clark
Just one follow-up.
Thank you for that.
I appreciate that.
Just to riff off a little bit about what my councilor to my right said, you're going to have 12 different ideas, 12 different desires, 12 different goals.
I'm going to be interested in how you manage that before we get to that strategic planning process that you identified.
You don't have to answer that right now, but I'm just going to put that out there.
Thank you so much.
Raymond C. Lee III
That's some of the pre-work that I was talking about we have to do before we even get there.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Green.
Mitch Green
Thank you, Mr. Lee.
I'm glad that you're here today.
I was excited to see your candidacy advance to the point that it did.
Thank you, Mayor.
Thank you.
Glad we're able to have this conversation here today.
So I'll just get right into it.
I just have 2 questions.
The first question is a little bit related, I think, to Councilor Novick's, but I want to address it from the standpoint of the charter duties of the city administrator.
So Article 4, Section 2-406 outlines the duties, powers of the city administration, but primarily the duties.
And one of the key provisions under that that section requires that the city administration keep, quote, keep the council at all times fully advised as to the financial condition and needs of the city.
So I guess I'd ask you, how do you interpret— what does it mean to keep the council fully advised at all times of the financial condition of the city?
And then maybe we can kind of go from there.
Joseph Perez
Yes.
Raymond C. Lee III
You know, in my previous roles, what I've always been keen on, and this is something that That in my mind is critical for council to be able to understand where we stand financially is holding quarterly kind of work session updates to kind of brief council where we are financially as an organization and where we are from a budgetary standpoint.
This has been key things that we have been able to do to just be able to be aware of what changes may be happening from a forecast standpoint.
What we've also done from a budgetary standpoint 'Cause the financial arm and budgetary are in the same family, but they're different to a certain degree.
From a budgetary standpoint, what we have done is kind of monthly kind of budget, monthly memos to council to kind of let them know where we are from a budgetary standpoint as an organization.
If there was any major thing that may be a change within it, if there was major appropriations depending on what the city charter has outlined in it as it relates to council's approval and that ensuring that council is well aware of what's happening before it comes to the actual dais for you to vote on.
One of the key things that we want to make sure is that the council is well informed on the things that you're going to have to be voting on or things that you're going to get questioned on as it relates to people in the community and the concerns that they may have regarding the direction that the city may be heading, if it's from a financial standpoint or if it's from a service standpoint.
Thank you.
We have the same level of importance on that as a staff, that we're making sure that you're informed about what those are, what does it mean to the organization.
As different priorities come up as it relates to different programs, that council is fully aware of what is the budgetary impact on moving forward with that policy decision.
So you— to do that, you have to know what the numbers are.
You have to be well informed about what those decisions and trigger points are as we go through a year that may change how we look at something or view something, how we may need to modify our budget overall.
But it's critical in my mind, as you're making policy decisions as a legislative body, that you understand the numbers that are impacting how the city may implement that and how the city may be able to move forward and evaluate that.
As a successful program or a program that we need to come back to council because we're not seeing the impact that we want to see overall.
And this kind of goes back to kind of how do I look at budgeting overall.
I'm a very big priority budget person.
It goes back to Councilwoman Clark's comments earlier of really designating what our priorities are and funding things that really move the needle to accomplish the priorities that we have set out as an organization, and that's critical.
Mitch Green
Yeah, and I appreciate your focus on priority budgeting.
So just to follow up on that, thank you for that answer.
Councilor Smith earlier in the year filed a resolution to require the city administrator to notify council of any significant meaningful changes in our fund balances within a 2-week reporting period.
And this last summer, the city administrator, or at least one of the the DCAs became aware of a significant change in our fund balances as early as late July, perhaps.
Um, and council was notified of that balance in late November.
And so my question to you would be, if you were in that seat at that time, would you have told council within 2 weeks of that fund balance change, or would you have sort of waited that long?
Raymond C. Lee III
What I would do— and it always depends on the situation at hand and what we're faced with, and me truly understanding if that's an accurate number Or is that a number that we think is?
And what I have always done throughout my career is I may pull your coattail from the standpoint of letting council know that, hey, we are aware of something, we're evaluating to be able to see what that real number is, and we'll be following up, or I will be personally following up with you to keep you apprised of where we are with evaluating that situation.
And one of the key things that I will share with council as well, and how do we set that?
Sameer Kanal
Yes.
Raymond C. Lee III
Platform to be able to do that.
You know, I plan on having meetings, regular routine meetings with this body as individuals to meet with you.
And these are the type of discussions that we will have so you're well aware of the things that are on my plate and the things that I'm focusing on, or things that may be coming to your attention very soon or that you need to be aware of because it may hit the public eye.
Thank you.
Very shortly.
So it's hard to say right off the bat what I would weigh it because I don't know the full details of that situation.
But kind of rule of thumb for me is, is make sure that I'm meeting with council on a regular basis so we have the opportunity to have this conversation as it relates to matters that may be coming to the full body for future discussion.
Mitch Green
Thank you for that.
And I think for me, what's going to sort of inform my decision today Mm-hmm.
Is understanding what you weigh in terms of the public trust and transparency in the public trust versus, you know, how long does it take to get maybe the right and perfect and true answer out to council to avoid embarrassment?
Because what I don't want to do is confirm a city administrator who wants to hold information back 'cause they're worried about embarrassing the city.
And I'm not suggesting that's what happened last summer, but I think that's on folks' minds right now.
It's on my mind for sure.
So thanks for that answer.
It gives me some insight.
Just to finish out, I want to follow up on Steve— Councilor Novick's question.
I appreciated your answers to his question on the relationship between communicating with staff and the administrative side with the City Council.
But I guess I would ask, do you think City Council as legislators should be able to directly address bureau directors?
Yes.
And have a reasonable expectation that they will get back to them in a meaningful timeframe to allow them to engage in legislation?
Loretta Smith
Yes.
Raymond C. Lee III
And it goes back to, and I'm gonna kind of touch upon your last question and feed it into this question as well.
It's always about transparency.
That has been a huge thing throughout my career is ensuring good, bad, or indifferent, we have to be able to get the information out to our public.
And so So they are aware of what's happening.
What are we planning on doing to address it?
If it's one of those situations where it's something where there's opportunity for growth for the organization and how we may have handled something in the past, we always want to be transparent about that.
We never want to hide information, and that is never the role of government to hide information.
It is to be transparent with what's happening within the organization and how do we plan to move forward as an organization.
Thank you.
There always are timeframes, and I'm very big on service level agreements.
We were using 'em in Dallas as it relates to kind of that timeframe that we felt suitable.
And this was an agreement between us and the city council as it relates to what is that timeframe to respond back to the council.
Now, we might not have a direct answer, a response to your question, but you know, one rule of thumb that we've always had was at least follow back up in 3 days and a follow-up in another 3 days.
So council is aware of where we are.
Thank you.
In evaluating that.
Now, that may not give you a full report in that, but it's at least a touch base so you know that we are aware of your situation and that we're still trying to address your situation or your concern or your request for information as a whole.
And this is something that I will continue to want to do as we move into this.
I'll be working with you as a collective body and really trying to figure out what is that for this body and what is considered responsive from that standpoint and what is adequate to be able to get information to council in a timely manner that you feel that you're getting the information that you need and it's accurate information that you're getting as well.
And we're not backpedaling 3 days later trying to change that information.
So the biggest thing in this is ensuring that we get you accurate information, but also make sure it's timely as well.
Robert Pyle
Thank you.
Mitch Green
Thank you.
I think that's it for now, Madam President, and thanks for answering those questions, and I'll provide space for my colleagues.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Thank you for the answers.
Councilor Dunphy.
Jeff Selby
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
I've been trying to frame this as a question, but largely as my colleagues have been talking, it's mostly now evolved into a comment, and I'm sort of riffing off of what my colleagues have said about the The relationship between the administration and the City Council and information sharing.
Specifically, we've been under an immense period of transition for the last 2 years, moving first into a service area model and then condensing those service areas down.
Additionally, we're doing some right-sizing of staffing and things around, you know, making sure we have streamlined HR and communications and procurement and things like that.
It has led to some enormous frustration in my office because I still don't fully understand how the city is structured.
I don't know who to talk to.
And I think that as you are starting to explore and understand and learn the city, you will see some efficiencies that need to be improved.
You will see some, uh, uh, confusing structural issues.
I would hope that you would sort of yes.
Do you sort of plan on taking what you learn about the city structure and translating it, even if it's an iterative process, so that we can have a better understanding of how to navigate the bureaucracy right now?
And we would be very open to, you know, in concert with the mayor, obviously, but about what those next steps and structural changes are going to be around service delivery.
In addition to just the simple act of communication, do I go to the Deputy City Administrator?
Do I go to a director?
Do I go to frontline staff.
It would be really good to just have a better understanding.
This is something we specifically, my office, has been trying to get an org chart and an iterative org chart.
So I would hope that you would keep that in mind as you are learning about the nuances of this city and how we could do it better.
So that's my one sort of nerdy inside game that I'd really like you to help us with.
The other one's an outside game.
And I want to be a little bit sensitive about this, but Portland— I'm really incredibly grateful that you have come to choose to call Portland home and to help us lead this next great chapter.
But Portland is a weird place, and it's weird in that we have naked bike rides and voodoo donuts and things like that, but we're also a very passive-aggressive city sometimes.
We have a really bad— we have a deep history of racism, and it is not a history It's not a long— it's not an ancient history.
I have seen in my 20 years of public service in this community repeatedly as we attract national top talent of individuals who also happen to be people of color, and we as a community will lift them up on a pedestal without any of the supports or the networks or the grace or the the dignity that we need to help this person be successful, and then we start throwing things at that person.
And when they inevitably fall, the city collectively shrugs our shoulders.
I do not want to see that happening.
I want to see the talent and the passion and the experience that you have to help our city grow.
And so from my office, at the very least, I will tell you that I want to be one of those resources to help you be successful in this job.
It is in all of our best interests that you are successful and that we as a collective do not allow some of the bad behavior that this community has done to happen here.
We want to see you succeed and want to keep those lines of communication and those lines of support happening.
So I just want to extend that to you first and just flag it publicly and let the community know that I— we're gonna say the quiet part out loud and that it is time.
This is a new chapter, and we are going to do everything we can to make sure that you are successful in this position.
So thank you for your, your vote of confidence in Portland at this moment, and you have my partnership in, in making sure that we can lead this city forward.
Raymond C. Lee III
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Avalos.
Candace Avalos
Thank you, Councilor Dunphy.
That is— that's tea.
That's tea.
Um, agree.
So congratulations on your appointment as administrator.
As you have heard from all of us, this is a really pivotal moment for our city, and your leadership is going to help shape how this new form of government comes to life.
As we continue implementing this historic transition, I expect you to lead in this new system.
Portlanders need an administrator who is committed to making this government work as intended, with clearer accountability, stronger coordination, and a partnership built on trust between the executive and the legislative branches.
I also want to emphasize the importance of accessibility.
Portlanders deserve an administrator who is present, who listens, who understands the lived experiences of the people that we serve.
And so I expect you to do the hard work of getting to know our communities across neighborhoods, languages, cultures, identities, and to make yourself genuinely accessible to the public.
Finally, I also hope that you will help be a bridge between our 2 branches of government.
As you can hear from my colleagues, we don't feel that that bridge is strong right now, and you're coming at a pivotal moment where we expect you to urgently take the lead on how to strengthen that bridge between our government.
Success under this new model requires collaboration and transparency and shared understanding of our goals, as you know, and so I look forward to working with you on that.
Thank you.
Working with you in that spirit.
So thank you again for your service.
Before I close, I have a few questions that I think are important both for the council but also for the public to hear from you.
So first and foremost, how will you ensure that both council and the public have clear, regular visibility into your administration's performance and your decision-making?
Raymond C. Lee III
You know, one of the things that is critical as we move forward, and I talked about this a little bit earlier, is transparency.
I'm very big on dashboards.
And as we start really outlining what are some of those key priorities that we have as an organization, where we are from a financial standpoint, is creating those dashboards and making those dashboards public-facing.
You know, we've been able to do that in my previous city where we have made forward-facing information as it relates to our police, our major projects, how we're spending on those major projects.
Thank you.
Kind of whether those major milestones within those major projects.
I think that is a huge component of transparency and letting the public know where we are as an organization.
Are we on point?
And actually showing— there's nothing wrong with having red on a dashboard.
There's something that is causing that, that we all need to be aware of to make sure that we're addressing that as an organization.
And being transparent and honest with that.
Is critical as it relates to communicating not only to our City Council, but also to our public on how are we doing overall as an organization.
And as we move through developing a strategic plan as an organization, putting that strategic plan on a dashboard as well, and really showing the public what are we doing, where are we moving the needle, where we're not moving the needle.
Thank you.
Where are there opportunities for growth?
And what are those opportunities?
Is it funding?
Is it resources from a staffing standpoint?
Is it because, you know, we're just not ready as an organization to move that initiative forward because we're about to make some other policy decisions?
And making sure that's clear and transparent to the community is essential.
It has to be part of the fabric of who we are as an organization and part of the culture as an organization of how we present information and move information forward as an organization.
And we will have to take this show on the road as well.
This is going to be times where we're going to have to, and I believe it should be standard, that in the beginning I would like to be the council members' partner in that, in going to and talking to the citizens within your respective districts about what's happening as an organization and kind of what are those key things that May be troubling for us as an organization to move some of these initiatives forward, because I want people to feel heard.
I think the biggest thing that we have in any organization— every organization struggles with this.
It's not just a Portland thing.
Are people feeling heard?
And if people are not feeling heard, that's when they show up to these meetings and have a ton of things to say.
And as long as we are creating the avenue and the platform for people to talk and to be heard and that they feel we are listening—.
Sameer Kanal
Councilmember Herbold.
Raymond C. Lee III
Uh, to them, everything is not going to be a yes.
We're not going to be able to address every single concern that a citizen have because of a financial predicament that we may not be able to address it, or it may be a policy decision not to address that.
But long as people feel heard and that we're trying to move the needle to make this a better community overall for everyone, we're trying to enhance not only the quality of life but the quality of place and where people are living within our community.
That is the essential thing that we have to make sure and ensure that we're doing for the citizens and the businesses and also the visitors of our community.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Candace Avalos
I appreciate that answer.
And I think I would just add, though, that to be heard is one thing.
To operationalize and structure the way you make decisions by what you hear is another.
Mm-hmm.
And so my next question is, what commitments can you make today about how you will show up in community, not just downtown, Mm-hmm.
But across districts, across culture, identity?
How are you gonna show up for all Portlanders?
Raymond C. Lee III
One of this, I'm gonna need your help in really helping me, letting me know these places that I need to be, the places I need to be engaged in.
You know your community way better than I know Portland today.
You know those key stakeholders, and I've already started touching point with a lot of different key stakeholders with within the community.
But I'm going to be leaning heavy on this council to help shape what does that look like as we move forward in those connections I need to make and really touching point with people, everyday people in this community.
This goes back to kind of as I roll out, I want to get out in the community and have town halls with the council members hand in hand to really meet the individuals within the community.
Thank you.
Who are shaping the things that we do as a community and who are the heartbeat of this community.
So I would say I can't do this by myself.
This is going to be an effort that I'll be leaning on the mayor and the city council to be able to help shape what that looks like, and our city staff to make sure that I'm in the right room at the right time and having the conversations that need to be had.
But I know I don't know everything.
I don't know everyone.
Thank you.
But I think as a collective body, as the individuals in this room and the key stakeholders within the community, we'll be able to shape what that looks like in this first year of my tenure as city administrator to make sure that I'm in those right rooms with the right people.
Candace Avalos
Councilor Smith, Dunphy, and I represent a district that has long felt disconnected from City Hall, has— does not have trust with City Hall.
So I would say, I would suggest That you pilot those ideas, those efforts in our district, because I think if you can be successful in getting East Portlanders to be a part of the process, your decision-making, to feel like their values and ideas are being heard and reflected in those decisions, that's gonna make a big impression not only on Portlanders, but on us who are trying to help usher that voice into City Hall.
So lastly, what can Portlanders and this council expect from you in the first 90 days the first thing, you're going to see me out in the community.
Raymond C. Lee III
These first 90 days is going to be essential of how I split up my time between city staff and ensuring that city staff has the time to be able to spend with me, but also the public as well.
And I really feel for the staff that works with me because I know that's going to be a hard thing to do to make sure that, that time is equally split up between the things that I'm doing internally into the organization, into the operations of the organization, but also externally and having a presence within the community.
And this first 90 days is gonna be a listening tour to really listen to not only to the city council, but to staff and to the community of what's happening well within our organization and in our community, and what are those opportunities for growth?
Within our organization and within the community.
Those first 90 days will be really shaping and some of the groundwork that we talked about earlier before we can move forward with a strategic plan.
I have to have a good setting of where we are today and what are those areas that we have room to grow today and what are those areas that we are phenomenal at as a staff and as a leadership team in moving forward.
Once I have that firm understanding, then we can move forward to some of those transactional things that need to take place within the organization to ensure that the organization is moving forward.
I don't want to have knee-jerk reactions as it relates to the things and comments that I hear from the organization overall, from the community.
I want to be able to take that in and be able to digest that and strategically plan how do we move forward and work with my team on how we move those things forward and work with this City Council regarding how do we move these things forward.
Thank you.
Because if the community is not feeling the change, is there change really happening?
And that's the real question that we have to really figure out.
How do we measure change for our community?
What does success look like for our organization?
And that's gonna be a collaborative approach between us, the mayor, and the city council to really figure out what does that look like for our organization, for our community, and how are we measuring and gauging that?
And going back to the transparency model of how we're communicating and showing the community how we're moving to this.
But this is a change of culture.
And I can tell you right now, change of cultures don't happen in a year.
We can see steady progress towards that movement, but culture change takes 3 to 5 years to change a culture of the organization.
Doesn't mean we don't have many milestones within that, and we celebrate those milestones that we're making as an organization.
But we have to be realistic about what the challenges that we're faced with, with as an organization.
Thank you.
And how we plan on tackling those challenges as we move forward collectively as leaders of this great city.
Candace Avalos
Thank you very much for your answers.
I am giving you my commitment to partnership, to some patience.
The bar's high.
I'll give you a little patience.
And lastly, you're my new pillar pal, so we got to be tight.
Raymond C. Lee III
Tight.
Steve Novick
Yes.
Candace Avalos
Thank you again.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Thank you for the answers.
Councilor Morillo.
Angelita Morillo
Thank you, Council President.
Thank you for your presentation, Mayor, and thank you so much, Raymond, for being here today and for letting us ask you all these questions.
I really appreciated your interview.
I felt like you gave us very specific answers, and I'm specifically very excited about your constant discussions about having more public accessibility around what we are working on as a city and where we are at with those issues.
I think that's something that the public really needs to see in order to have faith in our new system, and that's something that you spoke a lot about during your interviews and that I hear you're bringing up now, so I appreciate that.
I think like many of my colleagues, we've had discussions as we're implementing this new form of government about the flow of information and, you know, how councilors get information from bureau staff in order to create policies.
I personally think that city staff are some of the highest experts in our community, and I don't just mean the folks who are higher up.
I mean people who are frontline workers.
They sometimes know far better than we do or anybody else what needs to be done at the city.
So I kind of wanted to ask a few follow-up questions regarding some of Councilor Novick's questions earlier.
Do you believe that frontline staff should be empowered to support the work of council and to support the policy development for council offices?
Keelan McClymont
Yes.
Angelita Morillo
What specifically does that look like to you?
Raymond C. Lee III
I look at it from the standpoint of policy for the city as a whole.
The frontline staff are gonna be the individuals that are ensuring that the policy decisions that are made at this dais is actually being implemented and done.
They are the bloodline of this organization to ensure that happens.
And they have to play a role in working through their leadership within their departments to ensure that their voices are being heard as it relates to whatever policy decision that is being considered at the dais is something that can truly be implemented or is gonna require additional resources to be able to get that job done.
One thing that we have done successfully in organizations that I've been in and something that I would love to be able to do here, if not yet established within this organization, is have employee advisory committees.
And these employee advisory committees really help shape kind of what's happening.
How are the different policy decisions or leadership decisions from a procedural standpoint are impacting the day-to-day employee.
Labor groups will play a major role in that as well in shaping what that means for us overall.
But we cannot make decisions as leaders within the organization and for the city and not take into account the impact it would have on the everyday employee that is administering this policy decision.
Is it realistic?
Is it attainable?
And have them help us develop what is measurable from this standpoint to actually be able to tell us, is it being successfully done overall?
So employees have to play a major role in any policy decision that is being had, and they have to have a seat at the table as it relates to how we are shaping policy that will not only have impact on the community, but have impact on our employees as well.
And that's a key thing for me as we move forward, is that I'm being that voice for the employees as well and ensuring that things that we're doing as leaders in this organization, that is having the impact on them.
Because not only do we want to improve the quality of life for our citizens, but we want to enhance the quality of the work environment for our employees as well.
Thank you.
So to— short answer, yes.
Employees have to play a role in how we develop policy, but we also have to develop the framework of how does that happen as an organization.
And that's gonna be the key thing.
What is that framework and how do we engage and how do we bring staff forward to be able to help infuse their expertise in the formation of policy?
Angelita Morillo
Thank you.
While I appreciate the discussion about impacts to staff, I think part of what I'm trying to get at more is— that's important, but I'm talking more about policy development.
So if we have city staff that are experts in certain spaces, but they're not necessarily at the deputy city administrator level, or they are more frontline staff, how do we plan to add those folks to staff?
Clare Adamsick
I think that's a great question.
Angelita Morillo
How do we create a system where we are— or do you believe in having a system where we are affirmatively taking their ideas and not just policies that are already existing, but novel ideas that haven't come forward yet?
Raymond C. Lee III
I think we have to set up the framework to be able to do that.
I think it's essential that we have it, but I think we have to figure out what works best for this city and how do we do that.
And it goes back to prioritization as well too.
You know, I want to make sure that we're creating the space where staff has the opportunity to be innovative and bring forth those ideas that will have policy implications about how City Council may want to move things forward.
I think staff plays a pivotal role in that, but it's also creating the environment for them to be successful at doing that.
And that's the key thing that I want to make sure that we're focusing on.
Thank you.
As we create this framework is how are we creating the environment for them to be able to do that?
Because we can very be caught into the day-to-day of putting out the fires of today and not thinking about futuristic things about how do we improve our city.
And that's a change in culture and a change of mindset of how we move those things forward as an organization and as staff.
And I just wanna make sure that we have the framework in the culture as an organization to be able to do that, because I think it's very vital that we are doing that.
Angelita Morillo
Can you be a bit more specific about what that framework would look like and who gets a seat at the table and who doesn't?
Raymond C. Lee III
It's hard to say what it will look like today because I would want to be able to get in to see what's actually happening now as an organization and how these things are coming forward, how staff is being engaged.
To actually do this.
You know, different things work for different organizations, and I don't wanna take one model that I've previously done and try to say, oh, this is gonna work for Portland and be great for Portland.
So I don't wanna be able to do that to you today.
But what you have a commitment from me is, is to be able to sit down with this body to try to work through what that looks like for us long-term and immediate.
But what does that look like for an organization that we're gonna have a tremendous amount of policy changes, a tremendous amount of evolution as we grow and evolve as an organization and as a city, and how are we having that constant process improvement and looking at how do we move things forward as leaders within this organization.
And that's a commitment you have from me.
Angelita Morillo
I appreciate that so much.
Well, I certainly look forward to working with you and doing a deep dive on all of these systems and how we can pass policy together.
So really appreciate your time today.
Thank you.
Raymond C. Lee III
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Thank you for the answers.
Councilor Ryan.
Dan Ryan
Yes, thank you, Madam President, and good morning, Mayor Wilson, and a warm welcome to you, Mr. Raymond Lee.
Welcoming— welcome to these chambers where, as a city administrator, you'll be sitting right over there and we'll be spending a lot of time together.
So welcome to Wednesday.
Thank you.
Through the recruitment process, I've been impressed not only with your experience and knowledge, but your poise and your authenticity.
I was taken with your track record of shaking things up towards a data-driven continuous improvement culture.
What are you, a brown belt in Six Sigma?
Raymond C. Lee III
Green, green belt right now.
Dan Ryan
Okay, I'm sure that will go up to brown eventually.
Um, for those that don't know what that means, it's a way of, um, you become skilled in continuous improvement, and there's this thing called Six Sigma.
I will now stop being a nerd about this with But I look forward to doing it offline.
I was taken with your track record, though.
It was so exciting to do dialogue with you on this topic in our interview, and I have faith that you will lead our city in a brave new direction.
The selection of a city administrator marks the biggest milestone for the city under the new charter changes, second, second in mind to all of us being elected last year.
So here's the questions.
In my opinion, we've struggled to set up data-driven accountability in the private sector in Oregon.
In Multnomah County, and at the city.
And the public is begging for us to be more accountable.
I had to go to great lengths as a former commissioner where you had a lot more influence to insist on such practices.
And the former director at the Bureau of Development Services Permitting was supportive, and we got there.
Once those permitting datasets were established and maintained, the entire process of reforming permitting system began to take off.
As you know, that soil work does take time.
It's very time-consuming, and it's action.
Steve Novick
Yep.
Dan Ryan
It's bold action.
Tell me how you brought along the culture in Greeley, Colorado, to lean into becoming a data-driven culture, and what lessons did you learn that will help you do the same here in, I would say, a more independently rugged Portland, Oregon?
Raymond C. Lee III
You know, what we created in Greeley was a performance and data analytics position and department for our organization.
Coming into the organization, we didn't have performance matrix.
You know, we had things where I would say we were counting widgets, uh, how many potholes we fill.
And to the everyday citizen, what does that truly mean?
And really trying to develop performance matrix that truly speak to telling a story on how we're providing a service.
Are we performing at the level that we need to be performing to provide that service?
Or are there capacity issues as it relates to our ability to perform that service?
We started small and really working with our budget and using our budget as that tool to really develop 3 performance metrics for every single department that tells a story about how that department is doing Overall.
And from there, what we started doing, and I started with our public safety arm of our organization because we always talk about data, but public safety is probably the biggest entity that really uses that data to really— you really use that data of how we move forward, how they implement policy, and how they move resources as a whole.
We started up quarterly reviews with our public safety arm to actually go through the data.
And sit down.
And I just didn't want to see, and I said this earlier, just the green within this.
I wanted to be able to see those areas of improvement that we have as an organization, because it's critical to be able to know where those things are, because we have to understand the root cause of what's happening and what is causing the problems within our organization or within a respective bureau or department.
That was essential.
Just this last year, we moved it to where it was quarterly management reviews with the executive leadership team, where the executive leadership team was going through this same dialogue on how we're doing and how we're performing overall as an organization.
It wasn't an aha or a got you session.
It was a session to ensure that everyone in this city had clarity on where we were heading as an organization and what was impeding us to be able to achieve some of those things.
'Cause sometimes it's other departments.
Dan Ryan
Yeah.
Raymond C. Lee III
That are impeding our ability to be able to achieve the things that we have.
So it goes back to what I talked about earlier of creating that environment where we're having these conversations and that we are having this dialogue as leaders within our organization to be able to move key things forward as an organization.
But the first thing was developing the baseline data within our organization, which we didn't have in a lot of different areas.
Thank you.
And setting that benchmark of what that is.
Also bringing in data from other cities as well that may be comparable to what we're doing as an organization.
It sometimes is— some police chiefs will argue with this as well too, but it's always key to be able to see your crime rate compared to another crime rate.
Now, what's built into that crime rate will vary.
Different cities verify it differently as it relates to them looking at their crime rate and what's built into that number.
Loretta Smith
Right.
Raymond C. Lee III
But looking at our benchmark cities and seeing how we compare against our benchmark cities is essential because we are in competition as it relates to other cities throughout this nation, ensuring that we have the best services that we can provide to a community and that we're recruiting and retaining the best talent within our city as a whole.
So as we look at how do we build this, it starts at the very infant stages.
One, how are we measuring success and what does success look like?
And how we're measuring that will be essential on how do we tell the story of how we are improving as an organization or areas that we're doing quite well as an organization.
Then building that off into where we're bringing other people into the conversation.
And what I've always seen success in doing is having a meeting with the City Council and it really depends on the City Council.
But what I've seen success in doing is doing a yearly check-in with the City Council as it relates to all those performance measures to kind of give the full document, but have a presentation that's kind of abbreviated version of that, 'cause we'll be in here probably till midnight to actually go through all that information, but give you the opportunity to be able to ask critical questions.
But a lot of those critical questions should be answered within the document itself.
Thank you.
As it relates to why we may not be hitting that measure point and what are we doing to fix that as well.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
If you heard some giggles, it's because we have this thing called Council After Dark once a month, and we often have stayed almost to midnight.
So yeah, I really appreciate that you distinguish between inputs and outcomes.
Eric Zimmerman
Yes.
Dan Ryan
I think government has a tendency to measure success always about Oh, we got money out the door, so what did it do?
And I think that's— you get it.
I mentioned this to you personally and to the mayor as well.
I think your time in the Mountain West, was it 5 years?
Raymond C. Lee III
Yes, almost, January.
Dan Ryan
I think that experience was a stepping stone to adapting to Portland.
In other words, it's an easier leap when you're coming directly than coming directly from Dallas.
I'll just say that because I've experienced that many times.
How did you adapt to Greeley when you moved from Dallas?
And what was your thinking on that?
And how would you take those experiences and use those as you adapt now from the Mountain West to the great Pacific Northwest?
Raymond C. Lee III
You know what I always say, it wasn't a huge adjustment for me to go to Greeley.
Majority of my career was with the City of Dallas, but I also spent some time in Amarillo, which was a very agriculture Uh, community, blue-collar community, uh, that really valued, uh, the cost of government and how we move things forward from that standpoint.
That right there prepared me because I challenged myself when I left Dallas.
And, you know, I didn't know if I was good because I knew the Dallas way and I was good with an organization that I understood the framework and everything within it.
Uh, And that was part of the reason why I left Dallas.
I wanted a different challenge.
I wanted to be able to challenge my skill set and add to my toolkit, to be in a totally different type of community that didn't have the resources that a Dallas have or the depth and talent that a Dallas had, but had all the grit in the world to be a first-class city and to provide first-class services.
I think that was the big That was the biggest adjustment for me and the biggest flex for me to be able to go from a city that had a tremendous amount of assets and resources to a community where we had to be innovative about how do we move and create new programs and new projects.
Coming into a new, any new city is getting adapted to the culture and the values of that community.
And doing that, it goes back to some of the conversations that we had earlier.
It's getting out in the community and having conversations with people in the community.
Letting them put a name to a face with me and for me to be able to put a name and face together for them as well is essential in creating that relationship and trust between what's happening as the change happens overall.
I think one of the biggest things for anything, because Greeley was my smallest community that I ever served in, was really understanding the small town feel of of the interest and the input that people want to do and be able to touch and feel you as a leader within the organization.
And some of those same attributes I found and I grew from to say you can apply that to larger cities and be successful in how do you interact and relate to the everyday citizen within the community.
I have lived experience.
You know, this is part of the reason why I chose Portland as a host.
Thank you.
I chose Portland because I truly felt the attributes that I've learned from all of my stops in my career, that this was made for me to be able to step into this role and be able to apply those things to try to help this community connect more to the government that is serving them, and for us to be able to connect more to the people that we serve on a day-to-day basis.
Thank you.
So I don't think there's gonna be a huge change for me as it relates to how I'm connecting to people overall.
I think the biggest change for me is getting to learn the nuances, the neighborhoods.
And that's why I'll be leaning on the people in the room to help me figure those things out, 'cause that's gonna be essential for me and my success as a city administrator, making sure that I'm making those connections at the level that they need to be made at.
Thank you.
And that there's accountability there as well.
If we're saying it's something as an organization we're going to do, that we're actually doing that, and it's not something that we said and something we forgot about.
And that's going to be a partnership between us to ensure that we're following through on those things.
But I'm excited about this opportunity.
I'm excited about the future of Portland, and I'm excited about the work that we have ahead of us.
Thank you.
Us because it's challenging work, but it's legacy work that we'll be doing and really helping shaping the future of this community.
Dan Ryan
Now say Willamette.
Willamette.
Raymond C. Lee III
Willamette.
Dan Ryan
Finally, as an FYI, the Governance Committee did pass strategic priority legislation on Monday, and this timely item will be coming to the council next week so we can land a sage practice at the beginning of the new year.
Thank you, Councilor.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Uh, Councilor Novick, you've asked some questions, so we'll go to folks who haven't yet.
Councilor Zimmerman, go right ahead.
Eric Zimmerman
Thank you, Mr. Lee.
Thank you, Mayor.
Um, I have no questions for you.
I've already interviewed you.
I take a different approach today.
Having, uh, been a deputy city manager, I understand the The scrutiny that you've gone through.
So thanks for stepping up.
I told the mayor that I was actually in favor and would support any one of the 3 finalists who came because I believe in the executive's ability to appoint who they think they need to lead this organization.
And you've been chosen by this mayor, and I'll be supporting that.
You know, this, this city is a barge now.
And yet it has evolved from a bunch of disparate bureau rafts in its previous era.
Okay.
There are some people who have chosen to get on the barge and help us row in that direction, and there are some who are still trying to paddle the water out of their bureaus.
I am really looking forward to your leadership in helping get us all on the same barge and rowing in the same direction.
And for those who remain on their rafts, I support you in bringing in your own team to lead this organization the direction you want to go.
I believe that strongly, and I'm saying it here on the record so that everybody knows where I stand when Mr. Lee brings forward any changes that we needed to see to get this city to the organization which the voters put us in charter.
But we are still lagging with a foggy remembrance of the old system.
So thank you for stepping up.
You have a lot of work ahead of you.
Um, The part of this city rowing in the right direction is that the city administration has to have a spine, right?
We will come up with good ideas, but we will also come up with some bad ideas.
It doesn't work if the city administration does not have an opinion on our legislation.
We may disagree and we may still pass stuff, but it requires you to enter the knowledge void and get into the mix with us about what is good and what yes.
So I'm welcoming that in the future.
I want to know the city administration's official position on legislation that we are looking at as a— as the legislative body, because I think if we are operating without that knowledge, our legislation cannot be as successful as it should be.
And so while it is new to Portland, that is not new to those of us who've worked in the The city council-manager form of government, the mayor-form— the mayor-manager form of government, and those who have existence— or excuse me, experience in ICMA.
Mm-hmm.
You might be inheriting the only city with no senior staff with any ICMA experience in America.
I encourage you to make that one of your foundational pieces for if you want to be a senior leader in this organization, start getting involved with people who work in this type of form of government in other So that's another note to you.
And I will say, this may be one of the few cities in America that when the city administrator is named, I don't see all DCAs or bureau directors in this room.
That might not be a nod or a knock to them.
They may not know that that is the norm and the expectation, but I'm saying it into this camera and on this microphone.
You have a cultural change that we've noted today.
Thank you.
That is going to take your encouragement to get people to understand how this system is going to be successful.
And I am very excited for you because in our interview you got praise from my notes.
I appreciated what you brought.
And I also just want to end, you know, colleagues, I'm involved with a network of other gay elected officials across the United States and the world, and I've had 3 members of the LGBT community who are elected officials from Denver, Cincinnati, and one in the state of Oregon who've reached out to me.
And I'm highlighting that— and they reached out to me in support of you, Raymond.
I'm highlighting that because in Portland, it sometimes has given us pause to bring a person from the South for my community, right?
The South is not a place that my community necessarily thinks of as always a welcoming part of our country.
And so for people who look at your resume, uh, that can give them pause.
It doesn't give me pause.
As one of the out and outspoken members of the gay community in Portland, I'm fully supportive of you.
My 3 colleagues from other parts of this, this country who've reached out to say, I support Raymond Lee as your next city administrator, that means something because only 3 people reached out and all of them are a member of my community and all of them them support you.
So thanks for stepping up.
Lastly, I hope you'll make Portland your residence, and I look forward to that.
I know it's not part of our legal requirements, but many cities it is, and I— so I look forward to you making Portland your residence.
The Pearl District is great, but so are other parts of District 4.
Raymond C. Lee III
FYI, I will be living in Portland.
Thank you.
Eric Zimmerman
I appreciate that so much, and with that, I just— a resounding support for you.
Thank you.
And a resounding support for you, Mayor, because I believe you deserve the executive you need to run this city the direction you need to go.
We will cross-check you if we don't like the direction, but you need the administrator to get the work done.
You have my support.
Dan Ryan
Thank you, Councilor.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Thank you, Madam President.
I am so pleased to be here today and want to congratulate the mayor too.
On bringing you on because it is a huge— I look at it as an opportunity.
Mm-hmm.
We are at a crossroads and we do need that leadership at the top.
And I believe that you being here, being here before time, talking to folks, and as I was listening to you, In the interview, and I was with District 4 when we interviewed you, and I was thinking, wow, I like the idea that you talked about a strategic plan.
I like the idea that you, you are not quick to deliver a response.
You, you said here today we have to figure out a framework, and I think that's good because people will try to box you into a particular answer.
And so for me, you passed the first test.
As a new person, and I was a new elected in 2010, and when your family comes out, we'll figure out what church they go to when your wife and family comes out.
But I got a call from my Aunt Doris, and she said, I need to talk to you about something.
She said, we need to talk.
And you know when somebody said we need to talk, it's real serious.
So she said, why are you taking those, uh, bus passes from the kids?
And I said, I don't know what you're talking about.
She said, well, Mother Williams from the church said that you're taking the bus passes from the kids.
I said, I have not even had one budget session, I don't know what she's talking about.
And so you will find that you will have people who will call you and ask you about stuff that you don't even know about.
So I went to the chair and I said, can you tell— did you keep the bus passes in the— in your budget that you have to drop at the county?
Raymond C. Lee III
Mm-hmm.
Loretta Smith
And he said, yes, they're in there.
I said, thank you.
I said, because my aunt is on the phone and she she's talking about Ms. Williams is mad at me.
I just got elected.
I've only been on the job for maybe a couple of months, and so I have no idea what they're talking about.
So if you get those kinds of questions from Doris E. Smith or from Ms. Williams, come talk to me.
Raymond C. Lee III
Gotcha.
Loretta Smith
Because they will have an expectation that you know everything in this budget and everything about this city.
I am also amazed that, um, Councilor Clark and Councilor Zimmerman had both of my questions.
I had the same question that you had in regards to the city administrator's job.
You looked at, uh, section subsection K under the city administrator.
I also looked at subsection K and was going to ask that question too, but I'm also asking the question around subsection E. And what subsection E says is execute and enforce all laws adopted by council.
So I guess we kind of had both of the same 2 questions.
Section 2-406 in the charter under the city administrator, it says that the city administrator will execute and enforce all laws adopted by council.
Eugene Jackson
Yes.
Loretta Smith
And my colleague has already brought up the 9/12ths that I put forward in February.
And since you are responsible for the execution of all the laws and ordinances, my expectation is that transparency is truly something that you believe in.
Mm-hmm.
And I think it's so important that when we do get dollars into this community and into this city, that we know about those dollars as well, because it's really important that we're able to not only know about them, we have to authorize them and then appropriate them.
Mm-hmm.
I know that we kind of went— if you watched any of our committees yesterday, we took some things out of order.
We passed a committee bill for housing out of the Housing Committee, and we spoke of some dollars, but those dollars haven't been authorized.
Candace Avalos
Yes.
Loretta Smith
They have to be authorized before we can actually make that into an ordinance.
And I want to be clear and let folks know, I do know the process.
We did that.
It was already in spaces where it was ready to go.
But I just want to let you know, I understand that it has to be authorized before we can take those dollars and put into our budget and recognize as money that we have available.
This idea of you coming with us to town hall meetings and to, uh, go into our communities, I'm excited about that.
Mm-hmm.
I think that is important.
It is upon us to help make you successful.
I agree with Councilor Dunphy.
It is upon us to make you the success that you need to be to be able to lead us into the future.
Mm-hmm.
I am so shocked, just as, uh, uh, Councilor Zimmerman is.
I would've expected every single DCA, every single department head to be sitting in here watching these confirmation hearings, making sure that they give you support, because I think there is a culture that people just don't understand.
Mm-hmm.
They don't understand what it takes to make sure that you are successful just as much as you said you want to make sure all your employees are successful.
That is a two-way street.
Okay.
Now, I talked to our human resources about some things that I was concerned about, about your severance package, and I won't go into detail here.
I should have called the mayor first and explained to him what I was thinking, but I want to make sure that your severance package is equal to what folks are getting below you, that you have the same access to a severance package that is equal.
And like I said, I won't go into the deep— I don't think we need to do an ordinance to get that right.
I just think that I need to make sure that when we're on a day that we're talking about human rights in employment, transportation, education, you don't have a labor union to represent you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
But I can guarantee you, if I see something, I'm going to say something.
And I said something yesterday, and I saw something, and I said it again today.
And I— my expectation is I am going to allow our DCAs to go back and review that with you and make those changes before I try to use the big stick and do an ordinance.
That's not necessary.
They just need to go back and change it and make it equal.
I want to make sure that you're being treated with the same dignity and respect and the same kind of benefits that other employees are getting here at the City of Portland.
My last issue is we have one more— I think we have one more council meeting after this.
Robert Pyle
Yes.
Loretta Smith
I don't know if you're going to be in town, but I really want to tell folks I have seen you out in the community since you landed here on November 19th, and you've been all over the place.
I saw you at the Oregon Business Plan on, on Monday.
I was invited to different places and spaces, to private meetings, to, uh, to meet with you, and I declined those because I said I need to make sure that we have a confirmation first before I have any kind of private meeting with you.
But I just want to tell you, from me to you, it has been great to see you out in the community.
It has been great to know I have been contacted by labor organizations that you specifically went and reached out to.
And I know for a fact that you don't have a lot of labor unions in, in your background in, in doing outreach.
You, you have police labor contracts, but we have many labor unions, and that will be 30 to 40% of your So it was really good to hear that you had already— because that was going to be my main question to you.
How do you come to a city that is— most of its employees have a collective bargaining agreement?
How do you give that direction when you have not had that experience?
And I think that because you've had the experience with the police bargaining, that that is going to be critical, but I appreciate you reaching out to those building trades and those folks who really make up this city's fabric of the labor community, that you did that on your own and we didn't do that.
So, uh, kudos to you.
I appreciate you willing to take on this big, huge challenge and make sure that, um, I can do whatever I can do to make your, uh, your stay here as enjoyable but I have to warn you, I will ask you a very direct question, and it'll be about money.
So, um, just know I want to say welcome to you and your family, and we have some churches that I can recommend that when your wife comes that you do that.
Okay, thank you.
Ron Zito
Thank you.
Mitch Green
Point of clarification real quick, I, I think you refer to me as Councilor Zimmerman.
That happens a lot in this city.
We look the same, I understand that, but I just wanted to say We both said the same thing.
Loretta Smith
He was saying— no, when I said Councilor Zimmerman, I was saying, um, what I was saying was that Councilor Zimmerman had noted that there were no DCAs there.
All right, you got it.
Okay, so, but you— we are on the same page too much, and I'm starting to, to, to— I need to make that distinction that you are a democratic socialist and I'm a social justice, um, capitalist.
So, but we're, we're intersecting, and I'm, I'm, I'm not feeling really good about I'm getting some togetherness vibes about that.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I'm feeling really good about the intersection, for what it's worth.
Um, Councilor, you took a couple of the things I was going to say, but I, I do want to start, Mr. Lee, by just, uh, noting that while Councilor Zimmerman will show you all of the beautiful condos in the Pearl, there are some fantastic neighborhoods in North and Northeast Portland that are much much closer to the churches that Councilor Smith is going to take you to, and I am happy to show you some beautiful neighborhoods in District 2 as well.
Mr. Lee, you've gotten a number of questions from my colleagues about communication, about the, the relationship between the administration and council, and I want to ask a question along a similar line but a little bit broader.
Mm-hmm.
And that is that we are still making our way into the norms of this new form of government.
And I think there are still some questions about whether this is a strong mayor or a strong council or a strong city administrator form of government.
And I'm wondering if you can just describe to us a little bit what you see as the role of the city administrator and the administration vis-à-vis both the executive and the legislative branches of the city and how you see your job as you work in a city that really, in a sense, has 3 separate bodies helping to run our city, the legislative, executive, and administrative.
Raymond C. Lee III
I see the city administrator role as the person that runs the day-to-day operations of this organization.
In doing that, that role also ensures that council is well informed regarding the decisions and policy decisions that they will be making that will have impact on the day-to-day operations of this organization.
I think there has to be a partnership there as it relates to how do we move things forward as a leadership, 'cause I do see us collectively as the leaders of this community.
And it's gonna be essential as we move forward as leaders of this community that we have clear define of how we engage and how do we move things forward collectively as a unit.
But when it comes to the day-to-day operations, I'm just taking the policy that this board has said they want to move forward with and engaging with you from the standpoint of what my recommendation and what staff's recommendation is on that, but making sure that is implemented and that it is working.
And if it's not working, be able to come back to this body and tell them why and what's happening to cause whatever policy decision that's being made not to have the impact that it was planned to have as it relates to it.
And that's one of the key things that I see my role, making sure that one, staff is following through and that I'm partnering with staff to move any roadblocks that they have to getting things done that as council has set forth out that they want to do, but also engaging with this elected body.
But also on top of that, my job is a little tricky 'cause I'm engaging with the public as well.
Robert Pyle
Yes.
Raymond C. Lee III
And ensuring that I'm communicating with the public regarding what's happening and how it's happening, and if it's not, what's happening overall.
Those are key roles of this position, and that partnership is huge with the mayor and ensuring the mayor, as the CEO of the organization, that we are working hand in hand and we're partnering to ensure that the priorities that he has set out as well.
Thank you.
That those are being accomplished.
And those are key things of balancing act that has to happen for this to be successful.
But for it to truly be successful, everyone has to understand what their role is.
And that's part of when we go through this kind of priority setting, this is some of the framework setting that we're gonna have to do as well, that everybody's clear on what their role's in, how we engage with each other, and how do we move things forward, and how do we make decisions.
Thank you.
As leaders as it relates to direction for this city.
You know, these are gonna be challenging times.
A lot of cities have gone through this 50 and almost 100 years ago as it relates to it.
But I see this as a pivotal time for this community.
Very few government organizations and cities ever press the reset button.
Thank you.
This is a reset button time.
We defined how do we move forward and how we govern, and that is going to be essential.
Will there be growing pains in this?
Yes.
Will we have disagreements?
Yes.
But we should always have alignment for what's the greater good of this community.
And that's the key thing that I want to focus on is what is that alignment?
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
Raymond C. Lee III
That we have as leaders of this organization?
And how do we plan on achieving that alignment?
And my role will play a major component of that and ensure that it's happening.
And if it's not happening, to call it out that it's not happening as an organization, but not just call it out and walk away, but call it out and say, hey, how do we get better ensuring that we have our alignment and purpose all together again?
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
I was going to ask a question about trust and accountability with the public, but I think that some of my colleagues have touched on that in pretty meaningful ways with you.
So I'd like to go back to a topic that Councilor Smith first raised, which is our labor partners.
The City of Portland has a bargaining-heavy environment.
Mm-hmm.
We have a labor union-heavy environment, but the way we work with our labor unions is also bargaining heavy.
And as you've noted, we're in a time of pretty significant organizational change.
So I'm wondering how you work with our represented employees and the, the unions that they have formed to help represent them as we move through what will continue to be, I think, a year of change over the next year.
Raymond C. Lee III
My goal is to communicate and be present.
Listen, you know, as we go through negotiations, if the first time you hear or see from staff, and I know we have great staff that does our labor bargaining, collective bargaining work as an organization, and partnering with them and when I need to be in a room and having conversations, not at the bargaining time, but before bargaining even starts to ensure that we and I have a firm understanding of what are the asks.
Anne-Marie Kevorkian-Maddy
Yeah.
Raymond C. Lee III
And they have a firm understanding where we are as an organization and being very transparent and honest with our collective bargaining groups of where we are.
I'm very big on interest-based negotiations and making sure that everyone's best interest, that we're taking care of that.
That is huge for me.
But it all starts on building that relationship from the very beginning.
And as Councilwoman Smith spoke about earlier, that was part of the reason why I wanted to meet with some of our labor groups because these are our everyday employees.
These are the people that ensuring when people flush the toilet that it actually goes somewhere.
These are the individuals that are ensuring that the lights are on and the equipment is working in this room.
These are the individuals that are filling the potholes in our community.
These are the individuals that are ensuring that I can do the things that I can do and be successful as at doing it because they're carrying through the day-to-day work, ensuring that this city is functional.
And it's a thankless job.
They don't get the kudos and the thank-yous all the time, but they are the ones that ensuring that this is a safe, secure, purposeful community.
And I want to make sure that I'm touching base with them and they understand that from the beginning, that I see their value.
Thank you.
I support them, but also we have to do what's in the best interest of this city.
And as staff, we're negotiating on behalf of this body.
And as this body, I have to have conversations with as well regarding what are those parameters.
And you're going to need information from me and from our staff regarding what our structure is and our framework is to make some of these decisions.
Thank you.
But if we're going into a room with not having co-created those relationships, we're already starting behind the 8-ball in those conversations.
And I wanna make sure that we're well advanced in our relationships, our communication, how we're going to engage to ensure that it's a purposeful and intentional way of collectively bargaining with our employees.
Derek Olson
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
I'll note that I have also seen you around in many spaces and heard from folks who have been meeting with you this week, and I do appreciate both your, your clear statement on the record that your intention is to live in our fine city and the fact that you came out early before this meeting today to get to know people here and didn't just fly in for the confirmation hearing itself.
It's showing a commitment to the community that you are coming to serve, and I appreciate that.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Madam President.
Uh, first to Mr. Mayor, thank you for your inclusion of councilors in this process, for bringing us a candidate on the timeline very similar to what we discussed back in February.
Uh, remember that meeting very well.
I'm in no way disappointed in how this has gone and the candidate, and I'm looking forward to asking some questions and doing due diligence.
But I wanted to start by thanking you both for the strength of the finalist pool and for the, the nomination.
I did want to mention a process note.
I am disappointed that after the February 5th meeting where Mr. Jordan's extension got dozens of people weighing in on a 6-month extension in public testimony, that there are only 2 written testimonies and no oral testimony today.
And so I wanted to take this opportunity to ask you and Mr. Lee, if appointed, to look strongly at the Office of Community Engagement and improving on its performance from 2025, because— and also its structure, because council clearly needs to be more involved in the management of community engagement to ensure that success.
Mr. Lee, I really appreciate your commitment to being out in community.
I can tell you from my personal experience, this building will hold you here if you let it.
And that intentionality is super important.
And I think I'll be the first to invite you to join me at a town hall.
I do them monthly, and you'll come to District 2.
I agree with Council President, we obviously share a district there.
I also appreciate the breadth of your experience.
I'll add one quick note.
If you think Dallas is Buckle up.
So, um, I won't be asking much about this here.
I did in, in the interviews ask about getting council information both in general from the administration, uh, including without retaliation to rank-and-file employees all the way up to bureau directors and DCAs, but also ensuring that, uh, information goes to all 12 councilors, not just one.
And I appreciated that answer.
I hope we can get to a place where we have like an intranet page where those medium and high, uh, profile councilor requests and and responses are aggregated so that we're not delaying the overall process to ensure everybody gets something or forcing you to read an individual email for each thing.
Finally, I appreciate your response on collective bargaining.
I think we've seen some of the problems you just identified very recently here.
So to my questions, and I have a bunch, I'll do 2 now.
You would be in a unique role in this system in that you report day to day to the mayor but also have a responsibility to council.
The degree to which I agree or disagree with Councilor Zimmerman's point about, you know, providing an administration position is the degree to which hearing that position is different in reality and perception from the mayor's position.
And I don't mean disagreeing with the mayor.
What I mean is what the council president was referring to as a distinction of branch of government between the executive and the administration.
I don't think that's happened this year.
Mm-hmm.
At all personally, but I would like it to.
And specifically, we recently had a situation where the city administrator sent memos to the whole council on the eve of Councilor Morillo and Green's proposal for a detention facility impact fee at council that, that was fairly oppositional to it.
This was off-putting to me.
It made me wonder if I should expect late-game memos from the administrator's office as well.
So my question is, how do you see your relationship and responsibility to this body?
What do you think what do you think the role of the city administrator's opinion is, both in terms of expressing opinions and the timeliness of those opinions relative to decisions?
What do you see as the limits to that, to what the city administrator should be providing impact or input about in terms of impact, implementation, operational implications, things like that?
Raymond C. Lee III
Yeah, I see the city administrator role as a service role in ensuring that I'm serving Not only our mayor, but our elected body as well, as it relates to the decisions that have to be made.
You know, before a lot of things come to City Council, you know, there will have to be dialogue.
Now, there's instances, and I know the way that the structure is set up for things to go through committee and for things to go to that committee and be recommended to go to the full body for decision-making.
And what I would love to be able to see in this is from an administration standpoint, As it relates to what the city's recommendation may be, is for that to be starting at the committee level and bringing that to the committee level as it relates to what our recommendation is, our professional expertise is on that matter and our professional recommendation.
I think that is essential in helping shaping and informing, at least at the committee level, what the staff's recommendation is overall.
And and that's before it ever gets to the full body as it relates to briefing the full body, either in a work session or an agenda item during the actual briefing of that matter to the full body.
But this is also why I say, you know, we have controversial items that will be coming forth this body.
And having the ability to have these meetings with individual council members, for me, is essential to be able to sit down and be able to have this conversation and hear from you.
What are those pinch points for you as it relates to making a decision on this?
And there will be times where there will be disagreements on that.
And that's the beautiful thing of democracy in this.
But I wanna make sure that I'm giving you all the accurate information and all the expertise that I have through my network and through my own knowledge base and through our staff.
That is helping you make the best informed decision that you can make that will have an impact on this community.
So from a time perspective, I like to start early as we have the information.
And if it's something that we don't have yet an opinion on, to see, is it something that we can delay making that recommendation?
'Cause I don't want to give you information.
Angelita Morillo
Right.
Raymond C. Lee III
That is not 100% accurate.
And that's the challenge I'm gonna be, and I'm a commitment to excellence from me.
So I'm a stickler on always improving and how we can get better at doing something.
And we'll have those conversations internally.
And I know the mayor will have those conversations as well.
How do we get better at doing that?
But I wanna make sure everything that comes outta our office is accurate.
And if it is, and that's hard to say it won't ever happen, but if it does happen, that we're responsive in the manner that we respond to you to get you the information that you need and tell you why the original information was not accurate.
I don't want to be in a situation where we're backpedaling on matters that we didn't need to have to backpedal on.
We just need to do our due diligence to get you the information.
Steve Novick
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
Thanks.
I think in the interview I asked you a similar question.
You said no surprises, and I appreciate that.
I think in this context, it's no surprises and no ambushes.
Those are the things that are—.
Raymond C. Lee III
100%.
Sameer Kanal
From at least me and my expectation.
My second question, this last year was a difficult budget year.
We know we'll have another difficult one ahead.
On numerous occasions, this council has asked the administration to look at management bloat and outside contractors.
Before cutting frontline staff, including our represented staff who deliver direct services.
And one of the primary reasons we chose to move to a form of government that has a city administrator is because we desperately needed professionals who are willing to make difficult decisions for the good of city structure and the city at large.
And so do you broadly feel empowered to make tough decisions that would require those big changes?
And more specifically, what are your views on management bloat, span of control, and the need to streamline city government?
The way we structure our city at those high levels, what are your guiding principles that you would look at in terms of where, if there need to be staff reductions, you would look to make those?
Mitch Green
Yes.
Raymond C. Lee III
Yeah, when I look at kind of the administrator's responsibility, yes.
Short answer, yes.
I do feel empowered to be able to make those decisions.
When we look at it, and council will play a major role in this, I'm a huge component, and I've said I think we discussed this through the interview process as well, of priority-based budgeting.
I'm not a— I'm a huge fan of strategically addressing and ensuring that we're funding the things that we say are important to us as an organization and letting the numbers back that.
Not funding something that is underperforming is essential.
That's why the performance matrix, the key performance indicators, outcomes are truly important.
Thank you.
We first have to understand what the true price of government is for us and what is it costing us to provide the services that we're providing day in and day out as an organization.
Those are the key things that we're going to be looking at.
One, how's the organization performing?
What's the true price of that?
What are the priorities of the City Council and the mayor, and how are we moving those things forward?
And then we're going to have dialogue about that.
Thank you.
It's going to cause for us to sit in your room, potentially maybe for a budget retreat, to actually sit down and talk about what those priorities truly are and how we're moving the organization forward.
Without that, it's hard to make strategic decisions regarding what is funded and what is not funded.
We need that direction and we need that assistance, and the mayor will be providing a lot of that.
And I know he will have a tremendous amount of contact back as well with council as well regarding the priorities that he has as well.
But sitting down and being able to get through that and digest that, staff can strategically go back and make some crucial decisions and be able to talk through council why certain decisions were being made.
The mayor will, you know, and I will assist the mayor in producing a balanced budget that comes to this body, that this team feels it can truly execute on to achieve the vision that the leaders of this organization have and feel that can be done.
But this is not something that we do in a vacuum.
This is not something that we can do overnight.
Budget is year-round from the standpoint of how we're evaluating and making decisions regarding how we move forward.
And we'll be looking at how do we bring those kind of concepts of how we look at municipal budgeting moving forward and what are the ramifications for some of the decisions we're making today and what are those long-term impacts that are gonna have on us financially.
And I'm a strong believer in having that type of information, trend analysis information to understand how programs have been performing overall and how we have been expending overall to make key informed decisions regarding how do we move budget, which is one of the largest policy documents that we will have as an organization forward.
Sameer Kanal
Thanks, and I do hope you'll consider keeping and iterating on the City Administrator Jordan's budget recommendations that came out on February 28th of last year.
I think it was a great document.
I just wanted to, before I pass, just to follow up on the part about management bloat, because I think the cuts were disproportionately targeted at rank-and-file staff this year.
When staff reductions happen.
So I just wondered if you could speak to that a little bit.
Raymond C. Lee III
I would have to further evaluate it and see why those decisions were being made.
It's hard for me to make a call on it right now to not understand the full background as it relates to why certain decisions were made as it relates to the previous— this current budget year that we're in.
But most definitely, once I get the opportunity to review those things, I can have a more informed informed and engaged conversation with you as it relates to why certain decisions were made and, and go from there.
But give me some time to actually take a look at it and evaluate it.
Sameer Kanal
Thanks.
Thank you, Madam President.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Colleagues, we had scheduled 2 hours for this agenda item, which would have put us at 11:48.
It is 11:47, and I'd like to make sure that Mr. Lee has time for some closing remarks.
I see that there are folks in the I'm wondering if any of the questions you are hoping to ask will change your mind about the vote today, or if we can move forward and get additional questions to Mr. Lee via email, which also does create a public record that can be easily shared if it's something that you were hoping to get out to the public.
Mitch Green
I mean, my vote still depends upon a question that I want to ask.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay, let's get one more question in then for anybody who needs to.
Mitch Green
Thank you, Mr. Lee, for this long conversation.
We talked earlier about sort of in response to questions about staff and communication, and you had offered to set up a framework, which I think that's a really good way to think about things.
In the context of that framework, what are you going to need from City Council to be supported in making sure that staff, and particularly rank-and-file staff, and even non-represented, you know, supervisory staff do not have fear of retaliation for communicating with a city councilor or any other elected official because they think that that communication might then set themselves up for retribution.
Does that make sense?
Raymond C. Lee III
It makes sense.
And we have personnel rules that guide us in those type of things as it relates to anybody feeling like they're being retaliated against.
And I have an open-door policy as well.
You know, if staff feels that way, that something has, You know, had a negative impact on them for information that they shared, that they have that conversation with me.
But there is chain of command in all of this as it relates to how we share information and how we get things out to the public.
You know, the key thing for me is, one, that we're honest, that we're transparent regarding the information, but we understand the why behind it.
And sometimes Yes.
And sometimes those things have— you have a different set of lens that you're looking through.
And I'm putting myself in your shoes.
And, you know, if you're receiving information and you don't understand the why behind it, it's hard for you to be able to do anything with it.
And sometimes you can get information from staff without explaining the why.
Just, you asked that question, I'm gonna answer it without giving you context of why.
This is happening or why it didn't happen.
And that's the one thing that I'll be stressing to our team as we release information to council, that we give them the context behind it and not just give you raw data and leave you to figure it out one way or another.
But it has to be communication.
I don't expect any employee, and it's not the culture that I want to have, as a leader of the organization that there's retaliation against employees.
But I want to make sure that you have the full context of what happened.
And if there was any type of thing that's a personnel matter, that let us have that conversation one-on-one to kind of talk through what that is.
Mitch Green
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Clark, did you have a question that you needed to ask before we vote?
Okay.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Madam President.
Um, there are some staff in the city that don't report to the city administrator.
Um, council staff, mayor's office staff, but there are 3 in the administration, um, I believe as well that under the charter don't.
So we're talking the police chief, the city attorney, and then also the FPDR, Fire Police Disability Retirement Fund administrator, has a council appointment process.
I think they might be in the org chart anyway with a direct line, but But all 3 of these in some way, 2 very directly relate to public safety.
And you mentioned public safety before, and I wanted to talk about how your— what your approach will be to ensuring that the city moves in a council-set direction, including with those staff that you don't directly manage in the public safety space.
Raymond C. Lee III
Yeah, it's collaboration and communication that we're on the same page.
And I've been in that situation where my previous role where there were Council only had 3 employees, myself, the city attorney, and the municipal judge.
And the biggest thing with that is having constant communication with my colleague, 'cause that is my colleague, and ensuring that we're on the same page of how we're moving forward.
Because I don't ever want either one of us to be in a situation where we're providing information that the other person doesn't or not aware of.
Sameer Kanal
Councilor Smith.
Raymond C. Lee III
And then they're getting questioned on that information by someone on council or the mayor as well.
So ensuring that we're having regular set meetings as well, so I have a full understanding of where they're being charged with, the direction that council or the mayor is giving them as well, and that I can help them achieve the things that they have on their plate as leaders in this organization.
This is a team environment.
This is a, a one Portland organization.
And we all have or need to have the same alignment in that to ensure that we're achieving the things that we have.
But it first starts with that collaboration, that communication and relationship building with each other, and then being engaged in my meetings as well as we talk about different rollouts of different initiatives, policy decisions, or administrative actions that may be taking place within the organization.
Thank you.
That they're fully aware of that and the impacts of that, because they will have probably some input as well of what that may mean for their respective areas.
And not do it after the fact, but engaging with them beforehand so they can have that input.
So anything that we're moving forward, we're moving forward as a collective body and leadership team.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
Thank you, Madam President.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Thank you everybody for the flexibility.
And Mr.
I assume that you will be getting some additional questions via email from some of my colleagues.
I'd like to give you just a few minutes for closing remarks before we move to a vote.
Raymond C. Lee III
Okay, well, I just wanna say thank you.
Thank you for the support.
Thank you for the confidence.
Thank you for your time in engaging with me, not only today, but as you have, different council members have seen me out in the community, have come up and spoken to me.
It means a lot.
You know, I know this is not a light decision.
There's a lot that goes behind the decision that this body has to make as it relates to the future of this organization.
And I just want to let you know you have a partner in this.
You're not doing this by yourselves.
You're not out there by yourselves as it relates to the governance of this organization and of this community and as leaders of this great city.
Thank you.
You have a partner in me that's willing to collaborate with you, that's willing to help shape how we move things forward collectively as one unit.
I'll, I'll say this again.
I know we're not going to always agree, and I know everybody on the dais is not going to always agree, but as long as we have the best interests of this community, I think everything else we can figure out.
And I believe this is a great community with a ton of potential.
Thank you.
Has all the right ingredients, and everybody's watching to see how this thing plays out for Portland, because it's going to tell a story about how governance can truly be done and can it be done differently.
You have my full commitment.
You have my full faith in this group that we can move this thing forward, and I thank you for your time, your energy, your effort, to continuing the work of this great city, and I look forward to partnering with you and working with you for the years to come.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you very much.
Councilors, any further discussion before we move to a vote?
Okay, Keelan.
Oh, Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, I just wanted to— I think I had a sort of unique role, uh, in a previous vote in February as, as the one person who voted no on that extension, which had nothing to do with, uh, with, uh, the Administrator Jordan, but was a structural thing.
I think those issues have been resolved to my satisfaction as well, and I think it's important to acknowledge that.
So I just wanted to say thank you for that, and you'll see my vote in a moment.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Keelan, could you please call the roll?
Keelan McClymont
Clark?
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Green?
Mitch Green
Welcome to Portland.
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Zimmerman?
Eric Zimmerman
Yes.
Steve Novick
Aye.
Jamie Dunphy
Aye.
Angelita Morillo
Aye.
Sameer Kanal
Welcome.
Joseph Perez
Aye.
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Coyama Lane, absent.
Angelita Morillo
Welcome to Portland.
Raymond C. Lee III
Aye.
Steve Novick
Rock Chalk Jayhawk.
Mitch Green
Aye.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Turtle Guinea.
Keelan McClymont
Resolution is adopted.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Mr. Mayor, thank you for bringing us forward a nominee.
And Mr. Lee, welcome to Portland.
We look forward to working with you.
Just the one time.
Just the one time.
I appreciate the acknowledgment, Councilor.
Colleagues, it is just about noon.
I would like to take a recess.
I'd like to get us through one or two more things and then we will take a lunch break and we'll need to come back to finish the rest of the agenda.
Keelan, I believe the next item on the agenda is the consent agenda.
Is that correct?
Keelan McClymont
That's correct.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay, let's move to a vote.
Keelan McClymont
Clark?
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Green?
Mitch Green
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Zimmerman?
Eric Zimmerman
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Avalos?
Candace Avalos
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Dunphy?
Jamie Dunphy
Aye.
Angelita Morillo
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
Noll.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, voters of Multnomah County Elections.
Eugene Jackson
Aye.
Clare Adamsick
Aye.
Angelita Morillo
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Aye.
Raymond C. Lee III
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
The consent agenda is approved with 11 yes votes and 1 absent.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay, we are going to see what we can do on this next agenda item.
We're moving to the regular agenda.
Keelan, could you please call agenda?
Keelan McClymont
Item 7, authorize Director of the Bureau of Human Resources to offer an employment agreement to the City Administrator.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Keelan.
Colleagues, we just extended an appointment to a new City Administrator, and we need to approve an offer to this City Administrator.
This has not been through a committee, so we're moving to a staff presentation instead of a regular thank you, Councilor Smith.
We'll now move into our committee overview.
We have Ron Zito, our interim director of the Bureau of Human Resources, here to go over what this agreement looks like, and then we will move into some discussion and public testimony.
Ron, go right ahead.
Ron Zito
Council President, good morning, Mayor.
Good morning, city councilors.
Thank you for the time.
For the record, I'm Ron Zito.
I'm the interim director for the Bureau of Human Resources.
And first, thank you for consideration of this agreement.
For the item I'm bringing forward today, which seeks to authorize an extension of an employment agreement to our incoming city administrator, which you just confirmed a moment ago.
I have a couple of slides here to take you through that has some additional background on our current practice here at the city, some references to this approach as a common practice amongst other cities, and then a brief review of what you might find in one of our employment agreements here at the city.
Mark Sherman
So if we thank you.
Ron Zito
So currently the city offers employment agreements to our deputy city administrators and our regularly appointed bureau directors.
This is defined under our Human Resources Administrative Rule 8.04, and the practice for this started almost 15 years ago in 2011.
A key provision of these agreements in the rule provides that in the event of termination without cause during the agreement, the city will pay the employee The payment is a lump sum equal to 1 year of the individual's salary for the first year of the contract and 6 months of their annual salary for the remaining years of the agreement, conditioned upon the execution of a targeted severance agreement.
So that's our current practice here at the city.
If we could jump to the next slide, please.
Thank you.
And I also just want to offer— it was mentioned earlier in the session here— ICMA, which is the International Council of Mayors, Offering employment contracts across leadership roles within public agencies is a common and a competitive practice.
And like we heard earlier, ICMA, who is a leading professional association for city and county managers, is a big advocate of employment contracts between administrative officers and the municipality they serve, especially as a tool to ensure stability between the governing body and the manager.
And some of their research on this topic topic, they emphasize that these agreements serve multiple purposes, but in brief, they establish clear expectations and accountability by defining duties and creating clarity around core topics such as outside employment and reporting relationships.
They protect the city from legal and financial risk by outlining compensation and benefits, evaluation terms, and defining separation procedures.
And finally, they facilitate smooth transitions by clarifying notice periods and severance options available.
Now, the position of city administrator is a new role for the City of Portland, but similar-sized cities and peer cities routinely offer these agreements to their city managers and city administrators as part of their overall employment package.
Just a few brief examples would include City of Seattle, Sacramento, Las Vegas, San Antonio, to name a few, but also some local neighbor cities such as Vancouver, Salem, Eugene, even Forest Grove all offer their city managers an agreement as well.
And just one more slide if I could.
Thank you.
So finally, just to give you a sense of what terms we include in our current agreements here at the city, I would offer and highlight these.
They generally designate a 3-year term.
They define salary and benefits.
They set expectations for faithful service and performance.
They commit to an annual performance evaluation.
They define terms for the termination without cause or with cause.
They provide for the extension of a severance offer if the separation is for without cause, and they outline notice for the cause of separation and the process for discussing the cause of that discharge.
They also prohibit subcontracting of the role, and they speak to automatic termination in the event of an inability to serve.
So with that, I just want.
I wanted to close by saying, um, that's a quick recap of where we stand today, why we intend to offer this, and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have about the ordinance.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Mr. Zito.
Mr. Mayor, is there anything you'd like to add before we take some questions?
Keith Wilson
No, thank you.
It was a competitive negotiation and it was a competitive offer.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Mr. Mayor, um, councilors, I do believe we have some public testimony, but let's take any questions for Mr. Zito now, and then we can have any discussion after testimony.
Mitch Green
Yeah, I just, I appreciate that you're laying out very clearly, Mr. Zito, that the severance is conditional upon a no-cause dismissal.
And so after we get through testimony, I'll probably want to engage a little bit with the mayor and you to discuss sort of expectations on our tenure of our new CA.
But I think the public is watching on the severance issue and wanting to know that it's not something we just lean on.
Steve Novick
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Absolutely.
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith
Thank you, Madam President.
As I listened to you and I looked at your presentation, you put this— you gave this new agreement for DCAs and for bureau heads.
We just paid someone $241,000, their full salary, and they've been here for 2 years.
We're talking about a city manager, which is different from a DCA.
The original DCAs had 3-year contracts with full benefits.
And so for me, the language that this city administrator put forward, it was not for the city administrators, for the DCAs and for the bureau heads.
And so we are establishing something and we want people This, this city administrator position, they last anywhere between 3 and 5 years, but we need to have a severance package that is equal to the position.
And if others have gotten a full 12, 12, and 12, he needs to get— as the city administrator, he needs to have a 12, 12, and 12 as well.
It needs to be fair because it is not in the language that the city administrator and previous DCAs, they got 12, 12, and 12.
And so I'm not understanding this right now.
It doesn't look good.
It's not a good look.
Ron Zito
If I may, Councilor, just to give some brief history on where we've been with these agreements, uh, in the past, uh, and this, this was probably goes a few years back, uh, we did offer our directors who then reported directly to commissioners, 12, 12, and 12, a 3-year agreement.
And at the end of that 3-year agreement, there was an option to automatically just renew, and so renew for another year at a time.
In January of this year, as we moved to the new form of government, we did adjust those contracts for incoming directors to be a 12, 6, and 6 option.
So that's just the history of where we've been.
We did have a recent and again, you're talking about directors.
Loretta Smith
You're not talking about the city administrator.
The city administrator's severance package should equal his position, whoever it is, and it should be the 12, 12, and 12.
Keith Wilson
May I run that back?
Loretta Smith
Please.
Keith Wilson
When we've taken over this journey along the new form of government, learning what the previous agreements were, there was so much transition.
The 12 was offered in some cases for all these new directors and DCAs and such.
In January, we discussed this and we moved to a more operational approach.
These jobs that we're offering are permanent jobs, and we've shifted to a 12-month severance in the first year and 6 for the subsequent years going forward.
And that's what all of our senior leaders have been brought in since then.
Loretta Smith
Correct.
I, I understand exactly what you're saying.
It's not a good look when you have just given less than 30 days, a full 12 after the second year.
We're speaking about the administrator.
We're not speaking about the DCAs.
They are not on the same level, and they need to have the same protection protections that the previous ones had.
And we're— today we're not talking about approving a DCA contract, we're talking about a city administrator.
And it doesn't feel good.
It just— it's not a good look and it doesn't feel good.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Novick.
Steve Novick
Mr. President, I just wanted to note that my understanding of the way it works in Vegas is That if you get severance, you can either take 1 year of severance, you can take a double or nothing option based on the outcome of a hand of blackjack.
So I just wanted to clarify that.
Joseph Perez
Thank you, Councilor.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Ryan.
Loretta Smith
Point of order.
This is a very serious thing and I'm not joking.
And so I want people to take this seriously.
And as we are doing these contracts, they don't have labor unions.
To protect them about their contracts.
They don't know the history of what others have gotten before they got here.
So I do know, and that is why I'm speaking up.
Dan Ryan
Yeah, I didn't know I'd need to speak, but I am supportive of this offer.
Mayor, when you said it was a competitive negotiation and a competitive offer, that's all I needed to hear.
I want our city administrator to have the skill sets to know how to do this, and it sounds like he did.
Thanks.
I'll be supportive.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Any other questions before we move to public testimony?
Angelita Morillo
Okay.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Keelan, could you please call up our first testifiers?
Keelan McClymont
We have Joseph Perez joining us online.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Welcome, Joseph.
Please go ahead.
Keelan McClymont
Joseph, you're muted.
You're, you're still muted.
Steve Novick
Can you hear me now?
Keelan McClymont
Yeah, we can hear you.
Joseph Perez
Thank you so much.
Um, I'm excited to see a new city administrator who will bring fresh perspectives and new ideas to Portland.
I'm excited to see experiences and approaches from Greeley and other cities that will identify areas for improvement, challenge the status quo, encourage innovation, inspire a shared vision, and enable others to act.
And I expect that the new city administrator will have special expertise and skills and knowledge and ability to model, model the way and encourage our hearts.
This new city administrator, starting with a blank slate, free from the existing social history, internal conflicts, and political dynamics within city This neutrality should help to ensure objective decision-making and the fair, nonpartisan implementation of city council policies.
This new administrator has expertise in public administration, budgeting, strategic planning, and that should enable the council to focus on their business and policymaking, etc., and setting new policies as well.
And I expect the city administrator to be a leader in implementing city goals like Vision Zero.
Climate action and modal shift and make progress on innovative programs like the bike bus, the bicycle bus where kids get to bicycle to school often and with joy.
And I don't expect their— the city administrator to be constrained by old habits or practices.
And so also the new city administrator should establish authority and a clear command structure.
Under the new charter, the mayor can dismiss the city administrator without city council approval.
Thank you.
But the mayor must advise the council before removal.
The council has the power to remove the administrator for cause, which I believe is 9 votes.
Subject to the confirmation, which just happened, the mayor appoints the city administrator and holds significant executive power, whereas the council needs 9 votes.
This creates a strong incentive for the administrator to be loyal to the mayor.
To me, this is not what the charter reform is supposed to bring.
I thought the charter would create a city administrator position that was more answerable to city council.
With a simple majority regardless of how many votes are needed.
I hope that there is a way, as Councilor Smith just mentioned, for the city administrator to have significant independence.
I think this 3-year contract the administrator has offered is, is okay, is fine, but the contract should be carefully examined for opportunities to give the city administrator appropriate compensation.
Please consider changing the 6-month subsequent time to 1 year or more, possibly 3 years.
I agree with Councilor I want to remind the City Council the majority of people in Portland want to ride transit, and almost 50% want to ride bicycles.
And I want to recommend incentivizing cross-bureau work and joint bureau budgeting.
The Portland Insights survey shows that people want to take transit and do things safely.
Please remember, people who ride bikes are interested but concerned, or concerned about feeling safe.
Invest in Portland bikeways, make them safe.
The High Crash Network.
Also, uh, thank you, Councilor Murillo.
I think there should be an employee suggestion box.
Change is hard, and innovative ideas may need support outside the bureau they work for.
I invite you to learn Portland by riding bicycle, Mr. Lee.
The city is truly a marvelous place.
I love living here.
I think you will love— I know you will love living here as well.
Thank you so much.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you very much.
Keelan McClymont
That completes testimony.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay, colleagues, is there any further discussion before we move to a vote on this offer?
Councilor Green.
Mitch Green
Yeah, thank you.
Um, I support the offer as, as brought forward.
Um, I, I just have to make a comment about whether or not, you know, senior executives have a labor union representative.
The reason why we have labor unions is because you have senior executives who control the corporation, control the firm, and oppress the working class.
And so they organize for better wages.
When you're at the level of a senior executive, you negotiate with a lot more market power than an individual worker has.
So to Councilor Ryan's point, it was a competitive offer and he agreed upon it.
That is a transaction.
He is being fairly compensated.
If he was not being fairly compensated, he would not So that's the way I think about it, and I just— I can't let it stand that we need to think about labor unions for city administrators.
I do want to stress, though, that there are corners of this city, and I suspect it's a majority of Portlanders, who for right or wrong reasons are worried about the rate at which we've paid out severances in this city.
And I know you care about that too, Mr. Mayor.
And I know that's why you spent a lot of time trying to find the right person for this job.
Robert Pyle
I do.
Mitch Green
And so if we're going to use this severance tool, it really does need to be for a no-cause dismissal as a last resort.
I believe that you recruited him and brought him for an appointment because you want him to be here for a tenure.
And so if we get into a situation where we feel like the city administrator is not the right fit for the city, I hope that we can have a conversation about giving him an opportunity to be the right fit for the city.
Thank you.
So that we don't find ourselves in a situation where we have to dismiss a city administrator and pay them out of severance.
So that's kind of my piece on that.
I think it's okay to change your severance policy over time and not get locked into the forever past.
I'm going to support this today.
Thanks.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith
Correct something.
I did not say that I wanted a union for the city administrator or the executive at all.
I said it does not look good for someone to come in and get less of a severance who is the city administrator, not a DCA or even a department head.
The department head had a better severance package than this city administrator.
And I'm talking about fairness, Councilor Green.
That's what I'm talking about.
Mitch Green
Paid a lot more than that.
Loretta Smith
And it was a very competitive salary.
I'm not complaining about the salary.
I'm just saying what it looks like, Mayor Wilson.
It does not look good that we have a man who comes here.
He did not— I don't know what he got in his package.
I don't know if he got a move package or what that looks like.
These positions are tough.
Mitch Green
I agree.
Loretta Smith
This is a new position.
This is 12 people here that he has to adapt to.
And trust me, if 9 folks get together and say they want him gone, he's gone.
And there are no other protections that, that would allow him to move forward to get something comparable somewhere else.
It takes time at that level.
And that's all I'm saying.
I just wanted to let you know it does not look good in the community.
Thank you.
For this man to come here to get something less than people who are under him have received.
That's all I was bringing the attention to.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor, I know that one of the points you made in your first statement was about what previous, previous people at the city have received, and so I want to just ask a question to try to provide perhaps some context that might give our colleagues a little bit of, um, of comfort in what's currently on the table.
And I hate to put you on the spot, Mr. Jordan, but as our city's only previous city administrator, are you comfortable sharing with us if you have a severance as part of your contract?
Mitch Green
Sure.
I have no severance as part of my contract, but I entered into this I took this job knowing that it was temporary and knowing that I'd already failed at retirement twice.
And so I came to the job in a unique set of circumstances, and I don't think it applies in any way to this situation.
I appreciate the question, Madam President.
Maybe for a little bit of context, Ron made the point that we have had severance policy in the city for a long time.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Right.
Mitch Green
And at one point, all directors reported directly to elected officials.
And the idea of severance for employees who serve at the pleasure of electeds is an industry standard.
And all cities do it, but they do it in a different way.
Even smaller cities do it.
And the reason it's an industry standard is because it protects the employee but it also protects the hiring entity.
You expect people in these roles to bring you bad news, and you expect them to do it promptly.
You expect them to do it wholeheartedly.
And it is a high-wire act, and you are subject to the pleasure of the elected— either the elected body or an individual elected.
And so So it is, that severance concept is for the protection of both, both the employee and the employer in the day-to-day operation of a very complicated organization.
So I wanted to put that context around it.
Councilor, to your point, this body with 7 votes can award any amount of severance you wish.
Raymond C. Lee III
Yes.
Mitch Green
The reason it was brought forward the way it is, is because that's the current policy of the city.
We do have a few directors that are on a legacy.
I don't know that we have any left anymore.
Joseph Perez
Yes.
Mitch Green
But we have had directors on this from the previous policy.
And that, for the public's sake, that's the reason that this has happened.
I don't disagree that it's a bad look.
I don't disagree at all.
And I know you made your point and I appreciate the point.
And I just wanted to make sure the public knew this body with 7 votes can give award severance in any way it wishes.
Thank you, Madam President.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Mr. Jordan.
And I do understand that your situation is quite different than bringing in somebody to a more permanent position.
And Councilor Smith, I wanna say, the quiet piece a little bit louder, which is that we know that people of color and women don't always negotiate in the same way that white men do.
And we have a person of color before us coming to help run our city, and we want to make sure that what we offer is fair.
I feel comfortable with this because I've been a strong supporter of moving in the direction of a contract like this for all of our leadership.
And I hope, Mr. Mayor, that if there are still Bureau directors who are on legacy contracts that as soon as those come up, they are renewed to the level that is comparable to what we are asking our city administrator to accept.
We need to both ensure that we have good people who we recruit and that we protect both them and ourselves as we need them to make hard decisions, and that we look out for the bottom line for our city.
Thank you.
Steve Novick
I have to say that I feel totally convinced that if we as a council decided spontaneously on our own to extend a more generous severance package, then that was part— that would be a fair compromise.
That which was part of the package that Mr. Lee accepted in agreeing to take this job.
I think the community would not be very pleased with that.
I think the community would be saying we're throwing money away for nothing, potentially.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Colleagues, is there any more conversation before we move to a vote?
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Madam President, and thank you for highlighting, I think, as you put it, the quiet part out loud.
I think I think that separate from this discussion but related, we need to do our part to be supportive of people in these roles.
And often the conversation gets limited to just the, the moment of the hiring.
And this is true for all of our employees, but that ongoing support, uh, for, for all of our employees, in particular those who might be from marginalized communities, is very important.
And I don't want to lose that.
So my, my only point And speaking now is to say let's not forget this conversation after whatever this vote may be.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Colleagues, any more discussion?
Okay, seeing none, we will move to a vote.
This is an emergency ordinance so that we can extend an offer immediately.
It does require 9 votes to pass.
Keelan, could you please call the roll?
Keelan McClymont
Clark.
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Green.
Mitch Green
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman
Aye.
Anne-Marie Kevorkian-Maddy
Aye.
Michael Woods
Aye.
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Aye.
Derek Olson
Aye.
Candace Avalos
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
The ordinance passes with 11 yes votes and 1 absent.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, colleagues.
We are just about 3 hours in.
We have a few more things on the agenda that I don't think we can get through Um, immediately.
So I would like to have us take a half-hour break.
We will come back at 12:51 to finish out our meeting.
Thank you.
Welcome back, councilors.
We are, um, calling our meeting back to order.
Um, we are going to open agenda items 8 and 9 together because we have presentations, I believe, from the same We will take the discussion separately since they are, uh, slightly different, I believe, in, in where that discussion will go.
But Keelan, could you please call agenda items 8 and 9?
Keelan McClymont
Item 8, ratify a successor collective bargaining agreement with American Federation of State, County, Municipal Employees Local 189 for represented employees within the Office of Independent Police Review for the terms and conditions conditions of employment of represented employees in the Independent Police Review Bargaining Unit.
Item 9, ratify collective bargaining agreement with the Portland Police Association for represented Emergency Communications Supervisor 1 employees within the Bureau of Emergency Communications for 2025 through 2027.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you very much.
Um, Ron, Kim, Annemarie, um, wait a minute, I have the wrong names up here for some of you.
Um, apologies.
Um, we are going to take your overview of both of these items, and then we'll have, um, public testimony and discussion on each.
Colleagues, because we hear updates on these in, um, executive sessions, they don't go through committee, they come straight to council.
Ron Zito
So we'll thank you, Council President, and officially good afternoon, city councilors.
Again, Ron Zito.
I'm the interim director for the Bureau of Human Resources, and I'm joined today by a number of our labor relations team members.
To my right is Kim Fouts, lead negotiator for the IPR contract.
To my left is Annemarie Kevorkian-Maddy, lead negotiator for the BOEC contract.
Hi, everyone.
Okay.
I think we're going to take these in turn.
So if we could go to the next slide, we will focus in on AFSCME IPR.
So we are pleased to be able to present to you this afternoon 2 agreements, the first of which is our AFSCME Independent Police Review.
It's a successor contract.
And before I provide a summary on this, I just want to take a moment to thank our AFSCME IPR team for their hard work.
Thank you.
AFSCME labor partners, as well as the city bargaining team members.
Reaching this agreement was not an easy task for either party, and this was uniquely complicated given the impending transition for Independent Police Review Office to the new Office of Community-Based Police Accountability.
Now, as a reminder, this unit represents 11 members across 5 classifications within Independent Police Review, and the Parties began bargaining the successor contract in January of this year, and we reached a comprehensive tentative agreement on November 10th.
Just about 7 days later, AFSCME leadership confirmed with the city that their membership did ratify this tentative agreement before you today.
Now, if approved by council, this agreement would run for 3 years from July 1st, 2025 to June 30th, 2028, and some of the key provisions for this new agreement the revised employment agreement would include an updated retention bonus schedule that moves some of the money into the first year of the contract, a new transition article with a number of commitments and guarantees provided to IPR staff, including advance notice of hiring by the new OCPA director, review and feedback on resume and cover letters, a guaranteed interview with the director of OCPA prior to conducting interviews with external candidates, priority reemployment afforded thank you.
And for those not selected by the new oversight board, they'd get guaranteed placement into regular status existing vacancies or the creation of regular status positions performing substantially equivalent work.
And for those finally choosing perhaps separation, staff would be eligible to receive paid administrative leave for 30 days prior to the effective day of that layoff.
The position would the be posted on parties the city's website.
Also agreed on maintaining status quo on several IPR articles for any represented staff moving into a new AFSCME-OPA bargaining unit when that's ratified.
That would include Article 32, which is discipline and discharge, and Article 33, which is grievances, complaints, and arbitration.
Finally, in regard to the financial impact, the total new spending on this agreement would not exceed $161,500.
And that actual cost would depend on the number of current employees who remain eligible for the retention bonuses that I mentioned earlier.
So with that, I'm going to stop there, perhaps answer any questions related to IPR before we move on to the BOEC contract.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, colleagues.
We'll take technical questions now.
We'll hold discussion until after we hear public testimony.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Madam President.
Thank you for being here, everyone.
Ron, to the you said that there's a guaranteed interview with the director of OCPA, but there's also a guaranteed decision prior to opening it up.
Can you speak to that a little bit, how that would work logistically?
Ron Zito
Yeah, that's correct, Councilor.
They— once we hire a new director for OCPA, they would interview any interested folks coming over from IPR.
They would go through that interview process and then be afforded a decision.
Sameer Kanal
And the director would not be able to see external candidates until after that, correct?
Ron Zito
That is correct.
Sameer Kanal
Okay.
I have a second question, if that's okay.
Olivia Clark
Right ahead.
Sameer Kanal
The 6-month notice that you mentioned of advance hiring, advance notice of hiring by the new OCPA director, can you speak to how that would functionally operate?
Olivia Clark
Yes.
Ron Zito
Yes, we would anticipate that if this were ratified today, we'd offer a pretty quick notification of the intent to hire.
We do— we are not in a place where we've hired an OCPA director this time, but the 6-month runway, we want to make sure that we are on the right side of and we give adequate notice.
So that would happen pretty promptly.
Sameer Kanal
So if, for example, the new director were to decide to create a function that was— because there are many functions that are not currently authorized for the CBPA, OCPA structure, but were recommended by, for example, the Police Accountability Commission.
If they were to create a unit like that that might have a manager as well as some employees within it, would you need to give 6 months' notice before the manager was hired, go through that process of hiring a manager, and then give 6 months' notice before starting to hire the other folks?
Would it overlap?
How would that functionally work?
Ron Zito
It's a great question, Councilor.
And I, you know, Speaking frankly, we didn't get into that level of dialogue over this provision.
However, I think our intent would be to err on the side of further notice, you know, as much advance notice as possible.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Madam President.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Any other questions before we move to the next contract?
Okay, seeing none, let's move to the second contract.
Anne-Marie Kevorkian-Maddy
Good afternoon.
For the record, I'm Anne-Marie Kiborkian-Maddy, Labor Relations and I'm here to talk about the ordinance for BOEC supervisors.
They are newly represented by the Portland Police Association.
There are currently 14 incumbents in this classification.
It's a single classification bargaining unit, Emergency Communications Supervisor 1.
This is an initial contract, and it's modeled off of the collective bargaining agreement for the dispatchers and call takers who are also represented by PPA.
Thank you.
And the interest here was to create an agreement that provides similar benefits to incentivize staff to professionally develop and consider promotion into the supervisory rank, leading to a long career with the city and a commitment to the profession and to the community that is served.
Because it is an initial contract, everything is essentially new.
I'll just try and cover a few of the highlights for you.
First of all, this recognizes that the Police Association is the sole and exclusive bargaining agent.
It provides some economic benefits, including an increased shift differential to match the rank-and-file dispatchers and call takers.
It establishes bureau practice for how overtime is hired in this group.
It establishes practices for— a practice, rather, for vacation approvals and the number of staff that can be on thank you.
It maintains the status quo for their health and life benefits.
It establishes a voluntary employment benefit that allows for a percentage of their sick leave to roll over into an account upon retirement from the bureau.
It also establishes that this group is strike prohibited and therefore subject to interest arbitration for any sort of dispute resolution, and that is in alignment with all other, uh, telecommunicators.
It also establishes the grievance process for dispute resolution and provides city-paid holidays in accordance with HRARs, allows for a labor management committee to be established for the supervisory group.
Other economics— it moves this group from a grade to steps, ensuring that employees will receive an annual increase of at least 3% annually.
Thank you.
It will afford them an opportunity to have their COLA that was provided to them on July 1st, 2025, to be recalculated to the full 2.4% and paid retroactively to July 1st.
That is in alignment with how we have paid our other represented staff.
It also creates a few new pay premiums, again, to keep alignment with the rank-and-file dispatch contract, including a DPSST premium— that is the Department of Public Safety and Standards training for intermediate or advanced telecommunicators.
It establishes that the supervisor group will also be affected, or rather eligible for the accreditation premium, which is a premium that was designed around organizational excellence thank you.
And it establishes a coach premium pay as well so that the supervisor group can provide mentorship and leadership opportunities to newly hired supervisors.
And lastly, the bureau is also establishing an educational fund to provide professional development.
This will be in the amount of $4,000.
Per fiscal year beginning July 1st, 2026.
Um, the cost of the full contract for these employees is just under $224,000 spread over 2 years.
That will— the bureau will assume those costs as part of their budget, so there is no ask from council to provide any additional money.
I think I think that's— I think that is probably the list of highlights there.
I would like to say, uh, thank you to our partners at the table, uh, PPA, the leadership team at BOEC, and the support staff in BHR who, uh, provide valuable collaboration and made this agreement possible.
I'm happy to answer any questions.
Angelita Morillo
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Councilor Clark?
Olivia Clark
Um, I think you answered this question, but let me just, um, ask you to elaborate a little bit more on the coaching premium.
Just how that works and what that is.
Anne-Marie Kevorkian-Maddy
So, um, it's more frequently known as, uh, like field training officer, uh, if you are in field for police officers, and for certified training officers for BOEC for telecommunications.
And so there is no equivalent, uh, in the supervisory world.
So this would be an opportunity for newly hired supervisors to work with their peers who will provide on-the-job training, provide some guidance to them, feedback, And what's it, 8% of— Yeah, 8% of the employee's base rate of pay.
And that's a fixed amount, so that amount is only going to be paid while the training is actually underway and will not be in effect after the trainee has certified.
Thank you.
Uh, and become independent to work on their own.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Colleagues, any other questions?
Okay, thank you all.
Please don't go far, we may have more questions, but I do want to, um, hear from members of the public who are signed up for testimony.
Keelan McClymont
No one signed up.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Oh, I thought we had somebody.
I'm sorry.
Okay, um, my apologies.
I I missed that one.
Colleagues, is there any other discussion on either of these collective bargaining agreements then before we move to votes?
Councilor Kanal, go right ahead.
Sameer Kanal
Can I start with a request for information?
Is the intent to do discussion on IPR and then vote and then a discussion on BOEC and vote, or how do you wanna—.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I think that will keep this cleaner.
Yes, we opened them together in order to let staff come up and present more seamlessly, but why don't we We'll stick to discussion on agenda item number 8, which is the contract related to employees at the Independent Police Review.
We'll take a vote there and then move on to agenda item 9.
Are you in the queue for agenda item 8?
Robert Pyle
Yes.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay, go right ahead.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Madam President.
Thank you to the presenters.
First, I wanna thank the employees at Independent Police Review for staying with the city and with the system.
This includes all the employees, particularly but not limited to the represented workers.
It's a small team, and any labor issue affects everyone who's worked there.
I've had the privilege of working with many of these employees.
I'm appreciative of their professionalism, their dedication, and the high quality of their work.
I also think it's important to state this emphatically: I've never held you responsible, nor will I today, for the shortcomings of the system in which you work.
IPR is not responsible for the decisions made on accountability choices by other decision makers, including mayors and police chiefs past, because you present.
Excellent information and investigation to them, and they sometimes go a different way than you recommend.
I know also many of you have advocated for positive changes to this system.
I think it's been very valid for workers anywhere to want stability and security, and for asking for it in this bargaining process.
Three years ago, the city made a unique commitment to guarantee post-transition jobs for IPR employees in the city—not necessarily in the new oversight system.
No other union had received this.
In their contract, and that recognized the unique role, uniqueness of federal oversight of our policing practices, including oversight and your dedication.
3 Years on, this transition has been slowed down, not by workers, but by previous leadership of the city, and we're now bargaining another contract that shouldn't have been needed because this transition should be farther along by now.
I've worked on these specific parts of the charter and settlement agreement that I'm going to talk about in a moment for 4 years, including as a project manager of the Police Accountability Commission, as support staff for other advisory groups focused on these requirements, and now as a councilor and co-chair of the Community and Public Safety Committee.
It's the part of the charter that I know best, and in working with— working on it, I worked with many of these employees.
This has been a difficult bargaining conversation.
It's in part because we know IPR's current positions are going to go away, which can be demoralizing, difficult, and raise concerns.
One original request that was widely reported was to have guaranteed jobs in the new system.
While it is perfectly fair to ask for this, this was clearly and accurately labeled as a violation of Charter Section 2-1005, which empowers the new system's director to make hiring decisions.
And I think the continued conversations resolved this concern, and the proposed labor agreement that we're voting on today, in my view, does not violate Charter 2-1005.
And I want to thank BHR as well as AFSCME for that.
However, there remain 2 additional concerns, 2-1006, And the timeline required by the settlement agreement with the federal government, paragraph 195.
The first of which says the board shall have authority to exercise independent judgment in performing all legally assigned powers and duties.
The city council, mayor, city administrator, auditor, and city departments, bureaus, and other administrative agencies shall not interfere in the exercise of the board's independent judgment.
Yes, yet as we have just heard from human resources, if we approve this agreement, it will keep the director from even knowing what other other candidates are out there until after IPR employees are interviewed for jobs and a decision is made by the director on whether or not to hire them before even starting to look at external candidates.
In my personal view, this is clearly a violation of the independent judgment clause, and as the, the clause specifically states that City Council cannot interfere, voting for this would be interference in my view.
But that does not prohibit us from providing advice or professional opinion, which is why I filed a letter with the staff that will be supporting the future director, providing my professional opinion and advice that the new director look strongly at and hire the IPR employees for jobs in the new system.
And I'll say once again, I expect the overwhelming majority of these employees to be hired.
The issue is about the requirement.
And then secondly, the settlement agreement requires that within 12 months of the council's adoption of the city code provisions, a new board will be staffed and able to take on cases.
The deadline for that is January 2nd, this coming Wednesday.
Thank you.
We're nowhere near this, and providing 6 months notice to the bargaining unit when a new position is to be hired, and as we just heard, providing more notice when, when there's ambiguity, will create overlapping or even cascading delays in hiring, which will put us out of the settlement agreement even, even further and also delay implementation of something that the community has been waiting, as of today, 1,863 days to see implemented.
When I was campaigning for this office, I made a very clear promise I would never violate the will of the voters.
I would never say to voters, I know better than you.
I would never undermine democracy that way, specifically on this part of the charter.
And I also promised I would never stand against police accountability, including by tying the hands of the new system.
And in my view, this labor agreement does both.
And so while I recognize that my labor friends and allies and colleagues up here may feel differently than I do on the analysis or decision here, and by the way, I respect whatever choices you make, and I'm committed to continuing the conversation with anyone who's while I strongly support workers' rights and do not take voting on a collective bargaining agreement lightly, my experience tells me that this violates the Charter and the promise I made.
I can't bargain away the will of the people.
I can't vote to violate the Charter.
And as a result, I'll be voting no on this agreement.
Thank you, Madam President.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Is there any other discussion on this, on this contract?
Okay, seeing none, this is an emergency ordinance.
Councilor Novick, you have the floor.
Steve Novick
I just wanted to say that although I come to a different conclusion on this issue, I really respect Councilor Kanal's commitment to principle and looking at things through the lens of how he sees the language of the Charter rather than what's expedient.
And I come to a different conclusion, but I really respect your— the way you approach these issues.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Candace Avalos
Yeah, I guess I'll just chime in and say that I agree.
I totally understand the logic and it is a really tricky position to be in.
I know that everybody worked really hard to come to a conclusion that we could— so that we could come here and vote on this today.
It is challenging for me because I do believe that it is in conflict with some of what the charter says and also what the intent is of the folks who put forward that charter amendment.
Me being one of them.
I am going to choose to vote yes today to move this forward and hope that we can continue to discuss how we meet the charter's intent as we're implementing the new system.
Raymond C. Lee III
Thanks.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
I wasn't planning on saying something, but I want to offer some gratitude to our bargaining team.
I have always believed, and I've Councilor Smith.
I think I've sat on both sides of the bargaining table, that the best contracts come when each side hears what the other side is asking for.
And even if you can't provide the initial ask, find a way to meet the underlying need, to meet the reason for the ask.
And we don't always get that right.
And it took a lot of time on this one, and it took a strike, which is hard.
But I think, I hope we may have gotten to a place And I just want to express my gratitude for both the city's bargaining team and also the team from AFSCME and our employees at Independent Police Review taking the time to try to figure out how to meet the needs of our employees in a way that also, I believe, and as my colleagues said, I disagree with the interpretation, but understand where you're coming from, but I believe does meet the needs of our employees.
Thank you.
Meet the legal requirements that we had to be able to bring us this contract.
So thank you.
Colleagues, any other discussion?
Okay.
This is an emergency ordinance.
It needs 9 votes to pass.
Keelan, can you please call the roll?
Keelan McClymont
Clark?
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Green?
Mitch Green
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Zimmerman?
Eric Zimmerman
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Avalos?
Candace Avalos
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Dunphy?
Jamie Dunphy
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Smith?
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Zimmerman?
Eric Zimmerman
No.
Keelan McClymont
Ryan?
Dan Ryan
Aye.
Angelita Morillo
Aye.
Jeff Selby
Aye.
Raymond C. Lee III
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
The ordinance passes with 10 yes votes, 1 no vote, and 1 absent.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Colleagues, is there any discussion on agenda item 9, which is the ratification of the bargaining agreement with the Portland Police Association representing emergency communications?
Michael Woods
Thanks.
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, the unionization of our 911 supervisors is a long overdue and powerful step to supporting the public safety ecosystem.
I'm really proud to support this one.
I want to thank BHR for doing this one the right way.
I am really excited to strengthen the workforce, elevate professional standards, and invest in the people that make our emergency response systems function.
And I think that by gaining a formal voice in the working conditions of our first responders, conditions, training, and operational policies, ECSs help build a more resilient, equitable, and sustainable 911 system that better serves both the professionals within it and the communities that rely around on them around the clock.
I'm particularly happy to see the shift differential component of that.
So thank you for making that happen.
I'll be proud to vote yes on this.
Thanks.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Any other discussion on this bargaining agreement?
Okay.
Again, this is an emergency ordinance.
It needs 9 votes to Aye.
Keelan McClymont
I especially like the coaching premium.
Aye.
Councilor Smith?
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Councilor Green?
Mitch Green
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Councilor Zimmerman?
Eric Zimmerman
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Councilor Avalos?
Candace Avalos
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Councilor Dunphy?
Jamie Dunphy
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Councilor Green?
Mitch Green
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Councilor Zimmerman?
Eric Zimmerman
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Councilor Morillo?
Angelita Morillo
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Councilor Novick?
Steve Novick
I especially like the coaching premium.
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
The ordinance passes with 11 yes votes and 1 absent.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Keelan, could you please call our final agenda item?
Keelan McClymont
Item 10, require city administrator to prepare a report with recommendations to reform the city design review process.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, colleagues.
We have a traditional out-of-a-committee agenda item today.
There's one of them, um, and we have Claire here to give us a committee staff summary from the Climate Resilience and Land Use Committee.
Please go right ahead.
Clare Adamsick
Good afternoon, Madam President and councilors.
Clare Adamsick, council policy analyst and staff to the Climate Resilience and Land Use Committee.
The resolution before you, document number 2025-446, was heard in committee, in the Climate Committee, on November 13th, where it was referred to council with the recommendation it be adopted.
The resolution requires the city administrator to deliver a report to council on Portland's design review process, including but not limited to an overview of relevant land use laws, review types and related fees, procedures and timelines, an overview of where design guidelines apply to specific zoning designations in the city, and an analysis of the impacts of the design review process on commercial and residential development.
The city administrator is also directed to prepare a set of recommendations outlining a legislative pathway to reform the city's design review process yes.
Including potential changes to relevant chapters of Portland City Code in support of increasing residential and commercial development.
The full impact statement on this item includes information on financial and budgetary impacts and analysis.
2 People testified during the committee meeting on November 13th.
No one submitted written testimony on this item prior to committee action.
The general themes of the testimony the committee heard included examples of historic resources sorry.
Historic resource review processes that impacted the total number of housing units on a particular project.
A suggestion to include analysis of historic resource review as part of the design review analysis directed by the resolution.
And finally, costs connected with discretionary review processes, including the cost of appeals.
And that concludes the committee staff summary.
Lacey Sutton
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you very much, Claire.
Councilor This says Councilor Clark, but that's not right.
Councilor Novick, Councilor Murillo, I'm not sure who chaired this meeting.
Help me out here.
Sameer Kanal
To be honest, I can't remember either.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Would either of you like to add anything to our committee staff summary?
Angelita Morillo
You know, since I'm bringing this with Councilor Zimmerman, it's our first—.
Loretta Smith
Take it away.
Angelita Morillo
It's our next thing together.
Um, uh, I don't think I have anything else to add to the Staff summaries, Claire did it very well in my opinion.
But yeah, I think we've seen just to add a little bit of color is a lot of support from different housing groups that want us to build more housing in Portland.
I think we all know that this is a big issue in our city that we don't have enough units, and we just don't have a variety of the building types and creative design that maybe we want to be seeing because of some of the things that encumber people.
So I've seen a lot of support from different groups.
Like Portland Neighbors Welcome, and I should have had a better list, I'm sorry.
But Councilor Zimmerman will give an overview of the policy, and I think the main goal of this is really to just make sure that we're actually looking at the things that are inhibiting the progress as far as building housing in Portland and having the staff bring us a variety of options that we can— a menu of options for us to choose from.
Thank you, Mayor.
About what we want to do moving forward.
And with that, I will pass it to Councilor Zimmerman.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Councilor Zimmerman.
Raymond C. Lee III
Thank you.
Eric Zimmerman
Councilor Morillo hit it on the head, and I think that this is an interesting resolution.
The majority of places where this applies is in, is in our district, in District 4, but it has an impact on all Portlanders, and there are stakeholders from across the city who who have an opinion on design review.
And I think during the campaign, a lot of us heard about design review.
One option that we could have done is to bring a set of values onto design review and force the function.
We could have set a moratorium, or we could have said this one aspect is good and this one aspect is bad.
We could have gone about that path.
I think there were some desires to do that.
But Councilor Morillo and I in our discussions about it, and given the nature of design review and the fact that there are many people who will cite a time when design review resulted in a positive outcome, have brought this to you and through committee as a desire to work with the administration for what can we tackle.
And we've set, I think, an aggressive but not an overly aggressive timeline so that we see a report in the reasonable future.
Thank you.
That we understand the levers that can be moved on design review, where the staff perspective is at on various pieces of design review, because small changes have happened over the years, but they're probably not well known right now.
And so from a development community standpoint, from a neighborhood activist standpoint, and from housing advocate standpoint, there is a lot of churn on this topic.
And so what we'll see here and what I, what I hope what I hope that Councilor Murillo's office and mine, as well as the city bureaus, can bring to you are eventually a set of low-hanging fruit, maybe higher-up fruit, and the things we're going to really have to work hard to get to fix.
And I think that's a good approach.
It also allows us that if we're not feeling the aggressiveness, we can still push.
There's push and pull in these types of things.
We want to see what the staff can bring us before we overreach.
I think that's a good approach.
Lord on that, but we also want to make sure that the seriousness of reform is present.
And so that's what we're getting here today.
And, and I think this will invite advocates on both sides of this issue, even though I fall more squarely in the category of I'm probably a less of a design review should exist than there should more of it exist person.
But I know there are people who really value it, and I think we can Bring some of that in to be helpful without— I always say the time of stopping your neighbor's housing development from going forward because you don't like the color of the glass that they're using, I think that should be over.
I think we get to win that message better if we do it in this collaborative, staff-supported way than if I just bring a bunch of Zimmerman values only and she brings a bunch of Murillo values only.
So that's what we're hoping to have your support with today.
And the aggressiveness of the timeline I wanted to mention is intended to also be a 3rd rung to the SDC waiver that we are currently within, in 3 years.
If the design review remains a timeline crunch while SDCs are waived, we will have missed at least one of the major opportunities, I believe.
So thank you.
I appreciate bringing this with Councilor Councilor Morillo and through Councilor Novick and Morillo's committee and the questions we got that day and the support.
And I appreciate the staff who supported us in the bureaus.
That's all.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilors.
Colleagues, are there any technical questions before we move to public testimony?
We do actually have public testimony on this one.
Councilor Dunphy, are you— further discussion later?
Okay.
Councilor Clark?
Councilor Ryan?
Councilor Green?
Keelan McClymont
Later.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay, perfect.
Claire, thank you so much for being here today.
Keelan, could we please call up members of the public who are here to testify?
Keelan McClymont
We have 2 people signed up.
First up is Robert Pyle joining online.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Welcome, Mr. Pyle.
Go right ahead.
Robert Pyle
Good afternoon, Council.
Uh, my name is Robert Pyle.
I'm the principal of Oakleaf Redevelopment.
We build 100% solar-powered infill multifamily communities We support the resolution introduced by Councilor Zimmerman and Murillo and are grateful to them both for their leadership on this issue.
This is a key opportunity to help expedite entitlements and lower production costs, the 2 things we need to stimulate more housing supply.
I encourage you all to focus on item number 1 of the be it further resolved section, directing the city administrator to prepare, quote, options for temporary exemption on design review requirements.
Thank you, Councilor Zimmerman.
This should be the focus of this resolution and this conversation.
More comprehensive reforms are appropriate and should be pursued in parallel, but the immediate need, as Councilor Zimmerman noted, is to temporarily suspend these requirements, similar to the temporary STC exemptions.
And much like Councilor Zimmerman's polka dot jacket and pink shirt and Councilor Murillo's cherry sweater during the November 13th Climate and Land Use Committee meeting, our urban fabric benefits from a diversity of shapes.
But most importantly, design review adds a layer of time and cost for subjective benefit.
A temporary exemption of these regulations is a perfect example of something that can be done quickly and will have an immediate impact on the time and cost to deliver new units citywide.
I urge you to adopt the resolution and ultimately to temporarily suspend the application of design review while undergoing more comprehensive reform.
Thank you.
Eugene Jackson
Thank you.
Keelan McClymont
Thank you very much.
Next up, we have Lacey Sutton.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Welcome.
Lacey Sutton
Hi, hi again.
My name is Lacey Sutton.
Last week I testified about Cherry Blossom, which the city allowed Habitat for Humanity to build without meeting any condition of fire access and water supply.
I'm here today to talk about how our problems begin with land During a 2016 review, a design commissioner asked, how are you getting away with that dead end for fire?
Dead end roads over 300 feet require a turnaround for fire trucks.
So the architect responded, there's pathways with the Portland Fire Department by using sprinklers with the townhomes, as well as certain street widths based on height.
The commission went on to approve 29-foot-11-inch tall townhome Apartments, which require sprinklers on a 26-foot-wide road.
Habitat purchased the property, but that is not what they wanted to build on it.
They submitted plans for townhouses, which didn't require fire sprinklers under the residential code.
This put the dead end back on the map.
They also increased building height by 2 feet, triggering the need for aerial ladder trucks, but the road width was narrowed to below the 26-foot 6 feet they require.
In 2019, the Fire Bureau flagged what they called significant issues in the plans, but after a last-minute phone call with the architect, they signed off on them just in time for Habitat to get a Type 2 land use review before their Type 3 approval expired.
That review, which was performed by a single person, described only minor changes to the plans and stated explicitly that building height had not been changed.
The Fire Bureau's land use response in 2020 is blank.
Land use had conditions of approval.
One was for vertical balcony railings, but Habitat installed horizontal bars which children climb like ladders.
Under Title 33, it's 33.700.030, it is unlawful to violate a land use decision or conditions of a land use approval.
But they did, and nothing happened.
There are so many other issues at Cherry Blossom, too many to get into today.
I emailed dozens of people at Portland Permitting and Development every day for months.
They ignored me.
In April, I met with Habitat CEO.
I showed him the certificate of compliance with his signature on it stating any and all revisions to the plans had been disclosed.
He promised me answers.
The next day, he disinvited me and my neighbors from Habitat's fundraiser, and that was the last I heard from him.
If I'm wrong, if they did everything right, why won't anyone explain it to me?
I was looking at this proposal to reform the land use process and just feeling like these conversations are always about making it easier for affordable housing developers, making it easier for the people with the money and the influence and the power, but what about the people who live in these homes?
If the city is going to make it easier to build, make it harder to cut corners and make builders fix it when they do.
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you very much.
And I want to thank both of our testifiers today for their patience with what was a long morning.
That completes testimony.
Okay, thank you, Keelan.
Colleagues, that moves us into discussion.
Councilor Dunphy.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you.
Councilors Morillo and Zimmerman, thank you for bringing this forward.
I am trusting the process that you have created, which does sound very thoughtful and incorporates the best advice from the professionals.
I would've brought a resolution forward and just suspended it personally.
Thank you.
As Robert, the testifier, said, I do think that there's an urgency that we need to think about tying a temporary suspension to the temporary suspension of SDCs and some deeper, longer-term reforms that are necessary.
You know, I was taken aback earlier this year walking around downtown Seattle.
I had not walked around downtown Seattle for quite a while.
Truly impressive new buildings and new facades on old buildings that I had never seen.
Different materials, interesting designs.
And in the year that I have been here in this job, I've met with developers and designers who are saying that we have some of the world's best architects and designers and creatives living right here in the city and working everywhere else.
But here, and we are getting a lot of ugly three over ones or four over ones that are looking identical because they know that's what will get through design review.
And I don't blame the individuals on design review for approving things.
I get it.
I get that that's what it is.
It is incumbent on us to understand like what kind of a city do we want to live in?
And I personally want to live in a city that is filled with interesting, vibrant.
Buildings that are not dated by the time they are opening.
I really want to see the creative community of Portland contribute that creativity to the built environment here.
And so we can feel proud about this city as though it is moving forward.
We are not the city we were in the '80s.
We are not the city we were in the 1880s.
And we should look like it as these things advance.
I think back to, I believe it was 2018, When the design review denied the Jupiter II the cladding on the outside of their building.
They have an odd, vaguely amorphous shape to the outside.
Traditional siding wouldn't work.
They wanted to put asphalt roofing shingles on the side of the building.
Design review said no.
And after multiple months and hundreds of thousands of dollars of extra time, the city council unanimously approved it.
I want to move us in that direction.
I want us to be able to I understand that there are historic consistency issues in particularly historic neighborhoods.
I understand we don't want to put a 20-story building in the middle of single-story developments as it is, or, you know, all these other reasons.
But we've got to be interesting and vibrant and attracting new kind of attention.
I think that that is another part of why we are not seeing any cranes in the sky.
I think that's a great point.
Is that if somebody really wanted to build here, they'd find a way, but they are taking their talents elsewhere.
And so I'm really gonna be enthusiastic to support this.
I do hope this comes back aggressively.
And thank you both for your leadership on this.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Clark.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Councilor President.
Kudos to my colleagues.
I'm really happy to see this.
I don't know if anybody saw the New York Times article on Beverly Hills.
Hills, um, and the development going on in Beverly Hills and the developers just, um, thumbing their nose at the city was pretty interesting.
I think there's some lessons there for us, um, not about design review necessarily, but, um, this is very interesting article.
Um, and I know what you're talking about, Councilor Dunphy.
It's sort of like they're not quite Soviet style, you know, but, but sort of, um, just all kind of looking alike.
Yeah.
Um, I have— my question is Is the, the results of this, are they going to come back to your committee, Councilor Novick, in 120 days?
Is it your committee they're going to?
Steve Novick
I confess, I confess I forget.
Was it to the full council or is it to our committee or to housing?
Olivia Clark
I don't know what—.
Raymond C. Lee III
To council.
Eric Zimmerman
If I, as the sponsor of it, I think, I think I would be comfortable whichever place it went, but ultimately the way it's written, uh, now for there be it resolved, city administrator shall deliver a report to council.
Olivia Clark
Well, it seems like it should go to a committee.
Eric Zimmerman
It makes a lot of sense to me.
Olivia Clark
Take their recommendations and turn them into whether ordinances or resolutions.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I believe the report should come to full council so we can all see it, and from that report somebody could put together an ordinance or resolution that would then go I assume that once we get that report, the carriers of this original resolution would likely move in that direction and we would get that to the correct committee at that time.
Olivia Clark
Okay.
I just wanna make sure there's action.
Angelita Morillo
Yeah, so yeah, 120 days from the date that it's passed, which would be after today if it does get passed, it would go back to full council.
And I think, I don't feel super strongly about it, but I think it's important for it to go to full council Because all of you have different needs and opinions in your districts and different constituencies that you're answering to.
And my guess is that after you hear the report, maybe you'll come with amendments or things that you want to work on at the committee.
And that can only happen if everybody gets to have the same briefing at the same time.
So that's what I would push for so that then folks could come to committee and testify and do all the other sorts of committee things that we want to happen.
Raymond C. Lee III
Thanks.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Anything further?
Councilor Ryan.
Dan Ryan
Yes, uh, thank you, Madam President.
On that topic, I, I think it could be both, so just thought I'd say that.
Um, let's see, I just want to thank you, councilors, and what a dynamic duo you are.
Um, I kind of missed the— you had polka dots, you had— was it strawberries or raspberries?
Angelita Morillo
Yeah, let me add this into my official briefing from the committee because I failed to do this.
We did not plan to wear exciting outfits that day, but I mean, I have cheetah print behind me, so you know how it is.
But Zimmerman wore a very exciting polka dot outfit that day, and I wore a cherry sweater, and we were talking about how we don't want to have boring buildings in Portland, Oregon.
We want to keep Portland weird, not Portland beige.
Even though we have a lot of millennials on council and there's a millennial gray thing going on, we can't have that in our city.
We got to keep Portland weird.
So we had our outfits.
Thank you.
Sorry, shots fired at the millennials.
I'm a Zillennial, so I can say that.
But yeah, I think just in the spirit of wanting to make sure that we have interesting and creative people invited to our city to create new pieces of art, including our buildings, that was something we laughed about a little bit.
Dan Ryan
Well, this baby and the baby boomer really likes the leopard getup you brought today.
Yeah.
This resolution will help our city creatively promote housing Housing production and development in general, and I plan to support this resolution like I did in the committee.
I just want to remind us at the committee meeting we had a few testifiers bring up the Historic Landmark Commission's authority and their de facto override of zoning processes in the review process.
I just would love to bring that up again for BPS and PP&D to include in their scope of review and suggestions for updates.
I want to make sure I daylighted that at council.
Thanks.
Thank you.
I'll be voting aye.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Green, would you like to make an argument for Millennial Gray?
Mitch Green
I, I don't want to make an argu— thank you, Madam President.
I don't want to make an argument for Millennial Gray, but as a person over here taking knives and bullets as a millennial, uh, I did— I do want to advocate that while I actually prefer the sort of brutalist aesthetic and the mid-century modern aesthetic, uh, I don't think I should impose I think that's right.
I don't think that the mayor should impose that or any sort of institution should impose that on the rest of the city, which is why I'm really grateful that the two of you are working together to bring this forward.
You know, I've always kind of wondered what's the right balance in moving policy forward between sort of a resolution approach or a codification approach.
And I think that this strikes that balance for me.
And what I needed to hear, I heard from Councilor Zimmerman, was that it preserves the optionality to say, you know, we're not satisfied with the pace of this work.
We're going to push you a little bit.
Both of you have sharp enough elbows that I know that you'll get it done.
And I also, you know, I met with a group of developers recently that were just really trying to impress upon me how difficult it is to build in this city.
And I was like, no, I get it.
And I think you should understand that you probably have the most pro-housing and pro-build council that you— that we've had in a long time.
And despite some of the other more sort of loud points of disagreement, and we're oftentimes sort of presented as a divided council, you're going to see opportunities like this where people kind of come together even though they've got some pretty big ideological differences elsewhere to say this is some urgent work that needs be done because we're going to elevate the needs of working-class renters who need a place to live at a cost we can afford above some sort of, um, bygone aesthetic.
And so for that reason, I'm strongly supportive of this, and I'm really grateful for you guys bringing it forward.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Novick.
Steve Novick
First of all, um, from my perspective, the Cold War looks pretty good right now, so the assumption that Soviet silos is an insult is something I take Objection to.
Um, more seriously, I need to ask a question which I should have asked in committee, which is, did the sponsors talk to folks from the Design Commission about this before bringing it forward?
Eric Zimmerman
I did not.
And one of the intents and one of the things I spoke to was— and actually, I think I've texted our, our, our, um, DCAs— I want to be invited to the design review meeting to understand the work as it is happening, because with all the fervor around this topic, I didn't feel like I have been able to examine how does that work happen.
And then part of this is to include them in that work.
Unidentified speaker
Yeah.
Eric Zimmerman
And so that was a big reason for me why I didn't think an ordinance at this time or a set of recommendations at this time would've been appropriate, because I consider that part of the the stakeholder group that has to be engaged on this, and that's what this will do.
Steve Novick
Okay, I just want to— I understand that, but I just— a couple days ago, and to be honest, I didn't read the whole thing until now, my office got an email from a member of the Design Commission.
And I think that because they're the volunteers that, you know, have been appointed to think about this stuff, I think that I want to just sort of give a chance for her voice to be heard.
She says that in the past 7 years, per code, the commission has presented the State of the City Design Report to the City Council, which has given the commission an opportunity to have a conversation with council members about development in the city and develop a better understanding of the council issues related to development in general and the design review process in particular.
The commission submitted its 2024 written report to the current city council members last April, as usual and requested a date for formal presentation.
The commission has never received a response.
The commission was recently informed that last month the Climate Resilience and Land Use Committee discussed the impact of the design review— of design review on housing and commercial development in Portland and is considering a resolution to require the city administrator to prepare a report with recommendations to reform the city's design review process.
It is unfortunate that no one from the Design Commission was invited to participate in that meeting.
Which may have addressed several concerns and questions expressed by a few committee members.
I'm writing to ask if you, as the co-chair of this committee, are willing to invite the commission to your next meeting so that we can present our annual report, which fully explains why design review matters, how it allows the developers to go around the strict standards written in the code, and a myriad of recent process improvements that have been made in the past couple of years to expedite review and permitting.
Mm-hmm.
And I read that just to make Councilor Smith.
I mean, I have the same sort of philosophical outlook on barriers to building new housing that some of my colleagues have expressed, but I do think that we should be careful to make sure that the volunteers who are serving on our boards and commissions should feel heard.
So again, and obviously it didn't even occur to me to ask this question when you brought this forward, but I think that probably behooves us to sort of remember There's people whose job, you know, whose volunteer job it is to look at this stuff and to bring them in on the front end.
I mean, I think that the administrator will consult with the members of the Design Review Commission in doing this report.
I hope, Councilor Murillo, that even if not your next meeting, we can find time in the Climate Resilience and Land Use Committee to hear from members of the commission before the full council gets this report.
So we're sort of— give additional information to us.
So I realize there was no No ill intent here.
And again, I intend to vote yes, but I just think it's a reminder to us when we present anything, it's like, oh wait, is there a board or commission that deals with this?
And should maybe we talk to them first so they don't feel disrespected and so we hear their perspective?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
I appreciate that.
I wanna thank my colleagues for not just suspending design review.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And for actually bringing this forward and having a discussion about it, because as you noted, there are different values not only around this dais but across the city around what design of our city should look like.
And while this may seem like a technical change that will allow us to build more housing more quickly, it is also a critical piece in the conversation about what the future of our city looks like, feels like, and how that affects life in our city.
And that's a conversation that matters a lot to me and that I think is a big part of our jobs, actually, as city councilors, to help to guide our city forward into its future.
I want us to be able to have a comprehensive discussion about design review that moves beyond a binary choice between maintaining the status quo and abolishing the system completely.
And what you've brought Councilmember Herbold.
Thank you, Mayor.
I appreciate the opportunity to speak about this today.
Gives us that opportunity.
I want to make sure that as we get the report back from the administration, we have the opportunity to explore multiple reforms and alternatives, to look at targeted adjustments that support our housing supply and also what our city looks and feels like.
So I'm hoping that the recommendations, plural, part of this is taken seriously by staff as they move forward.
And I'm hoping that what we're brought is not just some choices that talk about fixes to the system, but choices that lay out impacts to the system.
What would the result be of a change on what the future of our city looks like?
What would a result be of a change not just on how quickly somebody moves through the process, but what might or might not be allowed?
And how it might incentivize or disincentivize people from building the same thing over and over again.
I think the goal here is to have a more streamlined process, an interesting city, and a city that also, to Councilor Dunphy's point, is building things that are very interesting but also in the right place for what they are.
And I think we can have a city that does all of those things.
I hope that we Councilor Donnie Oliveira brought a report that helps to guide us in that discussion as we move forward.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Madam President.
I'm broadly supportive of this.
Thank you to Councilors Morillo and Zimmerman for bringing it forward.
The only thing I wanted to add is that Councilor Dunphy in committee mentioned wanting to explore a carve-out for commercial to residential conversions, and I just wanted to express my support for that to the staff that might be hearing this and, and looking at legislative intent as you implement it.
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman
Thanks.
Um, these are all— I appreciate those who are supportive and the questions that we've gotten.
Um, one of the things that the staff mentioned when we presented this at the committee was the difference between— or the sometimes where we confuse design with, with zoning, and what can go up in a certain property or a certain piece of land is related to zoning.
What it looks like when it goes up is the design.
And so I say that because this is not about putting a 25-foot tower in the residential neighborhoods of Eastmoreland or Irvington or 148th and Stark.
This is about I think what I'm saying is I'm serious about saying when a 25-foot tower wants to go in downtown Portland, where there are already many, that we need to be serious about what kind of design review we actually apply to them.
What I shared with folks is I don't think we live in a Portland where the Koin Tower could ever be built again.
I don't think we live in a Portland where the Wells Fargo Tower next to us could ever be built again.
Those are vastly different buildings.
I think that's a different issue.
Aesthetically pleasing or not pleasing buildings.
But the point is, is that our system has said there is about 1 or 2 types that get through, and if you want to be successful with your timeline, you conform to that.
And so I offer those as 2 unique buildings in our community that meet people's needs and desires differently, and that is the point.
Uncontroversial is not the goal here.
Uncontroversial gets you Slabtown, where all but 3 buildings are the same color.
They are almost all the same height.
We like controversy if it's about, I like red or I don't like red, I like blue or I don't like blue.
That's not— we're not trying to solve for the most boring.
And so I say that because it's not about neighborhood conformity, and that is important.
I also am— I want to highlight the Councilor Novick, I think your question, your concern is very well taken, and I really appreciate it bringing it up.
And as the person sponsoring this who probably has more of my residents are the members of our community who are skeptical of reforming design review, this is a risky proposition.
And it is that, and yet I say it because it is still I have made an assessment that design review is slowing not just commercial but also residential, and I'm willing to have deep conversations with people who will be upset with me about it in order to further that cause.
And so I'll just reiterate, zoning is different than design.
Neighborhood conformity, I don't believe that this puts that at risk.
And where those concerns exist, this resolution allows us to move forward with the zoning.
Thank you.
That process to be unearthed and discovered before we bring back a set of recommendations.
Thanks.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Morillo.
Angelita Morillo
Thank you, Council President.
Yeah, I agree with everything Councilor Zimmerman laid out, and I just want to say that I never think that there's any harm in us gathering more information as councilors.
That is all that this resolution is asking for.
It's asking for the experts to go back, look at the design review process and give us a menu of options about what it would look like to change design review.
I don't believe that design review touches on safety in building, and I know that's something that someone who testified brought up, and I want to make sure that that's not something that I would ever want to cut back on because I think that's incredibly important.
This is about the design of buildings from a more artistic perspective, I would say.
And I think that as council, Well, I tend to be someone who wants to push policy a lot faster.
I really hate bureaucracy.
I don't know if you've noticed that.
But I think that Councilor Zimmerman and I worked together and we brought forward a proposal that will give us time to get that research, that will give us time to talk to all the experts, including the Design Review Committee.
And I look forward to seeing what my colleagues have to say about that when we bring it back to full council, because we really do have to change the way that we build in Portland, and this is our opportunity to get that information so that we can make those tough choices.
So thank you so much, everyone.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith
Thank you, Madam President.
I want to thank the sponsors of this.
This feels really good, and it feels like a positive step to encourage more development by providing recommendations for council to reduce policy barriers in accordance with, with our goals.
And it also speaks to the intent of balancing the recommendations of outgoing and ingoing city administrators.
That is probably going to need a little bit more clarity.
And I have a question in terms of the economic opportunities analysis.
Will these recommendations be useful in in making sure that they're considered and how they're sequenced at all?
Jeff Selby
I sure hope so.
Olivia Clark
Either one of you.
Eric Zimmerman
That's the intent.
I hope so.
Okay.
It's an area that we feel like there's a big question mark and we'd like to answer the question mark.
Loretta Smith
Okay, okay, perfect.
Well, thank you for bringing this forward.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor.
Colleagues, before we move to a vote, I just want to take a minute to address the testifier who brought up concerns with our community.
Ms. Sutton, I know that you've been here twice now, and it's sometimes difficult to give us information and not really know what's happening with it.
I know that some of our colleagues who represent District 1 have been working with you, or members of their teams have.
We hear your concerns.
I personally, Councilor Wilson.
Thank you, Mayor.
I take very seriously the fact that there are safety concerns that have been raised, and I think it's important to make sure that we have a culture in our city of doing what is right in the long term, even if it's hard in the short term.
I don't have the background to know exactly what happened here and what occurred, but I do want to make sure that you know that we'll check in with our colleagues in the district who have been working with you.
And, uh, make sure that they have everything they need to continue to, to work with you and your, um, neighbors.
Colleagues, is there any other discussion before we move to a vote?
Okay.
Keelan.
Keelan McClymont
Clark.
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Green.
Mitch Green
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Avalos.
Candace Avalos
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Dunphy.
Jamie Dunphy
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Smith.
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Aye.
Lacey Sutton
Aye.
Eugene Jackson
Aye.
Raymond C. Lee III
Oh, aye.
Angelita Morillo
I'm sorry.
Jeff Selby
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Novick?
Steve Novick
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Pirtle-Guiney?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
The resolution is adopted with 11 yes votes and 1 absent.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, colleagues.
Um, I appreciate the added time for us to run a little bit into the afternoon today to get through our agenda.
Um, we have a busy day tomorrow, so carrying things over Thank you.
Thank you, Mayor.
I appreciate the opportunity to be here.
I'm glad we made it.
And with that, I will adjourn our meeting.