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.
Jamie Dunphy
Calling to order the 2 o'clock Wednesday City Council hearing.
We need to start with a roll.
Okay, Rebecca, please call the roll.
Rebecca Dobert
Good afternoon.
Avalos?
Candace Avalos
Present.
Rebecca Dobert
Smith?
Canal?
Sameer Kanal
Here.
Rebecca Dobert
Pirtle-Guiney?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Here.
Rebecca Dobert
Ryan?
Dan Ryan
Here.
Rebecca Dobert
Koyama Lane?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Here.
Rebecca Dobert
Murillo?
Novick?
Steve Novick
Here.
Rebecca Dobert
Clark?
Olivia Clark
Here.
Rebecca Dobert
Green.
Mitch Green
Here.
Rebecca Dobert
Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman
Here.
Rebecca Dobert
Dunphy.
Jamie Dunphy
I'm here.
Rebecca Dobert
Smith.
Jamie Dunphy
And Smith is here.
Colleagues, first item on our agenda is the agenda approval.
Are there any requests to amend the agenda?
Seeing no one, verifying that I'm not even in the zoom, so I need to log in.
Sorry.
Do I have unanimous consent to approve the agenda?
Okay, great.
The agenda is approved by unanimous consent.
Hold on, I'm clicking to join into the meeting still because— thank you.
Mr. City Attorney, could you please read the rules of decorum?
Robert Taylor
Thank you.
Welcome to the Portland City Council.
To testify before council in person or virtually, you must sign up in advance on the council agenda At www.portland.gov/council/agenda.
Information on engaging with council can be found on the council clerk's webpage.
Individuals may testify for 3 minutes unless the presiding officer states otherwise.
Your microphone will be muted when your time is over.
The presiding officer preserves order.
Disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting 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.
Additionally, council may take a short recess and reconvene virtually.
Your testimony should please address the matter being considered.
When testifying, please state your name for the record.
Your address is not necessary.
Thank you.
If you are a lobbyist, please identify the organization you represent.
Virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the council clerk calls your name.
Eric Zimmerman
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, sir.
Next item on our agenda is public communications.
Keelan, can you please call our guests?
Our first guest.
Rebecca Dobert
First up, we have Sunny Hart.
Jamie Dunphy
Welcome.
Thank you.
Please introduce yourself for the record.
Sunny Hart
Thank you.
Sunny Hart.
So, longtime listener, first-time caller.
First, I want to thank City Council for all the hard work you do, and congratulations, President Dunphy and VP Clark.
November 19th, during testimony about the detention facility impact fee, we were repeatedly told that City Council lacks administrative power to actively fight ICE and that that power is held by the mayor.
While I commend the efforts of City Council, I am failing to see any action on the mayor's part.
In fact, there have been repeated requests by Councilor Kanal to the city administrator asking when the mayor's next public event or town hall at which ICE could be a topic of discussion.
I realize there's a new city administrator, but it's been almost 2 months.
After last week, we need a town hall where we can talk to the person with the most power to do something.
Thank you.
Whether it's revoking ICE permit or, for the love of God, directing the police to act against ICE and protecting protesters.
Keith Wilson, in his open letter last week, stated, we cannot sit by while constitutional protections erode and bloodshed mounts, while also imploring us to remain peaceful.
That night, the PPB attacked protesters at ICE, and Officer 930 was filmed stating he'd shoot protesters in the head just like Renee Clark.
Thank you.
Good.
Thank God for councilors like Murillo reposting and demanding accountability.
He and, he and officers like him need fired, not reassigned.
Sadly, they have a job waiting for them at ICE.
We need PPB protecting us, not them, doing malicious compliance like pulling them over when they leave the ICE facility without plates.
The CIA has an entire document about how effective simple sabotage can be.
I particularly like the section, general interference with organizations and production.
If you want to prevent bloodshed, if you want things to remain peaceful while literal fascists threaten our lives, our neighbors, our city, we need this town hall.
We need to know that the mayor— what the mayor is doing to protect us, that he hears our concerns, and that he's accountable so that we can see action before it's too late.
To the City Council, please demand the mayor have a town hall.
Thank you.
You are the ones getting the brunt of people's anger, brunt of people's anger from his inaction.
We—.
And just so you know, we haven't had a town hall with him since March 12th of last year.
Things are only going to get worse with ICE over the coming year.
If we are to fight fascism, we need PPB to protect and serve Portlanders, not ICE.
And we need the mayor using every tool in his toolbox.
Mitch Green
Please.
Thank you.
Sunny Hart
For the love of God, before somebody else is shot.
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you so much.
Rebecca Dobert
Next is Eugene Jackson.
Mitch Green
Good after—.
Thanks.
Good afternoon, everyone.
I don't know about you, but I need a nap, and I hope you guys do not put us through this again next January.
Uh, I'd like to congratulate President Dunphy, Vice thank you.
Vice President Clark, and thank, uh, Pirtle-Guiney for her service.
Thought you were great.
Uh, and I've already personally welcomed the new city administrator to the arena of fire and prepare.
But I'd just like to speak briefly, uh, on the, uh, the mayor's shelter policy.
Uh, As the former city administrator said, that's where all the money is.
That's what's sucking up all of the funds.
And it reminds me of living on a farm.
In the evening, you know, all the animals come back into the barn, and then in the morning they go out to graze.
And that's about what the homeless are doing now.
It's just grazing.
Councilor Dan Ryan.
And you talk about the devil's work, they put idle hands on the devil's workshop.
That's a prime example.
Nothing is being done to really help people.
It's just, it's heartbreaking.
I sent you, some of you, an email this morning concerning city employees.
And personally, I'm really—.
Yes.
I sent it formally.
I sent it to Administrator Jordan, but I'm afraid of the mental health problems that are really happening there that nobody is really paying attention to.
There's a lot of anger there among employees, and I think somebody needs to kind of look into that.
I know Councilor Kanal used to work in the Portland Building, which is the pit, and it's really gotten a lot worse.
So take care of your people.
Thank you.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Rebecca Dobert
Next is Sky Cruz.
Skylar Cruz
Hello, City Council.
My name is Skylar Cruz, and I'm a District 4 resident in the Goose Hollow neighborhood.
I'm here to support using gender-neutral language for single-user restrooms.
I believe this is great policy, but also to speak more broadly on my perspective as a, as a Hispanic transgender woman.
Currently, 20 states have laws which restrict my bathroom access in some way.
When I travel, I have to check the local laws to ensure compliance.
I am often unable to simply live as myself without scrutiny, judgment, and hatred.
There have been a few weeks in the past year that have sent me into a spiral of depression that had me considering suicide, largely due to the right-wing news and online personalities' rhetoric surrounding my existence.
A study from the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law finds that among transgender adults, 44% reported a recent suicidal ideation, 7% a recent suicide attempt, and 21% recent non-suicidal self-injury.
I'm not just a statistic, though.
I'm a human being who you have seen in these chambers time and time again.
Much has been said about Brian Owendoff, the man who called Angelita Murillo burrito.
I'm also Hispanic.
That hurts me.
The complaint by Owendoff has been used to discredit Kanal, specifically by Clark and Novick.
This ongoing investigation was triggered not just by the complaint of a man willing to use racial slurs on someone just like me, but also by a loud and proud trans.
Thank you.
Seattle Thompson, who was seen texting Owen Doff in the Mercury article from yesterday, also filed a complaint.
Thompson ran for City Council in District 4, espousing progressive values, and became a vice chair for Multnomah Democrats.
This was short-lived, however, as her tweets against trans people and immigrants came to light.
She was swiftly booted and has since become a loud and proud transphobe and ICE supporter, enjoying AI content on X of FBI agents chasing down a dark-skinned woman in a hijab and saying things like trans ideology is child sacrifice.
The Mercury article should have been a wake-up call.
The hate for people who are different is in the underbelly of this city, seemingly sending texts to Dan Ryan on the dais.
It's quite clear to me that the moderate wing of this body likes to hide itself under fake labels of progressivism.
I have no reason to feel safe around half of this body.
If this complaint from racist and transphobic people is enough to discredit Kanal, It shows a clear indication of your priorities.
Lastly, I want to remind our moderate queer counselors that they did not receive the endorsement from Basic Rights Oregon in 2024.
Both Ryan and Pirtle-Guiney complained about this, Ryan in particular feeling he was owed the endorsement for simply existing as a gay counselor.
Ryan, you hired an anti-trans podcaster.
You don't deserve that endorsement, clearly.
Zimmerman did not apply for endorsement, but let's be real, he likely wouldn't have gotten it.
Your identity does not replace the need to actually support queer and trans people.
My queer and trans friends frankly do not trust you.
I hope you can convince us otherwise with your work moving forward.
Kanal for president was a clear vote to signal your opposition to this hatred.
You failed to do that.
Trans and Hispanic people live very dangerous lives these days.
I would say thank you, but I'm not thankful right now.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you for being here today.
Rebecca Dobert
Seattle Thompson, they canceled their communications request.
Next up is Laura Curry.
Laura's online.
Laura Curry
Good afternoon, Council, and congratulations on the new president and vice president election.
I am here today to talk to you about what I understand is part of policy now.
This began with my conversation with other members in the Pearl District on July 29th with Mayor Keith Wilson.
Councilperson Clark and Green and Zimmerman were also, I believe, in attendance with about 500 residents.
And the mayor was talking about his intended shelters, which are now in place.
Thank you.
And Councilor Zimmerman said that he would support it based on the fact that there would be a good neighborhood agreement.
So I live in the Northwest in a very modest place, and I'm here to tell you that what I believe is true is a ban or a legislation on illegal camping.
And this is an image of what's happening across the street from me right now.
And last time I checked, I don't live in a national park or a state park or BLM land.
So I'm curious to know, is there truly an ordinance or a law about illegal camping in public spaces?
I continue to clean up needles and human feces and waste and residuals from people that are camping in public spaces.
I will, I will talk to people about moving them to— do they know about the new sheltering system?
Do they know about the new day sheltering system?
Oftentimes not.
And another person was talking about the mental health of our neighbors that are living on the street, and indeed I find that to be a real issue.
So, um, Thank you.
I'm curious to know, is camping now illegal?
Public camping?
This isn't a rhetorical question.
I'm curious.
Are you guys allowed to answer me on this?
Jamie Dunphy
If any of my colleagues are interested in answering, you're welcome to.
There is in fact a law on the books with regard to the prohibition of public camping.
That is a fact.
Laura Curry
Okay, great.
Thank you.
Thank you, President Duffy.
Well, then I guess it's not being enforced, and I don't believe the Good Neighborhood Agreement is either.
Councilor Zimmerman, do you have anything to add about that?
Eric Zimmerman
Happy to add something offline, but we really don't engage in dialogue in this, but We do have your contact.
Happy to do it.
Loretta Smith
Okay, great.
Laura Curry
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you for being here.
Rebecca Dobert
Stephen Krager.
That concludes public communications.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you.
Thank you everybody for waiting for us and for, uh, all you had to say.
Next item on our agenda is a committee referral report.
I will run through this list, but this list is available online as well.
Appointment of Teresa Carr to the Home Forward Board of Commissioners was referred to the Homelessness and Housing Committee.
Amend the Portland Clean Energy Community Benefit Fund Climate Investment Plan was referred to Climate Resilience and Land Use.
Appoint and reappoint members of the Building Code Board of Appeal was referred to Homelessness and Housing Committee.
Authorize submission of a minor boundary change request to the State of Oregon to amend the Portland Enterprise Zone boundary was referred to Arts and Economy.
Adopt a supplemental budget for the Portland Housing Bureau for fiscal year '25-'26 was referred to Finance.
Adopt a supplemental budget for the Portland Housing Bureau, referred to Finance.
Amend Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Code to allow a transfer of thank you.
Move to approve the use of interest earned in FY 23-24 to FY 25-26 to finance exempt certain code requirements under City Code Chapter 17.93 with regard to renaming of street— city streets.
It was referred to Transportation and Infrastructure.
Amend renaming city street code to realign with ORS 227.120.
Was referred to Transportation and Infrastructure.
Accept the city's annual comprehensive financial report for fiscal year ending June 30th, 2025, as referred to Finance.
Adopt the budget calendar for '26-'27, as referred to Finance Committee.
Approve the plan of action as required by the State of Oregon— Oregon State Secret— this will get better, guys, I promise.
Oregon Secretary of State to finding by outside auditors for material weaknesses of the '24-'25 annual comprehensive financial report, was referred to Finance.
Require the Deputy City Administrator for Public Safety to provide a report on police officer recruitment goals and costs, referred to Community and Public Safety Committee.
That appears to be everything in our committee referral list.
With that, we now move to— we already heard item 4, our time certain.
We will move forward to item 5.
Rebecca, can you please read item 5?
Rebecca Dobert
Item 5, pay settlement of Eric Heard employment discrimination lawsuit in the sum of $75,000 involving Portland Fire and Rescue.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, colleagues.
This is an emergency ordinance, um, and we have with us, uh, you're not Anne Milligan.
No, you're—.
Sameer Kanal
Anne Milligan is appearing remotely today.
Jamie Dunphy
Oh, Anne Milligan is available remotely, and you're, uh—.
Sameer Kanal
I'm Rose Radich with, um, risk management and the adjuster on this.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you.
Um, this came direct to our full council, so I'm gonna turn it over to Anne Milligan.
Sameer Kanal
My name is Ann Milligan, and I'm a senior deputy city attorney.
My pronouns are she and her.
In brief, since I know that we are running over today, plaintiff joined Portland Fire and Rescue as a firefighter trainee in 2005.
In 2014, he moved into the fire marshal's office, where he remained until his retirement this year.
In early 2024, plaintiff filed suit against the city in Multnomah County Circuit Court seeking damages of $3.25 million, alleging race discrimination and hostile work environment, among other claims.
Plaintiff has never been disciplined, counseled, or threatened with termination.
Nonetheless, given the risks and expense inherent to any trial, City Attorney's Office and Risk Management recommend resolving this case for $75,000.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you.
Rose, was there anything else?
Are you here just in case of any questions?
Yep.
Perfect.
Thank you.
Rebecca, is there any public testimony on this item?
Rebecca Dobert
There's not.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you.
Council discussion?
I will look.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Council President.
Thank you both for, for being here.
I just had a question around, uh, to understand the scope of the work that the employee did, um, before the retirement.
Uh, was the zone that the Cherry Blossom Apartments were in a part of the zone that this employee was the inspector over?
Olivia Clark
Yes, sir.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you very much.
Dan Ryan
No further questions.
Mitch Green
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Colleagues, any further discussion?
Seeing no one else in the queue, a reminder this is an emergency ordinance and requires 9 votes to pass.
Rebecca, will you please call the roll?
Rebecca Dobert
Aye.
Sameer Kanal
Aye.
Thank you, and thanks to the Public Safety Service Area for being here as well.
Um, aye.
Robert Taylor
Aye.
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Councilor Koyama Lane?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Morillo?
Angelita Morillo
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Novick?
Steve Novick
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Clark?
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Green?
Mitch Green
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Zimmerman?
Eric Zimmerman
No.
Rebecca Dobert
Thank you.
That was a nay.
And Dunphy?
Jamie Dunphy
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Clark?
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Green?
Mitch Green
Aye.
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Novick?
Steve Novick
Aye.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Clark?
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Aye.
Green?
Mitch Green
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Aye.
Aye.
And the ordinance passes with 10 aye votes, 1 nay, and 1 absent.
Robert Taylor
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Can we please read item number 6?
Thank you, Rose.
Thank you, Anne.
Rebecca Dobert
Item 6, pay settlement of Stellar J Corporation contract claims in the amount of $650,000.
Terry Harris
Thank you, colleagues.
Jamie Dunphy
I will note this is also an emergency ordinance.
Um, with us is, uh, Beth Woodard, senior deputy City Attorney, take it away.
Welcome, Beth.
Beth Woodard
Good afternoon, Council.
Uh, for the record, I'm Beth Woodard, Senior Deputy City Attorney.
Uh, today's proposed settlement resolves breach of contract claims brought by Stellar J Corporation against the city for termination for convenience— sorry, termination for convenience costs under the city's general conditions.
In 2015, Stellar J was awarded the low bid for contract 3004899 the scope of this contract included work for— to dry and haul biosolids from the lagoons located at the Columbia Boulevard Wastewater Treatment Plant.
Before the city issued the notice to proceed, Stellar J asserted differing site conditions, specifically that the quantities in the lagoons exceeded the engineer's estimates.
Based on this information, the city issued a notice of termination, and Stellar J then requested to complete the project at a reasonable cost.
The parties executed a change order to resolve the anticipated issues.
After Stellar J completed approximately 1/3 of the scope, the city determined Stellar J's completion of the work would still result in large cost overruns.
The city provided notice of partial termination, and the parties agreed Stellar J would complete a limited scope for the project.
After Stellar J completed the remaining work, it submitted a number of cost packages for additional compensation, valued at almost $5 million.
The city reviewed the claims and agreed to pay some of the requested costs, but only those costs the city could justify under the contract's termination provisions.
Stellar J then submitted a claim for additional termination costs totaling $3.72 million.
After an extensive review, the city determined it had paid all allowable termination costs.
Stellar J then asked the city to review the determination, and in June of 2022, the city again denied all of Stellar J's additional claims.
In January of 2024, Stellar J filed suit against the city alleging breach of contract, quantum meruit, and statutory claims and sought more than $2.6 million in damages.
In June of 2025, the city successfully moved against the quantum meruit and statutory claims.
The city maintained the remaining breach of contract claims were subject to the 1-year contractual limitations period and should be barred.
Despite strong legal arguments, the court determined that was a mixed question of fact and law and would need to be resolved through trial.
Stellar J and the city then attended private mediation in August of 2025, and the parties have agreed to resolve the matter for $650,000, conditioned of course on this council's approval.
The city attorney's office and BAS recommend approval of the settlement, and we're happy to answer any questions that you may have.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Beth.
Uh, is there any public testimony on this item?
Rebecca Dobert
There is not.
Jamie Dunphy
Okay, colleagues, any discussion?
Seeing nobody in the queue, a reminder this is an emergency ordinance, needs 9 votes to pass.
Rebecca, will you please call the roll?
Rebecca Dobert
Avalos?
Candace Avalos
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Smith?
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Kanal?
Sameer Kanal
I think this is my first settlement without a question.
Thank you.
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Sameer Kanal
Councilor Gini.
Angelita Morillo
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Ryan.
Dan Ryan
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Koyama Lane.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Morillo.
Angelita Morillo
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Novick.
Steve Novick
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Clark.
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Green.
Mitch Green
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman
No.
Rebecca Dobert
Dunphy.
Jamie Dunphy
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
The ordinance passes with 10 aye, 1 no, and 1 absent vote.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Beth, for being here.
Rebecca, will you please read item 7?
Rebecca Dobert
Accept the city annual comprehensive financial report for fiscal year ended June 30th, 2025.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you.
We have Christopher Hurley here with a committee staff summary.
Christopher, welcome.
Christopher Hare
Thank you, Mr. President.
Um, also, I believe we're reading 7 and 8 together.
Mitch Green
Great.
Jamie Dunphy
Could you please also read item 8?
Rebecca Dobert
Apologies.
Item 8, approve plan of action as required by the Oregon Secretary of State to finding by outside auditors of material weaknesses in the FY 2024-25 annual comprehensive financial report.
Jamie Dunphy
Christopher, take it away.
Jonas Beery
Yeah, thank you.
Christopher Hare
Uh, good afternoon, Mr. President and Council.
For the record, my name is Christopher Hare, Council Operations Policy Analyst, and I serve as staff to the Finance Committee.
The report and resolution before you were considered in the Finance Committee on January 5th.
They were referred to council with a recommendation to be accepted and adopted respectively.
The report, document number 2026-001, accepts the city's annual comprehensive financial report, also referred to as the ACFR, for fiscal year 2024-25, pursuant to Oregon Revised Statutes 297.425.
The report was audited by the certified public accounting firm Baker Tilly, which concluded that the financial statements are accurate and materially reflect the city's financial condition.
The resolution, document 2026-002, adopts the city's plan of action attached as Exhibit A and Prosper Portland's plan of action attached as Exhibit B to address material weaknesses identified in the ACFR for fiscal year 2024-25.
The resolution further directs that copies of both plans of action be filed with the Secretary of State in accordance with ORS 297.02.
Second.
The full impact statements for the report include community impacts and community involvement, and the full impact statements for the resolution include financial and budget analysis.
There was no verbal or written testimony on the report or resolution prior to committee action.
And this concludes the committee staff summary.
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, sir.
Councilor Zimmerman, you were chair.
Anything to report?
Eric Zimmerman
Nothing to add.
Jamie Dunphy
Okay.
Rebecca, is there anybody signed up for public testimony?
Rebecca Dobert
No one signed up.
Jamie Dunphy
Okay, colleagues, discussion?
I think everybody has said as much as they want to say today.
Seeing no one in the queue, I would accept a— oh, the item 7 requires a motion and a second.
Um, I would accept a motion to accept the report.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
So moved.
Eric Zimmerman
Second.
Jamie Dunphy
Moved by Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, seconded by Councilor Green.
Rebecca, will you please take the roll?
Mitch Green
Oh, just sorry.
Jamie Dunphy
Oh, Councilor Green, please.
Beth Woodard
Thank you.
Eric Zimmerman
Um, we—.
Mitch Green
I just want to— it's so long ago now that I think we had substantive discussion on this.
We first had it as a presentation by the Auditor's Office, and then it went to Finance to be considered as a report.
I just— I didn't want to let the moment pass to say I The public, colleagues, we did have a rich and I think an important discussion on what we found in terms of deficiencies and identified and a commitment from the city to sort of address those.
But I just want to remind folks that our CFO, Jonas Beery, made a plea to City Council as we are going into the next budget season that to be successful in doing this very important work, they're going to need the resources To be successful.
And that's all I'll say on that.
I just— it felt like it was a long time ago, and, you know, we are tired, but it's really important to, to remember.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thanks.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Green.
Rebecca, please take the roll.
Rebecca Dobert
Avalos?
Candace Avalos
Uh, to be clear, are we just voting on 7 right now, right?
Jamie Dunphy
We're just voting on 7 right now.
Edith Gillis
Thank you.
Crystal Otero
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Smith?
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Kanal?
Sameer Kanal
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Councilor Guiney?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Ryan?
Dan Ryan
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Koyama Lane?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Murillo?
Angelita Morillo
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Novick?
Steve Novick
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Clark?
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Green?
Mitch Green
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Zimmerman?
Eric Zimmerman
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Dunphy?
Jamie Dunphy
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Report is accepted with 12 aye votes.
Sameer Kanal
Great.
Jamie Dunphy
Colleagues, is there any debate on item 8?
Intimately related, but requiring a separate vote.
Councilor Ryan.
Dan Ryan
Yeah, it's not really a debate.
I just would like further explanation.
So I feel comfortable with the actions that I read going forward, but I'm curious how this occurred.
I don't like looking backwards too often, and audits of course make you do that, but I don't recall the city having material financial weaknesses in past financial reporting of late.
Did something change?
Mayor Jonas, you appear from CFO Berry.
Jonas Beery
Great, thank you, Council President and Councilor.
This was also discussed at Finance Committee that we did have a material finding last year related to something very similar.
We've resolved a good portion of that, and so, but not 100% of that.
So that finding continues and was a little bit expanded.
It was specific to PBOT.
Last year in last year's audit.
It's now continuing at a much smaller amount with PBOT due to the actions that we've taken over the last year, and was also identified in Parks and the Bureau of Facilities.
As briefly as I can, the reason for this was both staff constraint and some sort of lack of process and coordination.
And so the actions that we've taken over the past year to resolve the PBOT issues, which are increasing allocation of staff to do the work around closing out capital assets, enhancing training and making sure that the folks doing that work have the appropriate resources to do that.
And then building connectivity.
So more reporting between the folks in the bureaus doing that work and central accounting to make sure that we have additional eyes on it.
Really prioritizing the resources to do that is both not having the prioritization of those resources is what led us here, the sort of years of atrophy of that function.
And then—.
And now reprioritizing that function to address the issue.
Dan Ryan
Thank you so much.
That was very helpful.
And again, when you're not on the Finance Committee, we sometimes have to ask these questions when we're at the council meeting.
Christopher Hare
I appreciate it.
Sameer Kanal
Thanks.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Ryan.
Any further questions, colleagues?
Rebecca, will you please call the roll?
Rebecca Dobert
Councilor Avelos?
Candace Avalos
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Smith?
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Kanal?
Sameer Kanal
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Ertoguny?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Ryan?
Dan Ryan
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Koyama Lane?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Morillo?
Angelita Morillo
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Novick?
Steve Novick
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Clark?
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Green?
Mitch Green
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Zimmerman?
Eric Zimmerman
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Dunphy?
Jamie Dunphy
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
And the resolution is adopted with 12 aye votes.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you.
And will you please read item number 9?
Rebecca Dobert
Adopt the budget calendar for FY 2026-27.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you.
Welcome back, Christopher Hare, with a staff report.
Christopher Hare
Uh, thank you, Mr. President.
Once again, for the record, Christopher Hare, Council Operations Policy Analyst.
I serve as staff to the Finance Committee.
The resolution before you was considered in the Finance Committee on January 5th, where it was referred to council with a recommendation to be adopted as amended.
The resolution, document number 2026-003, adopts the budget calendar for fiscal year 2026-27 as outlined in Exhibit A.
The committee adopted an amendment prior to moving the item to full council.
The effects of the amendment on the original resolution are summarized in the committee staff summary posted online.
The full impact statements on this item includes community impacts and community involvement.
There was no verbal or written testimony on the resolution prior to committee action.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Christopher.
Hare, I said your name wrong.
I apologize.
Thank you.
Councilor Zimmerman, anything additional to add?
Eric Zimmerman
Thanks.
The conversation was robust, and I will say we were working from a product that was delivered to us by the budget office after, I think, meeting with most, if not all, councilors throughout the process.
The time since last budget.
One thing I want to say about the calendar is that councilors should not think of it as all-encompassing of all the things you might do from your own chair from the time, you know, from today, frankly, forward.
But it represents, um, it represents our legal requirement dates, or it represents times when we will convene as the Budget Committee.
Thank you.
And the reason I'm bringing this up is that there's a— last year and this year, but last year, right, we created some district budget listening sessions.
For some members of the group, that worked well.
For others, it left them wanting for something else.
So there are periods of time in here that some folks made amendments to in terms of getting some more work sessions in, but nothing in this calendar prohibits a person or a group of district councilors from seeking other community input mechanisms or timeframes.
And I just think it was important to say that because sometimes we can take the calendar as the end-all document, so to speak.
That's just not what this is.
There's space built in there for each district or person to do something differently.
And I will also say, I think we had some discussion, and I agree firmly that the duty of community engagement is not the duty of the city's budget officer.
We have other people who do that, least of which, you know, us.
But the idea that the central budget office has to be the ones who— I think that was just an improper duty that kind of landed at their feet last year, and we've really disconnected that.
So I just want to say that as you look at this calendar and take a look at what we, from the Finance Committee, what we've sent you from that perspective, and I appreciate the staff who helped put this together because I think they heard from everybody.
Most notably is the mayor's budget being released earlier than what we had last year.
And I think that that is one thing 12 people can agree on is an improvement.
Dana Richardson
So.
Rebecca Dobert
Thank you.
Eric Zimmerman
That's all I have.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor.
All right, I'll use whatever pronouns you need to send me to her.
Um, thank you.
Uh, Rebecca, has anybody signed up for public testimony?
Rebecca Dobert
No one has signed up.
Robert Taylor
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Moving to council discussion, I see Councilor Avalos.
Candace Avalos
Thank you, President Dunphy.
Um, So I raised some of these points at committee and I want to just elevate them again at full council because they go to, they speak to how a transparent, accessible, and collaborative budget process needs to be.
So as far as adopting a calendar, it is important, but how we engage the public and each other as well within that calendar matters just as much to me.
And as I was reviewing the proposed timeline, it wasn't always clear where responsibility for broader public engagement sits or how that engagement is being coordinated.
And clarity around the respective roles of the budget office, the chief engagement officer, the council is important so that engagement is intentional and well-supported and aligned with the budget timeline.
And let me be clear, I'm not saying that I believe that the budget office is responsible for leading on the community engagement, but they are responsible for ensuring the transparent access to the documents.
You know, they talked about a dashboard that they're wanting to announce.
So that to me is part of engagement.
Councilor Loretta Smith.
Engagement isn't simply going to talk to neighbors.
It's access, transparency.
So I really just want to be clear about who is playing what role in that.
And definitely, I think the district-based listening sessions, for example, last year were really critical for building some accountability and trust with the public as we are trying to do this new budget process.
And so it's important that we understand how those sessions will be carried forward this year and how they're incorporated into the overall process.
And I understand there will be more discussion about that.
But again, I just want to make sure that we're clear.
Councilor Dan Ryan.
Thank you.
And again, just want to raise that for the group.
Lastly, I just want to say that, you know, Council really needs sufficient time for robust dialogue and access to clear, timely, and complete information in order for us to make these informed budget decisions.
And it's something we discussed in committee, and Councilor Novick proposed an amendment that I voted for, which was to add a section of time in the calendar that was essentially a directive to the Council President to fill that time work sessions and other opportunities to make sure that we can have dialogue ahead of time.
And so, and that also includes making sure that we can request and receive information from bureaus, understand trade-offs while we're talking with community and working across our districts and across committees.
So I am looking for a process that allows for meaningful deliberation, strengthens our decisions, builds public trust, and ultimately leads to a more accountable and effective budget process.
Thank you.
So thanks for considering that, colleagues.
I definitely intend to continue raising these questions.
And I think as we are stepping into this next phase of our year, I would put this at the top of my list.
And I think it should be at the top of all of our lists to figure out how we do this budget season differently than last year.
Sameer Kanal
Thanks.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Avalos.
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Mr. President.
Colleagues, I want to start by thanking the the mayor and his team for backing up when he would have his budget proposal available to us.
This is significantly before when we got it last year and significantly before when it's required to come to us, and it gives us a lot more time to do our work.
I hope that that becomes part of us being able to do this differently from last year.
I want to elevate a couple of items that I talked about in committee that I think are especially important.
The first is that the Budget 101 priorities session, the citywide public info sessions, are really important to level set with our community what the budget looks like, but they're also an important opportunity to get unfiltered feedback from the community before they've seen a proposal that they are reacting to, where we can ask the community free of a reactive stance, what do you want us to do more of?
What do you want us to do less of?
What are we doing well?
What are we not doing well?
I want to be clear when I say see more of, we don't have more money.
But to just get a sense from people with questions like that of what's most important.
And I hope that our budget team, as they put together that Budget 101, those Budget 101 materials, allows space for that type of input, be it input orally as as people testify at those sessions or written input at the sessions if the presentation is going to take up the whole time.
I also think it's important for us to have some sort of budget exercise, which I know that our budget team is working on, but we didn't elevate that in the, the other comments today.
So I just wanted to elevate to all of my colleagues who aren't on that committee that there will be some sort of information, it sounds like, from the administrative side to help Portlanders understand the trade-offs, which I think is important as we go through this process.
I also just wanted to take this opportunity to say to my District 2 colleagues that if we don't end up with council-wide listening sessions this year like we did last year, I hope we can work together to have a district listening session or 2 and continue to offer that to our constituents.
Thank you.
Thank you, Council President.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Council President.
I appreciate the information that was given here.
I appreciate the level setting and framing from Finance Committee Chair Zimmerman.
I have a couple questions here, and I wanted to start at the top.
As it relates to the info sessions, I thought those were really helpful last year, but I felt that We were asked as councilors to be present at them, and then the information that was presented was something that didn't necessarily align with my understanding or the understanding that we were being conveyed.
Specifically, the budget presentation to the public led off with a description of our new form of government as a strong mayor system.
And that was something that I thought was a little bit problematic to not have run by and to have ambushed on us.
Yes.
I was hoping that we can get that fixed.
And so I do think these are valuable the way it is, and it doesn't directly relate to the calendar, but I wanna ensure that we— the indirect relation is that we have a little time to build this back in.
Second question I had was, are we calling what used to be called the CAL CSL, or is that a new concept?
The current approach?
Okay.
So that's really helpful to know, the CSL, current service level.
Third thing I wanted to ask is there is a conspicuous absence here of something that got done last year that I thought was really excellent, which is the city administrator's budget recommendations.
Is there a reason for that?
And I'm not sure who can answer that best.
Eric Zimmerman
You might be the only person, Mr. Kanal, who believed that was a good thing.
I think largely the discussion around that was that it caused a lot of problems because it put out a non-balanced budget idea that really If you remember, colleagues, a lot of our input from the community centered around a few key items that were seen as on the chopping block in the city administrator's preliminary budget.
So the administration is not going to do that this time because you either release an executive budget that's balanced or you don't.
And that, that one was not a balanced budget.
So I think that the intent was not to— it was more to talk about the challenges that our budget is— that our finances are facing rather than to say, I'm kind of thinking maybe I'll keep some of these and keep some of those, which is essentially what the preliminary budget was.
And I think that I'll editorialize, just my words here, is that many people found that quite problematic in terms of what it spurred on for the rest of our community engagement.
So I think that's why you see a change there.
The administration has really leaned into information, make sure that the size of the, of the issue is known.
So how many millions are we not at CSL, current service level?
And then to have those sessions and every— on all the engagement go toward the mayor's proposed budget being the first budget released that has a balance to it.
So that's kind of where that came from.
And I don't think I'm alone in that given my conversations, but certainly because this list generally came from conversations with all of you and from the administration.
Sameer Kanal
Thanks.
I do have a different view on that.
Having been here for the last few years where the this replaced something that was effectively a PDF combining all the different Bureau 26 completely independently created requests.
And to go from that to what was admittedly incredibly imperfect last year, I wanna commend former Administrator Jordan for doing it anyway because it actually gave the first citywide view.
I agree with Councilor Zimmerman what you just said about the revenue side of it being relevant, and that seems to be in here too, and the broader revenue challenges.
Yeah.
But I think especially because this year, and I want to commend the mayor for giving identical, comprehensive, equal budget guidance to every bureau.
Every bureau has to submit a 0-cut scenario, a 3% cut scenario, a 10% cut scenario.
That's—.
I applaud him for that.
One of the things that comes from that is that we're going to get national monuments put up.
And I think having the city administer— for those who aren't following, national monuments is when what we were referring to when a bureau puts up and says, if you cut one penny of our budget, the single most important and most publicly popular thing is what will be cut in its entirety.
And it's often reacted to accordingly.
And I worry that without having the first time that we see that comprehensive look to have that citywide vision of our new city administrator on it, I worry that that will make for difficult conversations.
And we want a really hard-fought conversation here about getting that equality so that every bureau submits it so that we're not imposing cuts on someone.
We are hearing what they would do.
But I also think we have to pair that with that citywide vision to do it.
I agree.
The other thing I wanted to say is I agree that it caused a little bit of additional consternation.
And I think the reason for that was there were some cuts and then there was still a gap, and then there were so many options for how to cut and fill that gap that would have exceeded— had they all been done, we would have cut a few hundred million dollars, I think, in the aggregate.
And so there were a lot of things to potentially be worried about.
I think that could be avoided with a few simple adjustments to how that went around and how that came to be by having basically cut about, I don't know, $12-ish million more.
I think that's a good point.
Than what, uh, what there is and give us, as opposed to giving us an unbalance in one way, give it unbalanced the other way so that there's $12 million for councilors to play with, for example, um, in, in that.
And obviously the mayor would, would revise it.
So that's just a couple ideas I had there.
I would love to see that back.
Um, at this moment I do not have an amendment, but I, I, this is just something I wanted to, to put up there.
The other thing I saw in the, um, The actual— the— in the impact statement on the underlying document that there is dates for public hearings and community listening sessions listed.
Am I missing something?
I know you mentioned, uh, Councilor Zimmerman, that they're in there.
Where are the dates for the listening sessions, or is the impact statement just a little obsolete at this point?
Eric Zimmerman
I'll make sure I'm referring to the right thing.
The listening sessions— and I'm looking out there to make sure I've got the staff right— the listening sessions, or whatever we choose to do for community engagement, is not something that we're outlined by date in this.
That is different than if we're in a work session or like hearings here.
So I would consider listening session to be a non-required but Portland value thing, whereas hearings are like hearings that we have to list and I think that's where the CBO is putting these dates on paper here.
I think those are 2 different things.
The—.
Get the right term here— the civic engagement, whatever the bureau, they were not present for this conversation.
They were not a part of it, which was unfortunate and continues to be a concern that you and I share.
Yeah.
And I meant it as a compliment.
I opened this on this topic because I knew that this would be an area that people are like, how much do we put on the calendar?
How much do we not?
I think Councilor Avalos brings important points, which is like the transparency and accessibility is part of engagement.
I think that that conversation should continue, Council President, and I think it probably should continue more in your leadership of this council and how they tackle the engagement question versus us amending this calendar to put it on there because as good of an idea as I thought that maybe that was last year, I don't think it worked for everybody.
I did like the district things, but it didn't work for everybody.
So I think having some more flexibility in there for the 12 of you and how we tackle that listening session aspect is why you don't see them outlined specifically.
And Ms. Levine has stepped up.
If there's anything that I've jumbled here or put you in a— or that you want to clarify, please, by all means, I would invite that.
Councilor Knoll has an additional answer.
Candace Avalos
Hi, for the record, Ruth Levine, Budget Director.
Yeah, apologies, that impact statement language just didn't get updated correctly when we filed it.
Sorry about that.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
We can update it with the clerk.
Sameer Kanal
Thanks, I appreciate that.
Is my under— please let me know if my assumption is correct then, that the ideal timeline here is just just anytime between April 21st and I guess May 18th, but probably May 14th.
Is that the window that we're looking at here?
If we were to do that, those would be the optimal times, or is that my—.
Eric Zimmerman
I wanna jump in before Ruth.
I actually think our committee members would probably encourage you to look even earlier because if you take the mindset of the best way to get what you want in the budget is before the mayor releases the proposed budget.
So from a, You know, no politics what each of us is going to have different priorities for, but I would say that those would be more valuable before late April so that those pieces can be something you incorporate with your conversations with the CA and with the mayor.
I don't think that it hurts after the fact.
I don't think they're as necessarily as effective.
That would be part of our discussion at finance.
Sameer Kanal
That aligns with my experience last year as well.
So then I'll just say, Just some notes as we go to put this into the record.
I thought that having budget listening sessions last year was excellent as a step from nothing to something.
It'll never be perfect the first time.
I supported Councilor Zimmerman's original plan for them.
I was disappointed to see how that got moved from the legislative branch over to the executive branch.
We've talked about that before.
Councilor Zimmerman.
There's a lot of work to do there.
I would suggest that we do 5 of them with one in each district and one at the Portland Building or another city place, a city building for city employees.
Because one, I don't think it's appropriate for us to ask city employees to come beg for their jobs in public at 4 different work sessions, listening sessions.
I thought that was disrespectful to them.
Thank you.
2, I would like to see that people— and this seems basic to me, I don't know why this didn't happen last year— that if you're— if you live in the district, you get priority.
We ran out of time at 3 of those district town halls, and I would love to see that the people who maybe didn't sign up first would actually get a chance to speak.
And then if there's time, people who have testified at another town hall would be great.
So one in each district, one for city employees.
Uh, it doesn't have to be in the Portland Building, it might even be virtual.
I think there's there's a lot there.
And I do think that we should bring them up.
I'm concerned.
I would love—.
My answer is yes to Councilor Pirtle-Guiney's request to do this together.
I would love to see this be run out of Council Operations in the future, and that's part of why the budget amendment that I did last year to create a position was designed in part around this need.
I would request that the council president put committees on hiatus on May 18th and 19th So that we can meet all 3 of those days and not have a 15-hour meeting again, but have the time to get through that together.
And then the other thing that I think is worth mentioning here, I do want to appreciate the mayor having the courage to commit in advance to an earlier date.
That's incredible, and I really want to support it.
We at some point need to have the conversation later regardless of this document about how the committee, what the committee role is as it relates to budget amendments and things like that.
I think we got about as good as we could get last year on having the daylighting of amendments, but we obviously are iterating and doing it a second year.
And I would like to see that happen.
And I guess while I have the floor, I'll just give a plug.
More co-sponsors should get an amendment considered first.
Thank you.
That would be my suggestion.
I'll stop here.
I do not know if there is— I like everything in here.
I just don't know if the things that are not in here are concerning enough to try and amend it.
That's where I'm at.
Olivia Clark
Thanks.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Kanal.
Councilor Green.
Mitch Green
Thank you.
We actually had a pretty interesting discussion in the Finance Committee, and I think where I was at on this, one, I think this is a great schedule.
I think it's responsive to— if you guys will all remember, Jonas and Ruth and their staff made time to go around and ask us how we want to do our work better.
And that was also amidst a period of time where they were trying to squeeze in a bunch of ad hoc requests from maybe even my own staff, probably, yes.
And the product I think that we're seeing is It reflects a desire to try to move the mayor's proposal a little earlier, but I have to recognize that we do have constraints in here that you just, you can't get everything you want in there.
And so there had to be trade-offs made.
And so I'm very comfortable with it.
We did amend it.
Councilor Novick, I think, led the charge on that and making sure that we're explicit about having some extra kind of work session style conversations.
I think that's a good point.
And one of the areas of discussion that I had daylighted, in terms of my own intention, and certainly not something that all councilors need to do, and it's not ascribed here in the resolution, was to say what I see on this schedule is that we are to see at the earliest our current service level gaps and forecast information by February 13th.
Now, likely it's later than that, but as early as February 13th, we can start to program in our committees.
Yes.
We can start to program in our town halls and in the various spaces that we're out and we have some control over, some intentionality around talking to the public around what those gaps show us, what they mean, what does it might say for like how we want to prioritize our resources in the city.
And I can say for my own purposes here, you know, I'm grateful that you brought up the Rose City Reform piece today because I didn't know about that.
Thank you.
But it has some really good data.
And one of the pieces of data is Maya did catalog by category the distribution of non-unanimous votes.
And by a country mile, the highest proportion of non-unanimous votes is budget and fiscal, and those are all concentrated in the budget period.
And I think all of us would like to do what we can to avoid some of the length of the time of that and maybe the opportunity to consolidate some of those concepts.
And so we had— I think what we can do and what we should do is to start to develop priority-based presentations or pre-legislation, if you will.
We have to get a little clarity on what that means in state budget law in our committees, in the relevant policy committees.
And in fact, Councilor— Co-chair Ryan and I had talked a little bit about trying to hold some space for some of those.
As councilors, as our colleagues want to talk about arts and economy-related issues, so that way we can go into this work session, that way we can go in, maybe see a proposed mayor from the budget that does represent a lot of that discussion already, and then we can find maybe some support from our colleagues, maybe even from some unlikely places, to have a consolidated package that goes in and does this pretty cleanly if we do want to make a change.
So that's kind of I think it's a good schedule.
I'm going to support it.
So thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Green.
Councilor Clark?
Oh, Councilor Novick, I'm sorry.
Steve Novick
Yes, I think my colleagues have reflected the conversation we had in finance.
I wanted to elaborate a little bit on the item that Councilor Avalos started off talking about, which was my proposal to move the City Council work sessions on budget cuts and revenue options the councilors find acceptable or unacceptable, March 9th to 20th.
What I am hoping is that by March 6th, based on this calendar, all of us will have a much better understanding of the budget for each bureau than we had last year, that we will know what the building blocks are, that we will effectively know— have all the information the mayor has.
Dan Ryan
I think that's a good idea.
Steve Novick
So we will be in a position to start floating, okay, we've got to cut $60 million.
What are some things that we find acceptable or unacceptable?
And have that discussion among all of us from the 9th to the 20th.
And then informed by that discussion, for one thing, that would give the mayor an idea of what— he'll get some signals as to what things the council as a whole finds acceptable or unacceptable before he puts yeah.
—Puts his budget together.
But also that would give us, once we'd sort of aired our ideas, which would be kind of a preview of what our ultimate amendments might be, although we won't have the mayor's budget, so we'll know what's amendment and what's not.
Then I envision that over the next month, we could do 2 things.
We could talk about the various proposals we discussed in those 2 weeks in community sessions.
And we could start vetting them in our committees.
Because I think that one thing we learned last year is people can come up with an idea that seems good, and then you want to go to the, you know, have committee hearings where the bureau comes through, talks about how do you operationalize that.
Hmm.
So that's, that's what I was thinking, and I think my colleagues were thinking.
We want to— by— we're hoping that by March 6th, we'll have all the information the mayor has.
And then we'll be able to start working on our own ideas and floating them through committee and through the public after that.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Clark.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Mr. President.
I'm not going to repeat things that people have already said.
I wanted to appreciate Councilor Avalos's comments.
I agree.
And I wanted to thank Ruth Levine for meeting with all of us.
And along those lines, I hope that the mayor I hope the mayor intends to meet with each of us individually again like he did last go-around.
In fact, I think he met with each of us about 3 times or 2 times, and I hope we can do that again.
I do hope that we have something that's easier to access, all of us, the public as well.
It was very, very difficult last time to get your head around the budget.
Last, I'm going to ask the finance chair if I can if we're going to come up with a better process for amendments and budget notes, is that something that the Finance Committee is discussing?
Eric Zimmerman
We discussed it.
I think that we're recognizing how little influence and power we have over the Budget Committee when it comes to that topic, right?
So largely the committee will do what it wants, and that's going to be a committee of the whole discussion.
But I think the parts of the conversation— we did have one person testify during this, And I will, speaking for my own chair, got a lot of interest in what she had to say, which was, you know, what about amendments or notes?
How do you deal with those?
What if notes are seen at the committees?
Okay, that's interesting.
I certainly think the amendment question is something that we've got to tackle in terms of, you know, the state legislature right now is like everybody gets their 2 bills that they put forward.
I'm not proposing that, but some sort something of that nature.
I think there was recognition that a lot of notes came out of a frustration of something that had just previously occurred in the process in our hearings, and that notes that made their way through finance— excuse me, through their respective policy committees earlier in the season may avoid the reactionary note.
And we had a lot of reactionary notes that led to that large number.
And so if they are vetted through those committees, perhaps they'll be more robust.
I think those are things we should consider.
I certainly last year thought the idea of different bureaus or service areas presenting their budgets to policy committees was a nice try and a complete failure because if If a bureau presents their budget only to 5 people and then the other 7 are expected to take that up, that's just not a reasonable— the way we use committees, that was not a reasonable expectation.
And so I think that also led to probably more amendments and more notes.
So one thing I would deeply encourage everybody is that we drive and direct that budget I think that's a good idea.
And if there's a one-off thing that the committee thinks a commit— that a subcommittee— one-off that the budget committee thinks a subcommittee should take on, so be it.
But let's not start off on the wrong foot.
And I think those things, just that more deliberate nature, I think will lead to fewer notes and fewer amendments.
At least that—.
Mitch Green
I hope that's one of our goals.
Olivia Clark
Well, I say amen to that, and I hope that you will continue to wrestle with trying to provide some sort of sideboards for the amendments and notes so that we don't have another 140 or 145.
But thank you for that work.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Clark.
Councilor Ryan.
Dan Ryan
Yes, thank you, President Dunphy.
I will support this calendar, and I want to thank the budget office.
And also the Finance Committee for this item.
I look forward to receiving more information about further dialogue about the community budget forms.
I know that was mentioned by my colleague, Councilor Kanal.
I would like to see them by district as well, and being district-specific, and really allow the people of each specific district to have the agency to really own that session, if you will.
And then, and I think there are items that are specific to district.
So I don't want to repeat what we experienced last year where we had a couple heated items and then there were travelers that went to each one and then that consumed each district budget session.
I think we should also consider, and I'm sure maybe you had this conversation about looking for citywide topics that are more by the practice areas.
So whether it's housing and homelessness, a session on that that's citywide, public safety, business and economic development, public works.
So I just, I would like us to have a little bit more of a nuance this year when we do it that would allow us to support our districts and wear that hat and then allow us to be in the framework of a citywide issue that's complex and that we can all be engaged in, that's less specific to the district.
So I trust that you're having some dialogue like that.
I'm not in the committee, so I wanted to voice that at this meeting.
Thank you.
One final thought, sorry.
I would like to see each bureau, not bureau, each DCA provide more KPIs with budget plans for this year, and so that we have more of an operational map.
So when we're having our conversations in the fall about the— what do we call it now?
It's not BOP.
TAO.
TAO, how can I forget?
If we can have TAO look at where we are in terms of those KPIs and then do the follow-up mid-year, and it will allow us to then make conversations and decisions for the next year that's, that's connected to the data we received from the year that we're currently in.
We've been talking about this for a long time.
Welcome, Raymond Lee.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Ryan.
Councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith
Thank you, Mr. President.
I was going back over the list, and there are a couple things that I think we need to Do I support this?
But we also need to have the listening sessions in, in the districts.
Um, I am totally against having a, uh, city administrator's budget come out.
It's so confusing.
Um, it almost is like a trial for the mayor if they put something out that's unbalanced to see what people don't like, and then they get people all excited about it, and then they change the budget, and then the mayor releases his budget.
So it's like, that's, that's too confusing.
Um, and the other thing that I heard that didn't sit well from some of my colleagues up here was that they wanted a day for employees to talk about budget items.
To my understanding, employees should not be asking for budget items, that, that should go through the DCA.
Yes.
If DCAs want particular programs kept, they should be delivering that message, not employees.
So I know that we had people who came forward, for example, in the Parks Division.
There are organizations, nonprofit organizations, who were using our facilities, but they weren't necessarily our employees.
They were employees of the nonprofits.
And so they supported keeping those facilities open.
But I am very concerned if we're going to try to set up something for employees of the city that does not include DCA interaction, and there has to be some level setting there.
It is important, Mr. Chairman, that we continue to have those check-ins with the mayor and Mr. President.
Because I've seen all of those mayor check-ins, they've been canceled on my calendar.
And so I think we need to make sure that, uh, we find the time to have those conversations.
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
So I'll start with a clarification here, um, 2 clarifications.
First, uh, it appears there's a several differences of opinion as it relates to the city administrator's recommendations.
I'm not going to insist upon that being in there for my vote.
I just wanted to raise the issue.
I do support it.
Um, I do still have the, the concern around not having any of the community engagement piece in here, because what I've learned through doing this work as a community engagement professional with the city for a few years is that if you don't commit to it, it tends not to happen.
I'm also concerned about where the money's going to come yes.
Because I prefer to have it come out of our existing allocated budget for that work in some other place, either the City Operations or the Office of Community Engagement, than out of our individual council budgets for it.
And I think I'm just going to say that up front.
But the other clarification I wanted to give is what we saw at the 4 listening sessions we had included a handful of people who thank you.
There absolutely were city employees coming in and saying, my position may be cut, please do not cut it.
Clearly, there was a difference of opinion between those people and their DCAs or bureau directors or the mayor, depending on what stage of the process that was in.
They are also community members.
They have a right to come speak, but I found it personally to force that to occur in a public setting I don't think that was the intention.
I just think that is what happened.
And so what I'm— I'm not saying that the DCA shouldn't be the primary conduit.
I, I of course agree with you there, um, Councilor Smith.
But I want to say that it might be beneficial to say, you city employee, if you really feel that strongly that you want to come and do this, you're welcome to, but you don't have to do it in public with your neighbors there or the people who live down the block there.
I agree with you.
There is a specific place for it.
As a side note, I think that one of the things that we can do, and the auditor could also do if they were so inclined, I know it's their prerogative whether to do it or not, is create more places where we can hear directly and without fear of retribution from rank-and-file city employees.
Because often going through, and I'm talking about policy and things like that, and I'm talking about budget, I'm not talking about, you know, HR kind of things.
The idea that we can have suggestions because a rank-and-file employee often knows something that leadership might not, or that it's just not a priority, especially in those service areas that are so broad in what they do that there's a million things for the management to have to know and they all know what they know.
That's not to in any way displace the primacy of the DCA as the conduit up to the city administrator and on.
And I was very heartened by the big emphasis on promoting an excellent workplace culture that then-candidate, now City Administrator Raymond Lee brought up in our interview.
And I think this is a small part of that.
So I just wanted to clarify that.
I would like to see at least maybe a TBD on the date, but an acknowledgment that there will be some sort of listening session in here.
That would be helpful for me.
I understand this is a calendar and that's not necessarily as helpful, but can see in here, there are a few things that do say date TBD, and I wouldn't mind having one more.
So that's, that's where I'm at at this moment.
Thanks.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Mr. President.
I just wanted to note, because my colleague mentioned encouraging the use of KPIs as we move forward from the bureaus, I would actually like to go a step farther.
I apologize, this is not related to the calendar directly, but I would like to require KPIs as part of this process.
If we can't get there this year, I understand we're building a new system.
Maybe it's a year out, but I just would like on the record that we need to have a clear path for how we get to required KPIs for every bureau.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Smith?
Loretta Smith
Yes, I want to go back to what, uh, Councilor Kanal said.
Maybe we can have something because you're putting employees and their upline folks in the bureaus and in the DCAs in a bad position.
Maybe we can set something up where we would have a suggestion box that they could put something in there.
So if we— if— and they could do it in an anonymous kind of way.
It just— it is— it gets too spicy when you have conflicting views because I think it would be better, and I've been trying not to say Multnomah County, but I'm gonna have to say it.
Multnomah County, we had each bureau had a day that they came and presented.
And when the bureaus would come, the bureau heads would come and pitch why it was important to have the chair.
And in this case, it would be for the mayor's suggested budget, and they would defend it.
And those are the days that you would do the budget notes for those marks in the mayor's budget.
And I think if we do that, we don't have this free-for-all.
And every bureau would come and come before us.
And because sometimes we have nobody sitting right there, and that was kind of weird.
So if we coordinate it in a way that it's particular bureaus on particular days, we know what we're talking about.
We know which parts of the budget we're talking about.
We can add or subtract.
Right.
To those budgets as they come before us.
But putting employees in the mix like that, I think it's not good.
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
I put myself in the queue.
I just want to say briefly, it's not directly related to the calendar, but it is related to the conversation around KPIs and metrics.
We kind of use those terms interchangeably.
They do mean different things.
We need metrics in place for the budget, and then within those metrics, we need key performance indicators that we are meeting those metrics.
So I just want to say that the community— that we're using them interchangeably.
We know there's a difference.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
Thank you, Council President.
So to the suggestion by Councilor Smith, that does meet the underlying need I have.
So I would happily take that and try to do that.
Outside of the context of this particular piece of legislation on that first concern.
On the second concern, I think what I'm looking at here is perhaps, and I'll have this sent to the clerk as well, but adding a new line in the calendar that on the left column would say budget community listening sessions by district.
And in the right line say date TBD or February 23rd to May 13th, date TBD.
I think it's a wide enough range of time to give us some flexibility there.
But provide a commitment to the public that we're gonna do something.
So I'll make the motion with the second way I said it, February 3rd, sorry, February 23rd to May 13th, date TBD.
My staff is gonna send that to the clerk just for a record.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you.
Councilor Koyama Lane.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Thank you, Council President.
I'd like to echo a point made by my colleague, Councilor Kanal, about public engagement.
I agree that public engagement must be baked into the budget process.
It's so important that the mayor's proposed budget already incorporates engagement from our constituents, from the public, and also includes documentation about how that happened, how the public was engaged.
Yeah, I think that will be very helpful and much better than having that added on the end.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Colleagues, seeing no one else in— uh, yeah, is that a legacy hand?
Sameer Kanal
It was a legacy hand, but I, I did make a motion.
Rebecca Dobert
Oh, so second or—.
Steve Novick
Second.
Jamie Dunphy
You did make a motion.
There we go.
Great.
Sorry about that, missed that part.
Could you repeat the motion just for the good of the—.
Sameer Kanal
So it's a motion to add a new line.
I think the most appropriate place to put it would probably be 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
The 7th line after community/council presentations on budget information by service area bureaus and above city council work sessions on budget cuts and revenue options that councilors find acceptable or unacceptable.
The left column would say budget community listening sessions and in parentheses by district.
The right column would say February 23rd to May 13th and then in parentheses date TBD.
And if it helps anyone to just not say that and just say date TBD, if that makes a difference to anyone, I'm very open to that and would consider it friendly.
Jamie Dunphy
Colleagues, we have a motion and a second.
Is there any debate on the motion?
No.
Rebecca, could you please call the roll on Councilor Kanal's motion?
Rebecca Dobert
Avalos?
Candace Avalos
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Smith?
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Kanal?
Sameer Kanal
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Pirtle-Guiney?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Ryan?
Dan Ryan
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Koyama Lane?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Murillo?
Angelita Morillo
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Novick?
Steve Novick
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Clark?
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Green?
Mitch Green
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Zimmerman?
Eric Zimmerman
No.
Rebecca Dobert
Dunphy?
Jamie Dunphy
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
And the amendment's approved with 11 aye and 1 no vote.
Jamie Dunphy
Colleagues, seeing no one else in the queue for debate on this, can we please call the roll on the resolution?
Rebecca Dobert
Avalos?
Candace Avalos
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Smith?
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Sameer Kanal
Thanks to all my colleagues for that.
I vote aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Pirtle-Guiney?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Ryan?
Dan Ryan
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Koyama Lane?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Morillo?
Novick?
Steve Novick
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Clark?
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Green?
Mitch Green
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Zimmerman?
Eric Zimmerman
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Dunphy?
Jamie Dunphy
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Resolution is adopted with 12 aye votes.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, colleagues.
I will note that it is currently 4:20:22.
We have a hard shot— uh, hard stop at 5 o'clock, and the next item, item 10, is scheduled for 1 hour.
We can go faster.
Okay, Rebecca, will you please read item 10?
Rebecca Dobert
Establish a Portland City Council governance handbook to collect policies, procedures, and current practices to support city operations and improve transparency.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you.
We have a committee staff summary from Dana Richardson, who is pinch hitting for an employee who is no longer here.
Welcome, Dana.
Dana Richardson
Good afternoon, Council President and councilors.
For the record, my name is Dana Richardson.
I am here on behalf of Craig Cook, a former policy analyst for us and staff to the Governance Committee.
The resolutions— thank you.
The resolution before you was heard in the Governance Committee on December 15th, where it was referred to the council as amended with the recommendation that it be adopted.
The resolution itself establishes a Portland City Council Governance Handbook that collects various existing policies, procedures, and practice into one document to support operations and governance of the City of Portland.
It also establishes that council will review and update the handbook as additional relevant policies, procedures, and practices are established and formalized.
The committee adopted amendments prior to moving the item to full council.
The effects of the amendment on the original resolution are summarized in the committee staff summary that is available online.
Thank you.
There was one individual who provided verbal testimony, and no written testimony was submitted prior to the committee action.
The general theme was that the handbook should include a requirement that public officials provide a publicly available statement aligning each item, policy decision, and administrative rule to Portland's core values and stated emergency priorities.
That concludes the committee staff summary.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you.
Councilor Koyama Lane, not Vice President anymore, would you like to add anything else?
This is both your item and you were covering it.
Yeah, please.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
All right, thank you, Council President.
So the Governance Committee has focused on council rules and procedures over the past year since the transition to this new form of government began.
The beginning of 2025.
And these governance conversations led to the proposal to create a council governance handbook in order to meet a need for an informational, transparent guide, not only for councilors and councilor staff, but also for the public.
And in July, my office, in partnership with Council Operations, thank you very much, really started digging in and putting this together.
I'll say a little over a year ago when I first won my election, I was coming straight from a 3rd grade classroom.
And while I get to utilize a lot of those skills, I was very, very new to spending my days in these halls and serving as an elected.
And I wish I had had a handbook when I started.
A big point of the charter change has been to bring new voices to the table, and actions like these help decrease the barrier for people to have access to this information.
Bringing the information together so it's not scattered across different places helps there be one place to find that information.
And while my office has spent a lot of time working with Council Operations on this project, I want to be clear that this document is meant to serve as a living document that lives in Council Operations will evolve, grow, change as the City of Portland grows and changes and collaborates in creating new processes and procedures to support its new— this new form of government.
So it would be— it's owned— would be owned and managed by Council Operations.
President Dunphy, there are 4 pre-filed amendments, 1 from your office and 3 from Councilor Pirtle-Guiney's office.
Thank you to both of you and your staff for your collaboration and engagement.
Whenever it's the right time to bring those forward, I also want to just say I accept all of those as friendly amendments.
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Excellent.
Thank you.
We would like to— before we move to public testimony and discussion, I would like to introduce the amendments.
I'd like to turn it over to Councilor Pirtle-Guiney to introduce her amendments, and I also have an amendment I will introduce after thank you, Council President.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Colleagues, I'm going to try to do this quickly.
There are 3 amendments before you filed by my office.
If you reviewed the 2 that were first sent to your offices and are surprised to now see 3, please know that the new revised 1 and 3 are just the splitting of the original 1.
These were meant to be technical, but 2 pieces were a little less technical and Councilor Koyama Lane asked me to pull those out just so that we could have the discussion in a little better way.
That's why that occurred.
I'm going to run through these quickly to make sure that everybody sees the pieces, but Pirtle-Guiney 1 is truly technical in nature.
It addresses a few errors in descriptions and spelling.
If you look at page 33 under budget, instead of voting to approve budget.
We changed that to creates and approves final budget to better reflect the work of creating that final budget based on a mayor's proposal, but not just approving that proposal.
On pages 41 and 42, there are 2 places where we replaced— one where we took out city clerk and to specifically talk about the administration.
Thank you.
Taking on a role, and the other where we replaced city clerk with council clerk, which is the, the language that we use in other parts of statute.
There are a few spelling errors on page 43 in a chart that were changed.
I believe that's actually it for Pirtle-Guiney 1.
Pirtle-Guiney 2 is separated from the technical pieces because it is admittedly slightly more substantive in nature, though they— these changes were offered as a technical addition to try to better capture the work that we do.
On the chart on page 32, which talks about the level of authority of the work that we do, there was a section on city code, but we also pass non-code amending ordinances, which are also binding on our work.
Loretta Smith
Yes.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
And they were not covered either in city code or city administrative rule.
So we added a— what is that, a row for non-code amending ordinances.
Similarly, we added a row to reflect the work that we do through resolution and where that fits in terms of level of authority in the work that we do.
Finally, colleagues, This Pirtle-Guiney 3, which was in the original Pirtle-Guiney 1, which you may have reviewed— I believe my staff sent these all out last week, the revisions were just put up earlier this week— looks at pages, I believe, 36 and 37 and attempts to provide more clarity on the code amendment process.
What I attempted to do here was not make any changes to the way we currently do work, but simply to better reflect given the the previous role that I played and the way that has allowed me to see things move through the e-council process, what happens when we try to move a code amendment and what that looks like on the back end so that folks can better understand that process.
I'm happy to answer any questions when the time is right, but in the meantime.
Council President, when it's appropriate for me to move these, I would like to do so.
Jamie Dunphy
Great, thank you.
And I would like to introduce Dunphy Amendment 1.
This amendment is functionally expanding on the existing sort of style that exists in this.
I think that as I understand it, you know, it lays out what is the role of the city auditor?
What is the role of the clerk?
But it didn't really enumerate in the draft the specific explicit powers of the council with references back to our code.
My amendment adds a significant amount of new text in blue that directly is more so specifically about explicitly just calling out what our authorities are, what our powers are, and what our duties are.
Thank you.
What our roles are, and where to find the Cliff Notes of that by clicking through to what the references are.
So that is the intention of mine, is to simply bring a little bit more explicitness— explicitness?
I don't know if that's a word.
But make it a little bit more explicit to the future baby city councilors who are going to be elected someday what exactly our jobs are.
So that is functionally what Dunphy Amendment 1 is.
And thank you, Councilor Koyama Lane, for working in my office on that.
Before we move the amendments, I'd like to open it to testimony.
Rebecca Dobert
We have 4 people signed up to testimony.
First is Terry Harris.
Terry Harris
Thank you, Terry Harris, for the record.
And I've got an hour presentation.
And actually, you know, reading the room a little bit, I'll try and keep this brief.
But also, I couldn't help but notice that somehow the Governance Committee has got itself in the middle of the dais.
I don't know if that's some sort of long game that was being played over the last few days.
But congratulations to everybody.
Dan Ryan
Top that.
Thank you for your testimony.
Terry Harris
So very quickly, I support the handbook.
It's a great idea for clarity, consistency, future councilors.
It has to come with the recognition that it has to be maintained and up to date, which is a lot of work.
I don't really have any opinions about the content.
I support the edits because, of course, you all have read it and find it important.
And if you find it important, so do I. I think it needs to be crystal clear about what elements of the handbook are authoritative and binding city laws and procedures and what is just mere guidance and advice and that sort of thing.
So that's all I have to really say.
But on the rest of my hour, I'll say that I've followed the Governance Committee now for a year, and I can say that there's still a lot of work that still needs to be done in governance.
So the handbook is not going to be the end.
It's like about half done is about what I can tell.
In particular, committee functioning, formal oversight capabilities, the informal oversight and monitoring of bureaus and, and the administrative branch, public involvement enhancements and efficiencies, agenda setting and management.
Both council and committee budget processes that you just talked about, the committee of the whole, and a recent development is perhaps referring items to more than one committee.
All of those need rules, and those rules need discussion, and that discussion needs to happen.
We're one year into it, and you own it.
It now.
Um, finally, in the last 30 seconds, I'll refer you to, um, my written testimony, which has some stuff that I, um, scratched out to show the productivity of this council in 2025, compared it to some data we were provided in GTAC for 2023.
And you all are way behind.
There are lots of apples and oranges related to that, and I'm happy to go through them, but I can't because I'm out of time.
But I encourage you to look at it.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Rebecca Dobert
Edith Gillis is online.
Edith, you can go ahead.
Edith Gillis
Thank you.
I think it's wonderful that we have this concept.
We have this purpose.
It's necessary.
It's urgent.
And all the good work that you did to do that, I really agree with.
There's nothing in it that I disagree with.
I like and agree with some of the amendments.
My concern is there's a lot that's lacking, and I would like some more clarity.
Before I go into that, I just want to say part of good governance is supporting the character, the skills, the attitude that we need to have We can have a rulebook.
We can have examples.
We can have a general structure.
We can give this is the charter.
This is a law and ordinance.
These are the regulations and policies we have so far, and then you can get more and more detail.
These are the past.
These are potential, changeable, votable examples.
But the most important thing is the mental attitude and character.
Thank you.
I have been watching Portland City Council for 43 years.
I've been going to county councils, I've been going to other city councils, I've been on boards of nonprofits and churches and you name it.
I have never seen anyone so impressive with all of just the knowledge, the skills, the resources, getting to access, the social skills, the character, the, the values.
I mean, that's what I also want the governance of us expressing self-government in how we relate with each other for the greater good.
And there must be ways as a teacher and as a parent, as administrator, that I support that in my students, staffs, and myself.
I integrate that and I support it.
I hold it up.
And that's something I'd like us to do.
Also, I'd like us to see more in that and everything else that we hold up again.
What is it?
Why are we here?
What's the purpose of these things?
And get with the purpose.
Again, with the budgeting, you would do that too.
We don't sort of need cops because cops say we need cops.
What do we need?
What is the purpose we're trying to accomplish?
And our goals again, our professed values: transparency, accountability, inclusivity, community engagement for an informed public.
To inform the council.
Democracy, equity, social justice, economic resilience.
We need to change our economy, and we're not working on that fast enough.
We have housing— we need housing security, food security, climate justice.
We need to be working on the bigger view.
So let's start with this, approve this, and then expand with the details and integrate it every step of the way.
What is the purpose?
Thank you.
And what are the values, and how are we going to apply those?
Rebecca Dobert
Thank you, Edith.
Crystal Otero.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Welcome.
Jamie Dunphy
Thanks for hanging with us to the end of the day.
Crystal Otero
Oh, you started moving quick.
I had to leave my office early.
I don't want to.
Lean forward.
Can you hear me?
Jana Tesman
Yeah.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Oh, great.
Okay.
Crystal Otero
Um, hello, my name is Crystal Otero.
I use she and her pronouns.
Um, I wanted to express my support for this amendment, and in particular, I wanted to express my gratitude for Tiffany Koyama Lane.
I have been so impressed impressed by the work that you've accomplished this year, and I'm so thankful for how open and transparent you have been.
And I think this work today shows that.
Uh, it would be great to know how some of these things work.
That's cool.
My guess is people in different departments don't know how things work in other departments.
Um, but what inspired me to come down here today to take time off from work was to say that I am still reeling from the comments that were published in the Mercury.
And they, you know, the comments made by Brian Owendoff, Vicki Payne, and Talia Giardini.
A part of, you can't make this up, Future Portland.
Those comments were abhorrent.
Those comments impacted me.
When I go into rooms in this city and meet with people, present ideas, is that what they're thinking of me?
You know, in particular, Brian Owendoff, he's really benefited from this city, and Portlanders have supported downtown real estate success through public investment, public processes, and community patronage.
That doesn't mean we owe any private power broker deference.
In fact, it means people who benefit from this, people who benefit from So I hope that as we go forward, we will see that reflected in council actions.
And, um, I think you're all doing great.
I think that there really is some work to be done around working between white-identified and people of color.
It's very painful for people to watch council.
Um, I don't, I don't, you know, this is Portland, but it's, um, it's obvious, and I would encourage you to work on it, um, imminently.
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you for being here.
Rebecca Dobert
Last, we have Jana Tesman.
Jana's online.
You can unmute and go ahead.
Jana Tesman
Um, Jana Tesman.
For the record, I'm in District 1.
Um, I think this handbook is a great idea.
I If I want to speak to what this document can't cover, I want to remind you that you don't have to make these difficult decisions alone.
You have over half a million brilliant residents in the city of Portland to confer with.
Councilmember Smith.
Anything that can't easily be inferred from the charter into a handbook should be sent back to the ballot from whence it came.
The only reason the vast majority of you are even here is because of the expansion of the council, which included a conscious and intentional reduction in the power of the mayor, decided after like a year and a half of deliberation and collection and then quantitative analysis of public comment by the commission, and then another half a year of campaigning.
Councilwoman Smith, which culminated in a vote by the entire city.
Uh, the commission could not have anticipated everything.
Um, anything that is still in question, like whether the mayor should decide yet another thing, or a solution more in line with the spirit of the charter updates, uh, might have council president elected by a plurality instead of a majority.
Uh, these things should go to the ballot.
Measures, not lawsuits.
Canvassers, not lawyers.
And no, Dan Ryan, you shouldn't get to have conversations with the rest of council without being answerable to your constituency or your base.
They have a lot more at stake when it comes to you and the— than you when it comes to the business of this city.
You could stop working tomorrow and be financially better off than the vast majority of the residents of this town.
So, um, yeah, let's hear more.
Edith Gillis
Thank you.
Rebecca Dobert
That concludes testimony.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you.
Um, colleagues, before we move to discussion, I would like to give an opportunity to, uh, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, and I will also take advantage of that, to formally move, uh, these amendments.
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Council President.
Do you prefer that I move just Pirtle-Guiney 1 first, or can I move them all and then you'll take them for debate one at a time?
Jamie Dunphy
I would like to do that.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay.
Colleagues, I would like to move Pirtle-Guiney 1, Pirtle-Guiney 2, and Pirtle-Guiney 3 and would appreciate a second if anybody is willing.
Sameer Kanal
Second all 3.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor Kanal.
Jamie Dunphy
Great.
And colleagues, I would like to move Dunphy 1 and would entertain a second.
Dan Ryan
Second.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor.
We are now moving into debate.
We will, uh, uh, take each of the amendments individually for a vote, but first I want to give the, uh, my colleagues an opportunity to either weigh in on the amendments or the underlying.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
So thank you, Council President.
I was just wondering if these, uh, if I could accept them as friendly or if we have to go through the whole process of voting.
Jamie Dunphy
I'll look to Robert Taylor.
Robert Taylor
Uh, so I think it depends on the substance of it.
I, I, um, I'm grateful for this opportunity to talk about friendly amendments.
Because technically speaking, that is, it's a name we apply to things, but it's not an actual thing.
So if there's a motion to amend that's been seconded, that's on the— that's before Council for consideration.
If somebody would like to suggest a change to that, and they'll call it a friendly amendment to signal that they are in line with the intent, but would like to make a small technical change, If the person that made the motion is comfortable with it, the person that made the motion can always withdraw the first one and replace it with something new.
So if there's a suggestion of a friendly amendment, how about you phrase your amendment this way?
The person that had made the amendment to begin with can simply say, sounds great, I withdraw my first one and I move the amendment in the form suggested.
Thank you.
That can get seconded, and then we're back on track.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
I wouldn't want to skip any debate that would need to happen.
This, just also to clarify, to underscore that this doesn't change the resolution.
It's the actual handbook, which is an exhibit.
So if there are folks that want to debate it, otherwise I am happy to accept them.
Jamie Dunphy
Let's see if— is there anybody in the folks in the queue are in queue for the amendments or for the— okay, Councilor Green.
Mitch Green
Yeah, I, first of all, I really appreciate the hard work that went into not only the underlying— I know that this is a conversation you guys like really worked a lot of time on.
I appreciate the thoughtfulness in these amendments.
Uh, I've read all the amendments.
I think they're all good contributions to the underlying.
I appreciate the spirit of what I was gonna say vice president.
Councilor Koyama Lane has suggested, I'm interested in the most expedient way forward.
And so what I would suggest is if the Councilor Koyama Lane is signaling to her colleagues that she accepts all of these, then we just do our own limitation of debate and just voterama and get it done.
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Green.
Councilor Murillo.
Angelita Morillo
Yeah, thank you so much.
My question is about Pirtle-Guiney 3.
I just had a question about what it means to define how the city attorney reviews things in terms of legal sufficiency or what that means.
Because it says that the city attorney must review for legal sufficiency, and it speaks— the handbook speaks to attorney approval but nothing further than that.
And at the state level, it's defined in a much more complex manner.
So I have the link to the OAR definition if that's helpful, or if that's the one that you meant to reference.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Council President, may I respond?
Please.
Councilor Murillo, legal sufficiency is a term that I have had both our clerk and our attorney's team use when talking to me.
I was not attempting to refer to a new state definition, but rather just to capture I also didn't note before and should have, I apologize, that this language was reviewed by the clerk to make sure it also matched not just my but their view of how things currently work and what language we currently use.
I would be happy to defer to either our attorney or our clerk on what legal sufficiency, what level of legal sufficiency is generally required on that review.
Thank you.
But I'm not trying to change anything from the status quo, merely to capture the status quo.
Angelita Morillo
Gotcha.
Okay.
And I'm not really even suggesting that we use the state's definition.
I'm just pointing out that the state had a very extensive definition of it.
So it seems important for us to define it in the handbook, or it feels like it's a very— it's significant language.
Tell me if I'm overreacting, Robert.
I don't know.
Esteemed Robert Taylor.
Robert Taylor
Well, when we review something for legal sufficiency, what we're essentially doing is approving it as to form.
So in the form that it is drafted, if it is passed, it can become law.
There—.
Sometimes we approve something as to form, but it does come with legal risk.
Angelita Morillo
And council—.
Robert Taylor
This council, previous councils have passed ordinances and code changes that have come with legal risk.
So just because we have approved something as to form does not mean it is free from risk.
Oftentimes we will advise the sponsor or council of legal risks that might be associated with it.
Thank you.
So from our purposes, when we are approving something as to form, we are saying that this meets the minimum requirements that if it's in the law, we would defend it.
Angelita Morillo
Okay, I appreciate that, and I feel better now that it's on the record.
I think that the My understanding of the handbook is that it's supposed to be sort of a plain language thing that anybody could access, including members of the public.
And I'm not sure that that feels like a term that the average person would understand.
So I would like for it to be defined if possible.
I also will say I have to leave in about 10 minutes, so maybe you'll just vote this through.
But I just wanted to flag that concern on the amendment, but I'm fine with the rest of it.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor.
Uh, Councilor Green, is that a— that's a legacy hand.
Councilor Ryan.
Dan Ryan
I want to just start off by appreciating the chair of the Governance Committee.
Uh, I found that Koyama Lane was so persistent and patient with this process.
I was really impressed by that.
Julia Myers isn't here, but she, uh, did a lot of the legwork with Aubrey and, um, and there you are.
Thank you so much for your work on this project.
I have to just say this: I'm good with the amendments.
I'll go with the flow on them.
But I think if we brought this up every 6 months, we'd have like 5 amendments because it's a breathing document.
So there has to be a point where we just accept what it is, work with it, and then look at it once a year.
My main question though is, what are we going to get rid of?
So as we keep adding things, We need to ask ourselves what can be eliminated, kind of like permitting in this city the last 50 years.
We just kept adding codes, but BPS never removed anything.
And so that's been part of the challenge for people out there trying to navigate our permitting system.
I know, harsh example, but a true one, and I thought you'd understand it.
So anyway, I just hope that going forward we have the fortitude to cancel what's not necessary anymore.
I'll go ahead and support these.
I have to leave in about 10 minutes.
Thank you.
I'm going to be vulnerable with all of you and just say this, since I've been receiving unnecessary, not fair hate today.
I was contacted by the Mercury an hour before the deadline yesterday morning while I was in a committee meeting.
Zero context on anything about text messages.
The main question was, who do you talk to?
I go, I talk to anyone that reaches out that's in my district and needs to talk to me about their opinion on a topic.
That's all I said.
That's why my quote in there is pretty ambiguous, because I got a very ambiguous statement.
I could tell by others in that article that I serve with, you probably got a lot more context than I did, and good for you.
But I just needed to say that because it's not fair when you have to receive a reporter coming at you aggressively and wanting a deadline.
And since I always try to not do the no comment thing, I provided a comment.
I don't really want any retort right now.
I just have to say that I go high so often, but when there's lies that are coming out at you, you now and then have to have the courage to just defend yourself because no one else will.
It's my lived experience.
I'm the only one that can say what I just did about what I experienced.
Anyway, I don't appreciate any of those comments that I read.
Thank you.
If I would've known that that was what the article was about, I would've had a different quote.
I can see some nonverbal that's not trusting.
That's not my problem.
But I want—.
Angelita Morillo
I just think you should take this up with a reporter instead of with all of us.
Dan Ryan
Well, because this is what happened.
I had to hear 3 times today in testimony about it.
And so I just wanted to clear the air and be transparent.
And then yes, we will be talking to the reporter about Journalism 101.
Thank you.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
First, uh, thank you to Aubrey, uh, to your whole team that worked on this, to Craig Cook, to Julie Meyer.
Uh, I appreciated the, uh, admittedly apples-to-oranges written testimony from Terry Harris.
I'll, I'll particularly highlight the need for council oversight that was highlighted towards the end and the, uh, the difference in the use of the time-certain agenda.
Hint, hint.
Uh, in there.
Um, I am going to support all 3 of the Pirtle-Guiney amendments and the underlying.
I had a question about the underlying as well as Dunphy's amendment.
Um, so my question on the underlying is, do we have a built-in cadence?
I agree with Councilor Ryan about approving it, recognizing it needs to get renewed at some point and revisited.
Do— is there an anticipated cadence?
I know it's not written in there.
This is more to daylight it.
I don't think there's a right or wrong answer, but I'd be curious if the sponsor had an answer to that.
Can you repeat your question?
Sure.
Is there an anticipated cadence at which we would revisit this?
Every twice a year is what Councilor Ryan said, annually, next month, whatever.
I'm just curious.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
I don't have a set cadence that I am very tied to.
Council President and I have talked about the idea of something like this being adopted every year.
And so that's kind of what I've had in the back of my mind.
If she's open to expanding a little bit about some of her thoughts, I think that she had some good thoughts that that could coincide with when we do get new council leadership.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Council President, may I?
Councilor Kanal, I have we have an item coming before the Governance Committee.
I'm not sure if it's later this month or later than that, proposing some changes that we discussed last year to our code.
And one of the things that I believe made it through the comment process in committee is to have some sort of handbook that we review either annually or every other year.
Yes.
Around the time that new councilors are seated and/or new leadership is elected so that we do review things regularly.
I think that there are some questions about what should be in, what shouldn't, that we probably will have more thoughts on as we go forward.
And having a regular review makes a lot of sense to me, having it coincide with some of— with one of those other regular changes, either leadership changes or new councilors coming on board seemed to me like an obvious time to say what is it that we want to be doing in terms of what we say about how we do our work.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
That, that addresses my underlying concern.
I'd suggest that we, even if it's not written in here, do it in a year, and then if we can eventually get to 2 years, that seems appropriate as it develops.
My question on the Dunphy Amendment is I appreciate the references I think that doesn't constitute— you mentioned Cliff Notes.
That doesn't constitute that for me.
I'm a little concerned about maybe some of the things that are put in absent context.
And I think an example of that is the line about what the mayor's tiebreak authority is, which is not in here.
But earlier today, you know, there was a conversation around like there is context around it and reading the sentence on its own doesn't necessarily give everybody the same idea.
So I think that's one thing.
I think that's a fair point.
So I'm willing to put it in, but I would just love a commitment to allow for us to add that in, 'cause there is a lot of context on a few of these that I think are worth revisiting.
And I didn't feel that way about some of the things that were already in there.
Jamie Dunphy
Yeah, absolutely.
You got my commitment on that.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, then I am good to go.
And I will second the voterama suggestion, and we should definitely use that when we have a bunch of amendments as a term for voting on all of them back to back.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you.
Councilor Morillo.
Angelita Morillo
Thank you, Councilor Dunphy.
I'll be brief because I have to head out for another meeting, but since other colleagues were able to make comments about things not prescient to the amendments, I'm going to leave with this.
The racist comments that me and some of our colleagues endured this week are not equivalent to anyone else's hurt feelings about anything else, and there is nothing stopping you from making a statement denouncing thank you, everybody.
Have a good day.
Jamie Dunphy
So colleagues, we have 4 amendments and an underlying bill here.
Are we able to move these 4 amendments as a package or as 2 packages?
If there's no objection, sure.
Colleagues, is there any objection to moving all 4 amendments as a package?
Seeing no objection and some very enthusiastic thumbs up, Rebecca, will you please call the amendment— or call the roll on the amendment package?
Dunphy 1 and Pirtle-Guiney's 1, 2, and 3.
Rebecca Dobert
Excellent, thank you.
Avalos?
Candace Avalos
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Smith.
Kanal.
Oh, Kanal.
Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Ryan.
Dan Ryan
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Koyama Lane.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Murillo.
Novick.
Steve Novick
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Clark.
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Green.
Mitch Green
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Zimmerman.
Dunphy.
Jamie Dunphy
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
And the amendment is approved with 9 ayes and 3 absent.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you.
Will you please call the roll on the now amended resolution?
Rebecca Dobert
Avalos.
Candace Avalos
I know that, you know, we're all trying to get through this and vote it, but I did have quite a few questions, so I'll just say that on the record that I did have a lot of questions, and they were, um, about like council operations and like how they're engaging with us, how we access the analysts.
So, you know, I guess I'll vote for it, but I'll— I'm— I have a lot of questions still, so I don't know what to do with that, but I'm just naming that so hopefully we could come back to that at a future point.
So I'll vote aye.
Sameer Kanal
I share those questions as well as Councilor Murillo's questions, but I do think this is an iterative process and it's good to do.
I want to thank the, the Vice President Emerita Koyama Lane, and I'll vote aye.
Dan Ryan
Thanks again, Aubrey.
Aye.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Thank you so much to Aubrey Chen and Craig Cook, who's in the— in Seattle now.
I vote aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Novick?
Steve Novick
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Clark?
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Green?
Mitch Green
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Dunphy?
Jamie Dunphy
Aye.
Rebecca Dobert
Resolution is adopted with 9 aye votes, 3 absent.
Jamie Dunphy
Colleagues, uh, any remaining items that are on our agenda that we did not get to, uh, will be continued to a future meeting.
With that, I adjourn the City Council.
Mitch Green
Adjourned.