City Council · morning

4:17Cool.

4:18Good morning.

4:19I'm calling to order the meeting of the Portland City Council for the morning of Wednesday, February 4th.

4:26May I please call the roll?

4:29Good morning.

4:30Avalos?

4:30Here.

4:33Here.

4:35Here.

4:35Here.

4:35Here.

4:36Here.

4:36Here.

4:37Here.

4:37Here.

4:39Here.

4:39I will be, um, online today.

4:41Uh, thanks everyone, don't want to spread germs.

4:44Here.

4:46Here.

4:48Here.

4:48Here.

4:50Here.

4:56Good morning, everybody.

5:00Please note Councilor Kanal is here as well.

5:03Hi.

5:03Colleagues, first thing on our agenda is agenda approval.

5:07Are there any requests to amend?

5:09Oh, oh, and could we please read the rules of decorum?

5:12Thank you.

5:14Good flag.

5:16Welcome to the Portland City Council.

5:18To testify before council in person or virtually, you must sign up in advance on the council agenda at www.portland.gov/council/agenda.

5:27Information on engaging with council can be found on the council clerk's website webpage.

5:31Individuals may testify for 3 minutes unless the presiding officer states otherwise.

5:35Your microphone will be muted when your time is over.

5:38The presiding officer preserves order.

5:40Disruptive 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.

5:49If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given.

5:52Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting.

5:55Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass.

5:59Additionally, council may take a short recess and reconvene Your testimony should address a matter being considered.

6:06When testifying, state your name for the record.

6:08Your address is not necessary.

6:10If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent.

6:14Virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the council clerk calls your name.

6:18Thank you.

6:19Thank you.

6:21Um, I will note that some items have been pulled from the consent agenda and have been moved, uh, to be read after item 11.

6:28Are there any other, uh, changes to the order of the agenda?

6:35Okay, sir.

6:36Uh, do I have unanimous consent to approve the agenda?

6:39Seeing happy little nods, the agenda is approved.

6:43Keelan, can you please call public communications?

6:49First up, we have Jim Rice.

6:53Welcome, Jim.

6:54Please introduce yourself for the record.

6:58My name is Jim Rice.

7:00Council members, amazing, caring citizens, small businesses are the culture soul of Portland, and we are at risk of losing it.

7:10I'm a small business owner who survived the pandemic, riots, and being burglarized 15 times.

7:15But we are now entering our darkest time.

7:18Over the last 3 years, I've watched over 100 businesses with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of jobs leaving our neighborhood.

7:25Most, like REI, stating safety, homeless, and crime as the primary reasons.

7:30Others failed because people stopped coming to Portland.

7:33The inconvenient truth is 43% of small businesses here in Portland are losing money, not including those marginally in the black.

7:41That's over 10,900 businesses that are on the ropes, potentially impacting 70,000 to 100,000 employees.

7:5025,000 Jobs have been lost in the past year and a lot more to come.

7:53Councilmember We are now ranked in the top 10 worst places for business survival.

7:58We are fighting to make payroll for our teams, desperately trying to survive while fighting against cascading taxes, crime, shocking homeless issues, and inflation.

8:09I'm meeting with business owners across the city.

8:11All of them have horrific stories.

8:1367% Have been hit by crime in the past year, unmanageable homeless issues, lack of 911 response, and the feeling that we are totally on our own.

8:21Thank you.

8:22And no one seems to care.

8:24I, like many, have stopped reporting crimes as it's a waste of time.

8:27Police don't have the capacity.

8:29We have half the police officers of an average city.

8:32Many owners I'm meeting with are talking about leaving Oregon.

8:35I'm watching streams of regular customers leaving every week, not for the suburbs, but leaving the state.

8:41They too have given up on our government's ability to fix our problems.

8:46Businesses leaving.

8:47Citizens leaving, jobs leaving, tax revenue leaving.

8:51Your $67 million financial gap is just the beginning, though I understand you found $21 million in the couch cushions.

8:58You may want to look under all the cushions because the coming years are going to be worse.

9:03Portland has started the death spiral.

9:05Soon you're not going to be able to stop it.

9:08You are presented with a lot of issues.

9:09This is extremely serious.

9:11Councilors, are you focused on fixing the issues causing your financial problems while saving the soul of our city.

9:18Ask yourselves, what would a small business or investor—.

9:23What would—.

9:23What—.

9:24Why would they want to stay?

9:26Why would a small business want to stay?

9:28What are you doing to be able to help small businesses survive?

9:31What will be the impact to your budget and Portland when these businesses continue to fail?

9:39Truly, the future of Portland is in your hands.

9:42Thank you.

9:43Thank you.

9:43Thank you.

9:47Next up we have Jesse Akins.

9:55Hi, good morning Portland.

9:57Uh, I am Jesse Akins.

9:58I'm a disabled veteran of the United States Army.

10:01Hey Jesse, we are having a hard time hearing you.

10:03Oh, I had a feeling you would say that because—.

10:05Sorry, friend.

10:06How is that?

10:08Is that better?

10:09Yes, yes, much better.

10:11Okay, Zoom is not optimized for me right now.

10:15Um, so I, again, I'm Jesse Akins.

10:17I'm a Portland resident of District 3.

10:19I'm a disabled combat Army veteran.

10:21Get it all screwed up because of the volume.

10:23Thanks, volume.

10:25Anyways, I'm just here for a couple of short things.

10:27Um, I was going to say some other things, but, um, in regards to, uh, what happened at the The protest over the— recently where, where a lot of civilians were gassed, um, and shot with pepper balls and, and things like that.

10:45I wasn't there.

10:46I'm disabled, like I said.

10:47Showing up to those kinds of things is very disastrous for my health when that sort of thing happens.

10:54Um, I would love to show up at more protests for a variety of reasons.

11:00I can't because they're not safe for me.

11:01Thank you.

11:04So, and many others, and it's far worse for many others.

11:08And the reason I bring this up is because we keep talking about the Supremacy Clause and the things that we can't do and the things that we can't do and the things that we can't do, but we don't talk about what we can do and what we have done in the past.

11:20And what I've personally seen in the past in our city and many others across the country is the police acting as a bully.

11:27Yes.

11:27Bulwark between hostile elements towards protesters.

11:33Normally we've seen that in the cases of right-wing protesters being bulwarked against not right-wing protesters, neo-Nazis, white supremacists being bulwarked against others, aka the police with their backs towards the right wing and the neo-Nazis and the white supremacists, but not the other people.

11:55Why can't we do something like that?

11:57Police, they're not arresting, they're not engaging, they're simply acting as a bulwark between the people and the hostile entities.

12:06Hostile entity opens fire, where are the rounds going to go?

12:09Into police shields rather than children.

12:13Just a suggestion for our further deliberation on the subject.

12:17Something to consider.

12:18Thank you.

12:19Something to think about.

12:20And as a side note, I would like to say that the soul of Portland is not REI.

12:27That's just my opinion.

12:29Uh, I hope you all have a wonderful day, um, and we have some progress today.

12:34Thanks.

12:35Thank you, Jesse.

12:38Next up, we have Julie Winters.

12:46Hi there, folks.

12:49Um, for the record, my name is Julie Winters.

12:53Some of you may have seen me before, some of you may have not.

13:01Um, I'm going to try and make this really quick.

13:04Um, first question, are you all required to review the PCC EP footage?

13:11Yes.

13:13And the PCC EP listening sessions?

13:17Can I just see a show of hands if anyone did for the, for the death of Damien Johnson?

13:23Anyone?

13:25Did any of you see that?

13:29Thank you, Ms. Lane.

13:32So I'm not going to go over my story again because I've been posting the body cams of it for a year now.

13:45But to put it shortly, I was suffocated to death by 2 Portland police officers in a belly-prone position a year ago, December 7th, 2024.

13:56I was shot with ketamine against my will.

13:59I was then brought to Legacy Emanuel, and I woke up with a Jane Doe tag around my wrist.

14:07They never gave me a lawyer.

14:10Then they dropped my charges 9 months later after not giving me my constitutionally protected right to a lawyer.

14:17I have 2 and a half hours worth of body cams that prove that there's a cover-up.

14:26They—.

14:26Somebody in DA's office messed up and gave me all of their internal affairs body cams too.

14:33Um, 3 days after the PCC EP listening session, the DA dropped my charges.

14:40They charged me with assaulting the officer that hit me 17 times in the face, and then his trainee had me on the ground with my hands behind the back— behind my back— and sat there until I was no longer breathing, didn't have a pulse, and Didn't have any type of response at all.

15:03Between that time and the time that I woke up in the back of an AMR ambulance and begged the people like they—I mean—I don't remember that time, but I woke up in the back of an ambulance with somebody trying to stick a needle in me, and I lost it.

15:17Now, then I woke up again after the ketamine started to wear off in Legacy Emanuel with.

15:24I see that.

15:26But anyways, long story short, I wasn't a suspect in a crime.

15:30I was asking for help.

15:33I had broken an axle on my car, and your city public safety officer refused to call an ambulance because I mentioned that maybe the EMTs could check my cat out.

15:48But I also like Have my leg needed to be checked out too, but she decided because of my cat that she wasn't going to call an ambulance.

15:57I would really like to avoid a long and costly litigation process between all of you.

16:03Thank you so much.

16:03And, and, and the chief of police, Bob Day, who acts like he doesn't know.

16:08Thank you.

16:08Sorry, we have to—.

16:09I know, but it's very important.

16:12That's the thing, I've been writing to all of you Over and over again for months now.

16:19I've gotten a response from—.

16:21Sorry, thank you.

16:22We have, we have to move to the next person, unfortunately.

16:26I'm sorry.

16:26Please show respect to your constituents.

16:28Thank you.

16:29I, I'm sorry, but I— we do have a time limit on here and we're 40 seconds over.

16:33I'm sorry.

16:34Thank you.

16:37Portland Police Department is complicit in the near murder of me And are still attempting to cover it up.

16:44DA Vasquez refiled the charges.

16:46Next up, we have David Pearl.

16:50And this is how I get treated.

16:54Duly noted.

16:56Thank you for being here.

16:59Police are corrupt as hell, and you guys won't do anything about any of it.

17:05Name for the record?

17:06David Pearl.

17:08In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

17:14Martin Luther King Jr. As we watch the Trump regime wreak havoc on Minneapolis, we must be ever vigilant in protecting our own people, people's lives and liberties.

17:25As the reality is, this is only the beginning, and these escalations and assaults on our rights and freedoms will only continue to get worse.

17:32Yes, it will.

17:33However, our governor and mayor have continued in failing Sorry.

17:37In providing anything more than just lip service.

17:41Thousands of peaceful protesters, including children and seniors, were gassed by ICE just over the weekend.

17:47The immediate response was to create a council to create plans of attack with implementation by May 30th.

17:56This response is a direct admission by our elected leaders that they are clueless as to how to stop the federal government's overreach.

18:05Which is particularly troubling as it was leaked that after Minneapolis, they are directing their assaults to our city of Portland.

18:13Our leaders must rise to the occasion and provide meaningful strategy of how to protect our city, not in 4 months, but today.

18:21While the lack of action is frustrating, it is anything but surprising.

18:26Historians have spent decades analyzing the question as to why people do not stand up against the forms of injustice we are seeing.

18:33Thank you.

18:34The answer?

18:36They thought we were safe.

18:38They thought if they focused on their jobs, they were doing what was best for themselves and families, and that this would eventually pass.

18:45They were safe.

18:46They thought that their positions of power and influence was too important, that nothing would happen to them.

18:52They were safe.

18:54They thought that if they aided their oppressors' causes, that they would be seen as one of the good ones.

18:59They were safe.

19:01As neighbors were removed from their homes and publicly assailed in the streets, clearly those targeted had done something wrong and deserved it.

19:10Couldn't be them.

19:11As judges and political opposition were stripped of their titles and replaced, trust in the system.

19:17And finally, when the ranks were purged of what the regime deemed useful idiots, they still desperately clung to the belief that this must be a mistake.

19:26Thank you.

19:26That they had done nothing wrong and that they were still safe.

19:30If you are anything but a white Christian male nationalist, you should be deeply concerned as to what is happening in our country.

19:39You are not safe, and we need everyone in our public office to be taking steps that proactively combat these escalations.

19:47We need immediate action and leadership, and we need it today.

19:50Thank you.

19:51Thank you so much for being here.

19:56Next up we have Addie Smith.

20:03Addie Smith.

20:06Okay, um, the alternate, Kenny Gonzalez.

20:13Good morning.

20:14Good morning.

20:17Hi, my name is Kenny Gonzalez.

20:20I come here to review Section 1983, which allows us to sue anyone in any government-playing role.

20:32And to that fact, I want to say, before that ends up happening and affects every single one of you, help me in a way kind of establish the U.S. Code 42 U.S. Code Section 1983, due to the fact of Trump's policies are hurting all our young ones from having good healthy food since schools should provide healthy meals.

21:04It's a domino effect going on here because if you— if the kids can't go to school, That affects the parents coming to pick one of the two to stay home and watch the kids.

21:19And it as well affects bringing in money to support the house, so they make less.

21:28I have the rights under the city, which remains in the county and got— and goes into The county is followed to the state and so on.

21:42The domino effect again, as I bring back, our laws were put in play for the people, by the people.

21:51Trump has no right to deprive— sorry for my spelling—.

21:59Deprive.

22:06Deprived the people from food or shelter, which, uh, due to the lack of making money, because money seems to hold more power and value than a human life or voice.

22:25Money talks more than humans.

22:29Some Voices are shut out when it comes to money.

22:34Now we come back to the domino effect going on and needing to point out we are at war with Trump and the federal government because Trump is acting as a terrorist.

22:51Thank you.

22:54You have 30 more seconds if you need it, so Okay, and then I have here about the legislative, executive, and judicial branch about starting a cycle with the ground form with 3 connectors are needed, but keep in mind you only need 2 to form a cycle.

23:15So we have all 3, but the judicial branch wants to check the executive branch But they need to check the legislative branch before jumping into the executive.

23:29That is all.

23:30Thank you.

23:31Thank you so much for being here this morning.

23:33That completes communications.

23:35Thank you.

23:38Colleagues, next on our agenda is the committee referral report.

23:41For colleagues and folks watching at home, my office has referred several items to committee last week, some of which have already been heard.

23:48Those items are listed on the committee referral report, which is available online at portland.gov/auditor.

23:54Councilor McClymont, can we please call item 4?

24:02Item 4, time certain, add nondiscrimination requirements for single occupant restrooms in places of public accommodation code to establish equal restroom access by requiring gender-neutral signage.

24:16Add Code Section 23.01.071.

24:19And colleagues, this is the first reading of an ordinance.

24:22We have Christopher Hare with us to give a staff summary report.

24:28Thank you and good morning, Council President, Council.

24:31For the record, Christopher Hare, Council Operations Policy Analyst, and reading on behalf of Craig Cook, who until recently staffed the Arts and Economy Committee.

24:39The ordinance document 2025-475 was considered in the Arts and Economy Committee on December 9th, where it was referred to Council as amended with a recommendation to be passed as amended.

24:50The ordinance adds City Code Section 23.01.071 to require that single occupant restrooms in places of public accommodation be available for use by any person regardless of sex or gender identity, and that appropriate all-user signage be posted.

25:06It does not require the creation of new single occupant restrooms or physical modifications to existing facilities.

25:13The city administrator is responsible for directing notice and enforcement with a recommended best The ordinance directs the practice of providing notice and sample compliant signage to applicable places of public accommodation in 2026.

25:25Noncompliance may be reported to code review through 311.

25:29Existing staff resources may be used to develop sample signage.

25:32Enforcement costs are undetermined and will depend on the enforcement approach.

25:38The ordinance directs that funding for applicable costs, including notification to affected businesses, be identified in the fiscal year 2026-27 city budget.

25:47Thank you.

25:48The committee adopted an amendment prior to moving the item to full council.

25:51The effects of the amendments on the original ordinance are summarized in the committee staff summary posted online.

25:56The full impact statements on this item includes financial and budgetary impacts, economic and real estate impacts, community impacts, and community involvement.

26:042 Individuals provided verbal testimony and 5 people submitted written testimony prior to committee action.

26:10General themes included importance of this policy for the LGBTQIA2S+ community and gender nonconforming individuals, Thank you.

26:18Councilmember Herbold.

26:18Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

26:18I would like to thank the staff for their work on this ordinance.

26:18I would like to highlight the following key points.

26:18Importance of this policy for families with children and using all-user terminology in plain language so all members of the public can understand.

26:27Importance of quality restrooms for customer impressions of businesses.

26:32Restroom access as a matter of dignity and fairness.

26:34Concerns about impacts on religious facilities that maintain separation of the sexes as a matter of religious belief.

26:41And this concludes the committee staff summary.

26:43Thank you.

26:44Thank you, Christopher.

26:45Um, I— this came out of Arts and Economy, so I do not recall if it was Councilor Green or Councilor Ryan who were in charge that day.

26:54I don't remember either.

26:56Fair enough.

26:57Um, Councilor Ryan, I see your hand in there.

26:59Did you have, uh— were you chairing this meeting, Councilor Ryan, when this came?

27:03I can't recall that.

27:04I can recall this though, and I think it'll be helpful.

27:07Um, I learned the logic behind this actually from You, Councilor Dunphy, at that time— that was your title— and Arts and Economy.

27:15And it was confirmed this would not be a barrier, uh, a big cost driver for small businesses.

27:20As you recall, that was my— most of my questions.

27:23And I appreciate that you went to great lengths to make this simple and not, um— Let's just say there weren't a lot of details that said you had to add this, this, this, this, this, and this that would cost X amount of money.

27:35And that was I think my concern with others.

27:38So I wanted to say I just appreciate Council President's passion for this issue, and I know that it started back when you were a staffer for Commissioner Fish, rest in peace.

27:47And I just think it's cool that you're seeing this to the finish line.

27:50I appreciate your dedication.

27:51Thank you, Councilor.

27:54Councilors Pirtle-Guiney and Councilor Koyama Lane are also co-sponsors on this.

27:58I want to give you each an opportunity to speak on this.

28:00Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.

28:03Thank you, Council President, and thank you for bringing this policy forward and inviting us to co-sponsor it with you.

28:10Colleagues, when Councilor Dunphy approached me about this policy, we had a lot of conversations about the impact and how we could take something that is a small change with a low implementation burden, as Councilor Ryan mentioned, that will make a big difference for a lot of Portlanders.

28:28This ordinance matters a lot to me, and I want to flag 3 quick things.

28:32The first is the timely issue.

28:33We know we're dealing with a federal administration that is engaged in an all-out assault on families who don't fit their narrow definition of what they think our country should look like.

28:44And for many people in my community, in the LGBTQ community, there are still everyday fears around something as basic as where to use the restroom.

28:55A policy like this can help my community.

28:59But this policy affects my family on another level as well.

29:02I am a mom of 2 kids, a son and a daughter.

29:05And when we are out, when my son was little, I got to explain to him why when he was with me we used one restroom and when he was alone he used a different restroom, even if both restrooms were single-stall restrooms.

29:22And now that he's older and often offers to take his sister to the bathroom when we're out, which is fantastic that they are old enough to do that, at 10 years old he is faced with the decision of which restroom to use with his little sister.

29:39It's confusing, it is stressful, and more importantly, it is a wholly unnecessary choice when you're dealing with 2 single stall My family is not unique.

29:50This is something that can help anybody on those days when there is a line for one restroom and an open restroom right next to it, and they are both single stall restrooms.

30:02Councilor Dunphy and I talked a lot about how this policy would affect the businesses that we are asking to make a change, because while I think the impacts here are really important, I also wanted to make sure that the implementation was simple.

30:15And we've come up with something that only applies to existing restrooms.

30:20Nobody is required to build something new.

30:23Gives space for the city administrator to flexibly implement this, but also provides some guidelines to ensure that there's not a heavy burden for our businesses.

30:32And at the end of the day, gives us a quick outcome that can make a difference in every single Portlander's experience when they are out in our city.

30:41I hope that we can gain your support today and am proud to be a part of bringing this forward.

30:46Thank you, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.

30:47Councilor Koyama Lane.

30:49Thank you so much, Council President.

30:51I'm proud to be a co-sponsor of this ordinance alongside you, Council President Dunphy, and alongside Council President Emeritus Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.

31:01I want to recognize the hard work of the city staff and our predecessors in carrying the torch from the late Commissioner Nick Fish and then Senior Policy Director Jamie Dunphy to today.

31:14I wanna thank Michelle Rodriguez, former head of staff to Commissioner Maps.

31:18Thank you to Anne Milligan, Senior Deputy City Attorney.

31:22Thank you to Lex Yakoschowski, LGBTQIA2S+ Policy Analyst with the Office of Equity and Human Rights.

31:33I want to really, really thank Aubrey Chen, Woo!

31:37Former LGBTQIA2S+ policy analyst, who is the absolute best and is now currently an incredible policy aide in my office.

31:47And last but not least, to thank all of the community organizations and business associations that have supported the various iterations of this ordinance over many years.

31:58I'm really proud of all of your work, and I'm proud to help carry this work over the finish line.

32:03Thank you.

32:04Thank you, Councilor Koyama Lane.

32:05Colleagues, we had a full presentation of this at committee, um, and I— we typically do not do additional committees.

32:12However, um, there has been some staff turnover at the Bureau of Planning— of, uh, Permitting and Development.

32:17We now have a new permanent director who was not here when we voted on this in committee.

32:20He is here, uh, if there are, uh, technical questions from anybody, uh, right?

32:25I also have staff, uh, I also have Lex here as well to provide any technical questions or background.

32:30If any colleagues have any, uh, before we get into, uh, public testimony.

32:39I will just note, um, I want to very much thank the administration and, uh, PP&D and the city administrator.

32:46We have been working very closely to make sure that we can find the most cost-effective, uh, and streamlined and easy, low-burden way to implement this.

32:55Um, we will note there, there is a, a minimal cost for That is currently projected for printing and mailing.

33:02My office has been working in regular communication with the city administrator and with the PP&D team to find what the funding considerations would be.

33:11And specifically, that is to mail a letter to the businesses.

33:16And my hope specifically is that we may even go as far as designing a postcard that we could send to businesses, and they can just literally tape that postcard over the existing sign at their bathroom.

33:30And we are— so I am ongoing committed to seeing this implemented in the most cost-effective and efficient way and to reduce the burden on our businesses wherever possible.

33:42Still seeing no hands in the queue.

33:45Keelan, can we please move to testimony?

33:49First up for testimony, we have Merrilee Carr.

34:04Good morning and welcome.

34:05Good morning.

34:09Can you hear me?

34:11Yes.

34:11Cool.

34:12I'm Mira Lee Carr.

34:14Um, thank you, Council President Dunphy, councilors, and Administrator Lee.

34:20For this opportunity.

34:22I'm the president of FLUSH, P-H-L-U-S-H, which helped create the Portland Loo 20 years ago.

34:31I'm also a family physician, retired, a Neighborhood Emergency Team, NET, team leader, and a NET CERT regional trainer in disaster sanitation.

34:42My class is titled You Survive the Earthquake but Die of Dysentery.

34:46Thank you.

34:48Sad but true.

34:50Portland has terrible bathroom access.

34:53It turns off tourists and discourages Portlanders from going out.

34:58Access is worse since the pandemic's, so to speak, antitrust effect.

35:04Loss of trust has closed off many restrooms in private establishments that used to be open to whoever needed them.

35:12Public facilities are also very unevenly distributed.

35:16In downtown, it's merely bad.

35:18But in long-neglected East Portland, they, they are so hard to find that human waste is commonly seen in public.

35:28The current proposal to relabel all single-occupant restrooms all-user is a great example of creative repurposing.

35:37There is no practical reason for single-occupant facilities to have a gendered label at all.

35:43Yes.

35:43It only makes the facility inaccessible to people who don't match the signage.

35:50Single-user restrooms function equally well for all genders and most species.

35:58With this inexpensive change, you will make more restrooms available.

36:03But we can't stop there.

36:06Portland needs more public restrooms, a lot more.

36:10To become once again a place that welcomes visitors and cultivates vibrant connections among its inhabitants.

36:1920 Years ago, a broad multi-stakeholder design process asked how a modern public restroom should look and function.

36:29The result was the Portland Loo, now installed around the world.

36:33I think it's time to repeat that inquiry for the post-pandemic city with newly available technology and building materials.

36:43Flushing is ready.

36:45Let's talk.

36:46Thank you.

36:46Thank you so much.

36:51Also, I just needed to comment that you have fantastic earrings.

36:54Folks who can't see, they're tiny toilet paper rolls.

36:57They're, they're my teaching earrings.

36:59Amazing.

36:59Thank you.

37:00They really break the ice.

37:04Next up we have Lindsay Perez.

37:06Good morning, Lindsay.

37:10Wow.

37:11Uh, good morning, councilors.

37:13Thank you for your time.

37:14Uh, my name is Lindsay Perez.

37:16I am a Two-Spirit Tongva human, uh, born and raised in Southern California, but I have resided in District 3 for the last 5 years.

37:23Uh, for the past 3 years I have worked as a youth advocate at the Sexual Minority Youth Resource Center AKA SMERC, at New Avenues for Youth, one of many Portland-based nonprofits working with the houseless youth continuum.

37:37In my role, I support at-risk and houseless queer youth every single day as they navigate basic needs, safety, and belonging in public spaces across our city.

37:47In my work, I see how restroom access can determine whether a person feels welcome enough to enter a space at all.

37:55If someone has to pause and ask, am I allowed to be here just to use the bathroom?

38:01That's a failure not only of accessibility but of human decency.

38:06All-user signage lowers barriers for everyone— parents with kids, such as you, uh, Councilor, um, people with disabilities or caregivers, folks with medical needs, and yes, trans and non-binary and gender-expansive community alike.

38:23I come before you today to share my testimony in support of adding nondiscrimination requirements for single occupant restrooms in public spaces.

38:31Gender-neutral restrooms are not complicated.

38:34They simply make sense for humans.

38:37Single occupancy restrooms already serve one person at a time.

38:40Assigning them a gender doesn't increase safety or functionality.

38:44It only adds unnecessary barriers created by socially manufactured ideas about gender and sex.

38:49Thank you.

38:50At the end of the day, everybody poops, and I support this ordinance with the hope that it will increase comfort, dignity, and accessibility for all humans in Portland to take care of theirs.

39:01Uh, thank you for your practical and compassionate step towards creating a more inclusive environment for all, uh, Senator— uh, Councilor, uh, Dunphy, and I appreciate all of your time.

39:10Thank you so much for being here.

39:15Next up, we have Danielle Morris.

39:21Good morning.

39:25Good morning, Councilor Duffy— Dunphy and councilors.

39:28My name is Daniel Morris.

39:29I was born in Emmanuel Hospital many decades ago.

39:33I reside near Portland.

39:34I run a business here, and I represent the Oregon Pride in Business Advocacy Committee, commonly known as ORPIB.

39:41I'm here to support The proposed resolution regarding the City Code 2301.071, which simply requires the single occupant restrooms in places in public accommodation be designated as gender-neutral signage.

39:55I'm speaking not only as an advocate for inclusion and equitable access, but also as a member of this community who believes in clarity and fairness in public places.

40:07I also want to note that ORPIB has reviewed and approved this And is in support of this ordinance.

40:13This ordinance is straightforward.

40:15It ensures single occupant restrooms are clearly labeled as all-user restrooms rather than gendered signs like men or women.

40:24It does not require construction.

40:26It does not require renovation, and it doesn't require the addition of any new restrooms.

40:31It simply standardizes signage so that people entering public spaces know their options.

40:37Clearly and respectfully.

40:40Requiring gender-neutral signage improves accessibility for caregivers, people with personal attendants, families, and anyone who may not be served with a, a standard traditional gendered sign.

40:52It supports non-discrimination principles already reflected in local and state law, aligns along also with practices in our peer cities that have successfully adopted similar signage standards.

41:03Thank you.

41:04Importantly, the cost is minimal.

41:06Signage is inexpensive, and the city's guidance and notification will help businesses transition smoothly.

41:13This is a common-sense, low-cost way to ensure that our city's public accommodations are welcome and navigable for everyone.

41:20I respectfully urge the council to adopt this ordinance.

41:24Thank you for your time, your interest, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

41:28Thank you.

41:31Thank you so much for being here this morning.

41:32Thank you.

41:34That completes testimony.

41:37Fantastic.

41:38Colleagues, any debate or discussion or questions?

41:42Again, we have staff in the room if there are any technical questions on implementation or cost, but I see no hands in the queue.

41:51That's a good sign.

41:53All right, pausing for 5 seconds.

41:59This item will now move to a second— oh, oh, Councilor Koyama Lane.

42:02Yeah.

42:03I just want to quickly point out that, um, when looking back at the timelines of meetings of when this was revived, that I heard that, uh, the initial proposal was from the City of Portland's Queer Alliance Employee Resource Group, um, really boosting and magnifying this.

42:20And then there was a Street Roots article, and then We also got involved, but it just is a reminder to me of how important and valuable our employee resource groups are.

42:30Absolutely.

42:31Thank you.

42:32Councilor Novick.

42:34I just wanted to say that I'm surprised and appalled that there are such things as single-gender, single-occupancy bathrooms, which just seems, you know, one other example of the endless capacity of humans for folly.

42:47Thank you, Councilor Novick.

42:50Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

42:51Council President, Councilors, colleagues, as a proud girl dad and as the person who has been working on this policy for almost a decade now, honestly, I wanna apologize to the community for it taking this long to get to this point.

43:03I wanna thank Commissioner Maps, who at the end of the old form of City Council desperately tried to get this passed as one last policy, and for a variety of technical reasons, it couldn't happen.

43:18And it is over a year before we were able to get it done in this new form.

43:22Policy takes a long time.

43:24The community is ready for this.

43:26The lack of pushback is the obvious sign that we are well past and actually we are playing catch-up now.

43:31So colleagues, this item will be moving to a second reading.

43:36Can we please call the next item?

43:40The next item is the consent agenda.

43:44We've had 2 items pulled from the consent agenda, items 2026-017 and item 2026-018.

43:59Wonderful.

44:00Colleagues, do I have unanimous consent to approve the remainder of the consent agenda?

44:05Oh, oh, oh, hi.

44:07So sorry, the consent agenda does require Then let's move to a roll call vote, please.

44:17Okay, thank you.

44:19Avalos?

44:19Aye.

44:21Smith?

44:22Aye.

44:23Kanal?

44:24Aye.

44:25Pirtle-Guiney?

44:26Aye.

44:27Ryan?

44:28Aye.

44:29Koyama Lane?

44:30Aye.

44:31Murillo?

44:32Aye.

44:33Novick?

44:34Aye.

44:34Clark?

44:35Aye.

44:36Green.

44:36Aye.

44:37Zimmerman.

44:38Aye.

44:38Dunphy.

44:40Aye.

44:41The consent agenda is approved with 12 yes votes.

44:44Thank you.

44:45Can we please now move to item 9?

44:52Item 9, exempt certain code requirements under City Code Chapter 17.93, renaming city streets for the proposed renaming of a portion of Southwest Jackson Street to Southwest Rose Hill Street.

45:08Colleagues will recall we had a, uh, first reading of this last week.

45:13Um, are there any further questions or concerns from colleagues?

45:19Seeing none, could we please call the roll?

45:24Avalos.

45:25Aye.

45:26Smith.

45:28Aye.

45:31Aye.

45:32Aye.

45:36Novick.

45:37Down with Andrew Jackson.

45:38Aye.

45:39Aye.

45:39Aye.

45:41Zimmerman.

45:42Aye.

45:43Dunphy.

45:43Aye.

45:44The ordinance passes with 12 yes votes.

45:50Could we please read item number 10?

45:58Item 10, require city administrator to release public records in reference to unspent surplus funds and schedule an oversight hearing.

46:07Thank you.

46:08So colleagues, uh, this is the— this is our resolution that we'll be reading on the, uh, oversight hearing.

46:15You know, recent developments have made this item particularly timely.

46:18Uh, this resolution Is to adopt a process for council oversight.

46:23We are here to potentially schedule a hearing.

46:26We are not here to hold one today.

46:28We'll hear from the administration tomorrow afternoon, and we can ask questions specific to the discovery of Housing Bureau funds then.

46:37Today we're considering, should council use our oversight powers on these matters?

46:42Is this the right way that we use those powers?

46:44Thank you.

46:46I will just note again, we are not having the oversight hearing today, and under Robert's Rules, debate on an item must be confined to the merits of the pending motion.

46:53So I expect our body to observe the rules in the chamber today.

46:56I'm gonna turn this over to Councilor Mitch Green.

46:59Thank you, Council President.

47:02Before I get into— I have a short presentation that I'm gonna share, but before I get into that, I just wanna thank my co-sponsors for joining me on this.

47:09Councilor Avalos, who's the chair of the Housing and Homelessness Committee, And Councilor Morillo for your stalwart oversight stance.

47:16Thanks for your help in developing this and support for this.

47:19Before I get into the presentation, I think I'd just like to offer my co-sponsors a few minutes to offer remarks as well.

47:24So I'll just begin with Councilor Avalos.

47:26Thanks.

47:27Thank you, Councilor Green.

47:29Yeah, colleagues, so I think I just wanna start off by naming the elephant in the room.

47:34This is uncomfortable, but this is also really important what we're gonna be talking about because this resolution is centered on the nearly $21 million in unspent But also this weekend, we were informed that the Portland Housing Bureau may also have millions of dollars sitting unspent in the housing investment fund.

47:53That pattern really matters, and it gets to the heart of why Portlanders voted for stronger oversight powers under a new form of government.

48:00Under the old system, bureaus operated in silos and accounting practices varied widely across the city.

48:06Commissioners were structurally incentivized to protect their own bureaus, which created a culture where full financial transparency was often discouraged.

48:12Councilmember Herbold.

48:14So this resolution before us today is not about just any one bureau or not about assigning blame to any individual.

48:21It is about whether our new system is working the way Portlanders were promised that it would, with real transparency, shared accountability, and responsible stewardship of public dollars.

48:31This resolution allows council and the public to understand what happened, how information was shared, and whether our current procedures are sufficient to prevent situations like this going forward.

48:39Councilmember Loretta Smith.

48:40So today we have an opportunity to model what oversight looks like under this new charter, not as punishment, but as a normal, necessary function of a healthy government.

48:49Thank you.

48:50Thank you, Councilor Avalos.

48:52Councilor Morillo.

48:53Thank you, Councilor Green.

48:56I really appreciate and echo everything that Councilor Avalos laid out as the housing chair.

49:00And I want to remind my colleagues that as the legislative body, we exercise 3 core authorities.

49:08We have oversight, budget, and legislation.

49:11And those are not separate tools.

49:12They are meant to function in concert.

49:14And oversight is arguably the main part of this because it enables both budgeting and legislation, because it is how we learn that government actually works together.

49:25And we need to study the failures from the bottom up, not by legislating from vibes or pretending that we are experts in outsourcing our thinking.

49:33We need to make sure that we actually have accurate data so that we can legislate from an informed position.

49:39Oversight is where gaps, failures, and missed opportunities actually become visible.

49:44And once those realities are made visible by detailed accounting and oversight, they naturally inform how and where we exercise our budget authority and how we legislate deliberately and transparently for the public.

49:56That is why an oversight hearing on lost or mismanaged funds is not backwards looking.

50:00Thank you.

50:01It is one of the highest forms of state capacity, learning from failure in order to allocate resources more wisely and design rules or plans that prevent recurrence of government failures.

50:12Historically, the city has relied way too heavily on a system where individual elected officials were expected to personally manage complex bureaus, hoping that the right skills, judgment, and bandwidth happened to align.

50:24That structure produced silos and overreliance on unaccountable systems.

50:28Or staff, which is increasingly a problem if we do have staff turnover in bureaus because there is information that is lost with every person that leaves.

50:38We correct that by embracing our oversight role.

50:41Oversight is how council governs as a body, building the expertise necessary to translate public interest and mass politics into policy that actually functions in city bureaucracy.

50:52It is how we restore public trust and ensure accountability as stewards of city funds.

50:55Councilmember Loretta Smith.

50:56And it is how we move from a city that reacts to problems to one that systematically prevents them.

51:02We are facing one of the toughest budget cycles I have ever seen, and I had worked in the prior form of government, and we are being asked to make incredibly tough decisions about precious programs that are being cut, about important staff that may need to be cut, and we cannot appropriately do our jobs if we do not have all of the information in front of us.

51:23About the exact number of dollars that we have to work with.

51:26So I would really urge my colleagues to understand that this is part of our role as City Council is to engage in that oversight work.

51:34And I'm very grateful that Councilor Green brought this forward and that we are going to hopefully show what it means to be responsible with people's public dollars.

51:44Thank you.

51:46Thank you for your comments and your support, Councilor Morillo.

51:49Uh, Keelan, if I just want to share a presentation, I just share my screen?

51:52Is it, is it that simple?

51:54Okay, great.

51:54Bear with me as I fuddle my way through this.

51:58Um, hopefully it's not too awkward.

52:01All right, there it is.

52:08Okay.

52:10No.

52:19It is awkward.

52:24Don't worry, everyone is waiting and judging you.

52:26Yeah, that's right.

52:28So that's what I want to share.

52:34Are you guys seeing a presentation?

52:36Yes.

52:36Okay.

52:37Kind of.

52:38If I, if I do that, is that better?

52:42Yes.

52:42Okay, thank you.

52:43Hooray.

52:45Okay, colleagues, I have a short presentation that I'm using to sort of walk you through essentially the context that gave cause to the resolution as well as simply what it does.

52:56So the method and the process here.

52:57So it's a resolution that's very specifically focused on a particular episode around these fund balances that have been in the news.

53:06It's really focused on the $21 million from last fall, last summer and fall.

53:10So I'll get into that.

53:13Gonna describe the purpose, the timeline of context here, why we're doing this in the first place, the method and the process.

53:20Then we— I can open up for questions to you guys.

53:23So, you know, you've all seen the press on this.

53:26There's been a range of reporting on the discovery of, You know, roughly $21 million of unspent and unbudgeted and unaccounted for funds that were discovered in the Portland Housing Bureau.

53:41And then there's been subsequent reporting on an even later, a newer tranche of this.

53:48And so the context here is that the public was made aware of this at the same time council was made aware of this money and rightfully have a lot of questions.

53:57When did the city know about this?

54:00Why were we not using these monies to support Portlanders in need at the time?

54:05And frankly, just a sort of fundamental question of, does the City Council, who is the body responsible for appropriating monies and also developing policy, are they willing to step in and ask questions through an oversight lens when we are found with discrepancies on the administration's So those are the public questions that I think provide the context and impetus for this.

54:30Just by way of context here and grounding, you know, Council's this legislative body that has both the power and I would argue the duty to exercise that oversight role.

54:44You know, when we pass laws and we develop our budgets, we don't do that and then walk away.

54:50We do that with the intention of making sure that the administration executes to those priorities.

54:56I would argue that it's especially important.

54:58It was always important to do oversight for City Council, but it's especially important in the new form of government that's post-charter, which really does separate the legislative function from the executive side, because we no longer have any executive authority at all.

55:17We don't.

55:19We don't tell the city administrator how to execute our will.

55:22We provide that will through legislation.

55:25So we do need to come back and do the oversight when necessary.

55:29And I think given the nature of these fund balance discoveries and the fact that council was not informed in a timely fashion when these significant sums were first identified over the summer, I think presents serious risks for the city.

55:44Thank you.

55:44Of the public trust.

55:45And I've already heard that from my constituents.

55:47We've read that in the press.

55:48And I do want to note, however, and this is really important, and it's in the spirit of being fair here, is that my understanding is that the most recent discovery of even more money was actually quite timely in terms of the communication.

56:04I understand that as soon as Ruth found this money, first thing she did was pick up the phone and call the council president.

56:10So when I talk about the period of timeliness and communication, I really do— I really am confining that to the The August through November period.

56:18I think that's a really important piece to bring into this discussion.

56:22And for the public following along, there is a distinction there.

56:26That doesn't mean that we don't— of course it adds context here, but I think if we do this oversight work on the $21 million period, it will help us be better for how we think about this broader auditing conversation going forward.

56:40And then finally, I think, The way that— if you have a lack of public trust in government, the obligation to restore that public trust falls to City Council, right?

56:51We were the ones who appropriated the money in the first place to develop the laws.

56:54We can't cast blame to the administration.

56:57We can't kick— sorry, we can't kick the can over, pass the buck, so to speak, to the city administrator or the mayor on this.

57:04This really is City Council's obligation to restore that public trust through this oversight action.

57:08Thank you.

57:09So that's why I'm motivating this.

57:12For context, colleagues, the timeline that I think provides the impetus for this resolution, and it's described in the whereas clauses, is that on August 8th, Council was notified by the then City Administrator Michael Jordan that we should expect a mid-year budget shortfall driven primarily by Underperformance, if you will, in our business license taxes on the order of about $12 million.

57:39So that's the information that we were provided in August to let us know that we had to prepare for a technical accounting adjustment ordinance in the fall that would close that gap.

57:49There would be some cuts involved.

57:50So that's what we know on August 8th.

57:53But what we didn't know is that also in August, the Portland Housing Bureau had discovered A significant amount of money that was not in the budget and was not accounted for.

58:06And while there was some uncertainty in the range of what that balance was, we know that as early as late August, that was communicated to be at least $11 million.

58:16So there's some uncertainty of the fund balance, but we know that there's significant fund balance.

58:20And I'll note that that's at the same scale as the shortfall in the BLT.

58:23And so when we think about whether it's A significant discrepancy to share with council.

58:29If it's the same magnitude as the thing that's driving your TAO adjustment requirement, that is significant in my view.

58:37By October, council is then presented with a TAO proposal by the city administrator.

58:42And, you know, we've got a work session on this.

58:44I think it was October 22nd, if I have my memory right.

58:49It's late October.

58:50And then through October and mid-November, we debate.

58:53Thank you.

58:54We consider amendments.

58:55We move the TAO through the Finance Committee and then the full council, all while we still don't know about this money.

59:01Okay, so council's considering a fall TAO without knowledge that there is potentially significant sums that need to be brought into that ordinance to balance our books.

59:13And then we find out on November 20th, after we've gone through that TAO process, that there is $21 million.

59:20That's right.

59:21So, and that's when you start to see reporting from the public saying, trying to draw a linkage between other events that happened this summer related to the Portland Housing Bureau, but as well as sort of casting doubt on our ability to govern, frankly.

59:38And then in December, I worked to develop an oversight methodology.

59:43I joined with some co-sponsors and I tried to bring this forward for a 9/12 session.

59:46I think that's what we're going to do.

59:47Agenda item for the last council meeting of the month because there were still unresolved questions surrounding this money, and I felt it was necessary to engage in some sort of a formal step more formally into the oversight space.

1:00:02That didn't get the support of 9/12, although I do want to thank the 7 councilors who did join me in that.

1:00:08And now here we are.

1:00:09It's February 2026.

1:00:11We were notified yesterday or 2 days ago.

1:00:13Thank you.

1:00:15Of potentially much more money being available.

1:00:19And so I think that's just the next, the latest piece of context.

1:00:21And now we're here discussing this resolution today.

1:00:27So how do we go about this?

1:00:28You know, we don't have— our charter gives us investigatory power, but we don't really have any adopted rules that clarify how we might do oversight.

1:00:36So the resolution contemplates a process.

1:00:40When we think of oversight, I want to say that oversight always exists on a scale between informal and formal.

1:00:49So there's different ways to do oversight with varying degrees of formality.

1:00:53I would just say we do it all the time in the most informal sense when we ask a casual inquiry from the dais of a bureau director or the city administrator or the mayor.

1:01:02We do it when we send emails to the administration saying, hey, I heard this from my constituents.

1:01:06I have a question.

1:01:08They believe that it's like maybe not in line with our policies.

1:01:12Can I get some more information on this?

1:01:13And that's a normal routine part of the work.

1:01:15And I think that's where oversight should normally live.

1:01:19Very informal, non-adversarial.

1:01:22It's just really sort of our constant engagement.

1:01:25At the most formal expression of this, council would invoke subpoenas and make people swear in under oath.

1:01:32And I think that's something we want to avoid.

1:01:33Thank you.

1:01:34And used very, very sparingly.

1:01:36And so the method that I've contemplated here sits somewhere in the middle.

1:01:41It's formal because we're passing a resolution to say this body's going to invoke that power, but we're nowhere near directing the auditor to go out and issue subpoenas and having people lawyer up and put their hand on the sacred text of their choice and say, I swear that what I'm about to say is true.

1:01:59I think that's a good point.

1:02:00So this is really a kind of middle ground in terms of formality.

1:02:06And just to remind you of the charter authority that gives us, I would say, just not only the power but the duty here.

1:02:13You know, the underlying motive here and contemplation in our charter is that in order for council to do its legislative function, right, if we're to do our work well, we need to have the information that we need to do that work.

1:02:25Thank you.

1:02:26And if we find we're in a situation where we don't have that, the full picture, or there's key facts missing, then we are empowered by Charter Section 2-109 to compel the production of books, documents, evidence.

1:02:42We can go so far as issuing subpoenas for folks to show up and talk to us.

1:02:48But we don't do that here in this resolution.

1:02:49We're just simply saying we want to collect these records.

1:02:51Thank you.

1:02:52We want to bring this into the Council Ops to help us collate this, and then we're going to schedule an oversight hearing with invitations, not summons, to come and talk to us and answer to a structured set of questions that are also in the resolution, with plenty of time for folks to get ready for that.

1:03:09So in the resolution itself, it documents a process.

1:03:12The first, if we adopt this resolution today, it would direct the city administrator to share Relevant public records with council and council operations by February 20th.

1:03:23So that's sort of going through and saying what's responsive in our record surrounding the questions that follow here in item 3, and then getting that to council ops and also councilors to start to consume and think about in advance of an oversight hearing.

1:03:38The step 2 in the process really asks council ops to help us be this sort of Independent arbiter of like, here's the information we collected in this process and here's what we got from the city, but also here's what we got from other sources because there's other information that's floating out there too.

1:03:54And I think it's really important for council to be able to delineate between, you know, here's what a journalist submitted as part of their reporting versus what we actually get from our own internal systems.

1:04:04It's really important.

1:04:06And it's also important that this doesn't just go to Councilor Green's inbox.

1:04:08Yeah.

1:04:09And then I'm the one sifting through the data and then I'm saying, here's what I found.

1:04:12It needs to go to all of us and it needs to go to council ops to help them do this, help us do this independently and with some objectivity here.

1:04:21So the dates that you see in here are actually in the amendment that I'm going to move after I talk about this because I first wrote this thing months ago.

1:04:29So obviously you need to shift the dates.

1:04:31But then finally, council president will schedule an oversight hearing no later than March 6th.

1:04:35Yes.

1:04:36With invitations for testimony.

1:04:38So again, we're not compelling anyone to show up, but we're saying we would like you to show up and answer, help us, you know, get some clarity on the information we found for relevant individuals to address the following questions.

1:04:50And these are just outlined in the resolution because I wanted this to be focused and not just a scattershot of whatever, wherever the heck I'm thinking about that day.

1:04:58Like, let's, let's really focus on these very specific questions, which is.

1:05:01Thank you.

1:05:01What happened to the funds and what led them to— what led to them not being spent in prior years?

1:05:07Who was aware of the funds?

1:05:08At what point in time was each party made aware?

1:05:11Why was council not informed in a timely manner?

1:05:13Third, what dynamics led to this information not being shared with council, and what was the sequence of events given that council had received differing accounts of what has occurred?

1:05:23That's where you get this engagement with this outside narrative construction through the press.

1:05:28Right.

1:05:29And then finally, to what degree decisions were made around these funds and when information was or wasn't shared as it pertains to the development of the Fall Towel, which I think is absolutely critical because, again, some people in the city government had information about money in the development of the Fall Towel and others did not, and specifically council did not.

1:05:50So that's really important to figure out.

1:05:52So that's the process outlined by the resolution.

1:05:56And it leaves it to the council president to schedule these oversight hearings.

1:06:02And then I'll just note that after I'm done with this, I'm gonna move Green 1, which just adjusts the underlying to have the dates that are matched on this slide.

1:06:10So maybe I'll leave this slide up here and we can just move into questions.

1:06:14Great.

1:06:14We can do technical clarifying questions from councilors in queue.

1:06:19Councilor Green, Have you moved the amendment specifically so public testimony can be reacting to the actual language?

1:06:25We'll vote on the testimony, or we'll vote after testimony on the amendment and then vote on the resolution.

1:06:31Councilor Clark?

1:06:34I don't have clarifying questions.

1:06:36Great.

1:06:36Councilor Novick?

1:06:39Yes, thank you, Mr. President.

1:06:41My question, Councilor Green, is about what relevance this Information might have had to the TAO.

1:06:48As I recall, one of the major issues with the TAO was what reaction was the council going to make to the prospect of a general fund shortfall in this year.

1:07:00And although I proposed taking some of this housing money and putting it into the general fund, it appears I was in a distinct minority.

1:07:10So I'm just wondering how you think that the information would've affected what we did about the TAO?

1:07:18Yeah, I mean, I can tell you straight up that, Councilor, it's a great question.

1:07:22Had I any indication early on whatsoever that there was RSO funds or restricted funds related to housing and tenant stabilization or rental assistance, my participation in an amendment process would look differently.

1:07:38Like if you'll recall in Morillo 1, we were trying to get money for rent assistance.

1:07:43And we were paying for it by, in part, cutting into the impact reduction program.

1:07:49It's entirely likely that I would not have gone down that very controversial road had I known that there was $21 million or maybe even $10 million at play in that.

1:07:59Those negotiations could have been quite different.

1:08:01Those conversations could have been quite different.

1:08:03But in the absence of that information, I didn't know that.

1:08:06And so— I think that's a fair point.

1:08:08I'm speaking for my part and how I engaged in that process.

1:08:11That would have been really critical information.

1:08:12But I think what I'm more worried about fundamentally is if we're developing a TAO that looks at all of our fund balances and we're not considering the inclusion of this new money that's being found.

1:08:29So we're, you know, we're putting forward an adjustment ordinance that it's not balanced anyway.

1:08:34I think that's a fair point.

1:08:35Because we have not allocated those monies.

1:08:37So there's that piece too.

1:08:38So I'm not sure if that answers your question.

1:08:44Thank you, Council President.

1:08:48Councilor Green, I'm looking at the new dates on your amendment, and I am just wondering if you ran those dates by the administration.

1:08:59Are they going to be able to meet those dates?

1:09:01Same for Council Operations and Council President.

1:09:04Are you going to be able to schedule this work session by March 6th?

1:09:08I know how backed up our calendar is.

1:09:13Yeah, I can— I'll start with the— you know, I did check in with Council Ops, and I think the initial concern was like, whoa, these dates are— I have to get this data tomorrow because the underlying didn't have those adjusted.

1:09:24But I think when we first anticipated this in December, The general lag periods that are built into this were workable for council ops, and with the amendment that's in play pushing it out, I didn't get any pushback.

1:09:38Dana, you're here, so you can speak for yourself, but it seems like that's workable on the council ops side.

1:09:44No, I haven't talked to CA Lee on this specifically on whether they can execute the gathering of the data request, but it is 2 weeks from today.

1:09:53Thank you.

1:09:54City Administrator, is that something that we can expect you all to be able to successfully meet?

1:10:00I believe so.

1:10:01We'll treat it like a regular open records request and try to process and get it through the process in that manner.

1:10:08Thank you.

1:10:09Council President?

1:10:11With action by council today, my team and council ops will work starting today to find time to schedule this.

1:10:17I have every confidence that we will.

1:10:19We have dates available that aren't already filled with work session needs.

1:10:23I believe we will be able to find a spot, a time.

1:10:25Okay, thank you.

1:10:29Councilor Kanal.

1:10:31Thank you, Council President.

1:10:33Um, I just have a question about, in terms of whether the questions that the resolution outlines, some questions that are going to be able to be asked in this, uh, hearing, and I wanted to understand if that list was exhaustive, uh, or if there are other questions that would be— is it designed that this is the of it exclusively, or could we talk about other things in it, either by virtue of adding that to the resolution or just bringing them up live?

1:10:56It's a good question.

1:10:57So my intent by putting the specific questions in there was to sort of model what we've seen in some other styles, in particular in Baltimore, where they say, we'd like the infrastructure bureau to show up and present on this item, and here are some very specific questions you want to be prepared for.

1:11:14And so I think the idea is to provide these as a general enough skeleton there To give the city administrator enough of a focus frame to do that records request, because you can't really— you can't do that public records gathering if you don't really know what the scope is limited to.

1:11:30But once we get the information for us to digest and we show up to this oversight hearing, I think that we are free to explore any line of questioning that's relevant to that.

1:11:43So if there's not a very specific edge case, Or if there's not an aspect of this that's not contemplated here, that's in part because we don't necessarily know what the full scopes of questions are going to be until we see the information come back.

1:11:56And then the resolution leaves it open for the council president to schedule as many oversight hearings as are necessary to sort of close the question.

1:12:05So the very first one is sort of our opportunity to react to what information is collated and collected for us.

1:12:12But where we go from there, I think, is going to depend upon, you know, our judgment as a body and the presiding officer's judgment as to whether we're engaged in relevant questioning.

1:12:21And I think that's also part of what we're trying to establish here in terms of norms, because what I really want to avoid is this becoming a sort of like, you know, what's the word I'm looking for, like a kangaroo court in some sense.

1:12:36Yes.

1:12:37Yeah, this really needs to be productive.

1:12:39And I can't stress enough that like this isn't trying to do a gotcha on any particular aspect of this city, but say, here are some questions for us to focus on.

1:12:48We can't rule out that there aren't new questions that emerge from that, if that makes sense.

1:12:53Yeah, I'm reading it because it says, including without limitation communications and other information pertinent to understanding the following questions, just trying to understand which part is the without limitation here.

1:13:05I'm broadly supportive of it, but I'm trying to understand, especially as it relates to the 4th question, to what degree were decisions made around these funds and what information was or wasn't shared?

1:13:14And then it says, as it pertains to development of the Fall Tower proposal.

1:13:17And so the questions that I'm interested in also adding to this are, how many, if any, positions have been eliminated at the Housing Bureau in the course of the time since this money started being accrued?

1:13:29Would any of those positions have been able to be funded?

1:13:31By these dollars given the restrictions that the money has in all of these streams?

1:13:36Were any of the positions filled or were they all vacant at the time of their elimination?

1:13:41And then just related to that, if any of those positions are represented.

1:13:44And so I think that that's maybe outside the scope of the TAO, except as it relates to the explanation you were giving, Councilor Green, about the amendment, Morillo 1.

1:13:54But I do think that it was relevant to previous budget cycles, including So I'm trying to understand if that's something that, that maybe the information that we get will lead us to those questions.

1:14:05But I at least wanted to mention that out loud from a legislative intent perspective, that that is something I'm interested in asking about.

1:14:12No, that's noted there.

1:14:14Yeah.

1:14:15Thank you, Councilor Smith.

1:14:20Thank you, Council President Dunphy.

1:14:25I have a, um, couple of technical questions that I need DCA Oliveira and CFO Biery and Director Bonacar to ask before I can make an educated vote on this particular piece.

1:14:44Could they come up here for a second?

1:14:52And as our staff are approaching, I will recall we're not— we're mostly focusing on process at this moment, not on the specifics.

1:14:59And that's what I'm— yeah, perfect.

1:15:00I just want to make sure we're talking about today having a— our first oversight.

1:15:11But before we can have an oversight, I need to know who to talk to.

1:15:16So can you explain to me, um, CFO Biery, how do you all get information from the bureaus?

1:15:26Not just the Portland Housing Bureau, but all of the bureaus.

1:15:30You all don't handle that information.

1:15:32That comes directly from the bureaus.

1:15:34And if I think this in my head, that you depend on them to give you the information, you don't gather the information.

1:15:42So could you explain to me how do you all get the information, the financial budget information?

1:15:48Yeah, Councilor, I'll attempt and let me know if I'm not answering the question the way you're looking for it.

1:15:54For the record, Jonas Biery, the city's Chief Financial Officer.

1:15:57So the primary method of gathering this information is through the budget development process managed through the City Budget Office and Ruth Levine, Director of that office, as mentioned earlier.

1:16:08So typically as that budget, annual budget development effort occurs, there's a coordinated effort between the bureaus and the City Budget Office to submit, as the bureaus submit that information.

1:16:23Right.

1:16:23The Budget Office with other participation kind of reviews, assesses, and translates that information into the budget document.

1:16:34We then also have periodic checkpoints, as you know, the technical adjustment ordinances which are an opportunity to get eyes on that as well.

1:16:44So that's generally the process.

1:16:46This is not your data.

1:16:47This is the bureau's data that comes to you.

1:16:52The bureau submits information through the city budget systems based upon the guidance that's provided.

1:16:59And so I just want to be— the source of the information is the bureaus.

1:17:04It comes to the council.

1:17:05Budget Office to help manage that, and it becomes— it's city data.

1:17:08I just want to be clear about it.

1:17:09It's not owned by—.

1:17:10It's all city data.

1:17:11But what I'm trying to differentiate between, because if we're going to try to get information, we need to know where the data originates from.

1:17:18Correct.

1:17:18So it doesn't originate from you.

1:17:21And the reason why I wanted to talk to you too, DC Oliveira, that information for your particular departments that are under your purview, Is that information that you get from the bureaus as well?

1:17:37This is not information that you actually come up with, it's from the bureaus, correct?

1:17:43DC Oliveira, for the record.

1:17:44Donnie Oliveira.

1:17:45Correct, Councilor.

1:17:46Okay, so then my next question is going to be to, uh, Director Bonacar.

1:17:53So do you create the information?

1:17:57So when we're asking for information, we're going to call this oversight hearing, if this passes, do you have like finance people in your department that creates this information, or— and then they give it to the director?

1:18:08Because you're the director, correct?

1:18:10Correct.

1:18:11But you have individual— you have a whole finance team, correct?

1:18:14Correct.

1:18:16And how many of those people do you have?

1:18:18Because I think that's going to be very important when we're sending out invitations.

1:18:22We need to know who to send the invitation to.

1:18:27I think there, there will be clarity on who that should be.

1:18:30I, I think—.

1:18:31I mean, how many finance people do you have in your department?

1:18:33I think the team is about 8 or 9 folks.

1:18:35So you have about 8 or 9 people who are responsible for different sources of money that comes into your department, who's responsible for keeping track of all this information, correct?

1:18:46Yes.

1:18:47So I just want to make sure, um, Councilor Green, that we're clear because A lot of us may think that we're going to talk to Ruth and Jonas and, uh, DC Oliveira only, but that's not, that's not the ticket from what I understand.

1:19:07We have to talk to those 8 or 9 people who are directly responsible for keeping track of the dollars in those, in those bureaus.

1:19:18And so I think we have been kind of led in a different way, as if CFO Biery is responsible for the data.

1:19:30But that data comes from a department that comes from a particular group of finance officers who actually do the numbers and are responsible.

1:19:42And so I have one more question for you, CFO Biery.

1:19:45Yes.

1:19:46Oh no, no, I'll go back to Director Bonacourt.

1:19:49So do all of the, the different pots of money, do they get reported every year?

1:19:56Do you know that the 3 that actually got reported late or have a surplus, are they required to, to report every single year?

1:20:10For the record, yes.

1:20:11Yes.

1:20:11Okay, so they are.

1:20:12Okay, so make sure you put that as a part of your questioning, because if they're supposed to report every year with that large of a surplus, it appears that it wasn't just one year.

1:20:26It appears that there probably were multiple years that these funds built up.

1:20:32So I want to make sure that we're asking the right questions of the people when we actually have an oversight.

1:20:39Um, the other issue is, is there a timeline from which we are supposed to get the information when you end your budget session?

1:20:47Um, Director Bonacar, is there a timeline that you're supposed to go by to make sure that CFO Biery has all the information?

1:20:58I mean, like, do you have like a checklist?

1:21:00Like, okay, I want to make sure that this— the rental assistance— I want to make sure that the Airbnb money I want to make sure— is there a process that you all have internally to get the information to Ruth, who is at the Central Budgeting Office, and to your DCA, who is your direct supervisor?

1:21:19Do you have a checklist that you mark off every year when you're doing this?

1:21:25And I know you just became the, the new interim director.

1:21:29We had a previous director that was terminated a couple of months ago.

1:21:33But she was here for 3 years and you were the assistant director, but you should know some of this protocol.

1:21:39And I'm just trying to figure out so that we know what the protocol is so that we're asking the right questions.

1:21:45She was not here for 3 years.

1:21:47Uh, she was here for 2 years.

1:21:48Thank you for, for, um, but she was here for 2 years and she resigned.

1:21:57Thank you.

1:21:58Uh, she separated from the city, but That's— I know some of this falls on the previous director, but I'm trying to figure out, is there a natural protocol that everybody has to follow every year when we go down the budget cycle?

1:22:11That's what I'm trying to figure out.

1:22:14There is.

1:22:14Just for the record, I served previously as the interim director for the Portland Housing Bureau and then spent a little bit of transition time with Helmi as she sort of onboarded and moved from California.

1:22:25Okay.

1:22:26So still in a learning process, but the broad answer to your question is yes.

1:22:31Is yes.

1:22:31Okay, so we can expect that.

1:22:33So if we ask some questions like that of the financial folks who— the 8 people who are responsible for this— that they should know about when they reported monies.

1:22:45So that, I mean, that's going to get to the— that's going to get to it if they reported the money or not, because it sounds like they're supposed to report the money annually And it appears that we have a surplus that covered it multi-years.

1:23:00I'm just making a statement.

1:23:01I'm just, I'm just saying, so, so when we ask those questions, that they won't be surprised that you said that there's a protocol.

1:23:08And if we ask them and they say it's not a protocol, then we need to be believing what you and DCA Oliveira are saying.

1:23:16Because you can understand right now that all of us Individually and collectively, we are really trying to figure out how to reconcile because we're feeling uncomfortable right now.

1:23:27And again, Councilor, I would just— we're starting to edge into some of the content rather than process.

1:23:31I'm making a statement.

1:23:32I'm just saying what I feel uncomfortable about.

1:23:35But what will make me feel more comfortable is I know that they have a protocol, and if we ask a question, that they should be able to answer those questions within the line.

1:23:46And the last question that I have for, for you, um, I understand that you don't want to make this a kangaroo court, um, Councilor Green, and I'm just wondering, to avoid that, why don't we just call this actual hearing in our Arts and Economy, under which, uh, the Housing Bureau brings all their issues to?

1:24:08Why don't we just do that?

1:24:09Yeah, so I've got a I thought about that, and what the charter says, 2-106 or 109, is that council as a body or a duly designated committee can do oversight.

1:24:24We don't have that power conferred on our individual committees, and I think that there's— this is a matter of significance such that every— all 12 of us who are elected should be at the in the room where you're asking the questions and you're engaging with this discovery process, not, not a subcommittee of council.

1:24:42Okay.

1:24:42So that's what I think it's really important for us to do it in this formal way.

1:24:53Um, but one thing that I would change is I don't believe that Council Ops need to be responsible for this, for putting this together.

1:25:00I think this is so important.

1:25:02If we're going to do this, That needs to come out of the council president's office.

1:25:07The council president needs to be in charge of this whole process and putting this on, not council ops.

1:25:13Just, just let me clarify here.

1:25:15Council ops is only just handling, like, receiving the data from the city administrator as well as, like, journalists who might have some information on this and providing repository for us to, um, to access The council president will actually do the scheduling of the oversight hearings themselves, engage in the invitations based upon the outcome of that discovery, and then allow us to structure this.

1:25:40Exactly.

1:25:41That's what I'm saying.

1:25:42So I want to make it clear that Council Ops is not responsible for this, that we have an elected person who is our council president who should be running this show, not Council Ops.

1:25:52I don't want them to think in no kind of way that they're the last word on this.

1:25:56It needs to come from our, our council president, and that needs to be made clear And I'll just note for the record, the buck stops with me, but Councilor Lott— I wanted to be clear that it stops with you because this, this actual resolution doesn't, doesn't make it seem like that.

1:26:11It makes it seem like they're the last stop.

1:26:13You're the last stop.

1:26:14Absolutely.

1:26:14Okay, thank you very much for, uh, giving me that technical information.

1:26:18Thank you, Councilor Smith.

1:26:19Councilor Novick.

1:26:21Thank you, Mr. President.

1:26:22Uh, I just wanted to actually, if you could stay, um, uh, DCA Biery, um, Mr. Bonaccart, the question— I wanna follow up on something that Councilor Smith already alluded to.

1:26:32Is it true, do we know that actually this money was accumulating for more than one year, that it's probably over several years?

1:26:41Councilor, I believe that that's true, that the balance as it exists accumulated.

1:26:46It's not as binary as that because there's funds that come in and funds that go out.

1:26:51And so it's difficult to track that.

1:26:53But I do believe it was not, A point-in-time activity.

1:26:57I also just maybe take a quick moment to be clear about sort of the reality of legacy systems that existed prior to this form of government that do not exist today.

1:27:08And so I just think that's really important consideration as we're talking about, you know, the kind of maybe the root causes that led us here are not the same as the reality that we face in our financial oversight and management systems today.

1:27:23And so I just think that's important consideration for— Thank you.

1:27:26Thank you, Councilor Novick.

1:27:30Councilor Kanal.

1:27:32Hi, uh, just quick technical question because that just opened the door.

1:27:36You operate on, on first in, first out though, in terms of how you're— when you're talking about things that accumulate over years, right?

1:27:42Like, what's your basis for, um, kind of have to make a working assumption?

1:27:47Yeah, Councilor, I think— I mean, we're, we're, we're— I want to be careful that we're not kind of conflating because there's sort of the accounting principle of first in, first out, and that may be different from the way that You know, fund dollars are tracked in various funds and subfunds.

1:28:01Fair enough.

1:28:03Okay, I just wanted to— that's my only question for you.

1:28:05I don't know if anyone else has, but I wanted to just talk about one quick thing related to the question that Councilor Smith asked about why this isn't going to committee and the assignment.

1:28:17We have talked about potentially that being a role of the Committee of the Whole in the future.

1:28:21That's a good idea.

1:28:23It wouldn't necessarily have to be there, but it's an option in the future should we allow for that creation and then create it.

1:28:29But that wouldn't happen before the timeline that this document lays out.

1:28:33So I just wanted to clarify that effectively, as of this moment, our only option is to have it be the full council if we're going to do a formalized process.

1:28:42And I do think we should.

1:28:43Thanks.

1:28:44Thank you, Councilor Knoll.

1:28:45Councilor Zimmerman.

1:28:47Thank you.

1:28:47Just a couple of technical questions, and I I truly don't know who the right source to ask or to answer these would be.

1:28:55I'm wondering how staff will appear, and then I guess the A to that would be how do unionized staff appear?

1:29:03Does the city attorney represent them?

1:29:05Does the union represent them?

1:29:07Do we expect legal representation to occur?

1:29:10And considering that a significant part of the situation Probably a major source of information would be the former housing director.

1:29:22What authorities does the council have if such a hearing were to occur to get information from the head of the organization that is in question, which is the former housing director, since she's separated with a large payment agreement out in severance?

1:29:34So do we have the ability to get information from her?

1:29:39And—.

1:29:41How will the council, because this would be a new step, how will the council receive, I'm gonna call it training, on what this can look like, should look like, probably from our city attorney, and to make sure that we don't turn into what I'm very concerned will be is, an inquiry that really jumps the bounds of good order.

1:30:13So that's kind of where some of my technical questions lie right now before we discuss.

1:30:19I can speak to some of that.

1:30:22In terms of the, how do you compel someone who maybe doesn't work here anymore or may be relevant to the questioning to show up?

1:30:32What the structure that we're contemplating in this specific resolution is To stop short of actually issuing summons and subpoenas.

1:30:40And so if people choose not to show up, then I think they choose not to show up.

1:30:45And then it's up to us to decide whether or not that is a gap in our line of questioning, and then to contemplate taking the next step to direct.

1:30:53I think the way the charter would lay it out, or per city attorney's guidance to me when I was thinking through this, was to then say, okay, if you have a discrete Very specific person that you want to show up who's not gonna accept the invitation, then you would direct the auditor or the mayor to issue a subpoena.

1:31:11And at that point, you need to give 'em plenty of time.

1:31:13And then we've entered a whole new world.

1:31:14So I think in this structure here, I'm not contemplating that we actually compel people who don't wanna show up to show up.

1:31:23What I'm thinking in terms of staff is it's an invitation for staff to come up and engage in a line of questioning.

1:31:30And I think it's incumbent on us to be—.

1:31:31Thank you.

1:31:32Fair and not put them in a situation where there are— we're saying, okay, you're under oath, any false— anything you say is a lie here, because we're not putting them under oath.

1:31:43And so in some sense, it's not terribly different than any time that we do talk to them up here in our work sessions or our committee work.

1:31:51The only difference is that we're intentionally inviting them based upon information that we would get in the data collection system or process.

1:31:58Thank you.

1:32:04Welcome, Heidi Brown.

1:32:05Come on up, City Attorney.

1:32:09Good afternoon, Council.

1:32:10Council President, Council Vice President, all of you.

1:32:13Heidi Brown, for the record, she/her pronouns, and I'm with the City Attorney's Office, and I'm acting City Attorney while our City Attorney is out.

1:32:23Councilor, you had a question about who represents the city.

1:32:27People in this process, you know, so our office represents the city as an organization.

1:32:35And so we provide advice to the city as an organization.

1:32:38So if an individual employee wanted to bring an attorney with them, we would need to look at that.

1:32:49I mean, because, so—.

1:32:50Thank you.

1:32:52You're talking about an employment investigation, not a criminal or civil liability investigation, and we have a right to ask our employees questions.

1:33:04If they're questions that could— that the employee reasonably believes could lead to discipline, then we give them the right to have a union representative present with them.

1:33:14Their role, though, is very limited in that we still have a right as an employer to ask So it's not an easy question.

1:33:25If you wanted to— if you have concerns about conduct by city employees, one option would be to request that the city administrator have the Bureau of Human Resources do an investigation to see if misconduct has occurred.

1:33:44So for example, we get complaints about We get complaints to the Ombuds Office at times or to the Auditor's Office at times that may be within their purview, but sometimes they're not and they allege misconduct by an employee.

1:33:57And those investigations get referred over to the Bureau of Human Resources.

1:34:01So, you know, that is one way to proceed that would kind of fall within our normal process and then also have an investigation occur.

1:34:12Thank you.

1:34:13In our normal manner, which would allow them to bring their union representative with them rather than at a public setting, which makes it a little more challenging.

1:34:21And then, you know, you can certainly request that that investigative file be presented to you as part of this investigation.

1:34:28Thank you for that explanation.

1:34:36It seems to me that some information that would come out of such a hearing by March 6 could result in an employee disciplinary, uh, investigation.

1:34:48And that's concerning for me.

1:34:50That the— I will also say that before I get into other statements, the timelines I do think are quite aggressive for a reasonable amount of time to pull data and, and get— I mean, I certainly would not appear without representation in front of this body based on the way that this is going.

1:35:04So I— this is why I'm asking my questions about this, because From what I understand in our discussions with Ruth, a number of her employees are unionized employees.

1:35:14And if I was a union rep, I'd die on that dais before I came and let my employee come in without representation.

1:35:21So I would be very concerned about that.

1:35:24And so given that, I do think the timeline is worth discussion if this goes forward, because I think that the timeline as it stands doesn't look like a timeline that would get Any participation, because if you're up against a bad timeline, you choose just not to go, to make the point.

1:35:42And so this is where I think representation is probably going to come into part of this if this goes forward.

1:35:47And so, um, and I, and I certainly believe that if this goes forward, it will result in some decision-making about employee conduct.

1:35:57Um, investigations from what comes out of that table.

1:36:03So thank you, Heidi, for that.

1:36:05I think it is— there's a lot of gray area here and some real unknowns that, um, I'm going to keep listening.

1:36:11That gives me a lot of pause here.

1:36:13Thank you.

1:36:16Are there any other questions for me right now, or I can step away?

1:36:18I'm here.

1:36:20Okay, thank you.

1:36:21Thank you.

1:36:22Um, Councilor Smith?

1:36:25Yes, I just want to clarify, will we be able to have our own questions at this Yeah, just let me, let me walk through the process again.

1:36:35Okay.

1:36:35So if we pass this today, the directive to the city administrator will be in the span of about 2 weeks, which is the time it takes for any public rec— that's the timeline on most public records requests anyway, to go through and gather all the responsive data, the records that are inside of our city and supply that to Council Ops and, and us directly, simultaneously, by the way.

1:37:01Um, and then we will review the full gamut of information that has been collected by February 27th.

1:37:08And then from there, we draft our own questions that we are prepared to show up on March 6th with.

1:37:14And, you know, when we do that work, it's going to be really important that we keep in mind that we're, we're not asking anyone to place them We're not placing anyone under oath, and so the questions need to be really, uh, pre-decisional, non-judgmental, just sort of like, help me understand what I have found in this record.

1:37:30That, that's how I'm thinking about it.

1:37:32Yeah, and since we found out about this latest money, shouldn't we be adding an amendment to also find out how this latest money was not given to us as well, even though Ruth When she found out about it, she immediately told Council President.

1:37:53But it appears to me that this other money has been sitting there for multiple years too, and we didn't find out about it in the last 3 years.

1:38:03So we should also have that conversation too.

1:38:07How did this money— it's the same department and it goes into the same investment trust fund.

1:38:12I, I would say that that's probably something we should debate in the substantive part of this.

1:38:17There's a reason why I'm limiting it to the '21, but I would love to get in that argument with you, or not argument, but that discussion with you, because there's good reasons why I've chosen that.

1:38:27It's not really technical, though.

1:38:28I think that if we can understand what happened in that period of time, we probably have most of our questions answered for this new money, frankly.

1:38:35Not necessarily.

1:38:36It's a different pot of money, but there are two there.

1:38:38So that we're clear technically, and Maybe one of the, the CFO or the, or the DCA can answer this.

1:38:46Which pots of money go into the investment housing fund?

1:38:51Isn't it just the rental assistance and the—.

1:38:55We're going to get, we're going to get a memo, I think, tomorrow that's going to explain a lot of that.

1:38:59But I think—.

1:39:00But we need to know this now before we ask the question, because that, that leads me to another question, why we're not asking about this new $15 million in addition.

1:39:09Because it's been sitting there too, and it's from the same department.

1:39:14So it's the same directive or non-directive that was given not to expose those dollars to the council.

1:39:24Councilor Wright, what I'm really trying to avoid in this is leading this line of questioning by concluding that there's been wrongdoing.

1:39:34Yeah.

1:39:35What I'm really trying to do is say, here are 4 specific questions that will help us gather some information that we can review in an impartial way.

1:39:43So that way, when we go into an oversight hearing, we know what kind of questions to ask to close the books on a very specific period of history.

1:39:51I understand.

1:39:51I mean, I also think that the context of the new money is very relevant to why we need to have this discussion and set these norms.

1:39:58But I'm—.

1:39:58There's a pattern.

1:39:59But I'm really worried that We're going to muddle the scope of this by trying to add in stuff that we haven't even let—.

1:40:06So, okay, I'll keep it to the 21.

1:40:08You need to tell me how many— what monies go into this housing investment fund for the first 21?

1:40:15What, what are the 2 pots of money that we're going to be discussing?

1:40:17We, we are going to get a memo tomorrow from the city administrator that explains.

1:40:22Shouldn't you have had that before you put this resolution out?

1:40:24I put this resolution out before we learned about 15 new more million dollars.

1:40:28But we're not adding it, so it doesn't matter.

1:40:30So you should know what pots go in.

1:40:32Colleagues, we're getting into substance, not technical.

1:40:35It is technical because I need to technically know which pots of money are we talking about before I vote on it.

1:40:41Councilor, this is about us understanding what conversations happen in the city, what decision-making look like in the city.

1:40:49It's not about balances of funds necessarily so much as it is about understanding why we were not disclosed a certain amount of information during a period of time.

1:40:57So, so I'm not getting—.

1:40:58Councilor Green, if it's not about balance of the money, why are we having this?

1:41:01Why are we talking about this?

1:41:01This is a debate at this point, not clarification.

1:41:04It's clarification to me.

1:41:05It is a back and forth.

1:41:07Yeah.

1:41:07Um, there is a question, so I'm asking we hold the debate to the end.

1:41:11We have folks who are signed up to testify, and I have a couple other voices for technical clarification, and then we will move forward to public testimony.

1:41:19Councilor Maria.

1:41:21Thank you, Council President.

1:41:23Yeah, I just want to clarify from some of the questions and comments that we've received, you know, I think that there is the impression that if we do an oversight hearing, then we will find wrongdoing, and that's not true.

1:41:34The whole point of an investigation and discussion is so that we can get to the bottom of this without any presuppositions of what the outcomes might be.

1:41:44The administrative side does not seem to think that this timeline is too aggressive.

1:41:48That is only coming from this legislative body.

1:41:50If we have around $40 million in the city of Portland that's going missing while we're telling people we're going to cut beloved services, we should be getting to the bottom of this.

1:42:02And that's a dereliction of duty for us not to do that as a council body.

1:42:06And I bet if we did that through a committee, that people would then complain that they didn't get to hear it and have a discussion on it together.

1:42:13So I really want us to get into the testimony.

1:42:15I do think that we need to get to the bottom of this.

1:42:16Councilor Smith.

1:42:20Again, this, this might just be a simple result of us having turnover at high leadership in the bureau over and over again and not passing on that information, and that's why the dollars went missing.

1:42:30It could be something as innocent as that, but that still means that there's an issue with our systems and how we track funding that needs to be addressed.

1:42:37So that is what I am hoping this will uncover so that we can rectify our systems moving forward, and I just wanted to make that very clear.

1:42:44Thank you, Councilor Loretta Smith.

1:42:45And again, I will remind my colleagues, we are in technical clarifying question time.

1:42:50We will get to debate in a few minutes.

1:42:53Councilor Kanal.

1:42:54Move to limit debate on the technical questions to the current queue.

1:43:00So everybody in the queue with their hand up would still be able to ask their questions.

1:43:03Great.

1:43:03Thank you.

1:43:06Councilor Zimmerman.

1:43:08My technical question about how will the city attorney train us on how to—.

1:43:11I'm sorry, Councilor Zimmerman.

1:43:12Point of order.

1:43:13We have a motion on the table.

1:43:15My bad.

1:43:18We have to vote for— okay, whatever you want, Alana.

1:43:22I, I— if the person who made the motion wants to remove it since there's only one person in the queue, I'm fine with that, Councilor.

1:43:29But we have a motion on the table and I want to make sure that we close that.

1:43:33And just to be clear, either way, Councilor Zimmerman would still be able to speak at anyone else whose hand is up now.

1:43:38Okay, vote on the motion.

1:43:42Okay, so, um, just to clarify, Councilor Kanal made the motion to limit debate to those in the queue, and I think Councilor Novick seconded.

1:43:54Yes.

1:43:54Thank you.

1:43:56All right, we'll call the roll on this motion.

1:44:02Avalos?

1:44:02Aye.

1:44:03Smith?

1:44:05Aye.

1:44:06Bertel-Guiney.

1:44:08No.

1:44:11Ryan.

1:44:15Aye.

1:44:17Aye.

1:44:18Aye.

1:44:20Aye.

1:44:21Aye.

1:44:22The motion carries with 11 yes votes and 1 no vote.

1:44:26Glad we could do that.

1:44:27Um, I still didn't have my technical question answered about how the City Attorney intends to train the City Council to conduct such an inquiry.

1:44:36We've been trained for a lot of our different roles.

1:44:38This is new.

1:44:39So what is the training plan to ensure that we stick to questions that would be appropriate for whatever this is about to turn into?

1:44:48Can you lay out that training plan?

1:44:51Well, Councilor, since this is the first time it's come up, then I don't know that we have a plan, but what I could tell you That I can just think of would be, I do think that having people trained in investigations is helpful to have.

1:45:05So one option, maybe council wants to hire an outside investigator to perform the investigation for you and then bring forward a report from which you could then gather information.

1:45:15As the auditor's office does also, as I said earlier, they do investigations.

1:45:21And then HR, of course, does investigations.

1:45:23Thank you.

1:45:24But the, you know, the first option would be hiring an outside investigator, and that might be more appealing to all of you because, because that's somebody who's trained in that.

1:45:35Getting you all trained in that, you know, would, would take work, of course, because investigators, you know, and it depends on how much training you want, et cetera, to be able to assess whether or not there was some, whether or not this occurred, whether somebody engaged in any wrongdoing.

1:45:56And it really depends on what questions you're asking.

1:45:58And I did see the questions and I don't have 'em in the top of my head right this second.

1:46:02But I think some of the questions that I'm hearing today that you're concerned about would be helpful to have somebody who, you know, has some extensive training and is experienced in performing investigations.

1:46:13I asked that question 'cause I assume there are some questions that are Permissible and some that would not be.

1:46:20And that's similar if we're ever on a hiring panel, we usually get a brief about like how you conduct that panel, what's an appropriate line of questions, et cetera, so that we are conducting that duty appropriately.

1:46:34And so in a world where there are no parameters on the 12 councilors who are questioning, that's why I'm asking that.

1:46:43It seems like there would need to be some sort of training about what that looks like.

1:46:46Sure.

1:46:47I would certainly want it before I participated in such a thing.

1:46:50So that's a good question, Councilor.

1:46:52Thank you for clarifying what you were asking.

1:46:54I didn't understand that part of it, and that's a good point.

1:46:59I mean, for an employer investigation, and you're acting as a legislative body investigation, you're looking into this, there's the parameters are really around If you were to ask questions that were completely outside of the investigation, for example, if you're doing an investigation into this and you ask somebody whether they have a driver's license and they're driving off duty without one, that really has nothing to do with this.

1:47:30If you ask somebody about their private life, for example, that really doesn't have anything to do with this.

1:47:36You know, their marital status or things like that, they really don't have anything to do with this.

1:47:40That would be going beyond the scope that could be viewed as an unreasonable invasion of their privacy.

1:47:48But to the extent you're staying within the scope of what this is about and related to determining what happened with the funds, what's the practice been at the bureau, how the funds are reported, that is within the scope of, you know, your job as a legislative body and the city's job as a city.

1:48:06Thank you.

1:48:06City executive branch and administrative branch's job to have that oversight.

1:48:13Okay, and then, so no training plan has been established.

1:48:15And then I wanna make sure that I understood some of your opening comments, Councilor, that you said there have been no procedures for what this hearing would look like that have been established.

1:48:23So we've gotta establish procedural, like how do we just go through the motions?

1:48:26Like how does the Council President conduct such a hearing?

1:48:29That is still to be determined.

1:48:32Okay.

1:48:32Yeah, I mean, I think what I'm contemplating in the resolution is whether or not this body thinks it's appropriate to step into that more formal space.

1:48:40I think it leaves a lot to the city— I'm sorry, the council president as the presiding officer to determine what, you know, what the rules of decorum are and how we would conduct ourselves, how to sort of limit our councilors in terms of their questioning.

1:48:57And so We can have that conversation, but, um, until, until I know whether this body is willing to even go into that space, um, that seems like an unnecessary level of detail.

1:49:07And of course, our office is happy to work with Council President or any of you on, on, uh, what this could look like.

1:49:16Perfect.

1:49:16Okay, uh, colleagues, it is 11:15.

1:49:21We have folks signed up to testify.

1:49:22I'm wondering if folks want to take a very quick Yes.

1:49:25Bio break?

1:49:25Yes.

1:49:26Yeah, um, we're gonna take a 10-minute recess and we'll be back at 11:25.

1:49:32Everybody go pee.

2:00:52And we are back.

2:00:54Thank you all for your patience.

2:00:56Keelan, can we please call up public testimony?

2:01:00All right, first up We have Terry Harris, followed by Benjamin Gilbert and Hugo Flores.

2:01:12Welcome, Terry.

2:01:14Um, thank you all.

2:01:15Thank you for this opportunity.

2:01:17Appreciate it as always.

2:01:19Terry Harris, for the record.

2:01:21Um, I'm gonna try and be pretty quick, um, but I have a lot to say here.

2:01:29The Governance Committee has heard me a little bit, and based on the conversation that, that y'all just had, I kind of want to go back to Councilor Green's spectrum of oversight and just point out that if you were doing investigative stuff and require lawyers and, uh, that level of thing That's not what this resolution should be about.

2:02:00This— and let me just say that this resolution as a way to do oversight is the right way to do it.

2:02:07It is a common practice elsewhere.

2:02:10And I know Councilor Green mentioned Baltimore.

2:02:13This is exactly how it's done.

2:02:15You give notice and a time to respond.

2:02:19Thank you.

2:02:20It's scoped in advance.

2:02:23You focus on documents and, um, delivering the materials to the council, and then there's a public hearing to air it all out.

2:02:33That's, that's where you are right now.

2:02:36You're not doing an investigation.

2:02:38Nobody should be worried for their job.

2:02:41Um, this is not where you need to be right now.

2:02:46You do want, as Councilor Kanal says the space to do further investigation and things that should come out of it.

2:02:57For example, I think you might find that the Housing Investment Fund needs an investigation as to what that's for, what goes in it, what comes out of it, who manages it.

2:03:10But that's a whole separate thing from what this hearing should be.

2:03:15Um, finally, I'll say that what— at this level, you should be considering if this were a rule of council, a council rule, what would that rule look like?

2:03:29And that rule would look kind of like this resolution.

2:03:32So I support the resolution, and, um, I encourage you all to pass it.

2:03:38And finally, I think moving Beyond this resolution, the first thing that happens is it's a collaboration with the city attorney, with the city administrator, the council president's office, and the sponsor to manage that hearing and the information that goes into it and the scoping of that hearing.

2:04:01Um, this is for you all, of course, to learn, but it's also for the public.

2:04:05It's for the public trust.

2:04:07It's for accountability.

2:04:08It's for transparency, it's for rumor control, and ultimately, hopefully, a process improvement.

2:04:16So I encourage you all to pass this kind of as is and roll with it collaboratively.

2:04:25Thank you.

2:04:26Thank you.

2:04:27Welcome, Ben.

2:04:30Hello, my name is Ben Gilbert.

2:04:32I'm a volunteer lobbyist with the Portland DSA.

2:04:35I support this because it has been concerning seeing unbudgeted money pop up.

2:04:40Transparency is important, especially as we face a strained budget where there are so many needs and not enough funds.

2:04:47Thank you.

2:04:47Yield my time.

2:04:49Thank you.

2:04:51Hugo Flores, Mark Jackson, and Christopher Olson.

2:05:17Welcome, Council President and members of the council.

2:05:19My name is Pastor Mark Jackson, representing the board membership of Oasis of Praise in District 3 and also the Coalition of African and African-American Pastors spread abroad, the Portland metro area.

2:05:31Uh, as I sit and listen, I want to go into prayer, if I'd be honest.

2:05:37Uh, but, um, I just want to underscore the importance of really establishing and strengthening public trust, um, in you all's leadership and decision-making in this present time on this agenda.

2:05:50Uh, the community needs to trust its decision-makers, its bureaus, I would also underscore the importance of administering an all-bureau audit because these are taxpayer dollars.

2:06:05We're talking about while we are trying to grapple with a housing crisis.

2:06:10I want to underscore the importance as these 2 organizations I represent today, we have administered millions of dollars with city contracts with the Bureau of Housing and also with DAS at the state level.

2:06:22So we're not a novice to the crises and how to administer resources.

2:06:26Thank you.

2:06:27So as this council reimagines how to disburse these funds, our hope is that there will be some real clear direction to the Housing Bureau to really look at faith-based organizations and houses of worship who often don't get contracts but do tremendous work in the community, specifically Oasis of Praise in District 3, in a service desert.

2:06:51We've been trying to secure $2 million to acquire our property and to renovate.

2:06:56To continue doing what we've done for the past 27 years, including providing housing services from warming centers to temporary housing of those who are unsheltered, to ensure we continue to underscore safe communities.

2:07:11So this is a seminal moment for our city, and the mantle of leadership and humility and grace is upon each of you all.

2:07:19And I hope as a community You all be thoughtful and keep this process humanized and not just technical.

2:07:28We're talking about lives.

2:07:30Thank you very much.

2:07:31Thank you so much.

2:07:33Christopher Olson is joining us online.

2:07:37Yeah, hi, good morning, councilors, uh, Council President Dunphy.

2:07:40Um, just for the record, my name is Chris Olson and I live in District 2, and I'm a member of the Portland Democratic Socialists of America Housing Working Group, and I'm a tenant advocate.

2:07:49But today I'll be speaking just for myself as one of the many, many of Portland's frustrated renters.

2:07:56First, I want to say I fully support this resolution and investigation into the Housing Bureau.

2:08:02We need answers to the burning question as to why that during a housing crisis declared by the city over 10 years ago that this bureau has sat on the people's money and allowed thousands to be evicted from our streets or failed to provide provide or build any more affordable housing.

2:08:17At best, this is a broken system in need of repair, and at worst, it's a deliberate sabotage of public sector efforts to ease the burden of housing costs.

2:08:26$35 Million or more at this point is not a small sum of money, especially when we are told in a budget crisis where jobs will be lost and programs will be cut.

2:08:36I want to say I want the City Council not to just merely investigate this matter, but there needs to be a full audit of all the city's finances by 3rd party, I think, before the end of this year.

2:08:46If any other bureaus have mismanaged funds as poorly as the Housing Bureau, an audit should pay for itself many times over.

2:08:53Every nickel and dime needs to be accounted for, or the taxpayers will lose trust in our new form of government, even though this is likely the result of the previous government.

2:09:03Please audit the city's finances and make sure our citizens can trust their government with their money.

2:09:08And I'll end with this, with some of the technical questions that I heard.

2:09:11It sounded like to me some of the council has been fishing for— or councilors are fishing for excuses not to hold this oversight hearing.

2:09:18I'm sorry, but this is what you were elected to do and what you signed up for, and so please do your jobs.

2:09:23And I'll yield the rest of my time.

2:09:24Thank you.

2:09:26Thank you very much.

2:09:27That completes testimony.

2:09:29Okay, Councilor Green.

2:09:33Thank you, Council President.

2:09:34I'd just like to formally move Green 1, which just amends those dates We have a motion and a second on the amendment to update the language of the amendment with dates.

2:09:48Any discussion?

2:09:52Councilor Knol.

2:09:53Yeah, I just wanted to get a little more clarity on why exactly 2 weeks.

2:09:57I think it's, it's a fair question to ask how long it would take.

2:10:01We were discussing this in December.

2:10:03December, there was a little bit longer of a lag than what's being added here.

2:10:07So I just was curious why 2 weeks, why not 1, why not 3, if you could just speak to that a little bit.

2:10:13Yeah, just, I think the way that we started with this was like, if you're a member of the public and you do a public records request, there's 2 weeks to fulfill that requirement.

2:10:24And so I think in this regard, if we adopt this today, that's about 2 weeks For the city administrator to gather those records as if it were a public records request, and then 1 week to take those records and put them on 1 SharePoint site in council operations, and for us to consider.

2:10:46I didn't— I wanted to balance this between, you know, being responsive to the moment we're in because we do have a huge public trust risk out there right now.

2:10:56And also providing a meaningful amount of actionable time.

2:11:01Great, thanks.

2:11:02Thank you.

2:11:04Councilor Smith.

2:11:05Thank you.

2:11:05So will this data be shared with the public via Council Ops before we actually do the, do the hearing?

2:11:17I, I don't think that it's directed in the resolution that Council Ops makes this a public-facing Um, when we have the hearing, all this will become public as we talk about this, uh, publicly.

2:11:32Okay, seeing no one else in the queue, Keelan, can we please call the roll on the amendment?

2:11:41Green 1.

2:11:42Aye.

2:11:43Aye.

2:11:45No.

2:11:46Aye.

2:11:47Aye.

2:11:50Aye.

2:11:51Aye.

2:11:52Aye.

2:11:53Aye.

2:11:54Aye.

2:11:54Aye.

2:11:55Aye.

2:11:55Aye.

2:11:57The amendment is approved with 12 yes votes.

2:12:04Great.

2:12:04Colleagues, uh, we are now in open discussion of the underlying now amended resolution.

2:12:11Councilor Smith, is that a legacy hand?

2:12:13Apologies.

2:12:14Councilor Kanal?

2:12:15Yeah, I had a question that actually was technical and I forgot to ask it earlier.

2:12:19In the very last, therefore be it resolved, I just wanted to clarify the legislative intent here of whether or not the intent is for the council president to schedule the hearing by the date or that the council president is to schedule that the hearing will occur by the date.

2:12:35Second question.

2:12:40I'm glad you caught that.

2:12:41I'm not surprised you did.

2:12:44I think that my intent when we drafted this was probably to get the meeting to be heard no later than March 6th.

2:12:53But if it's— if it pleases the body and if we think it gives us a little more time to be practical, I'm willing to read this with any interpretation.

2:13:01Like, if he's like, okay, I've identified a meeting by March 6th, I guess that's fine.

2:13:05But I really did want this to be like, We have this hearing by March 6th.

2:13:10If that's too much of a time pressure, then just putting that sort of stage gate for the council president to figure out when that goes in is probably fine for me.

2:13:20For me personally, I'm good with it being held by March 6th.

2:13:24I'm not trying to argue.

2:13:25I just wanted to be sure that there was clarity.

2:13:27And if the intent was to schedule it, that the date would be confirmed by March 6th, then if we would need to put I don't think this is going to happen.

2:13:36I want to be clear on that.

2:13:36But if on March 5th, the statement is made that by the council president that we're going to have it in December, right?

2:13:43Like just trying to get some clarity around that.

2:13:45So if your intention as a sponsor is that it's the date that the thing occurs by, I'm good with that.

2:13:51I just wanted that to be clear for interpretation after we adopt it.

2:13:55And if people want more time, we can adjust the date.

2:13:57I mean, that's my intent.

2:13:58Okay.

2:13:58That's— thank you for clarifying.

2:14:02Thank you, Councilor Knoll.

2:14:02Councilor Clark.

2:14:05Thank you, Council President.

2:14:07Colleagues, I really appreciate the discussion that we've had so far, the reminders of what our responsibilities are as a council.

2:14:16It's been very fruitful, and I have consistently wanted a better definition of oversight, and I think that we still need to tease that out in governance.

2:14:27I think that Councilor Koyama Lane is interested in that as well, and we can use some of the material that you put together to do that.

2:14:35But I think we still have a long way to go on what is governance, how we define it.

2:14:42But colleagues, I also want to say that a lot of the information that we're requesting, the questions that you're asking, we've already reviewed all of this.

2:14:54In an executive session, and, uh, most of it, maybe not all of it, but the bulk of it.

2:15:00And I'm really concerned that it feels, um, punitive to me.

2:15:05I know, despite the assurances of some of my colleagues, um, that they're not concerned with punishment.

2:15:12And believe me, I, you know, I worked for a regulatory agency once where— and you've heard me say I think it's important to hang people high sometimes, but this is not That kind of a situation.

2:15:21And in fact, the administration has already shown a change since that time.

2:15:27They've already course-corrected.

2:15:29So it feels a little punitive to me.

2:15:32And I do believe that, as I said, we need more definition of what oversight is.

2:15:40But we also need to be very sensitive to the fact that we are in a transition.

2:15:45We are still transitioning.

2:15:46Thank you.

2:15:46Councilor Smith.

2:15:46Thank you, Mayor.

2:15:46I think we're in a transition from an old form of government to a new form of government.

2:15:50And I think what happened was really a legacy of that old form of government.

2:15:55And I guess I don't feel the need to rehash all of that because I also want to create this new culture, a culture where city employees feel comfortable in coming forward with mistakes or coming forward with errors, knowing that There's no fear of punishment.

2:16:14So I don't feel a guarantee here that this isn't a— I don't want to say Spanish Inquisition, but that this isn't punitive.

2:16:25That's my concern here.

2:16:27I'll just leave that for other people to discuss.

2:16:32Certainly willing to hear more about that, but I'm very, very interested in how we define oversight Thank you, Vice President Clark.

2:16:43Councilor Novick.

2:16:45Thank you, Mr. President.

2:16:48Um, I understand the impulse for this, and I'm not going to accuse Councilor Green of being a kangaroo or a wombat or a koala or any other Australian animal.

2:16:57Um, I— and I expect this to pass.

2:17:02Um, that again, I understand the impulse for it.

2:17:05But I want to explain why I'm going to vote against it.

2:17:08I think this is entirely backward-looking.

2:17:11What I want to know is what steps is the administration taking to ensure that we know and they know what money is available in various pots.

2:17:20And especially, and I've told DCA Biery this directly, I want them to be shouting from the rooftops why this can't happen with the general fund.

2:17:30Because the worst—.

2:17:31I think that's a good point.

2:17:33I mean, my big concern about this is that the public is going to think that we don't really have a deficit in the general fund of tens of billions of dollars, and we don't have to cut police, fire, and parks because there's money in the couch cushions.

2:17:46So we need reassurance and explanation as to why that's not going to happen.

2:17:51As far as this resolution, however, to me, there's 3 questions I think I already know the answer to.

2:17:59And another question which worries me: what happened to the funds?

2:18:02What led to them not being spent in previous years?

2:18:04Well, the relevant people didn't know they were there, so that's why they weren't spent.

2:18:07I'm sure that if people had known they were there— everybody always wants to spend money.

2:18:11And the other questions are: what dynamics led to this information not being shared with council?

2:18:15To what degree— then the fourth is: what degree were decisions made around these funds and what information was or wasn't shared?

2:18:22And I've heard the administration's answer to that too.

2:18:24Their answer is that— I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

2:18:26They didn't share information with council where they didn't know they could trust the information or they had information in a useful form for us to use.

2:18:34I don't think their answer is going to change.

2:18:36And I think they got the message from councilors that we want to know stuff as soon as there is anything to know, even if the information isn't particularly reliable.

2:18:45And as Councilor Green noted, in this latest incident, the budget director called the council president immediately and said, hey, we found some more money.

2:18:52Yeah.

2:18:53So it seems like the message has been received.

2:18:57One question which we haven't addressed, heard addressed in detail, I don't think, is who was aware of the funds, at what point in time was each party made aware, and why was it made aware?

2:19:08And that, for the old folks here, is the Watergate question.

2:19:12What did Helmi Hisarik know and when did she know it?

2:19:14And I'm worried about going down that rabbit hole because I think we wind up necessarily talking about personalities And I just don't think that, I mean, if somebody had stolen money, obviously we wanna know who was complicit in the stealing and, you know, have them arrested.

2:19:29But in this case, I don't know what the value is of the what did Helmi Hystarik know and when did she know it question.

2:19:35So again, I expect this to pass.

2:19:37I understand the impulse behind it.

2:19:39I will note that I don't see that there's a huge public outcry for this.

2:19:43We had 4 people giving public testimony.

2:19:45Thank you.

2:19:50Thank you, Councilor Novick.

2:19:51Councilor Murillo.

2:19:54Thank you, Council President.

2:19:57We did have an executive session on this matter, and I'll be frank, I'll only speak for myself.

2:20:02I don't feel satisfied with the information that we received in the executive session.

2:20:07And I think that this is a matter of public interest and public transportation.

2:20:11Transparency because Portlanders' tax dollars are being given to us and we are being asked to be responsible with those dollars and to fund the services that people want and to cut many of the beloved services that we no longer have funding for.

2:20:28Accountability is not a punishment, but we need to know what is going on because it is bonkers to me That we are acting like even if someone under the best intentions, whoopsie-doo, misplaced $40 million, that that is not something the council should look into.

2:20:51That's bonkers to me.

2:20:53We need to know exactly how things ended up that way.

2:20:56Even if under the best intentions and the best circumstances that happened, there is clearly a systems issue here.

2:21:03And we are also not talking about, you know, we are talking about highly paid, high expertise staff who are choosing to work in government, which means that we are doing work for the people in the public interest.

2:21:22The requirements for our jobs as people in government is higher than for a job in the private sector because we are serving the public.

2:21:33And that is not an attack for anybody.

2:21:36That is just we need to change the culture and the expectation threshold here when we are serving the public, from people who are making $300,000 a year at the city to people who are doing frontline work that goes underappreciated.

2:21:52I'm also kind of frustrated, frankly, that we are going to slow things down again.

2:21:59This council body has struggled to put out policy, has struggled to be productive, and we are over a year in office now.

2:22:09We cannot wait for the Governance Committee to keep going through this process.

2:22:14We need the council body as a whole to make this decision together because it's a process that we're going to be doing for a long time.

2:22:23And the council committee structures are being changed right now under the new council president.

2:22:28So we, we might not have a governance committee, who knows?

2:22:31And then we'll have a council of the whole, in which case we would be making that decision together anyways.

2:22:36But I think that there is a certain point where you are going to perfect the process through action.

2:22:42This— the reality is this is the first time our new government body is doing this process.

2:22:46We've never done this before under the new government.

2:22:48Councilmember Herbold.

2:22:49And that means that sometimes you have to do it, and then you're going to figure out the process as you go along, because that's just the way things work sometimes.

2:22:58But this is an urgent matter to me.

2:23:00We are about to enter the budget season.

2:23:02It starts in June, but really, we all know that budget season started a few months ago as we're making these decisions.

2:23:08So I don't feel like, as a representative of District 3, that I can make accurate assessments of the budget of the process, of the dollars before us, and that I can look my constituents in the eye and tell them that I did everything I could to find dollars to fund things so that I didn't have to cut the thing that they cared about if I don't actually trust the process that we have laid out here.

2:23:31So I would really urge my colleagues, you know, we, we as a council body are very lethargic.

2:23:37We slow things down.

2:23:38We don't get a lot done.

2:23:40I think we need to just Thank you, Councilor Murillo.

2:23:49Councilor Ryan.

2:23:51Thank you, Council President, and thank you for those that brought this item.

2:23:56It's been a good debate so far, and also the testimony was helpful, and I agreed with much of it.

2:24:03I'm a big advocate for oversight.

2:24:05Policy seldom is felt on the ground for a couple years.

2:24:08So I tend to be very dogged about following them, following them along so they actually are felt by the good people that live here in Portland.

2:24:16I also want to get to the bottom of this, and this is about the financial controls at Portland Housing Bureau, specifically the rental office.

2:24:25I think that we're missing the boat by not going at it this way.

2:24:29I think an independent audit, which was mentioned by people who testified, of Portland Housing Bureau's financial controls is what I think we should be voting on.

2:24:37Thank you.

2:24:38Today.

2:24:39That will build trust.

2:24:41The big picture item of oversight needs more work.

2:24:45This isn't the big picture.

2:24:47This is, this is going up, in my opinion, a microaggression of one incident where there's personalities connected to it.

2:24:55This specific issue, we have an executive committee meeting, which was just mentioned, on the 11th of December.

2:25:02I, I know that all of us, I think we're all in attendance.

2:25:05Yes.

2:25:06And I did receive information at that executive session that allowed me to feel good about the process going forward on this HR issue.

2:25:17This is punitive in my opinion.

2:25:19It doesn't get— it doesn't build trust.

2:25:22This also does not get to the bottom of the recent shoes that have been dropping at the Housing Bureau.

2:25:28An audit gets to the bottom of it.

2:25:31I appreciate I just hope we can go about it the right way.

2:25:39We need to focus on principles, not personalities.

2:25:43Thanks.

2:25:44Thank you, Councilor Ryan.

2:25:45Councilor Eric Green.

2:25:47Yeah, thank you, colleagues.

2:25:49I just want to speak to the question of whether or not we got our answers— our questions answered during an executive session.

2:25:56That executive session, which I won't go into detail about, Talk was held on March 15th.

2:25:59About the contents of it because it was an executive session, but that was narrowly focused on a personnel issue.

2:26:04That was narrowly focused on the matter of the prior, um, PHB director's, uh, termination or resignation.

2:26:13That's what the focus of that was on.

2:26:15Um, I did try to ask questions about the timeline that I'm worried about here and I'm concerned about, and as soon as I started to do that, I was shut down by some of my colleagues who said this is actually a policy discussion.

2:26:28This is actually something outside the bounds of an executive session.

2:26:31If we're to continue to do this, we will be in violation of public meetings law.

2:26:35And so I said, okay, I'm going to pursue a resolution that's very public so we can actually do this.

2:26:40So what you're talking about— what we're talking about here is actually recognition that, um, that this broader consideration is actually beyond the scope of an executive session.

2:26:50And even if we got all of our questions answered inside of that session, the public doesn't.

2:26:57This is for the public.

2:26:58So it's not good enough for the public to say, okay, well, some councilors were told behind closed doors what actually happened here, so it's good, trust us.

2:27:06Because it's not good.

2:27:08They don't trust us.

2:27:09I think that if we're going to go out in the years to come and ask the city of Portland or ask people in our community, residents of the broader metro region to say yes to a new bond or yes to a new tax proposal, they're going to look at us and say, why should I trust you with new money when you're not even willing to engage in very routine and normal oversight practices that other cities do when they have a sort of multi-bicameral system of government?

2:27:36That's what we're trying to do here, and our refusal to do it would be a signal to constituents that we don't take our jobs seriously.

2:27:44And so that's— I just wanted to make it very clear that when we went into executive session on December 11th, it wasn't about the questions I'm asking.

2:27:52It was about a personnel matter, which we can't talk about here.

2:27:55Thanks.

2:27:58Thank you, Councilor Green.

2:27:59Councilor Avalos.

2:28:02Yes, thank you.

2:28:05I just want to start by saying I definitely agree with the overall notion that we don't want to create a culture of And that is not the intent.

2:28:12And also, us doing our jobs to ensure that we have the right information to make the decisions that we need to make requires transparency, requires public visibility.

2:28:23And, but I think us creating that trust with the administrative branch is doing exactly this, right?

2:28:30Because without that trust, then we're gonna continue to Encourage fear of talking to us about what's going on.

2:28:40I think ultimately this is also about creating a mechanism for the public to receive the same information that we get.

2:28:46An executive session, as Councilor Green has already described, it wasn't about this in the first place, but even if it was, that is not the proper way to communicate to the public and earn their trust.

2:28:57'Cause I think at the end of the day, if people are worried about how the public is perceiving us and how the public might think see this as us not being fiscally responsible, as us abdicating our duties for financial stewardship, then we have a duty to correct that record in a visible way and create a plan that's going to ensure that we can minimize these kinds of oversights in the future.

2:29:19So there's a real narrative problem that we have to discuss, especially at a moment when the community, as Councilor Green just stated, does not trust us with dollars, does not trust that we are putting them in the right place.

2:29:30Councilor Loretta Smith.

2:29:31And when $40 million, about $40 million shows up, that creates a real distrust.

2:29:38Ultimately, it's clear though, regardless of where you're landing on this issue, on this particular resolution, that there is a desire from everybody to set some norms and procedures for our oversight powers.

2:29:50So I definitely am interested in us continuing that conversation.

2:29:54But to me, this is the beginning of that conversation.

2:29:57Passing this resolution is the first step.

2:29:58Councilor Smith.

2:29:58Step for us to open up that door and then to create a framework from here, um, that we can replicate in the future for how we engage with the administration, um, when we need answers.

2:30:09So I would really encourage folks to see it in that way.

2:30:12I know that there's a lot of questions that are still unanswered, but I don't think we can not answer those questions, um, if we don't move forward.

2:30:19Thank you.

2:30:19Thank you, Councilor Avalos.

2:30:21Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.

2:30:23Thank you, Council President.

2:30:24Um, I have A number of remarks I'd like to make, but I do have a question first.

2:30:30Council President, you have run things in a way where we've had different people running different meetings.

2:30:38Who do you intend to have run this?

2:30:41I'm not sure if it's gonna technically be a work session or what it will be.

2:30:46Yeah, with regard to this, I intend to run it since this is our first Our first oversight, and we do not have formally delegated oversight to any of the committees.

2:30:57I intend to oversee it.

2:30:58Okay, thank you.

2:31:03Colleagues, Councilor Green and I have had a number of conversations over the last year, really, about oversight, and over the last couple of months about this resolution in particular.

2:31:17As you know, Councilor, I went back and forth before deciding ultimately to join you in attempting to move it forward last year.

2:31:26I agree with Councilor Murillo that oversight is one of the most important things that we do as a body.

2:31:32And while we've had some discussion about us not having delved into how we do oversight, I actually don't think we ever needed to delve into how we do oversight.

2:31:42I think oversight should be something ongoing.

2:31:45Something casual.

2:31:46I've said before at this dais that oversight should be part of the normal committee process.

2:31:52We should see its regular use on committee agendas where we hold conversation about how program implementation is going with DCAs and bureau directors, where we talk about what budget spend looks like midway through the year so that where there are bureaus of particular interest, we know how things are going.

2:32:12Where we discuss with bureau directors and deputy city administrators as a committee in public what we're hearing from our constituents and what we hope to see from the administrative branch.

2:32:23We should be able to ask for information casually and receive it.

2:32:28I've never had a problem doing that.

2:32:30I know many people here have asked for information and received it over the past year, and that's happened in committees.

2:32:36At times, but not often enough.

2:32:40Oversight should not be controversial or adversarial or scary.

2:32:46And we do have given to us through the charter more formal oversight powers.

2:32:51But if our relationship with the administration is healthy, I don't think we should ever have to use it.

2:32:56And if and when we do need it, it should only be after multiple steps of escalation.

2:33:01Thank you.

2:33:03We start with a casual conversation.

2:33:05An ask for something hard is denied.

2:33:08We go to the press about that refusal to talk.

2:33:11We build the pressure.

2:33:13We add— we send out another invitation to a committee hearing.

2:33:18And only then do we move to a resolution like this.

2:33:22Only after multiple other steps do we even mention the word subpoena.

2:33:27Thank you.