5:48 Okay, good morning. 5:51 I'm calling to order the April 1st meeting of the Portland City Council. 5:59 Start this April 1st by announcing the city has found another $100 million— no, I'm just kidding, it's April Fools'. 6:05 April Fools'. 6:11 Rebecca, can we start by calling the roll, please?
6:17 Right, first now, uh, present.
6:18 Councilor Pirtle-Guiney?
6:33 Zimmerman? 6:35 Avalos?
6:44 Okay, and can we, uh, please read the rules of decorum?
6:48 Welcome to the Portland City Council.
6:49 To testify before council in person or virtually, you must sign up in advance on the council agenda at www.portland.gov/council/agenda. 6:58 Information on engaging with council can be found on the council clerk's webpage. 7:02 Individuals may testify for 3 minutes unless the presiding officer states otherwise. 7:06 Your microphone will be muted when your time is over. 7:09 The presiding officer preserves order. 7:11 Disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others' testimony or council deliberations will not be allowed. 7:19 If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. 7:22 Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. 7:25 Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. 7:28 Additionally, council may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. 7:32 Your testimony should address the matter being considered. 7:35 When testifying, state your name for the record. 7:37 Your address is not necessary. 7:39 If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization that you represent. 7:42 Virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the council clerk calls your name.
7:46 Thank you. 7:47 Thank you very much. 7:49 Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, are you here for the agenda order or something before that? 7:53 I am in the queue for agenda item number 1, the order of the agenda.
7:57 So our first order on the item is approval of the agenda. 8:01 I'm going to call on Councilor Pirtle-Guiney. 8:03 Thank you, Council President. 8:05 Colleagues, I would motion that we reorder the agenda to move agenda item 11 to in between agenda items 10 and 11. 8:16 You should have received an email giving you a heads up that I would ask for this to move to between items 5 and 6. 8:23 After hearing from the clerk that we had people here today in the room who had signed up to testify on item 6, I want to make sure that we don't disrupt their schedules. 8:34 So I would ask that we move item 11 to between items 6 and 7 on the agenda. 8:39 This item is currently scheduled for the very end of our meeting tomorrow, and I will not be here. 8:44 The Jewish holiday of Passover is coming up.
8:46 Passover is this week, and we traditionally host, uh, Seder, which is the, the big gathering for Passover, on the second night. 8:55 And I am hosting tomorrow and will be remote for that meeting. 8:59 I want to make sure that I am fully present and available to answer all of your questions about this item and would like to move it to today so that I can do so and we can have a full discussion about it. 9:11 Okay, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney has moved to reorder the agenda, moving item 11 between items 6 and 7. 9:17 Is there a second?
9:19 Councilor Ryan seconds. 9:21 Motions to amend the agenda are debatable and may be adopted by unanimous consent or by vote. 9:25 So colleagues, is there discussion? 9:27 Councilor Kanal.
9:30 Thank you, Council President. 9:31 I appreciate the work that's been put in on this item, and I appreciate the need for the sponsor to be present. 9:37 I think that's something we've done several times over the course of our year-plus together. 9:43 I would ask that we look at potentially putting this item to next week's agenda instead of moving it forward. 9:49 Part of the content of this item is to reduce the timeline at which we are able to propose amendments to items. 9:57 And so as a— it's sort of philosophically in opposition to that conversation to cut off our time to work through amendments the first time we've had a chance to discuss this particular item, for 7 of us anyway. 10:11 And so I would ask that we consider moving it to a future meeting.
10:17 Additionally, it's an item where it will affect all of us, and it didn't come out of the committee that discusses governance now, but it came out of the previous version of it. 10:27 And so because 7 of us haven't discussed it further, I'd like to make sure that something of such import gets the time it deserves.
10:33 Thank you, Councilor Kanal. 10:34 Councilor Pirtle-Guiney. 10:36 Council President, I was notified by your team that if we didn't do this this week, it would likely be a few months out based on the current scheduling that we have and coming into budget season.
10:50 I'm not sure if, if you're able to or not, but can you clarify what we would be looking at if we don't address this item tomorrow? 10:57 Yeah, absolutely. 10:58 It looks like, according to my team, the next possible meeting that we could get this onto the schedule would be April 22nd. 11:05 Okay, so it would be about a 3-week okay, thank you. 11:09 And colleagues, I'll note that this item had extensive discussion in the Governance Committee with other members of our council present at times, including the member who is opposing my motion. 11:22 So it is true that when something is debated in committee, only 5 people are part of the main conversation up at this dais, but I would suggest that more than 5 people have heard or seen the discussion and shared thoughts about it.
11:42 Thank you, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney. 11:44 And Councilor Kanal?
11:47 Oh, Councilor Green.
11:51 Thank you, Council President. 11:53 Again, I support the need to accommodate religious holiday. 11:57 And so I'm going to— whether we whether we pass the motion that's on the floor or we do the other proposed thing that accommodates that. 12:07 But I will say though, I am concerned about one provision of this. 12:11 It's the 4-council relief piece that I think does need a lot of discussion for me personally. 12:18 And so whether we move it a week formally right now, or if I feel like I haven't been able to get my If I'm not satisfied by the underlying by the time we go to second reading, I'm just going to introduce an amendment there anyway, and it's going to delay it anyway. 12:32 So I think, like, I am not going to vote for an underlying amendment on this until I'm satisfied on a very critical piece that I don't quite understand yet. 12:41 So I'm just— I'm telegraphing that now. 12:43 And so I think that there's going to be potentially a week delay anyway, um, here in place. 12:50 So I, I would ask, you know, Thank you, Councilor Green.
12:58 Councilor Koyama Lane.
13:02 Thank you, Council President. 13:03 I echo what Councilor Green just shared and do believe that this is important that the sponsor, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, can be present. 13:13 And I appreciate her for sharing what she needs and being honest about that. 13:20 And I think that's an important thing for us to all be thinking about as we move forward. 13:24 When we have meetings during important religious holidays. 13:30 Something that maybe you can clarify, I remember in the email is that there might be a possibility we can move things around to hear this right away tomorrow first. 13:39 I would absolutely be willing, I'd be supportive of that too, to make sure it's the first thing that we hear tomorrow.
13:46 Thank you, Councilor.
13:53 Thank you, Councilor Koyama Lane. 13:56 Uh, Councilor Avalos?
13:59 Yeah, I agree, um, with the argument to delay it. 14:03 I would prefer it be at the April 22nd, so, uh, I'm going to support moving it but not to today.
14:16 Councilor Kanal? 14:17 Thanks.
14:18 I guess this is more of a question for you, Council President. 14:21 If we were to postpone definitely to the 8th, it would be on the 8th, right? 14:26 I'm not clear. 14:27 No agenda has been published. 14:28 There's no time-certain items published for the 8th right now or the 15th. 14:32 So I'm confused as to why that's not an option.
14:38 So the anticipation is that that would take up the full time?
14:41 That's the anticipation, yeah.
14:49 Um, oh, ECTO and TUF, by the way, on the 8th. 14:54 And then the 15th, um, looking at my team, text me.
15:03 I mean, I'm, I'm a little, I guess, maybe broadly concerned about the, the, um, Urgency. 15:09 This item was originally required to be done by October, then the council extended that deadline by several months. 15:15 This is something that has very significant impact. 15:18 It would, it would limit our ability to do amendments. 15:21 It would limit our ability to amend our own code on rules itself. 15:25 It would prevent the discharge. 15:28 So without getting into the debate on it, it's a fairly significant package of changes.
15:38 I will get back to you on— it is possible we could make it work for the 15th and 16th if we move some things around. 15:46 Councilor Ryan.
15:48 Yeah, thank you, Council President. 15:50 Just a clarification, this is an ordinance, so this would be a first reading today. 15:55 Okay, so in first readings, we have ample time to have discussion.
16:01 And so, um, I think that it's important. 16:04 I'll be supporting your request. 16:06 How could I get in the way of that? 16:08 That's a very fair request. 16:11 And I hope this council would lean in to the fact that we're having a first reading. 16:15 We'll have plenty of time for discussion today. 16:17 It probably could be delayed anyway based on some of our past behaviors. 16:20 But I think airing it out today would be good governance. 16:24 And I think having you here Um, when you've been working on this so hard for so many months, uh, makes a lot of sense. 16:30 Thank you for this request.
16:33 Thank you, Councilor Ryan. 16:36 Seeing no one else in the queue, Keelan, can we call a roll call vote on, uh, reordering the agenda?
16:51 Sorry, that was a nay.
16:53 Thank you. 16:54 Pirtle-Guiney?
17:09 Green? 17:14 I'm sorry, Councilor Green?
17:17 I should turn the mic on.
17:30 And the amendment, uh, the motion is approved with 7 aye, 4 no, and 1 absent.
17:35 Okay, the agenda has been reordered and approved. 17:39 Can we please move to item number 2, public communications?
17:47 First up, we have Michelle Mia. 17:49 Michelle's online.
17:52 Welcome, Michelle. 17:53 Please introduce yourself for the record.
17:59 Michelle, you can go ahead.
18:07 Hi, good morning, councilors. 18:09 Uh, there was a little bit of a delay there.
18:10 Can you hear me okay?
18:13 Thank you. 18:14 Good morning again. 18:15 My name is Michelle Milla and I'm a District 4 resident. 18:17 I'm part of Stadium Hood. 18:19 I'm here as a neighbor who has spent the last couple of years trying to understand something that's been happening in our community, and we've brought it before this council for the last— this will be the 3rd year in a row, and it's been a little bit of a difficult issue to address. 18:33 Across Portland, there are groups that distribute harm reduction supplies, things like needles, pipes, and other materials directly in our public spaces. 18:42 And one of those groups is called the Portland People's Outreach Project, or PPoP. 18:49 These sites where they distribute these materials have included Old Town, South Park Blocks, the East Bank Esplanade, and the Hollywood Transit Center, as well as St. John's. 19:00 And these shared public spaces are parks, transit hubs, central corridors, and also within walking distance of schools and along school zones travel routes. 19:09 So PPoP setting up in South Park blocks is within half a mile of Lincoln High School, and then when they set up over at the Hollywood Transit Center, it's within about half a mile of Grant High School. 19:20 So these are recurring locations and places where students and families are present every day. 19:26 And from a neighborhood perspective, what happens after these distributions matters just as much. 19:32 We've documented repeat instances of discarded needles, Biohazardous waste that's left behind in these shared public spaces without any clear cleanup expectations or any reliable way for communities to get help when these kinds of things happen. 19:48 And so the burden falls back on the people and the public spaces to kind of figure out what's happening. 19:54 And so I want to say this really clearly: the people that are being served by these programs deserve better as well. 20:00 They deserve space—.
20:02 Thank you. 20:02 Stable places indoors where services can be delivered with proper oversight and where materials can be used and disposed of safely. 20:10 The harm reduction outreach in Portland does not operate as one-for-one exchanges. 20:15 And so right now, what we've been doing is kind of looking more closely at how these systems are structured and doing some research there. 20:22 Portland Street Medicine is a nonprofit provider that receives public funding through the Multnomah County Behavioral Health Resource Network Supported by Measure 110 and that fund. 20:34 They conduct scheduled outreach in partnership with PPoP. 20:38 PPoP operates in public spaces without any permitting frameworks, without any siting standards, or any community engagement, and they have for the last at least 10 years as far as we can find out. 20:48 So in practice, we've got public funding supporting operations carried out without any standards or accountability. 20:55 In every other context, we would expect Uh, basic expectations around permitting, and we're asking for your help here. 21:02 We're asking for the city to develop an ordinance that establishes standards and accountability mechanisms for harm reduction programs. 21:08 And as you move through the budget process, we're asking you to tie funding or co-funding of these services to transparencies, partnerships, and compliance that's publicly available. 21:19 We don't want you to end harm reduction. 21:21 We're just asking for the council to help resolve some of these dangerous situations that we're finding ourselves in. 21:26 Thank you.
21:27 Thank you, Michelle, for being here.
21:41 Do I have to sit down or can I stand?
21:43 Uh, the microphones won't really pick you up if you stand. 21:46 They're pretty— they need about 8 inches.
21:50 Ladies and gentlemen of the council, City Administrator Lee, my name is Marshall McFarland. 21:56 I am Ghalib Imhotep El. 22:00 I'm domiciled in District 4. 22:03 At 44 and homeless, I've lived through a lot of adversity, but through that adversity, I've learned a very important lesson in life. 22:11 Change is inevitable. 22:13 Things are going to change. 22:15 A monarch butterfly was once a caterpillar that formed a chrysalis.
22:19 When I look at Portland, I see a city that is trying to avoid the inevitable, and it's using the same tools that may have worked well at some point. 22:28 But anyone who uses a tool knows you only get so long before that tool has to be either refined or replaced. 22:35 This is a time of change. 22:37 We need to refine our tools. 22:39 We need to find better tools. 22:41 We need to learn better techniques to make the tools that we use more efficient and more durable. 22:50 Change is gonna happen. 22:51 It's gonna come. 22:52 It can go for the better or for the worse. 22:54 When you look at downtown, you see change for the worse, and some spots look like they've just been relegated to condemnation. 23:03 On the surface, the issue is homelessness and drugs, but that's just on the surface. 23:09 If you want to treat homelessness and drugs, you're treating a symptom. 23:12 It's like you're giving Narcan for the overdose, but it doesn't do anything for the addiction. 23:18 To properly dispose of a weed that you want dug out of your house and you don't want it destroying your garden, you have to dig it up from the root. 23:25 I'm homeless, so I'm speaking from firsthand eyewitness experience. 23:29 The root isn't homelessness, it's hopelessness. 23:35 Instead of Narcan, tents, and syringes, why are we not passing out hand tools, trade classes on how to use them professionally, and sources of housing where true realization of ownership can be felt by the person moving in? 23:52 It'd make a much more profitable system, and it'd keep a lot of money— untaxed dollars out of the drug dealers' pockets, never mind all the other malignant commerce that that brings with it. 24:02 For the root of the problem, I'm offering solutions. 24:05 Thank you. 24:06 Do I have all of the answers? 24:08 I'm not that arrogant. 24:09 I know that I don't. 24:11 It's a team effort, a community effort. 24:14 The Homelessness and Housing Committee, which was headed by Councilor Avalos, it was terminated on March 30th. 24:20 Though the committee was terminated, homelessness was not. 24:25 I emailed this proposal, a very crude draft, by the way. 24:31 Thank you. 24:31 To Councilor Green. 24:33 Maybe he shared some finer points with some of you. 24:36 If he didn't, it's okay. 24:37 I probably wouldn't have either. 24:38 It wasn't in great shape. 24:41 Portland has this natural beauty that I've seen that parallels no other place. 24:46 From Mount Hood to Hayden Island to the Tualatin River Valley, you can just look at this place and it's beautiful. 24:52 But what good is the view out of the window if what you're looking at on the inside of the house is dirty walls, And there's just ineptitude that's stinking up the air. 25:03 Again, my name is Marshall McFarland. 25:05 I am Ghalib bin Imhotep El, and I offer my services to this council in whatever form or fashion to help. 25:12 I'm going to leave this proposal in a more completed version here if you guys would like it. 25:21 Thank you.
25:22 Thank you very much.
25:24 Can you please hand that proposal to the clerk there?
25:32 Karen Chire, John Fall.
25:52 I'm being told to go first. 25:57 So it appears—.
26:02 Please introduce yourself.
26:04 Oh yes, I'm John Fall. 26:05 I've lived in what is now District 2 for 20 years. 26:08 Thank you. 26:09 So there's enough money for basketball but not for road repairs, and it appears there's a proposal to add a fee to the water bills for road repairs. 26:22 Those of us with low paychecks or on fixed incomes cannot afford to pay more on the water bill. 26:32 It often is blamed on federal mandates, so sue the federal government because everyone else is. 26:39 And now is the time, if that's the excuse.
26:44 Instead of having forums where people who can afford it tell you what you want to hear and are all gung-ho for adding this fee to the water bill, do the hard work. 26:55 Again, there's enough money for basketball but not for road repairs. 27:00 You are making water a luxury. 27:04 How long before this body finds a way to add a fee to breathing? 27:10 The lectures about conserving water need to stop. 27:14 I'm disconnected from the stormwater system, and any one of you is welcome to come smell me. 27:22 I haven't showered in 2 days. 27:26 Do the hard work. 27:27 Tax tires. 27:28 I have a car. 27:29 Tax tires. 27:31 We need—. 27:31 We don't need tires to survive. 27:33 We need water. 27:35 Add more fees to Uber, Lyft, and taxis. 27:39 Tax junk food. 27:40 If you're already taxing junk food, raise the tax. 27:44 Make the road into the airport a toll road. 27:47 No one has to go to the airport by their private car. 27:51 So make some hard choices. 27:53 Come up with something imaginative, not making the water bill higher. 28:00 I assume the Water Bureau has been audited. 28:03 But it should be audited from top to bottom. 28:07 The website is horrible. 28:09 Calling, you get a lecture. 28:12 They're not entitled to their jobs, and neither are you. 28:17 Do something difficult instead of robbing us for having a glass of water or taking a 3-minute shower.
28:26 Thank you very much. 28:28 Go ahead, Karen.
28:31 Good morning. 28:31 My name is Karen Chirey. 28:32 I'm a veteran business owner in District 4, and, um, I'm calling again to get somebody's help with my business. 28:42 I am having issues with the trespass ORS not being enforced, and I have had multiple people that we have trespassed and documented trespassing On my property in our incident logbooks, and they keep coming back and either panhandling, threatening to kill me, and/or shoplifting in our store. 29:07 And I can't seem to get them arrested when they keep coming back time and time and time again. 29:14 Yeah. 29:15 And so I don't know if there's like an amendment to an ORS or something like that that you guys could help put a little bit more teeth into it so that the police, when I call for help, they come and take care of the individual that is causing these nuisances on my property. 29:36 Some of the people, I forget if I said it, that they're panhandling and harassing my customers for cigarettes or money or for them to buy them something. 29:47 And I just, I don't want to lose customers because of these people when they have so many other services that they can go Go to in our area. 29:57 The other is the, the sidewalk code, city code. 30:05 I am responsible for maintaining the sidewalks around my property, and yet I have homeless people camping out on the side of my building, not curbside, but like my building side, and yet I can't get them to move along. 30:22 I mean, if I say it, and sometimes they do, but if they're still staying there and I call police for like an unwanted, they say, well, it's a city sidewalk, you know. 30:34 Well, yes, I agree, a sidewalk is for walking. 30:38 It is not for camping out. 30:41 I believe that there was a lawsuit that happened regarding the ADA and, and the sidewalks being blocked, but I feel like that is not being instituted in all cases, and especially in my case. 30:58 It just doesn't look good when you've got homeless trash and people sleeping and stuff all around your business. 31:05 More people are not going to want to come shop at our store. 31:09 And the numbers that we're experiencing indicate that these are kind of issues that we're not— like, I could barely survive. 31:20 Literally, I could barely afford the the employees that we have, with especially all the taxes and the fees that are going up. 31:28 And so I'm just asking for help with these few little things that maybe you guys can help institute.
31:38 Thank you very much.
31:42 Vicki Payne. 31:43 Vicki's online. 31:44 You can go ahead.
31:47 Hi, my name is Vicki Payne, and I wish I wasn't here today to talk about poop. 31:52 But this is a critical issue. 31:53 We have a significant problem with dog and human fecal matter on our public sidewalks, especially in dense multifamily areas like downtown. 32:01 While community and city cleanups have noticeably, noticeably reduced general litter downtown over the last year or so, the issue of feces remains unaddressed. 32:09 While I realize you can now call 311 for human waste, a recent trial of the system resulted in nobody showing up and waiting weeks for the pile to naturally disappear during a very dry spell. 32:20 My experience confirms this. 32:22 Even after moving from a downtown apartment in the Stadium neighborhood where I was inundated regularly long before COVID walking around running into piles of dog poop, uh, my neighborhood in North Portland saw a ridiculous uptick in litter and feces after being rezoned for multi-family in 2018. 32:43 Um, and I'm, I'm pro-morph housing, absolutely, but last week, as I counted a pile of dog feces on literally every block of my daily walk within a mile of my house with my own dog, um, it— this is why I decided to testify today. 33:01 I—. 33:01 It's ridiculous. 33:03 And this is happening despite major thoroughfares being swept frequently. 33:07 Um, you know, I live near North Interstate, and we have cherry blossoms that bloom before the ones on the waterfront, and it's really unfortunate to see these beautiful cherry blossoms and the entire street below them is covered in trash and piles of waste. 33:22 I know not all renters do this, and I know a lot of homeowners do this as well, but it's due to the idea of everyone else is doing it, nobody's getting punished for it. 33:31 So if we start somewhere where we can input code enforcement, it will lessen the behavior, encourage others to do this. 33:38 I realize we want to avoid further construction burdens, but we have to address regulations for multi-family housing. 33:44 Many of these buildings are charging pet rent fees but fail to provide simple dog pet waste stations. 33:50 I urge the council to discuss mandatory pet waste stations in buildings that allow pets, especially those charging high fees for those pets. 33:58 At a minimum, government-funded housing should make this mandatory. 34:01 And honestly, I would hope that you would consider requiring built-in pet relief areas in the outdoor schematics of any new government-funded housing, because as I have noticed in my neighborhood, many of residents in these buildings are elderly or disabled and cannot physically clean up after their dogs. 34:15 Thank you. 34:16 The community shouldn't be expected to do it for them. 34:19 At a recent City Club event, Councilor Smith said lack of capital access is the reason for the housing development slowdown. 34:25 The why for this investment issue is simple: nobody wants to invest in a city where they step out of their door every day to see broken glass, trash, and feces. 34:33 This is why families are leaving and businesses are closing. 34:37 Um, I, I doubt you guys will do this. 34:39 I know nobody wants to give, you know, a piece of money to anything, but you know, putting it towards continuing figuring out how to continue the shelter, keeping the mayor's shelters open, a long way, because it will get the illegal camping trash and feces out of our main thoroughfares and will encourage walking, biking, and transit use, which directly supports the climate goals of PCEP. 35:02 Thank you.
35:03 Thank you very much.
35:04 That concludes public communications.
35:07 Can we please call item number 3? 35:09 Our first time certain.
35:12 Item 3, appropriate grants from the State of Oregon Transportation Safety Office and from Oregon Impact for a total of $322,555 to increase traffic safety.
35:23 So colleagues, you may be wondering why this item is a time certain at the beginning of the agenda. 35:28 Um, this was originally scheduled 4 weeks ago, uh, when it was pulled from the consent agenda. 35:32 It was then placed by default at the end of the agenda and then carried over 3 consecutive times due to our schedule overrun. 35:40 I want to extend a thanks and an apology to the staff who have waited diligently in this room for 9 hours to hear this, including 3 of those at an evening council hearing. 35:52 I will be working harder to ensure that when this body asks for your time, we do a better job of keeping up on our side of the bargain. 36:00 Councilor Smith, I believe you pulled this item from consent. 36:03 Do you have any comments? 36:03 No, I just wanted to thank the staff for their work. 36:05 Comments or remarks?
36:07 Yes, Council President, thank you for bringing this up forward. 36:11 And I'm trying to see, do we have the staffer? 36:18 Thank you.
36:27 Sheila, Management Division. 36:29 Ben Smuin is also online, and I also have the Police Bureau, represented— representation from the Police Bureau.
36:36 Thank you, thank you. 36:37 The reason why I pulled this off the, um, consent agenda is because these were dollars that had not been appropriated yet, and they were sitting in the grants, uh, pot. 36:49 Um, they've been sitting there for quite some time. 36:52 Uh, I think they were there during, um, uh, CA Jordan's tenure, and we didn't know anything about it. 37:00 And I was trying to figure out why were we why was the police doing an Oregon Department of Transportation grant, and how did that make sense to me? 37:09 And so, um, I made a call down to the grants department, and we learned a little bit more about this, that there were no guidelines to, um, how this money was going to get distributed yet. 37:23 And I had been saying for some time that there were, were over hundreds of millions of dollars in the grants but that money had not been desegregated to see where it is supposed to go. 37:36 It's just one big number, and this was a part of that number. 37:41 Could you give us a summary of what happened with, with the grant and how it's going to be used by the police department?
37:50 I will ask Ben and the Police Bureau to provide more specific information on these grants. 37:55 I can give you information on generally speaking, how grants are budgeted, if you'd like information on that. 38:01 But specific— I'll bring the Police Bureau up to give you more specific information on those programs and those specific grants.
38:07 Yeah, and explain why it took so long before it got to us, because I remember doing a 9/12 that said that when new money comes in, you need to get it to us within 15, 18 days to let us know that we have the money. 38:22 And so that is a regular occurrence, and I think we need to get used to when money comes in, Acknowledge it so we can put it in the budget. 38:31 And, and I think that is in many ways part of the problem that we're having with the Portland Housing Bureau, is that we're not acknowledging money that we have, and it's not coming to, to council. 38:42 And then it pops up on an agenda and no one knows where it came from and how long it's been there and what it's being used for, and not understanding why it's being put on a consent agenda. 38:52 Thank you. 38:53 When we should know a little bit more about the grant and how it's being used?
38:58 Yes, so we have been trying to put a process in place since the new structure of possibly having a set time on the agenda once a month. 39:08 So new grants that come in, we could bring those monthly and appropriate those grants. 39:13 In the past, before the new structure, it was one ordinance per grant. 39:18 So when we received a new grant, there would be an ordinance to appropriate those funds. 39:23 And we had made a recommendation to come monthly, so any grants that had come in within that month, we would appropriate those. 39:30 So it would be within 30 days. 39:32 And since you and I met and talked, I have been working with the DCA, my DCA, City Operations, and the city administrator on a process, a proposal that we can bring forward. 39:44 And also you and I talked about a potential resolution. 39:46 Exactly. 39:47 And I drafted that resolution. 39:49 So I agree, we need a process to be able to appropriate these grants on a regular basis. 39:56 I know everyone is so extremely busy and there are so many items coming before council. 40:03 And as we said, we got pushed 3 weeks to try to bring this one to council. 40:08 So I think for me, my recommendation would be us just to have a time that we could once a month, if any new grants come in, Yes. 40:17 That we can bring those to council and appropriate those grants.
40:19 And I totally agree with you. 40:20 And I hadn't had a chance to talk to the council president about that because that's the way I think it should be done. 40:26 That as soon as we get new money in that is not a part of the current budget, it needs to be modified immediately because oftentimes it's not gonna fall the way that we want to in a towel. 40:37 We need to know that we do have that money because if the administration knows that the money is there, the executive side knows that it's there, and we don't know that it's there, there could be some dollars for things that people have come and talked to us about that we might be able to work with the administration to have those dollars appropriated. 40:56 So I think it is, I am in support of your suggestion that we talked about that we should have a monthly opportunity to modify the budget instead of always waiting for the TAO because that's where things get mixed up. 41:12 And that's how we get into a really persnickety place.
41:19 Within the council because people don't understand how the money came and when it came and all those things. 41:25 And so I think we just need to be very specific about it. 41:28 I see that your DCA just walked in, but I appreciate it and I think that that will help us going forward. 41:36 So thank you.
41:39 Thank you, Councilor Smith.
41:41 Is the police here, Council President?
41:44 Yeah, I see a representative.
41:45 I also see Ben from the grants office has yeah, um, so, uh, Ben Smuelin, I'm a grants analyst, uh, within the city's, um, Grants Management Division. 42:00 Um, and so the initial question, I can leave, um, specifics up to— I believe it should be Sergeant Hornstein and Lieutenant Quick. 42:10 Um, but there's 6 grants here. 42:11 2 Of these are from ODOT's Transportation Safety Office. 42:15 One is from the City of Portland's Department of Transportation. 42:17 Uh, specific to traffic safety training for $50,000. 42:22 The second ODOT is, um, will fund a driver education course, um, for the tune of $207,532. 42:33 And then there are 4 specific awards from Oregon Impact the city has received annually, I think probably for at least the last 10 years. 42:42 One for driving under the influence of intoxicants, DUI. 42:48 A second for distracted driving. 42:52 The third is speed enforcement, and the fourth is safety belt enforcement. 42:58 And so in terms of how these came about, so we didn't— these weren't executed until, I believe, the end of December.
43:07 Um, and so then the process is to start working, um, in this case to get them on a council agenda. 43:16 And, um, maybe the— maybe the PPV folks there can speak to this, but these, these awards are incredibly specific into what we can spend them on. 43:26 So like once, um, they're approved by ODOT, any changes to what we have said we would do um, have to go through their review process and an amendment process. 43:37 The Oregon Impact Awards are just for what they say they're for. 43:42 Um, and in the past when we have put it— I, I, let me just clarify, I can speak for public safety grants.
43:50 Those are the grants that I've worked on since I came to the city. 43:55 Um, these grants, when we, if we put them on a consent agenda, We will include the award document that usually includes a detailed line item budget, and we typically provide a summary of what each grant will fund in the impact statement. 44:15 So there's always, when we are appropriating these through the council process as opposed to, to TAO, there is information that we include with those.
44:26 Thank you, Ben. 44:28 And is there any additional detail you all would like to add?
44:32 Sergeant Hornstein can probably speak more specifically to the individual grants. 44:37 Lieutenant Rob Quick with Portland Police Bureau Traffic Division is under my purview. 44:42 Each— we have the— as Ben was talking about, there are specific grants that are allocated for exact needs and the— I'm sure council is aware that the way our traffic division is staffed, we have our patrol present in the afternoon shift into the evening hours. 45:01 We actually do not have a patrol function during day shift. 45:06 And so these grants are used. 45:08 So when— I know that several councilors were out at the back-to-school mission up on Monday, I think it was. 45:15 And so that those types of funds are what actually fund the officers to come in on their time off to conduct those daytime operations. 45:25 The prioritization for the bureau has been on looking at DUI enforcement and reducing fatalities, and so by statistics, majority of your DUI enforcement happens in the nighttime hours. 45:39 And so that's why that prioritization has happened in terms of where our staff. 45:43 Obviously the chief's office has a lot more to do that. 45:46 I get what they get me, but that's kind of the philosophy behind that. 45:51 I'll go ahead and let Betsy speak to just the actual— she's one of our grant administrators, so she's the one that kind of tracks the information that come in.
46:00 Yeah, good morning. 46:01 I'm Sergeant Betsy Hornstein, and I'm in the Traffic Division. 46:05 So I manage the speed enforcement, grant, the distracted driving grant, DUI grant, and the safety belt grant. 46:16 And so I'll just— I'll echo what Lieutenant Quick said, is that we, we don't have a daytime presence currently based on staffing and a lot of what the need is for the city and preventing serious injury crashes and traffic fatalities.
46:37 So, um, you know, on top of the school zone traffic safety missions and funding those, we also have a safety belt grant. 46:49 And with that, we can go assist the community in child safety seat clinics. 46:56 And so that will fund officers and our public safety support specialists to go attend and assist in these clinics throughout the community to help make sure families are able to safely fasten their children in their vehicles. 47:18 So they, they help in several different aspects. 47:22 Our DUI grant— oftentimes impaired drivers are arrested, and the process of investigation into these impaired drivers does go beyond their normal shift. 47:35 And so these grant funds do assist greatly in covering these overtime expenses that otherwise would come out of the city budget. 47:47 We also do run DUI enforcement missions around large drinking holidays, and so we're able to hire more officers on overtime to come and participate in those, and that does help prevent these crashes and fatalities.
48:06 Thank you very much.
48:07 And one clarification, if I may. 48:08 I, I know that council is very supportive of the Vision Zero program. 48:12 We work very closely with PBOT. 48:15 In fact, uh, an hour, 2 hours of my afternoon is in the steering committee for the new Vision Zero and when we look at these grants, there are very clear stipulations. 48:27 For example, like speed grants, we work those in the identified high-crash corridors, the safety corridors. 48:34 So we're not just going out and putting people on the street doing whatever. 48:37 They're tied into the data that is supported by PBOT studies and also the internal studies we do in terms of dangerous locations. 48:44 And that's kind of— so the distracted driver the speed grants, some of those grants are very specific to where they must be used. 48:53 So they're targeted based on the data that comes out of everything, just as a clarification for council.
48:59 Thank you very much. 49:01 Before we move to council discussion, I just want to see very quickly, Keelan, does anyone— has anyone signed up for testimony on this item?
49:08 No one has signed up.
49:10 Oh my God, I'm sorry, Rebecca. 49:12 Hi, Rebecca. 49:13 Rebecca, Rebecca, Rebecca, Rebecca.
49:20 Love it. 49:21 Okay, thank you. 49:21 So Councilor Kanal.
49:23 Thank you, Council President. 49:25 Thank you, Councilor Smith, for pulling this. 49:27 It's an important conversation to have from a process perspective, and I agree with all of your process points. 49:31 I just had a couple questions in a general sense related to what was just mentioned, and then I have a question on one of the 6 exhibits, Exhibit 2. 49:41 But first, I just, I want to say I think it's great that we're trying to get what limited funds are available out of ODOT. 49:47 And it's blood from a stone sometimes. 49:49 So thank you for everyone who was involved in getting that and applying for it. 49:55 And I also know that it's a particularly important year to try and find outside sources of funding for the budget, but particularly for public safety, and that grants are a part of the conversation that maybe the public don't always get a lot of insight into. 50:06 So hopefully this conversation can help. 50:10 My question, you mentioned overtime conversations and that grants help pay for overtime in this context. 50:18 You also mentioned the conversation around, you know, how you pick and choose. 50:22 And I think that's what you refer to as traffic priority projects in the context of PBB's budget. 50:28 How has the general fund side of overtime, what's been going on there? 50:33 Is there overtime on the general fund for this work? 50:36 And has that been a trend in any positive, negative, constant direction over the last few years? 50:43 I'm not looking for exact numbers.
50:45 Yeah, yes, we do use bureau overtime dollars for particular things. 50:52 Ideally, we use the grant funding. 50:55 That's the primary source of things. 50:57 So when we look at a prioritization of whether we're using bureau funds or whether we're using the ODOT funds, if it fits under the umbrella of the grant funding, we always default to that.
51:07 Just because of the cost savings there. 51:09 But yes, we do have funds. 51:11 I mean, but I will say a bulk of the overtime costs that come out of the traffic division, if you accept traffic court, because court is a whole different thing, but if you're talking about the actual on-the-street kind of dollars, a bulk of our funding for any of the overtime is funded by these ODOT grants.
51:29 Would you say that there's been more general fund overtime dollars available for traffic this year than preceding years?
51:37 I couldn't answer that without looking, honestly.
51:39 Okay, I'd love to know because council did adopt a budget note directing that PPB put higher priority on overtime for traffic priority projects amongst other things.
51:49 Yeah, I know there's money, but in terms of more, that's what I wouldn't be able to tell you off the top of my head.
51:54 No, no problem at all. 51:55 I'd love to see the trend there. 51:58 I think I just, I wanted to say exhibits 1, and these are all related to each grant, And 3 through 6 seem great. 52:06 No questions, nothing to worry about there. 52:08 And I appreciate the work. 52:09 I had a question related to Exhibit 2. 52:11 This is Grant 267, and it has to do with the training that is being provided by Portland police officers to— and the way it's written in here is Portlanders who speak English as a second language or have limited English proficiency. 52:30 And I wanted to understand that a little bit more. 52:32 Sure. 52:33 Because I believe that these programs, especially in light of current context around the federal government, are an opportunity to build trust in local police. 52:43 But I also am not 100% sure about the ups— like, where in the process that intervention might be the most helpful. 52:51 So just wanted to understand how that works a little bit more.
52:55 I will be limited in my answering that because it's actually something that Traffic Division does not oversee it. 53:02 So, but I can provide some context, and Ben actually probably will be able to jump in here as well. 53:08 But so where this started is this was designed as a program to provide training and help for immigrants coming over to kind of learn how to navigate the system, how to drive, how to interact with law enforcement. 53:23 Captain Dave Abrahamson was I was one of the people primarily involved in it, but it really hasn't been something that, as the Traffic Division as a whole has been monitored, it's been supported by a variety of employees throughout the bureau, but it's not really housed in the Traffic Division, although it technically falls under a traffic type of a lens. 53:45 But I mean, the designation there, that was the purpose of it. 53:49 Ben, do you want to jump in here a little bit? 53:51 We actually had this conversation about that. 53:54 We don't— the Traffic Division doesn't manage this grant. 53:59 Yeah, I can, I can answer sort of the basics. 54:06 And yeah, as Lieutenant Quick said, Captain Abrahamson was in charge of this. 54:11 He went out on leave throughout the beginnings of this grant, so it's still a bit in the process of getting things settled. 54:20 But, um, to address the first question, like, uh, one of the purposes is to provide a space in which, um, these communities can take driver's ed courses. 54:35 And I, I think part of the application talks about one of the specific reasons that folks may Thank you. 54:43 Part of the reason people flee the scene of accidents is an unfamiliarity with laws, with processes, with how to interact with responding officers. 54:51 And so it's sort of an attempt to create sort of a common meeting space for communities across Portland with PPB in which traffic laws are explained. 55:04 Part of it funds— is earmarked or one of the line items is translation services because sometimes certain resources are available in English. 55:16 And so the idea of— or one of the purposes is to spread, is to publish this information and these courses in multiple languages. 55:27 And should also mention, like, there is no requirement for folks to attend these courses. 55:34 That's that would run afoul of certain, uh, policies, uh, and so, but that is largely what this is designed for, is folks who haven't, um, taken classes, who may not have the means to sign up for classes. 55:52 And hopefully, if that doesn't answer the specific question, you could—. 55:57 If maybe one more clarification there, and like I said, I might— I'm, I'm kind of speaking I'm third-hand on the knowledge here, but one of the driving forces on the education piece, and Ben could probably tell me what the— there's an actual private vendor that provides the service for a comprehensive driving type of program. 56:17 Where my officers typically come in is that if we're talking specific things to, hey, what happens if you get pulled over, we would have Portland police officers who would come in and provide a, you know, maybe a mock scenario where they could kind of talk people through, or just kind of a lecture explaining, well, this is what you could expect when you get stopped by the police. 56:40 But that's— but our involvement from a police perspective is actually pretty limited. 56:45 It's more of a structure processes kind of a thing, and a lot of that's handled by a private vendor.
56:53 Yeah, and I see that this has been done before, and there have been— correct, it seems like there was an issue that's now resolved with the vendors.
57:00 That, that's my understanding. 57:01 Great.
57:02 Is Captain Abramson— that's Community Engagement, right?
57:05 Uh, he— yeah, he's been off on leave, um, and I'm not sure if and when he's coming back.
57:10 Sure, but the, the, the part of PPB that will be doing that, that owns this work, is, is Community Engagement. 57:15 Is that—.
57:16 Ben, is that where it ultimately landed? 57:18 Because we— they talked about the structure. 57:20 Was it you, or did it go under Robert it's, it's with Robert King and, uh, Casey Shaneman, I think, has taken—.
57:32 Yeah, I'm— I can follow up on the operational questions then later with, with them. 57:37 I don't want to take up too much time there, but my, my question is really about understanding, A, if there's a policy implication that hasn't really been discussed, which it appears not so much since this has been done before, and maybe, um, outside the scope of the grant, but talking about If there's been training funded through this grant or others for police officers in how they interact with immigrants and second language communities prior to this was sort of my understanding. 58:02 It seemed a little bit like a second step, and I wasn't aware if a first step had occurred. 58:06 Obviously, this grant is going to exist in a vacuum, so there may be a completely additional thing that's outside the scope that's earlier. 58:14 I don't want to put you on the spot to speak for a part of the bureau that's not yours, so I won't do that, but I'll—.
58:19 I'll follow up, but just kind of while I have I think that having— ensuring that whether it exists, it continues to exist, or whether we don't have it and make sure we have it, talking about trainings for things not exclusively sanctuary policy, but the broader conversation around how police should interact with immigrant communities is something that I want to make sure exists in the future. 58:41 So thank you.
58:42 Thank you, Councilor Kanal. 58:43 Councilor Smith.
58:47 Thank you, Council President. 58:48 Could I have DCA Causie to come up, please? 58:57 Thank you so much for coming up. 58:59 Um, one of the things that I'm going to piggyback on what, uh, Councilor Kanal was talking about, because I think we caught the same thing, uh, what caught my attention about this particular grant was the fact that the police department was doing driver's training, and I was like, since when? 59:17 Since when do they do driver's training? 59:20 And so as we talked and I learned that there was an issue around the vendor, that the police actually didn't do the driver's training, that they contracted it out to a vendor, and that the reason why it was almost going to be sent back to ODOT was because we had not found a vendor. 59:39 And I was concerned that we had money on the books that we could have used and that it had taken so long that it was at risk of being sent back to ODOT. 59:49 And so that was one of my initial conversations. 59:53 Secondly, I wanted to find out from you, and you may not know this because I don't expect you to understand every single mark, but I wanted to find out if there was a mark in the Police Bureau's budget that accounted for this, that put in general fund money and if so, if now we have that grant money, I want that general fund money back into the general fund. 1:00:18 Because what happens oftentimes, and I've seen this firsthand at the county and other places, where we line item something and we give it a general fund dollar amount. 1:00:30 And so we end up keeping the general fund money and then using the grant money. 1:00:36 Yes. 1:00:37 But if we are fronting you the money in the general fund to do the money before the actual grant is awarded, I believe you need to give that money back because now you have the grant money. 1:00:49 It is not free money that you can use as a slush fund to be able to do other things that you want to do or to send back as a constraint. 1:00:57 So I want you to look for me. 1:01:00 Is this a line item that we already paid for?
1:01:03 In this fiscal year of general fund. 1:01:06 If so, I think the city administrator needs to get that money back so that we can fill the gap. 1:01:13 We have a huge gap in our budget right now, and, um, that would be so helpful. 1:01:19 Um, the other thing that Ben brought up earlier, he's— he talked about one of the grants, um, that we've gotten for 10 years and that he was it, it was just kind of normal place. 1:01:33 So, okay, if that's the case too, then that money, if we've had it for 10 years, I don't consider that one-time-only money, grant money. 1:01:41 I consider that ongoing money that is in our budget. 1:01:44 So we need to identify those things that we have gotten for 10 years. 1:01:48 That is truly, uh, ongoing money. 1:01:51 It sounds like an ongoing relationship. 1:01:53 And so that we need to figure out the difference between the two, because I also think that we're line iteming stuff that is in our budget and we're getting it on the backside with grants that have been held up. 1:02:06 And we had a different system, and I'm going to recognize we had a different system, but I think we need to be looking at opportunities at using as much of our precious general fund dollars for those things that we can't pay for with grant money. 1:02:22 And if you could do that as you're looking and as we're trying to reconcile and realign with the new realignment that, um, uh, that's, that's taking place right now, I think that we'll be able to, uh, wring out some, um, additional general fund dollars to help us meet that gap that we have.
1:02:41 I'm actually going to speak to that if you don't mind.
1:02:44 Um, we're running pretty over time right now, folks, so if we could please go quick.
1:02:48 That would be considered supplanting, which is against federal regulations. 1:02:53 So we don't do that. 1:02:54 We don't swap out general fund for grant dollars. 1:02:57 So grant dollars are above and beyond any general fund dollars we have. 1:03:01 So if, if they do have budget, general fund budget for programs like this, when we receive the grant funds, it will be above and beyond that. 1:03:10 We would add additional services.
1:03:12 No, no, no, no. 1:03:13 No, no, no, this— we're talking about— it's— I'm not talking about supplanting. 1:03:17 I'm talking about knowingly that you have gotten this money before and you know that you're getting a federal grant, but yet you still ask for general fund when you know you're going to get it in the grant. 1:03:28 You need to take it out.
1:03:30 We wouldn't budget that in general fund. 1:03:31 We would budget that in grants fund. 1:03:33 So if we know we're receiving grant funds, that would be budgeted on the grant and in the grants fund, not to general fund.
1:03:39 I hear what you're saying, but I think DCA Causey knows what I'm saying. 1:03:42 I'm asking him to go back and look in the budget and see if we budgeted general fund money for something that we already knew. 1:03:48 There's a lot of things that we have not followed, that we didn't follow Oregon budget law. 1:03:53 We found $106 million that no one knew about. 1:03:57 So you can't tell me that that would be supplanting and all of that. 1:04:02 No, we hid, supplanted, and everything else. 1:04:05 So what I'm asking DCA Causie for, can you go back and look? 1:04:09 Yes. 1:04:11 Because if we— and many times we will say, okay, we'll give you the, the general fund money until the grant money comes in, and then you have to give that money back to the general fund. 1:04:21 That's what I'm saying. 1:04:23 So thank you.
1:04:24 And, and for the record, um, Bob Causie, DCA Public Safety. 1:04:29 Um, yes, um, I will have our team go back and, and look into this, uh, for you, Councilor. 1:04:35 And, uh, Councilor Kanal, um, I was messaging our budget team with your question and received a response. 1:04:42 We do have a small amount of backfill over time, $3,000 to $10,000 per year for traffic operations, if that helps answer your question.
1:04:52 Yeah, I'm just curious if it went up or down from last year.
1:04:57 That's the first half of it, so thank you.
1:05:00 Okay, thank you all. 1:05:01 Thank you, colleagues. 1:05:03 Seeing no one else in the queue, this item is the first reading of a non-emergency ordinance and now moves to second reading. 1:05:09 Thank you all for your patience. 1:05:12 Good, cool. 1:05:13 Could we please read item number 4?
1:05:15 Item 4, April 2026 City Administrator Update.
1:05:19 City Administrator Lee.
1:05:21 Good morning, councilors. 1:05:23 Uh, this month's update I want to frame around the theme of, uh, collaboration across the organization, which you're seeing in the city that is increasingly working across bureaus, across service areas, and, and with community partners to deliver better outcomes to the community. 1:05:41 That shows up in a few important ways. 1:05:45 First, in how we are coordinated on complex community issues. 1:05:48 You'll see that in the immigrant affairs work being led out of the mayor's office, where teams are across communications, police, emergency management, Second, you'll also see in our emergency preparedness work where multiple service areas contributed to a citywide framework to respond to an increased federal activity and border community concerns. 1:06:20 Second, you'll see collaboration, how we are improving the customer experience.
1:06:24 Councilmember Herbold.
1:06:25 A great example is that the partnership we have between Technology Services and Permitting and Development, which resulted in a nationally recognized Digital Transformation Award. 1:06:37 That work is about making it easier for residents and businesses to interact with our government. 1:06:43 Third, collaboration is showing up in how we respond in moments that matter. 1:06:48 During the recent river event, uh, rain event, teams across Public Works, Emergency Management, Communications, Public Safety coordinated in real time to manage flooding, landslides, and infrastructure impacts across the city. 1:07:05 Let me spend a little moment on a key infrastructure project update. 1:07:09 On the Bull Run Filtration Project, the city has reached an important milestone. 1:07:14 The land use appeal process has concluded. 1:07:17 And the permits are now final. 1:07:19 At the same time, we are strengthening oversight and accountability, and conversations that we'll be having with council will be forthcoming on that as well. 1:07:28 That includes independent value engineering, third-party claims review, enhanced financial controls, and establishment of additional external financial oversight moving forward. 1:07:42 This is a critical public health investment.
1:07:45 Our focus is on discipline delivery, transparency, and strong financial stewardship. 1:07:52 I also want to provide an update on the ICE facility and our enforcement position under city code. 1:07:59 On the land use violation, the hearing officer dismissed the appeal at the request of the building owner. 1:08:06 We are now monitoring next steps closely. 1:08:10 The owner has the option to take the case to circuit court.
1:08:14 If that does not occur, the matter may come before council for consideration. 1:08:21 At the same time, we're continuing to build out a clear and enforceable framework for the detention facility impact fee. 1:08:28 As a reminder, a temporary administrative rule was put in place in February and is in effect through August of the 26th. 1:08:37 That rule establishes the court enforcement structure.
1:08:41 Includes citations, fines, service requirements, and appeal procedures. 1:08:47 We're now actively developing the permit rule as well. 1:08:51 This work is being led by our permitting and development and includes a coordinated multi-bureau team— environmental services, police, fire, emergency management, and the county. 1:09:04 That group is meeting weekly to ensure alignment across enforcement operations, and legal considerations. 1:09:11 A draft of the permit rule is expected to be published for public comment before the end of May. 1:09:19 Per city policy, that draft will be open for at least 30 days and will, will facilitate a transparent and accessible public input process. 1:09:29 Our goal is to finalize and implement the permanent rule before the temporary rule expires in August.
1:09:36 In parallel, we are also improving access for the public to report potential violations. 1:09:43 We have launched a new reporting tool where community members can submit concerns related to prohibited chemical substances at detention facilities. 1:09:53 Reports can be submitted online or through a dedicated phone line with permitting and development. 1:09:59 This is about ensuring we have clear, Lawful and enforceable process in place, one that protects community access to services while upholding city authority. 1:10:12 A few quick operational, uh, and organizational updates. 1:10:16 You'll see, uh, continued progress in strengthening city's financial position. 1:10:21 Our bond ratings were reaffirmed at the highest levels, reflecting strong fiscal stewardship and confidence in the city's long-term stability. 1:10:31 We are also advancing key organizational investments. 1:10:35 We're nearing completion of a hiring of our first equity officer. 1:10:40 We've launched also a procurement system which will improve transparency and visibility in our contracts. 1:10:48 We also are continuing to expand the use of technology tools, including the rollout of Microsoft Copilot to support staff productivity and innovation. 1:10:59 On the report itself, I want to acknowledge the continued feedback from council. 1:11:04 We are actively refining this report to make it more useful and more transparent. 1:11:09 Two specific follow-ups: first, in response to council's request, we are developing an additional appendix that will provide visibility into contracts that extend beyond the current fiscal year. 1:11:21 We expect to begin including that in next month's report. 1:11:25 Second, we are continuing to work with Councilor Kanal's office on enhancements to the risk report as well. 1:11:32 More broadly, this report will continue to evolve with a focus on clarity, transparency, and accountability. 1:11:40 Before I close, I want to recognize the work of our teams from emergency response during severe weather to cross-bureau collaboration on complex policy issues, to the day-to-day delivery of services across this city. 1:11:54 This report reflects an organization that is working hard, working together, and continuing to work towards excellence and improving on service delivery. 1:12:06 My goal continues to be clear: to provide you with clarity, ensure accountability, and to keep the organization moving forward in a disciplined, in coordinated fashion. 1:12:17 I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have.
1:12:21 Thank you, City Administrator. 1:12:23 Uh, Councilor Smith.
1:12:27 Thank you, CA Lee, for that report. 1:12:31 I want to go back to the, uh, Bull Run. 1:12:33 Um, I was looking at an article in the Oregonian about a week ago, and it talked about the previous council who had, um, promised to, uh, give us a watchdog organization over the bull run. 1:12:47 It is alarming the, um, the amount of money that we have increased for this project. 1:12:53 I can tell you just off the top of my head, I, I appreciate all the, the work that we've gotten, um, and all the support that we've gotten with our partners on the federal side to help us pay for this, but it is an extremely large amount of money. 1:13:09 Um, some of it was caused because we had to go through LUBA, I admit that. 1:13:12 Thank you. 1:13:13 But even on top of that, to have another half million billion dollars assessed to this project is extremely high. 1:13:22 Since I will be sitting on the Public Works Committee as the vice chair, I will also be calling to have someone to give me that report and to also make sure that we do have a watchdog and a process that someone outside outside of the city of Portland is also looking into this in addition to the city councilors and our committee folks. 1:13:44 I would, I would appreciate that. 1:13:46 Um, I know time— the previous council, there were a lot of, of things going on and we were trying to change into this new form of government and some things lapsed. 1:13:56 So, um, this— I would like to level set this to make sure going forward now that we have this and that we're participating in this, uh, from a committee standpoint.
1:14:10 Thank you, Councilor Smith. 1:14:11 Councilor Murillo.
1:14:13 Thank you, Council President. 1:14:14 Um, thank you, City Administrator, for this report. 1:14:16 This is helpful. 1:14:18 Um, I wanted to go back quickly first to the, uh, permit issue and ask a follow-up question. 1:14:26 So you indicated that following voluntary dismissal from code hearings officer consideration, um, the ICE item might come before council. 1:14:35 Can you outline how it would get to city council?
1:14:40 I'll have Robert come up and talk to council regarding that aspect.
1:14:53 Hi, uh, Robert Taylor, City Attorney. 1:14:56 Um, once there is a Final decision through the appellate review process, and that decision is final, it could come to council. 1:15:13 And given the, the unique procedural posture of this, if we want to go into more detail, an executive session might be appropriate.
1:15:23 So, uh, gotcha. 1:15:25 And I'm not trying to litigate the actual permit here or anything like that. 1:15:28 I'm just trying to outline the process for ourselves So if it goes to a circuit court and then gets dismissed, um, it sits on the city for us to enforce it, correct? 1:15:40 So how does that get back to council for a decision?
1:15:47 So it could go to circuit court, it could get appealed from there depending on, um, uh, what the parties want to do. 1:15:55 But once there is a final decision, final judgment through the appellate process concluding that the violation occurred, then I think we could come to council, and that would be a firm basis for council to use to consider the land use issue.
1:16:14 And to be clear, there's a sustained violation right now as it stands?
1:16:20 But it is not currently with council, so So does the city administrator have to send it to council for us to deliberate that?
1:16:30 That would be one way, yeah.
1:16:32 What are the other ways?
1:16:34 I think it would—.
1:16:35 To the extent it's an item that would come before council, any councilor could introduce it. 1:16:42 And I'd be happy to talk in an executive session about when I think the appropriate time for that would be. 1:16:48 Would, um, be in the city's best legal interest.
1:16:53 Okay, um, thank you. 1:16:55 I think that's it on the— on that question for me then. 1:16:58 Appreciate your help, Robert. 1:17:01 Thank you. 1:17:01 Um, the other thing I wanted to discuss, uh, I just wanted to flag something I read in the— in the report regarding, uh— this is probably a niche interest for me on data privacy stuff, but I'm sure my colleagues will like it thank you. 1:17:14 I have a comment too, or maybe you won't, but I'm gonna riff on it anyways. 1:17:20 I noticed that the report talks about PPB's use of a technology called Cellebrite, and Cellebrite is a surveillance technology company that makes phone extraction tools used by law enforcement worldwide. 1:17:33 Its product bypasses phone passwords and encryption, clones the entire contents of a device, and produces a searchable report of everything on it, including deleted data, anyone who happens to be pictured on your phone, regardless of connection to the alleged crime. 1:17:52 Surveillance technology of unprecedented scale deployed by organizations like ICE to support campaigns of mass surveillance and profiling is a big issue. 1:18:00 So obviously, if that technology is used locally and we don't have good ways to secure our data, that could be shared. 1:18:08 So I know that there was an OPB article, I think, that said that PPB was supposed to give council regular reports on this. 1:18:13 I think Councilor Herbold mentioned that. 1:18:15 Yes. 1:18:15 Quarterly. 1:18:16 I think that article is from 2022. 1:18:18 So I would love to learn more about how, if PPB is using this technology, maybe they've updated their policies and are not using it in this harmful way. 1:18:27 But I'd love to learn more about that maybe at the CAPS meeting, Community and Public Safety. 1:18:33 Back in 2021, it looks like PPB spent at least $270,000 on the extraction tools. 1:18:40 And and that's a lot more than other comparable cities. 1:18:44 And recently, it looks like they spent around $300,000 between 2023 and today, which is more than in the years prior. 1:18:52 And I'm curious about the expansion of the Cellebrite tool. 1:18:57 These tools are also used without a warrant. 1:19:01 Half of phone searches are content-based. 1:19:05 And we've actually seen this happen in Portland. 1:19:07 There was a case where a 19-year-old consented to do a search in a fraud investigation, expected the search on their phone to be limited, and PPB ran a full extraction of his entire device. 1:19:18 So if you think about it like this, it's like someone doesn't have a warrant, they get to go to your house, go through all of your paperwork, your diary as far as that's concerned, scan it, and keep it on a permanent database. 1:19:29 It's not a narrow search for a crime, and I think that's something that's really important to point out here that's different.
1:19:36 Celebrate has also been used in other countries to target activists, journalists, and political opponents. 1:19:42 So I'm just very curious about why Portland Police are using Celebrate, what the limits are on them using that, how they're storing and collecting that data. 1:19:52 And I wanted to flag this for council because I think it shows that we really need to have a stronger role in contracting and that bureaus shouldn't be making these decisions for these technologies without us necessarily, and that we need to have a full accounting of this specific purchase, the policies that are used to govern its use, and the data that's been collected under it. 1:20:13 So I would love to review the policies and procedures associated with Celebrite and make sure that they're falling within the parameters that would be most beneficial to Portlanders and not harming people and storing their data inappropriately. 1:20:28 So just flagging that for you and for maybe anyone within PPB listening that I will probably bring that to the chair of the Public Safety Committee to make sure it's something that we discuss and get information on in, in case you don't have it off the top of your head.
1:20:43 Unfortunately, I don't have all that off the top of my head, but we can make sure we get it to a CAPS committee meeting.
1:20:51 Thank you, Councilor Morillo. 1:20:53 Councilor Green.
1:20:55 Uh, thank you, Council President. 1:20:56 Uh, I want to follow up a little bit on, uh, Councilor's— and first of all, thanks for the report, uh, City Administrator. 1:21:02 Um, I want to follow up a little bit on Councilor Smith's line of questioning, uh, and just use her classic frame, which is ditto, ditto, ditto. 1:21:11 I think you're asking great questions, Councilor, and I think I just want to make, make it clear that I think it's really important for the public to trust the work that we do. 1:21:21 And so when we read these stories, it's important for us to use some form of oversight. 1:21:26 And this conversation is some form of oversight, right? 1:21:28 And I worry about, you know, some of the public comment I heard earlier about our water bills and our utility rates. 1:21:36 There's still confusion about what that bill pays for and what benefits we get. 1:21:41 We're doing good work with that, with those rates. 1:21:43 We need to invest in our system.
1:21:46 And so when we think about correcting course and we think about the need to acknowledge that in the past we didn't have— we didn't put into action what we said we would put into action on an independent oversight committee, that it's not enough to just go forward from there. 1:22:01 We also have to sort of acknowledge, explain what happened in the past, and say, here's what went wrong, here's how we're fixing it, and here's how we're never going to let this happen again. 1:22:10 And I think that goes a long way in our community. 1:22:13 So I just wanted to make sure folks know that I'm You know, this is one of those areas that I'm like laser lockstep with the councilor over here on, um, and I know that you're, you're taking it seriously.
1:22:26 Thank you, Councilor Green. 1:22:28 Councilor Ryan.
1:22:30 Thank you, Council President, and thank you, City Administrator Lee, for the steady improvements on the monthly report. 1:22:35 It's very noticeable, and your team is really working hard to accommodate our many requests. 1:22:40 I appreciate that, and thanks to all of you that are on that team. 1:22:43 Um, I actually want to start out with something, a shout out With water that you mentioned in here, let me find it. 1:22:54 I just want to recognize the water bureaus, the unsung heroes that often are on the ground doing hard work and show up for emergencies so that we can have clean cold water flowing in our city. 1:23:04 And they take care of system issues without a lot of us knowing about it. 1:23:09 And on the night of March 14th in District 2, we experienced A significant water main break in the Lloyd District on Northeast Multnomah Street. 1:23:17 And this was a really big pipe break that took 12 hours to fix, and the crews got it back on in service rather quickly. 1:23:24 And I just wanted to say that it's wonderful that you include things like this in the report. 1:23:29 I think it's important that we lift the hard work that also goes on. 1:23:33 I also wanted to take a moment to just ask a couple questions about the BPS Yes. 1:23:39 Study that was in there. 1:23:41 It was the program recently shared that they're developing a citywide storefront and small business support program with the City Administrator's Office. 1:23:52 So my first gut was like, is this the storefront program support? 1:23:57 And it doesn't seem like it is based on what I read. 1:23:59 So I'm trying to figure out, I had some PTSD to the old forward-run government where we had Silos doing similar things without talking to each other. 1:24:08 That's a little harsh, but maybe there's some truth in that based on what I've read. 1:24:12 So I just wanted to acknowledge that I saw that and it concerned me since I know that we've been working really hard on developing a storefront program. 1:24:21 And so I'd hope that you as city administrator, now that you're here, you're the big reason why the charter of course passed is that we have a city administrator that looks at how to bring more efficiency into the enterprise. 1:24:32 Thank you. 1:24:33 And so I hope that you will take some time to do that. 1:24:36 And while you're looking at that report, it was a bit puzzling in the way it was stated. 1:24:40 When I looked at the actual survey responses from the many businesses, and thank you to those who participated, it was financial pressures that were related to lost revenue resulting from decreased foot traffic relative to pre-pandemic levels, high taxes and fees, And increasing labor, inventory, and service cost. 1:25:02 The rent one was down about number 7 or 8, but when the report came out about what the highlights were, somehow that became number 1. 1:25:10 I found that a little bit odd. 1:25:12 So there was some misleading information I found, and I hope that they can start working closely with the Storefront Program support and we can find some efficiencies to knit that together. 1:25:23 Is that fair?
1:25:26 All right, thank you.
1:25:28 Thank you, Councilor Ryan. 1:25:29 Councilor Kanal.
1:25:31 Thank you, Council President. 1:25:32 Thank you to Administrator Lee and to everyone who helped make the report happen. 1:25:36 Starting with a couple comments before getting into the questions. 1:25:38 First, thank you for the update. 1:25:41 I was going to ask about all the procurement awards longer term, but it sounds like that's in progress for next month. 1:25:45 I'd love to make sure, Council President, that there's time next month to discuss it because We'll be in the annual budget timeframe, and the annual budget is the main time, as per previous guidance from the administration and attorneys, that we can evaluate, reevaluate ongoing contracts that span a fiscal year. 1:26:01 It's actually the best time to do it, and May is the first time we see it will be the main time to do it, as opposed to waiting a year. 1:26:10 I also wanted to say I appreciate the opportunity to participate in the equity officer hiring process. 1:26:15 I'm optimistic about that. 1:26:17 And, uh, shout out to BHR for the Summer Works program. 1:26:20 I agree with Councilor Ryan about the Water Bureau March 14th piece. 1:26:23 And then, uh, I wanted to use Councilor Murillo's comment about Celebrite, which I completely agree with, to ask a question about a different technology mentioned in here too, which is the Microsoft Copilot launch. 1:26:35 In a context where we're, uh, under— we're all receiving information from our, our labor partners at the city in concern about their jobs in the context of a budget, expanding the use of AI is a little concerning. 1:26:50 And I wanted to ask about this in the context of how our pilot went, because it references a pilot for— I know the words are similar— the small p pilot project of Microsoft Copilot, the capital name of the technology. 1:27:07 And I wanted to ask a couple things here. 1:27:08 So Effectively, how will we monitor its impacts not only on efficiency, but on privacy, on labor, and on climate? 1:27:16 So for privacy, I wanted to understand if we had confidentiality agreements with Microsoft to ensure that city employee data or public data that's stored and used by employees is not used to teach its models and how that interacts with the data privacy policy that was set. 1:27:34 So that's the first part. 1:27:36 The labor piece is its potential impact on layoffs. 1:27:41 And the climate piece is if we have an understanding of, you know, in a city where that's a core part of our value system, the degree to which, 'cause we know it's above zero, electricity and water usage will spike as a result of using these tools. 1:27:57 I don't know if you have any of that off the top of your head, but I, or if it's been discussed at all.
1:28:01 Some of this has actually been discussed and we're currently running the pilot Right now as we speak. 1:28:06 And a lot of these conversations as it relates to privacy and the use of city data, a lot of the entities have government accounts that have some of those provisions and protections in it. 1:28:17 What we'll do, we'll follow up with council with some updated information as it relates to how are we using that information and kind of what the status we are in the pilot program of this. 1:28:27 Because some of this will be opening itself up to future through some of your staff members as well.
1:28:32 This is a tool that what we're trying to see, we know people in the city are using AI and we're trying to figure out what are the parameters and framework that we can put around to keep the city safe from the data that people may be potentially using to have respond to certain inquiries or projects that the city is currently doing. 1:28:56 So I'll make sure that we follow up with a memo or if we need to come to Council of the Committee to kind of give an update of where we are as respect to AI in general as a city and how do we see the future use of AI as a city, we can ensure we do that.
1:29:14 I would consider the policy conversations around AI legislative work in addition to administrative. 1:29:22 I want to be clear, I do not think this is so granular that it's just something that can happen in a manager's decision-making somewhere without necessarily having a citywide conversation about it. 1:29:33 And I think that the people's elected representatives on council should be a part of that. 1:29:38 And I know that we don't have an equity officer yet, but impacts on equity are also a conversation. 1:29:42 I had a question around the legacy business preservation study, and if you could give more information now or later on what makes a business a legacy business. 1:29:51 Because I think business preservation is really important, and I just want to understand the scope of that work and how, how narrow or broad it is.
1:30:00 Um, sorry, use the definition.
1:30:04 Do, do, uh, I'm hearing potentially 5 years, so I'm not sure if that's off anyone's top of their head.
1:30:10 Oh no, I don't know if DCA— however, we'll follow up with you on that one.
1:30:15 Yeah, it might be helpful to, to understand, uh, a little better. 1:30:18 There's probably more criteria than, than only that. 1:30:20 But, and then I, I wanted to take the opportunity in closing here to, to shout out a couple things on the community safety I'm looking forward to attending the Portland Street Response town hall, which is being held today at the Albino Library. 1:30:32 I think it's 6:00 PM. 1:30:34 I want to verify that. 1:30:35 It is 6:00 to 7:30 PM. 1:30:37 That's 205 Northeast Russell for those who are interested. 1:30:40 And obviously hearing from the public is going to be really helpful on Portland Street Response as we go into a tough budget cycle. 1:30:47 So hint, hint. 1:30:48 And then the other piece I wanted to talk about was OVP. 1:30:51 Yes. 1:30:51 Thank you. 1:30:52 The Office of Violence Prevention. 1:30:55 Small investments in prevention make a huge difference. 1:30:58 I want to commend the work of not only OVP but Ceasefire. 1:31:04 In this particular case, spring break has always been a high-risk time for gun violence. 1:31:07 It's part of the issue we deal with is that the other big time is summer. 1:31:12 We fund that in the previous fiscal year before the spike. 1:31:15 So it's a little hard to track in the same way because of the budget uncertainty and all that. 1:31:20 So spring break is easier to track because it's within the same fiscal year as accounted for. 1:31:25 And we did have a deadly shooting over spring break. 1:31:29 It was in my district on March 27th. 1:31:32 However, and every life lost is worth noting, I do want to note that that is a significant decline from preceding spring breaks in Portland. 1:31:44 And because of the youth safety initiative that OVP has been doing over the last few years, we've been able to see that reduction in a targeted time frame. 1:31:52 And I just wanted to commend everybody at the Office of Violence Prevention, the community, uh, partners that they work with as well, and, and highlight how important it is that we maintain this investment so that we don't see regression back to the, the data points we had in the years past. 1:32:05 Um, thank you, Council President.
1:32:07 Thank you, Councilor Kanal. 1:32:11 Councilor Smith, is that a legacy hand?
1:32:13 Okay, Councilor Smith.
1:32:14 Thank you, Council President. 1:32:15 I just wanted to go back to, to something, um, City Administrator. 1:32:19 I, I sit on the Community and Public Safety Committee, and I just want you to know for the record, I don't have any desire to tell Portland Police on what kind of software they use, like Celebrate. 1:32:31 I wouldn't mind being educated a little bit more on the scope of work it does. 1:32:35 I am really trying to stay in my policy and appropriation lane. 1:32:40 Okay. 1:32:41 I believe that call is an administrative call. 1:32:45 It's an executive function. 1:32:48 We as city councilors, we don't oversee bureaus anymore. 1:32:54 And I also agree with City Attorney Taylor in his opinion that he sent out yesterday or day before yesterday about budget notes. 1:33:03 I think we spend a lot of time at this diocese And we have to be at this diocese for the book of business that we were hired here to be an elected. 1:33:15 And so I'm not trying to micromanage any of the bureaus at all on what type of software they use. 1:33:21 That's not my job. 1:33:24 But if there are some concerns, of course we can bring some of those concerns up, but I'm not going to try to tell you what to do with your supplies budget. 1:33:31 Thank you. 1:33:32 And I said that last year when we were in the budget cycle, when I thought that the budget notes were getting out of control. 1:33:40 I just want you to know, as someone who sits on the Community and Public Safety, that's not my issue. 1:33:45 And I don't know that that is the issue of the committee. 1:33:49 I think people may want to know and have that kind of— think they have that kind of power, but that's not the way I want to use the Community and Public Safety Committee.
1:33:59 Thank you, Councilor Smith. 1:34:01 Councilor Kanal.
1:34:02 Yeah, I, I, uh, skipped something, so, and it relates. 1:34:06 Um, I would love to have the opportunity in the CAPS committee to discuss the citywide preparedness framework too. 1:34:11 Um, and it might make sense to be actually under Committee of the Whole so we can talk about that because I know emergency response fits in there. 1:34:17 Um, I, I really appreciate the work that's being done on that, um, not only in community and public safety— sorry, in the Public Safety Service area, but across as it relates to Councilor Smith's comment, I think one of the things that we're figuring out as a council in a new form of government is how do case studies fit into some of the conversations around policy versus administration?
1:34:40 We have— my interpretation of a conversation around are we using Microsoft Copilot or are we using Celebrite is not really about the software brand itself and who makes it necessarily.
1:34:51 Necessarily, although that might be the case if there's an equity concern or some sort of ethical issue with a particular company. 1:34:57 I think that it's about— that's a case study for are we using tools that enhance surveillance and that do not protect data of not only city employees but of the public that we interact with? 1:35:08 And Cellebrite, I think, is a case study on that. 1:35:11 So from the perspective of what software decision is made, I do understand that conversation. 1:35:18 But from the perspective of policy around what kinds of software are eligible to be purchased, and maybe one of these companies is a good or a bad or neutral case study, that's, I think, the conversation that's healthy to have. 1:35:31 Is, um, or, or for example, with the Copilot conversation, are we using technologies that are detrimental to the environment, that are using a lot of water, that are using a lot of energy, whatever the particular criteria is. 1:35:44 And maybe it's not really about Copilot because that might also apply to Adobe's tool, might also apply to some other tool. 1:35:50 But it's about the conversation about the parameters and policy around software selection as opposed to a particular product.
1:36:01 Thank you very much. 1:36:02 All right, colleagues, we are 30 minutes over our schedule already. 1:36:10 Um, Councilor Smith, is that a— it's legacy.
1:36:15 Um, so we are going to move on to item 5. 1:36:17 Thank you very much, City Administrator. 1:36:19 Um, can we please move to the consent agenda approval? 1:36:25 Do I read the titles?
1:36:28 Uh, vacate Northeast Couch Street and Northeast Davis Street west of Northeast 97th Avenue subject to certain conditions and reservations.
1:36:37 Uh, colleagues, are there any objections to adopting the consent agenda? 1:36:45 Seeing none, the consent agenda is adopted. 1:36:48 Or would we need to call the roll on that? 1:36:49 Yeah, that's a roll call vote. 1:36:52 Yeah, can we please call the roll on that?
1:37:09 Councilor Samir Kanal.
1:37:13 Councilor Jamie Dunphy.
1:37:18 Um, colleagues, I— we're about already the halfway point of our meeting, so I'm going to, uh, give us a 10-minute break before we read item 6. 1:37:27 So please Colleagues, be back here at 11:13.
1:47:54 I will do whatever.
1:48:05 And, and we are back. 1:48:08 Rebecca, Rebecca, Rebecca, Rebecca, can we please call item number 6?
1:48:13 Item 6, amend business license law code to increase the business license tax gross receipts exemption, amend code section 7.02.1.
1:48:23 Christopher Hare from Council Operations is here for committee staff summary.
1:48:27 Good morning, Council President and councilors. 1:48:30 For the record, Christopher Hare, Council Operations Policy Analyst, and I served as staff to the Finance Committee. 1:48:35 The ordinance before you, document number 2026-077, was considered in the Finance Committee on February 23rd. 1:48:42 It was referred to council with a recommendation it be passed. 1:48:45 The ordinance amends City Code Section 7.02.400 to increase the business license tax tax, or BLT, gross receipts exemption from $50,000 to $75,000 for tax years beginning on or after January 1st, 2026, and a subsequent increase to $100,000 for tax years beginning on or after January 1st, 2027. 1:49:06 The full impact statements include financial and budgetary impacts and analysis, economic and real estate development impacts, community impacts, and community involvement. 1:49:14 4 Individuals provided verbal testimony in committee. 1:49:17 6 Individuals submitted written testimony prior to committee action. 1:49:20 General themes of testimony included increased financial strain on small businesses due to rising operation— operating costs and reduced economic activity, with particular impacts on immigrant and refugee-owned businesses whose customers may be reluctant to leave their homes under the current federal government. 1:49:36 Broader economic headwinds in Portland, including comparatively high overall tax burdens and the potential for greater local reinvestment through tax relief. 1:49:43 The role of economic relief in helping small businesses remain viable and pursue growth goals such ongoing challenges associated with layered state, county, and city taxes, as well as issues such as theft and vandalism. 1:49:56 The number of businesses that have closed or relocated from Portland in recent years. 1:50:00 Rising expenses for rent, staffing, insurance, continuing education, and regulatory compliance, particularly for small healthcare and professional service practices. 1:50:11 Preference for raising the exemption to $100,000 immediately rather than phasing in the increase.
1:50:16 Concern that the BLT exemption has not changed since 2007 and the current threshold does not reflect present-day market conditions or costs or account for inflation. 1:50:26 And that concludes the committee staff summary.
1:50:28 Thank you, Christopher. 1:50:29 I'm going to turn it over to Councilor Zimmerman, both the sponsor and the chair of the Finance Committee.
1:50:34 Uh, thanks, Mr. President, and thanks, uh, Christopher, for that report. 1:50:39 So I'm going to go off script a little bit and just remind folks, in 2007 I still had hair. 1:50:45 I'm pretty sure Raymond probably still had hair. 1:50:48 I had $700 rent for a townhouse. 1:50:51 The iPhone hadn't been released yet. 1:50:54 We hadn't heard of anybody named President Obama yet at that point. 1:50:58 And I just say that to kind of frame up how long it has been since this number was changed. 1:51:04 And so when we're approaching 20 years of an exemption change, I think that really helped me when I started learning more about this and how it was paid by businesses and what this meant for people. 1:51:17 So as most of you know, and as you saw that $50,000 mark, our target today in this ordinance is to $75,000 in the first year and then moving to $100,000 in FY27. 1:51:31 I think it's important to note that it brings us into alignment with Multnomah County. 1:51:37 And when you are a business owner and you're paying your business license tax, Having one number when your new tax kicks in between the 2 governments that collect that way is helpful for anybody who's filing. 1:51:50 You know, I think we're seeing that this is going to affect upwards to 10,000 small businesses in Portland. 1:51:56 And, you know, while the average numbers that you've seen in the resolution, they may seem like small individual numbers, I remind you it's just an average. 1:52:06 There are some folks who are going to experience bigger or smaller takes. 1:52:09 And I am reminded of a visit I did at an Iraqi bakery in East Portland when I worked for Commissioner Julie Broom Edwards. 1:52:18 And we talked about the mixer, right? 1:52:21 The $700 mixer was a go/no-go factor for them as a business, right? 1:52:28 Mm-hmm. 1:52:28 And when I think about that and their ability to stay in business or expand because of the the mixer for this bakery. 1:52:36 This exemption is in the realm of making that difference for a major and important piece of equipment, but still under the— we're not talking 5 figures here. 1:52:47 And sometimes that's the thing that keeps a small business alive. 1:52:50 So in our Portland hyper-localized recession, I think about that a lot. 1:52:54 I think about anybody who's been able to try and stay open the last few years or is opening now. 1:53:00 Knowing that over the next 2 years, your Portland-based taxes will be a little less than they were today moving forward, I think is a good thing. 1:53:10 I think it's a good message with everything else we're doing. 1:53:13 I'm very happy to co-sponsor this with Mayor Wilson and his team. 1:53:18 And then as we go into discussion, I do want to just note, and it's filed for all of you, there's a what I call an administrative scrivener's error amendment that I'm going to move at this point. 1:53:31 It is not changing the substance of what we're doing, but it's changing and flipping some numbers, first year versus second year. 1:53:38 And when you write ordinances with the revenue division, they don't take anything on faith. 1:53:43 We're going to get down to the exact dollar number, and they want it to be perfectly accurate. 1:53:47 So that's where the amendment is coming from, and I appreciate them pulling that together. 1:53:51 So So if I could both have a second to that amendment so it's just known.
1:53:56 Thank you. 1:53:58 Then with that, Mr. President, I hope that— I think we probably have some testifiers, but I really appreciate everybody hearing this today and thank the Finance Committee for hearing this some time ago. 1:54:10 So thanks a lot.
1:54:11 Thank you, Councilor Zimmerman. 1:54:12 Colleagues, before we move to public testimony, are there any technical or clarifying questions? 1:54:20 Seeing no one in the queue, Rebecca, could we please call public testimony?
1:54:25 We have 4 people signed up. 1:54:27 First is Jose Cienfuegos, followed by Andrew Holm.
1:54:33 Please come on up, introduce yourselves. 1:54:35 Feel free to share your pronouns if you prefer, and you have 3 minutes.
1:54:39 Good morning, everybody. 1:54:40 How's everybody doing?
1:54:42 Thank you very much for letting me talk to you this morning. 1:54:44 My name is Jose Cienfuegos. 1:54:46 I'm president of the board of directors for Revitalize Portland Coalition. 1:54:49 We have a We have about 10,000 members and 25 companies. 1:54:51 We're a real estate collective. 1:54:53 Um, we are here, of course, to say yes, please do this. 1:54:58 Uh, I think 2007, I too had hair. 1:55:01 I had to think back on that. 1:55:03 Uh, I was a prosecutor here in town. 1:55:05 I've been a defense attorney here in town. 1:55:08 Um, both very important jobs. 1:55:10 I've seen this town grow. 1:55:12 Uh, I've seen this town shrink. 1:55:15 Uh, I've seen this town suffer.
1:55:17 Uh, and I've seen this town, uh, revitalize within itself despite the problems that we have all had. 1:55:24 Um, 20 years is a long time for $50,000 not to be changed, to be honest with you. 1:55:29 It's something they need to change, and I thank Councilman Zimmerman and the mayor, uh, for bringing this up. 1:55:34 Um, it's, uh, something that needs to happen, but brass tacks, folks, uh, it's a very small step of something that needs to be done.
1:55:44 Job one, and I do not want to preach to y'all because y'all have a very hard job. 1:55:49 I would not want to do it, but needs to be increase revenue, shrink that budget gap, period, end of sentence. 1:55:58 We need to make Portland a place that we want to live in and we want to work in so businesses can come here and stay here and pay taxes so we can have some of these great programs that y'all talk about here today.
1:56:11 But we don't get anywhere without doing that first. 1:56:15 Job one should be that. 1:56:17 Every decision by this council should be, how do we increase revenue without raising taxes? 1:56:24 We have the highest effective tax rate in the country, period.
1:56:30 But yet we have services that do not equate to that whatsoever. 1:56:34 We need to change that and need to change it now.
1:56:37 This, and to keep it positive, is a great first step. 1:56:41 I encourage this council every opportunity they get— business is not a bad word. 1:56:47 We're here, we're business owners. 1:56:50 I'm a small business owner. 1:56:52 I remember when decisions like Councilor Zimmerman was just talking about made decisions on whether or not I get to keep my form doors open or not. 1:56:59 Luckily, I've survived. 1:57:01 I want to pass it on. 1:57:02 I ask all of you Help us pass it on. 1:57:05 Encourage businesses to come here, to move here with their families, to spend the money, and to pay their taxes. 1:57:13 But we can only do that if we make this place a place that we want to be in. 1:57:19 So with that dong, I want to say thank you. 1:57:22 I'm going to thank you in advance for passing this. 1:57:25 And I hope to talk to you again. 1:57:26 If any of you ever want to talk to us through our group or to me, Thank you very much.
1:57:37 Good day, Council President and councilors. 1:57:39 Andrew Hone, President and CEO, Portland Metro Chamber and registered lobbyist. 1:57:43 I am here today likewise with gratitude, and also I did not have hair in 2007. 1:57:48 We want to thank the Finance Committee Chair Zimmerman and the committee, as well as the mayor's office, for bringing this important economic policy change forward to you today. 1:57:57 We strongly support the recommendations of the committee and urge the council to increase Portland's business license tax gross receipts exemption. 1:58:04 The chamber advocates on behalf of businesses at all levels of government. 1:58:07 Greater than 80% of our 2,300 members are defined as small. 1:58:11 Specifically, half are defined as extremely small or microenterprises. 1:58:15 We love our small businesses, and we have a long tradition of fiercely advocating for our smaller employers. 1:58:21 Today, we are proud to stand side by side with organizations like Revive Portland Revitalize, the National Association of Minority Contractors, and Better Portland, and more, as we did when we published our 2023 State of Portland's Small Businesses that helped to lead to the creation of the Office of Small Business, which at the time was a major win for Portland's economy. 1:58:40 That report points to the critical need to focus on this specific ecosystem because at 35%, Portland has a greater share of our workers employed in small business relative to all of our peer regions, that is great news about the makeup of Portland's businesses. 1:58:56 But unfortunately, right now, small businesses are struggling. 1:58:59 They face enormous localized headwinds and economic challenges that they are less equipped to navigate than their larger business counterparts. 1:59:07 And it is important to publicly state where our economy is. 1:59:10 Portland has been in a localized recession since 2023. 1:59:14 The region's consumer sentiment. 1:59:16 Sentiment has been the last of nearly every metropolitan region in the country. 1:59:20 We are last in the nation in multifamily housing construction permitting. 1:59:24 Office vacancies are the highest in the modern history of our community. 1:59:27 We are lagging nearly every other city in recovering our downtown foot traffic for office workers. 1:59:33 Our region, which depends on trade, saw the largest drop in export value in the country. 1:59:37 We are 80 out of 81 on real estate investability nationally, and we are the bottom of 50 American cities in terms of employment growth, growth, or in our case, the lack thereof. 1:59:47 The good news is that we can choose another path. 1:59:51 If we take public-private partnerships working together on economic policy changes to help our residents prosper, we will. 1:59:57 Raising the BLT gross receipts exemption is a modest, thoughtful update that hits the mark precisely, especially considering Portland's private sector pays the highest business taxes in the nation. 2:00:11 In addition to targeted relief, this proposal also improves fairness and simplicity by aligning the city's threshold with the county, resulting in less compliance headaches for small business owners. 2:00:21 Today, the Portland City Council can send a signal that you are supporting our neighbors who bet on Portland by opening and sustaining businesses here. 2:00:29 This is a good first step, but it should not be the last. 2:00:32 Thank you for your time and your leadership We are grateful and pleased to support this proposal.
2:00:37 Thank you very much for being here.
2:00:40 Nate McCoy. 2:00:41 Nate's online. 2:00:42 You can unmute and go ahead.
2:00:47 Thank you. 2:00:47 Uh, good morning, uh, councilors. 2:00:49 Uh, for the record, uh, my name is Nate McCoy, President and CEO of the National Association of Minority Contractors for the State of Oregon, also known as NAMAC Oregon. 2:01:00 As a trade association with nearly 300 member businesses, we advocate for and support businesses owned by people of color, emerging, and small contractors across the region who are building Oregon's infrastructure, housing, and economic future. 2:01:15 From our vantage point, like many of our other colleagues, we're here to support this agenda. 2:01:20 Increasing the business license tax gross receipts exemption is not just a tax adjustment. 2:01:26 It's an equity and growth strategy, not just for short-term gains, but long-term stability. 2:01:33 As we've heard from other testifiers, the current $50,000 exemption has not changed, as Councilor Zimmerman just noted, since 2007, 4 years after I graduated college. 2:01:46 Long time for us not to make changes. 2:01:48 So we are imploring you to support the construction economy.
2:01:53 Rising material costs, insurance premiums, bonding requirements, and workforce expenses are growing rapidly, and the current thresholds simply do not support the relevance and reality that we are in today economically. 2:02:08 Many of our members are small, as noted from others, early-stage contractors and sole proprietors. 2:02:14 They operate on tight margins, especially in their first or second years of business. 2:02:20 Taxing them early in their growth cycle limits their ability to reinvest in equipment, technology, workforce development, and bonding capacity, all of which are critical for scaling and competing on public and private contracts. 2:02:34 Raising the exemptions to $75,000 in 2026 and $100,000 in 2027 provides practical relief. 2:02:45 While the averages the dollar amounts per business may appear meager or modest. 2:02:50 For a small contractor, that means covering insurance increases, purchasing tools, or even meeting payroll during slow cycles. 2:03:01 Approximately 65% of businesses receiving relief are small proprietors. 2:03:07 In our network, that often means small contractor firms trade professionals, and subcontractors working to build generational stability through entrepreneurship are left without support. 2:03:21 Alignment with Multnomah County's $100,000 exemption is also important. 2:03:26 Many small contractors are already struggling with administrative complexity. 2:03:31 Simplifying compliance reduces confusion and allows business owners to focus on delivering quality work rather than navigating overlapping tax systems that create more barriers. 2:03:43 From NAMAC Oregon's perspective, we talk frequently about access to capital and access to contracts, but we must also talk about capital retention. 2:03:53 If we want small firms to scale, they must be able to retain more of what they earn during their early growth cycles. 2:04:01 Thank you for the time today and look forward to participating. 2:04:04 Thank you.
2:04:10 Thank you very much.
2:04:12 Kira Pressler. 2:04:13 Kira's online. 2:04:13 You can go ahead.
2:04:16 Good afternoon. 2:04:17 All right, I guess we're still in mourning, everyone. 2:04:19 I'm here to represent an important constituency you have not heard from yet, and that is those who still have hair.
2:04:28 I serve as the board president for Better Portland.
2:04:30 Portland, which is the local business association that focuses on small business, and I also serve on the Oregon Governor's Racial Justice Economic Opportunity Committee, which works to create a more equitable environment for businesses owned by people of color, as well as workforce development. 2:04:46 Additionally, I own a small business, Pregame, which has provided strategic guidance and technical assistance to hundreds of microbusinesses in Portland and throughout Oregon. 2:04:57 Uh, I support your, uh, increasing the Portland's business license tax gross receipts exemption. 2:05:03 There's an undue burden on small businesses in the city of Portland. 2:05:07 While the entire tax structure needs to be reevaluated, this is an important first step. 2:05:13 $100,000 May sound like a lot of money, but at this micro size of business, any margin is typically reinvested into the business just to get it to a place where it can sustain the owner's livelihood. 2:05:24 Let alone scale to real economic impact and the opportunity for generational wealth. 2:05:30 To prove the point, in my first year of business, I didn't start paying myself until about 6 months in. 2:05:37 And here framed, you can see my original paycheck. 2:05:41 I know they're not showing up, but, uh, my first paycheck was for 72 cents and my second paycheck was for 73 cents. 2:05:49 And so you can see how much, um, one has to sacrifice at the beginning just to get an idea going. 2:05:56 Last month I paid my annual business taxes, including the additional business taxes that only the City of Portland and Multnomah County impose, even on businesses of my size.
2:06:07 And like every single year, I'm now doing the math on whether it makes sense to relocate my business to Washington County, Clackamas County, or Q Minor Chord. 2:06:17 Clark County, Washington.
2:06:19 The sheer number of businesses that have already left or closed prove that I'm not the only one doing this calculation. 2:06:27 As Portlanders, we all celebrate and love small businesses, and homegrown businesses that have the ability to scale are vital to Portland's future. 2:06:35 But that celebration is hollow and disingenuous when we don't provide practical help and policies to support them. 2:06:42 It's time for us to put integrity behind our celebration of small business by creating the conditions for them to thrive. 2:06:48 Again, this is a sliver of a step to making Portland friendlier to small business, but it's an important step in the right direction.
2:06:58 Thank you so much for being here today.
2:07:01 That concludes testimony.
2:07:02 Well, thank you everybody for being here, including those with hair. 2:07:07 Councilor Avalos.
2:07:10 Heck yeah! 2:07:10 As a proud member of the Hair Caucus, thank you for this opportunity to I'm excited to talk about this. 2:07:15 So, um, yeah, so as I shared in committee, um, colleagues, I recently joined a Thinking Local event hosted by Business for a Better Portland. 2:07:23 Thank you, Ciara, for hosting that in District 1, and sat down with some small business owners to hear directly about their experiences. 2:07:31 And what I heard was not abstract policy. 2:07:34 It was about day-to-day survival. 2:07:35 And I think we've heard that in the testimony too. 2:07:38 Businesses are navigating rising costs and uncertain revenue and workforce challenges. 2:07:42 And in many of our immigrant communities, especially in East Portland, this is there's a real fear. 2:07:47 Owners are telling us that foot traffic is down simply because people are afraid to be out. 2:07:52 So I understand the intent here, and I think updating a threshold that hasn't changed since 2007 and aligning with the county provides some relief and some simplification. 2:08:02 At the same time, I asked a few key questions in committee, and we heard that this represents about a $1.2 million reduction to the general fund with no specific offset yet identified. 2:08:12 And while helpful, the benefit to most businesses is relatively modest, around $200 to $500 a year. 2:08:17 Councilmember Herbold. 2:08:18 I also raised whether we should be indexing this threshold to inflation. 2:08:21 We talked about that in committee, something that I think we can continue to discuss but don't need to do right now. 2:08:29 So in this fiscal moment, we owe it to the public to be clear that this is modest relief and it comes with real trade-offs. 2:08:36 I supported this in committee and I plan to support it today. 2:08:39 I just want us to be clear-eyed that this is low-hanging fruit and we need to continue advancing policies policies that more meaningfully help small businesses transition beyond survival to real prosperity. 2:08:50 I'm also planning to use my seat on the new City Life Committee to advocate for policies that more directly address the challenges facing East Portland small businesses so that they have real opportunities to grow. 2:09:00 So with that, I do have just a couple more questions to ask about, um, I guess, how we're going to measure our success.
2:09:09 And I'm not sure who is here to answer questions about the bill. 2:09:15 No, you—.
2:09:16 CFO Beery is coming.
2:09:19 Yeah, I just wanted to ask some more questions around long-term evaluation, if you will, on whether this policy is helping small businesses over time, and then any unintended consequences that we need to be tracking. 2:09:36 And can we commit to reporting back to council within a set timeframe? 2:09:39 I'm not going to propose an amendment to, you know, make some kind of report back, but I'd like to hear what the report back would look like so that we can continue to monitor the implementation of this.
2:09:53 Councilor, for the record, Jonas Beery, Chief Financial Officer. 2:09:55 It's a good question. 2:09:57 It's really hard to get— I'll just be transparent. 2:10:00 It's really hard to get kind of causal data. 2:10:02 That could directly tie to this thing happened because this specific exemption exists. 2:10:08 So I don't know that I have a good answer for you off the top of my head, but it's a great question, a fair question, and I'll get with the team and do some thinking about what we might be able to do to provide some report back on the efficacy of the change.
2:10:21 And is that something that you would report back? 2:10:23 Like, where would—. 2:10:24 Like, is it your office? 2:10:25 Is it Prosper? 2:10:26 Like, who are we holding accountable to yeah, that's a great question.
2:10:30 I think it's multifaceted, right? 2:10:31 I mean, we have— we heard from business partners today who gather some of this data outside the public sphere. 2:10:38 I think there's a role there. 2:10:40 I think certainly Prosper in their work with the business community has a role. 2:10:44 I think the revenue division under my office has a role as well. 2:10:48 So it's a great question, and I think just let us do some thinking about that.
2:10:51 And I don't think that we're doing any sort of reporting now. 2:10:54 Right. 2:10:55 We don't, we don't send a report that says the current BIT since 2007 at 50 is successful because of X, Y, and Z, right? 2:11:03 Those aren't, those aren't the metrics in which anybody's reporting on. 2:11:07 I think we report on— we know how many people file at a certain threshold. 2:11:11 We know that. 2:11:13 And so I think knowing whether or not we're asking quantitative or qualitative questions on some of these initiatives is important. 2:11:20 And so the gut check is Do you believe that a business in Portland should pay an additional tax starting at 50, at 75, or 100 is more of the qualitative side of it. 2:11:32 And I also think that one of the reasons reporting or putting some sort of frame that reporting in the long term may be— we may have to work to frame that question a little differently is so much of the willingness of a person to do business in Portland or continue to do business in Portland is the qualitative nature of it, especially at the smallest and earliest level of business when we're talking about that $200 relief. 2:12:00 So insofar as what this does, this isn't establishing any new reporting structure. 2:12:07 It would be the same as it always is. 2:12:09 And I'll remind folks from a few months ago, I did bring up the difference between our budgets of the City of Portland in the '80s to now, where, you know, these types of— this type of tax represents more and more of our general fund than it did in the '80s, where it was like a— it was barely even acknowledged back then. 2:12:29 It's upwards to half of our general fund now. 2:12:34 We quantify it in that direction. 2:12:36 But reporting on is 50 making a difference or 75 making a difference, I think— I think that's a fair point. 2:12:39 I think that would be a hard question to ask, except if you ask the people who are at that level. 2:12:45 I think that's where the qualitative part comes in. 2:12:49 I would lean that direction.
2:12:52 Yeah, thank you. 2:12:54 Yeah, I mean, ultimately what I'm getting at here is I just want to know how we're measuring our success. 2:13:00 What are we— and that's for everything that we do, right? 2:13:03 Any new policy that we're implementing, exemptions, whatever. 2:13:06 I just want to know how we can track it and measure it so that we can see, are these decisions, these policy decisions making a difference, moving the needle for businesses. 2:13:16 But I was glad to hear— I did ask some questions in committee around ensuring that actual, you know, small businesses are going to get the most relief, and that was clarified to me. 2:13:27 And so that does comfort me. 2:13:32 I don't know what I'm trying to say. 2:13:33 That comforts me, sure, to know that that relief is going to go particularly to the businesses that I know in East Portland that need this So yeah, again, I support it. 2:13:44 I just want to know how we're continuing to measure this. 2:13:47 And I think this is a long-term question for Prosper and how we're working to meet the needs of small businesses. 2:13:53 And we're having that ongoing conversation at the dais, but felt this was a good opportunity to ask that since we're putting a measurable change in the BLT. 2:14:03 But again, I will support it. 2:14:04 And thank you to those bringing it forward. 2:14:06 Thank you. 2:14:07 I know Councilor Dunphy has been talking about this for a long time, so grateful. 2:14:10 Thank you. 2:14:11 To see this moving forward.
2:14:13 Thank you, Councilor Avalos. 2:14:15 I put myself in the queue next 'cause I'm actually very, very excited about this. 2:14:19 I'm genuinely thrilled to see this policy moving forward. 2:14:22 You know, I know many of my colleagues have been entrepreneurial in their careers, but I believe I'm the only councilor who owned and operated a brick-and-mortar business. 2:14:32 Interestingly, also in 2008, again, full head of hair. 2:14:37 After I ran this business, my wife and I ran a small coffee shop and sandwich restaurant for over 5 years. 2:14:42 It is an incredibly, incredibly hard job to run a small business in the best of circumstances. 2:14:48 And remember, I opened this in 2008. 2:14:50 Please don't take business advice from me. 2:14:51 The economy was collapsing. 2:14:54 But somehow we made it through and sold it for a profit, and it is still operating today. 2:14:58 After I left that and went into my public service career, I spent 5 years in this building as the liaison to the small business community and to Venture Portland. 2:15:07 I ran on this policy. 2:15:09 I introduced this policy 3 different times so far as a city councilor. 2:15:14 And so I am thrilled to see this finally moving forward. 2:15:16 So thank you, Councilor Zimmerman, for driving it across the finish line. 2:15:20 This is a great first step. 2:15:21 And I also agree with the testimony we heard from Nate McCoy about bringing this into alignment with the county specifically in order to try and simplify the process. 2:15:29 Councilor The basic things that we are requiring of our small businesses. 2:15:34 We simply just, at every turn, we have to make it easier for small entrepreneurs to be able to open and operate their businesses. 2:15:41 Because in the best of circumstances, an enormous number— I think the number used to be 90%, but an enormous number of small businesses fail in their first year, and an enormous number of those fail in year 2. 2:15:51 Let's also remember, though, that this is a good first step, but this is on gross receipts. 2:15:55 This is not on net profit. 2:15:56 This is not on even net income. 2:15:59 When I opened my coffee shop, we didn't take a payment for the first year. 2:16:05 We took no money home for an entire first year, and I had to work a separate job outside of it. 2:16:10 But we still paid our business license tax. 2:16:13 So I will say that this is a great first step to demonstrate to the community that we are meaningfully trying to meet them where they are. 2:16:20 And I also want to agree with what Councilor Zimmerman was— or riff off what Councilor Zimmerman was saying about the enormous outsized role that this now plays in our general budget. 2:16:29 It is because we have struggled as a city for the last 100 years, and more specifically the last 40 years, because our property taxes don't come in with a normal— in the same way that other cities do. 2:16:44 So I look forward to this body working to insist that the legislature finally reform Measures 5 and 50, and then maybe we can finally reduce the burden on some of our small so I'm extremely excited to pass this today as a great first step. 2:16:58 This is not going to make it suddenly easy to be a small business, but it's one less burden that we are putting on our smallest of small businesses. 2:17:07 So thank you. 2:17:08 I look forward to supporting. 2:17:10 Councilor Green.
2:17:12 Thank you, Mr. President. 2:17:13 As one of the bald men on council who— I think the last year I had hair was 2007 because I had some hair. 2:17:21 And my mentor in the Army was getting married and he's like, go get a haircut. 2:17:26 I said, okay, I'm going to get a haircut. 2:17:28 And he comes back, he goes, you haven't fixed the problem. 2:17:31 And so my next haircut— that was my last haircut, by the way. 2:17:35 I, you know, I'm duty-bound as one of the bald men and to correct one of my kin, it's a gross receipts profit tax. 2:17:42 So it is a receipt on profits, but from gross receipts. 2:17:44 It's kind of a confusing thing. 2:17:46 Okay. 2:17:47 But it doesn't change the underlying point you're making. 2:17:50 Right. 2:17:51 I'm really grateful for your leadership, Councilor Zimmerman, and for the mayor for teaming up to bring this forward at this time. 2:17:57 I know it's difficult to do something like this that adds an expense when we're going into a budget year, but I think everyone, some of the testimony we heard as well as some of the conversations we've had here, and just as an economist, I know that we have to think A couple years down the road too, and we have to generate the revenue we need to pay for the things. 2:18:16 And so we are, we are losing— we are driving out some of these very small marginal businesses because of the cost of doing business. 2:18:24 So, um, I wish we could go further. 2:18:26 I know that some of your original thinking, uh, was to, to, to go a little bit more bold in this at this time, but I think that represents a little bit of a recognition that there are trade-offs, uh, that this new expense will create. 2:18:37 So, um, I support the I support the package on the floor. 2:18:39 I support the amendment too, because it is just a scribner's error. 2:18:44 You know, this— just this morning I was getting ready for work and my wife was saying, I have to find a new hairdresser, because she just closed shop. 2:18:51 She just closed shop because she can't afford her rent on the margins that are thin already that she has. 2:18:57 And so I can't help but to wonder if, if this thing had been in place, would she have made a different decision to hang out a little bit longer, maybe negotiate and negotiate, uh, Engaging in negotiation with her landlord rather than say, you know what, my rent has increased quarter over quarter over quarter, whatever the lease term is, I'm sick of it, I'm out, I'm just going to go rent a chair instead. 2:19:17 That's another big piece of the cost of doing business, by the way, that we need to take seriously in our council. 2:19:21 We have talked about it, and I expect to see it in Storefront's dashboard, by the way. 2:19:26 But this is directly responsive to that problem, and that's something that we can control. 2:19:32 Thank you. 2:19:32 We're not landlords. 2:19:33 We can't tell landlords what to do yet. 2:19:35 You know, I am a socialist on city council after all, but that's a joke. 2:19:39 You can laugh. 2:19:41 But we can do this. 2:19:42 So I support it. 2:19:45 But I can't support this without pushing back on something I heard earlier, which is a pervasive myth that Portland has the highest tax rates in the country, which is simply not true. 2:19:53 If you're talking specifically about personal income taxes, yeah, it has one of the highest marginal income tax rates.
2:20:00 But if you're looking at our actual effective tax rate and where we rank, you want to look at unbiased evidence that's published by actual— like, so the District of Columbia has an Office of Revenue, and they do this analysis where they benchmark all cities, all large cities. 2:20:17 And in 2022, they found that the City of Portland ranks number 13 on burden. 2:20:22 So 1 being the highest burden. 2:20:25 Yeah. 2:20:25 You know, a larger number being the lowest burden. 2:20:28 We're only 13th on those making $25,000 or less per year. 2:20:32 We're only 13th on those making $50,000 or less per year. 2:20:35 We're 9th on $75,000 or less per year. 2:20:38 We're 10th on $100,000. 2:20:39 We're 9th on $150,000. 2:20:41 And then it goes up to 6th on $250,000. 2:20:42 And if you're north of $250,000, pretty steep in the income distribution, sure, we're pretty high up there. 2:20:48 But when we talk about our tax burden as if everyone is paying the same thing and it's the highest burden, We're doing— we're engaging in very misleading analysis here. 2:20:56 And so we need to be evidence-based. 2:20:58 And my support for this is precisely because it does provide relief at that lower end of the income distribution, right? 2:21:05 If you're going to keep your doors open because you went from $50,000 exemption to $75,000 exemption, you're not making much. 2:21:14 So we're helping you out at the lower end. 2:21:15 So I just— I need to correct the record here. 2:21:18 And if you want to check my math, I've got all the citations on my website on a paper we published last year called Multnomah County Fiscal Migration Analysis for Preschool for All. 2:21:28 I can't wait to vote yes on this.
2:21:31 Thank you, Councilor Green. 2:21:32 Councilor Koyama Lane.
2:21:33 Thank you, Council President. 2:21:35 Thank you to the sponsors of this. 2:21:37 I absolutely support the goal of helping small businesses. 2:21:40 The small businesses in each of our neighborhoods and our districts are A huge part of what makes them special and makes them vibrant. 2:21:49 And it is so important that they have what they need to keep going. 2:21:53 And I especially support sole proprietors and startups. 2:21:57 We want to have our coffee shops continue to be thriving. 2:22:01 And they're, they're a huge draw to why people come and visit Portland. 2:22:04 So I do plan— I want to say up front, I plan to support this. 2:22:08 I do have a couple of questions. 2:22:10 Maybe for our city administrator or CFO. 2:22:15 I do— I would like to know how much revenue we're talking about giving up. 2:22:21 From what I understand, this is a relatively modest but real general fund reduction. 2:22:26 Am I correct about $2.5 million ongoing? 2:22:31 I just want to make sure that we are really clear-eyed about trade-offs. 2:22:34 We've seen making some of these decisions in the past that are really important, like the SDC waivers, And also the impact does show up in other places, sometimes in things like parks maintenance, basic services. 2:22:46 So I want to make sure when we're pulling a string, we know kind of what it's affecting.
2:22:51 Yeah, Councilor, great question. 2:22:52 The anticipated impact is at this first incremental increase to $75,000, it's a $1.2 million ongoing general fund reduction, best guess. 2:23:03 And then at the next increment up to $100,000, it's essentially double that. 2:23:07 So $2.4, $2.5 ongoing total beginning— $1.4 of that, sorry, $1.2 of that taking place next fiscal year and the remainder in fiscal '28.
2:23:17 And is that already assumed in the current forecast or will that require any new cuts?
2:23:23 It will be assimilated into that once it passes this body today.
2:23:30 Which bureaus are most likely to be more exposed to BLT fluctuations?
2:23:37 It would essentially be any gen— it'll go to sort of the bucket of general fund funding. 2:23:41 So any general fund funded bureaus, well, this will be part of that calculus in determining those general fund funded priorities.
2:23:50 Another question I have that I genuinely don't really have an answer to is how do we define small business? 2:23:59 To either of you.
2:24:02 Yeah, that's a good question. 2:24:03 I don't know if there's Revenue Division staff in the room, if they have ability to come up and answer that question. 2:24:09 I think there is some complicated technical language around that in the creation documents.
2:24:18 For the record, Tim Mercer, Tax Division Manager, Revenue. 2:24:25 I think in this context is very simple. 2:24:29 We're just speaking about businesses whose gross receipts are $50,000 to $75,000, and in the following year, $75,000 to $100,000 in a year. 2:24:42 So it truly is just a business whose sales in a year fall within that $50,000 to $75,000 range. 2:24:52 Thank you. 2:24:52 Range that we're talking about for year 1, $75,000 to $100,000 for year 2.
2:24:59 Okay, so to make sure that I'm following, you know a lot more than me. 2:25:02 So we're not talking about defining small businesses. 2:25:04 This is more about like tax threshold.
2:25:07 That's right. 2:25:08 We're calling it, I think small businesses being used in this case simply to describe the fact that the business has a very you know, relatively low amount of sales.
2:25:21 Okay, so it could be a business making $95K in gross receipts, a smaller business, could be the same as one making $500K but with thin margins?
2:25:33 No, that's the gross receipts part. 2:25:37 So the tax is based on profits, if you will, the amount of tax that you pay, but the exemption on the front end determining whether you pay the tax or not is based on gross receipts. 2:25:52 So the total amount of sales that you have within the year. 2:25:57 So when we get to the margins conversation, that's where we're talking about the amount of tax. 2:26:03 So many of the businesses that are included in these 2 buckets that we're talking about over the next 2 years, would be paying the minimum amount of tax, which is $100 per year, because their margins, their profits are small enough that they wouldn't pay more than the minimum. 2:26:25 But for the exemption that we're talking about here, which is, you know, a go/no-go, a yes/no on whether you pay the tax, that's based on gross receipts.
2:26:42 Thank you for explaining. 2:26:44 I support this. 2:26:45 I support this goal of helping our small businesses, and at the same time just want to remind all my colleagues that it is important to think about ongoing reductions to our general fund and make sure that we're explicit about trade-offs.
2:26:59 Thank you, Councilor Koyama Lane. 2:27:01 Councilor Morillo.
2:27:03 Thank you, Council President. 2:27:04 Really appreciate what the mayor and city attorney have said. 2:27:06 Folks have already laid out before, and I'll try not to repeat so that we can keep our timely agenda slightly more timely than it already is not. 2:27:16 I really appreciate Councilor Green outlining some of the myths around taxes in the city. 2:27:22 I was going to say the same thing significantly less eloquently than he does, so I will just ditto that one. 2:27:29 And I, I want to say this is something I'm really excited about. 2:27:32 You know, I think that there is sort of a myth in the media narrative about our city and our city council that this is a council that is sometimes oppositional to business, and I don't think that's true, and I definitely don't think it's true for small businesses. 2:27:47 This council has supported SDC waivers. 2:27:50 I also added an amendment to track the— to ensure that we are actually building as much housing as they said they were going to build if they were given the we worked on permitting updates, me and Councilor Dunphy, and were able to pass that. 2:28:04 I worked on design review with Councilor Zimmerman. 2:28:07 And I think that this is a council that does support small businesses, does support more construction and development, especially of more housing in the city, as we know we need. 2:28:16 And small businesses, they are part of what creates the culture of our city, and they are the lifeblood of the city. 2:28:22 They are very important. 2:28:23 So I'm really excited to pass this today and to— Councilor Dan Ryan. 2:28:30 Who are those smaller businesses that are Portlanders who grew up here, who are investing in their passions and sharing that with others as well. 2:28:39 And to me, that is not the same thing as doing, you know, more relief for big businesses like Amazon. 2:28:46 The Amazons of the world don't need this relief. 2:28:49 The small businesses and the people who are contributing to the culture of our city do. 2:28:53 And that is why I will be voting no on this ordinance. 2:28:54 Thank you. 2:28:54 Supportive of this today. 2:28:55 Grateful for Councilor Zimmerman bringing this across the finish line as well, and for all the work that was done by Councilor Dunphy and others before. 2:29:03 I'm proud that we're going to pass this today, so thank you.
2:29:06 Thank you, Councilor Mariah. 2:29:07 Councilor Ryan.
2:29:08 Yes, thank you, Council President. 2:29:09 Thank you for your leadership, Councilor Zimmerman, and thank you also for the lighthearted Hair theme this morning. 2:29:15 I think it's been good for us to, to laugh. 2:29:18 I am obsessing over the soundtrack from Hair every since you did that, because that's what a 64-year-old homosexual does. 2:29:26 So thank you for all those who testified. 2:29:29 Your voices match what I hear when I go around District 2 and I listen to the small business owners. 2:29:36 I'm supportive of this step. 2:29:38 It's clearly the city of Portland and Multnomah County should be aligned. 2:29:42 It was kind of embarrassing to notice that they weren't, so I really appreciate that you're cleaning this up. 2:29:46 Thank you. 2:29:46 It's a really smart step to take. 2:29:49 I'm going to ask this. 2:29:51 I hope that we dig into more on this legislation. 2:29:53 I think this is a step, and I'm going to ask this question. 2:29:57 Do you know what the BLT rates are for surrounding counties, namely Clark, Clackamas, Washington, and the surrounding cities like Beaverton, Lake Oswego, Hillsboro, Gresham, Vancouver, and Camas, and how we compare? 2:30:11 Yes. 2:30:11 Has that study been done?
2:30:14 Yeah, I'm not sure. 2:30:15 Councilor, great question. 2:30:16 I don't think anybody here in the room knows that, but we can go back and take a look and see what that looks like in the future.
2:30:23 Appreciate that. 2:30:23 And I'll work with Councilor Zimmerman on this to just make sure that we get that information. 2:30:29 Because as I listen to why small business owners who are not choosing to build their businesses here, even when some moved here intending to do that, or exiting after multigenerational family businesses have been operating in our city for decades, and it really does pain them to leave the city of Portland. 2:30:47 They mentioned that they choose the suburbs since they have a better shot of basically making bank. 2:30:52 And so my gut says that there must be some comparisons that put us still out of market. 2:30:58 So I hope that we could see that. 2:31:00 But I, again, this is where I'm listening on why people have left or why they're not building tax relief is probably the second most mentioned concern I've heard from small businesses and people trying to start new businesses in our, in our city, in our county. 2:31:16 So I really think this is a first step, and I think we can go further. 2:31:19 I hope. 2:31:20 I'm really supportive of this first step, and I'm so grateful that this is on an item today that we're discussing. 2:31:26 It's great to have a conversation about something that will be a little bit of an aspirin for the many headaches that we have. 2:31:31 Thank you. 2:31:31 Small businesses experience. 2:31:34 Thank you again for bringing this forward.
2:31:37 Thank you, Councilor Ryan. 2:31:38 Councilor Smith.
2:31:40 Thank you, Council President. 2:31:42 I'm trying to get back my voice from a long weekend cheering for my granddaughter at a track meet, so excuse me. 2:31:50 Um, Councilor Zimmerman, thank you for your leadership. 2:31:54 I really support this, and you know I'm a human rights capitalist. 2:31:58 Right. 2:31:59 And so I like this kind of stuff. 2:32:01 There were some questions that were asked. 2:32:05 I spoke at the Seoul District's meeting with small businesses, and many of those folks, they have combined sales of maybe $100,000. 2:32:17 And one of the things that they do is they mix their money in their personal checking accounts. 2:32:23 And I saw that there was about About an average of maybe $1,200. 2:32:30 What that $1,200 can do is give them QuickBooks and make sure that they check their money in an EIN of their business, and so that they're calculating all of their, their dollars. 2:32:43 So this will be so helpful for those small business types that are mixing their money and not separating their business. 2:32:51 So whether it be QuickBooks or buying a piece of equipment or helping with the rent, this is going to be a good thing. 2:33:00 So I appreciate you on this. 2:33:02 Thank you very much.
2:33:04 Thank you, Councilor Smith. 2:33:06 Councilor Pirtle-Guiney. 2:33:09 Thank you, Council President. 2:33:10 I will be quick because a lot has been said that I agree with. 2:33:14 This is a policy that has a small impact thank you. 2:33:17 This is a big impact on the city budget and a large impact for the smallest businesses in our city. 2:33:24 A big impact on simplicity, streamlining, better government interface for those small businesses. 2:33:33 Anytime we have the opportunity to make a small change with a big impact, especially for our microbusinesses and working people in our community, I believe we should thank you, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney. 2:33:47 Councilor Kanal.
2:33:49 Thank you, Council President. 2:33:50 Thank you to the mayor and Councilor Zimmerman for bringing this forward and to everyone on the staff for your work. 2:33:53 I appreciate the explanation and, and, uh, you know, clarity around how the taxes is, um, conducted because of, um, as I was going through the amendment, I think it helped clear up the question there. 2:34:05 And I'm absolutely supportive of the amendment as well as the underlying I wanted to say, like, one of the things that we talk about a lot is how to move the burden where we want it to go of paying for government services. 2:34:20 And I think this does a very good job of ensuring that it is not the people with the least, you know, the people who have the first dollar bill that they got still on their wall but haven't been able to take the second one home yet, right? 2:34:32 And so that's what we're trying to talk about. 2:34:33 I think that's a great point. 2:34:34 Thank you. 2:34:35 I think this does a very good job of that. 2:34:37 I was struck by how many people have mentioned that this came up. 2:34:40 I also hear it from constituents in District 2, and I imagine that it was— I actually remember for both my District 2 colleagues, but I imagine everybody else also talked about it on the campaign trail as well. 2:34:51 And I'd love to have a conversation after this passes, which I think it will, about how we can work with the county to continue the linkage while also allowing for independence. 2:35:01 Yes. 2:35:02 To inflation, because I think those 2 things could be at odds if we indexed and they didn't. 2:35:06 But if we can find a way to come together and index that $100,000 line, that would be a really positive development in the future. 2:35:15 The linkage the way it is now is not going to happen in the first year, right? 2:35:19 So we're going to get to $75,000, they'll still be at $100,000, and then in the second year. 2:35:22 And I wanted to ask, what was the math and the conversation around it? 2:35:27 Because it seems like In order to get there by the end of— by next year's budget cycle, we could go all then, all now, or do this 2-step process. 2:35:35 And just wanted to understand the conversation there because in reading the committee staff summary, there was a conversation, I think, from Councilor Green about why not just do it all now. 2:35:44 So I wanted to give an opportunity to speak to that.
2:35:47 Yeah, very pertinent question, very much relevant. 2:35:51 I think it really came down to I'll just put it this way. 2:35:55 If we were not in a cut year, we probably would've done 100 right off the bat. 2:36:00 This was— this stair-step approach was about minimizing the first-year impact, as some of the questions have alluded to, which is just frankly more palatable and easier to get through a 1.2 cut in the first year and then the same amount that again the next year. 2:36:18 That's what it came down to. 2:36:19 Okay. 2:36:19 Uh, I think the committee— we didn't vote on it, but I would— I, I think we probably could have passed $100,000 out of committee but, um, chose to stair-step it. 2:36:31 But that's where it came from. 2:36:32 I think—. 2:36:33 Councilor Green, anything to add to that? 2:36:34 I know Councilor Pirtle-Guiney also weighed in on that as well.
2:36:37 Nothing to add. 2:36:38 That's what happened.
2:36:41 Great, love it. 2:36:42 Uh, the, the related question I had, and maybe this is for this is Jonas, I imagine, CFO Beery. 2:36:48 If you could speak to— the BLT revenue projection went up recently, if I recall correctly, due to the decoupling at the state level. 2:36:59 And if someone can kind of explain that a little bit, because there's— this is happening in a context that also has some additional money filling in some of the potential gap, actually exceeding it, I think.
2:37:10 Yeah, Councilor, great question. 2:37:12 I'll just note we do have a work session this afternoon where this is gonna come up and a work session next week, specifically with Peter Holzman, City Economist, to review the forecast and those details. 2:37:23 So I just would note, yes, there was some net increase. 2:37:28 I'll preview, there was some net increase as a result of that decoupling. 2:37:31 That was not enough to offset the total decrease that resulted from HR 1 initially. 2:37:37 And so you're correct, but it's also, there's some other pieces that sort of still a net reduction to the forecast.
2:37:43 Okay. 2:37:48 Okay. 2:37:49 Thank you for that. 2:37:50 And I won't try to make you do the whole work session here. 2:37:55 The other thing that I wanted to ask about was with relation to— actually, this might have already been answered. 2:38:07 Yeah, it was. 2:38:08 Okay. 2:38:08 So with relation to the ordinance that was passed, Yeah, I think the next steps are of interest to me. 2:38:13 I guess the piece that I'd mentioned, Councilor Green mentioned the DC benchmarking. 2:38:19 And 2 things on that. 2:38:20 One, just for anyone thinking, are we 13th of the 20,000 cities in the country? 2:38:23 You know, it's 13th out of, I think, 50 cities that they track. 2:38:27 So it's not out of the whole world or a whole country. 2:38:30 Yeah, the largest cities. 2:38:31 But secondly, I think this relates to Councilor Ryan's question. 2:38:35 We absolutely should be having this comparison provided to the public and to council about, 'cause the DC also has a report on the metro area in addition to its national. 2:38:48 And so it would be very helpful to be able to answer, I think, on a monthly or quarterly updated basis, all of Councilor Ryan's questions because it is different in—. 2:39:00 Yeah. 2:39:01 And it's going to be hard for Clark County to compare because theirs is actually a receipts-based tax. 2:39:07 The business—. 2:39:07 The B&O tax up there is not only defined based on how— what the receipts are, but actually as a percentage of your receipts. 2:39:15 So it's a little different up there. 2:39:16 But at least for our area on this side of the river, of the Columbia River, it would be very helpful, I think, to do that. 2:39:23 I don't think that necessarily necessitates an amendment or anything, but just wanted to ask. 2:39:26 Thank you.
2:39:29 Thank you, Councilor Connell. 2:39:31 Vice President Clark. 2:39:33 Thank you, Council President. 2:39:34 I'm feeling a little bit left out, uh, just because as the senior member of the City Council, I'm in the thinning hair caucus.
2:39:43 But I do want to express my strong support and appreciation for this. 2:39:48 It's a much-needed common-sense measure, very basic, but it's very important. 2:39:53 And I know I've told y'all before, I grew up in a small business where everybody had— the whole family had to work.
2:39:58 We worked after school, we worked on the weekend, we worked Sunday after church, and we never took vacations.
2:40:04 So I, I know what it's like to be in a small business, and this is a much-needed measure.
2:40:08 And thank you so much for bringing it forward. 2:40:11 Thank you, Vice President Clark. 2:40:13 Councilor Zimmerman.
2:40:14 Um, I'm just appreciative to the council and to the committee that passed it out of Finance, um, your questions are all very important. 2:40:23 They're about trade-offs and they're about next steps and they're about saying who this is for and who it's not, right? 2:40:30 This isn't for Amazon, but this is for every single chair salon owner, every Tom's Bar who just had an accident. 2:40:37 It is about every food cart who— this is the difference whether or not they can pay the rental of the spot they're at. 2:40:45 So your questions are very pertinent, and I'm reminded of 7th grade science, which taught you once you're done with your study, you should also identify what the next study should be. 2:40:56 And I do think the indexing question is the next step. 2:40:59 And to Councilor Avalos, who brought it up in committee, Councilor Kanal today, I think finding a way where county and city indexing in the future is important and that whole numbers matter. 2:41:13 So maybe we got to get creative, because if this tax becomes $103,012 next year, that's actually not more helpful. 2:41:20 But finding good ways that make sense for everyday Portlanders who are actually just trying to get burritos out the window and just need to file something easy, right? 2:41:29 That's a big part of this. 2:41:31 So I'm appreciative to everybody's support and your kind words today, to the mayor's team, every, every person who has has whispered this into, I think we have a path here, which is many of you. 2:41:42 I'm looking forward to it. 2:41:43 And for the business owners and Portlanders who aren't sure if the cards are stacked against you, to Councilor Morillo's point, that we take multiple steps throughout the year that can help with that, that knowing that you can make up to, in the future, $100,000 in profit before a new tax kicks in. 2:42:05 I think that's a fair thing to say, and that's what we're telling you today. 2:42:08 And I, and I'm confident this will have the votes to pass. 2:42:10 So appreciate to my colleagues and Council President for getting this scheduled, uh, uh, before we get too far into the current tax year. 2:42:17 Thank you.
2:42:17 Thank you, Councilor Zimmerman. 2:42:19 Colleagues, seeing no one else in the queue and with an open, uh, amendment on the— and open and seconded amendment, can we please call the roll on Zimmerman 1?
2:42:35 Councilor Jamie Dunphy.
2:42:45 We're one step closer to legal hot dogs.
2:42:50 The amendment is approved with 11 aye votes, 3 opposed. 2:42:53 Next item on the agenda, special designation, resolution, approval of proposed okay, with that, this item moves to second reading.
2:43:00 Could we please call the next item?
2:43:04 Item 7, amend Council Organization and Procedure Code, amend Code Chapter 3.02.
2:43:11 Thank you very much. 2:43:12 This is the first reading of a non-emergency ordinance. 2:43:15 Dana Richardson with Council Ops is here with a committee staff summary report.
2:43:24 Good afternoon, Council President and councilors. 2:43:27 It's a pleasure to be before you today. 2:43:28 My name is Dana Richardson. 2:43:30 I'm your Council Operations Manager. 2:43:32 I provided a little bit of fleeting support for the Governance Committee as we had analysts coming and going, so that's why I'm before you. 2:43:39 The ordinance before you here, document number 2026056, was considered in the Governance Committee on February 9th and February 23rd, it was passed to council as amended with a recommendation that it be passed. 2:43:55 The ordinance itself amends the Portland City Code 3.02 pertaining to the council's organization and procedures. 2:44:02 The following summary of the ordinance includes amendments adopted by the committee that can be found in the online committee staff summary that's available online. 2:44:12 I will—. 2:44:13 I'll hit the high points. 2:44:14 I probably won't hit every little thing, but I mean, I could, but I'm going to try and hit the highlights. 2:44:21 So the ordinance would specify that amendments to non-emergency and emergency ordinances, franchise ordinances, resolutions, reports, and quasi-judicial land use decisions for proposed council consideration be filed in writing with the clerk at least 24 hours prior to the posted start time of the council meeting during which it will be heard. 2:44:45 Additionally, it permits any 4 councilors to file a request in writing for a referral to the full council for items only after they have been assigned to a committee and placed on an agenda. 2:44:58 It specifies the items a committee votes not to refer to council are deemed inactive and placed on file with the clerk. 2:45:06 It adds a new Section F to City Code pertaining to inactive items. 2:45:11 It specifies that the president can place an item on a council agenda, and if the council takes no action or the item is removed from the agenda and not rescheduled within 180 days of its initial placement, the item again is inactive and no further council can be taken unless it is resubmitted. 2:45:30 The clerk puts that item on file. 2:45:33 At the committee level, it's a similar requirement. 2:45:36 It requires a committee chair to place an item referred to the committee on an agenda no later than 90 days following its referral, and it specifies the actions the committees can take. 2:45:47 They can pass or adopt. 2:45:49 They can pass or adopt as amended. 2:45:51 They may also refer it to another committee, vote not to refer, or take no action. 2:45:58 For the latter items, if the item is not subsequently rescheduled or pulled from committee to a full council agenda, Yes. 2:46:06 The item is deemed inactive, placed on file by the clerk, and cannot be acted upon unless refiled. 2:46:14 There are— like I said, those are the top line. 2:46:16 There's more in there that I think you'll get to because you've got several amendments in the mix already today. 2:46:22 There are no impact statements associated with the ordinance. 2:46:25 One individual provided written and verbal testimony prior to committee action focusing on whether or when it's appropriate for legislation to become inactive.
2:46:35 This concludes the committee staff summary.
2:46:38 Thank you, Dana. 2:46:40 Councilor Koyama Lane, you were the committee chair of this item. 2:46:44 Any remarks from you?
2:46:46 No, I think Dana did a great job summarizing. 2:46:49 We had a lot of conversations, a lot of back and forth. 2:46:53 I think it's best to kick it over to the sponsors.
2:46:57 Great. 2:46:57 I will turn it over to Councilor Pirtle-Guiney. 2:47:00 Thank you, Council President. 2:47:01 Thank you, Mayor Wilson. 2:47:02 And thank you for the overview, Dana. 2:47:06 And colleagues, thanks for reordering the agenda so we could at least get started on this topic today. 2:47:11 This ordinance makes a number of important changes to our City Code Chapter 3.02, which governs council procedures. 2:47:19 The first draft of this ordinance was accumulate— was the accumulation of my experience as council president, conversations I had with our various staff support teams, and numerous discussions within the Governance Committee about how we operate as a body. 2:47:36 It also includes pieces from conversations I had with many of you throughout the year of frustrations you had with how our work was moving and how we might be able to work better. 2:47:49 I was originally directed to bring these changes in Emergency Ordinance 192021, which we passed in January of 2023. 2:47:58 It asked that the council president bring updated provisions based on our experience in this new form of government. 2:48:08 Although we have a new council president, I still believe that the things brought forward today will make all of our jobs a little bit easier as we move forward, and I appreciate our current council president's efforts in working with me on this and in bringing forward many of your experiences already in the role to provide additional changes in the Governance Committee. 2:48:32 Before this was submitted, we specifically asked for feedback outside of the normal review process from the Council Clerk's Office, Council Operations, and the City Attorney's Office to ensure that we were capturing any changes that they needed as they work with us. 2:48:48 And I will also flag that before I brought a formal proposal forward, I daylighted the concepts we were considering with the Governance Committee to make sure that this was an iterative process and we were receiving feedback throughout the development process to try to capture as many voices as possible in the work. 2:49:07 What's before us now is a product of all of that refinement plus extensive conversations in committee. 2:49:16 So what do we have here? 2:49:19 The first set of changes in the ordinance deals with our committee work, with the goal of strengthening the role that committees play in the process— policy development process. 2:49:28 If we are going to be a committee-based structure, we need to ensure that we have rules for how our committees operate. 2:49:35 We spent a lot of last year with you all, colleagues, asking me how committees should operate in a system where we had rules for the full council, and nothing actually spelled out for committee. 2:49:46 I said until we had something official, let's follow parallel rules, and that worked all right, but it still left numerous questions where things didn't quite apply correctly. 2:49:58 So, um, this does a few things. 2:50:04 It asks that items come out of committee with thank you. 2:50:10 I would like to make a recommendation that we take 3— or that committees take 3 potential actions. 2:50:16 Either that they forward an item to full council with a do pass recommendation, creating a clear signal that the committee sees viability in that item and believes that council should take it up for consideration. 2:50:32 When we move things through committee without recommendation, or worse, try to bypass Committee consideration, we create a bottleneck for the full council. 2:50:41 We know we already have a bottleneck. 2:50:43 We don't need to make that worse. 2:50:45 Committees can refer an item to another committee for additional work, either with or without a recommendation. 2:50:52 Sometimes something moves to a committee, and as we dig into the policy, we realize that we need our colleagues who have expertise in a different topic to weigh in as well. 2:51:01 This provides a clear path for how that can happen. 2:51:04 Because that's still allowing work in the committee process, we felt it was important to allow that to occur with or without a recommendation. 2:51:13 Committees can vote not to advance an item, either holding it in committee for additional work or more input, or can vote on an item and vote not to advance it. 2:51:28 We also create proposals that committee chairs and co-chairs, or a requirement that committee chairs or co-chairs schedule an item within 3 months. 2:51:41 That is a requirement that exists for the council president when scheduling things in full council. 2:51:46 It gives committee chairs and co-chairs flexibility in setting their agendas, but ensures that we don't have committee chairs and co-chairs who hold an item indefinitely without 3 months has worked at this body. 2:52:01 And in order to ensure we don't have confusion, in order to create as much clarity as possible, I paralleled that requirement for committees. 2:52:15 Second, this ordinance creates an inactivity standard for legislative items with a goal of adding transparency to our policy process. 2:52:24 For us, but more importantly, for the public. 2:52:27 Those of us who have access to the back end of eCouncil where our documents are filed know that there are a handful of items that are sitting in the queue indefinitely. 2:52:37 We all know they're not moving. 2:52:40 Our staff know they're not moving, but we don't actually have rules for that to become a clear, a formal standard. 2:52:51 They linger indefinitely. 2:52:53 Not a big deal now. 2:52:55 10 Years from now, a whole lot of clutter. 2:52:59 On the front end, the public see items assigned on our website to committees. 2:53:04 And again, we all know that some of those items are never going to move. 2:53:09 But for a member of the public looking at that list and seeing something assigned to a committee and wondering why we haven't talked about It for over a year. 2:53:17 That can create confusion. 2:53:19 And again, 10 years from now, a whole lot of clutter. 2:53:22 We need a standard where an item becomes inactive. 2:53:25 We're using the phrase inactive here. 2:53:27 In some bodies, they say an item dies. 2:53:30 In some bodies, they say an item is placed back on the books. 2:53:34 There are a number of ways to describe this. 2:53:36 Through a number of conversations last year with the council vice president, or former council vice president, We chose the phrase inactive. 2:53:45 Same meaning in all of those standards. 2:53:49 Under the inactivity standard in this ordinance, an item that has not been advanced within 180 days for whatever reason is deemed inactive and removed from the legislative process. 2:54:00 Of course, things can be formally resubmitted if folks would like to revive them after that. 2:54:07 Coupled with the changes proposed for committees, I'll flag that because a committee chair moving forward would not be able to hold something indefinitely, they have 3 months to schedule. 2:54:19 This does not create an ability for a chair or the council president to hold something until it dies. 2:54:26 An item has to be scheduled under other rules within that time period. 2:54:31 The third thing that the policy does is formally establish the council handbook as a tool of city council. 2:54:39 Thanks to the work of Councilor Koyama Lane and her team, we have our first iteration of a council handbook. 2:54:46 I think it is incredibly important for us to have a document where all of us, any new councilors coming to this body in the future when my voters decide that they are sick of me, and members of the public can see how we do things. 2:54:59 I also think it's important that we periodically update our The rules in this code change would not preclude us from updating the handbook more frequently, but would ensure that at least every 2 years we readopt our handbook. 2:55:17 This encourages continual refinement. 2:55:20 I chose 2 years so that after an election, new councilors have the opportunity to weigh in on our rules, so that if the public chooses to make changes to our council in part because of how we are operating, Thank you. 2:55:32 We can quickly reflect those changes without creating a more frequent requirement that might bog down the rest of our work. 2:55:41 The last substantive change is about transparency and good government. 2:55:45 We need adequate time to review amendments to do good work, and more importantly, when we introduce amendments at the dais, we don't have an opportunity for the public to weigh in because unless one of us has flagged for our own supporters that that amendment is coming, People don't know to sign up to testify on it. 2:56:07 We also leave out important policy staff in our discussion and aren't able to check with folks who we trust about the impacts. 2:56:20 I want to be clear that there are release valves in the requirement that this would establish that amendments be filed 24 hours in advance for items heard in full council. 2:56:34 The first release valve is that amendments can always be introduced at the dais, but we would have to wait to vote on them. 2:56:44 So if we had an amendment introduced to an item at a Wednesday meeting, it turns out 24 hours later would be our Thursday meeting. 2:56:50 We could still move forward that same week. 2:56:53 There is also the release valve of a 9/12 vote to suspend the rules. 2:56:58 If there is something important being discussed at the dais, we have an amendment that would bring consensus, find compromise on issues, and it brings our body together. 2:57:09 By a 9/12 vote, we can suspend any of our rules, and we would continue to be able, with 9 votes, to move something forward day of on the dais that hadn't been posted 12 hours in advance. 2:57:21 I think those release valves are important. 2:57:24 I also will note that this does not apply the 24-hour standard to committees. 2:57:29 Committees are where iterative work happens. 2:57:32 Once something is passed in committee, the public does still have time to weigh in as it moves toward council. 2:57:38 And I think it's important to have as much flexibility as possible in our amendment process in committee. 2:57:43 So we applied that standard only to items before council. 2:57:46 Thank you. 2:57:49 Finally, this package includes a number of cleanup items in Chapter 3.02, technical and grammatical provisions, removing parts of the statute that are no longer relevant. 2:58:01 Most of those came at the request of the Clerk's Office. 2:58:06 I am happy to try to remember which came exactly from whom if there are questions about them, but that is the remainder of the agenda items. 2:58:12 Thank you, Council Clerk Rebecca Dobert. 2:58:13 The changes here. 2:58:14 The package reflects over a year of our collective experience operating under this new form of government, colleagues. 2:58:21 This year was a learning curve for all of us. 2:58:23 We knew coming in that as we built out rules for a very new system, we would need to make changes. 2:58:29 We made some of those at the start of last year, anticipating how we would want things to work and directing that we knew we would need to make more at the start of this year. 2:58:38 That is what we have before us I look forward to the discussion today. 2:58:43 I hope my colleagues from the Governance Committee who were part of the previous discussions feel free to weigh in on what we talked about there. 2:58:50 And I hope to have your support in ultimately passing this so that we can bring more transparency, more clarity, more structure to the work that we do here and the way that the public understands and can weigh in on that work.
2:59:06 Thank you, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
2:59:07 Council President, real quick procedure. 2:59:08 We had a couple people sign up for testimony and the item was supposed to be yesterday, so how did we— how are we managing that?
2:59:15 Well, it looks like we do have 2 people signed up to testify who are in the room.
2:59:18 Oh, okay, they, they found out.
2:59:19 Looks like everybody got the news. 2:59:22 Signed up today.
2:59:24 Yeah, as of a little bit ago.
2:59:26 I just want to make sure.
2:59:27 Yeah, absolutely. 2:59:28 Um, so colleagues, it is currently 12:25. 2:59:31 We are currently scheduled to go until 12:30. 2:59:34 I am going to ask that we push and continue this until 1:00. 2:59:40 And we will be— it is my intention to entertain a motion at the end of our debate today to postpone this item to a date certain of April 16th. 2:59:52 Obviously, we will not get through the first reading of this today.
2:59:55 Point of information. 2:59:56 If we're going to 1:00, then what's happening with the 1:00 our 2 o'clock. 3:00:03 Oh, it's at 2. 3:00:04 Our work session's at 2. 3:00:07 Oh, my bad.
3:00:09 So that is my intention, that we are building out time to continue the first reading of this non-emergency ordinance to the 16th. 3:00:20 I will be making a motion before 1 o'clock. 3:00:22 It's my priority to make sure we get to testimony right now. 3:00:25 So to the folks in the queue, would you prefer to do clarifying questions and technical questions now, or would we prefer to get to testimony? 3:00:34 Testimony. 3:00:35 Okay, we're going to move to testimony first. 3:00:37 Oh, sorry.
3:00:38 The amendments, like, do you want people to know what the amendments are? 3:00:42 But there's a lot of them, so I don't know how you want to deal with that.
3:00:45 Yeah, you know, Council President, can I make a request?
3:00:50 I think it would be good to at least lay out in 2 sentences or less what each of the amendments are so that our testifiers know, but perhaps not going into as much detail as we usually do with the allowance for proposers to return to the amendments at a later date with more detail for you. 3:01:08 That makes absolute sense to me.
3:01:12 Well, I am actually the author and co-author of 2 of these amendments, so I'd like to lay out mine very quickly. 3:01:18 I'll turn it over to Councilors Avalos and Kanal after that. 3:01:24 First, Pirtle-Guiney and Dunphy 1 is a pre-filed amendment that is purely a technical adjustment to align the text of the code with the legislative intent of what was passed in committee. 3:01:35 It clarifies that rendering an item inactive happens when a vote fails as opposed to the current language where it says votes not to refer an item, which is unclear. 3:01:44 The amendment also aligns another reference in the same circumstance. 3:01:47 Later in the code. 3:01:51 I emailed this, or my team emailed this to you all. 3:01:53 There is an amendment titled Dunphy 6 that I will not be pursuing. 3:01:58 I am not moving this forward. 3:02:01 Specifically, I think it is worth noting, colleagues, that a big part of what we are having a conversation about in this is the 24-hour rule for filing amendments, but I do want to just call out very quickly that City Charter Section 2-506 authorizes the city auditor to adopt, amend, and repeal administrative rules to carry out duties of the auditor's office, which includes producing agendas, recording council actions, public access to council documents, maintaining the code, charter, and public policy documents. 3:02:33 City Code 3.02.070 currently authorizes the city auditor to adopt rules in rules, procedures, and forms to implement the provisions of Code 3.02. 3:02:45 1.01.035 provides the auditor will provide a uniform form and style provisions of the code. 3:02:50 And 3.02.020.B.6 provides the city attorney has to approve amendments to code and charter before those items are placed on an agenda. 3:03:00 You know, we allow ourselves quite a bit of leeway on amending code on the fly, but we should understand that I think that this practice of advancing law and especially proposing code changes without prior review of the city attorney and the clerk is not permissible under a plain reading of our code and charter. 3:03:15 I pushed it a little bit this morning with a late filing that did not— that I do not anticipate to move. 3:03:20 There are 5 other amendments still that will be proposed, but because we are moving this to the 16th, I think that we'll have time to get them reviewed. 3:03:28 So as— and again, as I said, before we conclude today, it is my intention to ask for a motion to postpone this item to April 16th. 3:03:37 Um, so, uh, Councilor Avalos, for your— to your amendments, just to lay them—.
3:03:44 So to be clear, later we can go into more depth? 3:03:47 Absolutely. 3:03:47 I got a big argument for it, but my amendment is just to remove the 24-hour limit, and it's with Councilor Kanal.
3:03:52 Okay, thank you, Councilor. 3:03:53 And Councilor Kanal?
3:03:54 Thanks. 3:03:55 And I just— I think you could just continue the first reading to that date I don't know if you need a motion, but it's up to you how you want to do it. 3:04:02 Okay, I have offered 5 amendments. 3:04:05 I'll do each one. 3:04:06 So they're all in one packet that you have emailed to you as well as printed out. 3:04:10 Amendment 2 restores the initial purpose of the 4-councilor discharge by saying that if a committee votes no, the other 7 councilors, potentially with those who supported the item in committee, which could be up to 2, Can still help get that to the full council, which was the compromise we all reached in the first rules from last year that were January of last year we adopted. 3:04:35 Amendment 3 establishes an agenda determination timeline. 3:04:40 We currently have only a deadline for when an item needs to be filed by, but there is a lot of ambiguity about when committee leadership needs to then designate the agenda for the next week. 3:04:51 So puts that in on Wednesdays at 5 o'clock to allow for time to review filed items and then do that. 3:04:57 Amendment 4 removes text that I think is unenforceable, but around the timelines and cadence for revisitation of the rules. 3:05:06 I have a large argument about this, but it's very similar to how we did the renaming of the street to Rose Hill. 3:05:11 These are waivable rules anyway by the same thing, so they're kind of Misperception creation there. 3:05:19 Amendment 5 restores the ability for a committee to do a do-pass recommendation or a recommendation without— sorry, referral without a particular recommendation to full council. 3:05:30 This is a particular tool I have been intending to use, and I'll explain tomorrow at the first Committee of the Whole meeting. 3:05:34 It's a tool I really am relying on for how we're gonna work that out. 3:05:40 And Amendment 6, changes just the committee side of the automatic inactivity rule, not the council side, by saying that the sponsor can retain the item without deleting the entire legislative history, testimony, and item number if they intend to bring it back. 3:05:59 Because I strongly reject the premise that every item that is in— that is not currently on an agenda is never coming back. 3:06:06 I personally have at least one. 3:06:08 So, uh, thanks.
3:06:10 Thank you, Councilor Kanal. 3:06:11 Is there anyone else, uh, who is introducing amendments?
3:06:15 Can we— oh, sorry, Councilor Smith.
3:06:21 I want us to, uh, consider an amendment to reconsider the, the implementation of tie-breaking rule 3.02.04D due to its potential violation of the city charter. 3:06:35 This rule appears to have unlawfully altered the language stipulated in the, in the charter, raising concerns about its legality and transparency. 3:06:47 The charter is meant to be clear and accessible, and any changes to that, it, um, it manipulates the provisions and undermines the foundational governance of the city. 3:06:59 Thank you. 3:07:00 And by scrapping this rule, Portland can ensure adherence to its charter instead of a code and uphold the integrity of its governance and framework and safeguards the principles of democracy and fair representation that was put forward, forward by the charter committee. 3:07:20 And that's what I'll be putting forward.
3:07:22 Thank you, Councilor Smith.
3:07:26 Looking to my colleagues, see if there's anybody else.
3:07:29 Uh, Rebecca, can we please move to public testimony?
3:07:34 We have 2 people signed up, uh, Terry Harris and Rebecca Wise Barton. 3:07:40 You can both approach the table.
3:07:46 Please introduce yourself for the records. 3:07:48 Record single.
3:07:51 I'm Terry Harris, for the record. 3:07:55 Thanks for this opportunity. 3:07:58 I'm here in support of the legislation as you have it, as amended. 3:08:06 I testified in the Governance Committee, the late lamented Governance Committee, a couple times, I think, on this, and submitted some comments a couple times on this. 3:08:18 And I think it's a good, solid improvement as is. 3:08:24 Um, so you should pass it. 3:08:27 You should pass it today. 3:08:29 Um, but I'm also here to speak against the Kanal-Avalos Amendment. 3:08:37 Um, I'm in favor of submitting amendments in advance.
3:08:44 So that the public can come and testify on them, which is what I'm doing today. 3:08:51 I am unable to comment on all those other amendments that you just added. 3:08:56 And this is why you do it.
3:08:57 It's for transparency.
3:08:59 It's for collaboration.
3:09:01 It's so you don't surprise your colleagues and you don't delay things that ought not to be delayed. 3:09:08 Um, and It supports the committee system where the work gets done. 3:09:14 You have options, um, to refer things back to committee for more work. 3:09:21 You can refer them back to the Committee of the Whole for more work, or you could just simply vote no. 3:09:28 Um, I like finality. 3:09:31 I think the public sees finality also just as progress, even if you're voting things down. 3:09:36 Thank you. 3:09:36 Um, so I think you're at a stage where you could pass this legislation, make great improvements in your process, and, um, uh, work on some other things later. 3:09:51 Um, thanks.
3:09:56 Hello, esteemed council. 3:09:58 Um, I just wanted to say—.
3:10:02 Introduce yourself.
3:10:03 Can you hear me? 3:10:04 Oh, my name is Rebecca Wise Barton.
3:10:05 It's nice to meet you.
3:10:08 I didn't know that this amendment was going to vote today. 3:10:12 I did look at the, uh, I did look at the agenda for today and I— it was listed as 11, and then earlier today it was moved up. 3:10:21 So if this amendment is truly to make sure that every citizen, you know, Portland yes. 3:10:28 —Gets a chance to look at what's going to vote, it concerns me a little bit that this was moved up so quickly. 3:10:35 So, um, the dissension of this vote is coming from within my own district. 3:10:42 I'm District 2. 3:10:43 So I just would encourage you guys to look at this again. 3:10:48 I am pro this amendment, but the way that it was moved up today is Is not in the spirit of this amendment, in my opinion. 3:10:57 And my main concern is the 24-hour language. 3:11:01 If everything's being submitted within 24 hours, you know, before the next meeting, that is going to lead to a lot of the amendments hitting that 180-day deadline that is then inactive because there will be so many rushed amendments. 3:11:18 Councilmember Smith, I think you're missing the point. 3:11:20 So I believe the 24-hour language is going to lead to a rushed submission of amendments to make, which will then become inactive and then not be able to be voted on. 3:11:31 I don't know the specifics of that, certainly, but I suggest that you guys do it 24 hours before the penultimate vote. 3:11:42 So the meeting would be, yes, this is ready to go to vote.
3:11:45 And then the following meeting is when you make that yes or no. 3:11:50 Yeah or nay. 3:11:51 Um, yeah, thank you guys so much.
3:11:54 I really appreciate what you do.
3:11:57 Thank you very much.
3:12:01 Oh, I'm sorry, and the handbook portion, that's all good.
3:12:07 That concludes testimony.
3:12:09 Excellent. 3:12:09 Colleagues, we now move into discussion. 3:12:12 And again, for the— just for housekeeping, I will— I don't actually need to have a motion, but I will be continuing if there's no— with unanimous consent that I will be continuing this item at our conclusion to April 16th. 3:12:28 And we'll move into conversation. 3:12:30 Councilor Avalos. 3:12:32 She has walked away. 3:12:34 Councilor Koyama Lane.
3:12:40 Thank you, Council President. 3:12:42 Um, let's see, that was a little bit faster than I thought. 3:12:47 Um, I really appreciate both of the sponsors. 3:12:51 I appreciate how you both have worked collaborative— collaboratively on this together. 3:12:57 Um, and I do think that the intent behind all of this really is to make things run more smoothly. 3:13:06 Um, I go back and forth around about the 24-hour piece. 3:13:15 I, on face value, I kind of— I like it. 3:13:19 And even in this meeting, I've seen a couple places where it's been helpful to be a little bit more nimble. 3:13:26 Um, so I am— I'm honestly still kind of on the fence about how I feel about this. 3:13:31 Councilor Dan Ryan. 3:13:32 Yes. 3:13:32 I will point out that this did not pass out of governance unanimously, and that was specifically because I wanted to recognize the need for every councilor to be able to engage in this publicly and deliberate. 3:13:48 This is something that these rules affect all of us, and I do think it's very important that all, all of us up here have an opportunity to weigh in and discuss these rules that are going to govern our operations, how things flow, our influence, our powers. 3:14:05 I actually think this item is a good example of one to discuss at Committee of the Whole, allowing all of us some time to deliberate the complexities without the stricter rules that govern our council meetings. 3:14:19 And I think that type of flexibility is very valuable and helps make sure that we're able to workshop and debate without delaying other important items that we need to do as a council. 3:14:33 So I'm just putting that out there. 3:14:34 I'm not making a motion at this point, but I do think that is something that is a possibility that could make sense.
3:14:41 Thank you, Councilor Koyama Lane. 3:14:43 Councilor Kanal.
3:14:47 Thank you. 3:14:48 I just wanted to point out, and I— there's multiple ways that we can talk about the 24-hour rule. 3:14:53 Because ultimately, in a finite amount of time, wherever you set that midpoint deadline of an amendment requirement is going to affect not only your— when you move it, you're extending one side of the discussion and you're limiting the other. 3:15:06 So by that I mean, when you have agendas published on a Friday, which is 5 days prior to the council agenda, and by the way, the biggest thing we could do has nothing to do with the amendment deadline. 3:15:16 It's just going back to using time certain. 3:15:18 More frequently, so we can have published for the public what is going to be on our agenda more than five days in advance. 3:15:24 That's the single biggest thing we could do here. 3:15:26 But assuming it remains five days for some items, because not everything will be a time certain, if the amendment deadline is earlier, yes, it provides more time for everyone to read the amendments and discuss what they will be, how you want to vote on it, for the public to come testify on it. 3:15:41 But it reduces the time to review the actual underlying ordinances. 3:15:45 And actually come up with the amendments in the first place. 3:15:48 And one of the challenges is that there are also members of the public who are advocating for specific amendments after they review the agendas. 3:15:59 And so there is always going to be a trade-off here. 3:16:02 I want to note that this item was originally scheduled, and I'm not complaining about the rescheduling right now. 3:16:07 I've made my point on that. 3:16:08 But it was originally scheduled for late in the meeting tomorrow. 3:16:12 So it would have been somewhere in the ballpark of 4 or 3 o'clock because it was requested for 2 hours. 3:16:17 But the way that the text is worded right now says that it is— an amendment has to be submitted 24 hours in advance of when the meeting starts. 3:16:26 And as we all know, Thursday meetings are recessed of the Wednesday meetings, which means the deadline to then would not have been 24 hours in advance, would have been 9:30 AM on Tuesday.
3:16:37 Which is 48 hours plus whatever we're talking about here, another 6. 3:16:43 So like 54 hours in advance. 3:16:45 And so, you know, you've already— that— so there isn't the idea that you would be able to submit amendments on a Wednesday and vote on them Thursday is not accurate.
3:16:54 The other thing I should mention is that as far as I'm aware, we can suspend the rules, but we can't suspend the code. 3:17:03 So if we put this rule, this, this requirement into code, we would not be able to do a 9/12 vote on that. 3:17:09 Is— I'm sorry, is that— I can't tell if that's a, a validation shake of the head no, or I'm incorrect no. 3:17:17 So I saw a shake of the head. 3:17:19 Thank you, Robert.
3:17:20 That, that was, uh, Robert Taylor, City Attorney. 3:17:23 That shake of the head was a no, what you were saying was incorrect.
3:17:26 Okay, thank you for clarifying that. 3:17:28 So that means that means we could suspend this requirement should it be in the code by a 9/12 vote?
3:17:34 Okay, thank you. 3:17:35 Even still, the 54-hour rule still applies, and it seems to me that having 9 votes in order to be able to vote on something that requires 7 votes to pass is still a concern. 3:17:45 But there are, I think, times where it makes sense. 3:17:49 We've— and your office, Council President, has put out a memo that talks about, as did previous Council President last year, that talks about how we do need to pre-file Uh, amendments for scoring for the, um, for the budget. 3:18:04 Uh, as you pointed out with the various citations earlier on, we already have the requirement, um, for things that amend code to have attorney, um, approval. 3:18:15 And we have certainly stretched that, and I appreciate the, the City Attorney's Office for, um, the flexibility they've been able to provide and also for the, the boundary when it is not able to be provided. 3:18:25 Because it's a fairly significant thing that would require looking into. 3:18:29 But I think that there are enough guardrails on the places where it's most important now that we're talking about legislating to solve a problem that doesn't exist. 3:18:37 Because ultimately, on the smaller-scale things, resolutions, reports, and things like that, at least 5 or 6 of us have said that the reason we're voting no on an amendment at some point over the last year-plus has been we didn't have enough time. 3:18:50 We always have this one failsafe of voting no on amendments if we don't have enough time to review them or continuing the item. 3:18:57 But trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist or that doesn't exist outside of the solution that already exists seems to me like not a good use of our time. 3:19:06 Thanks.
3:19:06 Thank you much, Councilor Kanal. 3:19:08 Councilor Morillo.
3:19:11 Thank you. 3:19:12 I really appreciate this work being brought forward. 3:19:14 There are obvious things that we need to do to make sure that we are not stuck in this room for 10,000 hours every week. 3:19:21 And I think that what I've seen as far as implementation goes is a lot of— and I've benefited from last-minute amendments that I enjoyed that made it possible for me to vote on policies. 3:19:32 But I do think it's a real burden on our staff, our legal team, and everybody to try to make sure that things are up to code when we're doing things on the fly. 3:19:42 My main concern with this change is actually about the committee structure and having policies that fail in committee not have a way to get to full council. 3:19:54 And the reason for that is if we're on a committee that happens to be— our committees are often, because of the way that they're structured, set up in a way that there will be either more progressive policy or more moderate policy that could fail because of the makeup of the So if you don't have the ability to have a policy come out of committee, you might have 7 votes on full council. 3:20:22 So it's a little anti-democratic that, to me, a policy could die in committee when it's not representative of the council body as a whole. 3:20:31 And so that's why I feel very strongly that we need to have a failsafe for that so that policies don't die in committee by procedure rather than just because of a lack of votes. 3:20:38 Councilor Loretta Smith. 3:20:41 This wasn't something that the council would have wanted or the public would have wanted. 3:20:45 And so I will be supporting Councilor Kanal's amendment on that. 3:20:49 That was my main concern with this. 3:20:52 I think that we are going to have to adjust our behavior to a better system with the last-minute amendment thing, and I think that's a good thing. 3:21:02 I know that that will force me to track policies more diligently before they come to council. 3:21:08 While they're at committee and all of those things. 3:21:10 And that's gonna be additional work. 3:21:12 And it is difficult for our offices to track everything that's happening in all the committees when we're not sitting on them. 3:21:18 But I think best practice would be that we were able to bring those amendments ahead of time. 3:21:24 So that's sort of where I'm landing on these things. 3:21:26 But I have deep, deep concerns about policies dying in committee and not because the council doesn't support them, but because they're in a committee where they are destined to die. 3:21:35 Thank you.
3:21:37 Thank you, Councilor Morillo. 3:21:41 Councilor Avalos.
3:21:44 Thank you, and apologies for stepping out, and I know you had called me, so I'll go ahead and introduce the amendment, unless did you do it already? 3:21:51 No, okay. 3:21:52 All right, so to formally introduce the amendment, Councilor Kanal and I are bringing forward an amendment to remove the 24-hour requirement for submitting amendments. 3:22:02 I understand the intent behind the proposal, and giving colleagues time to review and process information is important. 3:22:09 But the purpose of a legislative body like this is to be responsive to new information, to evolving conversations, and most importantly, to community needs. 3:22:18 In practice, many amendments come forward late because they are direct responses to what we are hearing from community members, often in real time. 3:22:25 And frankly, too often items reach full council without meaningful engagement, and the first time community members weigh in is at this stage. 3:22:32 Those voices matter, and we need to be able to respond to those by creating a hard 24-hour cutoff. 3:22:37 And let me just enumerate the argument you're making— or enumerate is not the word, you know what I mean— that Councilor Kanal is making around the confusion of what that 24-hour mark is, because that greatly concerns me, because then it's even more time that you have to put forward an amendment, and that is limiting our own legislative authority and reducing our ability to do that work. 3:23:03 We should not be putting ourselves in a position where we cannot act on new information or community input simply because of some arbitrary deadline. 3:23:10 I believe that we can balance transparency with flexibility, but this proposal goes way too far in restricting that flexibility. 3:23:17 And I think ultimately, you know, to Councilor Morillo's points at the end there, yeah, we need to create better systems and protocol, decorum, if you will, I think all of us have been getting our bearings over the last year, and I think, you know, as we're trying to implement this new form of government, there's been a lot of kinks as far as that process of legislation. 3:23:45 But I think that this solves— I don't know what problem this is really solving when, again, limiting that flexibility is limiting our own powers, and I think limiting the voices of constituents that we represent. 3:23:57 I'm going to harp on that particularly for EDC. 3:23:58 Councilmember Smith, East Portland, who is often the last to know about things that are coming before City Council. 3:24:04 We have— the District 1 councilors have to work really hard to try to get East Portlanders to be plugged in because they are working 3 jobs and they don't have the opportunity in the middle of the day to come talk to us. 3:24:16 And so when we are limiting our ability to represent those voices, that's, that's a concern to me. 3:24:23 So And just process-wise, are we going ahead to ask for seconds at this point? 3:24:30 I don't know what I missed when I stepped out.
3:24:32 You are welcome to, yeah, absolutely ask for a second.
3:24:34 Okay, okay. 3:24:35 So yeah.
3:24:36 There you go. 3:24:36 Great, thank you.
3:24:38 That's all, thanks.
3:24:40 So we now have an amendment formally moved and seconded. 3:24:45 We have about 9 minutes left, colleagues, and we have 3 more people in the queue speak on the first round of it. 3:24:52 Do we need to move to the amendment vote or amendment discussion first? 3:24:56 And so it's moved and seconded. 3:24:59 Okay, so we— because your amendment has been moved and seconded, we're now in that motion and we need folks in the queue will have to— are queuing up to discuss that at the moment. 3:25:11 And then we will take a vote on the amendment.
3:25:13 Excuse me, Council President, did we get a second on the amendment? 3:25:17 I see Councilor Kanal. 3:25:19 Great.
3:25:22 Councilor Green, are you into the amendment? 3:25:23 Okay, Councilor Green.
3:25:26 I am not going to support this amendment, although I am sympathetic to the arguments about needing to be responsive to community. 3:25:34 I have done floor amendments myself that were responsive to community, but I think it cuts the other way too, that community has no way— there's a lot of different communities that we have to serve. 3:25:45 And your broad constituency has no way to respond to your creative reaction to the thing that you think you're trying to solve on the fly. 3:25:57 And sometimes it gets very complicated, and sometimes we're amending a code. 3:26:01 And I'm increasingly of the opinion that I'm extremely nervous that we're adopt— like, we are at risk of adopting codes that are in contradiction with other parts of our code.
3:26:12 And that are not good policy. 3:26:14 And so for that reason, I'm not supporting the amendment on the floor right now. 3:26:20 I do think that the underlying problem, however, is that we do not have a rolling window of what's coming before council. 3:26:29 And I know that there's work underway to fix that. 3:26:32 And let's keep doing that. 3:26:34 And so we can— I would love to be in a position To kind of know a week out, 2 weeks out better that, um, hey, this is going to be on the agenda. 3:26:46 And my team would work on amendments and we would, we would run those by code review, we would run those by a city attorney, and then we would reach out to our communities to get some feedback. 3:26:55 I think that's the way you do it. 3:26:56 And we need to solve that by changing our process. 3:26:59 Um, but I don't, I, I don't think keeping the floor amendment space Um, is how we solve that. 3:27:06 So, uh, for that reason, um, I'm going to be a no on this one, and I'm not going to talk about the other things because, uh, everyone else needs to talk too. 3:27:15 So thanks.
3:27:15 Thank you, Councilor Green. 3:27:17 Councilor Koyama Lane, are you to the amendment?
3:27:20 I very truly see both sides to this. 3:27:24 Um, I am worried that if we put the 24-hour deadline, we might not even realize how that's going to limit some of us, and it's not going to be until we have it in that we'll feel it. 3:27:36 Um, I, I'm wondering about something in between, like a, a noon deadline the day before, and then seeing how that works and it being something that we can come back to at some point. 3:27:51 Just putting that out there, not making a motion. 3:27:54 Um, that's probably just me being literally in the middle, seeing both sides on this. 3:27:59 And wondering if there's, um, a way we can kind of ease into this deadline and see how it feels first before going full 24 hours.
3:28:09 Thank you, Councilor Khamenei. 3:28:13 Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, this is to the amendment? 3:28:15 It is to the amendment, yes. 3:28:17 Colleagues, I want to talk about how we prep for meetings because I know it looks different in all of our offices. 3:28:23 I sit down with my team every Friday and we go over everything posted for agendas the next week, which means I try— I am not always successful— to make sure that I know before something is up in committee if it's something that I might want to weigh in on. 3:28:39 We miss things. 3:28:40 I have brought day-of amendments before. 3:28:43 I have tried to file something in advance, gotten it to the clerk too late, and not gotten it posted in advance even when I have wanted to. 3:28:51 No fault of the clerk's office. 3:28:52 I should have given them more time before we got it in. 3:28:54 Thank you. 3:28:55 Um, I know it's hard, but our colleague Councilor Murillo talked about the need to change our own behavior. 3:29:05 I want to make sure that I'm catching things that I will want to bring changes to when they're in committee. 3:29:10 If we do that, even if we're not in the committee, even if our amendment is reactive to the conversation in committee, that still gives us time once it comes out of committee to do that homework before it's even posted on an agenda in council. 3:29:24 We have fewer committees now. 3:29:26 I know we can't be at all of them still. 3:29:28 I know we can't have our staff be in all of them still, but we can at least look at the agendas around what's coming. 3:29:34 I don't think that this— that the change in the underlying would give us only from Friday when agendas are posted to start developing our amendments. 3:29:45 If we're really truly following what's happening in the rest of council and doing our homework in advance. 3:29:51 And I will remind you that there are the release valves, including asking for something to be held over so that amendments can be brought forth, saying in the debate process, I would like to bring this change, so I'm asking us to not close this item today so that we can move it and bring something in the future. 3:30:09 I get that what I am asking us to do in the underlying is not easy. 3:30:14 I've filed late amendments. 3:30:15 I have supported late amendments. 3:30:17 I have seen late amendments bring my support to underlying bills. 3:30:21 We have all benefited from that, and I still don't think that for the public it is good process. 3:30:26 So the question I want to ask us as we consider this amendment is what our priority is. 3:30:32 Is our priority speed, or is our priority diligent work and transparency? 3:30:40 That's the choice before us. 3:30:42 Both are important, both matter in this work, but one has to matter more. 3:30:49 To me, diligence and transparency, our commitment to the public for them to be able to weigh in, matters more than speed, even if that makes our work harder sometimes. 3:31:03 That's why I'll be voting no on this. 3:31:04 Councilmember I hope we can each ask ourselves which of those 2 values matters most. 3:31:09 Thank you, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney. 3:31:10 Colleagues, we have about 2 minutes left before we are gaveling out, and I will be asking for a continuation of this. 3:31:17 Councilor Zimmerman.
3:31:18 Thanks, Council President. 3:31:19 I am cautious to eliminate the ability to bring amendments in the moment since there has been so much discussion about, quote, I'm not on the committee, so therefore my time to make changes is here. 3:31:30 So I'm very unlikely to support getting rid of the ability to bring an amendment. 3:31:34 So I would be supportive, I guess, of this. 3:31:37 You know, I think most of you know I'm not a fan of our committee structure. 3:31:42 I think we'd be better served by just simply going to work sessions and council meetings until this body matures enough to know how we want to use committees. 3:31:49 I think we've shoehorned ourselves into committees because a group of people before we were elected said, you guys should use committees. 3:31:57 I refuse to accept that premise. 3:32:00 But at the same time, I would just be very— as a person who actually likes the ability of, now I've heard this thing, I've heard the discussion about an item that I was not on that committee, reserving the right to make amendments the day of is important to me. 3:32:17 To the last point and why I feel strongly here and like Councilor Koyama Lane, I really do see both sides because I've seen the damage. 3:32:27 I think that, that all of us, me included, that an in-the-moment amendment can cause unintended consequences. 3:32:34 So I do see both sides of it, but I don't think we can write into code what is really about behavior. 3:32:45 And I say that as I consider every day, sometimes there are things I have voted voted against because of the time in which they came in, because I haven't had enough time to marinate with that idea. 3:32:57 And so I consider that a personal behavior in terms of how we, how we approach, approach the work and what comes to the dais. 3:33:06 I just don't believe you can code-write the norms and the behaviors of a body, and this feels like that to me, and I'm quite cautious about it. 3:33:16 But I also say, like Councilor Koyama Lane, I really do see both sides, but I have not seen a convincing argument yet. 3:33:23 So I'm leaning towards support for the— I think it's Avalos and Kanal 1. 3:33:27 Thank you.
3:33:27 Thank you, Councilor Zimmerman. 3:33:28 Colleagues, it is now right at 1 o'clock. 3:33:31 I would like to ask— request unanimous consent to continue item 7 to April 16th, 2026. 3:33:39 Are there any objections to—.
3:33:40 Point of information, that would continuing the first reading.
3:33:43 Continuing the first reading to April 16th, 2026. 3:33:45 Is there any objection to this? 3:33:49 Seeing none, this item is going to be continued to April 16th. 3:33:55 Um, I am now moving to recess this meeting until tomorrow afternoon. 3:34:00 Um, with that, we are in recess. 3:34:03 Thank you.
3:34:04 Council is adjourned.
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