Transcript
Automatically generated transcript. It may contain errors and includes testimony in languages other than English that is not individually marked up for assistive technology.
Olivia Clark
They're really happy.
Keelan McClymont
I've missed you.
Candace Avalos
I wanted to challenge the order.
Mitch Green
I'm so happy to be back where they used to be.
Dan Ryan
So wholesome.
Candace Avalos
Dark over here.
Olivia Clark
I think that's weird.
Why is it so dark?
Keelan McClymont
Dark skirt.
Sameer Kanal
Good morning.
I call the first ever meeting of the Portland City Council Committee of the Whole to order.
It is Thursday, April 2nd at 9:31 AM.
Uh, Keelan, will you please call the roll?
Olivia Clark
Good morning.
Keelan McClymont
Pirtle-Guiney.
Ryan.
Dan Ryan
Here.
Keelan McClymont
Koyama Lane.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Here.
Keelan McClymont
Murillo.
Angelita Morillo
Here.
Keelan McClymont
I'm sorry, I couldn't get my mic undone.
Novick.
Steve Novick
Here.
Keelan McClymont
Clark.
Olivia Clark
Here.
Keelan McClymont
Green.
Mitch Green
Here.
Keelan McClymont
Zimmerman.
Avalos.
Candace Avalos
Present.
Keelan McClymont
Dunphy.
Sameer Kanal
Way over here on the side.
Keelan McClymont
Smith.
Loretta Smith
Here.
Sameer Kanal
Christopher, will you please read the statement of conduct?
Welcome to the meeting of the Finance and Governance Committee of the Whole.
To testify before this committee in person or virtually, you must sign up in advance on the committee agenda at www.portland.gov/council/agenda/finance-and-governance-committee-whole or by calling 311.
Shoshana Cohen
Information on engaging with the committee can be found at this link.
Sameer Kanal
Registration for virtual testimony closes 1 hour prior to the meeting.
In-person testifiers must sign up before the agenda item is heard.
Keelan McClymont
If public testimony will be taken on an item, you may testify for 3 minutes unless the Chair states otherwise.
Your microphone will be muted when your time is over.
The Chair preserves order.
Disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others' testimony or committee deliberations will not be allowed.
If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given.
Further disruption results in ejection from the meeting.
Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass.
Additionally, the committee may take a short recess and reconvene virtually.
Your testimony should address when testifying, state your name for the record.
Sameer Kanal
If you're a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent.
Virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the clerk calls your name.
Thank you.
Thank you, Christopher.
Yeah, welcome to the Committee of the Whole.
I'm Sameer Kanal, the chair of the committee.
I am joined by my 2 vice chairs, Dan Ryan to my right, your left, and Tiffany Koyama Lane to my left, your right.
This is the first ever Committee of the Whole, so we're gonna start with a very brief description of what it is.
I'm gonna give both vice chairs as well as the council president a chance to address this part as well.
Following that, we'll have public testimony.
We have a brief Chair's update to look ahead to future meeting items that are coming up over the course of the month of April.
And then we have the bulk of our meeting devoted to 2 transportation funding items, which will be read together today for potential referral to the full Council.
As you all know, committees in general are a common way of allowing for informal discussion of items that are at the earlier stages of their development prior to final consideration at the full Council or for evaluating and discussing and receiving presentations from the administration.
Committees of the Whole, as the name implies, have all members of the full Council on them, but also allow for more relaxed rules of discussion, as well as, of course, different presiding officers.
In our committee restructure, we assigned several areas of work to this particular committee, including internal governance items, large-scale or broader finance items, government oversight, emergency response, including federal response, as well as items that cross over multiple committee jurisdictions or don't really fit into any particular committee of the other 4.
For all but the oversight piece, you'll see a fairly typical committee process with the same referral process for legislation to the full council and so on.
It's not designed to be a pro forma exercise, a step to just get things to the full council.
Instead, it's the opposite.
It's designed to be a place where real work on items can get done before they go to the full council.
And to that end, I anticipate that items that are referred out of this committee with a do pass recommendation, and I've asked the council president if we're able to just put those on the full council consent agenda.
Whereas items that still need some work can get referred out, but not with necessarily the do pass recommendation, but just referred out to the full council and then still have that work at On the other hand, you know, anyone can pull anything off the consent agenda as always.
For oversight hearings, it's going to work a little bit differently.
We'll talk about that more as we get closer to our first one, which the council president has scheduled in this committee on Thursday, April 23rd, pursuant to the resolution about looking into the housing dollars and how that came to be the $20.7 million.
And then finally, this committee has a unique schedule.
We meet the first 4 weeks of each month, although this month it will also meet on the 5th week, April 30th.
It'll take a recess in the middle of the month, and then we'll resume typically be Thursday mornings from 9:30 to 12:30.
However, the week that we have an evening council meeting, the 3rd week of each month, we're going to meet on Wednesday afternoons from 2 to 5 right before that.
Sorry, 2:30 to 5:30 right before the full council.
Vice Chairs Koyama Lane, Ryan, is there anything you'd like to add before we continue?
Keelan McClymont
Thanks, Chair.
I'll take a moment to welcome everyone.
Good morning.
I personally get very nerdy about governance work and love to talk things through.
And so it's exciting to be able to do this with even more folks up here.
I do think governance works best when we have a range of perspectives, and especially when we're making decisions about how our body is going to function in this newish form of government.
It's important that we all have a chance to weigh in on items.
And so I'm just looking forward to many productive discussions together.
Sameer Kanal
Thanks.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
And thank you, Chair Kanal, for— actually, we met right before break, the 3 of us, and Your vision and what this committee is has evolved since then, and I appreciate it.
That's my way of saying welcome everybody.
We're building something here.
I think we're trying to figure out what this will be.
Is it kind of like a work session prior to the official council meeting?
You brought up something new about maybe things can go directly under consent.
I can imagine that will be a debate led by you often.
So I think that we're just gonna— I think we're gonna have to do that.
Figure this out as we go along.
I think today is a good example of something that all of us want to have more exposure to than going from a smaller committee directly to the whole council.
So the agenda item today is, I think, a really good one to begin with.
And thank you, Councilor Clark, in advance for all your work.
So I'm here to help and build this with you, and let's be comfortable with the process.
It'll be messy at times.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you both, Vice Chairs.
Council President Dunphy, anything you'd like to add?
You know, I just want to thank my colleagues, the city staff, and the public broadly for your patience and your willingness to try and pivot.
This is a big pivot.
This is a new change of how we are doing things.
It's not a new concept altogether.
It's quite common in other bodies, but we haven't done it yet.
And I look forward to seeing if this is a new part of our system that actually helps get the wheels of this machinery moving more efficiently.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you all for this.
Sameer Kanal
And also I'm excited to be sitting on this side of the dais.
Thank you, Council President Dunphy.
We're gonna do a brief chair's update at the— or report at the beginning of each of these meetings, mostly just to give some transparency as to what's coming up in the future agendas.
So first thing to mention is that if we don't have items filed, I'm very comfortable not having this committee meet.
And I think as we make the pivot over to the new system and things are still getting filed and reassigned, nothing's actually filed for next week.
So there is not going to be a Committee of the Whole meeting on Thursday, April 9th.
So I encourage anyone who's interested in, on this side of the dais or in the administration, to file things so that if you'd like them to be on here, because we're not going to just meet for the sake of meeting.
We will have a meeting on the 30th, as I mentioned.
So on the 15th, which is the Wednesday immediately before the evening council meeting, we have 3 appointments that we're expecting to be filed, as well as 2 bond-related issues relating to public works that we're expecting to be filed.
Should those be filed meet the, the administrative deadlines.
Those will be on the agenda the 15th.
The 23rd, the entire meeting is going to be that oversight hearing related to the housing dollars.
I think it's Resolution 37734 that set that up.
And then on the 30th, we'll be talking primarily about federal response and items related to ICE.
As we go forward, I should have this written out in something that will be pre-filed as well.
Wow.
With that, this meeting the committee will consider an ordinance to establish a new transportation utility fee to help fund maintenance and safety of the city's transportation system, as well as considering a resolution to support the modification of the Portland Bureau of Transportation's street opening permits to utilities to include damage cost recovery related to long-term pavement degradation associated with excavation in the public right-of-way.
Keelan, would you please read both of these 2 agenda items together?
Keelan McClymont
Agenda item 1, document number 2026-113, establish a new transportation utility fee to help fund basic maintenance and safety of the city's transportation system, ad code chapter 17.20.
Item 2, document number 2026-114, support modification of Bureau of Transportation street opening permits to utilities to include damage cost recovery related to long-term pavement degradation associated with excavation in the public right-of-way.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Keelan.
Vice President Clark is both the chair of the committee where this conversation was initiated and the lead sponsor, so I'll pass it over to her to begin the presentation.
Olivia Clark
Thank you very much and good morning, Chair Kanal.
Excuse me.
I'm very pleased that transportation finance is the first issue that we're going to discuss in the Committee of the Whole because it's one of the most important and urgent infrastructure issues that we face these 2 measures are coming to you with the unanimous support of the T&I committee members.
And over the last year, our committee set out to learn about asset management and the state of one of our most important assets, which is our streets and our roads.
We learned that our streets are riddled with potholes and many of the streets are failing.
The condition has worsened over the last 5 years.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Order.
Olivia Clark
We learned that if we do not act now to address the degradation of our streets, it will cost us up to 10 times more to replace them in the future.
We learned that our streets, whether you drive on them or not, touch every Portland resident.
They carry our food, our goods, our teachers, our doctors, our emergency vehicles, our buses, and they are our lifeline.
And given what the 5 of us learned about street conditions and budget cuts, the budget cuts that PBOT has experienced over the last 7 budget cycles, we asked the bureau to research how to address the problem.
And this was in a resolution that all of us voted for unanimously, I believe, in July.
It was Resolution 37712.
This last December, then, PBOT delivered that report to our committee.
It's an excellent report, I must say.
If you haven't looked at it, it's very comprehensive.
And in January, we then asked the Bureau to take the top funding models to the streets, as it were, for a robust public engagement process.
As a result of this work, the research, and the public input, we're here today with our T&I committee recommendations on how to move forward.
Given the research in the report and what we've learned, we understand the extreme risk of doing nothing, and we are anxious to proceed today.
PBOT today will review the challenge, the results of their work, and the outreach that led to the T&I Committee to bring forward the ordinance and resolution before you today.
Before we turn this hearing over to the bureau and all the folks in the chamber who are here to offer their comments, Councilor Kanal, I would like to I invite my committee colleagues to each make a comment regarding today's process and the proposals.
If we can, I'd like to begin with my esteemed co-chair— or vice chair, almost co-chair— Councilor Morillo to make a comment.
Thank you so much, Chair Clark, for your leadership on this issue.
I'm very excited that we're discussing this as the first item of the Committee of the Whole, and I'm so grateful for the PBOT staff that are here today.
I first want to commend them for all of the amazing work and research that they always bring to the table and how much outreach was done to arrive at this conclusion.
There were open houses, there were online surveys, and we found that 78% supported the TUF and 87% supported the street damage restoration fee in those surveys.
So I think that there is a myth that people don't want to pay more for good services, but I think that what we're actually seeing is that people are willing to pay as long as government is willing to deliver on those services.
And our roads and our infrastructure is something that we can't allow to further decay.
A few weeks ago, I got to do a tour at PBOT, and I got to meet with employees who are doing those frontline services.
And the things that they told me about how critical maintenance is and the things that we don't even think about day to day, If we don't take care of that maintenance today, then our infrastructure is not going to survive the next few decades, let alone the next few years.
So we have to make really difficult decisions right now.
And there was a lot of community feedback given in order to arrive at this process.
And we also now heard more feedback, and that's good.
That's how democracy works.
Sometimes things have to be adjusted as we gain new information and new perspectives.
And so I'm really looking forward to the discussion today.
Thank you, Councilor Avalos.
There are no easy fixes to the budget difficulties that we're facing and to the infrastructure difficulties.
But I think that we have a lot of good people in this room and in this city who care about it and who want to do things for the long term at whatever cost that is to us personally, politically.
I think we all are here in service of the city first and foremost.
So thank you everyone for being here today.
I'm really excited to have this discussion with everybody off the committee and I will miss the Transportation Committee very dearly, so I'm glad that we get to have these discussions here.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilor Morillo.
Councilor Koyama Lane, would you like to make a comment?
Keelan McClymont
Yes, I want to start by thanking you, Councilor Clark, for your leadership in bringing this forward through the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which that work will now be in the Public Works Committee.
And I see this item before us at its core I see it as aligning our values with our investments.
All 12 of us and Mayor Wilson have said we're committed to eliminating traffic deaths and serious injuries on our streets here in Portland, also known as Vision Zero.
But we know Vision Zero isn't just a statement of intent.
If it's going to be real, it has to require sustained, reliable funding to redesign streets, to reduce speeds, to make safety improvements, This ordinance takes a step in that direction by establishing a transportation utility fee.
We're creating a more stable funding source for the basics— maintaining our streets, fixing sidewalks, investing in safer infrastructure across the city, across the system.
And I want to underscore something really important.
Vision Zero is explicitly named in this ordinance, and that matters.
Thank you.
It signals that safety isn't an afterthought.
It's a core priority guiding how these dollars should be spent.
And I also want to acknowledge my office has been hearing a lot from community members, especially in the last week or two.
We've been reading a lot of emails, picking up the phone, and hearing a lot about the transportation utility fee.
I look forward to hearing directly from the public as we move forward on this and want to acknowledge that this proposal is not perfect.
And for some families, we talked about this in the T&I committee, the additional cost is significant, and it's so important that we are thoughtful about that and make sure that we're planning for and supporting households that truly can't afford to pay more.
And these are conversations that we've all had, and I know that you're— we're all committed to continuing.
So I do believe if we're serious about reducing traffic deaths, we have to match the commitment with real resources, and I believe that this gets us closer to doing exactly that.
Olivia Clark
Thank you so much, Councilor Koyama Lane.
I know that Councilor Loretta Smith will join us later, but let's turn to Councilor Mitch Green.
Mitch Green
Thank you, Madam Vice President.
Colleagues, when I ran for this seat, a lot of what I talked about was infrastructure, and I talked about investments, and I basically made the argument that what we really need in a city council are leaders who recognize that if we don't invest today, Aye.
Those are the stakes.
And I think when you drive down our roads and you hit the pothole and you experience that, you're dealing with the cost of previous generations' decision not to invest forward.
So this is a rolling lifecycle obligation that we have.
And so, you know, no one wants to be the city councilor that votes yes on a new fee.
And you might get thrown out for it, but that's the job, and I'm prepared to do it.
I think that if we allow our assets to depreciate fully, that's not only an inconvenience, but that is a significant cost to future generations.
And I think that impact is borne disproportionately on some of our lowest-income Portlanders, because in areas like District 1, if Councilor Smith were here, she would make this point.
I know I know the other 2 councilors are thinking about it too, is District 1 has neighborhoods that have never even had the infrastructure.
And areas in my district also suffer that same experience as well.
And so if we don't pass a stable revenue structure that we can rely upon year over year, then we're going to see an increasing share of our scarce resources go to paying for the ever-increasing rising costs those are the stakes.
And so those communities will wait even longer.
And so I think that's why we need to pass a TUF today.
We need to do this.
This is a moment for bold leadership.
And I really, really want to thank you for your leadership, Councilor Clark and Councilor Murillo, in orienting the transportation infrastructure to give the space and direction to PBOT to bring us forward with a TUF.
Thank you.
Later on in the discussion, I'll have another idea that we should contemplate that I'm hearing from community, but I want to be very clear that my intention is to pass a TUF.
And so let's get into that discussion.
Thank you so much.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Councilor Green.
Councilor Kanal, without further ado, shall we have PBOT make their presentation?
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Sameer Kanal
Yes, so I, I just want to note that there are, uh, 5 invited panels after this.
So from a timing perspective, our goal is to get through everybody, uh, before we take a break in the middle of the meeting.
And I've been asked by the sponsor to, uh, assist in assertively reminding people of the timing.
Uh, so, uh, I'll be gentle about that, but just wanted to give a heads up.
And I believe that we'll have staff in the room afterwards, so if, if it's possible to hold questions to the degree that it thank you, Chair Kanal, and thank you, Vice President Clark.
Unidentified speaker
For the record, my name is Priya Dhanapal, the Deputy City Administrator for Public Works Service Area.
I want to acknowledge the members of the Committee of the Whole and Chair Kanal as well as you begin your work together on this— on important citywide issues.
And we appreciate the opportunity to bring this issue forward early on in your discussions.
I want to thank Mayor Wilson, Council Vice President Clark, and members of the former Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for your leadership and partnership in advancing this conversation about the future of transportation funding in Portland.
We are here today to present this resolution and ordinance for your consideration.
As Chair Clark mentioned, every day Portlanders rely on our transportation system to get to school, our transportation network is the connective tissue of the city's economy, livability, and safety.
And yet the system is facing a fundamental structural funding challenge.
When that happens, the system does not stay the same.
It declines.
Streets get worse, safety projects get delayed, and basic services get reduced.
Thank you.
The result is a growing gap between community expectations and the ability to maintain streets, sidewalks, and bridges Portlanders depend on.
During the recent Public Works Services Service Area budget work session, you heard that PBOT is facing a significant shortfall for the fiscal year 26-27.
This is not a new problem.
PBOT has faced funding gaps for 7 consecutive years, and the structural reasons are clear.
The transportation revenues at the federal, state, and local levels have not kept pace with the cost of maintaining and operating a safe and reliable system.
This year's shortfall is the latest in a long line of years where we've had to cut services, draw down resources, and reduce our workforce without additional stable revenue sources, PBOT will increasingly be forced to scale back basic maintenance, safety improvements, and core transportation services Portland is dependent on.
This council directed us to find a path forward and explore sustainable alternative funding approaches, and that work is what you'll hear about today.
This discussion today is critical to stabilizing Portland's transportation system and ensuring that we can continue to provide and protecting the infrastructure that Portlanders rely on every day for our safety, for our economy, and for the quality of life.
Next slide, please.
I want to acknowledge the significant work done by PBOT, our partners in the Revenue Division, and the CFO's Office over the past several months to analyze options, develop and refine revenue approaches, and provide meaningful opportunities for community outreach.
Input.
I also want to thank many of you for helping spread the word about our open houses in each of your districts and for participating in the engagement process, including attending them.
I believe this effort has been a good demonstration of how in this new form of government we can work collaboratively across bureaus, service areas, and across the executive and legislative branches to address long-term financial challenges.
Next slide, please.
Today's presentation will walk through the transportation funding challenge, the analysis and engagement work that has been completed, and the proposed revenue options before you today.
And after the presentation, you'll hear both invited testimony as well as public testimony.
And with that, I will turn it over to Director Williams to provide an overview of our transportation funding challenges and system impacts.
Millicent Williams
Next slide, please.
Thank you, DC Adonapal.
Good morning, Chair Kanal, Vice Chairs Koyama Lane and Ryan, and members of council.
For the record, my name is Millicent Williams, and I am the director of the Portland Bureau of Transportation.
I want to start by acknowledging that those of you on the former Transportation and Infrastructure Committee have seen most of these slides before, some of them a few times.
However, for others of you, this may be new information, so we have a good amount to cover, and we'll try to do that We don't want to miss important notes, though, so please have a little patience with us as we want to make sure that we are amplifying significant points so that you, as well as those watching, will be able to understand fully what we're talking about.
A series of actions, as has been mentioned, and a lack of action at every level have led us to our current transportation funding crisis.
Transportation revenues have simply not kept pace with the growth of our city.
Thank you.
With significantly rising costs.
Federal funding really never addresses our maintenance and operations needs, and even federal grants for capital projects have become more limited.
At the state level, the referral of the 2025 State Transportation Funding Bill to voters means we cannot count on the $10.6 million that we would have received this fiscal year and the $24 million that we would have received for next year.
And at the local level, our 10-cent gas tax has lost half of the buying power that it had when it was first passed in 2016.
This is all significantly eroding our ability to maintain our transportation system.
Next slide, please.
This slide illustrates the limitations of our funding streams.
Most of the revenue that comes in is in restricted— excuse me— is in restricted locations and dedicated to specific projects and activities that cannot be shifted.
And I want to underscore that.
We often— and you often get emails from your constituents or calls from your constituents or when you're out in community and they say, why isn't PBOT doing this instead of that?
It is because we have restrictions on the ways that we can use the funding.
And if we could, we would divert as much of that to those basic fundamental needs.
But that is something that we are simply not able to do legally or by policy.
Thank you.
Many of these funds are grant funds that we've applied for to build specific projects, and they can only be used on those projects and cannot be reallocated in other ways.
Unfortunately, there are generally not grant funds available for maintenance and operations activities, only for new capital projects.
Another example of our restricted funds is the work that we do for other bureaus, like the Bureau of Environmental Services, who pays us to provide sewer and stormwater maintenance work.
Those funds must be used for that work.
The discretionary funding that we have for basic maintenance, safety, and operations, like filling potholes, is General Transportation Revenue, or GTR, which you will hear referenced several times today.
These funds come from state highway funds, parking revenue, and Transportation Network Company ride fees, or TNC ride fees.
These are the user fees that currently pay for the majority of the maintenance and safety next slide, please.
As you all know, PBOT manages a complex transportation system with assets worth almost $22 billion.
Again, our limited revenues simply have not been keeping up, and we would now need over $6 billion to bring the system up to fair or better condition.
Next slide, please.
PBOT has faced, as has been mentioned, years of budget challenges, and since 2019, we have had to take $42 million in reductions to general transportation revenue-funded programs and services such as paving maintenance and residential street sweeping.
We've also had to draw down our GTR reserves and cut 66 general transportation revenue-funded full-time equivalent positions.
We are now facing another year of severe budget challenges.
Without new revenues, we will have a budget gap of at least $25 million, which will further erode our ability to maintain and operate the transportation system.
Next slide, please.
You can see the impacts of our funding challenges on our streets.
Pavement conditions are declining.
Currently, 72% of our local streets are in poor or very poor condition, and 64% of our busy streets are in poor or very poor condition.
Next slide, please.
And even though the number of traffic fatalities and serious injuries on our streets has declined in recent years, They remain unacceptably high.
It is unacceptable.
We have unfunded traffic safety projects with proven crash reduction strategies.
Additional funding would help us to complete more of these projects.
Next slide, please.
Simply put, new funding sources would help us stabilize our workforce, stabilize our services, and address critical needs.
Next slide, please.
Now I'll turn it over to Mark Lear, who will review how we got to the resolution and ordinance before you today.
And with that, Mark, next slide, please.
Mark Lear
Thank you, Director Williams.
For the record, my name is Mark Lear.
I'm PBOT's Policy Partnership and Resource Manager.
This slide in front of you highlights the process that Council Vice President Clark just described.
Move in.
Oh, the Council President thank you, Mr.
Chair.
So the document Vice President Clark just described, it describes a process that really kicked off in July with council moving forward with a resolution that directed staff to develop the alternative funding report.
We provided that report back to council, or to the T&I Committee, in January, and they forwarded that recommendations for us to go out and have our public conversation with in February and March.
We now are here today to talk to you more in more detail about those recommendations.
Next slide.
This next slide includes a list of the 23 different revenue mechanisms that were evaluated in our report.
The initial list of options were identified by reviewing funding mechanisms being used in Oregon and other cities across the country.
Next slide.
Each of the potential funding mechanisms was evaluated using the following 5 evaluation criteria: revenue capacity, Next slide.
This slide highlights the 4 options that rose to the top in our evaluation: the transportation utility fee, a street damage restoration fee, a retail delivery fee, and a prepared food delivery fee, which are still at the top of the list.
In more of the conceptual phase at this point.
The proposals before you today are focused on a transportation utility fee and the street damage restoration fee.
Next slide.
A transportation utility fee is a monthly fee charged to residents and businesses to pay for basic road maintenance and safety improvements.
In all of the 31 Oregon cities that have a transportation utility fee, the fee is collected on the public utility bill yes.
This mechanism has a number of advantages, including it is broad-based, allows for substantial revenue generation at relatively low cost for each payer, revenue is not tied to fossil fuels, and it uses existing billing systems to lower administrative costs.
Everyone pays, everyone benefits, and there are opportunities to address equity issues using existing low-income discount programs.
Next slide.
This slide highlights the 9 jurisdictions in the Portland metro area with transportation utility fees, and it includes the rate for single-family homes and multifamily homes or properties.
This is not a new tool, and its simplicity and ease of implementation has been one of the keys to its success.
As of today, the regional average charge per month for a single-family home is $12.08, and the regional average per month for multifamily properties is $9.49 per unit.
Multifamily properties pay less per month than single-family properties because on average they generate fewer trips per property due to factors like owning fewer cars, living closer to daily needs, and consolidated deliveries.
At the regional level, properties pay— multifamily properties pay about 79% of the single-family rate.
Our proposal sets that multifamily rate at 70% of the single-family rate based on trip generation estimates.
Next slide.
This slide highlights the 3 transportation utility fee scenarios that were shared with the public at our open houses and online survey and in meetings with different organizations.
The scenarios were developed to represent 50%, 75%, and 100% of the regional average for the single-family household.
Based on trip generation analysis of trips associated with residential properties and nonresidential properties, all 3 of these scenarios assume that 70% are based on 70% of trips generated by residential properties the nonresidential commercial portion of this fee is proposed to be collected based on a percentage of the existing water, sewer, and stormwater bill.
Next slide.
The next couple of slides provide more detail on the specific— the street damage restoration fee.
The street damage restoration fee would compensate the city for the damage caused Aye.
Candace Avalos
By the stormwater event.
Thank you.
Opposed?
Nay.
Mark Lear
Motion passes.
The city will charge a street opening permit fee for a portion of the lost asset life resulting from utility cuts and trenching work.
Engineering studies indicate that trenching work reduces the useful life of roads by over 60%, resulting in streets needing to be repaved every 5 years versus every 15 years.
While we currently have a street opening permit, the fee that we charge only covers the cost of administer— administering the program.
It does not compensate the city for the damage caused to the roadway.
This new fee would be proportional to the pavement damage that a utility causes when accessing their infrastructure.
Revenue from this fee would be dedicated to improved pavement management, preservation, rehabilitation, and reconstruction.
The fee can also serve as an incentive for better coordination before pavement cuts by reducing the number of cuts and preserving the pavement life by waiving the fee or discounting the fee where there's that coordination.
Other cities that have implemented a street damage restoration fee include Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, and San Diego.
Next slide.
This slide highlights the 3 street damage restoration fee scenarios that we presented to the public in February and March.
They are based on the percentage of damage recovery at 25%, 50%, or 75%.
We are still refining the revenue estimates with ongoing data refinement.
And those— these estimates may be reduced a little bit as we do that additional work.
Next slide.
This slide shows how the potential street damage restoration fee compares to other cities currently using this approach.
The slide indicates that our 25% and 50% damage recovery scenarios are below the rates charged in other cities, and that our 75% damage recovery is in the middle of the rates charged by other cities.
Next slide.
After getting direction from Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in late January, we started talking with the public around the city about transportation funding challenges and potential revenue approaches, including the slides I just shared with you.
We held 4 in-person open houses in each of the council districts.
We also posted the same information and ran a parallel online survey.
Shoshana Cohen
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
Next slide.
Mark Lear
The open houses were drop-in style where people could go from room to room and learn more about the, the information, as well as talk to staff who were posted at each of the stations.
We asked people to provide feedback through a series of interactive exercise.
It was great to see the amount of turnout that we had and have that opportunity to talk directly with neighbors through this process.
Next slide.
During that same 3-week period we hosted in-person open houses, we also hosted an online open house that had that same information and allowed people to provide the same feedback that was provided at the open houses.
And we received 477 responses to the online survey.
Next slide.
We also reached out to a variety of organizations and committees and we gave presentations at committee meetings, shared information with organizations, and asked them to help spread the word about our open houses and the online opportunities.
We had a number of small meetings with organizations and representatives that you can see on the slide in front of you.
Next slide.
At the open houses and an online survey, we asked for specific feedback on the funding scenarios for the transportation utility fee, This slide highlights the summary of the feedback we received about the fee scenarios.
Of the over 600 people who weighed in on the transportation utility fee, we had 76% support.
The most popular scenario was based on 100% of the regional average, the $12 per family, per single-family home per month, which received 48%.
The next slide highlights the 87% of people were supportive of a street damage restoration fee at some level, and the most popular scenario was 75%— was the 75% damage recovery fee scenario, which was supported by 51% of people.
Next slide.
In addition to the DOT exercise, we gave people the opportunity both in person and online to provide open-ended feedback.
You can see on this slide some of the key themes.
That we heard.
So for the transportation utility fee, we heard general support because of that the fee is already being used in other Oregon cities.
There was some concern about the cumulative impact on utility bills.
There were some questions about how the existing low-income discount program gets to all Portlanders that are low-income, especially multifamily.
And we had some support for exemptions or discounts for minority women-owned businesses or for people who don't own cars.
Thank you.
Key themes for the street damage restoration fee was first, general dissatisfaction with the quality of patching of our current trenching work, concerns with how this fee could impact housing development, concerns about how the fee could impact other bureaus, city bureaus like Water, BES, and questions about how much of this increase in fees would be passed on to other consumers.
Next slide.
At the open houses and in the online survey, we asked people to indicate their preference for how the revenue should be spent, and we provided a list of 15 different types of investment activities like filling potholes, maintaining signals, traffic calming projects, and people could also choose higher-level categories like overall maintenance and overall safety.
You can see on this slide the top 5 investment priorities for the whole pool, for the whole pool of respondents.
These results are pretty similar to of pulling work that we've done in the past.
High support for things like filling potholes, overall maintenance, and also high support for overall safety, intersection safety improvements, and sidewalk infill.
It's very consistent with the feedback that we've gotten on our Fixing Our Streets program over time.
Now I'm going to hand it over to Shoshana Cohen to talk more about the funding proposals.
Thank you.
Shoshana Cohen
Good morning.
Thank you.
For the record, I'm Shoshana Cohen, PBOT Chief of Staff.
Next slide, please.
The request before you today is to refer an ordinance to establish the transportation utility fee and a resolution that affirms council support to establish a street damage restoration fee.
Both of these pieces of legislation include proposed rates, proposed investment categories, and accountability measures.
Next slide, please.
For the transportation utility fee, the proposal is to set the rates based on the existing regional average for a single-family household and as Mark mentioned, this was the rate that received the highest level of support during the public feedback phase.
As you can see, that would mean a $12 per month single-family rate, an $8.40 per month multifamily rate— multifamily unit rate, and a non-residential commercial rate of 4.3% of the utility bill.
Next slide, please.
One of the existing advantages of the transportation utility fee is that we can use the already existing low-income discount programs for the utility bill.
For people who are already enrolled in the discount programs, they'll be automatically enrolled in a discounted transportation utility fee.
The LINK program is the financial assistance program that serves low-income households in single-family residences.
Households earning up to 30% and 60% of the state median family income are eligible for discounts.
There's also the regulated affordable multifamily assistance program, or We appreciate that during this project we've heard feedback as we engaged about the gap for low-income households living in market-rate multifamily units.
We've begun conversations with our partners in the Public Works service area about how to address this.
Olivia Clark
I specifically want to thank Queesha Lightfoot, who is the director of Public Works, for her leadership on this issue.
Eric Zimmerman
Thank you.
Shoshana Cohen
Customer Service Director for the Utilities, and Kenny Scott, Financial Assistance Program Manager, who have provided assistance and shared information with us.
In our conversations with Quesha's team to date, we've heard that there are already a number of community groups trying to tackle the challenge of getting credits and discounts to people in multifamily properties.
And in those conversations, they mentioned one of the nonprofits, SUMA, who is doing this type of work.
And I believe someone from SUMA is here to speak briefly.
Briefly during invited testimony today to share more about how this type of service works, just as one of the potential paths forward.
We are— we know this is something that's come up a lot and of great interest to folks, and we're excited about the potential to continue collaborating with our public works partners and exploring how to better address this gap.
Next slide, please.
The ordinance also directs PBOT to work with the Revenue Division to continue to consider additional methodologies for the non-residential portion of the transportation utility fee.
There's also a proposed review every 2 years of the revenue split between commercial and residential properties and an acknowledgment that moving forward the rates can be adjusted through the city's annual budget process.
Next slide, please.
The ordinance describes the use of revenue for the transportation utility fee.
Revenue will be deposited into a dedicated account within the city's transportation operating fund.
And as described, no less than 75% of the annual net revenues will be expended on maintenance and preservation activities, including those that support the city's Vision Zero goals.
Next slide, please.
Additional funding may be used for Vision Zero programming and capital projects associated with maintenance, preservation, or safety of existing infrastructure, including things like Vision Zero improvements next slide, please.
Oh, sorry, I'm sorry, that was my notes.
The investments will be informed by data about critical infrastructure and safety needs, and we'll also work to prioritize areas that have historically experienced disinvestment and have high concentrations of low-income households.
And funding may be used— as, as you've heard, we have a current service level gap, so funding may be used to address that.
Councilmember Herbold.
Next slide, please.
We also talked with the public a lot about accountability and heard support for all of these accountability structures.
So the proposal includes using the Fixing Our Streets accountability sort of structure that we have, including allocating the funding to define programs and services and annual reports to council, and then also having a performance review process.
Thank you.
Annual external audits, and working with a community committee to provide ongoing guidance and oversight.
Next slide, please.
The street damage restoration fee is set at the 75% cost recovery rate, which is equal to $10.38 per square foot.
And this again was the rate that received the highest support during public feedback.
As as Mark already noted, the revenue expected from the street damage restoration fee will likely.
Likely be lower, both because of continued data refinement and as a result of better pavement trenching coordination, which we hope the fee incentivizes.
Next slide, please.
Revenue from this fee will be used strictly for pavement maintenance and coordination of this utility permitting function.
We'll work to ensure better pavement trenching coordination, which will help to reduce cuts itself and extend asset life.
And we'll again provide annual reports to council on the revenues next slide, please.
And this is really the final slide where we'll leave you.
It summarizes the 2 proposals.
And before closing up, I'll turn it back to Director Williams.
Millicent Williams
Thank you, Shoshana.
I'd want to end by once again thanking all of you for your time today and your interest in this effort, and more broadly, Thanking you for your support of the Bureau of Transportation and the city's transportation system.
I want to particularly thank Council Vice President Clark and members of the T&I Committee who have worked so hard to get us to this point.
Solving the transportation funding crisis will not be an easy effort, and we appreciate the opportunity to talk with you today about moving forward with more sustainable funding.
This funding could be transformational for the bureau, transformational for the city.
We've been in cut mode for so long, and we've been constrained in what we can do because of a lack of funding.
And you're seeing it and you feel it every day.
And in fact, I was thinking about and talking about just yesterday how we actually can't appropriately plan for future years, because every year, at least since I've been director, every year I've come into each new fiscal year with a $25 to $35 million budget gap.
That we were working to fill.
And by moving forward with something that would innovatively fill that gap or provide a sustainable funding source, that conversation would end.
And that's an exciting opportunity for this city at this time.
While we won't be able to solve all of the problems, and certainly not immediately, it could provide a much more stable base and allow staff to do the good work that we know that they can and want to do.
I'll end there because I know we have a lot of invited testimony and, uh, we want to make sure that we leave time to answer your questions.
Thank you all so much.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you to all of our staff presenters.
Um, Councilor Clark, would you like me to introduce everyone, or do you have—.
Olivia Clark
Either way, I have a list.
Sameer Kanal
Please feel free to go ahead.
Olivia Clark
Thank you so much, panel.
Terrific presentation.
Let's call up a panel of witnesses.
We have Nate McCoy, Leisha Shria, Kurt Huffman, and Jana Jarvis.
I haven't— is Jana here?
I haven't seen her.
All right, how's it going?
Oh, great.
Welcome.
Thank you so much for coming today.
Nate, do you want to kick it off?
Sameer Kanal
Councilor McCoy.
Shoshana Cohen
Absolutely.
Mark Lear
Good afternoon, Chair Kanal and members of the committee.
My name is Nate McCoy, President and CEO of the Oregon Chapter of the National Association of Minority Contractors and Interim Executive Director of the Black Business Association of Oregon.
And yes, as we discussed yesterday, I will be joining the bald club very soon.
I'm here in strong support alongside my friends at SUMMA and And the Street Trust and Jana Jarvis and others in the room.
And we're here to support the proposed ordinance and resolution to establish stable, sustainable funding for the Portland Bureau of Transportation.
At its core, this is about fiscal stability and protecting a long-term economic health of our city.
PBOT is facing a structural funding challenge with declining revenues, rising costs, and limited flexibility.
At this time, Our infrastructure is deteriorating.
Streets are getting worse, and the costs to fix them are only increasing as we longer wait.
Transportation is— transportation is the operating system of our economy.
When it breaks down, small businesses, contractors feel it first through delays, higher costs, and lost opportunities.
These businesses do not find a way to survive.
For these businesses we represent, especially small and diverse firms, Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Thank you, Mayor.
In these uncertain times, reliable infrastructure is not optional.
We all know it's foundational.
The transportation utility fee provides a stable and predictable funding source focused on maintenance and safety, helping us preserve what we have and avoid more costly repairs down the road.
The street damage restoration fee ensures that those who cause the most long-term damage to the roads contribute fairly to their upkeep.
Together, those tools create balanced approach to stabilizing PBOT's finances, which we talked about, protecting our infrastructure and supporting economic opportunity, which is vitally important.
In fact, stable funding creates more consistent pipeline of work, opening the doors for greater participation by small and diverse firms over time.
We also appreciate the strong accountability measures included in the legislation.
And encourage continued attention to affordability to ensure small businesses are not disproportionately impacted.
This is the right step at the right time in the right community to stabilize a critical system and support Portland's economic future.
Thank you for your time.
I'm trying to be sensitive with the time limitations, but appreciate having another opportunity to be in front of you all.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Nick.
Great.
We have Alicia online.
Would you like to go next?
Jamie Dunphy
Sure.
Unidentified speaker
Good morning, Chair Kanal and councilors.
My name is Alicia Shrestha.
I'm the executive director of Division Midway Alliance.
We are a place-based nonprofit serving residents and businesses along one of East Portland's highest crash corridors.
Our work focuses on building a safe, resilient, and economically thriving community through culturally specific, community-driven programs and transportation equity is central to that work.
Through our Transportation Education and Safety Youth Ambassador Program, we are building youth leaders who educate their communities on transit options, pedestrian safety, and mobility access.
We also provide safety workshops, low-income fare enrollment, and Learner's Permit Program support.
In 2023, we partnered with PBOT to understand that safety— what safety means from the community perspective.
Thank you.
One key takeaway from our Beyond Traffic Safety report, which you can see on the background, is that safety is not just about infrastructure.
It's also about how people experience and use public spaces.
This report also includes a personal safety toolkit with practical community-based strategies to improve safety and belonging.
This work shows that investing in mobility infrastructure supports community safety and belonging.
We continue to partner with PBOT to implement these strategies on ground, including exploring the launch of Division Corridor Transportation Safety Stewards and placemaking pilot project.
And our goal is to replicate this model in other parts of the city.
I support this funding proposal because this provides P-BOT, a stable foundation to partner with community-based organizations like ours and invest more in District 1, because as I heard Councilor Green talking about, that this is— District 1 needs more support in infrastructure development.
So actually, it helps deliver what communities are asking for: better sidewalks, safer streets, improved lighting.
Thank you so much.
Olivia Clark
Thank you for being here today, Weetje.
We really appreciate that testimony.
Kurt, would you like to go next?
Mitch Green
Yes, thank you.
Dan Ryan
Um, good morning, councilors, uh, and thank you for the opportunity to testify.
My name is Kurt Huffman, and I own a company called Chef's Table.
For the past 18 years, I've helped chefs, bakers, brewers, winemakers, and other hospitality operators open and grow over 100 businesses here in Portland.
I'm here to support PBOT's transportation utility fee.
The proposal will cost our businesses money.
Based on our own utility bills, and I'm referring to my notes because I did a lot of data research to get this right, it would add about $611 per year or $51 per month to our average restaurant.
To put that in context in my industry, and by the way, we pay the highest water fees of any businesses A restaurant with $1 million in annual sales will have approximately $5,400 in related utility expenses, and that 4.3% fee would represent $232 of annual expense increase.
Since we also manage food cart pods, and since food carts are such a vital part of our community, I thought it'd be helpful to point out that for the average food cart that we have, for instance, at Midtown Beer Garden, Their annual related expenses are about $1,000 a year, so this fee would add $43 annually to their water bills.
You know, that's, that's real money, and our small businesses will feel it.
But PBOT's funding shortfall is also a problem for our small businesses.
Our industry depends on clean, safe, well-maintained streets.
We need reliable sidewalks.
Lighting, pavement, bike parking, curb access, and outdoor seating.
We need neighborhoods that are walkable, bikeable, transit accessible, and drivable because that is how our customers, employees, and deliveries reach us.
I also want to say clearly that in my experience, no city agency has been more proactive or more helpful to small businesses than PBOT.
Programs like street seating, outdoor dining, parklets, This experience clearly informs my feelings about this matter because there is a history of trust with PBOT, knowing that they are true advocates and champions for our success.
This fee is not painless for small business, but neglected streets are not free either.
Portland's neighborhood economy depends on the infrastructure PBOT maintains and maintains well.
Thank you.
If we want vibrant neighborhood business districts, we need the public infrastructure that makes them possible.
I urge you to support PBOT's recommendation.
Thank you.
Olivia Clark
Thank you so much, Kurt.
Having grown up in the restaurant industry, I really appreciate your testimony.
Yeah, thank you.
I think we saved the best for last.
Jana, good to see you.
Thank you for coming.
Jamie Dunphy
Good morning.
Millicent Williams
Good morning, Chair Kanal, Vice Chairs Ryan and Koyama Lane, and councilors.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today.
I'm Jana Jarvis, President and CEO of the Oregon Trucking Association, here to express our support for the transportation utility fee and the street damage restoration fee.
For the city to thrive, it must have a functional transportation system.
Those of us who work in the freight industry know the importance of this because we live it every day.
For our drivers, the roads are their And the industry depends on working, effective, well-designed street surfaces, signals, lighting, signage, and striping— literally all of the transportation infrastructure.
When freight is able to move safely and efficiently, it holds costs down and everyone benefits.
With all of the conversation at the state level focused on how to fund transportation, Portland's proposed solution to treat it as a utility makes sense.
Thank you.
The whole community depends on it working effectively, so it's reasonable to ask the whole community to help fund the system.
We appreciate that the ordinance for the transportation utility fee requires that at least 75% of the revenue be allocated for maintenance.
Preventative maintenance ensures that we keep roads in good working order, and it minimizes the significant additional costs of reconstruction.
The street damage restoration fee also makes sense to anyone who's driven over a patched trench or has watched the street around that patch crumble after trenching.
And that's particularly true for the trucking industry in terms of maintenance costs.
We also appreciate your commitment to use the accountability structure that has made the Fixing Our Streets programs and the heavy vehicle use tax so successful.
Thank you for recognizing the urgent need for more transportation funding, and we look forward to working with you to make these programs a success.
Olivia Clark
Thank you so much, Janet.
Thanks to all of our panelists.
We appreciate your being here today.
Thank you.
Let's call up the next panel.
Mike Dennis, Lindsay Huber, Indy Nemkung, and Steven Landridge.
Keelan McClymont
Where are we going?
Dan Ryan
Yeah, where's a good spot?
Unidentified speaker
Sit next to you, Nancy.
Millicent Williams
Perfect.
Olivia Clark
Mike, would you like to start?
Mark Lear
Yes, thank you.
Dan Ryan
Thank you, Chair Kanal and Vice Chair Koyama Lane and Ryan and members of the council for this opportunity to provide some testimony in support of the transportation utility fee.
I'm Mike Dennis with Oregon Walks, and we are a pedestrian advocacy group.
And I'm here as our new executive director, taking over for Zachary Lorentzon, who many of you may know and may have had the pleasure of working with.
And Zachary fortunately is staying with Oregon Walks, which I'm very happy about.
So you all have been handed a difficult problem, a transportation system that is very expensive to maintain and previous electeds Who didn't set aside revenue to maintain that system.
Finding new revenue to do something may not be popular, but it is courageous.
Mark Lear
Thank you for your leadership to step up and do something about this problem.
Dan Ryan
And I also wanna thank the PBOT staff, Director Williams, Shoshana, Cynthia, Mark, and the rest of the team.
So while you may hear a lot of different ideas here today, I wanna focus on one Thank you.
I'd like to focus on one critical piece, the safety provisions for vulnerable road users.
The Vision Zero investments that the transportation utility fee advances are critical.
We saw the city's deadly traffic report show there's much to do to reduce traffic violence in our city.
Vulnerable road users continually advocate for increased safety investments, especially in our underinvested communities.
And the Vision Zero safety investments in this ordinance bring fairness to the estimated third of Portlanders who can't drive, but who will also be paying for this fee through their household.
We all share a goal that people can use our transportation system and get home safely.
We are thrilled that the council, and particularly Councilor Koyama Lane's leadership, that you all reaffirmed the commitment to Vision Zero.
Thank you.
But as they say, and as a number of you said, words are cheap and real priorities are expressed in how we spend our money.
This resolution identifies a minimum spending of 75% on maintenance.
We are asking that you also identify a minimum spending on safety projects of 20%.
Olivia Clark
Second.
Millicent Williams
Thank you.
Dan Ryan
Let's not just say we are prioritizing safety.
Let's put money toward the goal.
A final note is we urge in the middle of these conversations that the future of the voter-approved Fixing Our Streets 10-cent gas tax not be lost or negotiated away.
It's our only price signal to drive smaller vehicles, to drive slower, and to drive less.
So thank you for your leadership.
This is really a once-in-a-generation opportunity to invest in safety, maintenance, communities, and our thriving city.
Olivia Clark
Thank you so much, Mike.
Appreciate that.
Lindsay, would you like to start?
Unidentified speaker
Good morning, Committee Chair Kanal and members of council.
I'm Lindsay Huber, interim executive director of the Street Trust.
We advocate for safe, accessible, equitable, and low-carbon streets.
Streets for all Oregonians.
Every day, our work shows that Portland streets are incomplete and unsafe, threatening lives, limiting economic prosperity, and worsening existing inequities.
I'm here today to speak in support of the proposed transportation utility fee.
PBOT's funding is in crisis.
The state transportation package was referred to voters and the Fixing Our Streets 10 cents gas tax now buys half as much of what it did when it was initially passed in 2016.
Current revenue streams are predicted to continue to decline even as maintenance needs, traffic fatalities, and serious injuries remain high.
While we support renewing the Fixing Our Streets gas tax, adding this TUF fee would as well would provide stable, predictable funding to address those critical safety and maintenance needs.
The TUF is straightforward and easy to implement using existing utility billing systems, which would allow PBOT to stabilize its workforce and services effectively.
This is a strong first step, and we appreciate the work that has gone into this proposal.
We also see opportunities to strengthen it.
For example, we echo the encouragement that council set a clear baseline for safety investments of no less than 20%, similar to the maintenance spending floor of 75%, so that a meaningful share of funding is dedicated to these Vision Zero outcomes, protecting our most vulnerable road users, including pedestrians and people riding bikes.
We also encourage continued work to ensure that affordability.
Protections reach low-income households, including renters who may not directly receive utility bills.
This fee isn't perfect, but it's a critical first step.
Portland needs reliable transportation funding now.
Approving the TUF will allow PBOT to maintain safe streets, prevent costly repairs later, and support a more equitable, reliable transportation system.
Olivia Clark
Thank you.
Thank you, Lindsay.
We appreciate that testimony.
Indi, am I pronouncing that right?
Keelan McClymont
Yes, you are.
Good morning, Councilor Clark, Chair Kanal, Vice Chairs Koyama Lane and Ryan.
For the record, my name is Indi Namkha.
I'm the Transportation Justice Coordinator for Verde, and I'm gonna be commenting primarily on the transportation utility fee this morning.
The low-income communities of color that Verde works with in Colley and across the city are struggling with the current unsafe and inaccessible state of transportation in Portland.
We hear from people pretty constantly about concerns with dangerous dangerous speeds on our roads, poor lighting, unsafe crossing, unfinished sidewalks, and limited access to transit.
I'm sure you have heard this all before.
So we really appreciate the work that's gone into this from PBOT, the leadership of Councilor Clark, Councilor Murillo, and all of those helping to put this together.
As we've learned from the state legislature over the past couple of years, raising transportation revenue is not an exercise for the faint-hearted.
So I want to honor both the political courage that you've demonstrated and the strength of the public engagement and the outreach that we've seen around this.
Thank you.
We want to be able to join you in championing proposals to raise money locally and invest in the changes we need.
This ordinance makes a strong start, but we want to flag, as proposed, it has some outstanding issues that could worsen existing inequities that are facing low-income Portlanders.
These issues are serious and they are very much fixable, so we urge you to resolve them before passing the final ordinance.
As written, the TUF would expose more renters in Portland to eviction.
Tenants can face eviction for unpaid or late utility charges if they're billed by their landlord rather than by the utility.
So as utility costs grow, so does this risk.
Language should be added to the ordinance specifying that nonpayment of the TUF or late payment of the TUF may not be used as grounds for eviction.
As written, low-income discounts on the TUF, as you've heard, will only be available to residents of single-family homes because that's how our existing affordability programs work.
This is an old problem.
If you pay your water bill to your landlord and not to the Water Bureau, you can't tap into these programs.
You have to pay the full price.
Thank you.
Most lower-income Portlanders live in multifamily housing.
That's not a super effective affordability measure yet.
And we've heard that PBOT is exploring a pilot partnership with SUMA to provide an alternative that would reach multifamily residents.
And I want to urge you to ensure that they have the support that they need to get those services ready to roll out with the TUF so that low-income Portlanders aren't left waiting and racking up charges.
Now finally, as written, non-driving households will be paying a disproportionately high fee relative to their impact to the system and the benefits they'll see.
Thank you.
Are a little unclear.
The entirety of the street damage restoration fee revenues and the majority of the TUF revenues are currently slated to go to preservation and maintenance of existing infrastructure.
And that need is undeniable, but our existing infrastructure still overprioritizes cars at the expense of other modes.
If we focus all of our new revenues on preservation and maintenance of that system, we preserve the inequity too.
Because our low-income communities are more likely to live in multifamily housing and more likely not to drive, this triples down on the burden the proposed language will ask them to bear.
Thank you.
But dedicating a minimum share of the dollars in the TUF to proposed— to projects and programs that would improve non-driving options, not just preserve the ones that we have, would correct for this.
If it's not possible to offer a Hillsboro-style targeted discount to non-driving ratepayers, and I'm not saying it's not possible, but if we can't do that, then it's all the more essential that the TUF is providing clear and proportionate benefits to everybody who's paying in.
I'll provide some more detailed written comments for the record, and we're really eager to see this develop in the coming weeks.
Thank you.
Thank you, Indy.
Appreciate that.
Olivia Clark
Stephen.
Sameer Kanal
Hello, my name is Stephen McLandrich, and I am one of the chairs of our Fixing Our Streets Oversight Committee.
Our committee is tasked with providing oversight of the use of the gas tax revenue that's generated through the Fixing Our Streets program.
Through my work in this role, I bear witness to the tremendous need for funding of basic repairs and maintenance, as well as safety improvements throughout our community.
Our committee's role in providing oversight of Fixing Our Streets revenue can be replicated to provide oversight for revenue generated through this fee.
In our oversight capacity role, we are involved in the intentional selection process for funding of projects and are an avenue to provide community input throughout the selection process.
Additionally, through Fixing Our Streets, PBOT is required to publish an annual report of the use of this funding.
Currently, Fixing Our Streets revenue supports projects for both maintenance, such as paving, as well as small to large, very necessary safety improvement projects.
I urge you to have fee-generated revenue support safety projects in addition to buoying operation and maintenance needs.
My personal assessment of our maintenance and safety project backlog is that if additional transportation revenue can be generated through fees, the gas tax should be left in place.
The gas tax keeps some revenue generated thank you.
Olivia Clark
And thank you for your service on the Oversight Committee.
Really appreciate it.
Thank you, panelists.
Great testimony.
Very thoughtful.
Thank you.
Our next panel, it's Paul Cohn, James O'Loughlin, Kari Ko, and Rob Martineau.
Thank you for being here today.
Sameer Kanal
Hi, good morning.
My name is Paul Cohn.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good afternoon, Chair Kanal, members of the committee.
I'm speaking today as president of the Portland chapter of PROTEC 17.
We're a city employee union.
We represent almost 1,000 city employees across most bureaus— engineers, engineering technicians in PBOT and other bureaus, IT professionals, planners, permit techs— and we actually represent Portland Street Response mental health workers.
PBOT, we have over 200 employees who work in planning, engineering, maintenance, and property management.
All while advancing the city's climate, accessibility, and equity goals.
So we've partnered for years to support a stable funding plan for the city's transportation system.
However, in light of recent developments locally and nationally, as you know, state and federal revenue sources have proven to be unreliable.
So it's clear that we need a local solution.
These perpetually strained budgets, as you've heard already from PBOT staff, have just weakened that bureau year after year.
Fear of layoffs also take a major toll on morale with our, with our members, and workers wonder if they can trust their families' livelihoods to the twists and turns of the bureau's budget.
Unstable funding also means it takes longer for expensive projects to finish.
Deferred maintenance backlog is well known, clear to any Portlander driving our streets.
I noted in the presentation earlier that potholes again are the number one thing.
Major projects get bogged down.
Deferred maintenance puts smaller projects that could be low-hanging fruit for advancing safety, climate, accessibility goals out of reach.
So for many otherwise simple projects, the poor condition of pavement quickly makes the project too expensive to consider.
These smaller projects would otherwise be extremely cost-effective, but instead they're left on the shelf.
So the voters of Portland have passed Fix Our Streets a few times.
In a row.
The last 2 ballot measures passed by 70%.
Portlanders are willing to pay for safe, well-maintained streets.
They understand that this will help our economic recovery and give us more livable communities.
So if national and state political entities are not trusted partners, we have to provide for ourselves.
Transportation utility fee as well as the street opening damage recovery fee their approving tool in neighborhood and neighboring jurisdictions.
Cities across the U.S., including 31 in Oregon, have implemented a TUF to pay for basic road maintenance and safety improvements.
So this ultimately will save the city money over time.
So we really appreciate you taking a look at this, and we're with you in supporting this measure.
Candace Avalos
So thank you.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Paul.
I appreciate that.
I think we have James online.
Sameer Kanal
Yes, good morning, councilors.
My name is James O'Loughlin.
I'm a father of 2 native Portlanders and a field rep with Laborers 483.
Our union represents workers throughout the city, with nearly 300 serving on the front lines in PBOT as utility workers, concrete finishers, automotive equipment operators, and a variety of other roles.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I can't tell you how pleased I am to be here today and hear most of what I had to say already be said, chiefly by councilors themselves.
Still, I do want to echo my support for that message.
I think Councilor Clark said it particularly well when she mentioned how transportation infrastructure, it touches all of us regardless of whether or not we ever get in a car in our daily lives.
It brings our food, it transports our children, it's essential for emergency services reaching us when we need them, and it is a huge driver of economic outcomes in the city.
You know, not even mentioning how transportation dollars is one of the most effective ways you can spend to improve public safety.
So I think it's phenomenal that this taxes being undertaken by the city.
And I deeply appreciate the councilor's support for this work when taxation has a natural negative stigma with the public, and still recognizing the nature of our challenges in getting this investment, especially when our partners at the state and federal level are not as solid as we would hope they would be.
I think it's wonderful to see us looking at these kinds of solutions.
Just from a frontline worker's perspective, I can tell you that the past decade of underfunding in transportation has had real impacts, not just in the natural stress that is created when you don't know if your job providing essential work for the city is going to be there for you year over year, But in your understanding of the value that city leadership places on that work.
It can be a real culture poison for the workplace to feel like you're not considered or thought of when every day you go out there and handle problems that you know are directly benefiting the community.
So seeing this kind of action taken to put that investment in our frontline staff to do their essential duties.
It's not just, you know, the obvious positives of having that reliable income that prevents us from having a crisis model of funding where we have this backlog that breaks and fixing it in those extreme circumstances is 10 times as costly as the routine repair and maintenance.
It also puts that, that kind of morale boost into our workforce that gets them bought into the initiative of the city to accomplish this work that they're dedicating parts of their lives to.
So I do want to say that there's been a lot of communication around the exact nature of this tax, especially, you know, how each individual household is managed.
And I do just want to caution about not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good here.
Thank you.
Having a reliable stream of revenue that we can count on that is not too complex to implement and actually bring into the city is going to be so, so valuable to actually achieving our frontline goals in getting our transportation, you know, not just up to par, but implementing the innovations that I know we've been talking about for decades.
So I really just wanted to say thank you for all the work that has gone into the assessment of these 2 taxes.
And, you know, whatever kind of blowback that this council might receive for trying to enrich the community in this way, just because it has a cost, you know, please know that you have dedicated support in this city that's willing to take your thank you.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, James.
Thank you for your testimony.
Kari, would you like to go next?
Unidentified speaker
Yeah, thank you.
Uh, my name is Kari Ko.
I share they pronouns.
I'm the president of the City of Portland Professional Workers Union.
We represent, uh, about 800 folks all around the city in every bureau.
Keelan McClymont
Um, we provide essential services that we like to call the glue that holds the city together.
Unidentified speaker
Um, I'm here today because stable funding is is crucial for our members and for the broader Portland community.
And the issues faced by PBOT are not only about the roads themselves, but about how the roads are connectivity, multimodal transportation, and about safe communities, which we've heard people speak well to today.
So our streets not only need to be well maintained, but safe spaces and community spaces.
Building stable funding here at the local level, I think, allows council to be more in control about not only supporting the really important visible work of filling potholes out in our community and doing other critical maintenance, but also supporting the internal-facing work that, that is included in all of the services that PBOT provides, these essential pieces of building a healthy, safe, and well-connected city.
Keelan McClymont
And this is the work that our members do.
Unidentified speaker
It looks like being in regular direct contacts with residents, businesses, schools, communities about safety issues, repair, engagement, impact, creating third spaces, the safe community places that the people of Portland value, whether that's safe routes to schools, street plazas, Sunday parkways, and overseeing capital controls, financial analysis, ensuring contract work on big projects is completed on time and on budget.
As with all core services, this is the work that allows the other work to happen effectively and efficiently, and that is part of the overall funding project that I'm hoping thank you.
Our streets and roads are some of the most dangerous places in the city, as we know.
Keelan McClymont
So we support moving forward with this fee.
Unidentified speaker
We're happy to be here in support of it.
But we also encourage you to continue pushing on other concepts so that we can solve how multinational corporations and their subcontractors that dominate many of our roads with their delivery vehicles can use a fee of some sort to be part of our future transportation infrastructure planning, that if companies want to use our public assets, They must pay their fair share.
So thank you for having me here today, and we look forward to continuing to be a part of the conversation.
Olivia Clark
Thank you so much, Carrie.
Sorry I mispronounced your name.
Unidentified speaker
Oh, that's okay.
Jamie Dunphy
Good morning.
Eric Zimmerman
My name is—.
Mitch Green
My name is Rob Martineau.
I'm the president of AFSCME Local 189, representing over 1,000 city employees across 26 bureaus.
It's clear from your open today and, and the tone in this room that if I want an argument, I'll have to change the subject.
And so I just want to make this brief.
You have a difficult choice, not a complicated one.
I want to encourage you to resist suggestions that this is nuanced or that it somehow needs to be more complex or added to.
PBOT, at your direction, has already done the work.
Olivia Clark
Big decisions.
Mitch Green
Our city council will either fund or fail its largest infrastructure system.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Rob.
Thank you, panelists.
Really appreciate your being here, all of you.
Let's call up our next panel: Alan Hippolito, Don Bach, and Ryan Hashigan.
One more.
It's okay.
Thank you for being here.
I know Don's on his way.
Alan, should we start with you?
Mitch Green
Sure, thank you.
Buenos días, consejeras.
Me llamo Alan Hipólito.
I work for SUMA.
We're a Portland-based nonprofit that builds technology with low-income people, people of color, adults with disability, and other vulnerable Portlanders.
This includes the Summa app, an e-commerce marketplace where low-income Portlanders purchase and save money on essential expenses, overcoming privacy and other barriers that these customers have told us prevent them from using their phones to pay for food, transportation, and utilities.
Now, there's a lot here that we're happy to discuss at another time, but it doesn't really fit into 2 minutes.
So today I want to share one of the barriers that we're solving for with our users and partners.
Low-income community members know that subsidies and public benefit programs are out there for them, but accessing these benefits can be challenging, stressful, and time-consuming, and so many benefits are left on the table.
More specifically, I want you to know that SUMA, our users, and our partners— groups like Apano, Hacienda CDC, Do Good Multnomah, Home Forward Miracles Club, Brown Hope, the Uprise Collective, and many, many others.
We see the same challenge as you do and that Indy articulated as necessary work for the TUF ordinance to be successful.
How do we distribute a utility bill-based rebate to eligible low-income households who don't receive a bill from that utility?
The many low-income Portlanders who live in master-metered family units thank you.
For example, we see this issue in community solar, which is a way for an individual subscriber to benefit from an offsite solar array, such as the PSEF-funded array Apano is building with the Bird Alliance of Oregon and Bonneville Environmental Foundation in PacificCorp territory in the Jade District.
In the existing practice, as a low-income subscriber benefits via a reduced PacificCorp electricity bill.
But this means that residents who live in PGE territory in the Jade District or who live in a master meter building anywhere in the Jade cannot benefit from the existing practice.
So Apano asked us, can we use the Suma app to deliver these community solar benefits to our community members who aren't served by community solar's on-bill model.
And that's what we're doing together with Apano.
We're enrolling 119 Jade community members in the Bilingual Suma app.
Collectively, these users will save $37,000 annually on app products as we leverage those community solar benefits, PSEF subsidy, PBOT's transportation wallet, alongside discounts from vendors like Fubon, Hung Phat, Lime, and Biketown, all in the user's Suma app wallet.
We're excited to work with PBOT, PWB, and others to explore a TUF pilot in the Jade that leverages all this existing work we're already doing.
This would allow us to bring new users, new partners, new subsidy, and new vendors to the project.
Distributing a utility bill-based rebate to eligible low-income households who don't receive a bill from that utility is thank you, Alan.
Olivia Clark
I think we're all very interested in cutting-edge technology.
Appreciate that.
Thank you.
Don, would you like to go next?
Jamie Dunphy
Hi, I'm Don Bach.
I'm a 52— 54-year resident of Hillsdale, founder of Southwest Trails.
I'm wearing my jacket because if you don't wear a jacket in Southwest, you put yourself in danger.
75% Of our streets don't have sidewalks.
Crosswalks are almost nonexistent.
We can't get PBOT to build them where we want them.
So some of the things here we're going to be talking about.
Number one, I highly support this proposal.
I would suggest you put a sunset of 5 or 7 years so that this can be relooked at at that point in time, because budgeting and all that gets very busy and you really need to look at it again.
And I, for one, don't want to see a lot of proposals that don't go away.
Thank you.
Sunset it at some point.
In the 30 years I've been advocating for improved pedestrian and logical bicycle improvements in Southwest Portland, I've seen a great decline in the quality of our streets.
2 things that have not been mentioned here that I think are really important: potholes and poor street maintenance costs a lot to the individual car, truck, and TriMet owners.
You know, and we're the owner of TriMet, but they damage the street a lot, but they're also damaging the equipment when we have poor streets.
Thank you.
That hasn't been mentioned, and I think that's a very important thing that people need to understand is if we don't fix our streets, we individually are going to pay a great cost.
And those with older cars pay a greater cost because they're easier to break and they're tougher to repair.
Funding is not the only thing that I think needs fixing in PBOT.
So I'm going to divert a little bit from this whole thing of funding and talk about some things that are really important to us in Southwest.
First of all, the project selection and management process.
The process for new improvements needs to have a lot more citizen involvement early on and throughout the process.
Right now, in the past, and it's getting a little better, but it needs to change dramatically.
PBOT has basically ruled the roost and told us, this is what we're going to do.
And then at the end they say, by the way, we're going to have an open house here to talk about our project that we've decided to do.
That's a complete waste of time, and it doesn't involve the people in the appropriate time, nor give us a chance to really do things.
And so we need to be early on in every project of any significance and consulted.
And if we don't have a lot to say, that's fine.
If we got things to say, needs to be considered carefully.
ADA policies.
Right now, as I understand the rules in PBOT, we can't do anything that doesn't meet ADA policy in terms of investment.
And it's gotten so bad that in several occasions, PBOT's come to Southwest Trails to say, Would you build this trail here?
Because we knew we can't do it because our policies prevent it, because it doesn't make ADA rules.
That's nonsense.
In Southwest, the terrain prevents us from making ADA things in any feasible way.
The grades are steep, and a lot of places we have to use stairs, and we need to be able to have policies that accommodate that in where the terrain is set.
So what we need to change is basically say, where feasible, meet the ADA standards, and where they're not, you don't have to— that we can move forward.
Crosswalks.
In my experience, cars in Southwest do not stop for pedestrians standing by the street.
I had, you know, we basically have a lot of trails that cross streets where the drivers don't even realize the trails are there.
And as a result, they speed by, they don't stop, and they don't slow down.
I've seen that.
What we need is zebra crossings for where trails cross busy streets.
We don't need them on every street.
We need them on major streets where there's a lot of speeding traffic.
Sameer Kanal
Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to get to the close of it because we do have several more invited testimonies and we're out of time.
Jamie Dunphy
I'm going to finish up real quickly.
Crosswalks for Forti Trail needs to be improved and the crosswalk policy needs major revision, particularly as it relates to Southwest Streetcar expansion, I don't see a need for that right now.
Thank you.
I support this.
Put a sunset on it.
Thank you, sir.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Don, and thank you for your 50 years of experience and sharing that with us.
I appreciate it.
Alan— or Ryan, sorry.
Sameer Kanal
All good.
It's been a busy morning.
Hello, City Council.
Thank you for your time today.
My name is Ryan Hashiken, and I run a manufacturing business in Old Town, Icicle Tricycles.
I'm also one of the elected business representatives and the current co-chair of the Land Use and Transportation Committee for the Old Town Community Thank you.
Our business directly relies on Portland's transportation infrastructure, from daily freight shipments to our main location, to using the protected bike lanes on the Burnside Bridge to access suppliers in the Central East Side, to relying on crucial PBOT repairs like the Northeast 33rd Street Bridge to access our powder coating and sandblasting contractors.
I want to thank all of City Council, the mayor, and especially Councilor Clark and the land— and the Transportation Infrastructure Committee for putting forth this broad-based fee to address transportation infrastructure maintenance that Portland's businesses depend upon.
I also appreciate a Vision Zero lens being applied to maintenance expenses.
I hope that approximately 25% of funds and no less than 20% of funds are dedicated to safety and vulnerable users while continuing to engage with community oversight of any program deliverables.
I believe this is a promising sign of our new form of government addressing some of the thorniest Thank you all for considering this proposal that received unanimous support from the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee members.
Portland businesses need transportation infrastructure maintenance to keep everyone rolling along and succeeding into our future.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Ryan.
Thank you, panelists, very much.
We're running up against a time crunch.
We have one more panel.
Alan DeAnda Hall, Joseph Perez, And I don't know if Earl Blumenauer is here, but he's on the list, and Tyler Frisbee.
I'm not sure they're here.
Thank you both.
Alan, do you want to talk about the Pedestrian Advisory Committee?
Dan Ryan
Yes.
Sameer Kanal
Good morning, council committee members.
My name is Alan DeAndahal, and I'm here speaking as a member of the city's Pedestrian Advisory Committee.
The PAC is supportive of measures to enhance funding for projects that will bring the city closer to to a future with zero road deaths and a more climate-friendly and safe transportation system.
We believe that walking to get to where you need to go should not only be safe, but also a joyful part of your day.
Our funding crisis is not new.
Communities throughout Portland lack critical infrastructure to cross streets and walk safely.
With the loss of state funding and federal leadership, we're on our own to build the solutions our city needs.
At the same time, we have the power to shape these solutions.
The proposed ordinance before you has improved since the previous draft to acknowledge our goals for safer travel throughout Portland.
However, the following changes would make this ordinance stronger.
Explicitly prioritize, not just allow, maintenance projects that improve safety.
For example, including leading pedestrian intervals, pedestrian-only phases, and otherwise limiting dangerous situations that occur between turning traffic and people crossing the street.
Include ADA accessibility improvements under Section G without the modifier associated with maintenance.
Bringing our streets up to modern standards that make them accessible to all is a valid form of repair in its own right.
Additionally, this is only part of the bigger transportation funding picture.
Fixing our streets remains available program to fund capital projects, and this proposal would not offset those funds or other revenue streams lost from— like those from pausing SDCs.
Council should refrain from commitments to claw back revenue sources before PBOT's budget is sustainable.
Second.
We also still encourage council not to lose sight of a greater need for sustainable improvements to compensate for historic disinvestment, including our existing sidewalk and crossing gaps.
We appreciate the SIPP concept that Loretta Smith and Mitch Green have previously floated, and we still need to see a serious plan from our leadership for designing a program that brings our streets into a future that equitably and sustainably serves the entire community.
Shoshana Cohen
Thank you.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Rowland.
Joseph.
Mitch Green
Thank you.
Hello, councilors.
My name is Joseph Perez.
Hello, City Administrator Lee.
Welcome on behalf of the Bicycle Advisory Committee.
I'm the vice chairperson, and as you may know, the Bicycle Advisory Committee is, is formed to advise City Council and all departments of the city on all matters relating to the use of the bicycle.
The Bicycle Advisory Committee appreciates the city's commitment thank you, Mr.
Eric Zimmerman
Mayor.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you, Councilor Dan Ryan, for your presentation.
Mitch Green
I want to thank the public for their engagement to the robust public discussion over the past few months about how we maintain our streets that have citywide significance.
Now the time has come to act, to approve the transportation utility fee and the street damage restoration fee.
Some roads are still crumbling, and meanwhile, you all recently voted on a strong Vision Zero resolution to recommit the city to zero fatal crashes and serious injuries.
And also recently, a 2026-2027 addendum to Portland's Vision Zero Action Plan was released, released last week.
Portland has adopted goal of 25% of all trips by bicycle by 2030.
Driving a car is a privilege, a very expensive privilege, and Portlanders know and want a better way.
The 2022 Portland Insights survey stated that 60.2% of Portlanders 45% want to ride bicycles if they were affordable and safe.
So we need safer streets.
Portlanders expressed this to the city more than 3 years ago.
Now we need funding for safer streets.
We need your leadership.
We need to pay for the safe streets that we want.
And after Portlanders pay, Portlanders want the city to deliver.
At the March meeting, the Bike Advisory Committee adopted a motion to request that the City Council take action to address the transportation funding gap in Portland.
Councilmember shortfall during this fiscal year 2026-2027.
We need a fee that everybody pays so that everybody benefits.
This important funding will be put to good use.
As I said before, 75% of the fee to go toward needed maintenance, and I am excited to hear others talking about no less than 20% for safety improvements for Vision Zero.
The Bike Advisory Committee is excited to engage with City Council on how to best use these resources going forward for walking and bicycling safety projects that are not related to maintenance.
As bicycle advocates, our lived experience is that safe, smooth, clean bikeways encourage people to ride bicycles.
We need to maintain existing infrastructure.
We advocate for you all to invest in the infrastructure that encourages good behavior and discourages bad behavior.
People don't smoke in restaurants anymore.
People now wear seat belts when they choose to drive.
So we need fees that pay for the projects that make our city safer and projects that encourage people to ride public transit and ride bicycles.
A few months ago, our chair said to the Transportation Infrastructure Committee, we want you to strive for greatness instead of the mediocre.
It is never going to be easy, but it is time to get started.
Future you— future you is not going to be satisfied future you is counting on you to do the work now, to do the hard work now.
Future you is here.
The Bicycle Advisory Committee really looks forward to helping you out on this important matter.
Thank you all for your service to the community, and remember, Portland is what we make it.
Olivia Clark
Thank you both for being here, and thank you both for serving on the advisory committees.
We appreciate that.
And with that, Uh, Chair, I think we're done with the invited testimony.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, uh, Councilor Clark, Vice President Clark.
Um, we will be— if, if, uh, Congressman Blumenauer does get here, we'll of course make sure there's time.
Um, before we go into testimony, or before we take a break and then go into testimony, I did want to ask if there are any sponsor amendments or any very brief technical questions.
We've got a couple minutes for that, so if not, uh, I know there are people in the queue, but just wanted to, um, say if you don't have a technical question, we'll definitely keep your spot in the queue.
Um, Councilor Green, is, is it a technical question?
Councilor Zimmerman, is it a technical question?
Please go ahead and I'll come to you next.
Eric Zimmerman
Uh, thanks.
Dan Ryan
I am hoping that, um, you guys don't have to stay at the dais there.
Eric Zimmerman
Thank you, because it's certainly not to you.
I'm, I'm going to pose this I'll ask this question to the administration because I've been through a lot of street fee conversations and presentations in my career.
As we move forward, I hope that we can get some metric, right?
Road miles paved, number of intersections improved, potholes fixed, how we plan to finally keep bike lanes clean and clear, and as we just heard, smooth and ready to be used.
So I don't expect that in the moment, but I do think that that actually qualifies as a technical question for this because I need to really understand what this is.
There was a lot of testimony today about the safety improvements that will be funded with this.
And in all of my reading, I've found zero specific examples of what will be funded.
So I think that falls in the technical category.
So I'm going to offer that up as a previewing question because I think it It will come with some— there'll be some background work.
So that's all I have, Chair.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
If there's a brief response, feel free.
Yeah.
Yes, I know staff is currently working on all of those details to pull back to council as it relates to how we would actually spend the money.
I know some of the conversation has been around kind of what the percentage breakdown of what would be potentially dedicated towards maintenance to kind of really see what a real program will look like.
As we roll forward with maintenance, we do have data that talks about, you know, the average cost of potholes and how many potholes we feel we could fix and how many street maintenance repairs we can actually do with the amount of dollars that we have.
And we can make sure that information is available.
Mark Lear
But take it a little step further than what you've just mentioned.
Sameer Kanal
One thing that I'll be looking for as we move this thing forward that we're actually marketing and actually communicating to the public how these dollars are being spent and actually having a webpage actually talk about where these dollars are actually being spent.
So we're very transparent regarding the impact that these dollars are making within the community as a whole.
And if we are using it to do major projects, to have the marketing around that to show, hey, this is where your TUF dollars are going and being used in the city.
So these are all things that we want to make sure as we move forward with transparency and how we're spending the taxpayers' dollars, that they understand where those dollars are going and the actual impact of it.
So we will be rolling out that kind of dashboard transparency to actually show the matrix as well once we fine-tune where we actually spending those dollars and the best use of those dollars.
Eric Zimmerman
Thanks.
I'm going to expand, Chair.
I'm sorry, I have another technical related to that.
The breakdown, and I don't have a page— slide 30, I think, was a breakdown of the percentage, the cost by single-family or multifamily.
What I haven't been able to deduce there is what is expected to be raised in each of those categories.
So 4.3% against the commercial utility bill represents what percentage of the $46 million that's targeted for that?
Yes.
If we could get that, that would be helpful.
And then in terms of— I think one of the challenges that we heard with the last iteration of the parks levy was that it got focused a lot on coordinators and back-of-office folks instead of frontline folks.
If we could have an idea for where the bureau plans to go with frontline workers versus coordinators and planners, I think that's helpful to understand how much is actually going to be cleaned in the road Thanks.
Sameer Kanal
I'm going to go to Councilor Dunphy in a second.
Just wanted to mention slide 18 says it's 70% residential, 30% commercial in the TUF.
Is that the answer, Councilor Clark, to the question?
And while we're—.
Olivia Clark
I think the bureau actually has more detailed information.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, I wanna make sure we have time to actually discuss it today.
So I'm concerned that if we start turning it over to questions, we're not gonna have time for testimony.
Eric Zimmerman
So I just wanna—.
Mitch Green
That's why I was just kind of previewing a few that get to me.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, so I'll pass to Councilor Dunphy then.
Thank you.
My question hopefully is relatively brief.
It's about the low-income discounts that we're going to be, and I understand that they're, I don't know if it's best suited for Director Williams or perhaps from Alan from Public Communications.
Suma or who, but how is the— how are we going to be implementing?
Can we just be a little bit more explicit about the low-income discounts, the pilot project that I understand is gonna be part of working with Suma?
How are we implementing these things?
Unidentified speaker
I'm sorry, Councilor Dunphy, I would like to call Carisha Leicht, our customer service manager, to share information on that.
Okay.
Or Becky Anaker.
Shoshana Cohen
Can I also, while they're coming up, we've identified this problem and we've started talking with Quisha and her team.
We still have more work to do.
So she can talk about some of the work they're doing, but we don't have a specific proposal yet.
We are sort of committing to figuring this out.
Unidentified speaker
But we're happy to share what the— how the loan discount program works in the Water Bureau.
Yes, Becky Anaker, Interim Customer Service Director, for the record.
Millicent Williams
We have a robust, uh, low-income discount program that we currently serve for water, sewer, and stormwater customers.
Unidentified speaker
It's multi-tiered.
And in addition to that, we also have a ramp program that we've talked about, um, previously with council and for our multifamily.
So there is, um, basis for this and the reciprocity that we would be happy to support in developing a program, um, for PBOT, uh, throughout customer service and be happy to offer that to our customers and operationalize that as well.
Sameer Kanal
Great.
You know, uh, District 1, uh, East Portland, we have, uh, average income about 2/3 the rest of the city.
Um, it is a— I mean, but we also have the worst infrastructure in a lot of the ways.
So, um, it is a careful balance for my folks.
I'm just really interested to make sure that those cases, um, you know, obviously we need to do this, uh, obviously I'm going to be supportive of this today, but, um, I'm— I, I do want to make sure that for those folks in our community that we are being front and center about this and being innovative and trying to err on the side of being overly generous, I suppose, is sort of my preference at this point to right-size these things because we're also getting a notice about other cost increases like PGE going to be raising their utility fees.
So I'm interested.
I would love to be kept up— I hope the council will be kept up to date as we finish all this and if there's more for us to be able to do to help implement something like that.
Millicent Williams
Councilor, if I may, I just wanted to mention part of the reason why we are proposing that we would not start implementation until January 1st, 2027 is to allow us the time after the budget passes, presuming that this makes it, that we would be able to work through all of those details and effectively communicate about how we intend to implement the program and how it will support the whole of community.
So that's, that's really what we anticipated would be the need, that 5 to 6 month period of, uh, ramping up to ensure that we are serving well.
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Councilor Dunphy.
Um, I do see that, that Congressman Blumenauer has arrived, so I want to make sure we give, uh, him time, and then, um, we'll, we'll take our break right after that, come back and do, uh, any floating of amendments, public test, and we'll even get into but, um, but, uh, and I'm not sure if Tyler Frisbee is also here, but I would love to welcome you up as well.
Eric Zimmerman
I see you.
Jamie Dunphy
Yeah.
Dan Ryan
I'm good.
Mark Lear
I, I—.
Mitch Green
This makes me feel uncomfortable.
Sameer Kanal
Any, anytime I got a gavel, we'll make sure you have time here.
So, uh, thank you so much for being here, Congressman.
Mitch Green
Yeah, well, I, I appreciate very much, uh, Thank you, Mr.
Mayor.
Thank you for the council taking this on and giving me the opportunity to be here with my colleague Tyler Frisbee, who's the director of the Institute for Metropolitan Studies.
I've spent a little time dealing with these issues in the past, and I'm well aware of the BIPE that you are dealing with now.
I appreciate the fact that you are sinking your teeth in at a time that's not easy to do.
Thank you.
To make sure that when you deal with things like a broad utility fee and a charge for those who work in the right-of-way and make problems that you have to clean up later, this is a big challenge for livability.
And I appreciate some of you looking at the asset management and the big picture.
And at a time when there are tremendous It's— Cross pressures that you're stepping up and doing this in a way that may not always be that popular with the general public, but is absolutely critical to be able to maintain the livability of our community.
This is broad-based.
It's an ongoing revenue stream.
The historic foundations in terms of how the city has funded transportation in the past, this is a variation on that.
Thank you.
This is not a break with tradition.
And as you've seen, other communities are doing this around the country.
I appreciate your dealing on a comprehensive basis with something to avoid problems in the future with all the other things you've got going on.
I appreciate the focus on the transportation infrastructure and dealing with things that will make a difference.
I'd love to have lemonade with any of you if you wanna talk about some of the checkered past.
But I appreciate what the new council is doing, dealing with an old problem and an interminable one in a way that looks like it'll be sustainable in the past.
I would like to turn to my colleague, if I could, Ms. Frisbie, who worked with me in Congress.
She's, as you may know, not only the Institute, but she's also on the TriMet board.
She's into this up to her elbows, and I would like to defer to her if I could.
Olivia Clark
Good morning, Council.
Thank you for having us.
My name is Tyler Frisbee.
I am here on behalf of the Institute of Metropolitan Studies at Portland State.
And as many of you know, when we developed our strategic plan last year, we talked to over 120 folks around the region about the biggest problems facing their community.
I knew we would hear about transportation funding from the City of Portland, we were shocked by how much it came up in conversations with folks across the region.
And I think I'm here today to help both remind you that this is a deep-seated problem in Portland, but you are not alone.
This is something that our folks across the region are dealing with and across the state.
And you are taking a step today to address a structural deficit that has been going for a while and without action will continue.
The transportation utility fee has been adopted by 30 cities across the state of Oregon.
So you, Portland, will be, as is the nature in Oregon, the largest by far.
But this is a step.
This is a best practice.
This is something that occurs frequently in other places, acknowledging the reality of transportation funding and that the old system does not work.
That was the theme we heard over and over when we talked to folks across the region.
For the past 100 years, we funded transportation mostly dependent on federal dollars with a healthy amount of money coming from the state.
And then the city could kind of plug in as needed to do things that felt really important to the city itself.
Those federal dollars have not been adjusted for inflation since I was in grade school.
The state is deeply behind in terms of the money they need for their own system, much less their ability to support local governments.
And the needs of the cities all look very different now.
You're not just about maintaining potholes.
You're about sidewalk infill.
You're about helping make sure people have transit options.
You are about making sure that our public plazas are inviting and safe and welcoming places to be.
Your needs as So I will say from the Institute's perspective, we are about halfway through a local transportation funding research project.
We're very sad that we are not able to support you more in this work, and I'm really happy to come back and talk about that research, what it shows as we get further along.
But the challenge that you are addressing today is real.
It is felt across the country.
Thank you.
The state, it's felt across the region, it's felt across the country, and you are taking a step that is really important in sort of revamping and redeveloping a way of funding transportation in our city.
So thank you.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you both.
Um, colleagues, I wanted to give everyone— yesterday, uh, Council President Dunphy mentioned that when we're going to float amendments, we'll just ask for a 2-sentence summary.
So if you intend to move an amendment to the to the documents, either of them today.
I wanted to give an opportunity for anyone to, to give a brief summary of that, and then, uh, we can— you'll have more time to get into it after testimony.
Does anyone have, uh, one of— I'm going to go through the queue, and feel free to add yourself to the queue.
Councilor Green?
Mitch Green
Yeah, one sentence amends the ordinance, uh, under the directive section, item K. Very small tweak.
Um, That reads PBOT will propose rate adjustments including inflationary increases, and then adds a new clause that says, or rate design proposals to the council through the city's annual budget process.
So just creates a permission structure to change not just the adjustment of the rate, but also what the rate is and how it's composed.
Dan Ryan
Thanks.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Councilor Green.
Uh, Councilor Smith, is it an amendment?
No.
Okay, we'll keep your place in the queue.
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, I see you online.
Looks like you're having connectivity.
You might want to turn off the, uh, the camera, and I think you're also muted.
Olivia Clark
Did you— you couldn't hear me before, Councilor?
Sameer Kanal
Okay, I think it came through, but no, no amendment right now.
Is that what I'm hearing?
Olivia Clark
No amendment, just a clarification that I was hoping to get in during technical questions.
I'm not sure what happened with my hand there.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, I'll come right back to you.
Councilor Zimmerman, do you have an amendment?
Eric Zimmerman
I'm going to ask some questions, but I am likely to propose an amendment to take the 75% street damage restoration fee to 100%.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
And then I have an amendment I've pre-filed that would require looking into the discount programming and assessing if there's ways to provide more support for vulnerable road users and for historically underserved communities.
I'll give you a chance to ask a question, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, and then we do need to take that break.
Keelan McClymont
Thank you, Chair Kanal.
Um, I don't need this answered now.
Olivia Clark
I see that folks are no longer up at the table, but, um, at some point I would like to understand what falls into the definition of a portion of funds— I think it's 70%— that must be used for maintenance of current infrastructure, um, in parts of our city with more yes.
Keelan McClymont
So for example, we have roads that can be maintained, but they don't have sidewalks on them, or we have greenways that are not— don't have the safety features that greenways in other parts of the city have.
Olivia Clark
I'm trying to understand if upgrading that would count as maintenance of current assets, or if that would not count in that portion.
Keelan McClymont
And at some point, if the bureau can get back back to us all with the answer, I'd appreciate it.
Millicent Williams
Great.
Sameer Kanal
I see them listening and actively in the back.
I'm not sure if your angle allows for it, but I'm sure they'll have a—.
Thanks.
And then Councilor Koyama Lane.
Keelan McClymont
Well, I'm not sure if this is the only time to bring amendments, and I'm not— this is not fully baked, but I will just— I want to say to the people that testified, um, hearing you all— I hear you all talking about changing G so that no less than 20% of the TUF revenues are expended on traffic safety activities that move us closer to Vision Zero.
I have nothing drafted, but I'm just putting that out there.
I hear you.
I'm interested in that.
I'm not exactly sure what that means for what we have time for today.
Sameer Kanal
Thanks.
All right, so we'll come back in, let's say, 8-ish minutes, and then we'll get going with public testimony.
We might ask— fair warning— we might ask testifiers to keep your time to 2 minutes.
So please start thinking about that, and we'll be back at 11:33.
What's the intent today?
All right, thank you.
We're gonna come back.
Thank you.
We're going to come back to conclude our recess.
So if everyone could please take their seats.
First off, thanks for bearing with us.
We took a slightly longer break.
We are able to go a little later in this meeting.
So just flagging that.
And that means 2 things.
One, we may actually have time to do these conversations, but also we are not going to need to cut it for the public testimony further than 2 minutes, which was an option as well.
Thank you.
Having said that, before we call public testimony, I did want to say you have the right to use the full 2 minutes, but the best thing for someone who wants this to happen today can— the best thing that they could do is not use the whole time because there will be questions and discussion later and we want to make sure there's space for that while you still, of course, have the right to use the full 2 minutes.
So with that, we're going to get into public testimony.
Keelan, would you please call the first panel?
Keelan McClymont
All right, I will call people up in groups of 5.
Please come up to the table and go ahead and unmute and state your name for the record.
First up, we have Eric Fruits, Jordan Lewis, RJ Shepherd, Karen Chire, Thomas Bussey.
Sameer Kanal
Please feel free to get started while folks are still taking their seats.
Mitch Green
Good morning, members of City Council.
My name is Eric Fruits.
I'm a Portland resident and business owner.
I was here and actively involved in the 2014 street fee debacle, so I can tell you that I know what I'm talking about.
I'm also an economist, and in that role, I'm here to warn you that the mechanics behind the proposed transportation packages are fundamentally broken.
The transportation utility fee, the street damage restoration fee, are legally risky, highly regressive, and intentionally mislabeled.
Let's be honest with the public.
These are not fees.
They are taxes.
A fee is a charge for a service that you choose to use.
You can avoid a fee by avoiding the service.
You cannot avoid a tax.
Under this proposal, a household cannot avoid the transportation utility fee by driving less, Yes.
Eric Zimmerman
Or getting rid of their cars.
Mitch Green
Simply living behind 4 walls triggers this tax.
There is no way to opt out, and when you cannot opt out, it is a tax.
Because it's a flat tax, it's deeply regressive.
It will disproportionately burden the poorest Portlanders.
The city's promise of looking for some low-income rate— rent relief or rate relief is disingenuous at best.
Low-income renters in multifamily buildings with master meters do not receive a water Next.
Any of the current low-income reductions are practically unavailable to most of the vulnerable households that actually need them, despite any promises or efforts that staff have told you.
Next, the commercial rate on the TUF is economically absurd.
You are proposing a 4.3% tax on commercial utility bills to pay for roads, but a business's water consumption has absolutely no correlation with its actual transportation use.
Sameer Kanal
The street damage restoration fee is just a hidden ratepayer hike.
Mitch Green
Presenting this as some sort of restoration fee is just fraudulent because we know under cost of service rate making that those costs will be passed on 100% or more to the ratepayers.
Sameer Kanal
When we have skyrocketing utility rates, this will add another 10 to 15%, and you must reject it.
Go ahead.
Uh, good morning.
My name is Thomas Bessie.
I'm the treasurer of the Libertarian Party of Oregon, a resident of District 4.
I earn $27 an hour, had to take vacation time off to be here today, and live in a rinky-dinky market-rate studio and do not have a car because I cannot afford one.
Under this highly regressive tax, I would be paying more than my senator who never returns my calls, Lisa Reynolds, who guzzles A million gallons a year at her mansion.
I'd be paying more than most of you at this dais.
I don't understand that.
This is a regressive tax, and I have actually about 25 years in government budgeting.
You saw up there on the screen, Portland has a general fund.
It can fund PBOT out of its general fund.
It has an annual budgeting process.
It can choose to fund PBOT out of that annual budgeting process.
It has chosen not to.
It's the same thing with the arts tax.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
Oh, let's fund arts education.
What does the school district do?
It cuts arts education and instead it funds teachers' pensions.
So what's going on in the Portland General Fund?
PERS.
That's what this is about.
You're not gonna get more transportation out of this.
You're just enabling an unsustainable PERS balance, which can be fixed.
You have a PSF overage, put that toward paying down your PERS liabilities.
That'll free up the general fund across the board in the city.
Thank you.
And I'm not gonna leave you with another solution.
How about a 3% sales tax on concessions at the Portland International Airport?
Half to the city, to the general fund so you can allocate it where it needs to go, and half to TriMet.
But regressive taxes for a progressive city and a progressive board make no sense.
Thank you.
Keelan McClymont
We have RJ online.
Sameer Kanal
Hello.
Great.
Can you all hear me?
Yeah, go for it, RJ.
Thank you.
Perfect.
Uh, good morning, councilors.
Uh, today I'm speaking on behalf of Strong Towns PDX, an all-volunteer organization working to make Portland a safe, livable, and financially resilient place for everyone.
We want to thank Councilor Green for proposing an attachment and motion to study moving the TUF to a use-based TUF, which includes a fixed and variable component.
Dan Ryan
Utility fees are often structured this way, with a fixed fee as your hookup charge and a variable component based on your use.
Sameer Kanal
This attachment, which originated from Strongtown's PDX, is a proposal for a fairer TUF.
In the case of the current proposed TUF, there's effectively zero variable component for the residential households.
Dan Ryan
This is—.
Olivia Clark
This—.
Sameer Kanal
Because this applies to transportation and the largest consumers of our roads, which are 53% of the total consumption, reside outside of our city.
Dan Ryan
For the amount of miles driven by Portland residents, the current TUF also does a poor job of approximating road use.
The approximation is based on the Traffic Engineer's Manual, which uses data primarily from suburbs.
Sameer Kanal
Portland is not a suburb.
We have census tracts where 25% of residents don't own a vehicle.
The current TUF does not address the 50% of driver— 53% of drivers who get to drive for free through the City throughout of Portland's transit system.
Keelan McClymont
Councilmember Herbold.
Sameer Kanal
The city, but a proposed route use-based TUF from Councilor Green means a TUF that better approximates VMT for the residents that do use our roads.
The proposed fee of $3 as a fixed fee or a hookup fee and 10 cents per 100 square feet of parcel is simple and can be applied uniformly across the city instead of the 3 different structures currently planned.
Dan Ryan
The proposal would mean that the average Portland household living on an R-5 zoned please work to implement this use-based TUF so that it is a fair TUF for multi-family residents.
Sameer Kanal
Uh, it will also address the issues around commercial properties where large Amazon warehouses who are efficient will pay less overall than, say, OHSU that works very hard to use their land use very efficiently.
Councilmember Smith, you have 2 minutes.
Keelan McClymont
Karen is joining us online.
Karen, you're muted.
There we go.
I can hear you.
Uh, hello, my name is Karen T. Ray.
I'm both a resident and a business owner deeply invested in the future of our community.
The proposed transportation utility fee represents yet another burden that threatens to stifle local businesses and strain the financial resources of hardworking residents.
As a business owner, I know firsthand that every dollar counts.
With rising costs from various angles— rent, utilities, wages— this new fee feels like a heavy weight added to an already overflowing plate.
The prospect of additional taxes and fees is detrimental to our ability to maintain operations and retain employees.
Councilmember Smith, you have 2 minutes.
I have heard repeated claims about lost federal funding, yet we must ask, why did this happen?
Why is— is it possible that misalignment with federal priorities led to funding being pulled?
The federal government has significant resources available, and it raises serious questions about our local leadership's ability to secure necessary support.
If we can't align with federal initiatives, how can we expect to effectively manage local funding and infrastructure projects?
Councilmember Smith.
I testified twice to the state transportation House Bill 3991 that wanted to raise gas taxes, fees on hybrid and electric vehicles, and other fees, which is just more of our money going to pay for fiscal mistakes made by state government and federal funds being pulled.
Top-to-bottom government audits should be conducted prior to asking residents and businesses to pay more.
Oregon has one of the highest taxes already.
Thank you.
As a lifelong Oregonian, I have witnessed how funds collected in the past have not yielded visible results.
We have invested in our community through taxes and fees, yet we often see little in return.
How can we ensure that the revenue generated from the transportation utility fee will be used effectively and transparently?
Well, in your presentation you outlined how the money would be spent, but nothing is guaranteed.
We need solid assurances that our contributions In closing, while I support— while I understand the need for funding to maintain our transportation systems, the introduction of the transportation utility fee without clear accountability and commitment to responsible governance will only serve to drive businesses away and further burden residents.
Thank you.
Jordan Lewis.
Jordan Lewis here.
Uh, next up we have John Gibbon, Terry Parker, Carl Rhode, Brett Hofstetter, Kyle Johnson.
Mitch Green
My name is John Gibbon.
I live in Southwest Portland, District 4.
Uh, the Quail Park Association, an Oregon nonprofit corporation, uh, aka the Quail Park Homeowners Association, of the City of Portland, Multnomah County, State of Oregon, and most crucially for this discussion, the situs of the City of Portland Southwest Quail Post Road Water Local Improvement District, which I see Commissioner Ryan remembers.
We have 3/10 of a mile of mainline road that connects Next, Lancaster Boulevard to Lancaster Road.
Excuse me, Lancaster's other boulevard in Salem.
Lancaster Road to Huber Street.
And we have 7/10 of a mile of individual privately owned streets that reach the 93 houses in our subdivision.
And on top of that, and I'm gonna paraphrase, I think it was Abraham Lincoln, to tell Commissioner Ryan that I can report that we have now successfully interconnected the water line that we're building on an LID from Lancaster Road to— I guess the paraphrase would be now Bull Run water flows unvexed from Lancaster Road to Huber Street, which was an accomplishment we had to do because 50 years ago the city forgot to build the water line that the Planning Commission requested between Lancaster and Huber.
And we lived for 50 years on a single pipeline, common metered single pipeline.
So So we're in the middle of an LID.
We greatly appreciate the work the city has done to facilitate that LID to get that water line in.
We couldn't meet qualifications for state licensing with just a single connection like we'd had for 50 years.
So the city had to step in and help us.
But we, when it's all said and done, we still will own the road, not the city.
Sameer Kanal
Being here, we're actually out of time.
Thank you.
I'm not sure who's next, but please feel free to get started.
Hi, uh, councilors.
Mitch Green
My name is Brett Hofstetter.
Sameer Kanal
I'm recently retired and have worked and lived in the Portland area for the last thank you.
I'm here today to ask you to please stop making this town so unaffordable.
Mitch Green
We already have some of the highest combined water sewer rates in the country.
Sameer Kanal
The most recent increase of July of 2025 was 6%, which is the largest increase in the—.
Mitch Green
In more than 10 years.
I've watched as many of the local professional businesses have left our beloved city over the last 10 years.
Sameer Kanal
I've worked in many of the buildings in downtown Portland when they were full of taxpaying businesses and spent time in many of the same buildings that are now empty.
Mitch Green
I am concerned that with this unaffordability, our neighborhoods will be next.
The, the emigration has already started.
Sameer Kanal
We all have friends and neighbors that have moved away from Portland.
We've experienced a net loss over 18,200 residents between 2010 and 2020.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Mitch Green
Thank you.
Mark Lear
Please go ahead.
Sameer Kanal
Good morning, councilors.
I'm Carl Rohde.
Um, thank you all for your long, uh, holding keeping up the tradition of making Portland the best European city in America.
I am a native Oregonian.
As of yesterday, I'm a homeowner in Portland for 21 years.
In 1919, Oregon became the first state in the nation to pass a gas tax.
And that worked really well right up until about the '70s when gasoline was no longer essentially free.
Automobile manufacturers had to start making efficiency improvements to them, and the erosion began in the effectiveness of the gas tax.
We've been dealing with this for a long time.
I can think of discussions about the dwindling revenue that comes in from a gas tax going back over 3 decades.
So that's why in 2003, when I was on the Lake Oswego City Council, we had adopted a street maintenance fee, which you're calling a transportation utility fee.
We did a lot of public outreach.
We explained that we had a different system than what's in place in Lake Oswego now, but it really stabilized our funding to be able to maintain the streets.
And we rated— we put a rating on the streets from A to F that allowed us to determine as a council what do we want the overall transportation system in the city of Lake Oswego to look like.
And I think at the time we decided we wanted to at least raise it from C- to B+.
And that gave us a target amount of funding that we needed to raise from the transportation utility fee.
One of the things that we explained to a lot of people was that the cost of transportation infrastructure has increased faster than the rate of inflation.
And unless you've recently unless you've paved your driveway, you have no idea what the cost of asphalt is.
And most people don't.
And they also don't realize that asphalt is merely a cover on the road.
So I would encourage you, in the name of the great corporation Nike, to just do it.
And in paraphrasing Gretchen Whitmer from the state of Michigan, fix the damn roads.
Thank you.
Please go ahead, sir.
Mitch Green
Terry Parker, District 3.
Equity is absent.
As an example, take 2 individuals who travel the same distance to work every day.
One drives a car, the other rides a bus.
The person riding the bus has a far greater impact on the roadway than the person who drives the car.
That's because one standard bus does as much wear and tear to the pavement as 1,200 cars.
That calculates out to about 30 cars per bus Due to the weight of batteries, the amount of wear doubled— is doubled to about 60 cars per bus seat for an electric bus.
Bicycle advocates, askabists, provide a lot of lip service for what they want, but they pay nothing for the bike lanes they ride in.
Expect it.
It's the number of people within a household that make a difference on how much transportation infrastructure is utilized.
Not the amount of water used.
Expecting single-family households to pay more than apartment renters or condo households is a form of discrimination.
It is this: you want to be little dictators as to what type of housing people live in, coupled with how people travel.
It's especially discriminating to senior citizens living on fixed incomes who simply want to age in place in the home they worked for a lifetime to pay for and now own.
Aye.
Second.
Mark Lear
Motion carries.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Next item on the agenda is Public Communications.
Mitch Green
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
Mr. Chair—.
Keelan McClymont
Go ahead, Kyle.
Sameer Kanal
Hello.
Hello, City Council.
I will keep this brief.
My name is Kyle Johnson, and I'm the vice chair of BikeLoud PDX.
BikeLoud urges you to do what our previous form of government, the city council, did not do.
Keelan McClymont
Okay, next up we have John Serra, John Giacoppi, Santiago Nolasco Galicia.
Sameer Kanal
Are you—.
Mitch Green
Uh, one question, uh, will you accept written testimony after the public testimony?
Thank you.
We had a power outage of 8 hours last night.
Dan Ryan
Good afternoon, Chair Kanal and members of the Portland City Council.
For the record, my name is John Serra, and I am speaking to you today as a registered lobbyist on behalf of TriMet.
I would like to extend our support for PBOT's efforts to find a funding solution that secures the agency's future for the vital infrastructure that it is responsible for.
To state the obvious, TriMet buses drive on Portland roads.
The City of Portland's ability to adequately maintain those streets impacts not only the quality of the ride for TriMet riders, but also has a significant impact on our bottom line.
Poorly maintained roads slow down our buses and increase our maintenance costs.
As TriMet continues to address our budget constraints, adequate PBOT funding will have a significant impact on the agency's the ability to meet its experience mission.
Thank you.
Of our riders, our attractiveness to new riders, and our ability to direct every available dollar to those who need it most, not just the upkeep of our buses.
I want to thank PBOT Director Millicent Williams, the DCA, and her many staff that have all dedicated countless hours to the planning and public outreach necessary for this effort.
And I want to thank you all, especially Councilor Clark and the members of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee PBOT's work is an essential function of government, and we rely on its success to deliver our own essential services to this community.
Thank you all for your leadership.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
Please go ahead.
Keelan McClymont
Yeah.
Mitch Green
Oh, sorry.
Good morning, councilors.
My name is Santiago Nolasco Galicia.
I'm a climate policy assistant at 350 PDX.
We support finding new sources of revenue to fund transportation, but we implore detailed scrutiny before adopting the transportation utility fee.
I'll mention very briefly that we do support the street damage restoration fee.
It makes sense that entities tearing into the road should pay part of the cost of that and to reduce the times that we disrupt the streets.
The transportation utility fee, on the other hand, would inequitably affect everyone's bills.
Basically immediately.
Before passing the fee, you should really modify it to ensure it is more equitable and helps meet our goals of transportation decarbonization.
Our biggest issue with the TUF is that it is a regressive fee.
This flat fee would apply to multifamily and single-family households regardless of whether they own a car, primarily use public transit, walk, or bike.
As someone who regularly walks and uses transit, Should I really be required to pay the same fee as other Portlanders who are actively driving?
Existing low-income discounts also will not capture every household that relies on alternative methods of transportation.
We would ask you to please include a waiver system for households without a vehicle who primarily use transit as their means of transportation.
Ideally, we would like the council to explore a more progressive system based on income level, Or maybe vehicle miles traveled, just something that can better reflect the reality of how we actually each use the roads.
Our next concern is that it needs to clearly— it needs to more clearly aid in transportation decarbonization.
Finally, if a TUF passes, there needs to be clear guardrails in the ordinance to ensure that this funding goes into its intended purposes rather than disappearing into the general fund.
As we move forward into a more equitable future, we encourage the council to be good stewards of the public funds of the city.
Thank you.
We support the street damage restoration fee and the TUF, uh, and if the TUF is destined to move forward, ensure that the ordinance captures the reality of how we actually use our infrastructure, include that waiver system.
Uh, thank you very much for your time.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
Keelan McClymont
John is joining us online.
Dan Ryan
Good morning, or afternoon now, councilors.
Um, thank you for your detailed thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Thank you, Councilor Dan Ryan, for calling attention to this matter.
I did not have time to change my Zoom background, so don't get too distracted by it.
I just want to give 2 brief points here.
I'm not like a policy expert.
I'm a secretary of the Eco-Socialist Working Group of the Portland DSA, but I'm speaking strictly on my own behalf here.
There's a lot of discussion about how this fee is regressive, and I believe that's true.
And I do believe that there needs to be some policy analysis as to how we can make it less regressive with a waiver system.
Thank you.
I think that this is a very important item for households that do not own a car or that primarily use public transit being a very appealing option.
However, urgency is critical here.
I do not want us to begin significantly tampering with the fee and not get it across the deadline in the time we need it.
We clearly need more effective road maintenance now.
And this brings me to point 2.
We've got 75% of the transportation utility fee going explicitly to maintenance and then 25% going to Vision Zero.
I am comfortable with the split if PBOT is doing effective work at doing some of the work that I know Mitch Green and others have been talking about in previous council sessions, and that is looking at what roads we can afford to maintain.
We cannot simply be seeking to maintain our entire existing road infrastructure system based on our current revenue.
We know we can't.
We need to begin effectively triaging thank you.
And seeing what is critical maintenance and what these funds could be most practically applied for.
We don't want to be spending money maintaining parts of our road system that in the long run we know we're not going to be able to keep in their current use state.
So I'd like you to encourage— I'd like to encourage you to do that.
And then lastly, I just said that we shouldn't be tampering with this too much, but I can guarantee you that if we do not have protection, Thank you.
My concern is, by applying this to a water bill, that people will be evicted.
I personally, I live in an apartment.
I pay my water utility bill through my landlord.
I have known people in this apartment complex who have been evicted.
Part of it is because of unpaid utility bills.
You will see evictions if you do not include this waiver.
And you will see, candidly, I think more of them than you expect.
Please make that an urgent priority and fix that.
I think it's a serious issue.
Keelan McClymont
That completes testimony.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, everyone.
Um, thank you all of our testifiers.
Uh, we do have, uh, several people in the queue, so we'll just get started with that.
Uh, it'll be Councilor Green followed by Councilor Smith.
Mitch Green
Thank you, Chair Kanal, and thank you to everyone who provided testimony today.
Colleagues, um, I'll try to be efficient with my time because Last night I emailed you all and I emailed the clerk a document that I wanted attached to this item, not because I want that document to be an amendment.
I want to be very clear, what I'm about to talk to you is not an amendment to the currently proposed thing, because as, as someone who has worked in a rate-making institution for my career prior to being elected, if you try to change rates and that's just a fact.
And so the reason I have done this method of sort of introducing a concept informally and filing it, so it can stay with the item as the item moves through the different parts of our legislative concept, so we can talk to the community in response to the community.
And so I'll describe what it is and I'll say where it came from.
Basically, you guys all may have seen in your inboxes that there was a survey that was sent out.
Yes.
Boxes, Zendesk, some appeals from organizations like Strong Towns PDX, but also some other kind of urban land use nerds, for lack of a better term, for an alternative proposal that I think is really smart.
And it's also quite elegant.
And it also gets us away from some of the issues that we heard from, in particular, Eric Fruits, who made the— who critiqued the commercial thank you.
So I think we're going to move on to the next piece that would be assessing a fee as a function of your water consumption, which I personally don't like.
And I think that's outside of the— it crosses principles in rate design in this.
So I'll briefly describe it.
The basic idea, and I hope this conversation will provide inspiration to PBOT and allow us to update this proposal over the course of the weeks and months to consider it by council, is to construct a fee based upon a 2-part system.
You have a flat rate component and you have a variable rate component.
So every single billable unit, every sort of door in the City of Portland pays $3.
That's it, irrespective of your use of the system or whatever other consideration.
And then the variable component is a function of how much of the zone— of the buildable zoned land you use per parcel.
So for example, I have a 10,000-square-foot lot in Southwest Portland.
There's one house on that lot.
I'm responsible for paying for the entire 10,000 square feet of that land.
But let's suppose there's another 10,000-square-foot lot and you've got 10 units on it.
It's reasonable to say that each tenant should pay for a tenth of that.
And so the idea is it scales a variable proportion as a function of your square footage occupation.
I think that's a reasonable idea.
And if you, if you design it like this, uh, it does align better with cost causation principles, and it sends a price signal to use our land more efficiently, and it doesn't subsidize sprawl.
The current proposal as it stands, which I'm going to support because we need to pass it so we can get something to build off of, uh, subsidizes and incentivizes sprawl, which then increases the ongoing cost of our transportation system.
Thank you.
So let me say that again.
If we validate a transportation network that does not try to intentionally create more densification and move away from car use, then the ongoing liability of our operations and maintenance of our transportation network will continue to grow per person per year over the decades.
But if you do this other proposal, proposal that incentivizes and apportions your your burden based upon how much square footage of zoned land you occupy, then that shares that burden more equitably.
So that's in the attachment.
I'm happy to answer any questions, but based upon the math that I've done, this generates roughly the same amount of money.
And a person who lives in a 1,200-square-foot apartment pays about $4 a month.
I would pay $13 a month.
The commercial operator, the gentleman, I think his name was Kurt, will no longer pay a fee based upon water consumption.
If they're a 1,200-square-foot storefront, Councilor Ryan, they'll pay $4 a month under my proposal.
So I got you.
You're saving storefronts over here.
So anyway, that's the proposal that I'm not moving today formally.
I want to be very clear.
I'm just bringing it into the public.
I'm responding to communities to say I'm taking this very seriously and I'm uplifting what I am moving is an amendment to— let me pull that up here.
It's called Green 1.
That creates the permission structure to change our rate design year by year by year.
As it's currently written, it suggests that we're only adjusting our rates, which would imply once we've adopted a rate design, then we're really just tweaking the levers inside of that design.
I would like us to consider on an annual basis changing our rate designs as appropriate.
And so Green 1 reads PBOT.
It's item K under the directive part of the ordinance that PBOT will propose rate adjustments, including inflationary increases, and then adds or new rate design proposals to the city council through the city's annual budget process.
I want to be clear: if we're going to engage in rate design studies and engagement, you can't wait until the budget to do that.
And so, if we adopt this amendment, even if we don't adopt this amendment.
I'm going to try to work through the Public Works Committee to have that type of process really intentionally developed so we can consider the trade-offs and the equity considerations of different ways of designing a fee, not just whether or not we should adopt a fee.
So with that, colleagues, I hope I can get your support on that amendment.
Sameer Kanal
So there's been a motion to add or new rate design proposals to Section K. Is there a second?
Second.
I think that'll give that to Avalos.
Colleagues who are still in the queue, we'll keep track of that separately, so feel free to drop out of the queue if you're not discussing the amendment.
And if you are looking to discuss the amendment, please feel free to get into the queue.
I'll just kind of ask as we go.
So this is a debatable motion.
Councilor Zimmerman, are you here to speak to the amendment?
Okay.
I'll go to Councilor Koyama Lane.
Are you speaking to the amendment?
Councilor Avalos?
Councilor Novick online?
Councilor Ryan?
Dan Ryan
No, but point of order.
I'm worried that— well, I'll just speak for myself.
People that aren't in the committee, this is our first time, just ask some bigger picture questions.
And I chose not to do it during the technical because I wanted to make space for the testimony.
We're not going to finish this today.
It looks like we're having that meeting next week, Chair.
And so I hope that I could have a chance to just ask some bigger picture questions right now.
Sameer Kanal
So we— the rules have it—.
Dan Ryan
So I'm fine with the second, but I don't think it's time to do discussion and then vote on amendments today.
Sameer Kanal
I'm fairly certain we're required to do so while we're in the motion by our rules.
Dan Ryan
Look at your book, it's over here.
It is over there.
Sameer Kanal
So if you can grab it for me.
This is Sameer's book.
Yeah, thanks.
Um, but I, I, I will say that I, I do want to make sure that there's time for, for the general conversation because 7 of us are not on that, right, the old transportation infrastructure.
I agree with the broader point.
Um, if you'll bear with me just a moment, I am not seeing anybody else in the queue right now for the amendment, so it is possible that we could vote on the amendment and then get back into that general discussion in the span of a about 30 seconds.
So if, uh, if that's all right with you, um, I will continue with that while we verify it.
Is there anyone else looking to add to the queue for this?
Okay, on the amendment, Keelan, would you please call the roll?
Keelan McClymont
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Absent.
Keelan McClymont
Ryan?
Dan Ryan
Councilor Green, I might be able to get to a yes on this, but not today.
No.
Keelan McClymont
Councilor Koyama Lane?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Councilor Morillo?
Angelita Morillo
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Councilor Novick?
Councilor Novick?
Steve Novick
Absent.
Keelan McClymont
Clerk?
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Shoshana Cohen
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Green?
Mitch Green
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Zimmerman?
Eric Zimmerman
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Avalos?
Candace Avalos
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Dunphy?
Jamie Dunphy
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Smith?
Loretta Smith
No.
Keelan McClymont
Kanal?
Sameer Kanal
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
The amendment is approved with 8 yes votes, 2 no votes, and 2 absent.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, that amendment has been approved.
We'll now go back into the main queue, which continues on with Councilor Smith, followed by Zimmer- thank you, colleagues, councilors.
Candace Avalos
I wholeheartedly support moving forward on the transportation utility fee because our transportation system here in the city of Portland, and especially in District 1, is failing, and it's falling behind the needs of our residents.
Last March, I introduced a resolution called SIP, and it's better known to some of you by the sidewalk improvement and paving project, which identified District 1 and District 4 as the 2 areas in the city that needed sidewalks the most and pothole filling and street paving.
And I want to give a special thanks to Council Vice President Clark and Mayor Wilson for their leadership with the TUF and my Public Works Committee and Transportation Committee members members for their leadership in trying to get this across the finish line.
In East Portland and throughout District 1, which is east of 82nd, too many people are still walking on the high— in the high-crash corridor network, representing only about 8% of Portland streets, but it accounts for the majority of deadly crashes.
Shoshana Cohen
Aye.
Candace Avalos
Crashes.
And many of those dangerous corridors run through East Portland communities that have been underinvested in for decades.
If we are serious about safety, access, and equity, then we have to create stable transportation funding and start addressing these gaps at the scale of the problem that it demands.
District 1 residents have already told us what they need fixing potholes was a top priority for District 1 residents, both in person and on the survey these past couple of months.
A majority of District 1 residents who attended the open house— this is also a public safety issue.
In 2025, District 1 had 11 of Portland's 39 traffic deaths, the second highest total of any district, even after East Portland saw an improvement from the prior years.
Portland's high-crash network makes up about 8% of the city streets, but it accounted for an average of 67% of traffic deaths from 2020 to 2024.
That tells us the status quo is not acceptable.
For District 1, the fee is about equity and basic infrastructure.
And safe sidewalks, smoother pavement, safer crossings, and streets that do not put residents at risk just for walking outside, rolling, or driving to school, work, or to a bus stop.
District 1 is still dealing with major sidewalk inequities.
Portland has more than 170 miles of missing sidewalk Council adopted SIP, the SIP resolution that states that most streets in District 1 and District 4 lack sidewalks entirely.
We're asking District 1 residents to live with deteriorating infrastructure every single day.
PBOT estimates nearly 2/3 of the city's local streets are in poor and very poor condition.
Millicent Williams
Councilmember Herbold.
Keelan McClymont
Thank you.
Candace Avalos
And well over half of the busy streets are in similarly bad shape.
I would like to urge my colleagues to not delay this and bog this down with a bunch of amendments.
Let's pass this so we can get this on the docket and help those underserved, underinvested neighborhoods that have not had a chance to be upgraded thank you for doing this, Councilor Clark.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Next up is Councilor Zimmerman, followed by Councilor Koyama Lane.
Eric Zimmerman
Thank you, Chair.
I actually have some questions about the restoration fee that I'd like to ask to the staff that's in the room so I can better understand the nuances to that program.
Let me just start with, it seems weird that we don't charge an organization or a person who cuts into our pavement.
So, um, to go from not to 75%, and then I, as I highlighted earlier, I'm considering going to 100% of the restoration.
I'm just trying to understand what that really means as a person who, when I bought my home, I had I had to redo the sewer line.
Obviously, that means cutting some pavement, but I paid that contractor through that permitting process to take care of that work.
And included in that may have been some asphalt, right?
So that payment occurred from me to the contractor because it's not that PBOT didn't come out and do that work.
It was Bob's new pipe business, whatever.
So What is— is this about when PBOT is replacing pavement, or is this when anybody's cutting in?
And can we talk about what that means a little bit?
Millicent Williams
Sure.
Thanks for the question, Councilor Zimmerman.
Millicent Williams, for the record, Director of the Portland Bureau of Transportation.
The street damage restoration fee is just what you mentioned at the last part of your conversation.
It is a fee that is assessed to those who are cutting into the pavement that are typically, um, uh, the utilities, uh, uh, folks like, of course, the Water Bureau, um, BES, uh, Verizon, uh, Comcast, Lucent, Lumen Technologies, uh, all of, all of those folks.
Eric Zimmerman
That's because they also use our public right-of-ways for their conduits.
Millicent Williams
So they're currently paying a permit— that's right, they're currently paying a permit fee, but they aren't paying, uh, for, uh, the damage that is done to the asset once they make that cut.
So when a cut is made into the pavement, especially at the depths that we're anticipating— oh great, Alex, our chief engineer, is here, who will take this over as soon as I finish this statement.
In fact, I'm going to just let him dig in right now.
Alex, take it away.
Eric Zimmerman
So to speak, huh?
Dan Ryan
All right.
Mitch Green
Alex Maharno, chief engineer, PBOT.
Your question is basically, is that contractor paying for that piece, or will they It's the effect of—.
Millicent Williams
We don't charge for street damage restoration right now.
We are proposing this fee that would go onto the utilities that are in fact cutting into the street.
The question is around the damage that's created by that cut and how— probably how the utilities are receiving the information that they are going to be now assessed a fee.
That extends beyond just that permit fee.
Eric Zimmerman
Yeah, yeah, I think—.
Sameer Kanal
Right.
Mitch Green
So basically, you know, anytime you cut the pavement, there is the associated fee with the cut itself, and then there's associated damage that the surrounding soils, what have you, are loosened, if you will.
So the cut impact is bigger than just the cut.
So this would be applied to anybody who's cutting pavement.
It would not apply to behind the curb because it is not pavement, right?
So any concrete or asphalt you do cut will have this fee, including contractors, what have you, they would be assessed this as part of their street opening permit.
Eric Zimmerman
Okay, so I'm going to use Northwest Natural.
They have to cut into a street.
I'm going to use 4th Avenue because we're on 4th Avenue.
And they are— they pay a utility fee, right?
And that's to have the pipes in the ground— or excuse me, a franchise fee.
That's to have the pipes in the right.
We're going to cut 12 feet of pavement, and when they do that, it's Northwest Natural's contractors are the ones who are actually putting the new asphalt down and finishing it.
But what we're saying is when you make a dent in the overall product, that product's lifespan reduces.
I think we heard 60% earlier in the presentation, and now we want to capture a fee for that degradation.
I want to make sure I'm just saying this the right way and I'm understanding the impact.
Mitch Green
Right.
Okay.
The, the only nuance to that is Northwest Natural is paying that fee, not the contractor.
Northwest Natural is having their contractor do that.
But yes.
Eric Zimmerman
Yeah.
Um, okay, so historically we have not charged that facet of it, correct?
Olivia Clark
That's correct.
Eric Zimmerman
What is the reason that you're aware of?
And I'm sure it predates you.
Can you talk a little bit about why that has been the case?
Mitch Green
I could speak at this, uh, for a long time.
Uh, I've been here with Almost 32 years.
I've proposed this street damage restoration fee probably 20 years ago, and we've worked through this process.
So I can't tell you how excited I am that we're at this point.
So once we get this, I'll retire.
Okay.
But no, really, this is really something that we've talked about for a long time.
It is needed.
The degradation is there.
It's real.
Other cities, we, you know, explained Los Angeles and other areas other cities have experienced this, and so they've identified ways to address this.
We're just now catching up to that, and that's why we're trying to move this forward.
Millicent Williams
As has been the case, Councilor Zimmerman, it's a series of choices that have been made over the course of the past many years.
And when we've had the opportunity to bring things forward, it was at the pleasure of previous councils to make a determination about whether or not we would move forward with something, when we would recommend solutions to the problems that we see.
They were met with varying degrees of support.
And so we find ourselves where we are now.
Eric Zimmerman
I think about insurance rules in Oregon.
If you're in a car accident, it allows you to get made whole.
And this seems kind of similar to like we should make the product whole.
And since we can't, we do that by collecting a fee so that when the whole road gets redone, we have been collecting because it's going to get done earlier than it would have but for this work that occurred.
I want to make sure that we're connecting.
Candace Avalos
Yeah.
Millicent Williams
So there's some— I don't want to call it nuance.
There's some process that's related to the determination about whether or not the fee would even be charged.
First of all, if 4 entities come together and say we are going to do work on 4th Avenue, let's coordinate so that we can make sure that if you're putting in something that's below the surface, you do that first.
You go in the year before and do that.
And then ultimately we would come in as the final portion of that work and do that top layer of pavement so that we aren't seeing that pavement cut and degraded immediately, as unfortunately is the case right outside of this door.
So we have lots of—.
Eric Zimmerman
The other option, we could say if we've paved it in the last 5 years, tough luck.
You don't get to do upgrades unless something breaks.
Millicent Williams
And that's part of what this would move toward facilitating.
It's the timelines within which a cut would be proposed.
It's the age of a street.
It's the current condition of the street, whether or not the fee would be assessed.
If we're all thumbs up on coordination, which is what we're working toward, then those utilities would not actually have a fee to pay.
Shoshana Cohen
Right.
Millicent Williams
So while the—.
Eric Zimmerman
They just say, hey, we're about to do a major project.
That's right.
Today's the day to get your stuff together.
Millicent Williams
Absolutely.
So that's our hope.
Eric Zimmerman
For the sake of time, I'm sorry to cut you off a little bit.
For the sake of time, colleagues, I am gonna move that amendment because I'd actually rather start at the 100% restoration instead of— and if there's discussion as we go through this process, so I think my team has posted it, but if they have not yet, in the very second to last be it resolved, I believe, in the agenda, In this, it has a, it has a 75% number.
I'm moving to move that to a 100% number for damage recovery amount as part of the transportation fee schedule.
Uh, so there's a pause.
So there's my movement.
I'd appreciate any second.
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
Motion has been made by Councilor Zimmerman, seconded by Green, to amend the resolution.
Once again, we're going to pause this queue.
I'll run through everybody quickly if you'd like to be in the queue to discuss the amendment, you can, uh, rejoin.
Um, so Councilor Koyama Lane, would you like to speak to the amendment?
Keelan McClymont
Kind of.
Um, I think I, I'd like to know how this interacts with Vision Zero and some conversations that, um, Director Williams— we were starting to have and, um, was chatting with Councilor Clark to see, um, how this amendment would interact.
And let me know if this is outside of the scope, if I may, it's too different.
Candace Avalos
Is it?
Keelan McClymont
Well, would this change anything around if we were to make the 20% of the—.
Millicent Williams
Totally different.
Eric Zimmerman
This is the other ordinance or other resolution.
Millicent Williams
This is for the street damage restoration fee, not for the transportation utility fee.
Okay, okay, thank you.
Keelan McClymont
No comment on this.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
Councilor Avalos, would you like to speak to this amendment?
Seeing a shake of the head there.
Councilor Ryan to the amendment?
I'm next in the queue.
I'm just going to say I support it and nothing else on the amendment.
Councilor Novick, would you like to speak to the amendment?
I support it.
Okay.
Councilor Green, would you like to speak to the amendment?
Mitch Green
Yeah, I seconded it because I think if you're going to send— if you're going to establish a fee that really tries to establish a price signal that changes behavior and recovers the cost of Causation of such a behavior, then it needs to be aggressive enough to change that behavior.
And so if we do it right, then we won't collect this fee at all because then we will have coordinated this work ahead of time and everyone saves money, including the ratepayers.
And I think you send a stronger signal if it's 100% versus 75%, and that's why I support it.
Sameer Kanal
Great, thank you so much.
Seeing nobody else in the queue right now, we have information sorry, I'm reading through the amendment.
Candace Avalos
Can I ask a question?
Maybe, maybe let me get in the queue so I can ask a question.
Eric Zimmerman
So, so I don't think you have the one that I sent you, one that's not on this one.
You're, you're looking at a different one.
Candace Avalos
What you emailed us is not what we're talking about?
Eric Zimmerman
No, I'm talking about the resolution on this, the restoration, not the, not the transportation utility fee.
I know that 75 is used in both, but okay, it is confusing.
Candace Avalos
Maybe I just need a second to see.
Do I have something in front of me, or—.
Eric Zimmerman
I think it might be on the way.
Apparently the clerk's not posting amendments right now to the webpage, so we're having to send them out.
So apologies for that.
Sameer Kanal
But Councilor Zimmerman, can I clarify?
Eric Zimmerman
Please.
Sameer Kanal
In the resolution, which is the second item on the agenda, the second to last, be it further resolved, I believe that in that second line where it says be it further resolved, the council supports the city administrator's intent to include a street damage restoration fee at the 75% damage recovery amount, that this would change the 75% to 100%.
And I also believe that that is the totality of the amendment.
Eric Zimmerman
That is correct.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, I'm getting— yeah, that verified there.
So that's just changing the 75% to 100%, second to last, be it further resolved in the, uh, resolution.
Um, there is no one else in the queue, so Councilor Avalos, if you want to a question, this is a, uh, good time to do it, but it is literally, I think, 2 characters, not even a full word.
Eric Zimmerman
So, uh, uh, yeah, okay, sorry for the confusion there.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, seeing no one else in the queue, Keelan, would you please call the roll on the amendment?
Keelan McClymont
Pirtle-Guiney?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Absent.
Keelan McClymont
Ryan?
Dan Ryan
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Koyama Lane?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Morillo?
Olivia Clark
Look at all of us agreeing.
Hope the Oregonian publishes it.
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Novick?
Steve Novick
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Clark?
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Green?
Mitch Green
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Zimmerman?
Eric Zimmerman
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Avalos?
Candace Avalos
This is a good example of why we need the ability to make amendments.
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Dunphy?
Jamie Dunphy
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Smith?
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Kanal?
Sameer Kanal
Before I vote, I just noticed Councilor Pirtle-Guiney is back online.
So before you call the answer, can we allow her to make a point of order if she'd like to cast a vote?
Candace Avalos
Sure.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, I'm gonna vote aye.
And if we could pause for— to give her a second.
Keelan McClymont
Thank you.
Can you hear my point of order?
Angelita Morillo
Yes.
Keelan McClymont
Fantastic.
I had said aye, but I think it was too late.
Sameer Kanal
I think you're still good.
Keelan McClymont
So I'd like to add an aye vote.
Sameer Kanal
Perfect.
Keelan McClymont
All right, the amendment is approved with 12 yes votes.
Eric Zimmerman
Great.
Chair, I had one more before I go.
And on this one, I'm— you're doing a great job at like getting us to vote on them, but I want to put this up there as a— I don't think we'll close this out, so I guess I'm going to propose it.
And if we have a second to put it in the background for a while, I'm fine with that.
But what I have sent you colleagues is another amendment, and this now pertains to the overall transportation utility fee.
As you're aware, 75%, as was laid out in the presentation, is going to maintenance.
Um, the other 25% is about Vision Zero, and that's been important, but my assessment of that is that it was a little loose in what could be spent and how it would be spent.
So I've sent you an amendment that articulates 12.5%— that's half— to the SIP Thank you.
And the other 12.5% specifically has to be spent on Vision Zero, not just a can be spent on Vision Zero.
And I expect that this amendment will get some discussion, and that's why, Chair, I'd like to put it up there.
It is getting posted.
You've extended the deadlines for this meeting.
I have to leave at this moment, so I wanted to highlight it and know that you all have it, and I'm happy to discuss through it later.
Sameer Kanal
So I'm going to interpret that the way that Councilor Green's comment was.
So something that can live with this as it goes to the full— to the next time we discuss it and then can be formally moved.
Is that—.
Eric Zimmerman
That would be appreciated.
Sameer Kanal
Great, thank you.
So that is in everyone's email as well.
All right, we'll go to Councilor Koyama Lane followed by Councilor Avalos.
Keelan McClymont
Thank you, Chair.
Um, I am wondering if we can maybe have some can some leaders, representatives from PBOT speak a bit to the feasibility of if we were to amend that subsection G to require that something like no less than 20% of the TUF revenues be dedicated to traffic safety activities?
Can you speak to that?
How feasible is that?
How would you define, outline which types of projects or measures qualify as traffic safety?
What should we consider and know?
Millicent Williams
Thank you, Councilor Koyama Lane, for the question and for raising your concern.
We can certainly do what this council directs as relates to the ways that we would apply the funding that would come through the TUF.
The recommendation around a percentage that should be dedicated to one area of interest or another is just something that we would need to build into The overall programmatic implementation and budget based on whatever passes through this council.
Very similar to what we do with Fixing Our Streets, there is a percentage of projects that initially when we set up Fixing Our Streets that were dedicated to maintenance and 47% were for safety.
53% Maintenance, 47% safety.
And we had to report on that according to that.
And we had to define what a safety project was versus a maintenance project.
Thank you.
We would do the same with this funding source to ensure that people are really clear when we say a safety project or a Vision Zero project or a traffic operations project.
This is what that means.
It includes these elements or does not include these elements.
A maintenance project is this.
Now, what I will also share is that just because it's classified as a maintenance project doesn't mean that it's not a safety project as well.
We hope to, in all of our efforts, ensure that the maintenance work that we're doing is actually supporting overall safety.
So, and I'm not saying that to get us out of doing some very specific Vision Zero work, but I do want to provide the assurance that we are thinking about a full range of need when we're talking about the work that we're doing.
And we're looking at opportunities to enhance projects, especially to ensure that we are meeting a higher threshold than we perhaps are even legally required to do to ensure that we are meeting the safety expectations.
I will share that the City of Portland does go above and beyond most cities as it relates to imposing safety guidance and planning and design on our projects than most cities do in the country.
So it's not a problem, to answer your question.
Keelan McClymont
Thank you so much for explaining that and for your commitment to this area and for being so thoughtful about that process.
I'll make sure my office works directly with you all and Chair Clark to see what makes sense moving forward.
Unidentified speaker
Thanks.
Millicent Williams
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Councilor Koyama Lane.
Councilor Avalos, followed by Ryan.
Candace Avalos
Thank you, Chair.
All right, so a couple of thoughts and then a couple of questions.
First, I just want to, like everybody else has, appreciate the work that's gone into bringing this forward and bringing forward a long-term solution to Portland's transportation funding challenges.
I hear from my constituents all the time about potholes and safety issues and basic maintenance, and it's clear that we need a more stable and sustainable funding source to address those needs.
At the same time, this proposal raises important questions to me about fairness and affordability.
For many Portlanders, especially in East Portland, the cost of living is already high, and any new fee, no matter how small it may seem, really adds up.
In fact, I regularly have constituents set up meetings with me in my constituent office hours, particularly elders on fixed incomes, and they literally bring me their bills.
They bring me their utility bills so that I can see the impact, and they say, if you do not stop this, I will be homeless.
Let that sink in, because people really are on the edge, and any increases on their utility fees adds up to them not being able to pay their bills, and then they're worried about their housing stability.
So that does come up often, and I need to speak up for those, those constituents.
I also have some concerns about the commercial fee structure, which is based on a percentage of a utility bill.
It's not really clear to me yet that the utility usage is the best proxy for transportation system use, and I just want to better understand how this will impact different types of businesses.
And finally, I just want to ensure that investments from this fee are equitably distributed, particularly for us in East Portland, because we have significant infrastructure gaps and safety needs.
So I'm supportive of the goal, but I, I do want some more clarity and some stronger guardrails around equity, transparency, and accountability.
So with that, let me start here.
District 1 residents have been waiting a long time for basic infrastructure, things like pothole repair, sidewalk maintenance, and in some cases are experiencing stagnant or declining service levels.
So if we are asking them to pay more through this fee, what guarantees are in place to ensure that they are seeing a proportional and meaningful return on their investment?
Millicent Williams
And you want that answer today?
Okay, I just wasn't sure if that was one that you wanted us to posit, that you were positing for later.
Sure.
We recognize, and we see this every day, that there are parts of the community that are underinvested or have been disinvested over decades.
One of the efforts that is underway, and this is something that we are doing all the time, is assessing overall condition of the system.
It's the streets, it's the sidewalks, it's where the gaps are, it's access, it's all of those things that make living comfortable for people.
And so we do know where the areas of greatest need are.
Greatest need are to be able to very quickly assess how we might be able to go in and provide the levels of support that communities would need.
I think if we are looking at, and as we've talked about, the SIP program, one of the expectations of that program is that we'd be able to go in and see where the areas of greatest need are and invest there to get folks up to a level of at least good so that we can level the playing field and everyone has access to the services that they need.
Thank you.
So we do think about that all the time.
We have tools that we use to inform our decision-making.
Some of those were developed in past years, but we still use that guidance to help to inform how we make our decisions about what we are going to do.
I'll give you an example.
Okay.
We were talking about the 80th and Mill work that was done several years ago.
There's an elementary school that is located on 80th and Mill.
That's at the intersection of 80th and Mill.
Uh, the kids were literally walking to school through gigantic mud puddles.
Uh, we were able to work with PPS and the community, uh, to develop an LID.
Now, this is something that, that's a different, um, funding mechanism, but we developed an, an LID to ensure that those, uh, streets were in fact, uh, ones— and sidewalks were ones that the, the community could use.
And it has made a tremendous difference in the quality of the lives of the children that are trying to get to school on a daily basis.
But we've done some work, especially as it relates to the walk shed for schools.
There's a school, and I don't know if our pedestrian coordinator is here or if Art's back there and can yell it out from the back of the room, about a school that right now has a 300-foot walk shed.
But with some very strategic and thoughtful planning, we will be able to, with a decent investment, get to a mile walk shed from that school.
That's the type of work that we would be able to do.
One of the things that we talked about most recently was ensuring that we're looking at all of the schools in the area to make sure— that's a tier that we need to make sure we're focusing on, to make sure that those folks are getting to and from their destinations safely.
How do we do that?
That's the sidewalks.
That is the streets.
And so, yes, of course, District 1 is one of those areas where we know we've done—.
Candace Avalos
We can do more and we Yeah, and I think to echo a little bit of what I heard earlier from Councilor Zimmerman around like, how are you measuring it, right?
Because, um, Councilor Dunphy and I did a town hall a few months ago, and we had a table— it was about Gateway— we had a table about transportation.
And one thing that stuck out to me from what people were saying was, we are interested in these kinds of improvements, you just need to communicate it to us.
Yeah, I think that's a great point.
How is it impacting our safety?
Are we lowering the amount of traffic deaths?
So how are you all communicating this?
Because this is sure a structural fiscal thing, but this is also a political problem for us, right?
As you hear, people are frustrated to hear that they're, you know, to them it's their taxes, right?
Regardless of what you call it, it's more money they gotta pay every month.
And so what does it look like to be able to measure that, to communicate that out, and to show real tangible, like, results?
Yeah, I think that's a great question.
Like change on the ground.
Um, you know, I, uh, like many people are big, uh, Mayor Mom Donny fan, and he posted a video where he was like, we filled 8,000 potholes in a day.
They did like a whole blitz.
And I was like, how?
I told the mayor, I told Mayor Wilson, I was like, can we have a pothole blitz?
Millicent Williams
Can we have a day where we can just like go out there and just fill— we had March Madness a couple years ago and did thousands and thousands of potholes.
And yes, we can do that.
Candace Avalos
I believe—.
Millicent Williams
I, I hear you.
And, uh, people do know to know the impact of their investment.
Again, using Fixing Our Streets as the example, the byline is Our Dime at Work, and we can point specifically to projects that your dime went to make an impact in the community for or with.
So we will be able to do that with this program as well.
As the city administrator just mentioned a few minutes ago before the recess, being able to have signage that says TUF paid for this and this is how.
There's been an impact to community.
We also will have the dashboards that folks can go in and see where we are literally from day to day in terms of the work that we're intending to do.
That's really, really important for us internally as well as for those who are investing in us.
We want to make sure that people know that we take their investment very seriously and we want to be good stewards of the investments that's being made.
And we want for people to be able to trust that we are going to do what they're expecting for us to do.
We hear it all the time.
I don't have a sidewalk.
I don't have a street.
How do you expect me to A, B, C, D, E, F, G?
And we recognize that.
We want to make sure that we're addressing that and correcting that.
Now, I will share, and this came up even last week when we were for a different— before the T&I committee about the cost— no, it was full council— about the cost cost of doing business in certain parts of town where there is no existing infrastructure.
So that— it will cost more because there is nothing there.
But once we make the investment and we make the best investment, we will be able to see the length of time that those assets last based on this ongoing investment, have the cumulative effect of really being able to So we make the investment initially.
We don't just say, oh, we built it and we're gone.
We build into the building of new infrastructure the maintenance of infrastructure so that we won't find ourselves in this really downward spiral regarding the infrastructure investments that are being made.
So we'll talk about how we're able to communicate about the work that we're doing.
We do want people to know that, yep, this is a priority.
Thank you.
This is what you paid for that light.
You paid for that sidewalk square.
You paid for that ramp.
You paid for that bit of street.
And we also, though, want to make sure that folks know that every place where we invest will not look the same.
Some of that's because it cannot, based on topography and based on urgency to do something.
So we are adjusting the ways that we're thinking about even doing our work.
Alex and his team are evaluating how we might look at a series of alternatives that make the list of options for us broader in terms of being able to very quickly go out, do the things that are important for people, and then also looking out on the horizon for how we can do those really big transformational work— that big transformational work as well.
Unidentified speaker
A couple of quick things that I want to add, final points to what Director Liam said, um, in— so these are things that we can do as the project goes on as well.
We also will have the customer bill inserts, and we can include information on what those, uh, fees are for.
And in addition to that, Public Works is planning to have a, um, district-by-district newsletter that we will share with each of the councilors, uh, so you can share what is the ongoing, uh, infrastructure work that is happening in each of your districts and upcoming work as well.
So you can Thank you.
Candace Avalos
And, you know, I'll just say as it relates to like engagement and all of that, my staff were in a briefing yesterday about 120 seconds.
I know we're trying to make that safer, sounds great, but I am a little concerned about what I heard from that briefing, which is that it's like we're barreling through and, you know, the staff are like, present this big pretty plan, and it's like, I know that my constituents are going to be mad about some of the things in this plan.
And so I just want to name that.
I think District 1 in particular, what I heard a lot when I was knocking on doors was they felt frustrated that they were like, we appreciate when PBOT comes in, but we don't always feel like they listen to us about what's best for us.
And that is an ongoing thing I keep hearing this year.
So again, you know, that's every, you know, person in Portland, but I just hear it so particularly in D1 because because, for example, they were like, PBOT came in and put in this bike lane here, and it's like, if they would've talked to us, we would've preferred that they put it on this side, 'cause now you have a bike lane next to the park, and now parents who bring, you know, drive a car with their kids to this park have to cross the street, right?
That's a simple thing that could've just from talking to the neighbors in that area, they could've told you, yes, we are okay with the bike lane, we would've preferred on the other side.
So these are the kinds of things that I hear.
The frustrations that I hear from D1 about PBOT.
And so I'm raising those as we look at, um, you know, not only implementing this, but also one thing that you mentioned, let me flag, because that I'm concerned about, um, you know, like it costs more, right?
It costs more in D1.
We don't have the infrastructure.
We don't have— we don't even have the hubs in East Portland.
So just miles per hour, things cost more just because you got to drive all the way out to East Portland.
That's really unfair to us that we're going to have to pay a pretty penny more even though we have less, and they're all paying their tax— their taxes, and they do not feel like they're getting their investment back, right?
So that's why I'm asking that first question.
But then also, when it— as it relates to maintenance, this, you know, from, you know, the 75% of it is going to maintenance.
Is that how I'm understanding?
So again, great, but you can't maintain something that doesn't exist.
Sameer Kanal
Sure.
Candace Avalos
So I want to make sure that that doesn't mean that all of the other streets are going to get all their pretty streets, everything's going to be great.
And we're still not going to have streets to maintain at all.
So I, I don't know how to square that right now.
I'm thinking through that still and, um, plan to bring some ideas forward.
But, um, let me ask one more quick question.
From my understanding, in Oregon City they have a model— this is about the commercial one— they have a model for commercial pavement maintenance utility fee where non-residential, non-residential are charges based on the type and size of development instead of a So can you just clearly explain why a percentage of utility bill is the best proxy in your view?
Mark Lear
Councilor Avalos, Mark Lear, PBOT, the short answer is that we established the water and sewer bill as a proxy, as an immediate tool for us to make sure that we have that balance between residential properties paying and commercial properties paying.
But we are looking at other ways to do that.
But we have established in the ordinance that we would report— we're required to report back to council about 18 months after we start the program to provide alternatives.
Either a traditional approach, which is based on the type of business and the multiplier per 1,000 square feet of trips, or some kind of an appeals process for that initial proxy that we're using of the water and sewer bill.
Candace Avalos
Okay, um, let me just end it there.
Really grateful for this.
I, I think that, um, I'm— let me just ask maybe a process question because we're coming up on time.
What is the expectation for how this con— this conversation continues after this?
Sameer Kanal
At this moment, if it should be referred out, it would be referred to the full council and up to Council President Dunphy when to put it on the full council agenda for either or both items.
They can be separately handled, and if they're not, they'd be continued over to the next meeting of this committee, which is going to okay.
Candace Avalos
And so we would need to take some sort of action to move it out if that's what we wanted?
Sameer Kanal
Yes.
Dan Ryan
Okay.
Candace Avalos
Sounds good.
Olivia Clark
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Councilor Avalos.
Councilor Ryan followed by Novick.
Dan Ryan
Thank you so much, Chair Kanal.
Councilor Avalos, you remind me that since I've been in elected office in this body, if there's one consistency It's every neighborhood association meeting and many other meetings.
PBOT's at the top of the agenda.
So Portlanders have a lot of passionate opinions about PBOT, and I know that you all know this.
First, I want to really take a moment to recognize the amazing and hardworking PBOT staff that are out there doing the tough work on the ground, repairing, paving as we speak.
I don't think they get lifted enough when we have conversations like this.
I really appreciate you, Councilor Clark.
Thank you.
Thank you, Council Clerk, and the former Transportation Committee for the diligence you've done on this topic.
Please know, for those of us that aren't on the committee, this is how the system works, and we just now have an opportunity to, to dive in ourselves and ask some bigger picture questions perhaps.
When I'm looking and trying to understand a problem that requires major reforms, I like to understand the current revenue, which I thought you did a good job of in the presentation explaining that.
Thank you.
I also like to understand how we deliver efficiency In other words, nothing like a crisis to do some major reforms and turn it into an opportunity.
So over the decades, a lot of things have changed.
I don't think all this was lifted as much as it should have been.
We've seen a slowdown of federal revenue.
That was explained very well.
We have added better bike, transit, and pedestrian infrastructure in our city.
Our city has taken on more maintenance that used to be with the state.
82Nd.
A good decision, but it also added a maintenance burden that we didn't have prior to that.
Declining fossil fuel revenue, and while electrical vehicles do not add fossil fuels into our air and water, they are also heavier and causing more damage on our roadways.
So how is that connected?
And finally, and often not said out loud, our frontline PBOT staff have to spend increasing time managing their vital work around the humanitarian crisis on our streets that increased since the implementation of Measure 110.
Albeit reformed, the impact is seen by Portlanders daily.
I want to thank those often unsung outreach workers that are from PBOT that are doing that work daily.
And again, I don't think we talk about it enough.
It gets put under the rug.
And so along with TriMet, I want to lobby That we should be able to leverage Metro SHS funds for this work.
And that should be another revenue stream that we should consider.
So thank you for listening, colleagues and leaders of PBOT.
That was a lot of context and background that I would've asked if I was in the committee.
I need to ask this.
Were all of these factors I just mentioned discussed when proposing what is the other side of the street, the revenue solution, not the practice and infrastructure solution?
Yes.
Sameer Kanal
Is that for Councilor Clark or for staff?
Dan Ryan
It could be from either.
Shoshana Cohen
Thank you for the question.
I think many of those things, yes, we have sort of a longer story of how we got here that we have used sort of through many of these discussions.
And the things that you mentioned around decreasing fuel tax, increasing EVs and the impact on roads, um, us staff having to spend increased amount of time because of changing conditions on the streets.
All of those are part of the story of how we got here.
And yes, we sort of the, um, we've had a combination of changing our practices and thinking about new revenue.
So yes.
Millicent Williams
And specifically to the efficiency, uh, question, I do want to share that the bureau has, uh, over the course of the past several years, again, based on the fact that we've recognized the need to fill a gap in our budget, looked at how we might do things differently.
So we did engage in a realignment exercise, bringing bodies of work, like bodies of work together, and determining how we would more efficiently move through the work.
That did not necessarily mean a reduction in force exercise as much as it was bringing the errant— not In bringing the separated functions more closely together, one of the areas that was specifically an area of focus, it's both within the engineering space and the transportation operations space.
We brought together engineering departments that were servicing development but were also servicing capital projects, brought that together under one roof, making sure that those engineers that are doing that work are now well-rounded in a body of work that allows for them to do more than one thing well, multiple things well.
And so we're able to find the opportunity to provide that longevity for staff to ensure that there's consistency in the ways that we apply the work and the policy and that we're able to carry out a number of things.
So we did some realignment because we recognized that we were too dispersed in the ways that we were managing our work.
So transportation operations now not only includes just signals and street lighting and street design, but also parking enforcement and parking regulatory, because they are responsible for the movement and the management of the right-of-way in that particular way.
They also manage the TSUB permits.
Thank you.
So people who are coming in, the 25,000 people who get permits a year, that's all under transportation operations.
It used to be dispersed in other parts of the organization.
So we've done some efficiency work to ensure that we can find answers in one place versus having to shop around even internally.
Dan Ryan
As we're making this case during an affordability crisis, I think we have to be more crisp and clear on how we're improving operations.
Absolutely.
And I don't think I've heard that today, and that's what I'm getting at.
So I've always lived by a policy: you have to take care of your side of the street before you can ask others to join you and be a partner.
And I think we're, we're not making that case as clearly as possible.
So when I hear what you're saying now, that's pleasing, but what does that continuous improvement plan look like?
Millicent Williams
Sure, we can certainly provide that.
Dan Ryan
I'm just pressuring you before we get to the final vote of this, of thinking about how we could make that case.
Mark Lear
Can I add one on top of that?
Yeah, um, thanks for the question, Councilor Ryan.
Um, I've overseen the Fixing Our Streets program for— since its start in 2016.
And to me, one of the— building on what Director Williams said— one of the most exciting things that's happened and sort of how we've specifically— how we've connected some of the work is we've been triaging work for a long time, right?
We're paving the busiest streets, the high-crash corridors, that kind of thing.
But we used to We used to have this practice when a street got to a pavement condition that we said, okay, we just have to rebuild it, right?
And as we were doing that, and we were totally broke, we started hearing from some of our maintenance crews that were saying, you know, if we did a grind and pave in this section, we did a reconstruction where it's— the road's failing, but then we could stretch our dollar and do a 2-inch grind and overlay on some other parts of the street.
We could really do a lot more, and we could potentially touch streets that are our most important streets, right?
That, right, otherwise we're like, ah, we just don't have enough money to do the full rebuild, right?
And Director Williams and the team both— and it was amazing to me, right?
The maintenance crews that are more engaged in the conversation with the engineers, and it's oftentimes, you know, one side of the river and the other, they're having these conversations, right?
When we get those groups together and we really hear the ground, the smarts from the ground, right, of the crews doing the work, we We've figured out how to do projects that are a tenth as expensive as they might have been if we were doing full reconstruction.
So I think that's a story that we're starting to tell more.
We need to tell it more.
And it's those conversations we're having at the Fixing Our Streets Committee.
Dan Ryan
I appreciate everything you said.
I'll wrap up.
My point is I just don't want to keep investing in a system that's not being overhauled, but, but is being overhauled with some necessary reforms at the same time.
People don't want to see status quo thank you.
So I can hear that you have that appetite.
I'll end with this, and that is role clarity.
I think a lot of people don't understand what the state maintains, what the county maintains— bridges.
A lot of people don't realize that the county's responsible for bridges.
And then we all know that there was a lot of controversy with transportation bills down in Salem this past session.
And I think that I would like to hear more how this is intersecting with our other partners.
Who's on first for what?
And I hear that we have to take care of our own, but are we also being too gratuitous to take care of things that really should be under other jurisdictions?
And if we are, the public needs to know about that because they're feeling like they're being, uh, getting invoiced from all 3 sources and wondering if they're working together.
Does that make sense?
Millicent Williams
It makes sense.
And I think we have some opportunities to, uh, further provide further information on our current budget because there are things that we do pay for that are not ours.
Um, uh, some debt and— sorry, I'm sorry.
Sameer Kanal
We're—.
Dan Ryan
I appreciate that we got to have some dialogue.
Millicent Williams
Happily, happy to share that.
Unidentified speaker
Yes.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, thank you, Councilor Ryan.
I'm sorry, I'm not trying to cut you off, just making sure that there's time for your conversation.
I'm, I'm I'm currently interpreting this as you effectively still having the floor, but because we're going to have to continue this in order to get out, uh, on time here, I'm just making sure.
And that means I, I'm noting that Councilor Novick, Councilor Clark, and myself are still in the queue, and I'll maintain that when we come back to it.
Um, but unless there's any motions that I need to be aware of right now, um, I'm going to—.
Olivia Clark
Councilor Councilor Kanal, I would like to call the question on the street restoration fee, which is document 2026-114.
I think we've had a pretty good discussion of that.
We've amended it, and while I would like to have them both move together, if I can get one moving, that's great.
Sameer Kanal
I'm going to interpret that as a motion to refer the item to the full council.
Olivia Clark
I'm sorry.
Dan Ryan
Yes.
Candace Avalos
Second.
Sameer Kanal
All right, I see a second from Councilor Murillo.
Colleagues, this I believe does not require debate since we've been debating the item, but I'm going to verify that.
But seeing nobody else add to the queue, pause for dramatic effect, I will ask Keelan if you would please call the roll on a motion to refer the resolution to the full council.
Keelan McClymont
With a do pass, so we don't—.
Sameer Kanal
Oh, with a do pass recommendation.
With a do pass recommendation.
Thank you for clarifying that.
Yes, and that's as amended, of course.
Jamie Dunphy
Okay.
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Ryan?
Dan Ryan
I just want to qualify this by saying that I would have needed more time to get to a yes, so for today I'm a no.
Keelan McClymont
Koyama Lane?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Morillo?
Angelita Morillo
Aye.
Mark Lear
I am going to vote aye, but I will ask the chair in future to limit each councilor's time for discussion so that we all have time to discuss.
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Clark?
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Green?
Mitch Green
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Zimmerman, absent.
Avalos?
Candace Avalos
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Dunphy?
Jamie Dunphy
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Smith?
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Kanal?
Sameer Kanal
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Motion to refer the resolution as amended, document number 2026-01-02, Councilor Herbold, I have the report of the Committee on Finance and Government Affairs on Ordinance 2026-114 to City Council with the recommendation it be adopted.
Passes with 10 yes votes, 1 no, and 1 absent.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, thank you.
I'm gonna continue the discussion of the ordinance until our next meeting, which again is the 2 o'clock on the 15th.
And with that, before I adjourn, just wanted to, A, say thank you for everyone bearing with us.
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
That concludes our first Committee of the Whole meeting.
Appreciate the grace as we get through this.
We're learning, we're growing.
This was a tough meeting.
Haha, uh, needed to get one of those out of the way.
Sorry, uh, get a groaner going.
But, um, looking forward to this, uh, in the future.
And, um, with that, we will adjourn the first meeting of the Committee of the Whole.
Shoshana Cohen
All right.