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.
Steve Novick
Good morning, folks.
Are we still waiting on a couple people?
Do we have absences submitted?
Unidentified speaker
Uh, we currently have quorum, so we can begin.
Steve Novick
Okay, but I was just curious, um, if our other folks are supposed to be here.
Unidentified speaker
We have no absences currently registered.
Steve Novick
Okay.
I'll give it one more minute.
Sameer Kanal
And I'm online, just so you know.
Steve Novick
Oh, okay.
Angelita Morillo
And Councilor Novick, I— oh, Councilor—.
Eric Zimmerman
Hello?
Angelita Morillo
Oh, Councilor Novick, I don't know if you saw, but Councilor Kanal looks like he's virtual, but I don't see where the others are.
Steve Novick
Yeah, okay, well, let's get started.
Um, um, good morning.
I call the meeting of the Community and Public Safety Committee to order.
It is Tuesday, April 7th at 9:30 AM.
Diana, could you please call the roll?
Unidentified speaker
Good morning.
Uh, Kanal?
Present.
Eric Zimmerman
Morillo?
Angelita Morillo
Here.
Eric Zimmerman
Zimmerman?
Here.
Smith?
Angelita Morillo
Novick?
Steve Novick
Here.
Uh, Christopher, could you please read the statement of conduct?
Eric Zimmerman
Welcome to the meeting of the Community and Public Safety Committee.
To testify before this committee in person or virtually, you must sign up in advance in the committee agenda at www.portland.gov/council/agenda/community Community and Public Safety Committee, or by calling 311.
Information on engaging with the committee can be found at this link.
Registration for virtual testimony closes 1 hour prior to the meeting.
In-person testifiers must sign up before an agenda item is heard.
For public testimony during today's meetings, individuals may testify for 90 seconds unless the chair states otherwise.
Excuse me.
Individuals 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 thank you, Christopher.
Steve Novick
And I apologize for not being there in person.
I have what appears to be a bad cold, and I didn't want to give it to any of you.
If this were one of those weeks where Councilor Morillo and I were really mad at each other, I might have been tempted, but it's not one of those weeks.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor.
Steve Novick
Um, so, the committee today will receive a brief presentation recognizing our public safety telecommunicators for their service contributions to the committee.
The committee will also receive a presentation in recognition of Sexual Assault Prevention Month.
While this observance takes place in May, this presentation is scheduled now due to the absence of committee meetings during May.
Finally, the committee will consider an ordinance to remove existing code exemptions for concealed handgun license holders, thereby prohibiting the carrying of loaded firearms in city-owned buildings where public meetings are held in alignment with last year's Senate Bill 243.
Um, and I think that we will complete those items well before 3 hours are over.
So I'd like to spend some time at the end talking about, um, what people's thoughts are for what topics the committee should cover over the next year, which obviously isn't going to start until June, but I'd love to hear everybody's thoughts.
Thank you.
Deanna, could you please read the first item?
Eric Zimmerman
Item number 1, recognize National Public Safety Telecommunicator Week.
Steve Novick
It's an honor to have an opportunity to participate in this recognition.
Our telecommunicators have such vitally important and such difficult jobs.
One thing I remember hearing when I was the commissioner in charge of BOEC 10 years ago was, that how emotionally hard it is to have a job where you spend a few seconds dealing with somebody in a crisis and you generally don't know what happened afterwards.
That's just one of the aspects of this job.
And we have a panel scheduled.
And Mr. Cossi, Mr. Maudsley et al., please proceed.
Steve Maudsley
Thank you, Chair.
For the record, I'm Steve Maudsley, Interim Director of the Bureau of Emergency Communications.
I'm here to recognize our exceptional call takers, dispatchers, and supervisors ahead of National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, which this year is April 12th through 18th.
Our center receives more than 900,000 calls per year from our community, and around 600,000 of those are on 911.
Compared to a few years ago, call volume has continued to rise.
I'm proud to share that our team at BOEC has reduced call wait times, an achievement that reflects both their professionalism and their commitment to continuous improvement.
Our telecommunicators show up every day, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, ready to support our community.
Their ability to remain calm, compassionate, and extremely professional under pressure is what makes our entire emergency response system work.
Now, I have an exciting announcement leading into National Telecommunicators Week.
Boeck has achieved accreditation for emergency medical dispatching through the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch Accredited Center of Excellence.
This is a significant milestone.
Fewer than 10% of 911 centers worldwide hold this distinction.
This recognition affirms what we have long known, that our team delivers exceptional service to the community.
Uniquely positioned to provide service to all Portlanders and every community across Multnomah County, our team's strong commitment to quality, consistency, and equitable care for every caller raises the bar for public safety.
Our team has achieved the highest standard in emergency medical dispatching, and I'm proud of their dedication, commitment, and support across our organization.
Next, I'd like to turn the microphone over to Baux Equity Manager Nikita Thomas, who will share remarks about how we ensure that our services are equitable and accessible to everyone we serve.
Unidentified speaker
Hello and thank you for having me.
For the record, I am Nikita Thomas, the equity manager at BOEC.
My work centers around ensuring that everyone in our community, regardless of their ability or spoken language, has access to 911 and the emergency services they are entitled to.
At BOEC, we provide call processing through telephone typewriter, more commonly known as TTY, text-to-911, language interpretation services, and multilingual call takers.
Thank you.
In 2025, our call takers and dispatchers processed 580 TTY calls, 4,558 text-to-911 sessions, 8,243 calls in 48 languages through interpreter services, and our 6 multilingual call takers assisted with calls in Spanish, Mandarin, and Russian.
You heard me mention text-to-911.
While voice calls to 911 allow for faster processing of information, for callers who are unable to speak due to their abilities or due to safety, there is the option to communicate with 911 via text for emergency assistance.
As we head into Telecommunicator Week, I want to congratulate our staff for the amazing work they do every day and how they go above and beyond for community members who don't have the same access to our services.
Next, you'll hear from 2 of our extraordinary telecommunicators here, Carolyn Welch and Erica Gregg.
Carolyn Welch
Thank you.
For the record, I'm Carolyn Welch.
I'll be speaking for both of us.
Um, Councilor Novick is not the only person who's come down with something recently.
We're here to represent a group of call takers and dispatchers that serve Portland and the greater Multnomah County at the Bureau of Emergency Communications.
It is an honor to be here today while we celebrate National Public Telecommunicator— Public Safety Telecommunicator Week.
It is true that we show up 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, regardless of what is happening within our community, our personal lives, or even the weather.
Thank you.
It is a calling that requires diligent effort to maintain a positive work-life balance.
Being exposed to the daily traumas of the community can have an impact not only on us as individuals, but also on our families and loved ones.
We appreciate Chair Novick and Vice Chair Murillo for inviting us today, and for all of you for taking the time to recognize and celebrate the work we do.
We are also thankful for the support of our union, the Portland Police Association, as well as our partnership with BOEC and Public Safety Service Area leadership and City Labor Relations.
Last but not least, we could not successfully do our work without strong working relationships with the other entities we serve alongside— police, fire, AMR, corrections, road and maintenance workers, and the countless other labor groups within the city and county.
Once again, on behalf of our membership, thank you.
And happy Telecommunicator Week.
Unidentified speaker
I'm so proud of these folks.
Good morning.
For the record, I'm Bob Causse, Deputy City Administrator of Public Safety.
Although I'm in a different role today than I was a year ago, I can see even more clearly that BOEC's call takers and dispatchers are truly our first, first responders.
These professionals are the calm voice on someone's worst day.
They serve our community with dedication, compassion, and professionalism, often under extremely challenging circumstances.
What they do is foundational to our work across the public safety service area, and I'm incredibly grateful for their continued service to Portland and all of Multnomah County.
Congratulations to BOEC for your hard-won achievement of accreditation in emergency medical dispatch.
From the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch.
It seems like yesterday that we embarked on the ProQA journey, and I'm so proud of the BOEC team for literally proving to the world and to themselves that BOEC is a world-class public safety dispatch center.
I knew it all along, and how fitting to gain this recognition in conjunction with National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week.
I'll close by thanking our Bureau of Emergency Communications team for their life-impacting service and expressing to them and to our entire community happy National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week.
Thank you.
Eric Zimmerman
Thank you.
Steve Novick
Thank you so much.
Um, I— that's fantastic about the international accreditation.
I was also happy to hear about text-to-911.
I remember when we implemented text-to-911 something like 10 years ago, and it's an important option not just for people who normally communicate by signing or writing rather than by speaking, but people who are in a dangerous situation, which may be more dangerous if their potential attacker heard them speaking.
Angelita Morillo
Yeah, I just wanted to give my thanks to the folks that work in BOEC and who do this.
Being the person that assists on the hardest day of someone's life, the most stressful moment of their life oftentimes, and having to hold all of that for the community in order to serve them is no small task.
And the BOEC employees deserve all of the praise, all of the love.
You guys are doing just some of the most important work that we could possibly be doing at the city of Portland.
That is our bread and butter.
That's the, the thing that we work on that we should be focused on.
So very grateful to you.
Thanks for being here today.
It's great to see you in person too, and thanks for everything that you do, truly.
Steve Novick
Any further remarks?
Okay, I'm an old man, and so I tell stories over and over, and you've probably all heard this before, but I can't resist telling one story from When I was doing a sit-along out at BOEC, where I saw come across the machine, um, a notation that said, cold beer run, Plaid Pantry, 122nd and something.
And I asked dispatcher, what does that mean?
Somebody's like, you know, calling for somebody to bring in beer.
And she laughed and she said, no, what that means is that somebody ran into the Plaid Pantry, stole a beer, and ran.
But it was a while ago, so it's a cold case at this point.
So that's an example of sort of the shorthand that BOEC staff have to learn.
Thank you so, so much for what you do.
Congratulations for the accreditation.
And I just, you know, I'm overwhelmed with the work that you do, how difficult and important it is.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Deanna, could you please read the next item?
Unidentified speaker
Item number 2, recognize Sexual Assault Prevention Month.
Steve Novick
Again, um, Sexual Assault Prevention Month is officially May, but we wanted to recognize it this month we don't have a committee meeting in May.
Um, again, we have a, we have a panel, um, which I'd like to call up.
Um, so, um, assuming people— I can't see, but assuming people are in place, please proceed.
Unidentified speaker
Good morning.
For the record, I'm Bob Causie, DCA Public Safety, and, uh, April is Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month.
Good morning and thank you for having me.
Tori Streed
For the record, my name is Tori Streed.
I'm here to read an acknowledgment on behalf of the Portland Police Bureau.
April is Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month.
A time to unite as a community to support survivors and reaffirm our commitment to prevention, accountability, and justice.
In the last 12 months, there have been 602 sex crimes reported to the Portland Police Bureau.
According to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network, fewer than one-third of victims report an assault perpetrated against them to the police, so we understand that this figure heavily understates the prevalence and pervasiveness of sex crimes in even our own community.
We are aware of and are sensitive to the myriad barriers to reporting, and we strive to conduct our investigations with cultural sensitivity and a trauma-informed, victim-centered approach.
The Portland Police Bureau acknowledges and supports those impacted by sexual violence in all its forms.
Sexual assault is a deeply personal crime, And every survivor deserves to be treated with respect and dignity and compassion.
It is our mission to ensure that survivors feel safe seeking help.
Whether or not a person is ready to report, we want you to know you have rights and there are resources available to you.
Sexual assault investigations are most effective when approached through a multidisciplinary lens.
These investigations involve collaborative efforts with partnering agencies such as the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office, community-based organizations, the Department of Health and Human Services, and specialized healthcare providers.
We work together to pursue accountability while also prioritizing comprehensive care for each survivor.
This month and every month, we ask our community to stand with us.
Sexual assault prevention is a shared responsibility.
Angelita Morillo
Thank you.
Thank you so much for being here to talk about this really important work.
Um, really appreciate that overview.
Um, I was curious how, uh, how many rape kits does PPB currently have, and how many of them are tested, and how regularly is that done?
Jacob Clark
Hi, my name is Jacob Clark.
I'm the commander of the Detective Division for Portland Police.
I don't have the specific number on how many kits we've taken in over the last year.
I know we're up to date on all of the, the kits that we've received, so as soon as we get them, they're getting sent off.
Angelita Morillo
Oh, okay, that's great to hear.
I feel like that's, uh, an issue you normally hear in other departments, so it's awesome that our police bureau is very on top of getting all those tested.
Jacob Clark
Oh, it, it was an issue for us years ago, but we, we got through that backlog.
We've now fixed that whole process so they, they get done really quickly.
Angelita Morillo
Awesome, thank you.
Tori Streed
Appreciate that.
Steve Novick
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, uh, Chair Novick.
Thank you everyone for, for being here.
I, I wanted to first appreciate the presentation.
Um, I, I'm going to guess they probably weren't available, but I'd also love to, to hear, um, in the future about the work that's being done on the prevention side by Rose City Self-Defense, um, from the service area.
And just wanted to, to take the opportunity to shout them out for the work they do in empowerment self-defense training, um, which is among many other reasons why this is a good idea, it also helps with the prevention of sexual assault and domestic violence.
And I was also hoping to hear from the victims advocates.
I think we still have that program, but while we do, and I stress that because I know that that is a conversation in this upcoming budget, to really highlight the work that they do at PPB.
That's a PPB program, and thank them as well as you for the—.
Thank you.
The information and, uh, and for, for the work that you do.
Steve Novick
Um, putting myself in the queue, one question I have is, I know that it's a persistent national problem, the underreporting of sexual assaults.
Um, I was wondering, this might be an impossible question to answer, but are there jurisdictions that think that they've done certain things, or maybe they haven't done certain things, but it's just happened where victims of sexual assault are more likely to report?
Is there any research on that?
Jacob Clark
I'm not aware of any research.
I would hope it's been done, but I'm not personally aware of it.
Steve Novick
Maybe that, maybe that's something we could— I mean, again, in any given jurisdiction, people just might not know, um, but, uh, that would be interesting to see if there is some research there.
Yeah, oh, go ahead.
Jacob Clark
I was just gonna say it's such a difficult topic to dive into because there's so many different facets to it.
Steve Novick
Um, it's just such a personal crime that for people to be willing to share that any further thoughts from my colleagues or anything further people on the panel would like to say?
Eric Zimmerman
I think that's a great point.
Steve Novick
Thank you so much.
We really appreciate you coming forward.
And next year, I'd like to follow up on Councilor Kanal's suggestion about other folks that we should have— we should have here at this time.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Um, Diana, could you please call the 3rd item?
Keelan McClymont
Document number 2026-123.
Amend code related to prohibitions on possession of firearms within certain city buildings to disallow affirmative defense for persons with concealed handgun licenses.
Unidentified speaker
Amend City Code Sections 3.18.020 and 14A60.010 and 20.
Keelan McClymont
12.01—.
Or sorry, 050.
Steve Novick
So my understanding is that the idea here is to take an action which the legislature authorized us to take last year, which Multnomah County has already taken.
But Evan, take it away.
Unidentified speaker
I will defer to Councilor Dunphy to start us off.
Yeah, thank you.
Steve Novick
Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't see Councilor Dunphy was there.
Unidentified speaker
No problem, Councilor Novick.
Good morning, colleagues.
For the record, my name is Jamie Dunphy.
I have the honor of serving as a District 1 Portland City Councilor and the distinction of serving as the council city— City Council President.
Before you this morning is a simple bill.
Right now, people are allowed to bring a gun into places where we and the public meet to do work of democracy if they hold a concealed handgun license.
After we pass this law, That won't be allowed anymore.
I don't like guns.
I started my career doing gang prevention in David Douglas School District, preventing— trying to prevent 14-year-olds from shooting each other.
Guns have killed the children I worked with.
Guns have turned arguments into funerals.
I've seen scary behavior in this building.
In 2017, when I was working as a senior policy director for then-Commissioner Nick Fish, I had to apply for a restraining order against a member of the public who threatened me with some very specific violence here in City Hall.
In fact, earlier this year, after some tense interactions with an angry— a number of angry members of the public, I actually applied for my concealed handgun license.
And when it arrived in the mail, I realized that that was the wrong direction.
If we are having the hard, contentious, emotional conversations that we and the public sometimes have in this building, that we are supposed to have here, nobody involved in those conversations should be armed to kill.
Earlier this year, protests were shutting down— were regularly shutting down our evening meetings.
And at one of those meetings, both protesters and counter-protesters ended up in chambers shouting at us.
But also at each other.
And it disturbed me that someone in that room could legally be carrying a loaded gun.
So my staff started asking around, has anyone been working in this bill, in this city system, on preventing concealed carry?
And I found out that a lot of work had already been done.
I want to extend my thank yous to the professional security staff here whose words first inspired me to look into this, to the facilities staff, the city attorneys, And everyone from the Public Safety Service Area for all the work that they have done.
Councilor Knoll, I wanna thank you for reaching out to potentially co-sponsor this.
I would be very happy to share the load.
And I wanna extend a thank you to City Administrator Lee.
While this item has not been co-introduced by Mayor Wilson, it is a work of the administrative branch, and I'm deeply appreciative for the opportunity to carry it forward.
My policy advisor, Eben Hoffer, is here to walk us through a small presentation to explain Some of the background of this and how it will be implemented.
Sameer Kanal
Evan.
Unidentified speaker
All right, Chair Novick, members of the committee.
For the record, my name is Evan Jundorf-Hoffer, policy advisor for Councilor Dunphy.
This will be a quick presentation.
Guns in public buildings.
So as discussed, unless you have an official job that requires carrying a gun, you cannot bring a gun into a public meeting in Portland.
Unless that is a licensed concealed handgun.
In 2025, the state legislature passed a bill that allowed localities to choose should those concealed handguns be allowed in public buildings where public meetings are held or not.
In November of last year, Multnomah County chose to disallow that, and we believe that Portland should do the same.
So that's SB 243, as Councilor Novick said.
Thank you.
Signed on July 24th and in effect as of September.
It allows city and local governments to ban concealed carry weapons in such buildings.
It applies to city-owned buildings that are used by a council, an advisory body, or an accountability group.
So any of our ABCs, our official ABCs, this would qualify in those locations.
And in practical terms, that is gonna be City Hall, the Portland Building, the 1900 Building, where PP&D holds meetings, and any city-owned building where an accountability or advisory body is at that time holding a conversation or a public meeting.
So just looking at the law real quick, this is what Senate Bill 243 does.
So we have this existing language.
Any person who intentionally possesses a loaded or unloaded firearm or any other instrument as a dangerous weapon, while in a public building is, if convicted, guilty of a Class C felony.
Then there is a list of affirmative defenses to that.
This does not apply to, among those, a person who is licensed to carry a concealed handgun.
The legislature then gave us an option.
It amended 166.377 to state that that affirmative defense concerning carrying a concealed Yes.
Having a concealed handgun that is licensed, that a locality may pass local laws to make it so that does not apply when those firearms are in a building owned or controlled by the governing body that is used by the governing body for official meetings.
So very specifically, places like this where we meet with the public to have public conversations.
So 243 puts the onus on us to make that choice, to put it in our code.
This ordinance would essentially do that.
So just a brief look at, at the sections of code that are being touched and what's currently in here.
Under Portland City Code 318-020, Rules of Conduct at City Property, essentially you can't have a deadly weapon already.
However, the prohibitions of this subsection do not apply To handguns lawfully carried by persons exempt, et cetera, et cetera.
Our bill adds a piece of language to that.
Essentially, that is SB 243 language that says, except the affirmative defense of a concealed handgun license in a public meeting space does not apply.
Similarly, 14A-60-010, possession of a loaded firearm in a public place.
So a lot of places in Portland, almost every public place in Portland, you cannot have a loaded firearm.
You cannot check your firearm to see if it's loaded after a police officer has spoken to you.
In all of these cases, there is a carve-out for the concealed handgun license.
And again, this would add language saying that in spaces like this, in these public meeting spaces, the affirmative defense does not apply.
Finally, and amusingly, just for completeness, there is also a prohibition on firearms in parks.
And in case we at some point have a park in a room where there is a public meeting, we add language once again saying that affirmative defense does not apply in this case.
So everywhere in city code where there is a prohibition on firearms or deadly weapons, this language is added.
There is exceptions here for peace officers, anybody whose job it is for public safety to be carrying a weapon in this room or rooms like it still is allowed to do so, inclusive of police officers, professional security, members of the military, or honorably discharged members of the military, et cetera, et cetera, that we are inheriting from state law.
It is not changed by this.
The legislature did not allow us to change that.
Why should we do it?
It's a little scary out there sometimes, and less guns is probably a good thing.
Impact and operationalization.
Well, I don't know how to say that word, but how will this work in the real world?
Our friends at the PSSA have done amazing work.
This has been reviewed by the Bureau of Fleet and Facilities and signed off upon, and with integrated security for operational feasibility.
From a financial impact perspective, they've checked with CBO.
Essentially what we're going to be paying for is some signage.
The upfront cost is very minimal.
And then the operational impact in these locations will be relatively minimal.
In the real world, if somebody comes to the door with a concealed handgun license at this point, generally speaking, security says, oh, that's great, Do you have a paper copy of your license?
Oh, if you do, okay, let me get the PPB over here to run this and check that it's real.
There's a series of delay tactics that can be used to ensure that the firearm is not entering the building in a timely, in a quick way.
And I know some of you on this dais have experienced that or heard about those stories.
There's maybe about 5 of them in the last 5 years, as I've been told.
In this case, basically the difference is rather than going through that process, you can just say, no, you can't bring that in, I'm sorry.
So it's a little bit clearer, a little bit more operationalizable.
There we go.
And direct.
So the practical impacts on our world will be signage and a straightforward, pragmatic, and legally defensible means to ensure that all persons entering city spaces to engage in civic discourse, check their deadly weapons at the door.
Available for questions, we have folks from the staff.
Um, Linda Law up in the City Attorney's Office is upstairs but is happy to come down and speak with us.
Fleet and Facilities Security, and of course PSSA.
Uh, and that's our presentation.
Thank you.
Eric Zimmerman
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Councilor Dunphy.
Thank you, Evan.
Thank you, Chair Novick.
Um, wanted to ask a couple questions.
Um, first, uh, and thank you to the PSSA for helping develop this.
I, I know, um, we'd been working on something in this space and, and, uh, you were much further ahead, uh, along on it, so I'm very happy to, to be able to, to, um, support this.
Um, I wanted to understand, um, and this is maybe just from the presentation versus the, the text.
Um, this, this is any park or building, I guess, where a— the, the, uh, governing body meets, not only during the time it's meeting, correct?
Unidentified speaker
Correct.
Um, the, the 3 buildings that are city-controlled, the 1900 Building, the Portland Building, and this building, that is at all times.
However, I would need to hi, Bree Brown, for the record, legislative analyst for the Public Safety Service Area.
This is a question that Linda Law from the City Attorney's Office may also be able to weigh in on, but it is our understanding that there is something of like a transient space for where this will apply.
The language in SB 243 that specifically narrows it to city-owned buildings where the governing body meets for official meetings is so narrow that it almost always will apply to City Hall, and it will almost always apply to the Portland Building.
It will almost always apply to the 1900 Building.
The other spaces where advisory bodies may meet, that governing body language also applies So it will, on an ad hoc basis, apply to the locations where they host their meetings during the time that their meetings are taking place.
Sameer Kanal
Okay.
And then the related, I guess, question is this would apply if those— if the list of buildings should change, right?
Because— and I'll be very specific— the Community Board for Police Accountability is certainly a part of this.
It's a governing body.
It has not determined where it's going to be.
So I'm seeing nods just for the record in there.
City-leased buildings are not explicitly called out in the presentation.
Can you speak to that piece?
Unidentified speaker
The language of SB 243 is city-owned and operated.
So if the city operates that space, then it would fall under the purview of this ordinance.
Sameer Kanal
So those are, those are 2 distinct things, not city-owned and operated, but city-owned and city-operated.
Okay, and so that would mean if we are the only tenant of a building, it would be included?
Unidentified speaker
If it is a location where the governing body has official meetings, yes.
Okay.
Just for clarity, Councilor Kanal, the language is owned or controlled by the governing body that is used by the governing body for official meetings.
So if the building is controlled, and there may be some flexibility on that definition, of course, but a sole-use lease certainly would seem to apply.
And Linda Law from the City Attorney's Office is available if you would like to get into the nuance of that language.
Sameer Kanal
That's sufficient, I think, in terms of understanding the confirmation.
I would love to get out of the practice of leasing space, not only from ourselves, but, you know, we have a lot of city-owned property as well that we can utilize a lot of the time, and sometimes it's not efficiently used around the city.
Might be worth looking at that separately, but, uh, in— if, if it's, um, controlled is sufficient.
I'm reading the, the 243 language.
Thank you for the quote.
Was looking for leased, not controlled there.
Um, the last question I had related to, um, in the presentation it says, uh, I think it's slide 2, um, it talks about unless you have an official job that requires a gun, um, but it also talks about people who are retired.
Can you speak to that?
Unidentified speaker
Yes, Councilor Kanal.
So my theatrical turn of phrase there at the beginning of the presentation may have led you astray.
So an official job that requires a gun in this somewhat florid retelling of the case.
If we look further into the presentation, I believe on page—.
Sameer Kanal
11, I believe.
Unidentified speaker
11.
Sameer Kanal
Yes.
Unidentified speaker
So, and again, this is inheriting from, uh, from state law.
So a police officer or other duly appointed peace officers, whether active or honorably retired, may carry firearms.
Sameer Kanal
So just clarifying, you're saying that the state law does not allow us to prevent retired from carrying?
Unidentified speaker
That is my understanding, and I would defer to the city attorney on that case.
I see a nod.
So yes.
Sameer Kanal
Seeing a nod.
Yeah.
Okay.
Thank you.
Had to—.
Loretta Smith
Yeah.
Sameer Kanal
I will say that this does not affect my support for this because it is a state law, but it's profoundly disappointing, and I want to take the opportunity to tell the state to fix that.
I think— I don't know if it's true for everybody, but for those who don't know, if you get elected to office, you do occasionally get a death threat.
And I will tell you that for at least a certain political persuasion, Often those death threat, the people making them does occasionally overlap with that particular population.
And so it's not an official job that requires a gun to be retired.
And I would love to look at that being an option that the cities have before them in the future and not be preempted from it.
So it's a local control issue primarily, but I wanted to mention it while I'm here.
And I'm gonna guess that that also relates to the last question I had, which was it talks about inspection and being required to allow the inspection of, I think it's inspection, that's not the exact word.
Pulling it up here.
Unidentified speaker
If you have a citation of what you're looking at, that may be helpful.
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, it's in your exhibits.
It's in, it is inspect.
It's in Exhibit C. I'm sorry, Exhibit B, 14A-6010, Part D. It's unlawful for any person who possesses a firearm clip or magazine in or in a public place or while in a vehicle in a public place to refuse to permit a police officer to inspect that firearm.
Does that apply exclusively to PPB or would it also include county, state, federal?
Unidentified speaker
Again, Attorney Law, the language here is police officer and not peace officer, so I'm not 100% certain in the context of Title 14, but maybe you can speak to that.
So we're looking at 14A-60-010, subsection D here.
Good morning.
Linda Law here from the City Attorney's Office.
This is the language from the current code, and because our current code applies to the city, we reference our own officers.
But generally, under state law, it's the peace officer.
So if Multnomah County sheriffs come in, they can examine it as well.
Sameer Kanal
And I'm less concerned about the county or even the state.
Can federal officers use this?
Unidentified speaker
I would have to check the definition of peace officer.
In the state law, it would be, I believe, 166.380, examination of firearm by peace officer in the state of Oregon.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, thank you.
There's a lot of— 166 is a very long chapter, so thank you for the particular citation.
Okay, but either way, it's a state issue, not something that we're able to affect here.
Okay, thank you for the clarification.
Thank you, Chair Novick.
Steve Novick
Councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith
Thank you, Mr.
Chair.
Question, um, Councilor Dunphy.
We had a District 1, uh, town hall meeting at, uh, ERCO And I'm trying to figure out, would this— since it is a town hall meeting with District 1 councilors— would this particular, um, law cover going into ERCO?
Unidentified speaker
No, this would not apply to, uh, situations where we are out in the public outside of buildings that we control.
This would be limited to specifically the physical location that is used by the governing body for official meetings only.
So—.
Loretta Smith
That's not enough.
It has to be enough, what you call an official meeting.
It can't be an outreach meeting.
Unidentified speaker
Right, yes.
We wouldn't be able to apply this to, yeah, any of our district-level meetings or anything outside of a building where we are formally meeting to do the people's business.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
I appreciate you bringing this forward.
Like you, on February 18th, I was really afraid in this, in this chambers.
And knowing that there could be some people with concealed weapon permits in here, it also raised my anxiety in a space where I'm supposed to do a job.
For the public.
So I appreciate you bringing this forward.
And, um, we may have to figure out some other ways because if we're all— I know there's some conversations about having, uh, our official meetings out in the, in the community, and we may need to do some things to update it so that those meetings, if we do have a full Council meeting at ERCO, which we have— there, there, there are meetings that have been had there that we need to update that.
Unidentified speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
I think that there's more work to be done.
This is a small step right now to ensure not only safety of elected officials and their staff, but also ensure safety of the public who just want to come and seek redress from their government.
We need to make sure that we are being very serious about safety at all interactions with this and not taking this lightly.
Loretta Smith
So that's right.
Unidentified speaker
Absolutely.
I would love to work with anybody on this committee on future refinements to make it so that we can guarantee that.
Loretta Smith
I'd love to work with you on it because I don't want folks also to think that we're trying to take their First and Second Amendment rights away.
There are some clear things that have happened.
In this city and across the, the nation around political violence, and it is, uh, becoming more and more, um, scary.
Angelita Morillo
Yes.
Loretta Smith
Eerie.
And, um, it's un— it's unfortunate people have died who have sat in our seats.
And so thank you for doing this.
Steve Novick
Thank you.
Councilor Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman
Uh, thank you, Chair.
So, Eben, I want to go to your exceptions for officers slide.
I think it's slide 11.
In your remarks, you said that, uh, members of the military who are, who are honorably discharged, that they would still— that this wouldn't affect them.
And I want to clarify, as I read all of the ordinances and as I read all the ORSs, that is actually not the case.
Unidentified speaker
You are correct, Councilor.
I misspoke.
Honorably retired police officers may carry, but discharged military may not.
It's only members of the military in performance of an official duty.
Eric Zimmerman
Official duties, yeah.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you for catching that.
Eric Zimmerman
So, and I just wanna say it for a clarifying reason.
So for almost all of the reasons that Councilor Smith said she likes this are the reasons why I don't like this.
I, I think this is a strange way to go about trying to prevent guns in a chamber, for instance.
And I just want to go over, um, I was, I was pleased, Council President, to hear that you had applied for your, your concealed carry permit.
So it means that my question about do you understand what it takes to get a concealed carry permit is probably answered by that.
Loretta Smith
Yes.
Eric Zimmerman
But for some record here, this is, this is pulled in terms of what it takes to get one in Multnomah County.
Must be a US citizen, or there's some other documentation there.
21 Years of age, must reside in the county, have no legal condition that would prohibit you from possessing a firearm under Oregon or federal law, have no outstanding warrant for your arrest.
If you served in the armed forces and were not dishonorably discharged, Not to be a law— an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance, excluding marijuana.
Not to be on any form of pretrial release.
Not to be required to register as a sex offender in any state.
No convictions of a misdemeanor or found guilty of a misdemeanor within 4 years prior to the application.
Not been ever convicted of a felony or found guilty, except for insanity, of a felony.
Completes one of the following courses: And I'll save the folks from reading it, but it lists a host of firearm safety courses, hunter safety courses, exceptions.
I'll say for me, I've both used the firearm safety course that I've taken, but also my 20-plus years of being certified with a weapon in the military as reasons that my concealed license has been always granted.
But it lists a whole lot of training, firearm use safety courses that are applicable and meet the, the state and the sheriff's letter of the, uh, or the intent that this is a, um, a person who is not just buying one because they heard about a gun, but they've actually gone through a course to understand it.
Applicants must also, of course, complete the application, submit to fingerprinting and photography, or photographing by the sheriff, and the sheriff initiates a background check through the FBI, a person has not been com— uh, committee— excuse me, it says committee, but I'm pretty sure they mean committed to the Oregon Health Authority, and has not found to be a person with mental illness, and has not— has been, uh, discharged from the jurisdiction of a juvenile court more than 4 years if they committed that act while it had constituted a felony or misdemeanor involving violence.
I, I wanted to list those because It seems a little odd to me that your focus is on concealed weapons permit carriers.
The Q&A that was provided by somebody in the staff, I'm assuming a little bit of everybody who worked on this, said in the last 5 years, there have been only 3 documented occasions where an individual is found to have brought a permitted concealed weapon to our facilities, which can be attributed to the proactive security measures, which I think we've all seen.
When I think about the reasons that Councilor Smith laid out, I'm not really thinking about a concealed permit carrier as the concern.
And to Councilor Kanal's point, uh, that some members who perhaps at one point had an honorable profession and now have engaged in death threats, which I take very seriously— a death threat is a crime, and therefore yes.
If that was investigated and found guilty, they would immediately lose a concealed permit.
So I just want to offer that perspective up as well, that a concealed permit is, um, in some sense a right if you meet all of the conditions I read out, but it is also a privilege that you must meet all of the conditions that I read out.
Um, Our security leaves this building at 5:00 PM.
Most days I think I've left the building, it's been after they're gone.
Many employees stay.
I've never seen security here on the weekends when I'm here.
So I don't understand what it would be and why the administration is even putting this forward because, uh, Councilor Smith and I are very experienced with the demonstrations that used to happen some decades ago where members would come into Multnomah County not with concealed weapons, but they, like they used to do at the State House, they would come with, with, uh, displayed full, you know, whether they be full-size rifles type weapons or hip-placed pistols.
That was an occurrence that happened for a little while.
There was kind of a fervor going on.
Um, and the law— and, and I, and I would say I think that was a, a stupid display and a stupid demonstration.
Uh, and laws were limited in how to deal with that because any person, no, regardless of background check, any person who meets the requirements to own a firearm was allowed to do that in those times for us.
And I, and I will not say that those were the it's one of the most wonderful times to be at the Multnomah County Commissioner meetings.
But I, I am really asking that we take a look at just how much of a jump it is to be able to get to a concealed carry permit.
The background checks, the fingerprinting, and the host of things that you would essentially disqualify you from it.
Um, when things have gotten rowdy Or when I've faced my own threats and situations, I'm not particularly concerned about on hold concealed weapons permit because they're a— I would, at least in the government sense, they're a known entity and they've at least done some proof of responsible ownership, responsible carrying.
And frankly, a concealed permit means you should never know that they're carrying.
I mean, that's kind of the idea.
So I'm challenged by this because I— your slideshow is called Protecting Portland or something along those lines.
That's what your title was.
And I don't know how this protects one iota.
And it seems somewhat— I, I guess I, I, I get what I would love to hear from the sponsor is your Your motivation, um, in terms of why concealed permit carriers are your concern.
Because I, I mean, you went through it, you get it.
Loretta Smith
Yeah.
Eric Zimmerman
And, and I, I will say I have a record of, of writing, you know, for additional gun regulations.
I've been hosted as an op-ed in the Oregonian for that.
There's a, there's a, a lot of my life where I believe it, but the concealed weapon permit for me Is one of those areas where I just— I'm not seeing the connective tissue why this will accomplish what I think you're telling us you think it will accomplish.
Loretta Smith
Sure.
Unidentified speaker
Um, thank you, Councilor.
Angelita Morillo
May I—.
Steve Novick
Councilors, may I— um, I was thinking of this as the sort of technical questions portion of the discussion, and we seem to have gone into sort of discussion of the merits.
And what I'd like to do is give people signed up for public testimony a chance to testify before we go further.
Unless anybody has any amendments they plan to propose, in which case I'd like folks to identify those so that whoever testifies has an opportunity to respond to that.
Unidentified speaker
Okay.
Steve Maudsley
Sorry, Chair.
Eric Zimmerman
I didn't realize we had testimony set up.
So, Councilor Dunphy, those are not technical.
I'll wait on that.
Unidentified speaker
I will come back and answer.
Eric Zimmerman
Thanks.
Thank you.
Steve Novick
So does anybody have any potential amendments?
Hearing none, Diana, could we proceed to public testimony?
Unidentified speaker
Certainly.
We have one person signed up, Councilor Mitch Green.
Keelan McClymont
You're welcome to start your testimony.
Mitch Green
Thank you, Diana.
Thank you, Chair Novick.
Thank you, Vice Chair Murillo and members of the committee.
For the record, my name is Mitch Green, and I am going to be trying to use these committees as a place to testify and provide my feedback on stuff before it gets to the full council.
This is one of those examples.
I'm supporting this legislation with changes.
I'm supporting it 'cause broadly I do think, I think it offers a control that we can have some measure of control around the risks that enter this building.
Councilor Zimmerman, all of your arguments are valid.
I think about those as well.
It is very difficult to get a concealed carry license.
I think the thing I worry about Is what is our risk tolerance?
Because there's no real-time assurance that that person, once validated, will not become unhinged or will not become a threat.
And that's just the sort of trade-off we always make in society around community safety and individual liberty.
And that's a thing.
But what this body's gonna contemplate is whether or not we wanna accept that risk for not only ourselves, but other members of the community that are in chambers.
And so for that reason, I do think it's a reasonable thing to do.
I worry about the person who, snaps one day and decides that they've had enough of the people disrupting our meetings and then comes in not to target me, but to target someone who's a protester in this building.
I don't want them to face that risk.
I do have an issue with one piece in Exhibit C, which seems to expand into the discussion of the parks, which is not really about the affirmative defense piece in ORS, but really becomes about adding more named and enumerated prohibited objects.
Particularly, I'm concerned that if we include mace and pepper mace in the list of prohibited objects, that we are losing the distinction here that matters.
Like, we want to prohibit objects that are very obviously weapons and very purposely built Yes.
I don't view mace and pepper mace as an object that is built to be a weapon.
I know that there are some people in our community that have used it in that way, but I also know that it's an important piece of the self-defense, low-lethality sort of suite of options people have.
And I want people to be able to feel safe in our parks at any time of the day.
And so I would, Please urge the committee to consider amending out the inclusion of mace and pepper mace or consider some other creative solution to condition that.
Because as it stands, I'll have a difficult time supporting that at the full council if those words are included.
I yield the 13 seconds of my time.
Thanks.
Steve Novick
Councilor Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman
Okay, thank you for that testimony.
So let's just run that through a little bit.
If that's the case, if pepper mace, mace, pepper spray is part of this, of this ordinance, I can only imagine how many Portland City employees who are sitting in City Hall 1900 or the Portland Building are currently right now carrying a little I don't think I've ever seen a single thing of mace the way that I think my grandmother did for many years.
And based on what the project— or excuse me, the presentation said, they would be now guilty of a felony if we were to both find it, which sits on many people's keychains.
So guilty of a felony, which is a life-altering situation.
That's a felony.
Expand that further, and I recognize that people's tolerance for what is a self-defense mechanism, self-defense weapon, offensive, etc., it changes for each of us.
Probably all 12 of us have a different level in which we would say, well, let's run that through.
This testimony from Councilor Green is apt to me, and is that your intent as the author of this, that certainly not.
Unidentified speaker
Now, this is language that came from collaboratively through the Public Safety Service Area and the City Attorney's Office.
This addition was part of those additions that the staff gave us.
I wouldn't be offended if it was removed.
It's not my intention to— my daughter carries pepper spray as well.
However, I do want to say that perhaps the medieval maces, a large club with steel on the end, that's not what we're talking about.
Spikes on it, we should prevent those from being in here.
Eric Zimmerman
I would argue that you probably can't conceal that.
Unidentified speaker
Hard to do.
Eric Zimmerman
Hard to do.
So is that what you're referencing, Councilor Green?
I'm looking for a nod.
I don't know what we're talking about here.
Mitch Green
It would be a morning star, I think, is what he's referencing.
Angelita Morillo
Okay.
Eric Zimmerman
But let's use pepper spray since everybody knows that that is not a medieval weapon, but pepper spray.
May I clarify, Councilor Zimmerman?
Please, by all means.
Unidentified speaker
Just for what it's worth here, this is a 2012-050.
The addition of mace and pepper spray, which again, totally happy to discuss making an adjustment there, but that would not trigger a felony.
This is within city code, it's within parks code.
So that triggers civil penalties and not even local criminal penalties.
Eric Zimmerman
Okay, let's— can you then clarify how that meets up to the rest of your presentation?
'Cause in your presentation, I remember writing down Felony, because you had highlighted a felony for those who violate this in your presentation.
And I was—.
Loretta Smith
Absolutely.
Eric Zimmerman
At that moment, are we talking about different weapons get different charges?
Unidentified speaker
No.
So let's look over at Exhibit C, and I'm happy to defer to the administration partners on this.
So there's a lot of little adjustments here.
And among these adjustments here in the parks code, Yes.
We have the inclusion or the addition of basically it says tear gas, mace, pepper mace, or similar deleterious agents just to the list of things that you can't have in a park.
So there's like an addition to the enumerated list of weapons that you shouldn't carry in a park.
That is substantively separate from the issue going on with concealed carry.
Handguns.
So down below here at the bottom of Exhibit C, um, semicolon, however the affirmative defense, etc., that relates to CHLs, whereas the additions above in that blue section have to do with the underlying ordinance.
Eric Zimmerman
Okay, so in this case we're talking some code, city code minor violations.
So if I was carrying a gun at a park, yeah, I get a slap on the wrist.
But if I happen to be carrying a gun at a building, I'm going to get a felony?
Unidentified speaker
You would— what would happen in the real world is that you would come up to the door and there would be a sign on the door that said no guns, including no concealed handguns.
If you then said to yourself, let me try to get this gun in here anyway, and that whole sequence of events ended up with you being arrested or in court because of some choice that you made while in that room, then there could be a felony involved.
Okay.
And Councilor Zimmerman, did you want me to answer your earlier question about the concealed?
That'd be great.
So I will say that my experience specifically in applying for the concealed carry license, it was a web-based multi-choice or multi-questionnaire.
Sameer Kanal
Yes.
Unidentified speaker
I did it in about 15 to 20 minutes while watching a movie with my family and then drove about a mile from my house to get my fingerprints taken.
In total, I spent less than 30 minutes on top of the 41 years that I lived an upright, admirable life that otherwise didn't disqualify me.
It really was not a particularly onerous process and did not at any point actually involve me did you ever attend a gun safety course to be qualified for that concealed permit?
I did not.
Eric Zimmerman
Then that sounds like a Multnomah County problem of not following the law.
Unidentified speaker
Agreed.
The option that Multnomah County gave me was a reference to a— over to the state-run application for the test, and you can thumb through it on your phone.
If you miss the questions, you can go back and take it again an unlimited number of times.
Eric Zimmerman
So let me— I've certainly taken the, you know, when you're a young person you take like a hunter's education course, right?
I took the firearms training course for the Utah Concealed Weapons, which allows— I think it's like 20 states, basically there's reciprocity.
And also have had to submit my training record at different times from the— my most recent, like, military qualification with a handgun or with a rifle and, and those types of things.
So I'm very surprised to hear, uh, and that is concerning because as I read the ORS, it looks like you have to show proof for, uh, having gone through one of those courses.
And I don't think a training course, a firearms training course, can exist without— at least one that should be credible.
Unidentified speaker
Yeah.
Eric Zimmerman
Accredited or credible without touching, right?
That was a major function of the courses I went through is how to handle it.
Unidentified speaker
Absolutely.
I thought I was signing up for a course.
I thought I was taking the introductory and at the end they said, congratulations, you passed, pay your $60.
Eric Zimmerman
Yep.
Unidentified speaker
It was not a barrier to access it.
And truly was, I mean, I appreciate accessibility.
I appreciate the state trying to make things easy for people who have limited technology.
But truly it was, A minimal process that I, I still, 2 months later now, with my concealed carry permit in my pocket, but I do not own a gun and I still have not ever touched a gun or had to demonstrate that I even know which end works.
Eric Zimmerman
So I'll acknowledge that that is deeply concerning.
I do hope that when they took your fingerprints and they ran your name, they actually conducted the FBI check as they say they will in their documents.
But that's deeply concerning.
But I'll say it's a different government as well.
Philosophically, Council President, what I, I guess I'm, I'm— I think your conclusion after going through that experience of this isn't what— this isn't right for me is perfectly sound.
But you're asking us to say this isn't right for everyone, and I'm not sure that we can be in the position to say this isn't for everyone because you're introducing similar to the, the mace or the pepper spray question, you're introducing this challenge, an operational challenge for the hours when somebody is coming to work or leaving work and they're not, quote, in the building.
You're presenting a challenge there that kind of seems like we just want to ignore that that part of life exists.
Like when you leave your front door until the time you get to the place of business, and then when you leave the place of business and get to your front door, that then you're allowed to carry this thing or have this concealed permit, and we have— and we're like, yeah, you're a law-abiding citizen, do your thing, but not during the 8 hours you're at work.
And by the way, we don't know if you actually have any because in the last 5 years we've only had 3 situations.
But this would apply to everybody coming into those buildings.
And that's where— why does your determination mean that everybody should have the same determination, right?
Your threat our posture is different than anyone else's, and we all have our own in how we deal with it.
Why is yours the one that should prevail here?
Unidentified speaker
I mean, ultimately, that is why I'm before the committee asking for my duly elected representatives to also weigh in on this and choose whether or not— this is my best bet.
We have narrowed the number of situations historically to where a public employee may interface with an yes.
A member of the public with a gun.
Currently, it is the narrowest it's ever been, but there is a narrower ability under state law for us to specifically close this part of it.
If this committee chooses that this is not the direction to go, that is absolutely our prerogative.
In my estimation, based on my life experience, both in doing gang prevention with guns and having applied for this concealed carry and my responsibility to all of us as council president, my judgment led me to this position, to saying that I think that this is the smallest, Thank you.
I think that this is the best step forward that we could do to ensure some level of safety.
I don't think it's going to be the panacea that keeps us safe.
I think that there will always be opportunities for people who intend us harm to find us and do that.
This is both about protecting us as elected officials, but also the staff and the public, in my opinion, for when they come here expecting to yell at us about potholes or whatever the issue might be of the day, that those passions don't then also facilitate violence.
And if that is not the position that this council or this, yeah, this committee and the broad council agree with, I can certainly accept that.
But this is my attempt to try.
Eric Zimmerman
I appreciate it.
And I'll wrap up here.
I appreciate that.
To me, it looks like y'all have gone through a lot of thought on this and that this has been a deliberate rather than a reactionary kind of process.
I'm left with the question of, do you really think that anybody who's intent on doing violence is going to follow the law?
And for me, that answer is no.
And then the subtext to that is, but we're asking people who could be the subject of that violence to follow the law when we know the people who are going to do violence are not going to follow the law.
And I don't think this will actually do one thing to make anybody safer.
Um, and that, that's the real concern here.
I think we're actually eliminating other potential, um, um, recourses for people who are in a variety of different situations because this is the thing of the era right now.
We want to talk about concealed permit carriers, I guess.
But appreciate Evan, great presentation.
It was easy to follow.
I understand the differences thank you for that, Council President.
Thank you for getting into a philosophical discussion, 'cause I think that's a lot of what this is.
Loretta Smith
Yeah.
Eric Zimmerman
And I'm disheartened to hear that the Multnomah County Sheriff did not, as far as I can tell, follow what is the expectation for the processing and permitting in a shall state like this.
So that's too bad.
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor.
And Councilor, I just wanna add, when I was at Portland State University, I was taught as a political science class that, and maybe the teacher was being a bit glib, but they said 75% of people don't need a law in order to do what's right, and 10% of people will never do what's right regardless of the law.
So we govern for the 15%.
Steve Novick
Councilor, Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Chair Novick, and thank you, Council President, for giving us something to chew on there right as I had the mic.
I, I wanted to, to start by saying most of the, the second piece of, of what, um, or I guess the first half of what Councilor Zimmerman just said, uh, is, are things I, I do agree with, in particular around the need for us to have, uh, security longer in this building.
Unfortunately, right now, uh, as most of our committees, we haven't had a, um, a presence from the people who can decide that.
Um, this is like C-SPAN, the camera doesn't show the Thank you.
I apologize for the emptiness of portions of the room.
There are people in the, in the audience here, but not in the, the administrative side here, uh, for those who are watching at home.
But, uh, I, I do think that that's something really, really important for us to address.
And, um, it's something that came up last year behind the scenes in the conversation around, uh, security.
Um, and I think we were still catching up on the changes from a 5-member council to a 12-member council and a separate mayor.
And that's what we were able to achieve.
But now we need to do that next step in this year's budget.
Um, as it relates to, uh, the, the rest of the conversation, I think it's, um, whether or not this prevents the first thing is an important question.
Unidentified speaker
What—.
Sameer Kanal
Whether it removes the affirmative defense after the fact is a separate and also important question that may both have a direct answer in terms of does it actually help us holding a person accountable after the fact, but also does it, uh, help prevent the next, uh, the, the recurrence?
A lot of what we do after the fact— and this is why investigations are so important with PPV, right?
It still happened after the original, uh, allegation of a crime or, or alleged crime occurred, but it might prevent the next thing.
Um, and so it, it's, uh, I think similarly here, it's, it's important for us to do that.
Um, and to explore whether or not this tool can assist us in holding a person accountable who might try to, as you put it, Council President, bypass the rule and just bring in the firearm anyway.
I did want to get involved in the conversation around mace.
The Exhibit A shows that this is already in the code for buildings.
Loretta Smith
Yes.
Sameer Kanal
And it appears to have been copied and pasted from— this is Exhibit A-31820 Part B-6.
It's in the list, and it appears that the change has been to make Exhibit C down at the bottom, 2012-50, identical to the above.
I do see the purpose of trying to align those.
I also agree that we should not I agree with both Councilors Green and Zimmerman on that.
And so that might be something worth doing in both cases because I'm concerned that we might already have a challenge here.
I'll also point out that one of the challenges with these types of things is something I'm hoping to address in a semi, very tangentially related piece of legislation, which is clarifying these types of weapons and what makes them prohibited.
Thank you.
Problematic or not is often the directed spray.
The ability to direct at a person is sort of, I think, where the legislative tool of use or non-use— sorry, of possession or non-possession can be helpful.
In other words, tear gas or a tear gas weapon is something which can affect not only the person that it's ostensibly targeted at, but everybody in the room.
There's no way to tear gas one person in this room.
Right now, right?
Uh, and so it is, uh, inherently problematic as a result of that, whereas there is a scenario in which one person could be pepper sprayed as a self-defense tool.
So I, I am open to that.
And then separately, we have, um, regulatory questions to answer about usage if someone is just hypothetically using it, um, outside of a self-defense context.
So I, I think there is sort of 2 different questions that we're asking here, and the terminology we're using isn't necessarily specific enough in either the current law.
And I want to stress, this text seems to be pulled completely directly from existing code and just applied in the parks context now.
So I do like the idea of harmonizing those 2 rules and also not banning a self-defense.
It's kind of ironic that this conversation is happening today in this committee given that we just had a conversation about sexual assault prevention as well, I should note, because that is often, and should be mentioned, often one of the contexts in which people carry mace or pepper spray.
I am hoping to clarify with the attorneys at some point, and I see if the city is going to be tear gas or tear gas weapon in this context encapsulates CS gas, OC gas, all the other types of gases and powders which are in use at the present time, 'cause technically speaking, tear gas is not the chemical that is being used.
Unidentified speaker
So in our current code, we already have prohibition in the City of Portland in all the public spaces as to the defined items, the, the mayest deleterious agents and whatnot, because that's already in 14A-60.030, and there is an exception for the personal use.
So I think that kind of addressed some of the earlier comments as well.
In terms of the OC agent, I don't have the information on that, but I think it's what you all been discussing in prior council sessions in that respect.
Sameer Kanal
So this definition is the reference that's being used here in violation of 14A-6030.
I think that answers my question around CSOC, all the other I also think, given that it is actually one term, tear gas, mace, pepper mace, or similar deleterious agent is one term as defined.
There's a separate term as defined, which is tear gas weapon.
And so its insertion in there, we might need to just make that clear.
But I think that clarifies.
Insofar as personal use goes, I don't— I think that's a good point.
Loretta Smith
What's that?
Sameer Kanal
It allows for tear gas, actually.
I'm a little— it's unlawful for any person, corporation, or association to offer for sale, sell, furnish, transport, carry, possess, or use within the city limits any tear gas weapon or stun gun.
This does not apply, blah, blah, blah.
And then there's 7 lists down here, and 6 and 7 relate to Um, as a tear gas, as an aerosol tube, and, uh, from an aerosol tube, sorry, as a self-defense weapon, and then separately a stun gun for the purpose of self-defense.
Maybe we need to dig into that as it relates to the, the, um, the, the gas versus the, the weapon.
Um, there's a distinction in the earlier section that I just want to clarify, um, and I'll— I won't go through this line by line here on the dais.
But I am curious about that because it is, I think, a potential inadvertent interpretation might come out of this if we're not clear on that.
I'm not sure if I'm making sense, so I will wait.
Nancy Thorington
Absolutely, Councilor Dan Ryan.
Unidentified speaker
Follow up on that.
I'd say that from, you're asking really good questions about ensuring that we don't take away the legitimate ability of people to defend themselves from attack.
Nancy Thorington
Yes.
Unidentified speaker
While seeking the sort of clarification and unification of language that's being done here.
We have not thought hard enough about that and looked at the code to see where we can close those gaps, use those definitions to ensure that people can do what they need to do.
So we'd absolutely be happy to work with you, anybody else on this committee about truing up that language, find us solution moving forward, or just ensure that this is doing what we think it's doing.
That's really important and worth the time.
Sameer Kanal
Sorry, I didn't know if Linda Lai, if you wanted to say anything.
Oh no, no, no, no, no, no.
Sorry not to put you on the spot.
Unidentified speaker
No, I think, in my opinion, I think there's a lot of code sections that council can probably review and look and do a refresh.
Oh, I bet.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you for that.
The last question I wanted to ask is, does this fall into the general framework?
And this would not be something you're changing, but just does the— do these sections of code that are referenced in A, B, and C, Exhibits A, B, and C, fall under the general penalty provisions, or are there specific penalties elsewhere?
Because your exhibits just excerpt the part you're changing, or does this fall under the general 1.01.110?
Nancy Thorington
General stuff.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, thank you very much.
Unidentified speaker
Do you guys need me?
Steve Novick
Okay.
So one thing I wanted to mention is that although I think Councilor Zimmerman is right that people with concealed carry permits are not like uniquely dangerous, they do occasionally Use guns in unfortunate matters.
The Violence Policy Center says that there's— since 2007, there have been more than 2,500 non-self-defense deaths involving concealed carry killers since 2007.
And although a substantial percentage of those are victims of suicide, a substantial percentage are not.
I also wanted to note, in response to President Dunphy's comment about Medieval maces that I'm actually not entirely sure that that's not what the code refers to, because there are a couple of references to what I thought of as rather archaic weapons, including dirks, which I think of as things carried by 17th century pirates, and saps, which I think of as being carried by either police or, or organized crime figures in the 1930s.
So there are at least some archaic weapons that are covered.
Thank you.
One thing I just, I just want to clarify again, we are not— other than in the case of parks, this legislation would not further restrict or criminalize the use of things such as mace or pepper mace.
Is that correct?
Dan Ryan
That is my understanding, yes.
Steve Novick
Okay.
Councilor Morillo.
Angelita Morillo
Thank you, Chair Novick.
Thank you both so much for this presentation today.
This is, I think, a really fruitful discussion.
I just, to start us off with the mace thing, if you're open to having it removed, I would also like for it to be removed.
I just think as a young woman, if I were to go on a run in a park, I would simply not do that without mace.
I think we need minimum protection in that case, and that's what I would feel most comfortable with.
I think most of the young women that I speak with would also argue that they're not gonna go on a walk in a park by themselves without some mace or something like that.
And I find myself agreeing with a lot of Councilor Zimmerman's points around concealed carry.
Although I've had the same experience as you had, I haven't finished getting my concealed carry license, but I looked into what does it actually take to do that, and it was an online thing.
You do get to do it as many times as you'd like, which you learn through the process of repeating those questions, but the fact that you can do it in about 5 minutes, 30 minutes and then just go get fingerprinted and all of that and have it be done is pretty wild how easy it is.
So I think that, yeah, maybe we should talk to our Multnomah County partners about that.
That's a them issue.
But I think something that I always come back to, especially with the parks portion of this, is I honestly think about the 2022 Normandale shooting.
Eric Zimmerman
Yes.
Angelita Morillo
And for folks who don't remember what happened at that time, there was a group of community advocates that were holding a vigil for Patrick Kimmons, a 27-year-old Black man that was killed by police.
And while they were holding that vigil, a white supremacist came to the park.
He was flagged as a white supremacist and a potential threat for many, many years by the FBI.
He came into the park with a gun.
He tried to do a mass shooting.
He ended up killing some of our community members, injuring others, and it was a protester at the vigil who was trained in firearm safety that ended up shooting that white supremacist, which stopped him, I believe, from doing a mass shooting in that park.
And that is a very real thing that happened in our community.
I know people who were there personally, and And frankly, if that protester who was there holding the vigil hadn't been there with a license, with training, prepared to handle that situation, I think it could have ended up a lot differently.
And I don't say that to perpetuate the myth that a good guy with a gun is going to resolve every issue and that we should have a Rambo-style justice system where people just take matters into their own hands.
But that is a very real thing that happened in our community.
And I do share the concern that a radicalized white supremacist who wants to kill people who are holding a vigil for a Black man killed by police is not going to care that there is a law to stop him from carrying that gun in the park.
It will probably stop those people who are holding the vigil.
And so, I do wonder about the practical application of this.
I think for City Hall, it makes perfect sense for a building like this when we have people coming in and testifying and things can get escalated in this space.
And we have more ways to check if someone has a gun or a concealed carry.
Like, I know when people are downstairs, Even right now, if they have a concealed carry permit, our security will run it and make sure that that's actually up to date, verify it, all of those things.
So someone can't just come in pretty easily with it.
But I think if we expand that to other situations, I'm not sure how this ends up working out practically.
And so, sorry, I think this— I didn't mean to make it so heavy, but the Normandale shooting is something that I just think about a lot.
Thank you.
Because I know some of the people that were there, and I'm not sure how this— if a situation like that were to happen again, which I think is very likely to happen again, just because of the political landscape that we're facing right now, I'm not sure how this would harm or help that situation.
Unidentified speaker
You absolutely raised some valid points.
You know, this— the definitions currently under our existing code limit the opportunities for carrying a gun in parks.
The specific language here that we are updating as it pertains to guns is— or as it pertains to parks, rather— is updating the definitions so that they're aligned.
And primarily, the purpose of this is to focus on places where public meetings happen.
I don't believe that this would put additional restrictions on people's gotcha.
That's my understanding.
Angelita Morillo
Okay.
And so for clarity, I think part of what Councilor Smith had asked earlier was, say we're hosting a public meeting in the 1900 building, it would apply there.
Or if we're using, say we hold, I don't know, a meeting at a non-city-owned building, but we are having a council meeting there for like one of our budget hearings or something, does that mean that we would have to have a permit for that?
It would not.
Unidentified speaker
The threshold is quorum for us as a body.
So if we were having an official meeting in that capacity as an official meeting of the city government, it could.
But for a budget hearing, if we are under the quorum limitations and we don't actually control that building, if we, you know, if we held it in the— in a community center potentially, if we held it at a high school gymnasium, we couldn't.
Okay.
I would not apply because that—.
Sorry, can I speak to that?
Yeah.
So the language in the Senate bill says it's buildings owned or controlled by the governing body.
So if we were going to do a 12-person full quorum council meeting in, say, ERCO, the question would be about, all right, do we control that building?
And so in the preparatory process of doing that, we would need to have the conversation yeah.
I'd say when we organized the strategic goal-setting conversation just next door, that is a city building.
It would qualify under this in all of these ways, et cetera.
But setting up a 12-person meeting there of all of you councilors involved ensuring there was a security bag check, ensuring there was some kind of magnetometer situation, ensuring there was security staff there, ensuring that there was a sitting in the room facing the audience as they do here.
That's sort of the basic structural ante of putting this body and the public in a room together.
And that would be expected to be repeated in any other public location.
So again, lawyers would have to be involved and do that work.
But the target of any such circumstance would be to enable the city to be controlling that space.
Such that the same provisions would apply.
Angelita Morillo
Gotcha.
Okay, that makes more sense too.
So there is, it isn't enforceable insofar as when we're holding a public meeting with all of us, you're right, they do update the security, the livestreaming, all of that, even if it's not in this building.
And then those folks would be able to check if someone has a weapon or something like that.
Tori Streed
Yeah.
Angelita Morillo
Okay, that's very helpful.
Yeah, I think I— that helps me narrow it down a little bit more.
And like I said, I think if we remove the mace part in parks, I'm pretty supportive of this on a whole.
And I just want to say, like, I appreciate you guys bringing this discussion.
It's not existing in a vacuum.
And unfortunately, we are existing in a time where the federal government isn't taking the action that they should on gun violence.
And so We are piecemealing things together, and that has strange impacts sometimes because we can't actually just live in a country that has full authority over whether or not people have guns.
So I appreciate that, and I'm just trying to factor in practical realities as we discuss this.
But thank you so much.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you.
Steve Novick
Councilor Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman
Thanks.
I'll start with a technical question here.
There's been some discussion about a loaded firearm, and as I've always understood Portland's law, that that's a particularly important point.
So what constitutes a loaded firearm?
Unidentified speaker
Let's go to the text.
Just a moment.
Eric Zimmerman
And this gets to the— there was a point earlier brought up about inspection, and that is about is it or is it not loaded, which then is or is not a violation of law.
Unidentified speaker
All right, so we're heading over to 14A-60010, possession of a loaded firearm in a public place.
Uh, let's see here.
It is unlawful for any person to knowingly possess or carry a firearm in or upon a public place, including while in a vehicle, recklessly— recklessly having failed to remove all the ammunition from the firearm.
It is also unlawful for any person to knowingly possess or carry a firearm and that firearm clip or magazine recklessly, having failed to remove all the ammunition from the clip or magazine.
It is unlawful for any person who possesses a firearm clip or magazine in a public place to refuse to permit a police officer to inspect that firearm after the police officer has identified themselves as a police officer.
This section does not apply to law enforcement officers or members of the military in the performance of official duties, nor persons licensed to carry a concealed handgun, nor persons authorized to possess a loaded firearm, clip, or magazine while in that building, et cetera, et cetera.
Eric Zimmerman
Okay, thank you.
This seems minor, but I want to highlight this as kind of an important point.
And I'm going to go in the Wayback Machine.
It's actually one of the very first reasons that I chose to get a concealed weapons permit because as I was a young person in the suburbs, and then I became aware of this issue with firearms inside the city of Portland, and I thought about, well, gosh, I have gone from deer hunting back to my, Home inside the city of Portland, and I had a rifle and I had a pistol and I had both of their magazines that go with those.
Nothing is in the chamber.
Maybe even the, the, the magazine is removed from the weapon, but it is still co-located in, in the same case.
And as I read that text, and as the way you just read it, uh, that is the reason I thought, gosh, I need to get a concealed weapons permit because I think just driving home, even though it says going from the range and all that, but like the ability to convince an officer like, no, officer, I swear I'm coming from hunting or I'm coming from a range, I think that's a little loose.
So it led me to get my first concealed weapons permit, uh, was to try and be in compliance with Portland's law, which is quite strict, right?
You can't have even ammo near a firearm.
Firearm.
So I did that as an intent to be above board always.
Now, this is many, many, many years ago, but, you know, largely it seemed functional to me and I understood like how that worked.
Using Councilor Murillo's example and others, and I'm aware of how many people on this council and how many employees in this day and age do receive threats and I spent a whole lot of my career fighting something called Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and I'll tell you, this is an area where I think Don't Ask, Don't Tell is actually appropriate.
I think actually a concealed permit is for those who are law-abiding residents and citizens of the state of Oregon.
Our system has been set up so that they can be unknown entities, and we will never know And I think that's a good thing.
I'm also, you know, I'm cautious and I'm very uncomfortable with situations where, you know, the idea is like introducing more guns into a gun-riddled situation is not a good thing.
I'm not advocating for that.
But this— and that has come up over the last several months in our community.
This is going into a direction that, um, I'm worried that in your intent to make this room, uh, safer, which I don't know that it does, but I think that's a part of your intent, you're making all other hours of some people's lives potentially more dangerous.
Because to follow this, Uh, essentially, and in operation, even people who followed the law by getting a concealed weapons permit now are just leaving those at home.
And that worries me.
Um, and that worries me from all levels of people who have to come in and do business at the city, uh, city buildings, as you, as you say.
So the, the loaded part is important here.
There's one aspect that I'm curious about, and this got me thinking I was thinking about it with regards to our noted now disappointment with how y'all's experience of getting a concealed weapons permit has gone.
But on, um, Exhibit B, number 13, under C, it talks about a person authorized by permit of the chief of police to possess a loaded firearm clip magazine in a public place in the city.
So that leads me to Can we, as the City of Portland, say those who have a concealed weapons permit, in order to receive a chief's permit, must go through a sanctioned— I don't know, you name the thing, but not the online Dunphy experience, but, but the, you know, firearms training at a location with a certain set of standards that have to be met.
What does the authorized by permit by the Chief of Police mean?
Because that leads me to think potentially there's something we can put in place here instead of just banning everybody, but say you must meet this threshold of competency in order to.
I'm just— and also I just want to say, Chair and Vice Chair, thank you for giving so much time to this and not doing a rush through on this because You know, this discussion has been helpful to hear all the different points, and it's really nuanced.
Unidentified speaker
Okay, Councilor Zimmerman, just again for clarity, that number 13 there, a person authorized by permit of the Chief of Police to possess a loaded firearm, et cetera, in a public place, that is a section of 14A-60-010, possession of a loaded firearm in a public place.
Which is distinct from rules governing rules of conduct at city property.
So we are talking about outside of the building public places when we're talking about Exhibit B here.
However, frankly, neither of us know exactly the process that 13 is referring to, so you'd have to phone a friend.
Okay.
If we could ask Attorney Law to come back to the table.
So this is, to restate, this is looking at 14A-60-010-C-13, a person authorized by the Chief of Police.
What is that process and what are those circumstances?
It's an administrative process.
That you— we would probably have to ask, um, the police bureau how they'd go about to allow someone.
It could be an, an example of that could be that there is a firearms demonstration for the police officers and they need to bring people in who are not persons that are police officers.
And for for a particular event.
So that could be a way of permitting.
Permission— permitting in this particular context, it's— this particular code has been, um, uh, its iteration has been in existence, and we used the word permit for both the actual form of agreement permit as well as permit as permission giving.
So, so it depends.
I'm I'm not sure exactly right now without asking the Police Bureau how they have done the implementation of this particular section.
So we could ask for that if you would like.
Eric Zimmerman
Well, let me tell you, if you pass this, I'm going to ask them for it.
Right?
I just—.
Yeah.
I guess I'm looking to my colleagues and I am asking you to and I feel like we are.
And my hope here is that you can— I'm concerned, frankly, Chair Novick, when you cite something like 2,500 experiences.
Did you also pull the number of concealed permits issued across the United States since 2007 and how many people hold one?
Because to throw out these numbers without some context is making me feel like perhaps this isn't a conversation where there's any sort of, can we work this and make this workable?
If it's a preconceived outcome here, okay.
But I'm hoping that it's not.
I'm hoping that we can both take the intent of the author, which I think is to minimize risk, but from the public safety service area and the security service area, and I'm glad you worked with them, But also, I'm not sure that their job is how to apply this broadly to the public sense.
I think their job is how to reduce all risk in this building to the, not just the 12 elect— 13 elected folks, but to the folks who work here.
I get that.
But like a lot of things that come outta the City Attorney's Office, we have to weigh that risk against its benefit.
Yeah.
It's practicability, it's operationalized nature, it's constitutionality.
Well, less with the city attorney on that one, but in terms of public safety, there's always a risk, 'cause the greatest public safety is we just tell everybody where to walk, what to do, how to do it, and the nature of which to do it.
Obviously, that's not workable in the United States system.
Obviously, that's not workable in the Oregon system.
And so I hear—.
Unidentified speaker
I agree.
Eric Zimmerman
And I think, frankly, our security here has done a tremendous job of getting things at the door, so to speak.
And I appreciate that a lot.
I think they have been allowed to do that, which, frankly, took some doing, 'cause for a long time they weren't.
And they have been active.
But that— I think that's a good point.
There's an autonomy that I'm trying to protect here a little bit in my, in my comments and how this takes.
And I think that this ordinance takes some of that autonomy away for people who've chosen to go through a background check, a fingerprinting, and are thus far found to be law-abiding.
And I will be the first for any councilor, if a person with a permit violates and commits a felony, a death threat, like I'll yank that thing myself.
I'll help you burn it.
But I just, like, I take this very seriously.
So I hope that we can keep either massaging this to be, okay, what is a level in which is accessible here?
Or if we can potentially not pass this.
There's a reason for the state having this affirmative defense, and we're taking that away.
Sameer Kanal
And I—.
Eric Zimmerman
Thank you.
And I have to think there was a reason for that affirmative defense, and, um, I hope it stays there.
I think it's been an important part which has generally worked for us.
So, uh, I, I'll leave it at that.
Thanks, everybody.
Steve Novick
Councilor, Councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Um, Councilor Dunphy, I want to go back to something.
About a month ago, I witnessed firsthand someone who, um, was in front of me who had a concealed concealed weapon permit.
And I watched what happened.
They called PPB, had to stand to the side.
They had to show their concealed weapon permit, show their gun.
And it took about 25 minutes for the whole process to go through.
And once the person was approved, they put their gun loaded and went up to the meeting they were going to.
So the set— so the question that I'm asking is, so now that same person comes through with a concealed weapon permit and a gun, will he now have to leave his gun at the desk, or he can't bring it in at all?
Unidentified speaker
My understanding is they would be not allowed to bring it in at all, that, uh, our security is not equipped to safely store while someone would be in, uh, in the public meeting.
So they would need to leave it secured at home or wherever they think is the most secure place to store it.
Loretta Smith
And I do agree with my previous councilors, Councilor Green and Morillo and Zimmerman, that the pepper mace is an issue.
And I do have pepper mace, and I think it's important.
And I think particularly for women, it is a comfort level that pepper mace provides.
And it's not just say that the pepper mace can't be used on you, but it can.
But I think that that's going to be a, uh, hindrance in this particular, uh, piece of, um, legislation going forward.
Unidentified speaker
And I would, like I said, uh, if this council is interested, or this committee is interested in, uh, uh, offering an amendment, I would be certainly accepting of that as an amendment to remove that component of it.
Um, I do think that, as Councilor Kanal was saying earlier, I think that bringing some consistency across our codes is always helpful.
But if that is a— that section of 20.12.050 was mostly intended to be housekeeping, to bring our definitions and do some light cleanup in addition to the narrow action that this is intended to do, that this is specifically intent— the most affirmative action that this is supposed to take is pertaining to only those places where we are having official meetings with the public in officially, uh, our official capacity.
So I, I don't disagree, and I would absolutely accept that either here or at the full council if that's how this committee chooses to move.
Loretta Smith
And, and not to be a full feminist up here, but you did say you were working with the administration, and they are men.
So I don't think they think about things like that, like me and Councilor Murillo do when we're talking about protecting ourselves with some pepper mace.
Um, and in all due respect to the administration, uh, sometimes you have to put yourself in our shoes as, as a woman and what we can do to, um, to be safe and to be safe in, in our own, um, workplace.
Unidentified speaker
You make a valid argument, and I'll tell you that, as, as I mentioned, I, I'm a girl dad.
I purchased, uh, mace for my daughter when she turned 10.
I'd also like to appreciate the work that Bree Brown did leading this ordinance.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Dan Ryan
Councilors, may I speak out of turn?
You may.
Unidentified speaker
How exciting for me.
Thank you.
It does appear that the language given us in 14A60-030, which is a limitation on tear gas and stun guns in public places makes a distinction between mace, pepper mace, and tear gas weapons.
And it moves forward to create limitations or to disallow the sale, selling, furnishing, transporting, carrying, possessing, et cetera, of tear gas weapons or stun guns, but not thank you.
Steve Novick
Anything further, Councilor Smith?
No, I think that's a good point.
Okay, Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
Um, I think the, the question around the section in exhibit— let me, let me back up.
Big picture, I think what this ordinance has done, in my opinion, is do a good thing in a section of code that has so many, um, details and that the act of opening any door in it has opened Pandora's box.
And so now there are 100 questions about other things that are all valid questions, all related questions, and frankly may be necessary to do this.
It may not be, I'm not sure, but we're gonna work through it.
That, at least from my opinion, does not preclude or limit the benefit of what you're seeking to do here.
So let me just put that on the record.
As I read the document, Thank you.
In Exhibit B, the list of affirmative defenses is particularly broad.
And I was even more concerned after hearing the definition of permit includes permission.
And so I'd like— I'm not just 13, I'm not sure why 14 or 12 or 11 or 10, maybe 10 makes sense actually, makes sense to do in a public building.
But I'm guessing that that has to do with the way in which this section defines public place more than it has to do with building.
So I think we need to like look into that element a little bit more.
I would love to see a more clear definition of permit.
To your point, Eben, on the other item about MACE, I'm not sure that that alone would fix it because the definition is of a singular term in 14A-6030 Part A-1.
Tear gas, mace, pepper spray, or any similar deleterious agent links all of these things together.
And I'm not sure that— I think we need to separate the definition.
And I've been working on this for months now because it's necessary in order to do the ban on tear gas that I seek to do in another piece of legislation.
But separately defining— there is a substantive difference and a Practical difference in implementing anything that would relate to something that creates a directed spray versus something that creates a cloud.
And certainly there can be, you know, the person next to a person who is receiving, you know, some types of pepper spray or mace is going to be affected too, but it's not going to be the entire neighborhood.
So I think there are definitions that we might need to work out here, and perhaps as an interim step, just Taking that piece out as a whole from the park section, leaving it as is might be appropriate in order to allow for the sort of core function here to continue.
Because as I look at the core function, which is the actual red line in the exhibits, I do not see a problem in the Exhibit A section.
Okay.
Or the exhibit first part of the Exhibit B section.
I have questions around the that last part at the end, or the the part other than the the section we're talking about tear gas weapon etcetera in Exhibit C. So I I'm trying to understand that piece of it, and then also to say that does does making these changes.
Making the changes in a vacuum are not objectionable to me.
In fact, I support them.
But does that open this other door around inspection, around all this other stuff?
I'll give an example.
The section that Councilor Zimmerman brought up about loaded firearm, I'm concerned might be insufficiently strong because it says recklessly.
And that is something that often, that implies an intent or a, A mental state.
And I'm not a lawyer, so I can't remember the exact Latin term here, but the conversation is different when we're talking about reckless versus it just is or it is not loaded.
And so I'd like to have those kinds of conversations be related, but I'm not sure that they should necessarily hold up the rest of the legislation.
And maybe they should.
Maybe they're important enough that we need to.
I'm not acknowledging, I'm not— Councilor Dan Ryan.
Trying to ignore it because I do think there have been some pretty important questions raised here.
I am concerned that in the context of the section that, Eben, you read, which is the part I read earlier as well, 14A-6030B, it doesn't seem to relate, it doesn't seem to ban any of these earlier items, the tear gas, mace, pepper mace, or any similar deleterious agent.
It just uses that definition to determine what a tear gas weapon is.
Unidentified speaker
Correct.
Sameer Kanal
And I'm not sure in this section, in the public spaces, in the public buildings, and potentially in the park section, it does.
So I think that might not be the easiest way for people to understand it when implementing it, but also I think it leaves open the option of you— of having to link these together as a package deal.
And, uh, I'm, I'm hoping that we can, um, look into that.
I, I do have a question for the lawyers that didn't occur to me earlier, which is this is in Sec.
Code, uh, Title 14.
Um, my understanding is Code Title 14 is the one that does have criminal penalties on it.
Is that why it's— the distinction is made in terms of banning it elsewhere without the criminal penalty and banning is that why it's in Title 14 or elsewhere?
Unidentified speaker
That Title 14 section pertains to public places, which has brought enough definition of like the open spaces, the green spaces, the parks, as well as public buildings.
So, so the intention is to change the limited subset of the public places that are covered by Title 14 to include public place for the application of the removal of the affirmative defense in the building of that subset of the public place definition.
And then, so that's why there is only a minor change in 14A-60-010-C4 as well as in I think that makes sense in the context of firearms, which is—.
Sameer Kanal
I'm asking in the context of the mace, because that— the definition— the ban on a tear gas weapon is in 14A-6030, but any reference to tear gas mace, pepper mace, or similar deleterious agent is in 318.20 or in 2012.50.
And I'm asking if that distinction as to placement has an impact with relation to criminal penalty for it, because, because I've previously been told that Title 14 is the one that has criminal penalties.
Unidentified speaker
Right, but, but 2012 is the, the non-criminal penalty.
And so it's, it's bringing in a related reference to elsewhere in the code.
What are those things that are in violation?
If you violate those in 14, there could be the same violation of 2012 because we already have the other one in existence.
Sameer Kanal
And is the same true in reverse, that last sentence you just said?
Unidentified speaker
That violation of 2012?
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, in the context of mace, pepper mace, Or tear gas— sorry, tear gas, mace, pepper mace, or similar deleterious agent.
Unidentified speaker
If it is a violation of 14A, the public place, where the public place is a park, then that 14s, the stuff in 14 of public place—.
Sameer Kanal
Can I ask it maybe a little more?
Maybe my question's not super clear.
If we added the text to Exhibit C that adds tear gas weapon, mace, pepper mace, or similar deleterious agent in violation of— and then somebody were to violate this, would they be subject to criminal penalty because it is also a violation of 14, or would it be civil penalty only?
Unidentified speaker
They might— they would face 2 different things.
They would face 2012's penalty.
Nancy Thorington
They—.
Unidentified speaker
If they also violate 14A-60, which if they fit, they have 2 different offenses.
So one incident can give you many offenses, including criminal penalties— so, I mean, criminal ORS penalties.
So it depends.
So in this particular context, for your question, if they violate 2012, it's, it's the civil penalty.
If they violate 14A separately, if that same incident also meets the definition, then they would have that separate penalty.
Sameer Kanal
So I'm reading that as maybe both, but not necessarily.
Carolyn Welch
Yes, it could be.
Sameer Kanal
That's, that's the oversimplifying.
Unidentified speaker
Yeah, it depends on the situation.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
Thank you, Chair Novick.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Councilor.
Um, I want to say that I do hope that, um, we are able to have a little time at the end of the session to talk about our vision for what this committee should do in the next year.
So I'm kind of hoping that we could get fairly soon to proposed amendments and then to a vote, unless people agree that we're not ready for a vote on the ordinance as a whole this session.
In response to what Councilor Zimmerman said about the statistic I quoted, I recognize that the 2,500 cases of misuse of firearms by people who— I mean, resulting in death by people with concealed carry permits is a small fraction of Concealed carry permit holders.
I was just raising that to point out that it is not unheard of for people with concealed carry permits to engage in unfortunate and fatal behavior.
I would also note, Councilor Zimmerman, I think that what you're raising is the prospect that city employees who have concealed carry permits might not be able to take advantage of that during the day because they're going to work.
And they're not going to be able to pick up their, their weapon until they get home.
So I would ask— I would note that that sort of anticipates that there's times where city employees might need to use their weapon to defend themselves other than at home or work.
And I expect that would be a small sample too.
I think that everything we're talking about is a small sample.
And now, appropriately, I will sort of The mic over to Councilor Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman
Thanks, Chair.
And noted, these are small samples.
I think that my point here is that in the world of small samples, I would defer to or prefer that we not make the law more preventative for those who've chosen to follow the law, right?
I think that, The great-grand-significant-whatever-other-large-word of majority of people who are following the law by having a concealed permit will never, quote, use a weapon.
That's the goal.
So I agree, Councilor Novick.
I just, I want to share from my community some spaces where I know that this will bump up against, against, uh, itself.
So, uh, many people are aware of the, um, Pulse nightclub massacre that happened in 2016.
It was a gay club.
A person walked into that place and absolutely massacred, uh, many attendees.
Pride happens in June.
It happened just a few days ago.
I was there.
Few weeks, a few days after that event.
I think it was actually the following weekend, Portland Pride.
And I, I was there.
I, I was in the parade, and I, I saw a lady who I happened to know from a very long time ago.
She's a mom.
She's also a nurse.
And her kid was at the parade, and she had this enormous backpack on.
And the reason she had this enormous backpack on is because she had filled the thing with trauma gear— bandages, tourniquets, you name it.
She was fully in a trauma kit, like the kind of trauma kit that my medics carried in Iraq, because that's the level of concern that she had as a mom after a really serious targeting.
Thank you.
She wasn't, as far as I know, she's not carrying a gun, right?
That's fine.
I'm not trying to make the illusion that she is, that she should be.
That would have been her choice.
But I'm trying to paint the picture for, first off, we were at the North Park blocks because that's where the parade stages.
And while most of the parade essentially stays on public roads, there's some walking in and out of the park that occurs.
But that's the level of, of terror, I think, that some people have to hold when they're in public spaces.
I want to— I'm going to be vulnerable here because I think this has been a healthy conversation, but there have been years when I've been at events like that where I've chosen, you know what, based on the things that are going on or the targeting that's going on, that I have I have chosen to exercise my right with my concealed permit and carry because of the heaviness that has occurred at different times throughout the years in how large events or public events like a Pride parade have been targeted.
Those are not, those choices are not, I don't take those lightly, but I also am aware of many people who have at different times chosen Who have followed the law and done the right thing, and they stay right on the streets, they don't enter parks, etc.
But we're in— we're introducing something here where a concealed weapons permit has been the thing that's allowed people to be above the— or above board, not above the law, but above board, right?
Doing it the right way.
And we'll be eliminating that.
And I think what we'll be doing is actually just making a host of people's behaviors illegal overnight without much thought to like why some folks may choose to, in those public situations, may choose to, uh, carry concealed, right?
And, and, um, I just want us to be careful with that.
I hope that we don't actually— if we vote on this today, I hope that we don't pass it today.
But, but if there's room, there's been so much discussion on different aspects of this and different parts of it that I think if it's going to pass, I hope you all will make those changes to make this better.
But I don't know that this is ready to pass today, Chair.
And they're just— the world unfortunately has not gotten safer for Or as it relates to gun violence.
And the idea that all public spaces, that public buildings, etc., will go fully without any concealed weapons permit is such a significant change.
But I have this feeling that most of the time, because it's kind of an area that a lot of people don't understand, it's seen as a minor change.
So I just, I hope we don't pass this today.
Thank you.
That would be my request to my colleagues.
And I know that this is difficult, but there are real people who intend to do real harm, and passing this will not change their real intent.
So I hope we can think about that.
Thank you.
Steve Novick
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Councilor Novick, Chair Novick.
Councilor Zimmerman, I wanted to dig into that last piece a little bit more and just understand, 'cause it sounds like, I think we're looking at 3 different sections, 3 exhibits.
One, and I think in an earlier comment you talked about the conversation around buildings like this one, and then in this most recent one talking about B and C. Exhibits B and C, sorry.
Is the objection to all 3 of these sections at this moment, or is it primarily to the 3rd one around parks?
I, I heard your comments and I appreciate them as it relates to, you know, the in and out of the park blocks example, and I, I understand that.
I— for me, that feels like a different enough idea that I, I can I think I can separate the conversation and compartmentalize a bit.
I'm not sure if the first and second feel separable, although they are a little different in terms of loaded versus, and loaded in a broader area versus period in a narrower area.
But I wanted to understand that a little bit better because we do have the option to, You know, to, to advance a portion of this or not, and also to, to workshop some of this.
Um, as I've said, I, I'm— I would like to revisit the, the mace and pepper mace piece, but also I, I have questions that the— that your questions and the responses to them gave me more alarm as it relates to some of, uh, the, the Exhibit B, and I wanted to get more clarity on that.
Before engaging in, having nothing to do with the changes that are being proposed today, but just having an understanding of the overall ecosystem in which those changes live.
So I wanted to understand that a little bit better, if you don't mind.
Eric Zimmerman
Sure.
I think I understand the question.
So I think the discussion that y'all have had and we have had around the various types of things in and around parks is a really valuable one, and I would support Those changes.
But then my underline in all situations is that they each seem to have— and I don't think it's exactly the same, but essentially they have each of those sections, Exhibit C, B, and A, have all inserted the, um, you are no longer exempt from this if you have a concealed weapons permit.
And across the board, I object to that.
I think that the concealed weapons permit should be A permissible and, uh, as listed under the state, one of the defenses.
So I think that— I hope that answers your question, Councilor.
Um, I know the parks one has had a lot and those changes are fine, but, but I would also apply the concealed weapons there.
And to what it means in B, um, and in Aye.
Yeah, aye.
Steve Novick
Does that—.
Eric Zimmerman
Is that your question?
Sameer Kanal
I think so.
Eric Zimmerman
I'm—.
Sameer Kanal
I think there's slightly different impacts of the same text.
And so that's sort of my— I acknowledge that it is effectively the identical text.
I think there may be some punctuation just because of the way that sentences end that's different.
But in terms of the impact, Trying to understand that too, because I see a different impact in the context of a park personally, but I'm curious if you do too.
Eric Zimmerman
Help me out with that.
What do you mean?
I'm trying to follow along in a situation where we just have single paragraphs of these exemptions.
So what do you mean?
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, I'm flipping between tabs here too, trying to contextualize the sections that are, and I totally understand why you didn't put the entirety of the title in here, so I'm not trying to do that.
My working assumption on this is that the definition of public place is broad enough that your example from earlier about driving through an area or passing through an area en route to or from a hunting context is something that is reasonable for a person to be doing, whereas entering this building would not necessarily be rationalized, I don't know, able to be rationalized in the context of an example like that.
And so the affirmative defense, and not that the concealed handgun was the affirmative defense in that example, but that there are, that this tends to be its own destination.
Eric Zimmerman
Got it.
Can I, this is a really important point, and I think, thanks for bringing it up.
Yeah, the transiting piece of it, I think you're understanding.
I also would be concerned about a person who comes through the gates downstairs or to the, you know, not to overuse the term permit here, but since our permit window is an open space that people come to to get a permit for a construction, it'd be weird, right?
Like in just a normal non-legal sense, it's just kind of weird.
Why?
Okay.
What I'm really concerned about here are actually our employees who are concealed weapons carry or concealed weapon permit holders.
Whether or not they carry it is a different question.
That is where I think those people aren't making a trip here, so to speak, but this is their place of business.
So that's, I think, a distinction I hope is helpful to clarify my concern changes on each of those different paragraphs.
Um, yeah, I'll just stop there.
Steve Novick
Councilor Kanal, did you have something to add?
Sameer Kanal
Not at this time, thanks.
Steve Novick
Okay, at this point I think that be worth having discussion about whether people think that we should just, um, Postpone this item until the next meeting.
I mean, I actually think that as a general principle, I'm not in favor of rushing to have a vote the first time something comes before committee.
Um, but I also don't think that we should postpone just for the sake of postponement.
So I'm curious.
I mean, I personally think I'd be prepared to vote for an amendment, um, deleting Exhibit C. So just not addressing the parks issue.
Okay.
And then moving forward to a vote on the underlying proposal.
But I think that clearly Councilor Zimmerman is not going to want to support the underlying proposal.
Councilor Kunal, I think you might be wanting to develop some amendments on aspects other than Exhibit C. So I'm curious whether Councilor Murillo and Councilor Smith, feel ready to vote on the underlying today, or would you prefer to, um, with perhaps some amendments, or would you prefer to take this up at a subsequent meeting after people have had a chance to think further and refine amendments?
Councilor Murillo.
Angelita Morillo
Thanks, Chair Novick.
Um, yeah, I think that I will be ready to support this with a few amendments coming forward from, I believe, Councilors Probably Zimmerman and Kanal, although I don't want to volunteer you for work.
But yeah, I think it needs just a little bit more time, but I think when it goes to full council, I'll be ready to support it.
Steve Novick
So do you think that we should probably move ahead, that you'd like to see us move ahead today if we can, or would you rather wait for another meeting?
Angelita Morillo
Sorry, to clarify, I think that we should give our colleagues an opportunity to draft amendments Yes, I agree.
Steve Novick
All right, um, in that case, we have like, I think, a clear consensus.
So let us do that.
Let us, um, end the discussion of this item today with the understanding that people will then develop amendments, so we'll have a chance to address it in our next meeting.
Now, I would like to take some time to talk about what— particularly because we don't have another meeting until June— to take some time to talk about what people's priorities are for this committee for the rest of the year.
One thing that I am hoping to do is find some opportunities to talk about cities that in certain areas might be doing a particularly good job and what we can learn from those cities.
2 Areas that I have in mind are, although oddly, in light of the advances in forensics over the past 30 years, the general national trend has been towards a lower solve rate or clearance rate for major crimes.
And I know that there are some jurisdictions that are beating the trend in that, and I've reached out to some academics, and I'm hoping that we'll have a chance to hear some thoughts from cities that are beating the trend about how they've done that.
Another area where I'd like to hear from other cities is I've been in touch with an organization called Mapping Police Violence, and they've gathered statistics that indicate that there are significant variations between jurisdictions as to how often the police shoot people.
And I'm curious as to whether there are jurisdictions which feel that they've engaged in They've had particular training procedures or policies that result in them shooting fewer people.
Eric Zimmerman
I—.
Steve Novick
But I'm curious as to whether people have other examples where we'd like to hear from other jurisdictions that seem to be doing particularly well.
And I'm also curious, just more generally, what topics do you think that we should try to— that Vice Chair Murillo and I should try to schedule during the next year?
Councilor Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman
Thanks, Chair.
One of the areas that I think we owe the city some work on are what do we expect out of the PS3s and what do we expect out of the park ranger programs.
I've worked in communities where, you know, the name was different but the, the essence was similar.
Community service officers, these are the unarmed members of the public safety apparatus, so to speak, that certainly addressed a lot of what I would call the livability type of interactions with the public safety group.
But in Portland, this area has been challenging for us, and I think one of the challenges is that those groups were largely created with Commissioner in charge at the time.
And now I think articulating what we want from them or what the role is moving forward is worthwhile.
And to highlight the, or put my cards on the table, I am interested in why the park rangers don't actually work for the public service area in a sense.
So I'd like to see what that looks like.
So—.
Thank you.
That is an area that I hope at some point this committee can spend some time on so we can provide some direction and some thought process around what do we want from these types of roles in our community.
Steve Novick
Thank you.
Councilor Morillo.
Angelita Morillo
Thank you, Chair Novick.
I just wanted to add a few thoughts on some of the things that I hope the committee will take a look at as well.
I think with public safety, we're obviously going to have Thank you.
I think it's inevitable that that will continue to come up and that community needs will shift as well.
I also really hope that we're going to dive into preventative violence work.
I think about the Office of Violence Prevention, a lot of the gun violence reduction measures that happen on the back end before it becomes something that is enforced by law enforcement.
Or, uh, like even today we were talking about sexual violence.
Um, we know that the vast majority of sexual violence doesn't happen from some random criminal on the street who attacks you.
It happens from a close, uh, friend, colleague, or family member.
Usually it's someone's intimate partner.
Um, so figuring out what we do about public safety, uh, in a more holistic way on the back end and, uh, what it takes to keep people Thank you.
I would also love for us to do a deep dive into emergency preparedness with PBEM.
With the federal cuts that we see regularly at this time, I think making sure that we know what we would be prepared to do as a city when it comes to emergency preparedness, and maybe even talking about what would happen in the event of an earthquake and the critical infrastructure hub.
What does it look like for us to respond in an environmental disaster like that that could impact the vast majority of the city?
I would also like for us to discuss the updated call allocation study to find out which— where the bureaus are at with that information about which are the best responders for which calls so that we can make the best budget decisions possible.
And finding out about how Portland Street Response Thank you.
I would love to see the emergency response and other programs like it were maintained in other cities so that they can be entrenched as part of the permanent public safety infrastructure as a whole.
And I think also just hearing from first responders overall about their emergency medical services and AMR around their ambulance model is also something I'm hoping we would dive into.
So that was a very long list of things that I am interested in, and luckily we are Thank you, Councilor.
Steve Novick
I should note that, although I don't think we would have gotten to it today anyway, one topic that I wanted to take up this month, or at least before the budget process is concluded, is I was curious about how the police budget for the sort of special missions, including the stolen vehicles and street racing.
And I was told that we— it would be against the budget rules for us to discuss that before the mayor has proposed his budget.
So there are apparently some constraints on how we can address budget-related matters where we're in budget season.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Chair Novick.
And first, let me state, I had the privilege last year of serving as a coach for the committee, have a lot of faith in the staff.
Chair Novick and Vice Chair Murillo to lead on this.
I'm looking forward to being liberated from some of those responsibilities and being able to be a more active legislator as it relates to the items in this committee as an outcome of that change.
I want to first agree with Councilor Zimmerman on PS3s and park rangers.
I'm interested in examining and potentially increasing the relationship between park rangers as well as other groups like the water bureaus teams and the PSSA.
I also agree with Councilor Murillo on examining particular types of violence, like sexual violence, as well as the PBEM and emergency preparedness conversation.
I know City Life and the Committee of the Whole have a role in that as well, of course.
I intend to bring back the conversation around which we started with the PSR resolution last June to codify the program, build out a co-equal first responder system as that committee's work progresses that we created.
This conversation may also relate to protecting the CHAT program, OVP, Ceasefire, Safe Blocks, Grow Cities self-defense.
And then relatedly, I know that most of the conversation around bringing Portland Solutions into the normal administrative structure of our government doesn't relate to this committee, but PMO I think does.
And I want to understand that relationship a little bit better, explore it, and potentially talk about, um, if that relates to PSSA in the eventual, um, when, when Portland Solutions becomes part of the, the formal normal part of the government.
I really appreciate, Chair Novick, your comment about comparing.
I'm a member of NACOL, the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement.
Mapping Police Violence is also a great organization.
I think the comparison points are really valuable.
If Newark—.
Dan Ryan
New York—.
Sameer Kanal
Sorry, I'm slurring here.
Newark police can go an entire year without firing a single shot from their guns.
That's 2020, Newark, New Jersey.
I think that there's an aspiration that any police force can get to as well, and I'd like to have that conversation around Division Zero for that also.
Thank you.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Councilor.
I'm glad you brought that up.
I actually had forgotten it now, but I noted that before, and Newark's— the fact that Newark was able to do that is extraordinary.
It makes me proud to have been born there.
Although I lived there for a grand total of 6 weeks.
Uh, Councilor Smith, do you have thoughts you want to share about topics that the committee should address?
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
I think we need to be clear on, um, our role.
One of the things that kind of frustrated me this last year was that we were getting into the the weeds about what, you know, what we thought our public safety bureau should be doing more, more on an administrative side.
And I'd like us to stay away from that and keep our, you know, stay in our own lane and not try to micromanage the bureaus and how they You know, procure things, on how they direct their employees, all those things.
Because I think that basically we are here to discuss budgets and make sure that they have the budgets that they need and that we do those kinds of things.
Now, it's not to say that we can't ask questions, but I think us having a serious role in micromanaging them, I think we need to Thank you, Councilor.
Steve Novick
Um, all right, seeing, uh, um, no, there's no other, um, folks in the queue.
Um, unless, uh, Christopher, Diana, is there anything, is there anything I'm forgetting that we should address before we bring this meeting to a close?
No, I think that's it.
Unidentified speaker
Nothing here.
Angelita Morillo
Thank you.
Steve Novick
Okay, well, thank you all very much.
I'm glad that we have been able to keep this, this band together in this committee.
Looking forward to the next year.
And at this point, I will bring the— this meeting of the Community and Public Safety Committee to a close.
Thanks, everybody.