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.
Loretta Smith
Good morning.
Unidentified speaker
Calling back to order.
This meeting of the— this continued meeting of the Portland City Council.
Keelan, can we please call the roll?
Loretta Smith
Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Here.
Unidentified speaker
Aye.
Present.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Here.
Unidentified speaker
Here.
Steve Novick
Here.
Sameer Kanal
Here.
Steve Novick
Here.
Unidentified speaker
Here.
Loretta Smith
Here.
Unidentified speaker
Zimmerman.
Avalos.
Candace Avalos
Present.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Here.
Unidentified speaker
Here.
And can we please read the rules of decorum?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Welcome to the Portland City Council.
To testify before council in person or virtually, you must sign up in advance on the council agenda at www.portland.gov/council/agenda.
Information on engaging with council can be found on the council clerk's webpage.
Individuals may testify for 3 minutes unless the presiding officer states otherwise.
Your microphone will be muted when your time is over.
The presiding officer preserves order.
Disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others' testimony or council deliberations will not be allowed.
If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given.
Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting.
Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass.
Additionally, council may take a short recess and reconvene virtually.
Your testimony should please address the matter being considered.
When testifying, please state your name for the record.
Your address is not necessary.
If you are a lobbyist, please identify the organization you represent.
Virtual testifiers should please unmute themselves when the council clerk calls your name.
Steve Novick
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Council President Oliveira.
Thank you, Mayor.
Colleagues, you received yesterday my proposal for the order of amendments.
My staff spoke to every council and executive office in this building seeking feedback on the order prior to releasing it yesterday, with the exception of Councilor Zimmerman's team, who we could not find.
As you've seen, the main way that this has been broken down is by councilor top priority and by thematic block.
I'm sure there'll be other— there'll be cause to make adjustments as we go, but having sought and not received major critique on the order yesterday, I dearly hope we can dispense with debate over process today and prioritize getting We are now in consideration of Item 1.
I am now going to recess this meeting of the Portland City Council, and I now reconvene the— from recess, the City of Portland Budget Committee.
Keelan, can you please call the roll again?
Sameer Kanal
Still here.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Sorry.
Thanks.
Unidentified speaker
Now here.
Ryan.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Here.
Unidentified speaker
Here.
Steve Novick
Here.
Unidentified speaker
Here.
Manuel Guerra
Here.
Olivia Clark
Here.
Eric Zimmerman
I'm here, Council President.
Olivia Clark
Present.
Smith.
Loretta Smith
Here.
Sameer Kanal
Here.
Unidentified speaker
Our first order of business is the amendments related to backfilling the mayor's proposed cuts to public safety.
In the pre-filed amendments, there are what I'd call 4 big ideas for how to approach this issue.
Morillo 1, Clark et al.
1, Green 1, and Novick 2 and 4.
There are also amendments that take smaller bites of this problem, Ryan 1 and Canals 2, 4, and 5.
And finally, Councilor Zimmerman has 3 amendments that fund specific safety programs that don't specify the pay-for.
I'd like to open this block with a discussion of the big 4 ideas.
I'll recognize each sponsor to introduce their concept in the order I stated earlier.
Where multiple amendments are trying to pay for the same thing from different pots, it's appropriate for debate on one amendment to also touch on the other amendments.
However, under Robert's Rules, only one motion to amend the underlying can be opened at once.
So with that, I'd like to recognize Councilor Murillo to introduce Murillo 1.
Thank you so much, Council President, um, and I appreciate the time to introduce the Community Health and Safety Package, as I've titled it.
This item concerns our plainclothes security, not the allied guards in the uniforms posted at the City Hall entrances or exits and throughout the building.
Essentially, what the mayor's proposal does is triples the amount of security that happens for city councilors, and I don't want to pretend that we are not living in a time where elected officials aren't getting credible threats.
I have certainly received credible threats.
I had my bus stop posted, people talking about going there, but I think that without any constraints on We are basically just having a free-for-all to use additional security at times where it may not necessarily be beneficial.
So we have to make sure that we are more judicious with how we are using it, and we can't— I don't think we can in good conscience say that the safety of 12 councilors matters more than the safety of the rest of the city.
But I also don't accept that we're putting ourselves at additional risk by rejecting a proposed ordinance that would have provided additional security.
Angelita Morillo
Councilor Smith.
Unidentified speaker
So what my amendment does is it gives around $200,000 for summer free-for-all and free lunch and play to ensure that all programming can continue ongoing.
We are— we're not going to have to address this again later.
A little over $1 million to restore Ceasefire and the Office of Violence Prevention programs that prevent violence from occurring in our community.
$500,000 For 3 full-time employees in the CHAT program within the Fire Bureau, and over $650,000 for the Office of Community Engagement.
Thank you.
Last year, we received a lot of security requests, but that high usage is also by choice.
Bringing security to hang out at different constituent coffees or escorting multiple councilors to the same events is not an objective reflection of an actual threat environment.
So I think that what my amendment is trying to do is make sure that we have healthy constraints on how we are using our limited resources at this time.
Councilmember Smith, I think you're We don't need to permanently insulate ourselves with security fit for the president at a cost of $2.5 million per year while we are cutting programs like ceasefire, violence prevention for the entire community by $1.1 million.
So that is in essence what the amendment does, and I look forward to having any discussion with my colleagues.
And Councilor, are you moving your amendment?
Oh yes, I'm sorry, I am moving Morillo 1 for discussion.
Are you open to seconds right now, or are you waiting for seconds, Council President?
I am open to seconds right now.
Angelita Morillo
Second.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you.
I'm going to recognize— as I said in my opening remarks, we're going to take these in order, but I'd like to give the 4 councilors who have in this first block an opportunity to introduce their amendments so we can have some conversation about it publicly.
Councilor Morillo has moved her amendment, but Councilor Clark, would you like to introduce your amendment?
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Council President.
I'm happy to do that.
Colleagues, I'm bringing forward what has been called the Clark-Pertle-Guiney-Novick-Ryan-Smith 1 Public Safety Programs Restoration.
I brought this forward out of a very deep concern about the impact of the mayor's budget cuts on public safety.
I'm concerned that it sets us back.
I don't know how much detail you want us to go into at this point.
As much as you want.
Okay.
Well, I'm, I'm very concerned I think many people in Portland are that these cuts will move us backwards.
It doesn't make any sense.
That it will increase the response times on 911.
That we potentially will close precincts.
That we will stop doing training that's necessary to bring our police bureau into the future and make it a progressive police bureau.
And for many of us, it will reduce the protection that the fire bureau provides to the CEO.
And given climate change and the threat to Forest Park, this is of great concern to me.
I'm happy to go into more detail later, or my colleagues may want to also, on each of the restorations.
So instead of cutting programs or dipping into contingencies or reserves, I proposed a very common-sense approach in this amendment that we would borrow from the Yes.
From the Community Board for Police Accountability, the CBPA, which would leave— borrow $10 million, which leaves $6 million available to them in the next year.
This is budgeted at $16 million, or 5% estimated of the PPB's operating budget per the charter amendment.
So this amendment borrows and restores the funds in the spring TAO.
Currently, and I think we all voted for that charter amendment, and currently the CPPA is run by, I believe, an acting director and has no staff.
Even if that bureau were— that program were to hire 22 staff in the next year, that does not require $16 million.
So I'm suggesting this one-time loan to help preserve the critical fire and life, community and safety programs that we all absolutely need.
I don't feel we can afford to go backwards in fire protection, in 911 response times.
So colleagues, I will look forward to the debate and look forward to your support.
Thank you, Council President.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Clark.
Councilor Green, would you like to discuss Green 1?
Mitch Green
I would.
Thank you, Council President.
Green 1 is called Portland Fire and Rescue first.
It's one of several attempts to restore cuts, critical cuts to public safety.
In particular, it restores the engine at Fire Station 22 and half of the cuts to the advanced life support teams in the Portland Fire and Rescue, and it does so on an ongoing basis.
It's paired with Green 4, which is a budget note to describe the legislative intent and the process for how to do that.
But colleagues, the way that it does so Yes.
—To pay for here is that it says, it recognizes that since 2019, the management ranks in the City of Portland have grown in position by 33%, where the non-management ranks have grown by 8%.
So that's a roughly 25% delta of managers relative to non-managers in the City of Portland.
And you see this at a lot of large bureaucracies across all sectors.
And so it sort of chops from the top by 20% in the budget authority.
Not the— I'm not picking and choosing between who is the right manager to cut.
I'm simply saying council, if adopted, does not permit this level of authority for the budget to exist for the management ranks.
And Green 4 describes it being applicable and only applicable to— Councilmember Herbold.
Position classifications Manager 1 through Deputy City Administrator.
And so the idea is to say, City Administrator Lee, if adopted by the fall TAO, you'll come back with a proposed set of cuts that put the 20% reduction into action.
It leaves 3 months of funding in place for continuity while also keeping this fire station going and, and half of the cuts to the advanced life support units going.
Thank you.
And then it fills that immediate funding gap with a one-time draw from general fund contingency to be paid back by the fall TAO.
And so this is a sustainable ongoing replacement to trim the sort of overextension of management ranks at the top.
And I hope to have your support for it.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Green.
Councilor Novick.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Mr. President.
My 2 amendments are largely to illustrate what savings— what we could save if we cut into our bloated council office budgets, made some reductions to council security, and cut back on the additions to senior bureaucratic staff in the city administrator's office, which he has proposed.
One proposal would restore peak hour fire service, so half the day, from Station 22 Partially restore ceasefire grants.
We add back 4 public safety support specialists, 1 victim services staff, 1 senior police administrative support specialist, and 1 parks volunteer coordinator.
And that would be done by taking $200,000 each from council office budgets, holding District 1 harmless, cutting $994,000 out of the proposed addition to council security, which obviously Just this year's increase.
So obviously Councilor Heredia goes further.
And cutting the chief admin— the city administrator chief of staff, the $250,000 he has for strategic planning, the assistant city administrator, and 2 manager 3s of the city administrator staff.
The second amendment would, instead of restoring the engine in the St. Johns, it would restore 2 of the fire and rescue units Rescue 19, which is in at 72nd and Burnside, and 11, which is around 92nd and Foster, so on the border of District 1 and District 3.
It would partially restore ceasefire grants, restore a ceasefire coordinator, one senior police administrative support specialist, and it would pay for that by cuts to the city administrator's budget and council security.
And I note that because The city administrator's budget and the council budgets are overhead.
The amount you have to cut, you only get 42% of the cut in general fund.
So you have to sort of apply that percentage, which is why you don't see a one-to-one correlation.
What I would say about both these proposals is, as I said last year, our council office budgets far exceed Those of, uh, those of other cities such as Denver or Seattle.
They far exceed what Multnomah County commissioners get.
They're right across the river.
They represent more people than we do, and they get $992,000, and we're getting $1.45 million.
I didn't propose this, but if we simply cut our budget down to theirs, that's $5.4 million, which translates into about $2.3 million in general fund.
So I do not understand why we have to have these huge budgets.
And I also would note spending all this money on ourselves has not made us popular.
We're at 24% in the polls.
I think it would make us more popular if we cut back on our council office budgets and put that into frontline services.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Novick.
Okay, colleagues, we are now to discussion.
Councilor Morillo's— or Morillo 1 has been moved and seconded and we are to discussion.
But it is, as I said in my opening comments, These are all vaguely related, so it's okay to reference each other.
I'm asking colleagues to please limit your remarks to 5 minutes per go.
Robert's Rules restricts an individual councilor to 10 minutes per motion.
So I will be enforcing that harshly.
But for 5 minutes, I'm asking for courtesy because we have to get through this section.
And we are going to be reconvening this afternoon at 1:30.
And I'm hoping to get us out of here at 12:30 for lunch.
So everything we cut into that is— Thank you.
Mitch Green
Council President, if I may.
Councilor Green.
I forgot to move my motion.
Unidentified speaker
Only one item is being moved at a time, so we will come back to that.
So thank you.
So to the queue, and I'm going to start with Councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith
Thank you, Mr. President.
I just want to say, I— since you had not moved, um, Clark 1, I am very much in support of that.
It's very smart.
Practical way to go about paying for the restored services for our public safety system, and I'll be supporting Clark 1.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, to the amendment.
Thank you, Council President.
I don't take this lightly, but I also don't take lightly food security and security against gun violence.
For community members.
I think if we have the opportunity to add any funds back into the bucket we are taking from at the end of our work, it would behoove us to do so.
But I think that the opportunity to ensure that children have lunch available to them in the summer, the opportunity to ensure that the critical programs at OVP and Ceasefire Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for putting ongoing funds into those programs, but those cuts are still very difficult to figure out, um, how to ask the community to take.
I think that ensuring that we continue to move forward with our work in having a suite of responses for all of the different public safety needs in our community are also critical, and Thank you.
There we go.
Councilor Novick.
Steve Novick
I like the funding mechanism.
I approve of the idea of taking $2.5 million out of council security, and this does not fall into the overhead model, so it's a real $2.5 million.
My concern is about the pattern of spending.
I don't dislike any of these things, but to give one example, the PSR staff, these are not filled positions.
These positions are vacant now.
So I cannot in good conscience support something that allows layoffs to occur in other areas like the PS3s in order to fill unfilled positions.
Councilor I appreciate the— and we've got a limited— I think that we're going to have limited pots of money, and I think that restoring the fire engine and the rescues is a high priority for me, is a rather slightly somewhat higher priority than ceasefire.
So I would vote to preserve this pot of money for what I think would be a more judicious set of spending.
If they— if we were going to— if I knew we were going to pass Clark 1, Then I might be willing to go along with this because it would supplement it with ceasefire, although I'd still have concern about layoffs versus non-layoffs.
But as it stands, as the first thing to vote on, I can't support it.
Loretta Smith
Sure.
Unidentified speaker
I just wanted to point out that the reason those positions haven't been filled within Portland Street Response is because there is a hiring freeze.
So if we actually fund those positions, then there is no need for there to be a hiring freeze.
To me, this is a priority that is based on our policy decisions, and we have to be judicious with the funds that we have based on the priorities that are established by this council.
I think that— I think there are lots of amendments that are going to fund the fire engine and things like that, which is why I didn't touch it with this specific pot of funds, and I intend to support other amendments that are going to uplift the Fire Bureau in that way.
Councilor Smith.
But this is a very clean-cut package.
It is ongoing funding.
It means that it's going to be a simple transfer.
It's not going to be complicated like some of the other amendments.
And the reality is that this is doing the behind-the-scenes work that people don't normally think of when we talk about preventing violence in the community.
I've talked about this a lot of times, but when I was a SNAP policy advocate before becoming a city councilor, We saw kids that would get recruited to join gangs when they were waiting in the food line to— at the food bank, right?
Like, they are trying to find community, they are trying to get resources, and there are people that are offering it to them.
And if we can offer it to them instead, then we are doing preventative work.
If we are funding the Office of Violence Prevention, we are preventing gun violence so that we don't have to beef up our public safety in other areas.
So I just wanted to sort of address my line of thinking in that amendment, but I appreciate Do I have a few more minutes, Mr.
Steve Novick
President?
Yeah.
As to Councilor Clark's amendment, there is no way that this brand-new organization, which does not even have a director yet, is going to ramp up to spend $16 million in the next year.
We are talking about borrowing, including millions and millions of dollars in external materials and services, which the mayor's office threw into the budget just to pad it up to $16 million.
The idea is to borrow against that money in order to fund critical public safety services rather than having the money simply sit in the bank account for the next year.
I think that is a thoroughly responsible way to proceed.
As to Councilor Green's amendment, I worry about jumping ahead without knowing what the consequences are.
It's quite possible that we should be cutting more managers than he suggested.
It's also quite possible that a large number of these managers are working managers who spend 80% of their time doing regular jobs and 20% of their time supervising.
We just don't know.
What I would propose we do over the next couple of months is we know there's 57 positions who manage fewer than 4 people.
I'd like to have a work session or a committee of the whole discussion where we focus on those and go through those and see if they're justified as a starting point.
Thank you.
We can do those one at a time, and that'll give us a better idea whether we really have that much management bloat to cut.
And again, I think that the new expensive positions in the city administrator's office, which we've gotten along without so far, and the council office bloat are much safer things to go after.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Novick.
Councilor Ryan.
Thank you, Council President.
And I want to acknowledge that there's much of this amendment I like.
And it's really well done.
So thank you for that.
I'm particularly attached to seeing that CHAT and Ceasefire OVP are funded.
And the reason I'll tell that story is I attend the Peace Collaborative meeting in the North Precinct once a month.
I think I've only missed 2 in the past year.
And the change that I've experienced in those meetings since I first started going at the beginning of 2025 is the connectivity between the people that are there doing the community work under your leadership, Stephanie Howard, and the police.
And so what I've never enjoyed is when we try to pit public safety units against one another, but we actually lift the system up.
We're building a system.
And I've been a part of the council that was really focused on rebuilding 911, rebuilding fire, rebuilding police to full-time staffing levels that would start to get us into a respectful place when you look at us nationally.
And so a theme today will be for me is to build, is not to backpedal.
My question on this one is there hasn't been a dialogue about the security adds or even the security budget.
I don't recall us having that dialogue during the work sessions.
Dan Ryan
Yes.
Unidentified speaker
So I don't think it's fair for me to make a decision without hearing from the mayor or the city administrator about why that was put into the budget.
I need to understand your why before I think I have the audacity to make the cut.
May I hear from the mayor or city administrator?
I don't know who's appropriate, or maybe you'll call someone up.
Manuel Guerra
I'll have our security team come up to address that question.
Unidentified speaker
And for clarity, was there $2.5 million added in addition to this year, or was Is that okay?
So please explain the details.
And this is what we didn't get to do in the work session, so I appreciate this moment.
Thank you.
Manuel Guerra
Hello, my name is Manuel Guerra.
I'm the security manager.
So about the $2.5 million, currently what we ran into is that last year we were funded only half of the funding for the security team.
We were given $800,000, but that only covered half.
So the other amount is also included in the $2.5 million that we're asking for.
In addition, as you remember back in January, we had a situation where council was disrupted.
There was a need to change current council staffing procedures and how we run council at the time.
So we needed to change our council team as well.
That included extra training, extra things that we, our current, our old council team just couldn't do.
And this new council team was able to kind of address and assist the security threats that were happening with the council members.
So that was an additional $500,000 that we're asking for for that team.
So all in all, it's $800,000 that we had funded.
So we needed an additional $800,000 plus an additional—.
$500,000.
$500,000 For the next fiscal year to cover current standards with what we have now.
So that's why we have the $2.5 million that we're asking for.
Unidentified speaker
So this is a clear representation of the actual need?
Manuel Guerra
Correct.
Unidentified speaker
According to what you experienced this past fiscal year?
Manuel Guerra
For today, that's correct.
Loretta Smith
Sure.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Manny.
As you know, I really appreciate what you and your team have done.
Loretta Smith
She didn't have her hand raised up.
Unidentified speaker
I do have my hand raised and I have to explain my amendment.
Loretta Smith
I recognize she did not.
Angelita Morillo
It's raised in the queue.
Loretta Smith
Not next.
Unidentified speaker
True, but I'm in charge of running who gets recognized.
Loretta Smith
That's what you say.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Council President.
I think what we need to consider though is, so As a city councilor, and I think what many of my colleagues have experienced, is that many of us didn't know that the security that we got to use, for one thing, after 5 PM is overtime.
We were basically given free use of this private security for most events, but it's not actually free, right?
We were having unconstrained demand is what was happening.
So So yes, this is going to constrain us a bit, and it's going to force us to be more judicious about how and when we use it.
And I think that's really important because right now people are using it for anything and everything.
So when you say that you were given half with $800,000, I don't know who gets to determine what half means because that was deemed sufficient by the council.
And facilities decided that it needed 4 more agents For $800K.
So we started with 4 agents for $800,000.
Then facilities added 4 more for $800,000 without our approval.
And then the mayor's proposed for FY26-27 adds $2.4 million to council security to establish a 10-agent-based team, plus a 5-agent special response team for a total of $3.2 million for council security.
Angelita Morillo
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
So what I'm saying is the security that we use as elected officials needs to be incidental, not habitual.
It needs to be based on increased demand at a certain heightened moment.
If you're going to a specific area that is known to be a hotspot, that's different.
But we shouldn't— we are not the President of the United States.
We are city councilors.
We need to have a constrained level of security.
And so I just— Thank you.
Angelita Morillo
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
I have to outline that.
Thank you, Councilor.
So then back to my 5 minutes.
So can you just turn on a key when there's an incident or like it's about building capacity?
Like tell me, it's just, yeah.
Manuel Guerra
I think that's the most difficult part about all this is we cannot foretell the future, but we also learn from the past.
So as you know, especially you, Councilor.
Thank you.
We've had situations where we've actually had to deal with real-world emergencies at that time.
So we get a phone call, And the team is expected to show up immediately.
It is really, it ebbs and flows.
And I'll just tell you that the team, that's not all what the team does.
So when you have an event that you reach out to us and let us know, they're the ones that actually will go out and do the safety security assessment of the site, talk to the owner of the facility, do the planning of the actual safety plan for the group once they come in and go out with all these different events.
So there's a lot of work that happens behind the scenes.
Thank you.
That what you only see is, you know, the folks that just show up next to you at the event and making sure that everything goes smoothly.
But there's a lot of work behind the scenes that happens prior to the actual event itself.
So if we were going to the— just to speak a little bit with Councilor Murillo's line of questioning, I think that's the part that is really difficult is to say like, if we had 4, it's not enough for the 12.
Okay.
So we ever had an emergency again, like we've had recently, we would not be able to respond.
We would have to say, I'm sorry, but we just don't have the team to do that.
And I agree, there is a lot of overtime, but that's what we're trying to cut to by having a conservative amount of folks that can deal with the requests as of today.
But of course, there's open conversations that we can have about how that looks like.
Thank you.
What requests we go with or not go with.
We're more than open to have that conversation with all of you.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Manny, for being at the dais and having a chance to explain what this is all about and what the needs are.
Not that I was happy to be a high-end user in 2020, '21, and 2022, but having multiple trespasses at my home with quite considerable amount of damage to my home as well, It's really helpful when you know that you're all going to be there to show up and monitor.
And I would kind of like Portlanders are saying right now, which is how can our 911 response times go the opposite direction?
We want to keep building that.
All of us would expect that service when we're in a high-end need.
And so it was helpful for me to understand the mechanics behind this.
And thank you for coming to the dais and giving me more context.
I appreciate it.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Okay.
Thank you, Councilor Ryan.
Um, Councilor Smith, you've already been recognized to this motion.
I'm going to come back to you.
Councilor Kanal.
Loretta Smith
Don't I get 10 minutes?
You were the—.
I only asked one question.
Unidentified speaker
You were the, the first person recognized.
I'll come back to you when other people who have not been recognized yet.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
First, uh, I don't have any questions, but I just wanted to say thank you to Manny and team.
I appreciate all of you for what you do for us and for the particular, uh, needs that we may each individually have.
I'll be supporting this amendment, but I want to first say I agree 100% with what Councilor Pirtle-Guiney said, that if there's any additional leftover somewhere throughout this budget process, this is a good place to try to put a little bit back in.
Running for office does involve taking some risk.
Winning office involves taking some risk as well.
And I think making do with what we have is something that I Also, we'll, we'll do going forward depending on what our reduction is through this amendment.
But ensuring that we have the funding necessary to do the things that it's trying to fund, I think to me is a very clear need.
We heard yesterday in public testimony about the Office of Violence Prevention and Ceasefire.
We heard about its impact as well as its cost-effectiveness.
Having it be ongoing funding for grants for the first time is the next step.
Unidentified speaker
Councilmember Herbold.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
This is the next step in its evolution to build a preventative, prevention-focused, holistic public safety system.
And I'm very grateful for Councilor Murillo in putting that forward.
I'm also very grateful for the restoration of Portland Street Response funding, which, by the way, is for 2 aftercare teams for FTE, which includes where the peer support specialists are.
I really appreciate the comment that was made about why they're vacant, because this is a common thing that we've seen is we obviously don't want to lay anybody off.
So we look at the vacant positions, and in a vacuum that makes sense until you remember why they're vacant.
And so we have council priority stated to go to 24/7 for Portland Street Response as a resolution we passed last June.
And then there's a hiring freeze placed upon things that are not 24/7.
So it's funded, the position authority is there, but it can never get to 24/7 if there's a hiring freeze placed upon it because it's not 24/7.
I think that's a good point.
And so to get out of that circular logic piece, we have to talk about not only protecting what we already have, but also expanding Portland Street Response as we talked about last year.
Obviously several of us have talked about CHAT and how important it is.
I don't think we need to debate that, but I just wanted to make sure that we got that on the record as well.
I'm excited for the conversation around this.
I think there are a few other really good amendments that are going to be coming forward, one of which Councilor Green talked about.
I'm interested in talking more about NOVIC 4 as well.
Councilor And I have 3 as well that I think collectively fill in a lot of the gaps that we're talking about here in the mayor's proposed budget in terms of reductions to public safety.
But I think this is the right place to start.
Thanks.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Kanal.
Councilor Murillo, you have also spoken to this motion.
You made the motion.
Councilors, I will come back to you.
Councilor Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman
Thank you.
This is kind of an odd way to take this all up because I We seem to be only talking about one, but these are so related to the others that were moved.
I'm trying to be clear-eyed about which vote moves forward and how we do it.
It'll be challenging.
But, um, you know, I, I think the greatest way to shut down a democracy is you threaten the people you elect to do that democracy on your behalf.
And we've seen that happen in these chambers.
Councilor We saw a complete systemic failure by people who breached this area, and I had choice words about that in terms of what should and shouldn't take place.
There are ideas about hands-on, hands-off, and I'll just tell you, once you break that line, it's a hands-on situation.
And the fact that that was a question mark in this city is a concern to me, and I've addressed that with the city administrator, the mayor, and our security professionals.
The idea that people will show up to one's home and cause damage, as we've seen in the past, is a deep concern for me.
When I was a staffer for a previous mayor, I remember one person in the infancy of this team being on staff as a, as a protected agent for the mayor.
Thank you.
When the press conference had to be barricaded and then all members and press and staff had to be taken out a back door because of what showed up.
So I do take it seriously, and I think that the team has been— I appreciate the growth, Manny.
I think that the proactiveness has done a good job compared to where we were 4 and 5 years ago.
And so I'm very appreciative to that.
I take very seriously the I appreciate the decision package that you, that you put forward in terms of outlining the ability to be proactive on the threats that face elected leaders in this city.
And I will say, I say that from a position of not generally knowing the behind-the-scenes work that your team does to be proactive.
And so I'm inclined to support No changes to that movement, because I don't know that coming up to speed when something else happens in the environment in which we exist, right?
It's not the protesters who have a salient point to make with us.
It's the people who glom onto them and are sick in the head and think that they can be a hero and that they can have a movement.
Councilor Dan Ryan.
Related to that protest that is the most concerning.
Those are the— sometimes people say the lone wolf, or it's the standout, it's the individual who, who, um, you know, didn't get enough love.
But, um, those, those are concerning things that we've seen across this country grow more and more.
And so I take seriously this idea.
It's also really easy to say we want to give up things at our level in order to You know, save another thing, even if another thing, if it's vacant, etc.
But if this body can't work, if this body is under threat, then this, this experiment of this new form of government is under threat.
And I care about that a lot.
But I have certainly not used the security as a free service.
I think the term was said, anything and everything.
Yes.
And I just want to be very clear.
I got a breakdown of the security usage by offices.
Zimmerman, 1 time.
Clark, 1 time.
Smith, 1 time.
Green, 1 time.
Dunphy, 2 times.
Koyama Lane, 6 times.
Pirtle-Guiney, 8 times.
Avalos, 9 times.
Kanal, 36 times.
Murillo, 38 times.
Every one of us will at some point or another have— every one of us at some point or another will have the need, the use.
We've seen that change over the years.
There's an emergency.
And the point I'm trying to make here is that you have to be proactive if you want to be successful at this mission, that reactive— and that's what your decision package talks about— is not sufficient.
And I'll say some of those uses, actually all of these uses, I'm 100% supportive of them.
100% Supportive of them.
The things that my colleagues went through are frightening.
And that's why I don't want to support a change this year, because what you went through was frightening.
The day that a member of this body's house was, at least initially in the first 12 to 24 hours, we thought potentially attacked, There was a failure in that system in that within the first hour, a call by our security didn't go down to every single member of this body and say, maybe one of your members may have been targeted today.
We had to wait quite a while.
And so that's the difference between proactive and reactive, because what should have occurred is the minute we thought a member of this body was being targeted and attacked in real time, that at least contact should have been made with every member of the elected body And any other senior members who face a concern.
So I don't want us to take this lightly.
I think to Councilor Ryan's point, this was well written.
I understand it, but it is easy to do things like attack a council budget, attack a security posture, say that usage was anything and everything.
I think many of us haven't done that, and I think that those who need to have it at certain events are right to do it, and I support you 100% in doing that.
Thank you.
An option I would say maybe exists is that we consider it a bill back to council offices if we think that usage is not being judicial.
Perhaps a bill back so that there is an accountable aspect to it should be considered.
But Councilor Murillo, I, I think you have done a good job of writing out a bunch of different options.
We just disagree on the proactive versus reactive approach, and so I, I won't support Murillo 1.
Thank you.
But I, but I appreciate the other programs who are outlined, and I do think that Clark 1 et al.
Gets us closer to what I think is adoptable.
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Zimmerman.
Councilor Koyama Lane.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Thank you, Council President.
I want to start by saying that I overwhelmingly support everything that Morillo 1 restores.
There's a beautiful focus on community-centered Public safety, accountability, investing in things that are going to make Portlanders safer in really meaningful, lasting ways.
Manny, I want to give huge props to your team.
Not every city prioritizes the safety of their electeds in this way.
One of the first meetings I had with the ED of the ACLU was a push for us to— was to say, go make sure that the city actually takes your security Seriously, because there are other cities around Portland that— where that doesn't happen, where people have to hire their own security.
And, um, your team has been really, really incredible, um, and do make me feel safer and help answer questions.
And, um, this does feel personal to me.
Um, you know, I've, I've had threats.
My They've talked about my kids and my family, and I've been really grateful to be able to have your team meet with me and my partner and do change some things at our house, walk me out of certain events.
Recently they were at an event where I was emceeing and there were many Japanese American elders that were all around 100 years old, and someone was assaulted by right-wing streamers, and I was really glad that they were there.
Thank you.
So if for folks that haven't used that, like worked with this team much, I appreciate that they really analyze the risk and give us assessments.
I actually called someone on your team to ask about this a little bit and I was like, oh, I haven't talked to you in a while.
Maybe that's kind of a nice thing.
But I do appreciate that risks are kind of upgraded or downgraded.
Thank you.
I really care deeply that we as councilors can go be out in community and can safely show up in public spaces, attend events, and be accessible to the communities we serve.
I appreciated some of Councilor Ryan's questions.
I think they answered a couple of mine.
I do wonder if we end up, 'cause I remember, The prior council president and I had to give a thumbs up to increase the spending and make sure that— and it was a choice.
If we get to that point again, if we do a deeper cut, what are our options?
And I will say, I've heard this idea from a few folks about we can build People's Council offices, but I would love us to be able to stand in solidarity with each other if there's I think that if someone's being targeted, I think that should be a shared thing that I would love to see us all feel like it is important for us to invest in.
Because when all of us are safe, when one of us is safe, then I think that makes all of us more safe.
Can we talk about what happens if we end up needing more?
Manuel Guerra
I'll step in if you want to.
If you need more from that standpoint, the first thing that we have to make sure is that we're not That we have capacity within our contract to add more services to it.
Then it comes into a checks and balances thing for us as we look at what potentially you may move around as a city to allocate those funds to be able to do it.
I don't want anyone to think that though, if there's an emergency, we're not going to respond to that emergency from the standpoint.
What it may do though, It may put more onus on our public safety group outside of our security services if those funds are not there.
And as we know, that is already a tax group as it is.
That's calling them to have to step in on these situations, PPB, to be able to provide some level of support to the city in these times of need.
But we will always evaluate and look at If there's a need, how do we address that need?
We're not going to have any council member walk into an actual threat that we are aware of and not provide any type of support.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
That's helpful, and it was actually helpful to hear Councilor Zimmerman list out the usage because I am kind of going to look to some of those folks that have really needed it.
I guess also we don't know what's going to pop up and who would need it even more.
But I'm looking to some of those folks who I think are feeling okay with making some of these cuts.
And to clarify, when Councilor Ryan asked his question, Mr. Mayor, you proposed— you didn't just say like, I'm going to triple it for fun.
You're matching it with what we ended up using this past year.
But then there also is a bit more of an add, and that add amount is what Councilor Novick is talking about.
Yes.
Removing?
Is that just to make sure I understand?
Manuel Guerra
Yeah, so that add amount would be the change to our current council team that's in chambers.
So that would change dramatically on what we're doing on that piece.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
And that amount is about, it's like $900,000, Councilor Novick, is that right?
Steve Novick
$994,000 Is what I was told.
Loretta Smith
Okay.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
And—.
Unidentified speaker
Councilor, you're at 5 and a half.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Okay.
The last thing I will just say is I did have a family member point out that especially for folks that are getting threats, that it seems a bit scary to publicly say we are going to drastically cut our security in public.
So I— that is one thing I am thinking about, about how deeply we want to go.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Koyama Lane.
Councilor Green.
Mitch Green
Thank you, Mr. President.
So when I'm approaching this budget, I'm thinking about 2 things.
Given scarce resources, what are our priorities?
How do we sort of trade off between different priorities?
And then the other thing I think about is if we're going to make adjustments to this budget, are those adjustments a one-time resource or an ongoing resource?
And I think that, frankly, you know, to Councilor Novick's reference to the low council approval rating, Yes.
I would submit that a large part of why our approval rating is so low is because the public has seen City Council just expand its costs without any consideration of the long-run impact to the city of Portland and its fiscal health, and doing these sort of one-time balancing, one-time cut games.
And so I want to applaud Councilor Morillo for identifying a cut, which I know comes at an expense.
I know that there are risks.
Thank you.
But it is an ongoing cut to pay for an ongoing resource, and the proposition is that the things being restored are much more important to the City of Portland than the things being cut.
And so it is a risk that we have to take on as councilors, and I appreciate that.
And I'm going to fully support this today.
I'll just note that my own— I'm standing ready to use my own office budget If I need to supplement my own security needs.
And that's a decision we always get to make.
I often forego— I won't— Councilor Zimmerman has made this point before, but I won't buy furniture out of the catalog because I don't want to spend $7,000 on a couch.
I'd rather spend that on other things like security.
So those are the choices I'm making.
All of us can make the same choice.
And I think it's much more important to restore things like programs that help our communities And get us closer to getting the 24/7 Portland Street Response Service that we all have promised our communities and we deserve.
So I'll leave it at that.
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Green.
Councilor Smith, I had you next, but your hand disappeared from the queue.
Would you like to go next?
Angelita Morillo
Yes.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you.
Loretta Smith
Thank you, Council President.
I don't know why somebody keeps taking my hand down.
Unidentified speaker
It's not going up and down.
Loretta Smith
Who has power to do that?
But thank you so much.
Councilor Zimmerman, you asked the exact questions that I wanted to ask.
You know, who's using the service?
And, um, I did not know.
I like the things that you're trying to put back in, uh, Councilor Murillo, but I didn't know, and I think I told you this too, I didn't know that you had death threats.
I didn't know that you were getting rides to work and rides home because you take the bus.
And I thought that was perfectly a good way to spend our resources.
And, um, and, uh, Councilor Kanal, I had no idea that you needed these kind of services for 38 times.
Um, I think it's huge.
And you're putting forward cuts to basically, possibly, if history repeats itself, is to cut yourself because you would be cutting yourself from getting services.
Um, I don't think that's right.
Y'all got to understand, y'all got to protect yourself, because on February 18th, I don't think you were here, but a lady with a red hat jumped over this dais and she charged towards me directly.
She was right here directly.
And had the security not been here, and I didn't know that they were not supposed to touch her.
Owen Saitz
Councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith
But she— he pushed her back.
So I don't play with my life.
I should not have to work in a hostile environment.
I am not going to vote to support this so that I can sit here like a sitting duck in a hostile environment where people are out of control when I sit and listen to them when they give testimony.
Councilor Loretta Smith.
So no, ma'am, I want you protected when you need it.
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, I need you protected when you need it.
It is not fair for us to take this kind of abuse and threats and go into the community knowingly.
And Councilor Green, no, sir, this is not the price we pay for being an elected official.
I disagree with you.
Manuel Guerra
Yes, ma'am.
Loretta Smith
You said that this is the risk that we take being an elected official.
Kanal, I'm sorry, you guys got different hair.
Sameer Kanal
Among other things.
Loretta Smith
Yes, yes.
Sorry about that, but that's not the price that we pay for this.
This is not fair.
I had a lady come to my house early one Saturday morning.
Yes.
And I think I had previously had a conversation with the mayor the night before talking about the risks and the security issues that I'm experiencing as a single person.
And she banged and banged on the door.
Luckily, she got my son.
But I don't think that this job should put us in a position because we are serving the community And the charter said they wanted us to go out and engage with the community.
And when we have community meetings, if we're feeling threats, we need to be able to call Manny and say, hey, I need you at my event.
I don't think that's, that's out of bounds.
So I support keeping this budget the way it is.
I support all of my colleagues who have had to use this numerous times.
But you should not put yourself at risk at this point to say, I'm willing to give up your safety to be in this job.
No, ma'am.
I don't want anything to happen to you, Angelita.
Don't do that.
That's not fair.
Unidentified speaker
I didn't know you cared about me so much.
Loretta Smith
You don't have to make that point to make that point.
We need you here.
Thank you.
Jonas Biery
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Unidentified speaker
Councilor Avalos, you have not gone first, got your first time, so please.
Candace Avalos
Okay.
I appreciate that we've opened all the items, but yes, it is a little bit confusing.
It would be helpful too if people could say what, which one they're speaking to before they give their points so I can better track what argument you're making.
So just for moving forward.
Unidentified speaker
And just broadly, we are in discussion of Murillo 1, but you're right.
This has gotten a little bit more confusing than I meant it to be, and I apologize.
Candace Avalos
So we opened them all, but we're not—.
Unidentified speaker
We introduced them only.
We've only moved Murillo 1.
Only Murillo 1 has been moved in second.
Candace Avalos
So right now we can only talk about Murillo 1.
Unidentified speaker
I'm happy to have folks talk about them in context since they are so similar, and they're going after many of the same things, but we are in debate of Murillo 1.
Candace Avalos
Okay, well then I will go ahead and leave my comments to that, and I can speak to the other ideas later.
Um, yeah, I, I, I heard a call to have people who use the security to speak up, so I will speak up.
Um, as you all know, last October I woke up to a fire, and, uh, a week prior to that fire I got an email saying, I hope your house burns down.
So, uh, obviously regular brain says, somebody threatened to burn my house down, now my house is burning down.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So I obviously made that connection, right?
Thankfully, it was not a deliberate attack on me.
It was an accident.
But that doesn't make the fear any less.
So I absolutely know what that feels like.
And since coming into office, even prior to coming into office, before I even got elected, I had somebody literally show up on my doorstep trying to question me, you know, berate me, and said, you need to answer to me because you're a public official.
Not on my doorstep, honey.
Not on my doorstep.
And I wasn't a public official at that time.
So I very much feel viscerally what everyone's saying about their worry, about fear.
I share it.
I get threats all the time.
I think what I'm hearing in the discussion as far as what we can plus up and plus down, I think that's why I'm landing on supporting this.
Because one, we did increase it by a lot.
Yes, we had some needs last year.
I hope to not have Yeah.
Another fire.
So hopefully I'm not dealing with that.
Seriously, I will crash out.
But, you know, I think after the fire, I was able to, you know, take the security down because it was like, okay, the threat has been gone, right?
We're okay.
And haven't used the security since then.
And so I think that, yes, you're right, that you cannot predict the future and therefore it's good to have some buffer.
But we did increase the budget as needed.
I think that there's always a place to find money for it.
The city's never not going to find money to protect the electeds.
Steve Novick
You're going to make—.
Candace Avalos
You're going to find a way.
And I think we don't need to overly inflate that budget right now when we have all these other crises that we're needing to fund, including all of the things that Maria 1 funds that I absolutely want to make sure get funded.
And so my perspective is that yes, we need security.
I don't think that Maria 1 is drastically cutting it in a way that makes me feel unsafe.
And I think that we have the capacity as a body to increase that if needed.
We were always going to meet that need if necessary.
I think it's a pretty small cost for a large gain.
Cutting down security that could be fluctuating over the year versus funding something that we absolutely need, that the community needs, is my priority.
So I'm interested in supporting Morillo 1.
I think that When we get to it, I think Morillo 1 and Green 1 are important as a package to fund a lot of what we are all saying we want to support.
So that is my logic.
I appreciate everyone's comments on our safety.
I share those.
And I think this is more important.
So I plan to support Morillo 1.
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Avalos.
Councilor Morillo.
Thank you.
It's not lost on me Thank you.
When we talked about who had to use security the most, that it was a lot of our councilors who are Black, people of color, who've faced different marginalized identities who are being targeted.
I know my office, we've gotten white supremacist hate mail.
I got a white supremacist hate mail letter from Florida my first week in office, which was really funny because I was like, how do you guys even know who your elected officials are in Portland, Oregon when you're from Florida?
But people are keeping track, I guess.
Angelita Morillo
Yes.
Unidentified speaker
But I think what Councilor Zimmerman set up in his argument is a little bit of a straw man, and maybe not intentionally so, but I'm not suggesting that we have no security.
We are talking about prioritizing the use of our security, which means that when there are surge capacity incidents, that we address that.
We also have a lot of leftover office funds, and I think that when the security pot is purely coming from the general fund, If you had to pick from your office fund to increase capacity during a critical high point for security threats, you would be judicious about how and when you're using that, right?
If it comes from a general fund, you're not tracking that as much.
The time that I had to use security was because someone publicly posted my bus stop.
There were a bunch of comments of people saying that they wanted to find me at my bus stop.
I think that's a good point.
So obviously it wasn't really safe for me to be waiting at predictable hours for coming and going to the building in those spaces, and that's what I had to use security for.
And then when those threats went away, which they often do, it ebbs and flows, I stopped using security because it's not necessary.
This is not supposed to be habitual.
It's supposed to be incidental.
And the demand that we had last year was because we had an unconstrained demand.
Angelita Morillo
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
So it was kind of being treated as a thing that can just be used exponentially rather than something that says, okay, this is very serious, it needs to be addressed, and there have to be some safeguards and constraints for how we use these funds.
So I am not willing to— I'm not willing to give up our safety, but we also have to protect our communities from hunger, from gun violence, from homelessness.
Angelita Morillo
Councilor Smith.
Unidentified speaker
From not having the CHAT program, from not having Portland Street Response employees.
And we don't get to make our communities less safe or to compare some individual coming in here and waving a piece of paper in our faces to over $1 million being taken away from a gun violence reduction program, right?
That is not a comparable situation.
Angelita Morillo
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
And these are very real lasting harms that will happen to our community if we don't fund the Office of Violence Prevention.
I also want to point out that these things are not funded in Clark 1, except for CHAT.
Nothing else is funded in Clark 1.
This is a clean-cut package that will create ongoing funding to stabilize these programs for the long term.
When our communities are safer, We are safer.
So I would really urge my colleagues to support Morillo 1.
I think that this is an opportunity to show the community that we are going to stand by them and that we can continue to use our office funds if there is a situation that ramps up your need moving forward.
But I, I really urge my colleagues to fund this.
I care about these programs a lot.
I know that we all do.
Thank you, Councilor Murillo.
Colleagues, we are about an hour in at this point, 45 minutes into this actual discussion.
So I would love to get to move forward on towards a vote on Murillo 1.
We can move towards Clark 1, Clark et al.
After that.
Councilor Ryan and then Councilor Knoll.
Thank you, Council President.
Councilor Knoll, you did that thing where you took your hand down so I could go in front of you.
So this better be good.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Again, I like most of the programs you want to add.
I really do.
And however, after this morning's dialogue, your source is not very rational to me.
As the person on this dais who was not just threatened by political violence, I've experienced it directly multiple times.
Most was vandalism.
Some was violence.
A flare tossed into your home after they broke 2 windows to burn down your home, that's violence.
Moving out of my home for a week due to the high volume of trespassing and vandalism that made my home not safe for much of fall of 2020 into 2021.
This is an experience I do not take lightly, nor do my neighbors and of course my spouse.
For the record, I received colorful threats from both extremes.
The reality perhaps of being an out gay man with HIV who is rational, I don't know, but I get them from both ends.
Then I heard the usage of this service from this council, and I was startled by those who are enthusiastic for this amendment want to pass this.
That just doesn't make sense to me.
For the record, thanks for reading the receipts, Councilor Zimmerman, I've asked for extra security zero times.
Perhaps my risk tolerance is much higher, I don't know.
But clearly I will not support this amendment.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilor Ryan.
Councilor Knoll.
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, the reason I dropped, uh, and put back in was just to, to see if there was anyone else to add.
Now that I've seen Councilor Smith has, I'm just going to request that we, uh, limit debate to those who are currently in the queue and ask for unanimous consent to do it.
But I will say one piece of it, which is I, I think it's notable that the people who did use it the most are the ones saying that we can do it, do with a little bit less, not to zero out anything Not to do any of that, but the, the idea that, um, it can— it doesn't need the addition that we're talking about.
Thanks.
Unidentified speaker
Okay, Councilor Smith, final word.
Loretta Smith
Yes, uh, thank you.
And that's a good point that you're making, because if I had needed the service as many times as you all did, I would never make this motion.
Um, I would be asking for more.
But, but the issue is about the, the school lunch program.
Uh, US Department of Agriculture, they pay for that.
Angelita Morillo
We don't.
Loretta Smith
And so we're not, we're not stopping folks.
I had, uh, Sonia in here talking about this, and I asked them, do you use USDA Agriculture to pay for your summer lunch program?
And she said yes.
So we are not doing something extraordinary that we already don't get paid for by another federal agency.
I urge my colleagues, Councilwoman Pirtle-Guiney, look at this very closely.
The struggle is real for many of us, and for the councilors of color, we have had probably some of the worst run of security issues of anyone up here, and I do agree with that.
While I may have only used it once, it does not mean that I have not been Frightened more than once, but I still think we need to have it available.
And I thank the mayor for putting that in, um, in the budget and for listening and for, uh, understanding that our safety is important and it's critical for us to be able to have this platform, uh, and be allowed to come here free of hostility.
So I will not be voting for it.
I like what you're doing.
Thank you.
But I think we have other sources to pay for some of the things that you are trying to pay for in this, um, Morillo 1.
Uh, thank you for putting it forward, and I will be voting no.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Keelan, can we please call the roll on Morillo 1?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
This is Amendment Morillo 1, moved by Morillo, seconded by Pirtle-Guiney.
Kanal?
Aye.
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
Aye.
Loretta Smith
No.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
No one else is funding these things besides CHAT.
Aye.
Steve Novick
Actually, my proposal restores much of the funding for Ceasefire.
Unidentified speaker
Aye.
Olivia Clark
No.
Mitch Green
No.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Aye.
Sameer Kanal
No.
Manuel Guerra
Aye.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
No.
Unidentified speaker
Dunphy?
Aye.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
The amendment is approved with a vote of 8 ayes and 4 nays.
Unidentified speaker
Councilor Clark, to your amendment.
Olivia Clark
Sure.
Thank you, Council President.
Um, I don't know that I have a lot to add to what I said earlier.
Um, I'm very interested in making these restorations to keep us safe, uh, particularly when it comes to the CEI hub and Forest Park.
The threat to closing precincts is very serious.
There's something in this amendment for everyone, but I do want to just ask folks to think about when you're having an emergency, a car wreck, Your neighbor's storage shed is set on fire, like in my neighborhood, a domestic abuse situation, who are you going to call?
And if the response time— these cuts will increase the 911 response time, which is really frightening to a lot of people across the city, not just my district.
I really fear that this issue has somehow become over-politicized in social media.
You know, I think all of us, pretty much all of us, voted for this charter change several years ago, but the program is in a startup mode, and this is not some kind of cut to the Police Accountability Commission.
It's a loan from the money that they're not going to be able to use in the next year, just to clarify that.
So with that, I'll just— I know other people have a lot to say about this, So I will close at this time.
Sorry.
Oh, I have to move my amendment.
Sorry.
I'd like to move Clark, Novick, Pirtle-Guiney, Ryan, Smith, 1.
Loretta Smith
Second.
Unidentified speaker
Councilor Clark moves Clark et al., 1, and I believe it was Councilor Smith as a second.
Okay.
Colleagues, to the amendment.
Councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith
Yes.
I think this budget did take some really big Public safety hits, hits in East Portland in a way that no other district has.
And I think Clark 1, it solves it.
It solves the problems.
It keeps our East Precinct open.
It keeps the, the North Precinct open.
The, uh, the public side— the precincts won't close, but the public side will be closed.
We will not have clerks.
We will not have people to do admin for the sworn officers.
Um, it may take them a little more time to get out on the streets if we don't support Clerk 1.
And I just want our public safety, um, law enforcement, fire, 911 to know that in, uh, District 1 and Councilor Smith's office, we support you.
We want you to perform at a level that is at a high peak and that you can get to those, uh, emergencies Councilor Smith.
Thank you, Mayor.
I think that we need to get these funds back to East Portland police fairly quickly.
And I think that this budget item and amendment will be the one that will get us there.
It is, like I said before, it is a very smart way of getting these restorations back into the budget.
And if we don't, we're going to lose— East Portland is going to lose rescue units in the fire.
We're going to lose folks in East Portland who can help our most vulnerable communities in the entire city.
So I urge my colleagues to please take a look at this and support this amendment.
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Councilor Green.
Mitch Green
Thank you, Mr. President.
You know, I like pretty much everything that this amendment seeks to restore.
I think your language in the past, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, is I like what you're selling, but I don't know how— if I like how you're buying it.
So I do have some questions, um, and I don't know if this is appropriate for Jonas or for Ruth, but if either of you could please approach the, the dais, please.
Maybe might even need to tap in the city attorney on this.
Thank you, Mr. Beery.
Um, so as I read this amendment language, and I've been trying to wrestle with how this is different than the original Clark 1, The original Clark one was not legal by charter and code.
This one seems to sort of create some sort of a loan, an interfund loan.
Can you explain how this loan works, please?
Jonas Biery
Yeah, Councilor, thank you for the question.
For the record, Jonas Biery, the city's Chief Financial Officer.
So my understanding is that this would use available balance, current year available balance that's in Facilities Fund, I think is what it is.
So the idea is that this would sort of bridge, use that balance to bridge to make sure that there's full funding in the— to meet the charter requirement in the OCPA.
And then as that underspending develops throughout the year, the anticipated underspending develops, then that—.
Robert Taylor
That's correct.
Jonas Biery
Underspent amount would become available in this fiscal year to replenish that reserve balance.
Mitch Green
Okay, so it's not borrowing strictly from the appropriated funds, but it's borrowing from another fund and it's using this as collateral?
The OCPA funds, is it fair to say this is more like collateral?
Jonas Biery
I think so.
I mean, I guess it's just, you know, I could think again, recognizing that there There will very, very likely be underspending, and we don't have the ability per the charter requirement to sort of capture that today.
So it allows us to capture that at a future budget adjustment when that can be accommodated within the charter, is my understanding.
Mitch Green
Okay, so the idea is, so there's no identified repayment source except for the assumption that we won't So we're building in an assumption from a risk-prudent standpoint that the way that we repay the loan is through the underspend in OCPA.
Jonas Biery
That would be the expectation.
That's my understanding of the expectation.
Mitch Green
I am worried about this setting up an incentive structure to not fill and staff up that program over the course of the year.
There's also this other risk that I— risk I worry about, which is, well, what if we do hire this director and they decide Under their independent purview to go out and make expenditures that cut deeply into this $10 million to put this board into practice, even using independent outside experts.
That is an allowable use of those funds.
And so I'm really worried that we are going to take on a $10 million unfunded liability that we have to pay back within 9 months.
And I wonder if we could do that Why couldn't we do that with any fund and use any other fund for collateral if we expect this to result in a general fund return at the spring TAO?
Jonas Biery
Yeah, if you're asking the question, Councilor, of me, my response would be that there are likely zero other general fund sources that would be anticipated to have that level of underspending.
We don't have another model of a program that's in a startup phase with that charter requirement that exists today relative to the expected implementation of the program.
So it's not— I mean, I think, sure, in theory that is correct.
In actual practice, there isn't another circumstance that would present this type of an opportunity without incorporating significant risk into the Okay, but I understand that, but we're not allowed to use these monies for other purposes.
Mitch Green
And what we're doing is we're using it, we're betting that we don't spend it.
And so if we think that we're not going to spend it anyway, it will fall to balance in the general fund in the next year, correct?
Jonas Biery
I wouldn't say we're betting.
Mitch Green
Well, that's what the comment is.
Jonas Biery
I would say we're projecting and expecting, which is different from a bet where we don't have confidence in the outcome.
The other— so that's how I'd answer that question.
Mitch Green
Okay, but I guess what I— my point— the point I'm trying to make is we could have borrowed and used any other source of collateral to back this and hope that we repay it instead of this specific fund, unless we really think that we are going to pay this loan back with this fund, which I do think that is a little disingenuous It's a workaround on not spending these monies by saying, well, we're not going to directly spend these monies, we're going to indirectly spend these monies.
And colleagues, I think that's bad budgeting practice.
And I do think that cuts against the charter.
So I have some deep reservations with this approach.
I would be willing to fund this package if we were to get serious about some cuts, perhaps from the top of our organization.
So I'll just leave it at that.
Jonas Biery
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Mr.
Steve Novick
President.
I want to talk about some of the things this package restores that I don't think the others do.
Councilor Clark, how many police public safety support specialists does your package restore?
Olivia Clark
Are you talking about the desk clerks?
Steve Novick
No, no, no, the public— the PS3s.
Olivia Clark
PS3s.
I would say approximately a dozen.
Steve Novick
Okay.
That's a group of people that That is cut by 80% in the mayor's proposed budget.
Those are the people who come out to your house when you call to report a stolen vehicle to write the stolen vehicle report.
And I've talked to the chief, what happens if we don't have them?
And he says, well, God knows how long it's going to take for an armed officer to have time to come out and take that stolen vehicle report.
That is a serious customer service problem.
These are folks that also, like, help the police in, like, searching for a missing person, like somebody with dementia who's wandered off.
Thank you.
They respond to non-injury vehicle accidents.
They're important folks.
I also don't know that there's any other package that restores the desk clerks, which is another serious customer service issue.
Hmm.
So I think that these are really important restorations, and there just is no realistic prospect that an organization that doesn't even have a director now, and they expect to take months to fill that position, is going to not only hire up 22 people immediately and find a way to responsibly spend millions and millions of dollars of external materials and services, which is what the $16 million figure currently assumes, is just not going to happen.
If you're worried that this amount is too much of a risk, then think about a smaller amount that you think would be less of a risk.
I think it's a reasonable amount.
I also want to address— I think that there might be some people who are concerned that if we do anything that relates to a voter-approved measure, the voters will rise up in anger.
And that's just not true.
We know from the Oregonian poll the other day that the voters want us to raid PSF to pay for police and parks.
I don't happen to agree with them, but that is where they are.
The voters are not ballot measure language purists, and they certainly would not object to borrowing money that otherwise will just sit in a bank account.
Thank you.
In order so they have good customer service when, for example, they call up to report a stolen vehicle.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Novick.
Candace Avalos
Councilor Avalos.
First off, I'm not making any decisions on a 300-person Oregonian poll.
Throw that out there in the water.
I'm not making decisions on that.
Second of all, I do not understand this argument that there's no way that the CBPA could How do you know that?
How do you know that?
This board has had zero opportunity to fully stand up its operations.
We're talking about operations that they have to stand up on staffing, investigators, legal support, outreach, training, case systems, administrative systems, public engagement, independent operational capacity.
That costs money.
And the voters said that that is what that money is for.
I think it's gross.
Frankly, it is gross the way that we are approaching this conversation.
We have not even given this The opportunity to build that infrastructure.
And mind you, why have we not?
Why has it been delayed?
I promise you it's not because the constituents want it delayed.
It's because people around this dais, including Councilor Ryan, have been spending years trying to stop it, including the police union spending years trying to stop it.
Please Google it.
Really, information is available.
You can see very clearly the positions that councilors on this dais have taken, that the police union has taken.
Councilor Loretta Smith.
To try to slow down police accountability.
Imagine telling 82% of voters, you wanted police accountability, you put 5% of that money to go towards it, but no, the police union wants to take the money for police accountability to spend on more police.
Be for real.
Like, this is such an unserious argument, and it's, it really makes me ill because it is, it spits in the face of communities who have been begging for accountability for a bureau that has been notoriously Against it, so we don't have to go that route.
This is I'm going to take that route.
That is the lane I am proudly going to take because I have been working so hard to stand up these systems, so hard to pass that measure to make sure that they are stood up.
We celebrated proudly a couple of months ago that we finally got it up, and you're already trying to take ten million away.
Seriously, I think that is a slap in the face of the voters.
I think it's a slap in the face to police accountability.
I think it's unacceptable.
And I, I really— I don't even want to spend even more time and energy on this.
I want to put a vote to it because I'm voting absolutely not.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Avalos.
Uh, City Administrator?
Manuel Guerra
Yes, we may need to amend this as this goes forward.
Just keep in mind, Morello 1 funds CHAT fully, so this would double fund it as it's currently written right now.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, City Administrator.
Councilor Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman
Thank you.
Um, as this was a, a voter-approved thing, I do have some heartburn here.
I was wondering, can we have the staff of OCPA come up and ask some— answer some questions?
Sameer Kanal
Just point of information real quick, there There is staff that has been assigned to OCPA, but they have not actually hired their director yet.
They're in that process.
Eric Zimmerman
Okay.
Sameer Kanal
I just want to clarify that.
I believe they're good experts.
I just want to clarify that for the record.
Eric Zimmerman
So there are no staff yet of OCPA?
Correct.
Okay, then who are you?
Hi.
Unidentified speaker
Hi, uh, Kristen Thorpe.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
My pronouns are she/her, and for the record, I am the limited-term employee that's supporting the OCPA currently.
Eric Zimmerman
Thank you for supporting it.
So I'm wondering, does OCPA have a spend plan for the $16 million in this current year or a budget for it all?
Manuel Guerra
The spend plan has—.
Tracy Warren
I'm happy to jump in there.
For the record, Deputy City Administrator Tracy Warren, there is a current spend plan for the office.
Currently, there is roughly $5 million expected spend related to 20 or so projected staff, a director, support for internal services, some facilities costing, and I believe that's it.
There is roughly the rest of the money that is in EMS that is available.
One of the things that we've talked about with the board is that once the director is hired, they will need to come in and develop a spending plan.
Okay, so those are estimates from us.
Eric Zimmerman
Tracy, so am I correct that there's $5 million in a rent or facility rent bucket in the OCPA plan?
I'm wondering if we are renting at the Ritz-Carlton.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
That projection was based on a 5-year lease.
Eric Zimmerman
Okay.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
That I recall at the moment, which our facilities folks said would be a good number to put in for the long-term lease.
Eric Zimmerman
Okay, so it's kind of PSF math.
It's 5 over 5.
Okay.
So you're expecting to hire up 20 people in the current year.
You're expecting to spend $5 million of it and execute a $5 million lease for the next 5 years.
I'm wondering why OCPA is treating— like, each of us has facility costs that we do, that we spend year over year.
So I get a budget, I spend that budget on my facilities.
Why is OCPA so different in this situation on So there's a couple of components.
Unidentified speaker
One, the OCPA has to be housed separately from public safety bureaus.
Additionally, we're basically putting in placeholders because we don't know the direction of the director who will be coming, coming into the system, and we also don't know the direction they'll be taking from their board.
And so we are being conservative in our estimates.
Thank you.
Candace Avalos
Okay.
Eric Zimmerman
Quite conservative.
Okay.
And then I noticed yesterday that the mayor, you submitted a letter in support of this now.
And I think that is big, right?
You're supporting an amendment to your own budget.
But I do appreciate that you did that.
I think that, you know, where this gave me some pause, and I've discussed it with Councilor Clark, was about the legality in terms of appropriateness and loans, et cetera, and being refunded.
But I, seeing that letter, listening to our finance folks and the idea between a loan versus a reduction, I think the public would be rightfully greatly heartburned if we kept a bucket of money just to sit in an account like we Sometimes do with other areas of this budget while other things went unfunded.
So thanks.
So I wanted to be clear, Chief of Police is here.
If you wouldn't mind, Chief, can you come up?
I just want to understand that the precinct administration aspects of your budget are pretty hurt.
This is a line item in your— in this amendment that restores precinct administration.
Owen Saitz
Yes.
Eric Zimmerman
Thanks for coming up, Chief.
You look great in the dress uniform, by the way.
Steve Novick
Well, I'd like to say it was for council, but I'm going to the police memorial here in 45 minutes to—.
Eric Zimmerman
Well, thank you for letting me step right into it on that one.
So, um, I will be joining you as well.
Sorry for not making it, uh, appropriate there.
So, um, the— I want to understand, if this, if this amendment passes, it has precinct administration being restored, um, actually even extended a little bit.
Does that mean that East Precinct's front desk capacity and North Precinct's front desk capacity will remain open as they are today if this is restored?
Unidentified speaker
And Councilor, we're at 5 and a half minutes.
Eric Zimmerman
Okay, thank you.
Steve Novick
Bob Day, Chief of Police?
Unidentified speaker
Yes.
Eric Zimmerman
Okay, I find that compelling.
Given the East Precinct concern.
And I appreciate that East Precinct and North Precinct and Central would stay open if this passes.
And in a year where in the— it doesn't look like OCPA is going to spend any of this money anyway, I'm leaning toward full acceptance of this.
Thanks, Councilor Clark, for getting through the weeds on this one.
This was a challenge, and I appreciate you bringing it.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Zimmerman.
Councilor Ryan.
Yes, thank you, Council President.
I want Police Accountability Commission to build.
I have never put up any roadblocks to that end.
And thank you, Councilor Clark, for leaving funds to do just that.
This amendment is leaving plenty of funds to stay the course and build— keyword build— the system people asked for.
You're all smart and you know that, so not sure why there's a pushback based on the facts.
Most voters and taxpayers would not support us sitting on money while we cut police and fire, the 2 response systems that show up and handle the most complex criminal and tragic rescue efforts.
Mayor, your cuts to public safety is causing Portlanders who are trying to be patient with us to doubt us, and they are losing their patience.
Let's let them know this council sees them.
Those who pay top dollar to live here and provide some basic services.
Let me tell you a couple stories about public safety system.
If you're out there actually doing ride-alongs, when you go to the community meetings, when you're out of City Hall and you experience the reality that Portlanders are experiencing, you would support this.
As always, these stories come from that lived experience.
Police and fire response recently when I was on a ride-along to the top of the St. Johns Bridge where once again a person's life They were threatening to end their life.
There were no other units that can respond to this.
It takes their expertise, and they work together like hand in glove.
Police and fire go together.
You don't cut one and leave the other flush.
So I really think I always speak to those 2 together with all the other support systems.
2 Weeks earlier, I was on a ride-along with fire, and they had to go to an apartment where someone was also threatening to take their life.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Who was there?
Because they were the ones that are qualified, certified to show up.
It was police and fire.
The result of that was they did save their life, and they handled it with such humane, cautious mannerisms.
It was just a delight to watch their experience on how professional they were to handle these really tough situations.
And you could just see how important training is.
Eric Zimmerman
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Then you're at the police collaborative meetings.
Again, you see Ceasefire, you see Office of Violence Prevention, and all of the partners communicating and connecting with police.
It's a system.
They all go together.
I do think we need to consider amendment.
I had my hand in the queue.
Thank you, City Attorney Lee, for that.
Since we did a fully planned chat, are you going to propose a friendly amendment?
Do you want me to propose a friendly amendment?
Candace Avalos
Yes.
Unidentified speaker
Okay, what's my friendly amendment?
But since CHAT was fully funded by the most recent amendment, I think it's an opportunity to put that money at a higher level then, back to PS3s.
And the reason I became aware of how important PS3s are is because I hear it from every officer.
Every patrol officer says that the amount of time that they're actually able to spend on complex investigation, on complex services and criminality out there is now easier to find that time because we have the PS3s that are doing the customer service that Portlanders want.
I can't look the storefronts in the eye and say we're cutting PS3s in police because they're the ones that do the police reports with them.
They're the ones that actually listen and have time to take in that information unarmed.
They're the ones that can be in the neighborhoods Working with our residents.
The Storefront Support Program means nothing if we keep cutting police and fire.
That's what they're asking for.
They're asking for quick response times.
And colleagues, I'll just say this.
We had a long discussion in early March about priorities.
There was one that stuck out.
It stuck out.
I'm not making this up.
It's on the chart.
We got the report.
And that was response times.
We all said we wanted to improve response times.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
So how can we sit up here and vote against that?
That's what I ask you.
Okay, back to the friendly amendment.
Are you good with it?
What is it?
Point of order.
Before— first, friendly amendments are not a thing.
Dan Ryan
They're not a thing?
Unidentified speaker
They're not a thing.
We've been doing it for the last 2 months.
Thanks for that.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I know.
Unidentified speaker
Before we consider an amendment, it needs to be placed in writing, reviewed by the budget officer, and submitted to the clerk.
CBO is available to work with your staff to get this idea moving.
But when that's ready to be submitted, we can move it.
This is— we're all dealing with this in real time.
Jamie Dunphy
I'm not recognizing verbal amendments.
Unidentified speaker
Sponsor, how do you want to handle this?
We got direction from the city administrator.
We're trying to be adaptable, Council President, in real time because we just passed amendments.
So now we have to adapt to that.
That's why you put them in these blocks, right?
Absolutely.
And I won't rush it to a vote, but we got to have it written.
No, I can't.
We're not going to have our clerk trying to—.
Olivia Clark
Mr. Ryan, do you have staff that can do that?
Unidentified speaker
Uh, hey staff, I know I can't see you right now, but you're being called to duty to write up a friendly amendment.
Thank you.
Olivia Clark
I'm working on it.
Unidentified speaker
Okay.
And it could help— it also could come from the city ministry.
We could do this in teamwork right now.
That's right.
I will come back and recognize you to introduce this.
Uh, we have 5 others in the queue, so I will, I will come back to you before we move to a vote on this.
Thank you.
Councilor Clark.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Council President, and thank you, Councilor Ryan.
I really appreciate that, and I'll be your Okay, I'm sorry.
Manuel Guerra
Sure.
Unidentified speaker
It's a new rule on the dais.
Olivia Clark
No, so I just wanted— I got into the queue because, um, I just want to make a comment.
I understand the passion of some of the councilors about the commission, and I think probably all of us on this dais voted for that, or maybe all of us.
I'm not trying to undercut the commission.
I'm not trying to stop its work.
I want to be really clear about that.
What I'm offering is a very common sense amendment, a very common sense approach that we can do easily if you would vote for this.
We've gotten great facts from DCA Warren and her staff about what the commission expects to spend in the next year.
It's very clear.
There's even additional money to do that.
So I just wanted to reassure people that I'm not trying to stop the commission.
That's kind of silly.
But I do understand the passion that some people have about it.
All I'm trying to do is offer a common sense amendment to use dollars that are just sitting there to restore some things that are incredibly important Thank you, Vice President Clark.
Unidentified speaker
Councilor Novick.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Mr. President.
I, of course, also voted to establish this accountability board and look forward to watching it work.
A point I wanted to make is that this body is not going to start spending at a rate of 22 employees and millions of dollars in the first year.
In EMS on July 1st.
We know it's going to take a while to get underway.
And if they spent $16 million in a fraction of the year, that would mean they'd be spending at an unsustainable rate.
If they're in the long term going to have 22 people being paid a certain amount of money, but they don't hire those people for months, Then the only way to spend that salary budget would be to either hire a bunch more people that you'd have to lay off next year or wildly overpay them, and then you have to cut them.
Same for EMS services.
If they're going to have $1 million a month for EMS, and that's their expected long-term need, then if they don't start spending for several months, then the only way to blow that budget and to spend that budget would be to start spending at an unsustainable rate.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Thank you.
Steve Novick
So the assumption that the whole $16 million will be used necessarily is an assumption that the director of this body will start spending at an unsustainable rate as soon as they're there.
And I don't think that that's reasonable.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Novick.
Councilor Green.
Mitch Green
Thank you.
Just wanted to make one final point on this, which is that there are EMS contracts all over the city.
And so it's entirely possible that when we hire this director, the very first thing that they want to do is sign some contracts with legal counsel, with other EMS contractors, to then have that capacity up here so they can spin up and get the work going that Portlanders have been waiting 6 years for.
6 Years.
And so if we're going to apply this sort of thinking to EMS spending, we need to apply it everywhere in the city of Portland.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Mitch Green
We've had contractors for graffiti abatement whose contracts have been held over years, over years, over years, because we've said we want that capacity to be there when we want to, you know, repaint a wall that's going to get graffitied again tomorrow.
That's what we do currently.
And so this idea that we can't possibly imagine a director with that independent authority to come up and hit the ground running and do a great job, I don't buy it.
Eric Zimmerman
Thank you.
Mitch Green
And meet the challenge and frankly meet the moment of impatience for Portlanders is astonishing.
So, you know, again, I like the things that are being restored in this budget.
I do think we need all those things.
I just wish that colleagues would have found some cuts in our enterprise to pay for this rather than sort of roll the dice and gamble on this underspend idea.
Thank you.
In this one specific fund when we have underspend all over the city.
So I'll just leave it there.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Green.
Councilor Koyama Lane.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
I'll be quick.
I want to say ditto to what I heard Councilor Green talk about.
I could consider, consider this, voting for this, if there was a different funding source, especially if it is something that is addressing possible management bloat, chopping from the top.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Koyama Lane.
Councilor Morillo.
Thank you, Council President.
Um, thank you, Councilor Green, for outlining all of the EMS, uh, issues with this.
But I just want to remind my colleagues that the voters passed this ballot measure with 82% of the vote, and that is really unheard of for ballot measures.
Okay, people are not usually— there is not that much consensus for things.
So this is something that the community has been waiting for.
And if we tell the oversight board that the city's only plan for paying this money is to count on their underspending, then they will be heavily incentivized by the executive side to keep that spending down.
That is not what the voters asked for.
They asked for robust implementation of this oversight body.
Attorneys, investigators, as we have seen when we've done some of our own oversight, are very expensive.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
So there is a lot of work to be done, and they can use every single cent of this if we allow them to, if we actually support and uplift this board that was brought to us during a time where Portland really opened its eyes and said, we care about racial justice, we care about police accountability, we're going to push ahead with this, and it is our duty to follow through on that.
So I appreciate what this is trying to fund, but I think we need to be more specific.
I don't appreciate the funding source, and because of that, I will be a no.
Thank you, Councilor Murillo.
Councilor Knoll.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Council President.
Colleagues, you may be wondering, why do we keep reminding everyone that there were 82% of Portlanders in favor of Ballot Measure 26-217?
And there's a simple answer to that question.
It's because some of y'all keep forgetting.
I do not object to many of these things.
These 2 amendments, Clark 1 and Clark-Novick, Pirtle-Guiney, Ryan-Smith seek to fund.
I support consideration of other amendments which fund CHAT, which we just did, fire engine at Station 22, the fire rescue vehicles, and some of the reductions to police administrative support specialists.
I've been working on funding for the fire admin as well.
There are other amendments which fund things which this excludes in public safety, like the ceasefire positions, ceasefire grants, OVP grants, Portland Street Response, as well as fund some of the same things with ongoing dollars because this one funds it with one-time dollars.
This includes Maria 1, Green 1, Canal 2, 4, 5, and Novick, I think it's 4.
What makes these amendments objectionable is where the money comes from and how it would be taken, because these amendments defund the office of its charter-mandated budget without its consent or even its consultation.
Clark 1 is a clear violation of both Charter Section 2-1004 and 2-1006.
While Clark—.
I'm just going to call it Clark 2 to save time— engages in some clever moves of money around and calls it a loan, there is both no plan to repay it if we actually ramp up the board as currently intended, which means it simply mandates a future violation of 2-1004 and In 2-1006.
Councilor Mitch Green.
The charter, the board has independent judgment on all of its duties, including its budget.
It is frankly absurd that colleagues are arguing they supported the ballot measure in 2020.
I don't question your account of how you voted then, but we're all about to know how you stand on police accountability now.
And the reason for that is because there are other sources of money.
There may not be a single fund source that has $10 million in it, but you'll notice the possibility of adding up several funds was not excluded.
Thank you, Councilor Mitch Green.
This amendment was designed to pit a narrow definition of public safety against police accountability when there are other funding sources that do not defund police accountability and fund a broader definition of public safety, which includes fire, things like the St. Johns Fire Engine and the rescue units, as well as police, but also includes PSR, CHAT, OVP, Ceasefire, and more with ongoing funding.
Colleagues, you can talk about where the money is going to go, but the fact is nobody would defund the mayor's office.
Nobody would do that with the city administrator.
Nobody would do that.
We could put up an amendment to zero out the auditor or the council offices, not just our budgets, but the role of councilors.
And why wouldn't we do that?
Because we cannot violate a voter-approved ballot measure just because there's a need to fill.
Councilor Novick made 2 important points.
One, that it can't spend all the money, and 2, that the test on ballot measures should be if the community will rise up if we violate it.
It.
Both are incorrect.
Councilor Avalos is correct, you could Google it to see what all has happened, or you could ask someone within 20 feet of you who worked on this for years and helped build example budgets for how they could spend this money.
Its budget having millions in EMS is true, but that budget was developed by external staff assigned to it, not by the board itself, because it had to be submitted for this year's process before the background checks were done and the board started meeting.
So you can't actually judge the board by the budget DCA warrant talked about, although what she said is accurate.
They did not suggest that much money on real estate, for example.
But furthermore, we have to follow Charter 210 even if nobody sees it.
We have to follow Charter 210 even if we could get away with it otherwise.
We have to follow Charter 210 regardless of its visibility.
And I'm profoundly concerned about the chilling effect on the new director that when they come in— this is what Councilor Murillo just talked about— when they know that underspending is going to be perceived as necessary and the pressure they're going to get not to spend, not to scale this new system up, because otherwise they'll either be accused I'll probably have more on this to say later, but I wanted to talk about the slippery slope here, and I'm going to quote something I said a year ago when we talked about IPR being on the budget for this.
What I said then was, my concern with this broadly is that at some point when you start wearing down what can be considered allowable or what not— what is not allowable under the charter— we start to think about things like, could we start to say, oh, it's okay if it funds our compliance with the settlement agreement?
I think that's a good point.
Oh, is it okay if it funds some of the other advisory boards which are run out of a different bureau?
Oh, is it okay to fund body cameras, right?
These are the sorts of things that are outside, completely outside of both the spirit and letter of the charter.
In this particular case, I was talking about IPR then, it's definitely outside of the letter, end quote.
I wish I hadn't been prescient on this, but I was, and I was informed by things that you can see in the November 15th, 2023 Council meeting in the old version of this chamber where I sat on that side and Councilor Ryan sat on this side, and you can see what happened.
Look it up.
And so it's not prescient because we can see the future, it's prescient because we know the past.
Thank you, Council President.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Kanal.
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Thank you, Council President.
Um, colleagues, I want to start by saying, while I appreciate my colleagues' efforts to I do think there is a lot of important work that happens through that program.
I would like to ask CBO to work with my staff to give us a different option, which is to put that $500,000 back into the original funding source so that we are pulling slightly less money out of the funding source.
Councilor Smith.
I feel like I was just thrown back to a debate, a debate that I think is actually a false choice between policing and police accountability.
And I'm not really sure why that was done, because I don't see any purchase of highly trained folks with a badge and a gun in this amendment.
Now, what this amendment does is it ensures is that we can continue funding 3 things, 3 things that fall into the category of core frontline services, which are exactly what Portlanders have asked us to prioritize.
And I want to be clear, from what I heard at the listening sessions I was at, we don't all— when I say we, I don't mean the 12 of us, I mean Portlanders— define core frontline services in the same way, but there are a few things that I think all Portlanders think are core frontline services.
Fire safety— pretty basic core frontline service.
Ensuring that our police are trained to these standards that our community holds— that's right.
Portlanders have asked for a lot of additional training for our police officers so that they can be held to the standards our community holds.
Victims services and the work that many community members have repeatedly said we don't need or want a highly trained person with a badge and a gun doing.
We want other people to be able to do, including, I might add, ensuring that Portlanders who live in my district and in East Portland can actually come into our police stations and get some questions answered, which frankly I do not consider customer service, nor do I consider the work of PS3's customer customer service.
That makes it sound like it's a nice-to-have.
Are we easy to work with?
This isn't about whether or not we are easy to work with.
It is about whether Portlanders in North and Northeast and East Portland have the same services that those folks who live in my colleague's district on this side of the river have.
We need to fund those things.
And I will be very clear, I am not voting for a budget that does not return an engine to Fire Station 22.
So we've got a couple of choices, colleagues.
We can pull out of reserves.
I guarantee you our budget's not going to be easier next year.
We're already pulling out of reserves.
We all know we need to pull some out of reserves, but we also all know we need to keep some in there.
Same with contingencies.
We can make cuts There's a proposal to make cuts, but I will tell you those are cuts that we don't actually know if we can achieve.
What happened this past year when we balanced the budget on cuts that we didn't know if we could actually achieve?
We had to come back and backfill.
Not interested in doing that again, colleagues, but I am interested in making sure that my district has the fire engine it needs.
My colleagues at the border of East Portland have the rescues that they need for medical life and safety issues, and making sure that folks in my district and in East Portland can walk into a police station and have their questions answered.
So what we have before us is a proposal that ensures that an incredibly important part of the work we do— police accountability is critical to a well-functioning police bureau— that ensures that that work continues to staff up.
We are going to be hiring a director soon.
That is a huge step, and that director can then start hiring staff, and those staff are not going to be fully on board until well into the year.
The money that was left is over 3 times what was spent last year.
I am going to draft amendment proposing we put half a million dollars back into it so that there is even more.
But colleagues, the narrative here that we are being fed is intentionally misleading.
It is intentionally misleading because it is trying to create a divisive issue where there does not have to be one.
We have to fund these services.
We know that this money will be left at the end of the day, and I want to be clear: when this money was left at the end of the day last year, what?
Happened is it came back in the spring TAO.
I don't know if you all remember that.
In the spring TAO, we don't often talk about where the money comes from, so there was not a lot of transparency with Portlanders.
Portlanders, when the money came back this year, it went into spring TAO.
And as with everything else that went into spring TAO, when there is money there, the mayor works with the administration to bring a proposal on how we spend that money, and then we all complain that the mayor decided what to do with that money and we didn't get a say.
So what's going to happen, colleagues, is not all this money is going to get spent.
It's going to go back into the spring towel and come back to us as unspent funds.
The mayor is going to bring us a proposal on what to do with those unspent funds that he's put together with the administration, and we are all going to complain that we didn't get to decide what to do with it.
Councilor, 6 and a half minutes.
I'm sorry, I will take 20 more seconds.
I would prefer that we, knowing that there will be money left on the table, ensure that I have a fire engine, ensure District 1 colleagues that you have fire rescues, and I guess the, the outer half of District 3 as well, ensure that folks in my district and in East Portland can get their questions answered at a fire station.
I think that is a basic common sense solution that still ensures that we can do the absolutely critical work that we will be able to get to this year, because we will not be able to get to all of it in standing up a state-of-the-art, leading-in-the-nation police accountability system.
Thank you, Council President, for letting me go a few minutes Thank you, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Councilor Green.
Mitch Green
Thank you.
I, I just want to note that, uh, the budget that we adopted last year described vague efficiency savings.
It did not identify where we would cut.
It did not identify how we'd go about doing it.
The mayor proposed a budget, we accepted a budget that says we're just going to realize efficiency savings, and then they just didn't.
And then they did the same thing in the fall TAO, and guess what?
They didn't.
And so the amendment that I'm proposing, Green 1, And if the budget committee of the City of Portland cannot provide budget guidance to the administration that says you shall cut 20% from these ranks, then I don't know what we're doing up here.
Surely the city administrator can execute that by making some tradeoffs if we were to adopt that budget.
So I think it's a bit dismissive to say that, you know, we would try to cut 20% from these ranks.
Loretta Smith
I think it's a bit dismissive to say that, you know, we would try to cut 20% from these ranks.
Mitch Green
I have a lot of faith in our city administrator.
We did an excellent national search.
Okay?
So it's time to get serious here and quit kicking the can down the road with our fiscal situation in the City of Portland.
I agree we need to fund these things.
And there are other proposals in this book that fund a fire station in St. Johns.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Green.
Councilor Smith.
Councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
I just want to say ditto, ditto, ditto to Councilor Elana Pirtle-Guiney.
Um, this, this new 2nd Clark, uh, amendment will immensely help East Portland.
And I— we have to make some trade-offs, and we can say we like people or whatever, but the, the city administrator and the mayor put together a budget.
And we can identify some other sources of where to get this money from, but we have to put some of those services back into our community.
Because we have underserved communities who have not had the investments that other parts of our city have had.
And to argue about where they come, if they're going to come back, that is a useless argument.
The argument should be, will East Portland and North Will they lose the fire rescue?
Will they lose the office clerks who've been working for our city for a long time?
We're getting caught up in where it comes from.
We're not trying to take away from the money that was set aside that, that the voters said that they wanted, because that money is going to be taken care of.
We're making some drastic choices right now.
Eric Zimmerman
Councilor Smith.
Candace Avalos
Councilmember Herbold.
Loretta Smith
And if we don't figure out that being as drastic as we are is going to hurt our community in the end, and not voting for something because you, you won't move off your circle, you won't move off your circle for a second to understand what it's going to mean to East Portland.
You want to sit there and say, no, no, no, you won't do that, you can't do that.
But while out in East Portland, we're losing services.
I mean, flat out, we're losing services, and nobody cares about that.
So support this amendment.
If you've got another place we can take the money from, make an amendment.
Make an amendment.
I don't hear you.
Make one.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Councilor Avalos.
Candace Avalos
We do have an amendment.
It's called Green 1, and I'm looking forward to being done with this conversation so that we can move forward and do that.
I think it's important to note that this budget that we're responding to is a budget that the mayor proposes And he proposed cutting things that clearly all 12 of us don't want to cut.
So what does that say?
What does that say?
Because we are being put in this position to try to fight for debt, for necessary emergency services.
We were being told to do this.
The mayor didn't have to cut these things.
The mayor could have found all kinds of other money, could have made all kinds of other decisions.
But this is what's in front of us.
And I think, you know, this concept that the people making this divisive— no, you know, you know who's making this divisive?
Council members.
People who think that taking police accountability money for more policing, you think that's not divisive?
Seriously?
So let's just be done with this.
I'm not voting for this.
Let's go.
And also lastly, I'm going to say it now because I know I'm going to hear it all throughout the next 2 days.
Do not district explain me.
I can speak for my own constituents.
Thanks.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Avalos.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Council President.
I'm going to first ask to limit debate to the people currently in the queue and ask for unanimous consent on that.
But I want to talk about 2 things now.
And audacity.
Nobody used the word contempt here.
They did use audacity, but you can feel it.
This amendment holds the voters in contempt.
I voted no on some things up here in the past, but just because I voted no, if it passes, I still think that we should have to implement it, right?
Just because I oppose something doesn't mean it's not the law.
Colleagues are also saying we shouldn't put this in contrast to public safety, and they're right, but that's what the sponsors did when they did not have to.
They did not have to try to defund the OCPA to do it because there is an amendment that does that and is called Green 1.
There is also significant contempt for your intelligence, Portland, because we're hearing arguments that we shouldn't make cuts, we have to backfill.
And if this board makes even 38% of its budget spent this year, we'll have to backfill them in the spring TAO.
And we're hearing arguments that we shouldn't make budget cuts in necessity in next year's budget, but every penny that goes from the OCPA's underspending into repaying police and fire's debt to fleet and facilities, if this amendment passes, will have to be repaid in next year's budget instead of used on some need in the spring out, or more likely put into ending fund balance and then rolled into beginning fund balance next year.
So we'll need to find up to $10 million additional ongoing dollars to make the budget balance next year.
And worst of all, at least one councilor has argued that the ballot measure doesn't really count because people didn't really read it before they voted for it.
And so I asked my colleagues not only to reject the amendment, but the contempt that comes with it that we would be holding Portlanders in if we adopted it.
The other point On the Emilio One Amendment, Councilor Ryan said, "Quote I need to understand your why before I think I have the audacity to make the cut." End quote.
And I think this is a fair point to raise.
Do we have enough information before we have audacity?
Did we get information from the Community Board for Police Accountability, from the Police Accountability Commission, from the various advocates that came up on this that worked on it for years, from the staff who worked on it?
No.
So I don't have the audacity, and so.
I will not be voting for an amendment to defund the Community Board for Police Accountability approved by 82% of voters, for an amendment that breaks the Charter 2001-2004, which requires the budget allocation in the mayor's proposed budget.
And thank you, Mr. Mayor, for that, not $10 million less.
I'll not be voting for an amendment that breaks Charter 2-1006, which guarantees the independent judgment of the board and specifically says the council will not interfere with its legally guaranteed authority.
I will not be voting for an amendment that breaks the spirit of Charter 2-1006.
Further by not even consulting with the CBPA prior to its proposal, with no further meetings scheduled as a possible time to consult with before we approve the budget.
Or an amendment that is based on the false premise that the board cannot spend all of its budget, offered by people who haven't spent a fraction of the time learning about this that even volunteers spend working on this monthly, and who with a simple request for information could receive example budgets.
Or an amendment that is based on the false premise that the board will never be able to send its full budget, offered without doing any homework on it, and who are trying to relitigate parts of the ballot measure.
An amendment that is disrespecting voters' intelligence.
An amendment that calls it a loan when some of the co-sponsors say they cannot repay the loan and don't think they should have to because it'd be unspent.
An amendment that pits public safety and accountability against each other, both because those colleagues who are more respectful of the will of the voters have put up amendments to fund critical public safety programs without defunding the OCPA, And because accountability is a core aspect of public safety and specific to policing, accountable policing is effective policing.
I will not be voting for an amendment that rewards those who delayed the measure's implementation by taking the money away, saying it can't be spent this year when that may not be true.
And even if 100% can't be spent, more than the remaining 37% almost certainly will.
But most of all, we cannot vote for an amendment— I cannot vote for this amendment because I took an oath to the charter.
I looked voters in the eye.
And said I would never vote to violate a ballot measure.
I would never say my preferences outweigh your vote, and I would never undermine democracy at a time that it is under profound attack from the national level down to the local level.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Kanal.
Colleagues, we have— I have received notification that there are 2 amendments that are live.
I will look to Councilor Clark for the last debate, and then I will look to Councilors Pirtle-Guiney and Ryan if they're going to introduce their amendment.
Councilor Clark, Vice President Clark.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Council President.
Um, I can't match the passion and the hyperbole that we've heard here, um, but I can clarify that I'm not interested in defunding this program.
I'm not zeroing it out.
I'm not violating the charter.
I am pure in my motivation.
I have nothing against the commission.
I support the commission.
I'm operating in the here and now.
I'm not operating in the past.
I'm operating in the here and now, and I'm trying to restore what the people of Portland need and want in public safety.
Without hurting the Accountability Commission.
It's not a defund, it's not a zeroing out, it's not breaking the charter.
Let's be clear.
Thank you for your consideration.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Clark.
So, uh, Councilor Ryan, I just wanted to check with you about your amendment first.
I just want to make sure it hasn't, um, been delivered because we are not going to do it.
We're going to lean into the Thank you.
So recognizing Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Thank you, Council President.
I'm going to speak really, really slowly because my team is bringing printed copies for all of us right now and I want him to be able to get here.
I apologize that you don't have it in front of you.
Is it posted?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
The budget office would appreciate a moment to review it.
Unidentified speaker
Okay.
The budget office sent it to me, but if they'd like a moment, we can take that in.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yes, thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Why don't we go ahead and take a 10-minute recess?
10-Minute recess.
Can I ask a quick question?
Yes.
Sameer Kanal
Is the queue limited right now?
The queue is limited right now.
Okay, thanks.
Unidentified speaker
Yes, thank you.
We're going to take 10 minutes.
Everybody please be back here at 11:42.
Dan Ryan
Thanks.
Unidentified speaker
Give it 10 seconds.
All right, I'm calling us back to order.
Thank you everybody for letting us take a quick break.
Thanks folks in the chambers.
Um, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, I am recognizing you.
Thank you, Council President.
I wish the rest of our colleagues were here.
Thank you, Mayor.
Manuel Guerra
Councilor Sameer Kanal.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Mayor.
Colleagues, my original hope when we crafted this amendment was that we would only have to dip into half of this fund.
In order to get everything that's in there, we had to dip a little farther, and if the opportunity exists to put $500,000 back into the original funding source, I think that that is the responsible path forward.
You have an amendment before you that addresses the fact that we Yes.
Just passed an amendment to the budget which already covers the necessary funding for the CHAP program, so we do not need to allocate those funds back into the main budget through this budget amendment.
Therefore, that portion is removed from Clark-Pirtle-Guiney-Novick-Ryan-Smith 1 and returned to the original funding source.
That is the bulk of what this does.
I will I'll just note while I have the floor and this is before us that at one point, one of the folks who has testified and followed along with our budget work said that they thought that between Maria 1 and Clark-Novick-Pirtle-Guiney-Ryan-Smith 1, we would restore somewhere between a quarter and a third of the frontline service positions that were cut in the mayor's budget.
Olivia Clark
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
It would be incredible if we could start out our work amending the budget doing just that.
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, are you— is that a formal move?
Yes, I'm sorry.
I move EPG-1, which is an amendment to Clark-Pirtle-Guiney-Novick-Ryan-Smith-1, the amendment to the budget.
Olivia Clark
Second.
Unidentified speaker
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney moves EPG-1 and Councilor Clark seconds.
Colleagues, is there debate of this amendment?
Councilor Ryan, are you— no.
Councilor Avalos, to the amendment.
Candace Avalos
This amendment changes nothing.
Let's just move to a vote.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Avalos.
Any further debate?
Councilor Ryan.
Thank you, Council President.
I just want to add thank you, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Once you explained it, I understood and it was easy to take mine down.
And I just want to ditto the comments from Councilor Clark earlier.
I am totally in support of building the police accountability, like 82% of Portlanders.
I also think a large share of Portlanders, it could be up to 82%, do not want us to sit on money while response times backpedal after 3 years of building a much better system.
Can we please serve based on reality?
I look forward to supporting this.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilor Ryan.
Keelan, can we please call the roll on EPG 1?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
This is the Pirtle-Guiney amendment to Clark-Pirtle-Guiney-Novick-Ryan-Smith 1, moved by Pirtle-Guiney and seconded by Clark.
Keelan McClymont
Kanal?
Sameer Kanal
No.
Keelan McClymont
Pirtle-Guiney?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Ryan?
Dan Ryan
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
No.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Sorry, just a second, I'm having some technical crap.
Unidentified speaker
Um, Morillo.
Angelita Morillo
No.
Keelan McClymont
Novick.
Steve Novick
Aye.
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
No.
Eric Zimmerman
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
No.
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
No.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
The amendment fails with a vote of 6 ayes and 6 nos.
Unidentified speaker
Okay, colleagues, to the, uh, clerk We're going to call it Clark 2 for now.
Could we please call the roll on the underlying amendment?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Okay, this is the underlying Pirtle-Guiney-Clark-Novick-Ryan-Smith 1.
Unidentified speaker
Yes.
Keelan McClymont
Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
No.
Keelan McClymont
Pirtle-Guiney.
Unidentified speaker
Council President, thank you for giving us the opportunity to start with 2 votes that would Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Koyama Lane?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
No.
Keelan McClymont
Murillo?
Angelita Morillo
No.
Keelan McClymont
Novick?
Steve Novick
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Clark?
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Green?
Mitch Green
No.
Keelan McClymont
Zimmerman?
Eric Zimmerman
Aye.
Candace Avalos
Absolutely not.
Jamie Dunphy
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
No.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
The amendment fails with a vote of 6 ayes and 6 nos.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you.
Councilor Green.
I have a point of order.
Jamie Dunphy
Councilor Ryan.
Unidentified speaker
Yeah, I know that the mayor can break ties on the budget, But can he— so why wouldn't we have the mayor consider weighing in on amendments to the budget?
Loretta Smith
Our current chamber interpretation—.
Unidentified speaker
Yeah, yeah, but our current legal interpretation is that the mayor has the authority to break ties on final votes but not on interim decisions.
Is that correct?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
That's correct, and that's what your council rules also reflect.
Loretta Smith
But it's not what the charter says.
Unidentified speaker
Yeah, I agree, of course, with Councilor Smith.
So I continue to be a bit bitter about that, especially when we're facing the annual budget.
Understood.
Eric Zimmerman
Council President, just a point of order.
If we were to— I think you're going to break soon.
If we could break now, a number of us could make it to the police memorial in time at the start.
And I'm wondering if that would be a substantive change to your plan.
But if we could break now, we could make that memorial.
Jamie Dunphy
Okay.
Eric Zimmerman
I would request that courtesy.
Jamie Dunphy
Memorial over?
Eric Zimmerman
12 O'clock, I believe.
In fact, I think our uniformed personnel have already left.
Jamie Dunphy
Okay.
Eric Zimmerman
Down at the waterfront.
Unidentified speaker
Then I would be happy to let this be our lunch break right now.
I'm going to take 1 hour for lunch, and I would like— I would ask folks to please be back at 1 o'clock ready to dive into all of our amendments.
Owen Saitz
101.
Unidentified speaker
Welcome back, everybody.
Hope folks had a lovely lunch break.
Thank you for your patience.
For those watching at home, hope you Thank you, Council President.
Mitch Green
Colleagues, I'd like to move Green 1 and its associated budget note Green 4.
Candace Avalos
Second.
Mitch Green
Thank you.
Is that a second on both?
Jamie Dunphy
Yes.
Mitch Green
Okay, great.
Thanks, colleagues.
Like many of you, I was dismayed to see cuts to Station 22 in the Portland Fire and Rescue.
For all the reasons that make residents in St. John feel really scared and nervous about that type of decision, it also makes my constituents in Linnton, my constituents in Forest Park wonder if the City of Portland worries about them in the case of a disaster at the critical energy infrastructure hub.
So my focus in this budget was to restore this fire engine.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Mitch Green
And then also, you know, some part of the advanced life support units that were also cut in that budget.
And so the way that I went about doing this was to say, I don't want to take from other programs that are also having scarce resources allocated to them at this time.
I don't— I actually really affirm a lot of the conversation we've already had about pitting one part of public safety against another or one part of the city against another, recognizing we have a $160 million budget deficit.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Thank you.
Mitch Green
And so to guide my path in finding the resources to restore these cuts, I just went back to my labor roots and asked myself, what do organizers, what do labor organizers always ask when we are in a scarce budget crisis?
And they, time and time again, they ask us to chop from the top, to cut the top strata of the organization before you cut into the bone of the functions that we are trying to restore.
And so that's the way that I went about this.
And the idea, the tension that I was wrestling with was, on the one hand, we know that there are resources there to be found and that it's unacceptable to cut the fire truck and one of those rescue trucks.
But it's also reckless to try to go through the org chart as a city councilor and say, that can be cut, let's keep that role here, let's cut that role there, and just on and on and on until you rack up up to the total amount of dollars that you need.
So we came up with an idea to say City Council has the budget authority to grant a certain amount of funding for the city administrator to execute on.
And so we decided to focus on positions classified as Manager 1 up through Deputy City Administrator 2 spread across the city.
Olivia Clark
Thank you.
Mitch Green
And then exempt a couple critical bureaus, which you'll find in the budget note.
I think it was really important that we exempted the rate-funded bureaus.
I think it was really important that we exempted the public safety bureaus, as well as the Office of Equity and Human Rights and the Office of Community-Based Police Accountability.
And so if you leave those off the table and you say, what is 20% of the total cost to these bureaus?
Keith Wilson
20%.
Mitch Green
What kind of cut does that get you?
That results in $3.325 million of ongoing, of ongoing resources.
And so, colleagues, if we pass this amendment, we will have the money to restore this fire truck and a rescue truck on an ongoing basis.
And why do they get to 20%?
Well, here's a comically large chart.
I don't know if you can see that on Open Signal, but this is—.
Manuel Guerra
Yeah, here we go.
Unidentified speaker
Here, do you want me to hold it?
Jonas Biery
Yeah.
Unidentified speaker
Vanna White style.
Mitch Green
Well, thank you.
So anyway, so if we, if we take— if you go back to 2019 and you look at the growth in positions for management positions, and this is from the SAP database that we have here, We see that those positions to date have grown by 36%, or rather 33%.
And if you look at non-supervisory, so non-management positions, that has grown a total of 8% over the years.
We had a period where we had folks retire, they were laid off, but there's also clearly some conversions and promotions during this period of time.
And so the difference roughly between those 2 rates of growth is 25%.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Mitch Green
Thinking 25% seems a little aggressive, we backed it off to 20%.
So that's how we came up with 20% as a rule to effectuate these cuts.
And then we basically said, let's provide 3 months, let's provide one whole fiscal quarter of runway for the city administrator to figure out how to put these cuts into practice.
So that way we can have the continuity of service not only in the fire truck and the rescue truck, but also in the patrol units.
Thank you.
But then also in these— within the organization that depend upon these managers.
So it provides 90 days.
If we were to adopt this budget amendment, we would restore a fire engine at Station 22.
We would keep our neighbors in Linnton feeling safe.
They don't feel safe, by the way.
They will just feel at least as safe as they do now.
We've got to deal with the CEI hub.
But it also provides I think 3 months is sufficient to say, where can we make some consolidations?
Where do we have really narrow spans of control?
And then make a fiscally sustainable, fiscally responsible series of cuts at the top to keep this whole.
And so the budget note describes how that happens.
For the continuity, to have seamless funding for both sides of the balance sheet, that's what we're doing.
So you're saying that the balance sheet, so to speak.
We pull it from general fund contingency that is then paid back by the fall TAO with these cuts that are identified by the city administrator.
So at that point, I'll pause for questions, and I would ask you for your support.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Green.
Councilor Green has moved Green 1, and Councilor Kernall has seconded.
So colleagues, we are in queue to the amendment.
Thank you.
Councilor Novick.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Mr. President.
Councilor Green, first of all, I want to say that I think it's quite possible that you're not cutting enough.
I just don't know.
And like I said, I'd like to have a discussion fairly soon of the 57 people who supervise under 4 people and sort of start with that.
And I feel bad that I haven't been looking at this management issue over the past year.
We should look at it.
We'll talk about it in the course of the year, not just at budget time.
But the goal here is to generate general fund.
And you said you're exempting the rate bureaus, but you're also exempting the public safety bureaus?
Sameer Kanal
Mm-hmm.
Steve Novick
Well, that largely leaves parks.
And I actually asked parks a few weeks ago to tell me what growth, if any, they've had in management since 2019.
And they came back and said that The proportion of PPR staff in all supervisor and manager classifications together increased 2% from 12 to 14% of the total.
However, the proportion of PPR staff in solely management and higher classifications remained stable at just under 4% of the total.
So I'm wondering how your numbers align with that and how much savings do you think you're going to get out of parks specifically?
Mitch Green
Good question, Councilor.
We were careful not to ascribe where and which bureaus that these cuts would be effectuated.
If we pass this amendment, the city administrators could choose to zero out the DCAs entirely if he wants and then absorb most of it that way.
He could choose to focus on the 24 Manager 3s, which are executive positions in the City of Portland.
Those are spread around the org.
And so we're not— we're agnostic on where these cuts happen.
I will note, though, That's, uh, when I talked to the LIUNA Labor Unit 43, um, who represents parks workers, their primary grievance budget after budget has been that they are seeing their members being laid off while new supervisory positions are being created.
And in this budget proposal itself, uh, there's an addition of 2 Manager 3s, there's 2 Manager 5s across the org, uh, and there's 3 Manager 1s and 1 DCA.
Thank you.
And so I appreciate your line of reasoning, but I would kick that over to the city administrator to figure that out.
Steve Novick
But you're asking the city administrator— by the way, it was at Launa's request that I ask Parks this question and then forward the answer I got to them.
But you're asking the city administrator to figure that out.
But what if what he figures— I mean, what if what he figures out is that there are extra managers in the rate bureaus but not in the general fund bureaus, so it doesn't generate $3.32 million for fire?
Mitch Green
Well, Councilor, we, we had this scored by the CBO, and we had Owen determined that it actually started with a total cut of $8.4 million, and then net of general fund overhead, that was a much lower number.
And then I took the total cut and actually reduced it by 25% to leave that first 3 months of runway there.
And so the $3.325 million is general fund.
Manuel Guerra
Okay.
Steve Novick
Okay, but we as a city are— the city is a bureau-by-bureau thing, and I'm afraid that what you're doing is too abstract.
I mean, I would rather frankly see something saying we think we can get rid of this many managers in parks, this many managers in— what other general fund bureaus are being beat at?
Planning and sustainability?
I'd rather do that bureau by bureau than have this sort of blunt instrument approach.
And again, Again, I think that the work should be done, but I don't think that we know the consequences if you do it in this blunt way.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilor Novick.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Um, thank you.
I'm going to be supporting this.
I really appreciate the questions that have been asked.
I think, um, one of the challenges that we have is I think it's fair to say that you'd prefer a longer process.
I, I I think the challenge is that this is the inflection point where something has to get cut, and where it is right now in the cuts that are currently proposed, that's primarily rank-and-file workers.
And so in order to do a process, we have to first let those rank-and-file worker positions be eliminated.
And many of those are filled, some are vacant, but many of those are filled.
And so the time for the process ideally would have been over the last several years.
I think the challenge is that we're Because otherwise what we're doing is we're losing people and then saying, well, we can bring them back if, or we can hire new people if, but it still disrupts our rank-and-file represented workers' jobs.
So I wanted to just talk about that because I think it's really important.
And it's a process that I think ideally we would have a better budget process that is more integrated with council discussion throughout.
I know that's something that our colleagues to the right of us here also believe in.
Steve Novick
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
But it just hasn't gotten there yet, and that's fair.
But I also know that we have to be making a decision today because it's not as though we're making this decision in a vacuum.
We're making this decision against a backdrop of whether or not we're going to let several of our rank-and-file employees go.
Several is an understatement.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Knoll.
First, I'd like to just very quickly correct myself.
I said Green 1, but Green 1 and Green 4 were both moved and seconded Council President, thank you for this opportunity, this courtesy.
I want to first start with the obvious.
I think we all want to restore Engine 22.
There's no doubt about it.
It's my neighborhood station, so I certainly grew up around that station.
It's personal to me.
The rescue units for District 1, District 3 are important to me as well.
They do, you know, hard and important work.
What I want to address is the framing, the chop from the top.
The team we have here, the dozens of people that are in this room right now, the dozens of our staff that are watching this right now in the war rooms that are here to support you in these decision-making processes.
Jonas Biery
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Reducing painful cuts to disrespectful slogans does a disservice to the city employees who've spent their careers dedicated to their community, dedicated to you in this process that we're at right now.
These are difficult times, and we cannot, nor should we, go through them and dehumanize our staff.
To our staff and to the dozens who are here I appreciate you.
I've shown up every day since I've been elected, and for the most part, you've been there with us the entire way.
And I really appreciate the way you've shown up for this city in these difficult times.
We had a $130 million deficit last year.
Those decisions were hard, and we struggled in this chamber.
We have a $160 million deficit this year, and this will force us to do even more difficult This approach disrupts our efforts to make government work better.
Green 1 will only add more delay and difficulties in the job that we have to do, and the staff that we have to do them with will be diminished, only reducing our ability to operationalize these cuts, because those are the cuts essentially we'll be making this from.
Thank you, Mayor.
The administration is working hard to get government costs under control and make difficult decisions with sensitivity and in the interest of the public.
C.A.
Lee is 5 months on the job.
We are making incremental changes to turn this ship around.
It takes time.
Allowing us 3 months to make difficult decisions with a staff that ostensibly would be getting cut on their own decisions that they're making Isn't practicable.
It is not enough time to do this and do this well without harming the entire community.
Blind cuts like this upend these efforts and will result in more expensive, less effective government.
So thank you, Council President.
I appreciate it.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith
Thank you, Council President.
I think we all know what this is.
This is an attempt to take down city government.
Chopping at the top is not realistic.
Working with each other and the administration is important, and it's critical.
We have to think about these cuts in a way that's going to think about the folks who actually have to deliver the services I will not be supporting Green 1 and 4.
I still believe that Clark 2 was the way to go, and I think we need to figure out other ways.
And you talk about public safety, and let's, let's, for example, just talk about police.
You haven't restored anything for police.
They took a 6% cut.
We're talking about community safety in the public safety area.
But if you truly want to keep our community safe, put those true public safety dollars back in.
I am concerned right now about East Precinct and about securing the right security for fire to make sure that our folks, if there is a rescue that's needed in East Portland, that we have And about North Portland.
I care about the entire city of Portland, including the fire engine.
This is reckless, and we better be careful about how we govern because it does not look good to the community.
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Councilor Cleon Melendrez.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Thanks.
Thank you, Councilor Green, for putting this together.
Thank you, Chief Johnson, for being here and for all of your time you're putting into this.
Thank you to President Isaac McClellan.
What I've heard very clearly from Portland firefighters is that the focus is not so much on where the funding source is, but making sure that we really reverse these huge cuts to fire.
Thank you.
As a card-carrying union member, I think this amendment should be understood for what it is.
It's pro-worker.
It's pro-union.
It's one that centers the voices of people who literally keep our city running every day.
Union members across the city have consistently raised concerns about management bloat and growing imbalance between frontline workers and administrative expansion, whatever you want to call it.
So as councilors, we will continue to sit in the many executive sessions when we have HR labor management coming and asking us to weigh in on contract negotiations and labor issues.
We have a lot of contracts.
How many do we have, Ron, throughout the city?
Manuel Guerra
Currently 15.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
A lot.
So we're going to have more of those meetings.
And I want to be frank with all of you.
So if we're not willing to pass this amendment, it's going to put us in a difficult and contradictory position if we are trying to publicly say we value our workers and we support labor and we respect collective bargaining and, and, you know, we're bargaining in good faith, but we're literally refusing to acknowledge legitimate concerns being raised by our workforce itself.
Supporting this amendment demonstrates that we are listening to our workers.
Who are asking for just a more balanced approach to staffing and budgeting priorities.
This is not anti-management.
This is about accountability and priorities.
And honestly, if there's anyone up here who is uncomfortable with the language chop from the top, I mean, I'm a unionist.
I like— I dare you, go ahead and say that here on the dais and let's see how the unions feel about that, because those are not dirty words.
Resources, when they become increasingly concentrated at the top, Frontline services and workers delivering them always are the first ones to feel the strain.
The people asking us to address these issues are not outsiders.
They are our firefighters, our public employees, union members who understand firsthand how these decisions affect service delivery, morale, retention, public safety.
This amendment aligns with our policy decisions and with the values that many up here claim to hold— supporting our workers, supporting unions, ensuring that city resources are directed directed towards employees who provide our essential services to our residents every single day.
And I want to urge you, you know, like, Councilor Novick, if you're wondering if this is not enough, then please consider this as just a starting point and a way to show our city workers and our constituents that we truly are a pro-labor council.
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Koyama Lane.
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Thank you, Council President.
We seem to have a tendency to use the budget to accomplish policy goals, but because we're focused on the numbers during the budget process, we don't always spend as much time making sure what we're driving toward is good policy.
Councilor Green, I agree that the charts that you showed up are concerning.
We have a period of time there, and I. I know that the last few years of those charts are a little bit better, but there's a period of time there where there was some really bad decision-making.
And that's why I am already in conversations about a thoughtful approach to review managers, especially Councilor Novick.
I love it when you say exactly what I'm already talking about in other rooms and we haven't already coordinated those, um, folks who are managing fewer than 4 staff, and to look at the average span of control.
These should be conversations about efficient, effective, service-driven, service delivery-driven government.
But when we do this as a budget exercise that drives toward a number regardless of the organizational need, we know where we end up because we ended up there this past year.
If the goal is to generate funds in the general fund, we know that there are really only a few places to look at.
We know that there's not other places to cut within fire, otherwise we'd just be cutting those places to fund these frontline workers in fire.
So we're looking at management and police, and we're looking at management and parks.
And yes, I am concerned that we have duplicative management and folks who are man— are working managers but should be classified not as managers, folks who are managing just a few people.
And I want us to take the time to actually, Mr. City Administrator, ask you to review all of those and to do it over the course of the next year so that we know before next budget what that looks like.
Please expect that ask to be coming.
But if we do this as a budget exercise, we're cutting to a number and not to a program need.
And I am not comfortable wishing and hoping that we can fund a fire engine by cutting enough managers in police and parks to get us there.
Because if we don't get there, I'm not sure what we do.
So thanks for bringing this forward, Councilor, so we can have the conversation about what our city should look like, what our management to frontline worker ratio should look like.
But I think we need to get there as a policy exercise, not in order to close a budget hole.
Thank you, Council President.
Thank you, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Uh, Councilor Green, you're next in the queue, but you've already spoken, so I'm going to go to Vice President Clark and I'll come back to you.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Council President.
Um, I don't think anybody would doubt my commitment to Fire Station 22.
It was in my amendment to restore that truck because it protects the CEI hub and Forest Park, um, which someday, you know, might go up in flames.
Uh, so I, I appreciate supporting that.
Um, But I feel like this amendment is actually rather insulting.
It's blind.
It's even disingenuous.
I agree with Councilor Pirtle-Guiney that we need to take a different kind of approach and not take a hatchet to this.
We don't have to do this.
We could have used funds.
I offered a much cleaner, common sense approach to funding this engine as well as fire and rescue units.
Councilor Smith.
So I'm not in favor of this amendment.
I, I think it's dangerous, and I'm really tired of all the hyperbole.
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Vice President Clark.
Councilor Morillo.
Thank you so much, Council President.
The hypocrisy here is frankly astounding.
Last year we voted for the mayor's core realignment with what can only be referred to as a trust me, bro exercise, because there was no real reasoning given for the 20% cut, and the executive said that 25% simply felt too high.
We were not given a reason for why 20% was chosen.
Core realignment and the way that it's been done Councilor Smith.
When we've been talking with city employees who are not supposed to talk to us, by the way, because God forbid we actually speak to the frontline staff who are telling us directly what they need, is the local level of doge.
That's what it is.
They are laying off around 200 people with more disguised language.
We can talk about language if we want to talk about what's proper or improper.
Proper.
But saying realignment is a very softened, delicate way of saying we are laying off 200 frontline staff that do the work of the city every day, and we are doing that in a process that did not involve those frontline staff at all.
That is disrespectful.
That is dehumanizing.
And I find it frankly absurd as well Coming from an executive that told people to not show up in matching t-shirts to testify, clearly a pointed comment about union staff at the City of Portland, many of whom are Portlanders themselves, since the vast majority of our employees live in the city, as if though they don't get a say in how the budget happens, as if they don't have expertise to inform where the cuts are going to impact core services.
Dan Ryan
Councilmember Herbold.
Unidentified speaker
Since 2019, there has been a 33% management growth.
Since 2019, there has only been 8% growth for frontline staff.
There is clearly something wrong with how the executive and management has grown in the past few years, and those people are not doing frontline staff work at the City of Portland.
I am sure that they are important and critical.
I think every employee Councilor Smith.
I think that the conversation that we have left is valuable, but if we have to make decisions about the choices in front of us, the core realignment guts a lot of city employees with little to no analysis for why it's being done.
So to act like this isn't doing that is wild to me.
And I'm going to say this as well.
I have been in meetings with the executive branch where they have literally said, They are not sure how the cuts are going to impact us long term, that we might have to set aside money to rehire some of the people that we fire because we might be losing some key expertise for some of these core services later on.
Well, guess what?
You're not going to rehire those people.
Those people are going to get jobs somewhere else.
Those people are going to be bitter, and rightfully so.
They're not going to come back to the city.
We're going to lose Those employees who have 20 years of expertise, right?
So the comparison here that we should protect management growth of 33% over frontline staff of 8%, and that one is somehow a terrible option versus another, I think is very disingenuous.
And in fact, that is hyperbolic, my friends.
This is an amendment that is going to save fire engine in Station 22.
And we should be doing that.
So there are only tough decisions before us today, but we at least have an actual number for this amendment.
At least we know there's 33% growth for management.
We have no idea why 20% was chosen, and most of the employees that have been forbidden to talk to us or who can only talk to us secretly in the hallways so that they don't get in trouble by the DCAs or whoever else is preventing them from speaking to us.
That's what they're saying.
So I'm, I'm happy to listen to the frontline employees, and I will be supporting Green 1.
Thank you, Councilor Maria.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Council President.
I, I wanted to start by noting there's been, I think, a lot of focus on Kanal 1— or sorry, on Green 1— but there's Green 4 as well.
These are together.
Uh, Green 4 has the, uh, budget note with some of the legislative intent, and I want to note that on— it's page 19 of the file— the— this affects only The manager 1 through 3, deputy director 1 through 3, director 1 through 3, and deputy city administrator.
By that definition alone, there are no cuts to police here because they don't have those classifications.
Only the deputy direct— there's one deputy director in fire.
And if you go scroll a little lower, it explicitly exempts police, fire, water, BES, BOEC, OCPA, OEHR.
So that's, that's not actually what this amendment would do.
And I think that's really important to point out.
I, again, I feel like I'm making a similar point to what I said earlier to Councilor Novick's point in response to Councilor Pirtle-Guiney's point, which is that we should be doing this through a process.
We should ask the city administrator to, to do that.
We did last year.
Last year there was an amendment to do almost the same thing.
It was Canal 1.
It failed.
But then we did pass Canal 8.
It was a budget note asking for exploring changes, specifically the deputy director and director classifications.
And what happened after that is it became a way to justify administration's existing desire to fully study all city staff calculations.
Manuel Guerra
I think that's a good point.
Sameer Kanal
Classifications, which made it a multi-month to multi-year process.
And so that's why we haven't heard anything back on that yet.
We did actually try that, and it didn't work.
And I know that— that I don't put the blame on City Administrator Lee.
He came in long after that.
I want to be clear about that.
But I do want to say that, again, we'd be talking about probably at least a year before there'd be any process on that.
And in the meantime, what happens to the couple hundred folks that are being laid off?
Thank you.
And I think that's where we go back to what Councilor, uh, Morillo was talking about.
Um, I, I want to be clear.
I think that the, the way in which this would be done would be largely up to the city administrator.
Um, if 3 months isn't sufficient, I think that's a conversation that I think is worth having of what is the amount of time that is sufficient and how do we go about it.
But that's not what we're hearing at the moment.
We're hearing just don't do it.
And I'd like to get more information on that.
But I, I also wanted to know Now, what of the arguments we've heard about the blind cut aspect of this being a negative thing do not also apply to the core services realignment?
What is— how do all of those arguments, how do they hit differently?
Because they sound like they're 100% the same thing.
And I oppose the core services realignment.
A few of us did.
It didn't go that way.
That's what we're doing.
It was disappointing to have to be told that yes, it's absolutely going to happen, it's absolutely going to hit these numbers, and then in the spring towel be told no, it actually didn't.
So I understand that we should learn from that experience, and I, I fully grasp that concept.
But the concept of doing it without numbers is not the issue here, because the numbers have been not only found but put onto a comically large sandwich board of chart.
But also, um, the, the broader arguments about blind cuts seem to apply equally to that, and we're doing one but we're not doing the other.
It doesn't add So I just wanted to get that on the record.
I do think that the challenge is when you take away all the scalpels that we're trying to do and that we did through the budget last year.
And it's not just this budget note, by the way.
There's several others that were kind of taken in a very different direction.
I'm still waiting, for example, on the package delivery fee note, which got rolled into some other thing at PBOT that was used to justify the TUF and then buried.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
Still haven't gotten any details on that one.
So there, this is what has happened, and I, we have to find a way to not do this because it creates unnecessary confrontation that doesn't need to exist.
But also, we don't have the choice now.
We don't have the time to go back and do this in the best possible way.
We have a decision before us on whether or not to continue with the current plan to lay folks off or to change it to this other way of examining our management.
Eric Zimmerman
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
I think we owe it to our represented rank-and-file employees to consider that strongly.
Unidentified speaker
Thanks.
Thank you, Councilor Kanal.
Councilor Avalos.
Steve Novick
He's putting me in the queue.
Candace Avalos
He's putting me in the queue.
Thank you.
Um, first let me respond to the concept of the budget is not a place to make policy decisions.
Respectfully, the budget is one of the primary ways Because budgets are values documents.
They're governance documents.
They determine organizational priorities and staffing priorities, operational priorities.
And overall, I'm hearing people say, well, we need to leave these conversations entirely to the administration.
But colleagues, we tried that.
We tried that, and we were presented with a proposed budget that cut 1.5% of our Hundreds of frontline positions and direct service impacts while management and administrative structures remained extraordinarily high.
So if the administration had already fully solved this problem, then we wouldn't even be here debating this amendment.
Part of our responsibility as the legislative budget authority is evaluating whether the structure of the organization actually reflects community priorities.
So that includes asking difficult questions about management growth, administrative layering, span of control, So I think that it is entirely appropriate for council to say we want fewer cuts to frontline operations and we want more scrutiny of administrative growth.
I don't think that's disrespectful to staff.
I think that's literally the work of governance.
And to be clear, this amendment does not cut any of the police managers.
I know that's something people here care about.
It's not cutting those.
Loretta Smith
Councilmember Herbold, I think you're missing the point.
Candace Avalos
And also, I just want to push back on this characterization that we are just being hyperbolic or too emotional, because it's clearly going to be another thing that's going to keep being brought up.
But for many of our communities, these are not abstract line items on a spreadsheet.
These are culturally specific programs.
These are frontline community infrastructure, youth programs, housing stabilization.
That's not just a budget line item.
There is a real passion that people feel when they see that their that what is for them is constantly on the chopping block first.
And so I don't think that passion disqualifies these concerns.
I think it frankly reflects the real-world impact that these decisions are having on the communities that we are here to represent and have historically had such a hard time just fighting to be seen, much less heard, in this body.
So I think that communities deserve elected leaders who are willing to fight for the services and the institutions that they care about.
That's exactly what we're doing.
I think Green 1 is a responsible way for us to address the fact that what we asked for was not met, and now we have to make this corrective action, and that is ultimately our say.
So I'm supporting it.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Avalos.
Excuse me.
Councilor Smith, I will come back to you as you spoke in this one first round.
Councilor Novick.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Mr. President.
Councilor Green, as I look at the list of exempted offices.
I see you exempt the Portland Police Bureau, but I don't see that you exempt the Office of Violence Prevention, Portland Street Response, Ceasefire, or PBEM.
Is that correct?
Mitch Green
Thank you for asking that question.
In the spreadsheet that we had Owen do the math on, we said we want to exempt all public safety bureaus or the entire sort of service area.
So the Office of Public Safety, is exempted from this as well.
So anything that nests under any of the public safety hierarchy is not considered for this cut.
Steve Novick
But the— but the— your Green 4 is very specific.
It says the following are exempt, and it exempts specific bureaus.
Mitch Green
Well, then that's a scrivener's error.
It should include all public safety service area bureaus.
Steve Novick
Okay.
Mitch Green
Appreciate the question.
Jonas Biery
Thank you, Councilor Novick.
Unidentified speaker
Councilor Ryan.
Thank you, Council President.
Sorry I was late, um, coming back from the police memorial service, and I didn't miss the pre— I did miss the presentation of your charts.
I did get up and try to and look at them, and I saw the point you were trying to make.
Um, of course I want to restore Station 22.
Um, cutting services to a station At the northern border that expands along the terminals in the far north that allow us to be a global trading partner, to the CEI hub across the bridge along Forest Park from Linton all the way out to Scappoose to the Columbia County border.
You know, that was a mistake, and it looks like somehow that will be restored today, and I'm grateful for that.
Of course, I wanted it to happen in the amendment that you just all voted down.
Thank you.
And it's really a mistake as we look to the very dry, a very hot, dry summer after records have been broken on low mountain snowpack.
So we are expecting wildfire challenges like never before, and we really have to make sure that we're ready for those to be responsive.
In general, there's a theme from councilors, some of the partisan councilors, to undermine the complicated work of core realignment.
I don't know how many of you have ever been in the executive role of having to do core realignment work with, with everyone.
It's hard.
Core realignment was something that many voted yes for the charter because they knew we were a siloed city where taxpayers and voters and Portlanders were always so confused on how to get a question answered because we allowed ourselves to be so siloed in our bureaus that we would say, you should call that bureau.
Let me blame it on someone else, in other words.
And so this work, Candace, Councilor Avalos might recall when she was the chair of the Charter Commission, I said, why aren't we starting with this?
This is the dysfunction we have in our city.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
We have 27 bureaus and offices where people are bumping up against each other.
And this is during COVID so many were at home in their PJs during that early time, and we were trying to figure out how to respond to a crisis the city was in.
And it was really complicated, and people were really furious about what they were experiencing in terms of service delivery from our city.
Thank you.
If anyone's ever been in organizational development work, the case study of looking at the City of Portland's org chart is quite an opportunity.
I'm sure there's graduate students that are looking at that, and they too would have a good time trying to figure out how to do core realignment work.
The professionals at the city that have been involved in this work, including not just Yes.
You've been including workforce in those conversations, as I recall, in all of our conversations.
It's something that involves the entire system.
This is just phase 1.
This is just phase 1 of this project.
I've been upset that it's taken so darn long for us to even get to this phase, because in the meantime, we're chopping away at core services that people in the city expect, like when you call 911, someone shows up, as we try to do all we can to prevent the inevitable, which is to do this work.
And so I know this is uncomfortable, colleagues.
These are called trade-offs.
When you run for this office, you make really hard decisions that aren't going to make all your friends.
Loretta Smith
And this is one of those moments.
You can't win on this one.
This is just an acceptance of something that's really hard to do.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you.
Loretta Smith
And I haven't been convinced that the process that, that has been led by the administrators that has included others from the city, including workforce, are doing anything in bad faith.
And so I look forward to CA Lee continuing to go forward with this very difficult process.
You knew when you said yes to this position.
Owen Saitz
Thank you.
Loretta Smith
This was high on your list of duties.
And so here we are, we're at Phase 1 and we're backing away from it because of pressure all over the place.
I got the same calls.
So I'll be voting no because I find it to be very disrespectful to undermine the many hours that have gone into this process to get us where we are today.
And there's a theme with many of these amendments that will do that.
And so thank you for listening to me express some of my opinions on that.
Thanks.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Ryan.
Uh, colleagues in the queue have already spoken once.
I'm going to extend a courtesy to City Administrator Lee.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Thank you, Council President.
Uh, I'd first like to start out with, you know, with the council, there's no issue, uh, with staff having any conversations with the city council.
I believe that happens now.
And it's not.
When it comes to directing work of staff, that's where the rub will come.
But there is no issue with conversation because those conversations are happening now as we speak.
The city should always look at how do we have a structure that can help support the services that our community wants to see us provide.
And that's constantly and consistently evaluating the resources we need to do that.
That's frontline staff, and that is also managers within our organization.
That's essential that we do that, and not just once a year or something that we do when it's hard times within our organization, but continuously looking at how do we get better.
As an organization.
Core service realignment in itself was a process to try to take the first stab at that.
That included some frontline members, and that also included management within what would be realigned and centralizing some of the services that we provide as an organization.
But I just want to caution council, when you look at this type of evaluation, this takes time to do, to look at this level of management and really understand the levels of impact when you're looking at making reductions to it and what happens with the work in these bureaus and some of these programs.
You know, that takes time to go and do that to make sure that we're not crippling the system that Portlanders are expecting services to be provided through.
There's a lot of transformation work to be done in this organization.
And a lot of times what I have seen, we are building the plane and flying the plane at the same time in this organization.
And that requires resources to be able to do that.
Angelita Morillo
Yes.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
And I just want to make sure as we go through this type of process or having this type of conversation that we truly be thoughtful about the resources needed to make this work.
And at the end of the day, we want to provide quality services to everyone in our community.
And that's my main priority in how we do that as a government structure, but as administrators, as leaders.
Within this community to help shape that.
And I would say this, without adequate resource, it's almost impossible to do this work.
And I just want to make sure we're just setting ourselves up for success.
But this type of analysis has to be done in some shape, form, or fashion.
I would just caution you from being in a targeted approach from it.
We first need to understand what our outcomes are.
And then let our outcomes drive us in these type of decisions.
Thank you, Council President.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, City Administrator.
Okay, colleagues, everybody who is in the queue has spoken once, and near as I can tell, councilors who have wanted to speak have spoken at least once.
I would like to note that it is 1:45, and this is our 3rd amendment for the day.
Luckily, these are some of the beefiest amendments, so maybe the rest of the next 2 days will go better.
But I hope that we can get towards a vote.
Councilor Green.
Steve Novick
Thank you.
Before I get too far into the substantive points I want to make to my amendment, I want to push back on this theme that keeps surfacing up that there's excessive hyperbole or too much passion in our speeches.
We're dealing with some very big issues here, and the budget that has been proposed by the mayor introduces unacceptable risks to some of our communities.
That was a decision you made to introduce.
And so our reaction to this comes from a place where we've sat in our communities, we've listened to their fears, we've talked about what their expectations are, and that passion does come through us sometimes.
And I think that's okay.
I will also note that I don't think it's dehumanizing to describe an organization that has grown in cost I'll tell you what is dehumanizing, though.
It's dehumanizing to reduce a classification for an analyst from an Analyst 2, say this is out of the budget.
By the way, there's an Analyst 1 that's now in the budget.
You can apply for that when you lose your job.
That's dehumanizing.
That's dehumanizing at the micro level.
Those voices don't always come up, though.
I think it's dehumanizing to I'll also note that if you think that this is a— some sort of an out-of-pocket kind of wild idea, it might feel that way in this room with a bunch of people who are paid salaries north of $200,000 a year.
But to the average Portlander who's looking at how we make decisions with our budget, we need to go back and tell them that it's more important to make sure that we're taking care of our kids.
Owen Saitz
Thank you.
Steve Novick
To preserve 24 Manager 3s at an average cost of $305,000 per year.
$305,000 Per year, 24 of them.
49 Manager 2s at $267,000 per year.
That's more important.
That's a bigger— we don't want to risk changing that up in 3 months, but we are willing to risk playing a game of political football with a fire engine.
This is the only proposed This is the only proposed amendment that provides ongoing resources so we don't have to have this same fight next year.
And it's the only amendment that doesn't try to float a loan in a year where we've declared from this dais, our Chief Financial Officer said, colleagues, we are in a financial crisis.
We are in a financial crisis because we were up short in the fall TAO.
Angelita Morillo
Councilor Smith.
Steve Novick
And then before we even get the spring TAO, we're up short, you know, a 5-digit figure as well.
And so this idea that it's reckless and irresponsible to say, here's your budget authority, it is reduced.
I know it's uncomfortable.
I know it's not your preferred practice, but you're going to have to live within your means within these ranks so that way we can pay for the thing that we want to pay for rather than float a bond, float a loan, borrow from Peter to pay Paul.
Candace Avalos
Yeah.
Steve Novick
And then put off into the indefinite future this conversation about this growth and management, that is reckless.
That's fiscally irresponsible, frankly.
And the people that put us in this office who give us a favorability rating of 24%, they take that into consideration.
I'll also note that the commission form of government had an approval rating of 12%.
So pretty low bar.
But perhaps because we're willing to have these messy conversations and be impassioned And maybe playing a little hyperbole, maybe they, maybe they enjoy that a little bit.
So you'll make the decisions that you'll make.
But Councilor Ryan, I'm glad that you did say and remind us that we're up here to make trade-offs.
We're elected in this office to make difficult choices.
This is a terribly difficult choice to make.
I know that there's good people in these ranks that do good work.
I know that, and I've experienced that.
But we need to think about the balance sheet of the institution and And what the money that we are collecting in taxpayer revenue, what revenues, where that is going.
For my money, I want to keep a fire station in play so that when I have my next meeting with the Firewise group in Forest Park and Linnton, that I can look them straight in the eyes and say, I fought for you.
I did it through a hard route.
I knew it would be difficult to convince my colleagues, but I wanted to fight for you in a way that got you the money you deserve every year.
Councilor So colleagues, I hope that you can place your faith in the city administrator like I have, to have the skills to execute these cuts with rationality and grace.
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Green.
Councilor Smith.
Thank you, Council President.
Councilor Green, you were my vice chair on the Labor and Workforce Committee, and I appreciated your insight.
One of the agenda items that we had, I asked the City Operations to come forward because literally they have all the data.
I appreciate you and your, and your table, but I also understand that having all the information is very important and critical.
And we had an agenda item where I asked, um, Tracy Warren to come in and tell us how many people Yes.
Are at retirement age.
She said at full retirement age, there were between 400 and 450 people.
I think that's what Ron Zito had put up.
400 And 450 employees have 30 years or more at this City of Portland.
I did not see you speak to any of those things because you sat in that committee and you heard that.
I want us to go back to City Life.
Unfortunately, I'm not on that committee anymore, but you are.
And go back and get the numbers from City Operations, not just your billboard that you put forward.
And mind you, You go back to 2019.
We all started in 2025.
The mayor and this city administrator and the previous city administrator is still trying to make up for what the prior administrations have done.
You are putting this on us as if this is our issue that we did.
We're trying to unpack all of this, right?
So you have to admit where that— where this problem came from.
It didn't start Yes.
With Mayor Wilson or City Administrator Raymond Lee.
And I didn't see any of these kinds of cuts last year when we had our previous city administrator.
I was pushing to get those things done.
He said he was going to make those cuts by September of 2026— 2025.
It did not happen.
It did not happen.
You did not hold him accountable.
You did not call him in, in your role as the vice chair, to explain himself on why he did or did not do things, because we were supposed to do this in sections.
So to come back now and put all this at the feet of this mayor and this city administrator, it is wrong.
We need to talk about those folks.
And the reason why some of those folks are still here, those 450 folks, Yes.
Because they are hard-to-fill positions.
We can't afford to lose those folks.
We have to train up a workforce.
We have baby boomers that are going to be retiring at the rate of 10,000 folks a day, and we have to figure out how to replace those folks because we're going to have a brain drain if we get rid of those 450 folks.
So that's the other piece.
I do support Your sincereness about really wanting to do this, but I think you need to go back to City Life and we need to have a conversation with your chair, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, to figure out how do we report this back and how do we work with the administration.
Again, I don't want us to try to burn down the city.
The other piece is I am not Councilor Smith.
I'm not totally convinced of the accuracy of the numbers that you have, where they come from, how you got them, and those kinds of things.
I need to look at this.
It's too hard for me to process that in this short amount of time.
And as we're talking about public safety, we need to be very clear when we speak.
When we're talking about the public safety service area, not public safety, because there's a difference between police, fire, and 911.
There's a difference between those folks who are the PS3s and the folks who are doing ceasefire and the violence prevention.
That's in the public safety service area.
And let's be clear on what the difference between the two are.
We took a 6% cut from police, 4% from fire.
Those cuts are going to make a huge difference in public safety in my district, and I can't say it more clear.
Vulnerable populations in District 1 and throughout the City of Portland and in District 1 and District 2.
I'm concerned.
I'm concerned about Forest Park and St. Johns because I have family and friends who live in those places, and I want them to have the appropriate fire truck to be able to put out those emergencies that we may have.
But I think right now we need to rally around what we have.
Candace Avalos
Councilor Smith.
Unidentified speaker
Understand the unintended consequences of your amendment, both of them, in the, the budget note, and figure out how we can do this inside our committees before we go forward on something this drastic.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Steve Novick
Councilor President, can I quickly briefly respond?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yes, Councilor Green.
Steve Novick
So I had my amendment in Thursday morning to be scored by the CBO.
So this is— this has been scored by the CBO.
So if you don't have confidence in my numbers, I don't know what to say beyond that.
But this— I didn't make this up over the weekend.
These were all scored.
Unidentified speaker
Can I respond?
They're not scoring yours as the validity.
They're not scoring it for the validity of what you're saying.
They're scoring what we put forward on what we thought was a priority.
They're not scoring this No, ma'am.
Steve Novick
They, they scored it in terms of the, the budgetary impact.
Unidentified speaker
In terms of where the money comes from.
Okay.
Again, we also need to hear from City Operations.
Until you identify about those 450 people who have 30 years plus in this city in your calculation, we're, we're miscalculating.
We, we have a group of folks we need to find out what are our hardest to fill positions.
Why are these people still working?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
You have 7 minutes.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, colleagues.
I'm going to limit debate to those who are currently in the queue so we can move forward to a vote, as most colleagues have had an opportunity to speak at least once.
Councilor—.
Loretta Smith
I'm going to—.
Unidentified speaker
It's going to be Kanal Koyama Lane-Morillo.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Council President.
First, let me just— 2 quick clarifications, and I'll speak to this amendment one more time and one thing that we missed.
First, Councilor Ryan, I want to be clear, I support the idea of realigning services up into the service areas from the bureaus.
I said that yesterday is one of the reasons I voted no on the technical amendment 1, because it reversed some of that work.
I also support the conversation that might result in moving some of the services up into the core of the enterprise, and I appreciate CA Lee mentioning that some of those folks are managers as well.
When I say I oppose core realignment, I don't mean the shifts in staffing.
I mean the 20% reduction target that was imposed without math.
Councilor To get there or an understanding of change management.
I think, Councilor Ryan, you're right that we made the changes to the political side faster than the administrative side.
You say that often.
And as someone who is not directly involved in realignment but was in the emerging service area as I had employees realigned from the bureaus to be my colleagues in the service area, I have observed quite a bit of what worked and what didn't.
And one of the things was the targets did not work because right when the realignment happens, it often actually leads to a short-term spike.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Olivia Clark
Spike in costs because people are not paid the same in the bureaus, and then when they come together, they have to be.
City Administrator Lee, I appreciate the clarification of the policy.
I completely take you at your word.
I believe what you're telling me.
I'm just gonna ask that you work with the council president to send something to the workforce that tells everyone in the city what the policy is.
I think coming from you specifically would be better because whether it comes from misunderstandings or from direction from previous or whatever, Yeah.
There are scared employees out there.
I've had them talk to me as well.
That's my experience.
So I think just making sure everybody has that information.
I want to talk a little bit about Station 22 here.
I don't want to go off topic.
There are 3 amendments still in play, including this one, that fund that fire engine.
But of the other 2, one of them doesn't have a funding source at all, and the other is one-time funding.
I'll speak to that one because it's mine.
Loretta Smith
It's Canal 2.
Olivia Clark
I like it.
And if Green 1 fails, I'll still fight for Canal 2, but Green 1 is better.
Because it funds it with ongoing dollars.
And when we talked, I appreciate the chief being here.
When we talked last time at the work session about public safety and what the impacts were, we pointed out that the 4 firefighters of the 8 that are there would not be regularly staffing Station 22 anymore, which is one of the largest in terms of its official fire management area geography.
It's one of the ones that serves the northern half of the CEI hub in Linnton, in addition to St. Johns.
And it is also the primary support.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Olivia Clark
For the Portsmouth area, Station 26, because a few years ago we cut the fire engine from Station 8 over on Lombard and Interstate.
And so there's not that apparatus there, and those firefighters are coming to support in Station 26.
They need to come from 22.
You may be wondering, well, why not come from north side of it, from Hayden Island?
Well, there's a bridge, and sometimes there's a lot of traffic on the one-way on and off of Hayden Island.
And so in addition to its official area, Station 22 also has to cover a lot of the North Peninsula waterfront up there.
And these are all things, oh, not to mention Highway 30 out towards St. Helens and Scappoose.
So I think that there are a lot of needs that are being recognized here and there's not another way to do this that's ongoing, that's been proposed, that's still in play.
Eric Zimmerman
If the—.
Olivia Clark
I hope that what I'm hearing from colleagues is in the commitment to fund this is simply saying we want to do the one-time option if you are concerned about this one, because there isn't another way.
There has to be an option that will be taken, a vote that can pass in order to fund this fire engine.
And this one to me seems like the best way to get there because it is the one that prevents us from having to do this again.
Not to mention—.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Councilor Smith.
Olivia Clark
What it does for Districts 1 and 3 with the restoration of half of the funding for the 2-person rescue units.
The 2-person rescue units are cost-saving.
They're an example— cutting them, in my opinion, is an example of penny-wise and pound-foolish, to use the Council Vice President's phrase, because often the calls that they're responding to would otherwise need a response by a truck or engine that have 4 firefighters on them.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Councilmember Herbold.
Olivia Clark
And so there are things that we are doing here that will actually save money in the long run, or will, if we don't do it, lead to reductions in services that are going to increase all the response times.
Everything— I could be arguing this for a while, but I just say let's rewind the tape to maybe half an hour ago, because all the arguments that were just being made about response times still apply here.
And so I hope that you support this amendment to help us get towards keeping North Portland safe and also a good swath of D4 as well.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Kanal.
Councilor Koyama Lane.
Manuel Guerra
Thank you, Council President.
Colleagues, if I'm honest, when I first learned of this amendment, I wasn't sure I could support it, and I was nervous.
I sat down with Councilor Green, and what gave me some reassurance is that it's really clear in there that there's a 3-month runway where there's no immediate reductions required.
There's 3 months and giving lots of space for Thank you.
I think it's important to note that the opportunity for our city administrator to make decisions and be thoughtful has until October to really make sure that a lot of thought can go into this.
I think that's a reasonable timeline to identify efficiencies, address concerns, you know, maybe even bring in different leaders, different councilors.
I want to highlight that earlier this month, KATU reported on a house fire in St. Johns.
That Station 22 responded to, and someone with the firefighters union said we had a house fire.
We were able to respond with water and stop the fire where it was.
If they're out of service starting in July, the next engine is going to have to come from farther away, and there might not have been might not be the same outcome.
So like Councilor Kanal said, looking at our run of show, the last amendment didn't pass.
This is looking like our last chance to fully fund Engine 22 in District 2 with ongoing funds.
So I'm especially appealing to my colleagues in District 2 and District 4, which has the CEI hub.
I'm imploring you to please consider supporting fully restoring your Fire Station 22.
My colleague just said she doesn't want to burn down the city.
Sameer Kanal
I agree.
Manuel Guerra
Let's literally start with not making these cuts to the Fire Bureau.
Mitch Green
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Koyama Lane.
Councilor Morillo.
Manuel Guerra
Thank you, Council President.
We talked about the numbers from 2019 and how they've changed now between management and frontline staff.
And there were comments made that because other people broke the system, it's not our responsibility to fix it.
It, and I don't believe that at all.
It's not at the mayor and the city administrator's feet.
It's at our feet as this budget committee, as the budget authority, as the council.
It's our responsibility to city workers and to employees and to our constituents in the city of Portland.
The budget note that is paired with Green 1 outlines the process, and we want the city administrator to be the leader of that process.
Everyone is saying That they're worried about the fire station that serves the CEI hub, but they're not concerned enough to do something about it.
The best alternative that was offered is a loan with no path for repayment.
That is not a truly viable option.
Councilor Green's amendment has ongoing funding.
It will never allow this fire station to be used as a political football again.
We got our amendments in early.
They were scored by CBO with strong recommendation for viability, and I can't say that for all the other amendments.
But I suspect the goalpost will keep being moved because this isn't about cutting excessive management.
This is about wanting to halt the Office of Community-Based Police Accountability.
That's what this is about.
So I suspect folks will vote this down and then try to bring up that other amendment again, even though it's a loan and it doesn't have ongoing funding and it's not going to serve the city.
Mitch Green
Councilmember Herbold.
Manuel Guerra
And it's pitting fire station public safety with police accountability public safety.
Yeah, there are hard choices, and this is the only option that creates ongoing funding for a core fire station that serves our districts in a critical part of the city with a CEI hub.
This is the serious governance option if we want to talk about good governance.
It is the one that offers ongoing funds.
It outlines a process that incorporates the employees that were excluded from the core realignment process.
Councilmember Loretta Smith.
It isn't just another committee discussion in a vacuum.
It will be a joint executive and council process that is grounded in the reality of management growth vastly exceeding the growth of frontline staff.
At a time when we have to make trade-offs and the current options on the table that were given to us, which are firing frontline staff and the mayor choosing not to fund a fire station, putting council in a very difficult position, those are unacceptable options.
This is the responsible option that we have to never allow this fire station to be used as a political football again.
So colleagues, I hope that we will put this discussion to rest, that we will pass this amendment, and that we will do something right by Portlanders today.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Murillo.
Colleagues, as we are moving into a vote now, I wanted to recognize Councilor Zimmerman.
I'd like to separate the 2 questions, Green 1 and Green 4.
Thank you.
Okay, Councilor Zimmerman has moved to separate the question.
Councilor Green—.
Angelita Morillo
Second.
Unidentified speaker
I don't know if it needs a second on that, but Councilor Green, you get to decide which part of it we vote on first.
Steve Novick
Let's vote on Green 4 first.
Unidentified speaker
Okay, we're voting on Green 4, the budget note first.
Keelan, please call the roll.
Oh, sorry.
I think the budget note was read when we first—.
Loretta Smith
I know, I was late.
Unidentified speaker
So, Council President, the reason I'm separating it is because I intended to vote yes on Green 4, which is the budget note, which says let's have a drawn-out, you know, rehashing of these decisions.
I think that that's fine, but no money change, which is what Green 1 does.
Have I— that would be accurate, correct, Councilor?
Yeah, I would say that if It's a summary of the management changes.
Steve Novick
Yeah, Green 4 could stand on its own even if Green 3 did not pass because it still— sorry, Green 1— because it still directs the city administrator to engage in this process that we've described where you look at rank and file, you meet with the unionists, you have a conversation about what management cuts might impact their work, and then you bring that back to council for a report.
So Of course, I hope Green 3 or Green 1 also passes, but there's value in Green 4 being adopted on its own.
Unidentified speaker
Okay, I, I recognize that maybe some folks don't think it can stand, but in reading as if Green 1 were to fail, I think there are parts of Green 4 that can stand.
That's all.
Loretta Smith
Okay, thank you.
Unidentified speaker
If others have a different read, I'm all ears in there.
Okay.
And we are— the question has been divided.
We are moving forward to a vote.
Keelan, can you please call the roll on Green 4?
Green 4, moved by Green, seconded by Kanal.
Kanal?
Sameer Kanal
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
Pirtle-Guiney?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Council President, without time to understand how this acts as a standalone, I'm not able to support it at this time.
I wish we had been able to debate the separation.
Unidentified speaker
No.
Aye.
Manuel Guerra
We need the money for the fire station, so I'm going to vote yes for this and pair it with Green 1.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Nay.
Candace Avalos
Yes.
Unidentified speaker
Aye.
Steve Novick
Aye.
Candace Avalos
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
Aye.
Manuel Guerra
Smith.
Unidentified speaker
No.
Dunphy.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
The amendment is approved with a vote of 9 ayes and 3 nays.
May I please call the roll on Green 1?
Councilor.
Olivia Clark
I just wanted to ask a question here.
Um, when we're considering this, you know, if you look at— this is page 18, it overlaps to 19— Green 4, the first piece of it talks about explaining the amendment.
And then when you get to the city administrator is required, which is the beginning of 19, that's the standalone part.
Is that, is that an accurate read of what we're talking about here in terms of what we just approved?
Steve Novick
As the carrier, I would suggest that, yeah, we— the intent here is to describe that process.
Of course it wants to be paired with Green 1, but if we've adopted Green 4 without the other piece, I would imagine we would clean this up to remove any extraneous language to make it not be weird.
Olivia Clark
Okay, so what I'm asking is, in the middle, just above the middle of page 19, it says that the fall TAO shall include a cut proposal only among the positions described above that, that is no less than $3.325 million.
So the question now is, do we allocate that money in the amendment because we've already We've already created it through the note, um, or directed the administrator to create it in, um, Green 1.
Just wanted to get that on the record.
Thanks.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I think that my understanding is what Councilor Kanal's is, but I'm going to ask it as a question.
I believe that Green 4 had the actual cuts mechanism.
Green 1 has no cut as a standalone.
Green 1 is just just an allocation of funding that is not balanced.
Is that accurate?
Can we get somebody from the budget office to make sure that I'm understanding what these do?
Olivia Clark
My understanding is it takes it from contingency in Green 1, and then in Green 4, the cut mechanism in the fall TAO replenishes the contingency.
So the money is taken in Green 1 from contingency.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I've got the floor and I'm asking our CBO this.
So Ruth, Green 4 just passed.
That directs a cut.
Is that correct?
Jonas Biery
Yeah.
So the way this is drafted is Green 1 takes it from contingency, I guess, from unrestricted general fund contingency and allocates it to Portland Fire and Rescue.
And then Green 4 directs the contingency to be refilled through a proposal through the fall TAO.
So—.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
My colleagues just voted to make cuts and put the proceeds from those cuts into contingency.
Is that correct?
Unidentified speaker
In budget.
Jonas Biery
Right.
There's no money moving as a result of Green 4.
It's just If it were standing alone, I guess my read would be that the administration would come back in the fall with a proposal for how to make those cuts, and then council would decide what to do based on that proposal at that time.
I don't quite know how the contingency piece of it would work given that it wouldn't—.
Lauren Johnson
Yeah.
Sameer Kanal
Councilor Smith.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
So the read here is that Green 4 as a standalone doesn't create cuts, it just directs a report, and we could decide whether or not to take them in the fall.
Green 1 as a standalone is not unbalanced because it pulls the money from contingency, which may or may not be replaced depending on the decisions that we make in the fall.
Jonas Biery
That's correct.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Thank you, Council President.
Unidentified speaker
Okay, Councilor Kanal, really quick, and we are in the middle of a vote.
Olivia Clark
Just put one question on it.
It's, it's not a report alone.
It says the fall TAO— this is Green 4— shall include a cut proposal only among the positions described above.
That, that it specifically says a proposal.
I think that's maybe a distinction without a difference to some folks.
It matters to me.
I just wanted to get that on the record, and that's all.
Thanks.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Kanal.
Councilor Zimmerman.
Thank you.
So if those who voted no Believe that this is an unworkable note, I'll remind you, you can always bring it back and call it into question.
That I think that some members of this body voted yes because it's reasonable to have a breakdown of these different management positions and how that process occurred.
I think there's a question about transparency.
That was the intent behind separating the question.
But if it is unworkable and it— and, and there are people who want to interpret a note as a cut, I'm happy.
Jonas Biery
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
To have the question called again, and I'll vote no because that is not the intent.
The intent is transparency to it.
Uh, so I'll leave that in the category of those who voted no if you want to re-question it.
Or frankly, to the sponsor, uh, I don't think that the separation deeply causes concern to anybody who reads it with an adult pair of glasses.
I think you can talk about what is administerable And you would do the best forward.
I think that would be your intent, but I don't want to put words in your mouth.
So if this needs to continue to be belabored, we can do that.
But I'm kind of looking to the sponsor in terms of how you, you view it as well.
Steve Novick
Yeah, I mean, I, I didn't contemplate it to be used this way.
I think it adds important legislative intent for this body to point to a direction.
That we should look at these ranks to make cuts, and I appreciate the willingness for some to think about that in a separate piece.
So I'll just leave it at that.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you.
Okay, can we please call the roll on Green 1?
Green 1, moved by Green, seconded by Kanal.
Thanks.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
Reluctantly, no.
Ryan.
Loretta Smith
Same, no.
Candace Avalos
Aye.
Manuel Guerra
The only ongoing funding for Fire Station 22, aye.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
No.
Candace Avalos
Sadly, no.
Steve Novick
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
No.
Sameer Kanal
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
No.
Aye.
The amendment fails with a vote of 6 ayes and 6 nays.
Colleagues, it is 2:15.
We have made it through 3 amendments today so far.
We also got a good lunch break, so that's nice.
These were also the beefiest of our amendments to this point.
We still have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 additional public safety amendments, and we need to get to Prosper Portland.
I think it is highly unlikely we will get We passed the Prosper Portland amendments today, and we have an absolute hard out at 6:00, but I am trying to get us out of here closer to 5:00 today.
Tomorrow will be a very long day.
Councilor Novick.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Mr. President.
My staff is trying to formally update my proposed amendments in order to track with what Councilor Herbio's amendment did this morning, because it both Removed part of my funding and also reduced part of what I was trying to fund.
But so I will just, before we have to pass that, I'll tell you that Novick 2 as revised would do the following.
It would cut council office budgets by $200,000 apiece except for District 1.
It would cut the city administrator's chief of staff and $250,000 for strategic planning that's in the budget.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Steve Novick
And it would cut the assistant chief administrator plus 2 manager 3s, which frankly I'm a bit confused about that.
I'm going to ask the city administrator, is there a chief strategy and change management officer, or are those 2 different things?
What it would restore is half of Engine 22, and you can do that.
You can restart it for during peak hours, which is basically 8 to 8.
I talked to the chief about that.
It would restore a senior Past position in the police bureau.
I think that these folks do critical behind-the-scenes work that gets ignored.
So that's why I highlighted that and would restore at this point a mere one of the PS3s, but even one means something.
And do you mind if I like discuss both of them?
Jonas Biery
Sure.
Steve Novick
So the second one would not make the cuts to council office budgets, It would simply make the cuts to the city administrator's budget.
It would restore one of the rescue units, and that is Rescue 19 at 72nd and Burnside.
I asked the fire bureau to prioritize the rescues in terms of like the need, in terms of the call volume, and they said they would prioritize first 19, which is near the District 1, District 3 border.
Second, 11, which is on the other side of the border.
Manuel Guerra
Thank you.
Steve Novick
And then third, the one that's out at Gresham.
So that's how 19 was selected.
And again, it would restore a senior past position.
Obviously, I would like to have the rescues in my district restored, and we could mix and match this.
We could— I would certainly be open if somehow we get more votes for restoring 2 of the rescues than the engine using the Both the city administrator's budget and council office budgets, I'd be okay with that.
I was throwing out various options.
I will say again, as far as council office budgets are concerned, that we are slated to get $1.45 million apiece in this budget compared to the $992,000 that the county commissioners across the river get.
That's not true.
And I would hope anybody who votes against this proposal would explain why they need $450,000 more for their office than their county commissioner across the river.
As to the cuts to the City Administrator's Office, Administrator Lee, I actually would like to ask you, 'cause I— to just explain, why do you need both a chief of staff and an assistant CA?
Why do you need $250,000 for strategic planning And the Chief Strategy and Change Management Officer.
Give you an opportunity to lay that out.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
I'll start first with the Assistant City Administrator role for the organization.
Currently right now, there's 13 direct reports that report to me and over 14 direct reports to our DCA of Operations.
This is an attempt to restructure the organization from a span of control standpoint to realign some of these direct reports where the organization is more balanced.
And as an organization, we're having the proper oversight of these areas and creating a new layer within our organization to kind of manage these operations.
Right now, our Office of Sustainability, Civic Life, Equity are all reporting to me, and it's trying to give them A little bit more oversight and a thought partner in the day-to-day work that they're doing for the organization and remove some of that direct reports from me so I can really focus on the strategic direction of the city and where we're heading and how we're planning on getting there as an organization.
The Chief of Staff role is developed to really work with a lot of the council offices as well.
As we have 12 councilors, there's a lot of legislation, there's a lot of things that are coming out your offices that honestly we just don't have the bandwidth to keep track of as an organization and ensuring that we're providing support, but also follow up and follow through on a lot of the requests that you have from a council perspective.
I've also been asked of our labor groups as well, could they have a liaison?
Out of our office to truly help with them as it relates to things that they're needing from the administration level of the organization.
There's also a ton of outside groups that are constantly reaching out to meet and have a touchpoint with the City Administrator's Office where we're just limited on the bandwidth to be responsive to the requests and the needs of the community as a whole.
From a change management and strategy standpoint, a lot of the conversations that you're honestly having around the dais right now regarding realignment work, how we went about that realignment work, the transformation work that is happening within an organization, we have never truly dedicated a resource to that as a city.
And that has caused a lot of the turmoil that we see in the discussions that we're seeing today.
Strategic planning is strategic planning.
Without having a strategic direction for this city, we're just spinning our wheels as an organization.
There's no true direction for staff to really follow and say, okay, these are the expected outcomes.
That council is on, that the community is on, that we're on, and this is how we plan on getting there as an organization.
It's just continuing the stuff that we did in our old form of government if we don't have that strategic direction as a city.
Any organization of our size, and now in this proposed budget of $8.5 billion, I never heard of not having a strategic plan.
That's just best management practices for us to have one.
And that role is try to help facilitate that conversation because that's a change of culture as well for our organization.
So there's work that has to be done internally.
There's work that has to happen around the council, and there's work that has to happen in the community.
That $250,000 was the funds that the mayor wanted to set aside For a strategic planning process for our organization.
That's to help facilitate that conversation and ensure that it has the adequate funding to support a successful process.
That's why we have that money set aside.
The other manager role that you're referring to is our asset management role.
This was a role that we had within the organization.
That we're just realigning to my office and elevating that work, really due to a lot of the conversations that have happened around this dais as it relates to the oversight of our assets as a whole.
Most organizations, that is a director role that is overseeing a capital improvement program or a bond program for your city to ensure that you have adequate schedules and you're adequately allocating resources to maintain, restore, or replace the assets that you have in your city.
Things that we have not done successfully through the history of our organization.
These roles is just to try to help support the changes and the transformation that this council has said they want to see in our organization and from administration standpoint.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Mr. City Administrator.
I appreciate your explanation.
I tend to think that you were hired to manage change and to be strategic.
And I'll leave it to my colleagues to decide whether you need a chief of staff to But I— no, I appreciate the explanation.
I will tell you that as far as folks in labor are concerned, I have not heard folks in labor say that they think the city administrator needs a million-plus additional staff.
That's something that is actually stuck in people's craw.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor.
So, Councilor Novick, which amendment are you moving at this moment?
I'm moving amendment number 1.
Steve Novick
I'll start with the first.
I'll start with Novick 2.
Unidentified speaker
Okay, so Councilor Novick moves Novick 2.
Is there a second?
Candace Avalos
Yes.
Manuel Guerra
Can I ask a clarifying question?
Candace Avalos
Yes.
Manuel Guerra
Is Novick 2 staying as is, or are you getting us language with the updated numbers?
Steve Novick
Oh, sorry.
We're working with CBO to like make sure the update, but what I just read off was what it is now.
Manuel Guerra
Can I see a written version?
I'm just not like a verbal processor.
Steve Novick
Um, let's see.
Darn.
Sameer Kanal
All right, you can.
Unidentified speaker
Ruth is trying to say something.
I can see her.
Jonas Biery
Oh, I have it.
Sorry, let me, um, send it to the clerk right now.
Steve Novick
2.
Unidentified speaker
There are 2 separate amendments.
There's, uh, Novick 2 and Novick 4, and we are— per Councilor Novick, we are going to discuss Novick 2.
The language is coming from Ruth I'll second.
And Councilor Koyama Lane is going to second.
So colleagues, as we are pulling up the language to formally debate, though we have the outlines of it, let's begin our discussions.
Colleagues, I'm going to ask a favor.
It was clear about an hour ago that the last item was going to fail.
I would love it if we could talk to each other and not past each other to the maximum extent possible.
And as we are starting to get towards the point where It is clear how these things are going.
Let's just vote.
So with that, Councilor Knoll.
Olivia Clark
I just have a question, and it's— I'm not sure if it's for Councilor Novick or for the staff on the budget side.
The numbers that are described here are not in alignment, and I just wanted a little bit more explanation as to why that might be.
Sorry, I know you were— It says that it reduces— this is Novick 2— it reduces $1.8 million in the city administrator's office, $1.8 million in the council offices except E1, and just shy of a million.
So we're talking about $4.6-ish million.
And then when you look at what it's adding up, it doesn't add to that same amount.
It adds to— I'm not going to do the math on the dais, but there's an amount that's lost here.
Mitch Green
Okay.
Olivia Clark
And I was hoping that you could speak to how that money— does that— that's not money that's just going into unusable— or sorry, usable by another amendment categories, right?
It has to do with overhead, if I recall correctly.
Jonas Biery
Sorry, my guess is that it's overhead, but I'm trying to track in the updated table what it is.
So gimme a second.
Sorry, I'll—.
Steve Novick
May I offer a partial explanation?
Olivia Clark
Councilor Novick.
Steve Novick
So, um, it's— I mean, partly the numbers— this is overhead, so it's about 42.9% of what gets cut can be used.
Also, the numbers do not quite add up.
We have a total of $1.549 million in cuts and $1.511 million in adds, and my staff is working to— they say that The Maria 1 didn't restore all of the EMS budget for ceasefire, so that excess, a few, that $30,000 would go towards that purpose.
Okay, the—.
Manuel Guerra
We did.
Steve Novick
You did?
Okay, in that case, in that case, the $38 million is up for grabs.
Unidentified speaker
Okay, so yes, yeah, Councilor Koyama Lane seconded.
Olivia Clark
There's 42.9% of what gets cut can be used.
What happens to the other 57.1%?
Steve Novick
Ruth, take it away.
Jonas Biery
For— so as a reminder, for overhead-funded items, the general fund picks up about 43% of the tab, and the other 57% come from all of the other funds in the city.
The way it works is essentially any cut that doesn't get used from those other funds would just go back into contingency in those funds.
So there's a line in the tables that says general fund overhead payers where we've accumulated all of those funds, and that's the amount that would get shared out based on their respective proportions.
And then after—.
Candace Avalos
Councilor Herbold.
Jonas Biery
The approved will update Attachment B, which is the full listing of each fund to conform with whatever passes.
It's just hard to list them all out.
Olivia Clark
Okay, so just to put a finer point on it, this— what we end up doing is we cut $2 million more than we need for the stated purpose of the amendment.
And that— so part of it, the additional amount, that $2 million extra beyond what's used to fund the stated purpose of the amendment goes into a contingency fund and then is reallocated across the 20-something-odd bureaus?
Jonas Biery
It goes back into multiple contingency funds.
So like 10% is transportation, so that goes— theirs goes back into the transportation fund, and BES goes back into the sewer fund, and the like.
So on down the line.
Olivia Clark
Okay, so for those, then I will say not a question, a comment.
For the math reasons alone, I will be a no on Novick 2, but I'm looking forward to the other Thank you, Councilor Knoll.
Unidentified speaker
Councilor Green.
Steve Novick
Thank you.
Uh, Councilor Novick, you have argued that, um, one of your motivations for, uh, cutting council offices is that we are, uh, what is it, $400-some-odd thousand dollars to the richer relative to our counterparts in the county.
Is that correct?
That's correct.
We're further ahead.
We're about $400,000 higher than our counterparts in Seattle Okay, thank you.
Have you done the analysis of what portion of our county counterparts pay in their internal materials and services?
Do you have that to share?
I don't, but I do know that they get along with— they generally get along with 3 staff, 1 chief of staff, a policy person, and a scheduler.
Thank you.
I would argue that Their favorability is also quite low.
Loretta Smith
So perhaps not.
Manuel Guerra
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Green.
Councilor Morillo.
Manuel Guerra
I feel like a few of us are a little bit confused.
So if we could have that language emailed to us so we could review it better, that would be really helpful.
But I think I'm starting to get the gist of this amendment.
I am generally supportive of cutting Some of the city administrator stuff.
I will say the comparison across cities isn't really— it's not apples to apples.
And the reason I say that is because in other cities they have central staff that don't show up in a per-office number.
So cities like Seattle have a really robust council central staff.
It could be like our council ops, if they were fully realized and fleshed out, Do a ton of legal and policy support, but that's not what we have here at the City of Portland.
My policy advisor is basically an economist, a researcher, a policy person, a lawyer.
Like, she is all the things.
And so we don't have that same beefed-up system the way that other places do.
I know when I worked at the state legislature, when I was lobbying for policy, they have a really robust legal team.
And and finance team that independently from the administration actually helps with all of that, but we mostly just have our staff doing that.
So it's a very different thing to compare, and I think that's important to point out when we're talking about this.
We need staff that are going to be here to implement charter reform, and allowing the council to cut staff while the administrative side is adding staff and limiting our access to information is very difficult for me.
Lauren Johnson
I—.
Manuel Guerra
Me and my team have had an easier time getting information from the county on their policy and their work than we have from our own city, or my team has even been actively blocked from having full access to information in order to create well-informed policy.
So that is part of why I'm very hesitant about this, because We need support as council in order to do our legislative work, and we haven't been really granted that power as of right now.
County commissioners, like Portland commissioners, they lean on county bureau capacity.
The whole point of charter reform was to give councilors an independent policy capacity so we're not dependent on the executive.
And as we established earlier, we just don't have the same access to information that other folks do.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Councilor Smith.
Manuel Guerra
Portland, you know, we have chosen a heavy individual office model, and that's very different than what they have in other cities.
So I guess I'm just noodling on that as we're having this discussion.
Mitch Green
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Morillo.
Councilor Zimmerman.
Thanks.
Councilor Novick, I'm concerned with the, I guess, the focus on the city administrator And I say that with a couple of thoughts in mind.
I voted no on the previous item, and I'll continue to vote no on anything that I think is stunting our movement toward a single city who works in a single pyramid for a single boss.
And I think that the city administrator He's got some moves and he's got some evaluations after, I think, consulting of a year-plus with the mayor in terms of his experience, now his in the first 5, 6 months of his tenure here as the city administrator to put together the C-suite that makes sense.
I say that with, I don't know how many bureau directors and deputy directors should remain in the model moving forward, right?
I think pulling into a centralized position where you I'll call it the middle senior managers of the organization is a reasonable take.
But investing in the one person who is international city-county manager credentialed in this organization, which I believe makes us not only the largest city in America with— who until Raymond showed up didn't have a credentialed manager, but also the only one in the country.
I think that's a fair statement.
I'm going to put my faith in the credentialed manager approach to it because frankly, this experience of I want or I don't want to consolidate or be in one pyramid, et cetera, et cetera, reeks of the old politics of the bureaus where all they had to do was convince the commissioner of the day how to get their way, which is why we find $106 million in a housing bureau who thought they didn't have to tell us last budget.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
So I'm going to invest in a system that means that Raymond has the team, just like we have the team, frankly, to find information, to set a culture, to figure out who is going to continue rowing on this boat and who is going to ask to be let go and let off in those senior roles.
I don't think he can do that by himself because I think the kinetic energy it takes to make change means you need teammates.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
And I think that that's what I'm going to invest in here.
I think it requires transparency though, and I don't think that this goes unanswered, unquestioned.
I think there has to be a lot about it.
But I— what I hope to see is that as you make those changes in the city administration side, you are being clear with us about where you're pulling it from.
Who doesn't need a second deputy director?
Who doesn't even need a director?
Does this need to be a bureau?
I think we have some bureaus that don't need to exist in the old form.
27 Microcities isn't the thing.
But, um, I, I, I, I also, you know, I don't write the blank check.
I'm just— I'm, I'm telling you that this movement right now to kind of stop 2 and 4 years worth of work is, is causing me a lot of strain in terms of whether or not and why we would do it.
And this seems like it's kind of complementary to that.
I want to also say there's 2 people here who know the county better than anybody.
Commissioner or Councilor Loretta Smith and myself.
As a chief of staff at Multnomah County for 2 different commissioners over 2 different decades of time and service, that job is nowhere near as intense from a constituent relations perspective.
And I will tell you, the county commission staff— excuse me, the county staff who provide budget information, provide access And the ability to find and advocate on information is far easier than our system.
And I agree largely with Councilor Murillo in that, and that we would be, we would be tying one hand behind our back the further we go, not enabling this form of government to thrive and do well.
And lastly, I think it is a terrible precedent to set one council office aside because of whatever the reason is that they would have different size budget, makes them a target in ways I think would be inappropriate.
And so I won't support such a But this— having been a chief of staff at Multnomah County, I'll just tell you, our chiefs of staff here are fielding a larger bank of requests, requirements, and frankly more time in committee.
This job is a bigger job, and more Portlanders know who their city councilor is than they know their county commissioner.
And that's why we get questions about homelessness.
I think that's a good point.
That's why we get questions about WIC.
That's why we get questions about the mental health issues, all of which are the Rivers— the Across the Rivers duties.
So I would encourage you not to do an easy fix here that actually will make your job less effective at this role of government.
Thank you, Councilor Zimmerman.
Councilor Smith.
Thank you, Council President.
Councilor Zimmerman, I, I need to always go behind you because I want to say ditto, ditto, ditto.
And I want to say to Councilor Morillo, ditto, ditto, ditto for what you said.
I can tell you firsthand, I have never worked so hard, and I worked for a U.S.
Senator for 21 years, and that was hard.
This is probably one of the hardest public service jobs that I've had.
As a county commissioner, we did not have 8 committees.
For a whole year that we had to staff up, get— I mean, we had to learn about issues that I never thought that I would ever have to learn about.
But I campaigned for this job because this is the job that I wanted, because I thought it was important to have someone on this commission, council, that had experience.
Okay, so let me go back to fiscal year '24-'25.
Mr. Novick, Councilor Novick, I appreciated having you at my public safety budget listening session.
Mitch Green
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Do you know how hard my staff had to work to fill that room with the type of people that we had in there?
You saw it.
I need people to help me do that.
I don't know if you do that in your job, but I do that all the time and every month.
It is no change.
Secondly, fiscal year '24-'25 for this council, the 5 councilors that sat here, Their budgets were at $1.6 million.
So if you can tell me that we deserve less than what they had, I don't know.
Yes, they did.
That's where we got the numbers from.
When they left here, they had a budget size—.
Mitch Green
Uh-uh.
Unidentified speaker
They had a budget size of $1.6 million.
And so we're down to $1.4 million.
And I feel that.
Our folks, there is an expectation That we do more work.
East Portland had the lowest undercount, voter undercount of the entire city.
Our folks didn't come out.
We have a responsibility.
People are happy that we have District 1 offices.
They're happy that we're there, that they're engaging them.
The folks there, you heard it, you heard it for yourself.
They're happy that we had the chief out there.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
We had Chief Day a couple of months ago.
We had Chief Johnson last week.
We had the DCA.
I do this every single month, and that's just on public safety.
I also have community, neighborhood.
I go to schools every week.
So you can't tell me the work that we're doing in this district does not warrant a fully, fully complete budget.
And I do not support us having different budgets.
We're all the same.
Councilwoman Smith, I'm sorry, but you're out of time.
You can choose to give your budget back to the general fund, but I can tell you, giving your money back to the general fund has never put anybody in office.
It doesn't do it.
I've never seen it.
My old boss did it, but he got back in office because he had constituent services and he talked to his folks, not because he cut their budgets.
And for the life of me, for the life of me, and I'm going to say it again, I said it last year, how do you cut off your own neck?
Angelita Morillo
I don't know.
Unidentified speaker
I don't know how you do that.
I just don't do it.
I'm not for it.
And the issue around the city administrator, he needs to have a fully functional staff that can give us the direction that we need.
There was a city— an assistant city administrator in Michael Jordan's budget.
I didn't hear y'all talking about that.
Y'all didn't say not one thing about it.
So don't talk about what C.A.
Lee is having if the previous one had it and that's the way it was.
Don't start.
Councilor Smith, Because that's, that's something else.
Um, the other issue is our, our ability to, um, have offices.
Not only do I have to pay for an office and the internal— and I can tell you, Mr. Mayor, and I told you this before, the internal services that we pay at the city is much, much higher than we do at the county.
Angelita Morillo
Mm-hmm.
Unidentified speaker
Not only do I have to pay for internal services, In City Hall.
I have to pay for them out there at my office, and I have to pay for a lease.
I did what we said we were going to do.
I had my office open for over a year and a half.
So for you to— not a year and a half, but for about a year and 2 months.
So to take my budget away or to give my colleagues less than what we're getting, that's their choice.
Let them choose how they want to spend their budgets.
Councilwoman We have to keep up with the administration.
I can't keep up with the administration with the number of staff that we have.
I can't keep up with the communication.
There's an expectation that we do all this stuff on social media.
I have to still hire my social media person.
So for me, it is ridiculous.
I hear you, sir.
I hear you.
But it doesn't make sense.
And I'm not going to take from their budgets or vote to take from their budgets.
Councilwoman Smith, I'm sorry.
So that you can make a point.
You can do what you want to do with yours.
Take $400, take $500 out of your budget if you want to.
I don't care.
I support it.
But for me, I think we need to stay where we're at.
We need to give the administrator, the city administrator, the things that he needs to do and stop taking— we have the— and by the way, we do have the lowest budget in the city.
The lowest budget.
You can't expect us to balance a $169 million budget on the backs of city council offices.
And the other thing is, county commissioners make $150-some-odd thousand dollars.
What you going to do about that?
We don't make that much money.
Are you going to give us some money so we can have an increase?
No, you're not going to do that.
So if you're going to do apples to apples, make it real apples to apples.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Steve Novick
Mr. President, can I just— point of paper clarification.
Yes, we passed out 2 versions of Novick 2.
The first one was one That I think that Eben passed out, and the second one is the new, like, CBO-formatted one.
I don't actually know if they're any different, but that's why there's 2 of them.
Unidentified speaker
Oh, okay.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Mr. President, can I have a point of personal privilege?
Yes, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
I was in the queue next.
I had to take myself out of the queue.
I need to leave.
Colleagues, some of you know this, but I'm not sure if everybody does.
My wife had surgery last week.
I have a lot of friends helping a lot so I can be here this week, but I unfortunately need to get my kids home.
I will be calling back in as soon as I am home so that I can continue to debate and vote with you all.
I just wanted to state that on the record.
Um, I'll be needing to leave in the afternoon tomorrow as well, but I will be here for as long as I can.
Thank you, Council President.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor.
We still have, uh, 3 more people in the queue, and so, uh, I'm going to limit debate to those who are in the queue.
And actually, I only see 2 in the queue now.
So, Vice President Clark.
Candace Avalos
Thank you, Council President.
Uh, now we're really having fun.
Um, I want to thank Councilor Novick for working so hard to try to find resources for public safety, which is a high priority for me.
And of course, if we had voted on my amendment in a positive direction, this would not be necessary.
I think this is— what we're looking at is really a part of becoming a grown-up city.
I'm very supportive of dedicating resources to the City Administrator's Office.
You know, when I first took office, I learned that we're in the middle of a Culture change.
Culture change, tremendous culture change.
And there is resistance in the bureaus to that culture change.
So we do need change management.
We do need help in that area.
And there's a lot more change to come.
Also, the other thing I learned that in asset management, we had no plan, we had no direction.
We didn't know where we're going on asset management.
We had no capital plan.
So one of the first things I talked to Jonas Biery about is what are we going to do?
How are we going to pay for all— taking care of everything that we have.
We don't have a system for that.
So I'm really glad that the city administrator is going to have an asset manager in his office.
And I'm really happy to hear that you're going to have a labor liaison as well.
I think that's super important.
I know that the city administrator has been all over town.
He goes to a tremendous number of meetings, and he can't keep that up and run the city.
Sameer Kanal
Councilor Smith.
Candace Avalos
So I have respect for all of the things that you're trying to accomplish on our behalf to move our city forward in culture change.
And really, to me, part of that ICMA part is just becoming a grown-up city at this part.
Now, I'd be happy to cut some of my budget, and I know that I can actually move some of my office budget to areas that I think are important, and I'll continue to do that.
I've done that already.
Manuel Guerra
Thank you.
Candace Avalos
But I just want to express my appreciation to Councilor Novick for working really hard to restore some of the things that I care deeply about, but I do not want to cut the city administrator's office to do that.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Vice President Clark.
Councilor Novick— I'm sorry, Councilor Ryan.
Loretta Smith
Yeah, I'll be real quick.
Thanks, Council President.
Councilor Novick, I too have a lot of respect for yours, and I agree with everything that Councilor Thanks.
Councilor Novick, take it away.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Mr. President.
First of all, in response to Councilor Smith, I do think that there is a legitimate reason for District 1 to have bigger budgets than the rest of us because they're farther away.
It's harder for people to get downtown.
And also historically, it's been a less engaged part of town, so I can understand the need to have a larger budget.
That was not a lightly done difference.
And I just have to say, of course we can come up with lots of reasons why we have to have more money than the county commissioners, why we have to have more money than the Seattle city councilors, why we have to have more money, far more money than Denver city councilors.
Angelita Morillo
Sure.
Steve Novick
I think the difference is that we're But, well, I— everybody can always come up with excuses for everything.
As to the last city commissioners getting $1.6 million, yes, that's right.
And each of them represented the whole city and got constituent calls from all over the city, and each of them ran bureaus, and several of their staff were dedicated to interacting with the bureaus.
That's the way it was when I was a city commissioner.
Commissioner 10 years ago.
And I think that people would be astonished to think that we need almost as much money when we're councilors without running bureaus and when we were district councilors without bureaus than when people were citywide commissioners with bureaus.
Angelita Morillo
And 2 offices.
Steve Novick
I, I mean, I am— I mean, I'd be happy to.
I'm curious, are there people who would vote to cut council office budgets but not the city administrator's budget?
How many?
Can I see a show of hands?
Lauren Johnson
Wait, what?
Steve Novick
I'm thinking, what if I— I mean, some people have expressed concern about the city administrator part but not the council office part.
I'm just curious, if I divided this up and only cut council office budgets, how many votes would I have?
Unidentified speaker
Point of order.
Point of order.
What are we doing right now?
Councilor Novick is, uh, is thinking aloud.
Steve Novick
All right, I'm not going to get in response to that.
I will say this, to paraphrase Shakespeare, the bloat, my colleagues, is not in our stars but in ourselves.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Novick.
Keelan, can we please call the roll on Novick 2?
We on 2?
Yeah, Novick 2.
Yes, Novick 2, moved by Novick, seconded by Koyama Lane.
Keelan McClymont
Kanal?
Sameer Kanal
No.
Keelan McClymont
Pirtle-Guiney?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Absent.
Keelan McClymont
Ryan?
Dan Ryan
No.
Manuel Guerra
Yes.
No.
Steve Novick
Yes.
Candace Avalos
Regretfully, no.
Steve Novick
Yes.
Unidentified speaker
No.
No.
No.
No.
The amendment fails with a vote of 3 ayes and 8 nays.
Candace Avalos
Nays.
Unidentified speaker
Colleagues, it is 3 o'clock.
I'm going to give us— it is actually 2:55.
I'm going to give us a 10-minute restroom break.
Please be back at 3:05, and we are going to move to the last few public safety amendments, and then we're moving to Prosper.
Okay, thank you.
Please take We're back, folks.
Thank you so much for your patience while we acknowledge that we are all human beings.
Um, we still have Ryan 1, Kanal 2, 4, 5, and Novick 4 to get through.
Um, I am going to— uh, Councilor Ryan, are you ready to—.
Loretta Smith
I am, but we're waiting for the final.
Okay, we're doing a lot to CBO today.
Yeah, all right.
Unidentified speaker
Why don't I move to Councilor Kanal and I'll come back to—.
Loretta Smith
Okay.
Huh?
Unidentified speaker
I'm, I'm, I'm supposed to recognize councilors who haven't been recognized already for an amendment, so I'm going to go— and Councilor Novick did Novick 2, so I will come back to Novick 4.
Councilor Kanal.
Okay, I don't see her online.
Steve Novick
Kanal 2.
Manuel Guerra
I—.
Olivia Clark
Colleagues, I'm going to move Kanal 2.
I'll ask for a second in just a moment.
I wanted to I said that if Green 1 failed, I would be happy to fight for Canal 2, and here I am.
That's what happened.
That's the timeline we're in.
This amendment would remove $2.5 million from the new business license tax reserve fund that currently has $8.7 million in it.
That is an $8.7 million increase from the zero that was in it before.
It would take $2.5 million of that and transfer it to the new business license tax reserve to, fund.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Councilor Smith.
Olivia Clark
Uh, the Portland Fire and Rescue to continue staffing of Engine 22.
It is narrowly focused.
It just does that.
There is not a whole explanation or any need to put further legislative intent on the record.
Um, although it is one-time funding, I do want to be clear about that.
It is $2.5 million more than they have right now and is the only remaining amendment related to this that neither breaks the charter nor lacks a funding mechanism.
So I am going to move Canal 2 and ask for a second.
Steve Novick
Second.
Unidentified speaker
Councilor Kanal moves.
I don't know who went— Green seconded.
Colleagues, debate on Canal 2.
Please go ahead and jump in the queue.
Councilor Novick.
Steve Novick
I just wanted to know, is our Chief Financial Officer here to talk about the consequences of dipping into reserves?
Keith Wilson
We're on Canal 2.
Steve Novick
Or our budget director.
Sameer Kanal
I'm sure he's on his way down.
Steve Novick
Sorry, I was, uh, well, let's say it's probably him that should be directed to.
I mean, um, I've had conversations with him about that reserve, and he is concerned about jeopardizing our credit ratings.
So I just want to give him an opportunity to elaborate on that.
Jonas Biery
Um, yeah, do you want to say?
Steve Novick
Well, actually, this, uh, Ruth, maybe you know this.
I think that what percentage variation in BLT revenues are we accounting for now, and what percentage variation would we have to expect if this amendment passed?
Jonas Biery
So, I mean, I think Peter can speak to the BLT forecast.
I think the general thinking with the BLT reserve is that it's a difficult number to get exactly right in any given fiscal year.
And so the reserve itself was based off of a 4% calculation, but our goal was to get closer to 15%.
So the— so 4% of BLT is what the reserve assumes, and Peter can speak to what he's seeing in the forecast.
Steve Novick
And what would this amendment knock us down to?
Like 2%?
Jonas Biery
Sorry, it's 3.5%.
Mitch Green
2.5.
Steve Novick
Okay.
Jonas Biery
Sorry, I'm sorry, which amendment are we—.
Olivia Clark
Canal 2.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Canal 2.
Jonas Biery
Thank you.
So it's not quite half, so it would probably knock us down closer to— oh, it's 2%.
Unidentified speaker
2 To 3, yes.
Steve Novick
So for you, Peter, the question is, How high a likelihood there is that we might be off that much based on previous experience?
Loretta Smith
BLT is easily the thing that I am the most concerned with in the forecast year to year.
I'd say that one taxpayer, also for the record, Peter, City Economist Peter Holzman, one taxpayer, Paying late or, you know, amending their return or something can have a $10 million fluctuation year to year.
So I always say I'm happy to do within $10 million.
This was modeled, well, this is kind of a 2-part modeling on where this came from.
It's one that we had a contingency before.
It was just compensation set aside, which is Yeah.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Sort of unique.
Loretta Smith
And post-COVID, bureaus have been relying on that for ongoing operations.
And so the reality is that we haven't had much contingency for forecast errors.
And that kind of came to bear this past fall.
And so when we looked around, we saw the county and they have a 12% BLT stabilization reserve policy.
Steve Novick
So if the forecast winds up being too optimistic, then that means we wind up making cuts to the budget in the middle of the year, is that right?
Olivia Clark
That could happen.
Loretta Smith
It could be covered by underspending, it could be covered by other revenue sources.
But yes, if say I'm $10 million— so the forecast last year, last fall, was $12.7 million short of the forecast, and that was in part And CFO Biery, do you—.
Steve Novick
I mean, what concerns, if any, do you have about this amendment, both in terms of just our budget stability and our credit rating?
Unidentified speaker
Yeah, thank you, Councilor, and apologies to be a little late getting back to the room here.
My concern about any additional draws from the general from fund is that we have a very tight any reserves or contingency is very high.
We have gone over the last few years from a place— let me back up.
One of the key things that the rating agencies identify in assessing credit strength, the city's been AAA rated for 50-plus years, and we get huge benefit in cost reduction for that.
One of the things that they've identified, the very first thing, there's a section of the rating reports in their independent assessment that says what could make the rating go down.
The very first thing they note is reduced reserves.
We've seen those reserves go from 20% in, in the general fund side, from 20% in 2023 to 17% to 15% the last couple of years.
So right at the target, the 15% target that they advise.
In this budget, in the mayor's proposed, that number drops to around 12%.
And we have an intentional strategy around the BLT reserve and the creation of the sideboards around that reserve that mitigate going below the 12% by putting a framework around that.
And in the mayor's budget note, have a strategy to replenish that back to the 15%.
So the— what exists in the mayor's proposed is the very edge of the level of comfort, and I would have high concern with cutting that deeper.
I think a rating downgrade and the negative impacts that come with that would be— that would be a high risk.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilor Novick.
Councilor Green.
Steve Novick
Thank you.
Hi, CFO Biery.
The rating agencies, when they give us a credit rating, They list a number of contributing factors that could change the rating.
Isn't that right?
Unidentified speaker
Yeah, correct.
The methodology that they use is quite complex.
Steve Novick
Thank you.
And when they do so, are they looking at our entire balance sheet or they're looking at our entire income statement and fund balances, not just specific funds?
Unidentified speaker
Yeah, it's a good question.
The Moody's methodology, Moody's rating agency, which is one of the 2 that rate the city, does look citywide.
Standard Poor's looks at a more credit specific rating, and both agencies do provide different ratings based upon different lenses at the body of revenues that we commit to repayment.
Steve Novick
Great, that's wonderful.
Um, so they, they look at the sort of— they probably have some understanding of the color of money and what's restricted and what's unrestricted to evaluate liquidity?
Jonas Biery
100%.
Steve Novick
Okay.
Um, what's the balance of our enterprise funds currently?
Unidentified speaker
I don't know off the top of my head, Councilor, what the balance of our enterprise funds is.
Again, I— that we know for a fact that Standard Poor's, for example, has used a 15% target.
It was only recently that Moody's changed their methodology to look citywide.
I would note that from an investor standpoint, investors take a little more gradient lens.
They know, for example, that Even though the Moody's methodology in this case might include the water revenue bond, water fund in their calculations, investors are wise enough to know that that's not how it works in practicality.
And so we're being mindful of those credit considerations to make sure that we can maintain that investment in the city.
Steve Novick
I appreciate that.
Do they also look at The city's practice of issuing short-term loans as sort of stopgap measures or floating kind of interfund loans?
Unidentified speaker
They would look at those kinds of things if we had a legacy of not repaying those or using them in an irresponsible manner, which we have not.
Steve Novick
Okay, that's great.
And then I think my last comment, colleagues, is that earlier this year, The Jody Allen estate sold the Portland Trail Blazers to a different owner, and that is a transaction that generates business license tax revenue.
And that is expected to accumulate, and I know you guys can't talk about it because you can't tell me exactly what the revenue is because it's a single person and there's— it's masked by confidentiality, but we all know who it is.
That number is going to be between $40 and $50 million.
Keith Wilson
Okay.
Steve Novick
And I say that because that's what's been told to me.
I've read that in the print because, Mayor, you've said that on the record.
And it's also the $45 million is the gap between $75 million in PSF money and what you need to get to $120 million.
So some elected leaders in this region think that we've got that money to use sometime in the next few months to appropriate a package.
At least that's what we've been communicating to the public.
And so I would argue, folks, Councilor Smith.
That we should expect to receive significant, significant business license tax revenue over the next 2 years that will more than replenish a $2.5 million draw.
And I think we should just keep that in mind as we evaluate our risk profile as we make these amendments.
Thanks.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Green.
Councilor Smith.
Thank you.
I always like going after the folks over on that side.
Thank you, Councilor Green, because I was just going to bring up the fact that the S&P is scheduled to deliver— you know, they, they say it's going to be between 8 and 12%, but they actually believe, because we had one of the highest, one of the best days in the stock market, and we have some of our money in the stock market, right?
Lauren Johnson
Yes.
Unidentified speaker
And we have a diversified—.
No, Councilor, we don't, we don't invest in equities.
We only invest in fixed income.
So the stock market does not impact our investment portfolio.
Okay, so the fixed income is averaging about what, 4%?
That's what we kind of— that's, that's the safe way to go with the fixed income.
But we know that because of, of market fluctuations that, uh, Folks have, have been doing pretty well.
And I think that if we are going to be really, um, transparent about what's happening, we're, we're receiving a considerable amount of interest from PSF, from our other accounts that are sitting there.
And, and I too wanted to know what the enterprise What's, what's in the enterprise's, you know, bank account.
And I'm not so concerned about the $2.5 million, Director Levine, coming out of contingency, because I do think it is so very important that we have a fire engine In St. Johns and Forest Park.
And if we have to— if this is an emergency, because this is an emergency, I believe, I think we need to make sure that our services that we offer to the public and to businesses, that we're able to meet the moment.
I was out here when the plane was not too far from my house.
In Fairview when the plane went down less than a mile from my house.
And Portland, Gresham, everybody went all hands on deck.
And if we were not there to help with a fire engine, that could have been so, so bad on many levels.
It was already bad enough that there were some fatalities.
But to get that fire under control It was because we had resources.
We had engines there.
And this is not necessarily directed at you, Director Levine, but I am just saying to my colleagues that we have to make sure that that fire engine in that space, that people are protected.
There are too many ways that this can go wrong, particularly in the Forest Park and St. Johns area.
So I will be supporting Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Vice President Clark.
Candace Avalos
Thank you, Council President.
Uh, I want nothing more than to restore the fire truck in Station 22, um, but it's curious to me that given the statements that were made earlier that this is just a one-time, a one-time funding.
I offered a one-time funding as well that had Touched no reserves, touched no contingencies, was a no risk to the credit rating, no risk to the accountability fund.
So I'm not so interested in going down this road.
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Vice President Clark.
Councilor Ryan.
Loretta Smith
Thank you, Council President.
This is definitely the right ad, but it is the wrong grab.
The BLT forecasts since I've been here have been off.
As you know, in 2021-22, they went beyond the forecast as lease agreements ended and our city was not favorable to businesses.
The optimism— optimistic forecasts have been off in a different way.
They've kind of leveled off.
And so we all know what that's doing to this year's budget.
Our revenue's flat on BLTs.
This was our bread and butter revenue for 20 years, BLT.
And that is now flat.
And so based on the information I've heard, and thank you for the questions, Councilor Novick, I won't be supporting this.
I would like to remind everybody that Councilor Pirtle-Guiney's amendments coming up will also try to restore Station 22, and we can also debate that.
So that's coming soon, right after this, I believe.
Thanks.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Ryan.
Councilor Oh, no.
Olivia Clark
Yeah, they're the same thing.
The amendments that were just mentioned, just as the Clark Amendment, they do the same thing to the OCPA.
They're basically— they have all the same concerns about it.
They're not a real alternative, and we need to stop pretending that they are for those who of us who were opposed to it before.
But what I do want to talk about, and I appreciate everything Councilor Smith said because it's all correct, Is to say that if there are colleagues who are concerned about the fund, I think that there may be opportunities later down to put a little bit back in.
We should talk about those.
I know Councilor Pirtle-Guiney has interest in that as well.
But I think that if we fund this today with this vote to get the money back into Station 22, we're going to put a lot of people on the North Peninsula as well as in Linnton at ease who are probably watching this a little nervously right now and have seen some things that probably concern them regardless of what side they are on of any amendments.
I think we should put this forward.
Keith Wilson
Thank you.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Councilor Knoll.
Unidentified speaker
Councilor Smith?
Where's our legacy in?
Okay, colleagues, seeing no one else in the queue to debate, can we please call the roll on Knoll 2?
Knoll 2, moved by Knoll, seconded by Green.
Sameer Kanal
Knoll?
Olivia Clark
Yes.
Keelan McClymont
Pirtle-Guiney?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
She joined.
Absence.
Keelan McClymont
Ryan?
Loretta Smith
With a lot of hope for the next amendment from Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, I vote no.
Keelan McClymont
Koyama Lane?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
Maria?
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Novick?
Steve Novick
No.
Keelan McClymont
Clark?
Olivia Clark
No.
Keelan McClymont
Green?
Mitch Green
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Zimmerman?
Eric Zimmerman
No.
Unidentified speaker
I'm sorry, was that nay?
Thank you.
Keelan McClymont
Avalos?
Candace Avalos
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Smith?
Loretta Smith
Yes.
Keelan McClymont
Dunphy?
Jamie Dunphy
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
The amendment is approved with a vote of 7 ayes, 4 nays, and 1 absent.
Okay, is Councilor Pirtle-Guiney back online?
Olivia Clark
Okay.
Oh yeah, I'm not sure if she's online.
Unidentified speaker
I see her logged in, but I don't see her.
Um, okay, then I'm gonna move to, uh, Ryan 2.
Councilor Ryan.
Loretta Smith
Okay, yeah, kind of stalling, hoping Pirtle-Guiney's in because I actually think reading hers before mine would have been a great idea for all of you.
Um, so here I am.
Is she back?
Unidentified speaker
You can move hers for her if you want.
Loretta Smith
I don't really want to do that.
Olivia Clark
Okay.
Loretta Smith
So here I am, I'm back.
The guy that had council ratings much lower than all of you, but here I am 6 years later.
Angelita Morillo
Yeah, she's on.
Loretta Smith
Oh, she's on?
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, can we have her go next?
Unidentified speaker
Sure.
I'm happy to recognize Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Loretta Smith
It's more comprehensive.
Unidentified speaker
Okay.
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Hello.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Um, am I being recognized for Pirtle-Guiney 6 and 7?
Yes.
Thank you, and thank you for your patience while I just jumped on here.
Um, and I'm sorry, I think I missed a couple of votes.
Colleagues, you have in your inbox, uh, 2 amendments, Pirtle-Guiney 6 and 7.
And I would like to talk about them together.
I want to talk about them together because I think they provide two alternatives, and I don't think it is worth talking about them separately.
If one has more support or interest than the other, I am all for that.
Colleagues, we have been talking a lot about couple of really important sources of funding and really important things to fund.
And I have heard from some of our colleagues, well, we just need to do X.
You just need to come around.
Eventually you'll get here.
You'll vote for my thing.
But what we actually need to do is talk about compromise.
And the thing with compromise is It isn't easy, and a lot of people are left not fully comfortable with what they have before them.
But what I've tried to do with the ideas that are before us here is hear the concern that many of my colleagues raised.
I agree that $10 million was more than I was hoping to have to pull from the CBPA.
Lauren Johnson
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Because I hope that they are able to get up and running faster than we think they will.
And I heard a lot of concern from many of you about that as well.
I also have heard a lot of concern about drawing from reserves and not wanting to take a full $2.5 million from any of the reserve pots, given the, um, the continued reduction and the needs we think we will continue to have in I have heard concerns about the various ways that we fund our offices.
And so what you have before you in Pirtle-Guiney 6 and 7 is a slimmed-down version of what we talked about earlier today.
This is about identifying the sweet spot.
This is about the opportunity to preserve frontline jobs.
Jamie Dunphy
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Leave a buffer in CVPA, not draw too far into any reserves, and fund those public safety priorities that I think many of us have identified.
What you'll see here is that it is not everything that was before us previously, but it is the things that most people have talked about.
Station 22's engine.
2, But unfortunately not all 3 of the fire rescues.
The PPB admin positions, but not the additional position that was in some previous amendments.
A smaller add to PS3s, getting us to 12 PS3s.
That is 2 per shift per precinct.
In one of the proposals before you, there is an attempt To restore the training only, but not the rest of the EMS within PPB.
In the other, that's cut completely.
You can see the funding sources before you, and I would ask for real conversation.
I would ask for an opportunity to think about our costs and benefits, and if folks are willing to move forward.
Mitch Green
Councilmember Herbold.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I would also ask, because we have litigated much of this, that if people are not willing to move forward with either of these options, you just say this: I offer this as a way to try to find compromise, but I certainly don't want it to slow down our work that I know, Council President, we are already behind on today.
Thank you, colleagues.
I'm looking forward to hearing from folks.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Councilor Zimmerman.
Oh, actually, wait.
First, uh, are we in debate just about them broadly, or are we actually moving them?
Councilor Perlegini.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Council President, I know you don't want 2 things open at once.
I would love to open both so that folks can speak to either and then ask for a second only on the one that has the most support, if you're willing to do that.
But you tell me what process you're most open to here.
I think why don't we—.
What we don't want to do is take the time to debate both separately, um, if they're interchangeable.
Unidentified speaker
How about we move both?
When we move to a vote, we will separate the question and you can withdraw the one that has less support.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
That sounds fantastic.
Then I would move both together.
Unidentified speaker
Okay, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney has moved, uh, Pirtle-Guiney 6 and 7 together.
Is there a second?
Candace Avalos
Second.
Unidentified speaker
Councilor Vice President Clark seconds.
Colleagues to the amendments, Councilor Zimmerman.
Thanks.
I'm just trying to understand.
There's quite a write-up in Pirtle-Guiney 6 that talks about where it's taking the funds from, but then in Pirtle-Guiney 7, it's a smaller write-up, but it looks like the numbers are basically the same.
So either you didn't put the— is it maybe council, city council budgets write-up in your second one, but you did in the first one?
Was that An error, or which one is correct here?
Should I go by the numbers or the narratives?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
The second one does not pull money from council budgets.
Pirtle-Guiney 6, I didn't talk about the differences in the funding.
Maybe I'll do that.
Unidentified speaker
Can I just pause you?
Because I'm looking at something that says Pirtle-Guiney 7.
Am I reading it incorrectly that $774,000 from council ops is included in it?
Am I the only person?
Everybody's agreeing with me, Councilor.
I'm seeing that.
Jonas Biery
Sorry, that's an error in the table.
That's my fault.
Sorry.
Unidentified speaker
Okay, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna clarify it, and Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, let me know if this is correct.
So Pirtle-Guiney 7 is pulling $211,000 from a council— excuse me, a city operations analyst position And is also pulling $4.5 from CBPA in that same loan construction kind of situation against the facilities fund, not touching council ops.
So that would be a Scrivener's error in Pirtle-Guiney 7?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
That is a Scrivener's error.
Pirtle-Guiney 7 pulls a significantly smaller amount through that loan that we discussed earlier.
It reduces a new position in city operations in order to Realize those funds for, for these expenditures, and it pulls some new unrestricted contingency.
It doesn't touch any existing positions or contingency from the past year, and it does not touch council budgets.
Unidentified speaker
Okay, thanks.
So I have 2 questions, or one question, one point to make here is I'd like to know what the analyst position was or intended to be.
And then I'll just kind of note, colleagues, when we have the budget office write our amendments, this is why we end up with things that say Fund Management 100, general fund, constantly on everybody's amendments today.
And if you know what that means, I've got a gold star for you.
But in the world of actual budgeting, in the world of actually describing what these are, it'd be a hell of a lot more helpful if that just said This is coming from, and then talk about it specifically.
But we've now gone through, I don't know how many amendments, but they all seem to have fund/debt management, 100 general fund, instead of talking about the program that you're making a change to.
So while the budget office forces you into this structure, I would encourage you always to please describe it.
And this, Mr.
Administrator, is part of what we are highlighting as a problem in this process that has now 2 years not been fixed.
Dan Ryan
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
So if these become a little unclear, it seems to be set up that way.
So thanks, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
I appreciate you clarifying.
If we can get an updated Pirtle-Guiney 7, I do think that would help the rest of this debate go more smoothly.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilor Zimmerman.
Councilor Kanal.
Olivia Clark
Yeah, I'll keep this brief unless we hear something else from colleagues, because I think it In addition to Councilor Pirtle-Guiney's request that if you're— if there's no, um, if you're going to be against both of them to just disclose it, I would also ask if anyone would— is going to vote any differently on these that they disclose it so we can get into the debate.
Otherwise, we can just save a bunch of time.
I'm not changing on this.
The same, uh, conversation, uh, everything we said earlier, uh, with relation to, um, the Clark Amendment still apply.
Um, I also love St. John's and, um, Would love it to have more firefighters, but I don't think it needs a second engine, uh, in addition to the truck right now, um, that we just funded.
So, um, I'll leave it at that.
Thanks.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Kanal.
Councilor Avalos.
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, that was going to be part of my question, because if we just passed the, um, last amendment to fund the $2.5 million for the fire truck, then these amendments are out of date.
Am I reading that correctly?
Yes, because both of these amendments include that $2.5 for fire.
Unidentified speaker
Um, yes, it would require a true-up.
Sameer Kanal
Okay.
Um, so either way, I'm voting no because we're still taking from CBPA, and that's a bright line.
So, uh, we can just move on.
Uh, I don't plan on voting for this, and I'm grateful, um, that we were able to restore Fire Station 22 in the last vote.
That was most critical to me.
So I'm voting no on both of these.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you.
Councilor Avalos.
Councilor Murillo.
Manuel Guerra
I will also be a no vote on both of these, and I'm wondering if they have been publicly posted for the public to get to review them as well.
Unidentified speaker
Uh, nope, this is happening now, so they are being published that way.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Council President, the clerk's office does have them.
Um, my guess is that there's a slight delay in getting them posted.
Unidentified speaker
Yes.
Yeah, thank you, Councilor Murillo.
Councilor Green.
Steve Novick
Thank you.
I appreciate your willingness to try to seek some compromise.
I'll just say, as long as it continues to reference CBPA underspend, I'll be a no.
If you want to bring back a version of this that restores those other pieces and it's collateralized in a different way, I mentioned earlier there are enterprise funds that we probably don't need the money for in the next 9 months, I would be open to that.
But until that language is struck, I'll be a no.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Green.
Councilor— Vice President Clark.
Candace Avalos
Thank you, Council President.
I wanna thank Councilor Pirtle-Guiney for her spirit of compromise, which I'd like to see a lot more of amongst my colleagues.
If we take out Station 22 in Pirtle-Guiney 7, that means we're only borrowing about $2 million from the CVPA.
A very small amount because clearly they don't need all that money.
And in Pirtle-Guiney 6, if you take out Station 22, it only— it comes down to just under $4 million.
I'm not sure that Councilor Pirtle-Guiney was aware that we had voted on another budget amendment that included Station 22.
So I, again, I really appreciate your work on this, Councilor, and appreciate your spirit of compromise, and I'll be voting for this.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Vice President Clark.
Councilor Zimmerman.
Uh, Mayor, you weighed in on Clark et al.
1, Which seems to be a larger version than what this EPG 7 is.
You supported the first one I'm wondering if you would support this one.
And I say that with full acknowledgement that if this one were to pass, we would need a corrective amendment to the BLT thing that just passed and was taken from the reserves.
But I'm curious on, on your thoughts since you weighed in on the other one, which is quite similar.
And I appreciated your weighing in on that because it is It does fall into an operational of how you expect to execute funds.
Eric Zimmerman
Well, going off of support for— obviously Engine 22 has been resolved, and so that's going to remain open.
So, you know, that's good news.
Certainly the concern is, is how we're funding it.
We're deferring risk to future periods and bond rating and such.
So alarmed with that.
The other items, 2 fire rescues, The admin for PPB and the PS3s, that's certainly welcome news.
And with the knowledge of what we had with PPA and PFR union and AFSCME support, I'm going to assume that they're supportive and I'm going to be supportive of this as well.
Unidentified speaker
Okay.
Thank you, Mayor.
I do— Councilor Perugini, I do lean toward supporting this as I did the previous clerk One, and I acknowledge that if it passes, we'll need a fix-it amendment on the BLT.
I think not using those reserves would be a good thing given last year's $13 million hole we experienced.
So I thank you, Mayor, for answering that, and I appreciate it.
Thank you, Councilor Zimmerman.
Councilor Novick.
And colleagues, I will note it's 3:40.
Steve Novick
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, you talked about your amendment refers to 2 fire rescues.
I'm wondering which ones those are.
And if with the dropping station, with Station 22 no longer being an issue, whether you want to restore all 3.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor Novick.
I would defer to the Bureau on which rescues were most critical to restore first.
I think you have that data from them and had noted that it was 19.
And then I honestly, I apologize, I don't remember which you said they had put in line after Thank you.
With Station 22 being covered out of Councilor Kanal's amendment, I think, frankly, colleagues, we have a few options.
If one of these would pass, I would work with the council president to have a true-up amendment come forward, and we could either restore the BLT funding, restore the 3rd rescue, and then put the remainder of the funds back into the BLT reserve, Or restore the rescue and put the remainder of the funds back into the, um, the fund from which this loan is taken.
So I think we have a couple of options of where that restoration would take place.
And certainly because that 3rd rescue costs far less than Engine 22, I would be happy to bring forward a true-up amendment in partnership with the council president if he is willing to have us do it this way that restored the third as well and then returned the rest of the excess dollars.
Steve Novick
Thank you.
I just want to take a moment to talk about some of the types of calls the rescues go out on.
I had this from the fire chief the other day.
In '24-'25, they included chest pain, 365; overdose, 190; CPR in progress, 62; These kind of calls are usually associated with life or death outcomes.
Um, so I would hope that my colleagues would agree that it doesn't make much sense to allow our constituents to die so the money can sit unused in a bank account.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Novick.
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
I actually said most of what I was going to say anyway in response to Councilor Novick, but I would just add that, um, If somebody wanted to make an amendment to restore that 3rd rescue here as well, we could do that in process.
But again, I would want to make sure that there is ample support.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Vice President Clark.
Candace Avalos
Thank you, Councilor President.
I just wanted to remind my colleagues that the PPB precinct administration are desk clerks.
That are represented.
And they mean, by restoring these cuts, that means that those precincts will remain open and available to people in several districts.
And that restoring the 4 PS3s is going to help with our response time.
And that's very important to most of the people in Portland.
If you If you're being attacked, if you're in a traffic accident, whatever it takes, the police will be there and someone will be there to respond to you because the PS3s are doing other kinds of work, the police.
This is no risk to the CBPA.
I will repeat that.
This is no defunding intended.
This is actually addressing critical public safety and health needs in our community.
And I would ask Councilor Smith to support this.
Keith Wilson
Thank you.
Candace Avalos
That you consider a compromise on both 6 and 7.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, colleagues.
Again, it is, uh, 3:45.
We still need to get to the Prosper Portland amendments today, um, and we have 4 more colleagues in the queue.
Uh, Councilor Connell.
Lauren Johnson
Thanks.
Olivia Clark
Um, I'll request to limit debate to the queue that's currently there, uh, and ask for unanimous consent on that.
And then I will also add just To look ahead, I have Canal 5, which would fully fund all 3 of the rescues without breaking the charter.
Thanks.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
So I'm limiting debate to those in the queue.
Thank you very much.
Councilor Koyama Lane.
Thank you.
Manuel Guerra
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, I don't quite see how this is a compromise.
You've heard from many people, and we've already voted and said that there's a pretty hard line on touching OCPA.
If you really are interested in figuring something out and compromising, I'm happy to work with you.
But I think that is what is required for it to actually be a compromise, is to talk to some of the people that were not with you the first time.
Thanks.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Koyama Lane.
Councilor Ryan.
Loretta Smith
Yes, thank you, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
I will be supporting your compromise amendments.
I appreciate the hard work you put into this.
Thanks.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Ryan.
Uh, Councilor Kanal, is that a legacy hand?
Okay, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thanks, Council President.
Colleagues, rather than piecemeal, we can restore many of the public safety cuts that we all agreed we wanted to see move forward.
We can do it with a far smaller draw than we had discussed earlier today.
I truly have to believe that Portlanders don't want to see us leave money that we know we will be reallocating a few months from now to whatever hole happens to be there then, or whatever pet project happens to be there then, when we can continue to fund core frontline services that people rely on for safety.
We can do it quickly.
We can move it now.
I believe that this reduces the risk that I heard from many of you as a concern significantly, without significantly drawing other risks.
And we can make sure to support our frontline workers Even without Station 22 being a part of this, I think the other pieces are so important that it is worth moving forward, including, I'll note, the desk clerks who may not be able to have all of their work backfilled, as I understand some of the bargaining.
I think that's a great point.
Compromises that have been made in the past, and that work may have to go not done if we don't pass something.
Thank you very much, and I hope to gain some support.
Unidentified speaker
Okay, um, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, you moved both, uh, Pirtle-Guiney 6 and 7.
Um, there's no one else in the queue at this point.
We're going to move towards a vote.
Um, would you like to divide the question or withdraw one of them?
Sameer Kanal
Was there a second?
Mitch Green
Yeah, let's divide.
Unidentified speaker
Oh, there wasn't actually a second.
Olivia Clark
Yeah, it was the second.
Unidentified speaker
Okay, Councilor Clark seconded.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yes, Councilor Clark seconded.
I'd like to divide the question.
And Councilor Clark, I suspect we will have more luck with Pirtle-Guiney 7.
Are you willing to move that first as my seconder?
Candace Avalos
Absolutely.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay, let's divide the question and move Pirtle-Guiney 7.
Thank you, Council President.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you.
Can we please call the roll on Pirtle-Guiney 7?
Pirtle-Guiney 7, moved by Pirtle-Guiney, seconded by Clark.
Keelan McClymont
Kanal?
Sameer Kanal
No.
Keelan McClymont
Pirtle-Guiney?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Ryan?
Dan Ryan
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Koyama Lane?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
No.
Keelan McClymont
Murillo?
Angelita Morillo
No.
Keelan McClymont
Novick?
Steve Novick
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Clark?
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Green?
Mitch Green
No.
Keelan McClymont
Zimmerman?
Eric Zimmerman
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Avalos?
Candace Avalos
No.
Keelan McClymont
Smith?
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
No.
Okay, should we move to the vote on Pirtle-Guiney 6?
Pirtle-Guiney 6.
Keelan McClymont
Kanal?
Sameer Kanal
No.
Keelan McClymont
Pirtle-Guiney?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Aye.
No.
No vote.
Unidentified speaker
Yes.
Aye.
No vote.
Is that me?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yeah.
Loretta Smith
Oh, aye.
Keelan McClymont
Councilor Emily Lane?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
No.
Unidentified speaker
Councilor Moreno?
Angelita Morillo
No.
Keelan McClymont
Councilor Novick?
Steve Novick
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Councilor Clark?
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Councilor Green?
Mitch Green
No.
Keelan McClymont
Councilor Zimmerman?
Eric Zimmerman
No.
Keelan McClymont
Councilor Avalos?
Candace Avalos
No.
Keelan McClymont
Councilor Smith?
Loretta Smith
No.
Keelan McClymont
Councilor Dunphy?
Jamie Dunphy
No.
Unidentified speaker
The amendment fails with a vote of 4 ayes and 8 nays.
Thank you.
Uh, Councilor Ryan.
Loretta Smith
Yeah, thank you, Council President.
I know that we've heard a lot of arguments on this in theory.
I hope that you could just listen to how this is a little different.
It's like a bargain in comparison to the other 2 that have been offered.
I want to talk about shared sacrifice the city is making in this budget process.
City bureaus, administration have all taken cuts to their budgets.
And I do not see why the council should not— should be held harmless.
The chief of police did that in his budget process to restore funds to ceasefire.
Thank you, Chief Day.
My amendment proposal will take a haircut to our council office budgets, 8%, and council ops, 3%, to restore funding to PS3s, allowing this council to show up and respect the police is part of community safety and finally give police something back.
Originally, I was aiming to restore CHAT funding, but I'm pivoting because CHAT restoration was done earlier today, and I'm thankful for that.
There are many public safety gaps this time, but PS3s present the opportunity to take call volume from police patrol officers, which will reduce officer response time To emergency calls.
Again, we have all heard Portlanders begging those response times to improve.
My proposal does exempt District 1 from the budget because those offices have expenditures that other districts don't.
District 1 have district offices to provide direct access to their constituents who are removed from the city's central districts.
In meeting with the auditor, A couple councilors mentioned that it was not fair for the mayor to make cuts to the auditor's office, which she made clear was acceptable to adjust to this reality of our budget pressures.
Let's be fair then and share in that sacrifice we are imposing on our front-facing bureaus.
I did pass out the new words because we obviously have new numbers because chat was provided for earlier.
And I do hope that you will all consider the importance of the unarmed PS3s who really have helped so much to improve our response times for Portland Police Bureau.
Thanks.
Unidentified speaker
And Councilor Ryan, are you formally moving your amendment?
Loretta Smith
Yes.
Unidentified speaker
Okay.
Councilor Ryan moves.
Is there a second?
Candace Avalos
Second.
Unidentified speaker
Councilor Clark seconds.
Vice President Clark seconds.
Colleagues to the amendment, Councilor Novick?
Steve Novick
I just want to note that actually this year's proposed budget for the City Council is a beyond inflation $50,000 increase over last year because last year we made a one-time $50,000 cut.
So we have been living with an amount $50,000 less than this next year's budget assumes we have.
So Exempting District 1, that adds up to $450,000 money that will just be sort of found money for us.
So in reducing the overall City Council budget by $1.16 million, that's really only a reduction of about $600,000.
So that's an addition.
I support the amendment and thought that was important context.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Novick.
Councilor Koyama Lane.
Councilor Ryan, can you explain how much this would be in a reduction for each office?
Loretta Smith
Do you know?
Yeah, the 8%—.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Is it that 1.16, like—.
Loretta Smith
The 8% per budget excluding—.
Jamie Dunphy
129.
Loretta Smith
It's 129.
Thank you.
I wanted to make sure I had it right.
Yeah, 129.
If District 1 wants to be included, we'll allow that.
Then it gets it down to less than $100,000.
But I really do think that the District 1 exception is valid.
They're not a part of the central area, and I think the case has been made.
So I understand the sentiment on why you don't want to stand out like that, but I think from an equity lens, it's just so clear and fair.
Jamie Dunphy
Um, I still—.
Loretta Smith
Yeah, do your turn.
Manuel Guerra
I think a priority for me is we still haven't funded those 3 rescues, right?
I think that would be a priority for me to make sure we figure that out before we're—.
Loretta Smith
Yeah, it's adding back 3, correct?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Yeah.
Loretta Smith
And we have not.
Manuel Guerra
Okay, so I think I—.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
While I—.
Loretta Smith
We've added back everything in public safety but PS3s, the unarmed officers, haven't we?
Not the rescues or admin.
Never say things like that because someone's going to say, oh no, there's this, there's this.
What else are we missing?
Manuel Guerra
Councilor Ryan, there are 3 rescues.
Loretta Smith
Oh, I was in the police world, PS3s.
Manuel Guerra
Yeah, this is also public safety.
I would like to restore those cuts to fire, and I could consider looking at the office budgets for that, but not ready to do that.
Loretta Smith
Mine was in police 'cause we have not done one thing for the police bureau in our add-backs.
So this is an attempt to do something that acknowledges that police are part of community safety.
Unidentified speaker
That's fine.
Sameer Kanal
Cool.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Koyama Lane.
Councilor Kanal.
Olivia Clark
Thank you.
I made a point about Novick 4 that applies to Ryan 2 as well.
Sorry, Novick 2 that applies to Ryan 2 as well.
And it's this lost money.
We are adding $500,000 into PPV's budget, but we're cutting $1.1 million in our budget because of the math calculation.
I think there are better ways to do this.
So I'll be opposing this particular one.
I mean, the other points about the staff cuts are also there.
And I'll just say this.
I have a— I recognize the unique needs of D1, but I do want to say that people in North Portland deserve a response to their email just as much as people in East Portland do.
People in Northeast Portland deserve a response to their email just as much as people in East Portland do.
And so I, I don't want to get into the, the, the exact nuts and bolts on it about exact needs of each district because they are unique and we could debate it forever.
But I do want to say that it's important because these These expenditures are not an extravagance.
They are an investment in democracy and representation.
Not to mention that our staff is unionizing right now.
I just want to point that out.
Well, possibly unionizing.
I know there's an open vote on that.
I don't want to put a thumb on the scale in any direction there.
But I certainly want to have that conversation later.
Having said that, I do see the merit in a lot of what you're trying to do here, Councilor Ryan.
I just don't like the idea of $663,000 not going Thank you, Councilor Connell.
Unidentified speaker
Councilor Green.
Steve Novick
Yeah, I just— I also had some confusion about the $500,000 is the restoration to the PS3s, but we're cutting— it looks like we're just— most— more than half of the cut just goes to overhead, the overhead pool.
Is that right?
Loretta Smith
No, I understand, but could Council— Ruth, could you please come up and explain the general fund overhead explanation?
Sameer Kanal
We—.
Loretta Smith
I think we're missing that.
I was thinking the same thing all of you were about simple math.
Yeah, please explain.
Jonas Biery
Sure.
So I know this is somewhat painful, but because of the way we fund overhead functions, which is not uncommon, we draw resources from all of the different funds in the city.
So the 3 biggest payers, the 3 biggest, Non-general fund payers.
The general fund bears the largest share at 43%.
The next biggest ones are sewer, water, and transportation.
Those are legally restricted funds.
So they pay in for, for example, City Council, and we charge them on an allocation metric that's been approved.
And that means, you know, we can spread the costs accordingly to our— all of our different—.
Candace Avalos
Councilors.
Jonas Biery
Sort of colors of money in the city.
The flip side of that is it means when you go to cut it and you want to fund something that is discretionary only, you return the non-general fund portions to those general fund overhead payers and they can then use it, right?
Transportation gets a portion of that money back.
They can fill potholes with it or whatever.
So it doesn't mean it has to sit there unused.
It just has to go back to the legally restricted source from which it came.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
Jonas Biery
If you're swapping overhead for overhead, you don't have that same problem.
So it's just a color of money issue.
There's no way around it.
It just is, those are restricted funds and they're eligible to pay for things that qualify as general fund overhead, but they're not able to pay for things like fire.
Loretta Smith
Colleagues, I hope you understood the color of money explanation that was delivered to all of us.
I'm sure everyone at home understood that as well.
I'm being a little bit facetious.
Can you please, this is what I was given when we were working with your office.
Could you tell us when those monies could be released?
Is there a— does it— when can they be released back into the budget?
They can only go towards overhead?
Jonas Biery
They get released back to the payers.
So if we're charging less to transportation, sewer, and water, they get that money back and they can use it to do things like fill potholes.
So it's just a color of money issue.
You can't pay for— you can't use legally restricted funds to pay for things that do not qualify for those as use for those legally restricted funds.
That's the issue.
Loretta Smith
While Ruth is up along with Owen, would anyone have any more questions to try to understand what we're voting on?
Unidentified speaker
Councilor Green, I think you were still recognized.
Steve Novick
That answers my question.
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Okay, thank you.
Colleagues, it is 4 o'clock, just giving you a heads up.
Councilor Smith.
Oh, actually, I'm gonna just very quickly let you all know I'm trying to get us outta here as close to 5 o'clock as possible, but our council staff and security and everybody have a hard out at 6, so we're probably gonna be closer to 6.
Councilor Smith.
Thank you, Council President.
Thank you, Councilor Ryan, for your thoughtfulness, and I appreciate it.
You know, I believe that the first law of nature is self-preservation, and I try not to go against that.
Owen Saitz
Okay.
Unidentified speaker
And I, I don't want it to be lost on us that, um, we also have a 3% increase.
While we may be getting that $50,000 back, Councilor Novick, we do have a 3% increase in payroll that we must pay COLAs.
To our staff.
We have an increase in internal services that we must pay.
So for me, um, it's still the same.
Everything that I said to Councilor Novick, I think it applies here.
Um, and, and I agree with, uh, Councilor Kanal.
Uh, he has a district that is the northernmost part of our district.
St. Johns borders on to District 4, and we are the, the most eastern part of the city.
And so I think our ability to, to have forums, have staff, and the ability to, to go in and out of these communities in a way that is meaningful, not just as a, you know, check the box kind of thing.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Councilwoman Smith.
Unidentified speaker
I, I think this is, uh, I think this is something that I'm going to pass on, Councilor.
I usually support stuff that you do, but this is, this is not going to be that day.
But thank you so much.
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Councilor Zimmerman.
Uh, thank you.
I, I just want to, you know, if you look at the entire day that we've spent here, I think that a lot of our conversation has been On this idea that the thing that's closest or the thing we understand the most is the easiest to cut.
I, I just disagree with this, and I know you knew that coming into it, but we've spent a lot of time talking about council ops.
We've spent a lot of time talking about council budgets, security, the thing that we see closest.
But this scarcity mindset— I'll remind you, we've got hundreds of millions of dollars.
There are bureaus who are sitting in the Portland building right now who are sitting just fine watching our conversation because they know what they didn't put up.
And so I am not happy that we've spent a day navel-gazing.
And I've defended it, right?
I'm defending— I'm going to defend to, to this.
I don't think gutting this still experimental thing is the thing to do.
But an $8.6 billion budget with $750 million in general fund, significant number of bureaus who think for some reason because they're not general fund that they shouldn't have to consolidate into one single city, one water, one public works department.
I just want to— I'm going to caution us to take a step back and think about how silly this is that we continue to get forced into this $1 to $2 million conversation.
And it's nobody up here's fault.
It's— I really, I just don't, I don't feel that way.
We all disagree and agree on various things at different times.
But on this one, I, I'm going to continue to look for things that are a larger look at a larger budget bucket across a larger swath of bureaus, ones that aren't super close to me.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
That I can't point to a name or point to a person that I either want to save or want to get rid of.
But this is— we've been asked to talk and argue over the last few crumbs of a feast, frankly, that has happened in the other buildings.
And I just am going to reject that on its face.
And so we were put into some difficult positions with this budget, no doubt.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Reconsolidation is important regardless of what we hear from folks who are fighting for programs.
But I want to talk a little bit about just the difference between last year and this year.
This year we're hearing a lot of people talk about, I don't want to be reconsolidated or downsized.
And that's fine.
I understand that.
I've been in that position thinking I was next up on the layoff list too.
Last year we heard a lot about what programs to preserve.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yes.
Unidentified speaker
I do think that this budget has largely preserved a lot of programs, even though there are a lot of things that have come to a reduced sense, which is why I'm not— other than a couple of public safety things, I'm not looking to make a huge amount of changes here.
And those changes that I am looking for are in areas where no money's being spent.
But the idea of taking from areas that are programmed, ready to go, doing good work, to then—.
Jonas Biery
Reduce.
Unidentified speaker
Fund a thing that the city administration has said we want to consolidate here or do others.
I'm just not there.
So let's remind ourselves about the feast that has occurred, the crumbs we're being asked to argue over, which don't always put us in our best positions as our best selves.
And that whether we've done a good job as the 12 up here over the last 18 months, our ability to do better and the next council's group to do better and best Thank you, Councilor Zimmerman.
Councilor Ryan, final word.
Loretta Smith
I get the final word.
Um, just 2 things.
I am disappointed we are avoiding, um, the support for police's unarmed PS3s, and I do think that a small sacrifice was something that was necessary from all of us at this time.
So I, I am disappointed in that.
And then the second thing is, I think I'm really clear this isn't going to pass, and I will just end with that.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Ryan.
Keelan, can we please call the roll on Ryan 2?
Ryan 2, moved by Ryan, seconded by Clark.
Keelan McClymont
Kanal?
Sameer Kanal
No.
Keelan McClymont
Pirtle-Guiney?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Ryan?
Dan Ryan
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Koyama Lane?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
No.
Keelan McClymont
Morillo?
Angelita Morillo
No.
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Green?
Mitch Green
No.
Keelan McClymont
Zimmerman?
Eric Zimmerman
No.
Keelan McClymont
Avalos?
Candace Avalos
No.
Keelan McClymont
Smith?
Loretta Smith
No.
Keelan McClymont
Dunphy?
Jamie Dunphy
No.
Unidentified speaker
The amendment fails with a vote of 4 ayes and 8 nays.
Okay, we have 3 more public safety-related amendments to get through.
Uh, Councilor Kanal?
Olivia Clark
I'd like to formally withdraw Kanal 4.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay.
Olivia Clark
Uh, just to get that off the table.
What are the other ones that are left?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Kanal 5 and Novick 4.
Olivia Clark
Okay, I'm content to let Councilor Novick go first because there is a, uh, well, I want to make sure the table's correct before I go up.
Unidentified speaker
Okay, Councilor Novick.
Steve Novick
Um, unless somebody can contradict me, I didn't get the sense that Novick 4 would have any more support than Novick 2, um, so I was going to withdraw it.
But if some of the— if several of the people who voted against Novick 2 are for Novick 4, Give me a second.
Unidentified speaker
Okay.
Sameer Kanal
Oh, okay.
Olivia Clark
So I'm hearing that— sorry, I'll let this one play out first.
Unidentified speaker
Okay.
Councilor Novick, I'm not hearing other people chiming in.
Steve Novick
Withdraw.
Oh, Councilor Green.
I, I want to stay consistent.
I do want to cut overhead.
That's like I've said before.
So I, I would, I would entertain this.
I'm not saying I'm voting yes, but we voted yes on the other one.
He's asking for people that didn't.
Unidentified speaker
All right, yeah, that's right.
Okay, okay, okay.
Hearing no further, Councilor Knoll, more on—.
Olivia Clark
I'm gonna, I'm gonna move 5.
There is one, uh, adjustment that's going getting printed.
I'll just get this over with here.
Um, so colleagues, what this does is it takes $1.8 million that has been received in settlement funds from the opioid settlement.
So we are a party to a lawsuit against the major opioid manufacturers.
Um, there was a lawsuit settlement and money gets paid out at a, uh, Let's say inconsistent pace.
It doesn't come in on a chronological basis or on a regular flat basis.
There is $1.8 million of it that was unassigned going into this but is going to— is proposed in the mayor's budget, and I'll talk about that in a second.
As a result of that inconsistency, it is one-time dollars.
This would move that money from where it is currently going, which is towards Shelter Services and Portland Solutions, and it would move $1.8 million to fire to fund the 2-person rescues.
That is $1.65 million.
And this is the table that's being updated because we don't actually need the money to backfill PSR.
The other $150K would go to backfill the remaining cut to CHAT.
CHAT has a decision package that got reduced by, um, I think about $1 million.
I'm going to get you the exact number.
We backfilled the $500K, um, already, but this would help fill the rest of it and allow for that.
I'm going to get you the exact numbers on that, but basically it's a move of opioid settlement dollars, which by the way need to be used on things related to this, to, uh, 2 programs that deal with medication for opioid use disorder, that deal with things like drug overdoses, that deal with things related to opioid use.
Um, so I will, uh, get that printed, but you can look at Canal 5 as it is currently posted and replace where it says PSR with chat, and you will be correct.
Candace Avalos
Okay.
Unidentified speaker
And, uh, Councilor, are you moving this?
Loretta Smith
Yes, Councilor President.
Unidentified speaker
Okay.
Councilor, uh, Councilor Kanal has moved Canal 5.
Is there a second?
Jamie Dunphy
Second.
Unidentified speaker
I heard Avalos first, I think.
Just Thank you, Council President.
Candace Avalos
I just have a quick question.
Angelita Morillo
Um, am I—.
Candace Avalos
We haven't gotten the updated piece yet, but are you still reducing the city administrator's office by 1.8?
Olivia Clark
So the, the city administrator's office is Portland Solutions.
This goes back to what Councilor Zimmerman was referring to about the, the funds.
Portland Solutions is not separately budgeted because it's Not exactly a bureau, not exactly anything.
So it's currently under there.
It's an office.
And so this is money that would be going to shelter services.
Loretta Smith
Okay.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Vice President Clark.
Councilor Novick.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Mr. President.
I would like the mayor to have an opportunity to talk about what he thinks the impact would be of this cut to shelters.
Eric Zimmerman
Council President, thank you.
Councilor Novick, the opioid funds are for recovery beds, and the overall goal is, is if we take money away from that, then we're asking these individuals, uh, essentially be thrown from recovery back onto the street.
Reductions to the shelter and the shelter system will harm Portland Street Response, will harm CHAT, will harm the rescue's ability to get vulnerable people off the street, which is essentially what shelter is supposed to work in the continuum of care.
Treatment should not lead to the housing continuum— it should lead to the housing continuum, not to a treat and abandon model.
Mitch Green
We are—.
Eric Zimmerman
Councilmember Herbold.
Keeping PSR for the most part whole with our response vehicles.
We are taking a 30% reduction in our sheltering system, and I did that to fund our public safety system for the most part, to ensure not one fire station was closed, no patrol officers were let go, parks and community centers were kept open.
Mitch Green
Thank you.
Eric Zimmerman
If we take this money, we're only gonna put more pressure on an already underfunded public safety response system.
We've built a continuum in the city, and this last year has shown the improvements we've made and the hope we've restored.
To continue to cut shelter is only gonna put pressure on the city of perhaps having people having to go back to the street.
In fact, I would recommend Sky speak in terms of what would happen with continued cuts.
Thank you, Councilor Mitch Green.
Unidentified speaker
Very briefly, Sky.
Skyler Bruckner-Knopp
For the record, Skyler Bruckner-Knopp, Director of Portland Solutions.
Thanks, Council President.
Thanks, Mayor.
Quickly, my shelter team's proposal, if this cut were to be taken, of the $1.8 million in opioid settlement funds, would be 50 beds at Bybee Lakes.
Those are 24/7 beds that are focused on recovery, and 60 beds of overnight shelter at St. Stevens, um, with additional $100,000 in flex capacity for winter surge-up that we would lose.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you.
Okay, thank you, Councilor Novick.
Councilor Smith.
Thank you, Council President.
I just want to say that I fought for Bybee Lakes/Wapato for so long, and it is one of the, the high-functioning, um, Uh, shelters, and we need those, and we need the opportunity to serve those who have, um, drug and alcohol abuse issues, and this will, will solve it.
I don't think that taking this money away is going to, um, is going to solve the actual problem that we really need to solve with, with the rescues.
Um, I, I urge my colleagues not to support this And to keep the opioid money with the, with the shelters at this point.
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Councilor Murillo.
Manuel Guerra
Oh, um, I think my question already got answered, but I'll double-check.
Um, we're getting updated language to remove CHAT from it, correct?
Olivia Clark
To replace PSR with CHAT in it.
You can see that $150K going to If you look at the— this is the first of the lines in the table where it says Office of the Public Safety DCA, that would be replaced with Portland Fire and Rescue.
The upper left cell, I think.
Manuel Guerra
Okay, so was it not fully funded already?
Olivia Clark
I'll get you this number.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
We can have fire rescue staff kind of address that, 'cause there is a component to the CHAT program that Councilor Kanal is adding.
Manuel Guerra
Okay, 'cause I thought we fully funded CHAT in Morillo 1, which is why I'm trying not to do Yeah, that's why I pulled up my winter amendment.
Lauren Johnson
Yeah.
Loretta Smith
I gotta track people.
Unidentified speaker
Okay.
Manuel Guerra
That's my question, if it can be answered.
Candace Avalos
And that's all I have.
Unidentified speaker
Chief.
Lauren Johnson
Hey, thank you.
Lauren Johnson, Fire Chief, for the record.
I think to clarify, it's important to note that $2 million would restore them to what they had received in years past.
And so that was the $1.5 congressional earmark funding plus $500,000 from Maria 1, the first one we did today.
I wonder if Councilor Knoll's amendment is planned to take the $1.5 million that's congressional earmark and—.
Sameer Kanal
No.
Lauren Johnson
I shouldn't speak for you.
Then did I— did that answer the question?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
We got our—.
Lauren Johnson
Make sure our wires crossed.
Olivia Clark
Might have been with CBO.
I'm just going to verify real quick there.
Perfect.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
But I—.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yeah.
Lauren Johnson
So then, yes, just to emphasize, CHAT has been restored to the $2 million that we asked for in the original budget process because of the Murillo amendment this morning that passed.
Manuel Guerra
Okay, then I think, Councilor Kanal, when you're able to, I'd like some more clarification on what exactly this is funding in CHAT.
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Morillo.
Thank you, Chief.
Councilor Novick.
Steve Novick
I just want— can somebody tell me like the history of the opioid settlement and what the money was supposed to go to?
Mary, you said it was supposed to go to recovery beds.
Is that literally what it's going to now?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Skyler Brackenap, Director of Portland Solutions.
Just quickly, and then Robert, correct me, but just so we're clear, there's an addendum to the settlement that was signed by the city What would the settlement agreement that was passed with various pharmaceutical companies, and it outlines what you're allowed to use it on.
The allowable uses are pretty broad.
So for recovery beds are included, PSR, CHAT, anything that would be kind of relevant to opioid use disorder or folks using opioids or any kind of recovery process within that continuum.
So fairly broad is kind of the easy answer, but related to opioids.
Steve Novick
So if we're using it to fund people who are going out responding to people with chest pain and no opioid use, We had this scored and checked for feasibility.
Olivia Clark
I just want to be clear about that.
Steve Novick
Mr. Taylor?
Unidentified speaker
Yeah, thank you.
Robert Taylor, City Attorney.
Thank you, Sky.
Yes, we have received settlement funds related to opioid litigation.
Those funds are governed by the settlement agreement.
There's a A lengthy exhibit that talks about what the allowable uses are.
And so whenever we get a question about that, we compare it to the exhibit.
And we also work in consultation with the grants office who helps administer this.
So, you know, I think we have reviewed these amendments against this list.
We have found that they have been—.
Steve Novick
Would be allowable.
Mitch Green
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
So if we're going to talk about other things we want to do with these funds, we would like an opportunity to review it against the list.
Steve Novick
So you have reviewed Councilor Kanal's amendment against the list?
Unidentified speaker
We have in the past used opioid funds for PSR and CHAT.
Steve Novick
But this is not PSR and CHAT.
This would go to the rescues, which respond to general medical calls.
Unidentified speaker
We have reviewed that.
Angelita Morillo
Yes.
Unidentified speaker
So this is a harm reduction issue, and we believe that one of the harm reduction categories is for supporting efforts to prevent or reduce overdose deaths or opioid-related harms through evidence-based or evidence-informed programs and strategies.
So this 2-person team, if they're responding faster than other first responders, we believe that would fall within that Even though overdoses are just one aspect of what they do?
Uh, if it's one aspect of it, we think that would be allowable.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Okay.
Unidentified speaker
Um, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilor Novick.
Colleague, just as a heads up, it is 4:20.
Councilor Knoll.
Councilor Green.
Steve Novick
Thank you.
Um, it's good discussion today.
I, I just want to note that I Unless I'm mistaken, you don't have to use opioid money to have space at Bybee Lakes.
You can use any money.
And there is a lot of money in the shelter budget.
And I'll note that we are creating in this budget a 275-unit pod, or 275-person pod site at North Portland.
And so each of those pods is about $29,000.
You You could pay for this and keep Bybee Lakes going by just reducing those pods by 62.
And frankly, you should on its own merits because you should never concentrate that many people into one site.
You get terrible outcomes.
So I think we could absorb this cut, get some very, very good outcomes in terms of our first response capability, first responder capability, while also keeping those beds going at Bybee Lakes.
So I just wanted to place that on the record.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilor Green.
Councilor Smith.
Yeah, thank you, Councilor Green.
I don't know the data on that, on what the outcomes are on, on that, but I just want to remind you all, you just said something very interesting, um, City Attorney, uh, Taylor.
Uh, I tried to get some of this money last year, $1 million of it, for, um, SummerWorks, who serves underserved kids who are at high risk.
Uh, some of them have, um, drug and alcohol issues.
And you said that as long as they're covering one component of it, I tried to use it and you all told me last year that that was not usable.
And I also want to— but now you can use it because you may pick up somebody with CHAT that might have an issue with opioid overdose.
Just like kids of color, BIPOC kids who participate in summer works, they have the same high risk of opioid overdose as folks who are being seen in CHAT.
And so I do know that this money, we're going to be receiving it for the next 23 years.
And so it should be put in ongoing money that we can attach.
And I would like to— I'm not doing it now.
I'm taking the money out of the cannabis.
But just, just know I am looking.
Mitch Green
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
For $1 million.
And I will be back, Mr. Taylor.
I will be back.
You know I do not forget.
So, um, um, I think that right now we need to keep the opioid money where it is and, um, go forward and take a vote.
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Vice President Clark.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Just really briefly, Council President, I, uh, hearken back to Councilor Zimmerman's comments.
I feel like we're robbing from Peter to pay Paul, chasing our tail all over this place that we— if we have a humanitarian crisis, this amendment is really just inviting problems.
I don't understand why we're going down this route.
If you've been to Bayview Lakes and you've seen what they're doing out there and how successful they are with substance abuse and behavioral health, why would we cut that?
Why would we cut the winter surge funds?
Why would we cut one of the last remaining overnight shelters?
I just— I don't get this at all.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
Loretta Smith
Yeah, thank you, Council President.
Thank you, Councilor Clark.
You know, opioids is about addictions.
This money should go to those who, who are serving the most difficult population.
Bybee Lakes is high-performing.
It's turning around lives.
I'm not sure why you'd want to cut such a service in District 2.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Mitch Green.
Thank you, Councilor Ryan.
Councilor Knoll.
Olivia Clark
Yeah, I want to just start with 2 things.
One, Councilor Green's completely correct.
The, the money that remains is fungible.
This is the national monuments thing that we've talked about a lot.
It's putting up something in my district as something that's going to get cut that everybody supports.
I understand that.
I asked for where the money was going a while ago, as, as many of you have probably experienced as well.
We received a lot of information well after the amendment deadline, so we went with our knowledge of where it was going, which was shelter.
We put it up.
And so it is frustrating to have this occur up here now and be told that it's, it's this specific thing when we know that the money is fungible.
And I agree completely with Councilor Green's point about the idea of putting a lot of people together, which I know, you know, the mayor has spoken about his belief that we shouldn't be warehousing people.
That's the term that we're avoiding.
And I think that this is an opportunity to say, actually, don't put so many people in a single place that we're going to have that potential risk be realized.
So that, that's the frustration that I have in terms of the information being provided here.
But I do want to talk about the fact that in many ways what we are doing is deciding between 2 things that may be That nothing here is perfectly good or perfectly evil.
We are changing priorities.
We are talking about what we value more.
So if we're going to have the conversation, and I think we should have the conversation— I'm trying to see over who's here from Portland Solutions about what other things in the shelter services situation could be adjusted to hold it.
I did want to take the opportunity to ask if fire could come up and talk about the rescues.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Yes, Mayor.
Olivia Clark
Because I think it's an important conversation to ask, and I do see Chief Johnson here to talk about it.
And I want to point out that there are 3 different units.
One is on the line, as Councilor Novick has put it, between D3 and D1, and then one each is in D3 and D1 altogether.
And I believe this is the only remaining amendment that funds them, but I will verify that.
Unidentified speaker
And colleagues, it is 4:25, and 4 more colleagues just got in the queue.
So I really hope that you all have really exciting and new and Compelling new arguments that will convince all of your colleagues.
Chief Johnson, please stand away.
Is there more to Councilor Ryan's or Councilor Kanal's question about the rescues?
Olivia Clark
Just to put a finer point on it, Chief Johnson, thank you for being here.
Can you please speak to what the— I have 2 questions.
One is that what the impact is of the rescues or not.
And the other thing is when you were evaluating station Not station closures, double company reductions.
You said that one of the reasons you were not looking at Woodstock is that it would be negatively impacted by the loss of rescues.
Lauren Johnson
Is that 25?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yes.
Olivia Clark
Yeah, can you speak to both of those 2 things, please?
Candace Avalos
Sure.
Lauren Johnson
Thank you for the question.
So to answer the second one, just 'cause it's top of mind, Station 25 would be negatively impacted by the reduction of the rescues because it's on the same side of town.
We expect that if the rescues are closed, Station 25's run volume is going to go up because it's a station close to those stations that have the rescues.
In terms of the loss of any rescues, so that's 11s, 19s, and 31s, they all contribute to taking the workload that happens out in East County.
They respond to medical calls.
They have ALS paramedics on them.
Angelita Morillo
Thank you.
Lauren Johnson
Happy to answer more specific questions.
I mean, they are there because that's where the demand for additional units, um, exists in the city.
Olivia Clark
I'll say I don't have any additional questions you might get asked by my colleagues, so I don't want to make you do the, the musical chairs thing.
But I will say I, I did double— I'm uncrossing the wires here and just coming up with the revised chart here.
We're just going to do $1.65 out of it for the rescues, um, and that leaves the $150,000 for shelter, of which $100K can absolutely be used for the, um, the overnight piece that, that, uh, Director Brokernapp talked about, because I do think that's important.
Thanks.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Kanal.
Councilor Ryan.
Loretta Smith
Thank you, Council President.
Chief, uh, Johnson, thanks for being up there.
You know, when When I ask first responders, I've been asking this for 6 years now, what's one of your biggest challenges in dealing with the humanitarian crisis?
And it's that no matter how many rescues, chats we have, there are times where you need to take someone somewhere.
And we don't have a lot of options for that, as you know, as all of your— all of the first responders understand.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
And so—.
Loretta Smith
Is there a relationship that FYRE has with some of these systems that have been built under Portland Solutions, the support that we've offered to keep Bybee Lakes going?
I'm just curious.
This is— this motivated me to run for office is because the county and the city fail to provide services for people who are in active addiction that have some desire to be sober.
But all we offer are low barrier without much motivation to utilize those services.
Lauren Johnson
Right.
No, I appreciate the question.
I can tell you that our partners at Portland Solutions and Portland Street Response are who our firefighters and our chat responders call when they have a client that is ready for those services that have to do with addiction and needing treatment.
CHAP recently has received and is being outfitted with 2 vans or 2 vehicles that we can shuttle to take people to treatment centers specifically related to substance abuse.
But then we largely rely on PSR and Portland Solutions to provide the follow-up for housing.
Loretta Smith
Thanks.
Colleagues, this is personal for me.
I think once I heard that you were wanting to cut money to Bybee Lakes, I became very against this.
I lost a brother on the streets in 2014.
That's one reason I've been supportive of Bybee Lakes, because it does— it's built by people who understand addictions, who have the lived experience, who've been sober now for a while.
And that is exactly the type of program that every addict I talked to on the street would like.
They realize that we need to aspire to something that has the higher barrier and has some tough love element to it.
I'm really grateful that they have hung in there.
Councilor Smith, I remember we both were supportive of that, and I think it was ironic that we were in the runoff since we were one of the two, the only two that were supportive of Bybee Lakes.
We got to, um, I'm really concerned that we're, we're trying to take down the very services Thank you, Councilor Ryan.
Unidentified speaker
Councilor Zimmerman.
Thank you, Councilor Connell.
I share your frustration with Washington Monument stuff and how we got information or don't.
So I just want to—.
I want to talk to you about the information that we have received from the city.
Um, having worked at the county as long as I did, I know that the most difficult shelter bed to create is the recovery one, or the recovery-oriented one.
It's the most expensive.
It's actually, from a workforce skills perspective in, in our community, it's actually the least, uh, it's our least capacity.
And that's largely because we had a culture for a long time that said anything that was sober or anything that was higher barrier wasn't something we invested in.
And I think we've kind of turned the tide on that.
In 2015 and '16, you know, I was part of the team at Multnomah County who tried really hard to get Bybee Lakes, at the time called Wapato, funded.
I largely lost my election in 2016 because of being on that.
Manuel Guerra
Wow.
Unidentified speaker
In 2023, working with Julia Berm Edwards at Multnomah County, being there as the guy who wrote the program offer, when we finally got it funded, it felt real good.
And so I also think about Multnomah Village, the Safe Rest Village, and that's moving toward a higher barrier recovery oriented.
And as a person who helped set up task sites to start with, which were designed to be no barrier, which are designed to be the toughest of the tough, One thing I've learned over the last couple of years is that some of our residents, our clients who are at some of these places, are desiring a more clean and sober situation.
And I admit that, I see it, and I want to continue.
So in any area where Portland Solutions and Multnomah County is going toward recovery beds, I'm going to continue to support those.
I do— while the money is fungible, and I think we at least are legally covered if it went to rescue, I agree.
I think it is harder to get that type of funding out of general fund for recovery, um, and that's a population who I am going to continue to try and find funding for.
So, um, I appreciate the effort to put this up.
I do think it would be probably fine, but just on a personal level, I want to keep those dedicated to whether it be the Washington Monument in your district or the one in my district.
Keeping that dedicated toward recovery beds is something I'm going to try to do here, so I won't be supportive of your amendment today.
But again, I share your frustration in the way that sometimes things get framed or how information gets to us a little late in the process.
Thank you, Councilor Zimmerman.
Colleagues, I'm going to limit debate to those in the queue.
Councilor Koyama Lane, Kanal, and Novick, and then we'll move to a vote.
Thanks.
Manuel Guerra
I'm starting to feel that frustration that Council President talked about earlier of feeling like we're going round and round and talking past each other.
When we're clear how this is going to go, I can tell you— I could have told you 40 minutes ago what the vote count is going to be, and pretty sure this is not looking like it's going to pass.
I hear this conversation of compromise.
I don't think that that's actually happening off the dais.
Angelita Morillo
Councilor Smith.
Manuel Guerra
So I am putting it here really clearly.
Um, I, I really think these things need to get funded.
My constituents want them.
Um, my conscience says that we really need to fund these.
Um, I am willing to look at office budgets.
I'm also open to— I'm sorry, CA Lee, I told you I really do believe that you need to be fully staffed, but I think maybe either I'd be open to cutting one DCA Or the ACA and thinking about that.
And so there it is out there.
I'm being very open, and I understand that I have colleagues that don't want me to cut my budget, and I will listen to that.
But I also consider what my constituents need, what my conscience tells me, and what I think is best for the council as a whole.
So I'm leaving that out there.
I am willing to compromise.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Koyama Lane.
Councilor Kanal.
Olivia Clark
In 2023, I was the project manager for the Police Accountability Commission.
This is relevant.
I went and did a, uh, a visit to Bybee Lakes, uh, and then I did a listening session on police accountability there with the, with the folks who are staying there.
Um, I am very interested in what folks who are in different parts of their life and different types of relationships with police had to say on that at the time.
And it was very helpful for, I think, the members who were making recommendations.
It was also very helpful for me personally to get an idea behind what happens at each and every one of these facilities that I've had a chance to visit.
Had I been told before the deadline and had the ability to change it that this was going to be earmarked in the least politically positive way as a reduction to shelter beds, I would've ensured that there was a note written in there that said, do not defund Bybee Lakes, um, or, or the, the Grand Recovery as well, um, by the way.
And that's just an option that wasn't available to us.
Having said that, um, I, I do think that we have to have a conversation about the fungibility here and say, why can't we look at it?
I'm not gonna— I think Councilor Koyama Lane is correct, is correct that we should not be debating this forever, uh, because it appears unlikely to pass.
But I would ask if colleagues are interested, and this is what a potential compromise could look like, can we talk about it with each other and potentially look at a way to look at other parts of the shelter budget, um, for this in order to, um, in order to find ways to free up these opioid settlement dollars and fund the rescues?
Thanks.
Unidentified speaker
Councilor Kanal, thank you.
Councilor Novick.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Mr. President.
This is not an easy vote for me.
2 Of the rescues are either in or adjacent to my district.
And it's also not an easy vote because I, to some extent, I feel compelled to defer to the people who've been working with these facilities and are familiar with the outcomes.
I also don't buy the Washington Monument argument.
I think that when politicians say they're going to cut something and the bureaus say, Well, we're going to have to cut this, then the natural reaction is, no, there must be a lot of easier cuts you can make.
That's a Washington Monument argument.
I assume that if the mayor and Sky say that the next cut is to Bybee Lakes, then that's probably true.
And I think for this, for me, this is hard.
And my vote today might not reflect where I cut.
We have an adopted budget coming up.
We can make changes.
If we don't adopt this today, we We might— I might be willing to vote for a version of a few weeks from now.
Right now, I'm not prepared to do that.
And I have to say that part of that is because of the visceral negative reaction I have to the fact that at least some councilors who are unwilling to cut their own bloated office budgets are willing to cut shelters.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Novick.
Uh, Councilor Kanal, I received a note from the clerk that the, the draft The draft that you handed out is different than the draft when we had said we were moving it.
So if you could officially withdraw your previous and reintroduce your new.
Olivia Clark
Thanks.
I formally withdraw Canal 5 and submit— move Canal 5B.
Unidentified speaker
Yeah, there we go.
And Councilor Avalos, you were the second on that.
Is that okay?
Okay, great.
Can we please call the roll on Canal 5B?
B.
Loretta Smith
Sorry, it was I. Oh, that's— oh yeah, yeah, let the kid tell us.
Manuel Guerra
Yeah, let the kid vote.
Sameer Kanal
Yes, yes.
Keelan McClymont
Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Aye.
No, I'm sorry, I was looking at the wrong amendment.
Sameer Kanal
No.
Olivia Clark
No, it's close.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Aye.
Manuel Guerra
Um, I think that we could get ongoing cuts elsewhere from DCA or admin, so aye on this.
Steve Novick
With, with again the caveat that I might change my vote on this in a few weeks.
Mitch Green
No.
Keelan McClymont
Clark.
Olivia Clark
No.
Keelan McClymont
Green.
Steve Novick
Yeah, I prefer rescue trucks over 67 shelters at North Portland.
Mitch Green
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman
No.
Keelan McClymont
Avalos.
Candace Avalos
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Smith.
Loretta Smith
No.
Keelan McClymont
Dunphy.
Jamie Dunphy
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
The amendment fails with a vote of 6 ayes and 6 nays.
Okay, colleagues, we are through our public safety—.
Wait, actually, Councilor Zimmerman, would you like to move yours?
Steve Novick
Okay.
Unidentified speaker
We are now turning the page.
Angelita Morillo
I moved mine.
Unidentified speaker
Colleagues, we are now— we now turn to amendments that impact the Prosper Portland budget, or in the case of Smith 1, do not directly impact Prosper but are on the topic of workforce development.
We have one amendment from Councilor Pirtle-Guiney that only impacts her office budget.
I'd like to start there, then we can go round robin between the amendments introduced by Councilors Smith, Avalos, and myself.
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Council President.
I would like to move Pirtle-Guiney 1.
Colleagues, we are looking at in the mayor's proposed budget an over $400,000 Cut to workforce development programs through a program in which funds are sent to Work Systems Inc., which coordinates state, local, and federal, as well as private funding.
Angelita Morillo
$2 Million.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
To provide workforce, um, training and other services to Portlanders in our community.
The Cut of over $400,000 is a direct cut to training opportunities to people within our community.
I think that that is unacceptable, but I also went into this budget cycle not willing to pull from reserves if there was any other option available.
I expect to have enough funds left at the end of the year in my office budget that even after the separation of funds which we discussed previously, I should be able to make a $100,000 contribution in general fund dollars from my budget from the '25-'26 fiscal year to restore a portion of those grant dollars.
That is what the amendment before you does, and I will note that if we pass Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney moves Pirtle-Guiney 1.
Is there a second?
Lauren Johnson
Second.
Unidentified speaker
Councilor Vice President Clark seconds.
Um, colleagues, debate on Pirtle-Guiney 1.
Councilor Zimmerman.
Thanks.
I don't understand the purpose here.
This seems like something the councilor could just do.
You all do this.
This seems like something that doesn't need to be voted on.
Why would we debate it?
Why would we change people's budgets?
If the councilor wants to do this with her budget, she can do this.
I do not understand the vote and why we're going to go through this.
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, are you able to respond to that?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I was told that this was the most effective way to move these funds, Councilor Zimmerman.
Unidentified speaker
I would encourage you to resist Thank you, Councilor Zimmerman.
Councilor Ryan.
Loretta Smith
Well, I thank you, Council President.
I do agree with what Councilor Zimmerman had said up to the point of— anyway, I did agree with most of it.
So I know that Councilor Kanal and I are working on something out of our offices to support.
I had no idea I'd have to tell you all about it.
I'd love to brag about it, but I just don't know if this is the right time to do that.
Necessary.
But who's— who could tell us why this is necessary?
Unidentified speaker
I just have—.
I just have a question.
I'm also tired.
Everybody chill.
Loretta Smith
So anyway, yes on your statement, Councilor Zimmerman.
It looks like people are excited.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Ryan.
Councilor Avalos.
Sameer Kanal
I just have a question.
Is there a difference between this and an OEO?
Are people going to bring OEOs later?
Unidentified speaker
So an OEO is an over-expenditure ordinance in order to keep funds Over to the next year rather than allocating it differently.
What Councilor Pirtle-Guiney is formally moving money from her this year budget into other items, which I'm not familiar if this is a— actually, I'm going to ask Ruth Levine if you could please come on here and help us understand the difference between this versus how else we can do this.
Sameer Kanal
Part of why I ask is because I thought last year there were a bunch of folks that took money out and did it, put it towards programs, but it was all in an OEO package.
So why is this different from that?
Jonas Biery
So I believe what we did last year is that the current year portion of it— so with the carryover, there's money coming out of the current year and going into next year.
Last year we took the money coming out portion out in the OEO, and I would recommend you do the same thing.
We would just file the OEO with the conforming deappropriation in the current year, and then this is to budget it to budget the expenditure in the next year.
What we have told some folks is that if they— if there's a small amount of money that the bureau— I'm not sure how else to do it other than budgeting this $100,000 in the budget because she can't write a check to Prosper for $100,000 because it's not— you have to budget the use of the money according to where it goes.
So that's— this is—.
Manuel Guerra
Okay.
Jonas Biery
A recommended process from my perspective.
And if any carryover amendments pass from anywhere here, I would just recommend— we would just plan to file a sort of mirroring adjustment in the OEO.
Unidentified speaker
Thanks.
Okay.
Thank you, Councilor Avalos.
Councilor Smith.
Thank you, um, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
I support you doing this.
I'm a big, um, supporter of, uh, workforce development, and, um, whether we have— can do it or not, I support you doing it.
Okay, thank you, Councilor Smith.
Colleagues, seeing no one else in the queue, can we please call the roll on Pirtle-Guiney 1?
Pirtle-Guiney 1, moved by Pirtle-Guiney, seconded by Clark.
Steve Novick
Sure, yes.
Jonas Biery
Aye.
Candace Avalos
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Green?
Mitch Green
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Zimmerman?
Eric Zimmerman
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Avalos?
Candace Avalos
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Smith?
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Dunphy?
Jamie Dunphy
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
The amendment is approved with a vote of 11 ayes and 1 absent.
Congratulations, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Jonas Biery
Okay.
Unidentified speaker
Calling Smith 1 or 2, whichever you'd prefer.
Give me a chance.
I would like to move Smith 1 to support restoring funding for summer works in fiscal year '26-'27 budget from the, um, from the cannabis contingency pot.
The reason why this is so important There was $532,000 that was taken out of Summer Works, which is going to be a huge deficit in the number of jobs that underserved students will be able to get for the summer.
Summer Works provides paid mentored work experiences that help young people gain the skills, the confidence, and the connections they need to succeed in the workforce.
For many participants, this is their first job and a critical step Towards long-term economic mobility.
For young people facing economic barriers or limited access to opportunity, paid summer work is especially important.
These early work experiences help build a foundation for future success, supporting continued engagement in school, skill development, and entry into a career pathway.
Summer works also delivers clear value for Portland's employers and community.
Jonas Biery
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Through partnerships with local business and community-based organizations and the City of Portland, the pipeline, while providing employers with access to motivated emerging talent, it also gives us an opportunity to say that we have provided a training ground for our next level of engagement in workers.
At a time when many young people continue to navigate the lasting impacts of economic instability and disrupted pathways to work, maintaining access to these opportunities is more important than ever.
Reductions to Summer Works would limit access to a proven program with strong outcomes and deep community impact.
This proposal offers a clear path to protect this investment and ensure that Portland's young people continue to have access to meaningful work experience that set them on a path towards stability and success.
I respectfully urge my colleagues to consider this and support this amendment as it moves forward.
Second.
Councilor Smith moves Smith 1, and Councilor Zimmerman seconds.
Colleagues to the amendment, Councilor Murillo.
Thank you.
Manuel Guerra
Councilor Smith, I just have a few questions, but I love what this is funding, and I appreciate you bringing it forward.
So my understanding is the Cannabis Rec Fund has $2 million in contingency, and the fund has been decreasing for a few years as the novelty of cannabis usage has sort of gone down.
And I didn't see any cuts for Summer Works.
So is this an expansion of the program, or were there cuts that I missed?
Unidentified speaker
Last year, Mayor Wilson put $1.2 million in Summer Works.
We had $200,000 from Prosper, an extra $200,000, but he put $1 million in.
And so this year he did not do the same, and I'd like to restore it to, to last year's, um, level, which would be $532,000.
Manuel Guerra
Okay, so is this something that SummerWorks requested?
Like, were they saying we need this in order to keep the program going?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yes.
Unidentified speaker
Of course.
This is a program that we have done for years and years.
I've partnered with the City of Portland when I was at Multnomah County with Summer Works, and we paid for school for, for these summer work opportunities.
And I asked Mayor Wilson, and he complied.
He put $1 million in the budget so that it would go up to $1 million.
We got another $200,000 from Prosper, and it was $1.2 million.
I'm not asking for the $1.2 million.
I'm asking for $532,000, which would give us $1 million in this program.
Manuel Guerra
Gotcha.
So if they don't get these dollars, since I didn't see a cut, or they didn't— it didn't look like a cut when we were analyzing the budget.
Unidentified speaker
Yeah, it was a cut.
They did.
And that's why I'm asking to restore it.
There's going to be tens of 20s of people who do not have a summer experience.
And as I always tell my kids, when, when I used to do this and run the program, Um, I've never seen a kid, you know, doing a drive-by on their way to work.
Angelita Morillo
Yeah.
Unidentified speaker
And if they have jobs, they will be productive young people.
And so I want to offer this opportunity again because I think it's important.
And it's also important for young people to come into City Hall and to our city bureaus.
We also, not in addition to being a funder, we are a site, we accept SummerWorks interns.
So we do both.
Manuel Guerra
Yeah, you don't have to sell me on the program.
I really like it.
I'm just confused about the level of need based on what I've seen.
Did they provide any testimony?
Do you have any emails that said that they needed this funding?
Unidentified speaker
They came through the Labor and Workforce Committee.
I have a letter from Andrew McGough, Who is— who was the former— he just— they just transitioned.
I have a lot of information for you if you— we actually have a summer works coordinator in our Human Resources Department if you want that, and how successful that is.
We've been paying for this for years.
Manuel Guerra
Councilor Smith, love the program, love what you're funding.
Just trying to figure out the need because I didn't see any cuts.
So if someone can explain that to me, that'd be great.
And I will move on while that person arrives.
Unidentified speaker
And, and let me tell you about underserved kids.
Manuel Guerra
I don't need to know about the underserved kids.
Unidentified speaker
No, no, I need to tell you because underserved kids are the last kids to get summer jobs.
Kids who are more affluent, come from more affluent families, they get all the, the connections and they're able to get jobs.
And so underserved kids have a tougher time getting a job in the summertime.
Tracy Warren, if you're— welcome to the dais.
Could you help us understand some of the logistics of what's moving on here?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Absolutely.
Tracy Warren
For the record, Tracy Warren, Deputy City Administrator for City Operations.
Jonas Biery
Could you repeat the question that was asked?
Tracy Warren
I apologize, I was in a conversation.
The needs.
Manuel Guerra
When we were going through the budget, I didn't see that there was a cut to Summer Works.
So I am a little bit confused about if this is funding a cut in the program or what the impacts would be.
And then also if there's any issues with using the cannabis contingency fund, because I know that those have been dwindling down over the Absolutely.
Unidentified speaker
I can answer the first part of the question, but I would have to defer to someone else for the second part of the question.
So last fiscal year, there was one-time funds added to the workforce organ or the workforce program that had been previously reduced in a prior fiscal year to $243K of ongoing dollars.
Jonas Biery
Last fiscal year, there were one-time dollars added to that program.
Those one-time dollars will go away for next fiscal year.
So this is replenishing those one-time dollars at half the amount from the prior fiscal year.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay, that's helpful.
Manuel Guerra
So that's why it doesn't come across as a cut, because they had additional dollars.
Okay, I think that's what you were trying to explain to me, and I just needed to hear it phrased a different way.
Thanks, appreciate that.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Morillo.
Councilor Green.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Mr. President.
Uh, Councilor Smith, uh, I'm going to support this.
Um, I appreciate the need, and also, even if it wasn't specifically requested, I think I would probably always support this.
Um, while I have the floor, I just— I want to say something really quickly, which is that earlier in the day, some— a deputy mayor from your office, Mr. Mayor, was running around to City Council office saying that I was bringing an amendment to cut Prosper Portland by— Prosper Portland's budget by $12 million.
I'm bringing no such amendment.
And so if you hear a rumor like that, you should come to me and you should ask me if I'm going to bring that amendment rather than ask my councilors and then maybe potentially people in Prosper Portland and get them all spun up.
So I just want everyone to rest assured I'm not trying that this time.
And I told Yume Delgado last time that I apologize for not Thank you, Councilor Green.
Unidentified speaker
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Council President.
Um, can somebody tell me how much is currently in the contingency?
What portion of the contingency would this pull out?
Jonas Biery
Uh, yeah, thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I love the program, love fully funding it.
I just want to understand what risk we are accruing in this allocation.
Mitch Green
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Mayor.
Chief Financial Officer Jonas Biery
Yeah, thank you, Councilor.
For the record, Chief Financial Officer Jonas Biery.
There is currently, I believe, and Owen's coming up to tell me I'm wrong, but I believe there's about $2 million.
I think Councilor Murillo mentioned this number as well on the contingency.
This is a declining revenue stream.
We know we've had to do some kind of backfilling to keep the current programming full.
And so, as with the use of any kind of contingency and reserve, we've talked about some of that before.
There is some risk involved in that, but there is $2 million currently in that contingency.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay, so this would pull about a quarter of the contingency.
And how much money flows through the, the cannabis tax every year?
So it's a, a $2 million contingency on what amount of funding, and what is that rate of decrease?
Owen Saitz
Yeah, for the record, Owen Saitz, budget and policy analyst So the cannabis tax contingency we mentioned is just over $2 million.
That's all based on beginning fund balance projected for the next year.
The tax receipts are projected at about $4.7 million annually, and those have been declining from a high of about—.
Jonas Biery
About $7.3.
Owen Saitz
Yeah, $7.3 million 5 years ago down to— $4.7 million projected for next year, and that, that could be revised.
The state forecast for cannabis tax revenues is often revised downward.
This projection is flat for next year, and we may have to make adjustments throughout the fiscal year.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
So we're looking at currently a $2 million reserve and a decrease of between $500,000 and $1 million a year.
Year in terms of what we have seen over the last few years in revenue.
So we have a reserve that will be drawn out in the next few years, really whether or not we do this, and we're cutting about a year off of that time that we have, maybe less, maybe more than a year off of the time that we have this reserve available for to keep other cannabis funding at its current level.
Loretta Smith
Yeah.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
It sounds like no matter what.
Is that correct?
Unidentified speaker
It's possible.
So we don't know where the floor for cannabis tax receipts will be.
So it's possible that $4.5 million is an annual floor, but we don't know.
And if you're looking at the trends over the last couple of years, it's been decreasing.
We expect at a certain point it will stop decreasing, but we don't know.
But that doesn't necessarily mean we can inflate programming ongoing year over year if revenues are flat.
So we'll have to reevaluate.
But what the contingency does is give us some buffer in case— because the cannabis tax revenues are pretty volatile.
And so it gives us that buffer in order to be able to kind of absorb that without making cuts to the programming during the fiscal year.
Councilmember Herbold, So reducing that increases the risk there that you might have to do that in the future.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay, thank you, Councilor Smith.
I'm interested to hear what our other colleagues have to say.
I'm a big fan of summer works programming.
I'm a little nervous about pulling a full 25% out of this reserve, but again, curious to hear what our colleagues have to say.
Thank you all.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Mr. President.
Steve Novick
Um, I just want to get some clarification on something.
When I, when I see contingency, I think of money that's available for emergencies.
And if this was the only fund we have to deal with a situation where a bunch of stoned people desperately need pizza, I don't want to cut it.
So is that— but you're saying it's a contingency in case ongoing programs actually need to, um, need more money to continue?
Unidentified speaker
Primarily in the cannabis tax fund.
Jonas Biery
Okay.
Unidentified speaker
Tax fund, it's contingency based off of revenue uncertainty.
So whether we have budgeted $4.7 million in tax revenue, that backs all of the ongoing programming backed by cannabis tax.
And so if ongoing revenue was to— if cannabis tax was to come in below the $4.7 million, we would— the plan would be not to cut the ongoing programming in the current Thank you.
Thank you, Councilor Novick.
Colleagues, it's 5 o'clock.
Councilor Kanal.
Olivia Clark
I had the same experience, uh, indirectly that Councilor Green had, uh, with relation to rumors being spread about wanting to cut PROSPER, uh, and I, I'd ask that, that people come talk to me to directly about that.
My office as well.
No intention, hadn't even spent a lot of time with the Prosper budget this year, if I'm being fully honest.
Spent a lot more time on the city budget.
Um, and so just wanted to get that clarified.
Unidentified speaker
Mr. President, please, can we just—.
Olivia Clark
You want me to speak to your amendment?
Unidentified speaker
But you're not speaking to it, you're talking about something else.
Steve Novick
I am.
Olivia Clark
I think it's important in the first opportunity we have to talk about Prosper to get that on the record.
I think you can appreciate the record.
Unidentified speaker
I know, do it at the end.
So I'll move on.
Olivia Clark
That's all I wanted to get out.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you.
Angelita Morillo
See?
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Kanal.
Councilor Smith.
Councilor Smith, you are recognized.
I just want to say I've been fighting for this program for so long, and, um, it's not an automatic, and you all deserve to have your questions answered.
And just know that Prosper also has a reserve as well as we have.
There's a difference between the reserve and contingency.
And so if we get to the ongoing programs that are paid with this, like the Imagine Oregon that supports the Black and brown entrepreneurs, then, then we have some other conversations that we can have.
But I think the most vulnerable of us and the least of us, we have to make sure that we take care of them with jobs.
Now, many of you are too young to understand about the SETA program.
When I came to Oregon, I got a job at the Forestry Department at Oregon State University working at the front desk.
And I asked my supervisor, why did you hire me?
Because I'm a city girl.
Jamie Dunphy
Yes.
Unidentified speaker
I don't know anything about fish, water, and trees at that time.
And she said, because you had prior work experience.
And I had prior work experience working with the same JTPA money that is now the WEIO money that we are using in conjunction with our city money to pay for summer works.
So I believe in this program, not just because— because I know it works.
It got me through a door.
To be able to pay for my college when I moved here, and I had to pay 3 times the tuition because I was out of state.
It is important.
It is critical, particularly for kids in East Portland.
I talked to the superintendents of East Portland, and they said, do whatever you think you can do to increase the number of kids who will be able to get summer works.
And that is what I'm doing.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Councilor Ryan.
Last word.
Loretta Smith
Councilor Smith, I'm a big supporter of this program.
I have been for a long time.
We were in some of those same meetings back when it got started, so I want to support it.
I also, um, and I, you know, I'm old enough where we actually went strawberry picking when we were 8.
That was called summer camp for working-class people in Oregon.
Um, and then you went from that to, you know, getting full-time jobs at age 14.
So yeah, work ethic is And learning how to work is really a big deal.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
My—.
Loretta Smith
What I want to bring up to all our— all my colleagues is that the cannabis tax is a big burden on those that pay it in the cannabis industry in Multnomah County, both at the retail and the warehouse— and in the warehouses.
And they— it's the highest of any cannabis industry in this— in the state.
And do we engage with them on where this investment goes?
Candace Avalos
Yes.
Loretta Smith
And so I'm going to be continuing to look into that because they're, they're not a part of this dialogue, in my opinion, and that's not fair.
And they're kind of angry about it when I've gone to their meetings.
So, um, I actually think this one could be justified more than some that are— that they allocate.
But I do encourage my colleagues when they want to dip into the cannabis reserves, if you will, Thank you, Councilor Ryan.
Unidentified speaker
Colleagues, seeing no one else in the queue, can we please call the roll on Smith 1?
Smith 1, moved by Smith, seconded by Zimmerman.
Kanal?
Olivia Clark
Yes.
Unidentified speaker
Pirtle-Guiney?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yes.
Herbold?
Loretta Smith
With hopes this can turn into some workforce, um, related to the industry, yes.
Manuel Guerra
Yes.
Thank you for this, Councilor Smith.
Aye.
Steve Novick
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
Aye.
Mitch Green
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
Aye.
Jonas Biery
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
Aye.
Sameer Kanal
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
The amendment is approved with a vote of 12 ayes.
Thank you.
Councilor Avalos, Teenage Jobs, you are recognized to introduce your amendment.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, here we go.
Sucks to be at the end of the day when everyone's grumpy, but bear with me here.
Um, so first, uh, I want to move an updated version of Avalos 2.
You will have that in your inbox that just got distributed, uh, about 10 minutes ago.
And so the updated amendment, it's the same concept, but it changes the funding source.
There was some— there was a mistake.
Essentially, 2 funding sources were named the same thing, and we just took from the wrong one.
So it changes the funding source from PROSPER's workforce development package to instead Decision Package 27-152 Storefront Grants, which is an additional allocation outside of PROSPER's current service level Specifically dedicated toward downtown storefront support.
I want to be really clear, as someone who strongly supports Prosper Portland and the important work that they do, my intention wasn't to undermine their core programming or workforce development efforts.
And so I appreciate community members flagging those concerns, and this updated version reflects that.
Additionally, I'm increasing the amendment amount to the full $300,000 because we also have since learned that the apparent reduction to the Diversity and Civic Leadership Program was Actually the result of a budget display error related to current service level calculations and has already been corrected for next year.
And I think I'll just echo my frustration, uh, that other colleagues have shared today with getting last-minute information.
I got an email that was like, no, this is a wrong number.
And it's like, you're giving me this email the day before we're about to get into this deliberation.
That makes it really frustrating to, to know how— that we're entering in with the right information.
But that being said, so Avalos 5 is what that one is, and I'll be retracting that.
So this amendment is about ensuring that the city has the capacity to respond to a very real humanitarian and community crisis unfolding in front of us right now.
And in East Portland especially, immigrant and refugee families are living with enormous fear and instability.
People are watching loved ones disappear into federal detention.
Beloved small business owners are being taken from their communities.
And children are afraid their parents may not come home.
So at moments— in moments like this, communities need more than statements.
They need coordination, support, communication, and visible institutional commitment.
So what this does is it strengthens the city's capacity to support immigrant and refugee communities during ongoing federal immigration enforcement actions and related community impacts by moving the immigrant affairs liaison into the city administrator's office and dedicating one-time resources to This builds directly on work I've already led and supported, including the Protect Portland Initiative and the Sanctuary City Codification Ordinance, and because our immigrant and refugee communities deserve more than symbolic solidarity.
So I believe that this is concrete action and real coordination and resources that reflect the seriousness of this moment.
And this is only the beginning.
I know this is one-time money, but to me, this is an opportunity to take these dollars and invest them in the long term.
Lauren Johnson
Councilmember Loretta Smith.
Sameer Kanal
And put them into a community that really needs them, and they can start building up their infrastructure, with my intention to introduce other kinds of amendments funding and policy-wise to continue to fight for immigrant communities across the city, but especially in East Portland.
So that is the newly amended 2, Avalos 2.
Yeah, I move that.
Unidentified speaker
Councilor Avalos moves Avalos 2.
Is there a second?
Steve Novick
Second.
Unidentified speaker
Councilor Kanal seconds.
Colleagues to the amendment?
Councilor Smith.
Thank you, Councilor Avalos.
So can we take money from other elected officials' office?
Because you're taking $194,000 out of the mayor's office to go to the city administrator's.
Like, can we do that?
Sameer Kanal
That's, that's me moving the position.
Unidentified speaker
I know, but moving— but But, but the position is being paid for by an— it's like, I wouldn't take a— I wouldn't take your chief of staff away from you.
So I'm trying to figure out how we do this.
And the other piece is that— yeah, go ahead.
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, the, the— you're right, it's— but the problem is that this position is being listed as a staffer, but really it's the immigrant affairs position that we created, right, through our work last year.
And so this is about kind of giving it some actual structure and putting it in its own place for, again, for me in the future to continue to expanding on.
So that's what it does.
Unidentified speaker
I, I do like the position.
I like where you're going with this.
Um, but the other piece is we voted to do, um, storefront.
All of us voted.
I think it was a 12-0 vote to do—.
Sameer Kanal
Was it?
Olivia Clark
The first one was—.
Unidentified speaker
First one was—.
Loretta Smith
Second one was 9-3.
Unidentified speaker
But it was overwhelming that we needed to get our storefronts together.
So you're going to take the money from the storefronts that didn't have any money to be able to pay for this new thing.
I would like to work with you this year to figure out how to do this.
I'm a— I used to do immigration casework for Senator Wyden, and I understand these issues, and I would love to work with you to try to find— I just don't like taking money from other elected officials to do something with their money that—.
Sameer Kanal
Councilor Smith.
Unidentified speaker
I, I just don't think that that's right.
But I do like your— I do like your proposal.
I just don't like where you— where you're taking it from.
I, I don't think it's fair.
Sameer Kanal
And just to be clear, it's $1 million in that program.
And no, not everybody voted for it, including not me.
But also, it's additional.
And so— but— and I'm only taking $300,000 of it.
So there will still be $700,000.
And this is to stabilize immigrant communities.
Unidentified speaker
Exactly.
But I would never take $300,000 from your I'm not taking it.
Sameer Kanal
I'm taking $194,000, reflects the position, right?
So that's the position, me moving the position.
The $300,000 is from the actual program, the $1 million.
Unidentified speaker
Exactly.
And you know, like I know, out in East Portland storefronts, they don't have access to capital.
And I don't want to take any of those resources that might impact our East Portland business entrepreneurs.
But I do want to work with you on this one and maybe find another source of funding.
I just don't like this source of funding.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Councilor Zimmerman.
I have a couple of similar questions.
Steve Novick
I just—.
Unidentified speaker
Can we— can you help me, Councilor, understand the history?
You said when we created the position, but then to the questions about it being part of the mayor's staff, so did the mayor determine You know, I would like to create an immigrant affairs, or did we fund it separately?
Steve Novick
If you—.
Unidentified speaker
Can you re-jog my memory on that?
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, I mean, I think it is a lot to remember because I think ultimately what was going on at that time is that we were trying to take action as the city, right?
The mayor's office, the city administrator, everybody was doing different actions.
And I think what had emerged was the goal of PPI was to, you know, stand up these kind of operations The mayor went ahead and put together that position.
So it's like, while is it technically— did the mayor start it?
Sure.
But it was— but it was— he essentially preempted me before the, the bill passed, if that makes sense.
Unidentified speaker
Okay, thank you.
Manuel Guerra
Portland?
Unidentified speaker
Yeah.
Um, I, I'm not going to vote to defund the mayor's office budget and To me, it looks like he took one of— he took part of his budget to create the position.
And I— your history there sounds accurate.
But, um, frankly, I think somebody working for the mayor's office can actually operate more sharply because of political cover that you don't actually get when you work in the administration.
Bureaucracy is the thing of icebergs and slowness and With all due respect, Mr. Lee, your whole role here is to slow roll some stuff at times.
I find it, it just seems to be our— whether we like that or not.
Whereas the COVID in the mayor's office allows this person, who I think is off to the races, by the way, to act a little bit more sharply, be pointed, be active.
Um, if this was a decision about creating a position so that he could I think that's a valid policy conversation, but this is about removing from his office to put somewhere else.
And so that gives me a little bit of pause in terms of the per— that piece of it, because I think that the mayor giving it that top cover and giving it— frankly, the only person who can fire him is the mayor and his chief of staff— is an important thing when you're doing really divisive work, because we're frankly— we've got a population that's under attack all the time.
I think that's a valid policy conversation.
So I would like actually the protection of the mayor's office to be what protects our immigrant affairs liaison position.
So I think for that reason, on that line item, uh, I can't be supportive.
And having worked in the previous mayor's office when we had to refund or re— put more money in the account, the broken storefront windows fund, the repair your stuff fund, whatever it was.
We went through it.
I don't know how many times we had to re-put money into that account over the '23— '22-'23 timeline, '24 I think after I left.
So, um, a million bucks doesn't go super far.
$300,000 Really is a hit to that, and I'd like to keep that whole.
So, um, yeah, I'll, I'll leave it there.
I, I, I don't think that I can be supportive of the move and sort Thank you, Councilor Zimmerman.
Colleagues, it is 5:15.
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Council President.
I have a couple of questions of the what and how, especially with this new funding source.
I do recall the creation of this.
I thought we had put it in the mayor's office intentionally so that it would be more of an outward-facing coordination position as opposed to an internal coordination position.
Opposed to just an inward-facing position within the city, and because we wanted it elevated in the mayor's office and not in the administration.
Councilor Avalos, when we talked about this with the Protect Portland initiative, I thought that that was an intentional choice.
Um, so I, I guess I'll start with the question for you as the carrier.
Can you help me understand why you don't want it in the mayor's office anymore?
Sameer Kanal
I think it's not about the mayor.
This to me is about taking that position, giving it real resources.
You know, I've been working not only with Brenda, but also with immigrant groups to figure out what do they need, right?
What is the next phase?
And what they need is resources.
And we didn't have the— Brenda's position has no budget, right?
It's kind of just dependent on whatever she can find, I assume, but she has no money.
Angelita Morillo
From the mayor.
Sameer Kanal
Right.
And so this to me is about institutionalizing it more, giving it some starter funds.
And then, you know, like I said, I have a lot of plans to continue to work on that.
So it's not about— it doesn't have to do with the mayor for me.
I think it's more so about giving it its own institution with the plan in the future to continue growing that ideally into its own office.
So it doesn't have to do with that.
I understand what people are saying as far as it feeling like it's Okay.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Um, and Mr. Mayor and Mr. City Administrator, is this something that, as you both think about what the makeup of different offices are, um, within the city, that you both are supportive of?
Or is this something that something you would like to see different?
I think it's that we are pushing against your, against your wills.
I want to be clear, I'm not always— I'm very willing to do things that council thinks we need, but I'd like to understand where you're both at on this.
Eric Zimmerman
Yeah, this started from, like Councilor Avalos had noted, through the Protect Portland initiative.
It was a crisis.
Everything was moving fast.
When council passed this, it was unfunded.
We had been working with community groups both locally, regionally, and nationally, and my chief of staff and I moved forward on a resource.
And so we took money from our own budget to move and act fast.
We didn't want it to delay.
Loretta Smith
How was today's walk?
Eric Zimmerman
We've since hired Brenda Alvarado, who's become an indispensable partner in office.
She works locally and regionally, and we work with mayors from around the nation.
She's turned out to be a wonderful addition.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
How was today's walk?
Eric Zimmerman
The other point is, is right now with our fiscal crisis, we could take money from Prosper Portland and the storefront and reduce and remove that benefit when we need to be investing in new businesses and growing the city.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
So, um, yeah, I think I'm specifically interested— I'll ask about the funding source in a minute— but just specifically interested, Mr. Mayor, on whether you have a Yeah, in summary, she's been indispensable.
Okay, that sounded like maybe a lean toward in your office but not specific.
Um, is the fund that this $300,000 would come from the storefront repair grants that businesses can draw on when they have a broken window, a security concern, things like that, that this council, um, intentionally funded last year after it had been removed from the budget?
Or is this something separate related to the additional storefront work that came out of Councilor Ryan's proposal?
Unidentified speaker
Councilor Ryan.
Sameer Kanal
When you, when you say we intentionally funded, I'm not sure what you mean.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
In last year's budget, there was a line item that had been zeroed out that this council, um, was very excited to fill.
I believe we put $1 million into it.
It is storefront repair grants that are available for businesses when they have, again, a broken window, security concerns, those things that they don't want to put into insurance for because you do that too many times and costs skyrocket.
I'm trying to understand if the $300,000 you're pulling from is that account or something separate.
I know we have created some additional storefront programs under the work that Councilor Ryan has done, and I'd like to make sure, because this is a new account you're pulling from as of 10 minutes ago, I'd like to make sure I understand what those funds are because My support for this will hinge on where that money is coming from.
I'd like to be able to be supportive, but there are certain funds that I don't know that I can draw from.
So I'm trying to understand which dollars these are.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
Yes, and that's part of why I made the change, because the original fund, again, they were named the same, and so it was just an error.
But, and we talked with Prosper and realized that that fund We were drawing from was gonna take from workforce development and other programs that they already had ongoing.
Whereas, so that's why I moved it to this fund, which is a million add that got added in this budget, taking $300,000 of that with the intent that one, there will still be $700,000.
Two, that this is obviously important and felt like a pot of money that is already being added to another, to other pots of money that Prosperity has to do that work.
So that felt— that's why I made that decision.
Does that answer your question?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Is there somebody— it doesn't.
Is there somebody from either Prosper or the budget office who can help me understand if this is new money because we used one-time resources last year, but this is actually that ongoing storefront repair grant program, or whether this is in fact a new program that we would be delaying the buy-up of?
Unidentified speaker
Cornell Wesley, proudly serving as Executive Director of Prosper Portland.
To answer your question, Councilor, this is new money that is being stood up for the storefront program in this new budget.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Is this for the storefront repair program that we have had for years?
And it looks like new money in the budget because it's been one-time resources in the past, or is this something separate from that that is a totally wholesale new program?
Unidentified speaker
Okay, so I'm not fully read on the historical context, but I would say previous iterations of it was backfilled with SIF.
This one is new resources coming in to, um, to Prosper.
And I can bring our CFO just to give more historical context as well.
Uh, good evening.
Tony Barnes, CFO, Prosper Portland, for the record.
Um, so historically, um, the storefront grant program— there's a couple different programs.
There's the repair program that's been funded by general fund federal resources over the last 5, 6 years, as well as, um, TIF-focused dollars.
That's called our Prosperity Investment Program.
That's more of the tenant improvements Larger dollar amounts.
So this programming that's in the proposed budget is actually a mix of PIP and repair grant programming, a 20/80 mix that is as proposed in the proposed budget.
I—.
Sameer Kanal
Am I understanding—.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Council President, I know that you need to move on.
Councilor, I apologize, I don't understand still where this money is coming from and what we wouldn't be funding, and I don't feel responsible voting to defund something that could be what I worked very hard to put in the budget last year.
I would love to talk more about this proposal if we can do it after, um, after tomorrow's deadline, because I would like to support our immigrant affairs liaison work and make sure that they have a budget.
But I, I'm not getting my questions answered right now.
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal
I'm sorry, I will message you, um, so just check your messages and I'll tell you more.
Unidentified speaker
Okay, thank you, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Colleagues, it is 5:25.
We have 3 more amendments in the Prosper Portland section, and we're going to see if we can get to them before 6:00.
Councilor Avalos?
Sameer Kanal
Oh, sorry, um, wait, why am I at the—.
Unidentified speaker
Councilor—.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
I'll come back in.
Unidentified speaker
Okay, Councilor Ryan.
Loretta Smith
Thank you, Council President.
I won't be supportive of this false choice.
Councilor Avalos, if you would have come to me in advance, we could have discussed, and I would have recommended you work with the city administrator and CEO to find $300K in another resource.
I still think this is possible.
The storefronts are struggling.
I think everyone knows that, and this amount will make a difference for small businesses who are needing support for repairs due to vandalism and crime.
Councilor Mitch Green.
Crime.
We need to keep the trust of our business owners as we care and show up for them.
This will roll back that confidence.
So I, again, I won't vote for this, but I will instead work with you, Councilor Smith and Pirtle-Guiney, and all of us to work with Councilor Avalos and the city administrator to find some alternative funding for your proposal.
Um, colleagues, it's, it's really crunch time for, um, a couple things.
One is To stop the profiteering.
There's just so many for lease signs everywhere you go.
Every time someone visits me from out of town, that's all they want to talk about, and they say it's kind of depressing.
And so that's, that's on the tip of everyone's tongue, and we need to lean in because this is also where our business license taxes come from.
So the reason we're in a place right now where our general fund is down It's because we're not investing and supporting in our small businesses and our storefronts.
So all of, all of the action we've been taking today that I wish was supportive of keeping the public right-of-way clean and safe is exactly what our storefronts want.
And this is a way for them— and you heard their testimony last year, there were so many of them that came from all over the city, and they all authentically spoke.
Olivia Clark
Thank you.
Loretta Smith
They wish the city could see them.
They're the ones providing revenue for us.
And so I want to thank the mayor working with Prosper Portland to put this in the budget, to take a budget note and advance it forward.
I'm excited about that.
Thanks.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Ryan.
Councilor Knoll.
Olivia Clark
Yeah, I think I just want to speak to one thing.
I think Councilor Zimmerman's point is correct in large part, but I also want to just say that there are truly many businesses I have not seen this concern happen yet, and I want to be clear about that, but I am aware of the possibility of politicizing a citywide immigration position.
And I think that there is a question that is a philosophical one in large part about not just inward-facing and outward-facing, which I think is one of the differences between the mayor's office and the city administrator's office as a location for this position, but also about how we But also the degree to which the opinions of the 13 elected, 14 elected positions in the city are reflected versus one elected leader's position on things.
And especially related to one of the core issues of our time, which is how we respond to the federal government on immigration, I am concerned about the possibility of further politicization of these conversations, especially by the folks who are supposed to carry out our direction as a legislative council.
And so that's something I just wanted to get onto the record as a concern, and that's my interest in this conversation is largely about that.
I have no desire to put any of the offices that we're mentioning here at any sort of disadvantage, but that I think the I think that's a fundamental need here is what I'm trying to address.
And again, not something I've seen occur with this position or the individual in it.
Not concerned with that at all at this moment.
I just want to make sure that we're having that conversation because I think it is a philosophical one that we did not address when the 2 pieces of legislation passed on October 15th, and then separately the position was created.
Having said that, I am very grateful that the mayor created a position so that there is one.
Um, and I, I think that's worth, you know, that's— it's commendable and it deserves to be commended.
So thanks.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Kanal.
Colleagues, there are— I'm limiting debate to those in the queue.
Councilor Avalos and then Councilor— I'm sorry, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Is that a legacy hand?
Um, sorry, I will come to legacy hand.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Sorry.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you very much.
Councilor Avalos, then Councilor Smith, and we're going to move to a vote.
Sameer Kanal
Um, well, I'm trying to talk a back channel here with Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
It sounds like we just need to get the right answer, and I guess I'm confused by the different answers because I'm— what I'm getting from the budget office, this is new dollars, this is the new $1 million.
And I see Cornell nodding his head, but Councilor Pirtle-Guiney does not— did not get a clear answer.
So can you come back and make that clear?
Unidentified speaker
Clarifying on the package, um, for the storefront package, that is a one-time general fund that was added to the mayor's proposed budget, correct?
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
Does that answer your question, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, that we've been talking about?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
It doesn't, because we funded storefront repair grants with One-time dollars last year, which means that by the way that we budget, under the way that we budget, funding that program this year will look like new dollars.
And what I still have not had answered is whether this comes out of the funding available for storefront repair grants, which is an ongoing program that in the budget will look like it is funded with new dollars, or whether these funds come out of the new programs that are being set up for the first time, and if so, which of those new programs, which grants it comes out of.
The way that things show in our budget documents in the tables, it just says Prosper Portland.
So I don't actually know which program is getting cut.
And that makes a difference for me in terms of my ability to support or not.
And like I said, I am happy to not take more time today if this is small enough that we can figure out the answer between now and June.
Um, but I can't vote yes without understanding where the money is coming from on a programmatic level.
Unidentified speaker
The package, or I think the amendment before you, is coming out of the storefront package 20 7152, I believe, is the number.
That's a decision package in the mayor's proposed budget.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I will need to look up that package, and I will be a no until I can do that.
And we are running out of time tonight.
Unidentified speaker
Sure are.
Sameer Kanal
All right, well, uh, I still have the floor.
First, I'll just say, um, thanks for the effort.
I don't believe I need to ask permission for somebody to So I didn't ask permission because I don't believe that that was necessary.
I appreciate the broad signal that I'm hearing that people do want to support this.
So if this— if there's some kind of technical questions that need to get answered, do I need to— can I hold this back?
I don't know what the process is for this since we haven't tried this yet, to bring it tomorrow.
Unidentified speaker
If you would like to withdraw it for right now, that would be fine.
That would be acceptable, and I'd be— I will give you time to reintroduce it tomorrow.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, so we can— and then is there a particular place that you can tell me I can be introduced tomorrow?
Unidentified speaker
I suspect we're not going to get through all of this because we also have to go through conforming amendments, and so the top of the meeting tomorrow will be the remainder of the Prosper Portland work.
Sameer Kanal
Okay, so ideally at the top of tomorrow's meeting we can return to this?
Loretta Smith
Yes.
Sameer Kanal
All right, well then I will withdraw it so that we can get these questions answered, uh, by tomorrow.
Unidentified speaker
Thanks.
Thank you.
Did you still want to ask a question?
I still want to make a clarification.
I do not support taking this position out of the mayor's office, but if you want to get additional resources to surround and wrap around that position in the mayor's office, that is what I'm in support of.
Um, I think it's— I think it's great.
It gives us some gravitas, um, being in the mayor's office.
And I just wanted to be clear that I don't want to take it out of the mayor's office.
Thank you.
Okay, Councilor Avalos has withdrawn Avalos 2.
Um, colleagues, it is 5:30.
I am moving Dunphy 1.
Um, Dunphy 1, uh, supports our neighborhood prosperity networks.
Our neighborhood prosperity networks are some of the strongest tools that we have to keep Portland equitable connected and resilient.
At a time when many neighborhoods are still recovering from the economic impacts of COVID-19, our priority should be supporting the organizations already doing the work.
The Dunphy 1 amendment would eliminate a Coordinator 3 position that is being added to the Office of Civic Life through the core realignment.
This is a pure addition.
It would not affect current workforce while freeing up nearly $200,000 for direct investments in our neighborhoods.
This amendment prioritizes community partnerships by keeping resources flowing to the people already helping Portland from the ground up.
This is a— this is to get to the specifics.
This is cutting a new position.
Currently, all of the neighborhood program positions are being eliminated.
All 4 of them are currently vacant.
And what we're asking to do is to cut this new DCO liaison position.
Technically speaking, if we pass this amendment, there would be no staff designation solely to the neighborhood association, but that is functionally how it has been operating for the last 2 years.
Director Garcia-Snell has been the person who signs contracts for the last 2 fiscal years.
So my amendment would take the funding that is currently earmarked for this new position within Civic Life and it would dedicate it to the Neighborhood Prosperity Networks at Prosper Portland.
And I formally move Dunphy 1.
Steve Novick
Second.
Unidentified speaker
And Councilor Koyama Lane seconds.
Thank you very much.
Colleagues to the amendment, Councilor Smith?
Sameer Kanal
No.
Unidentified speaker
Legacy?
Councilor Kanal?
Olivia Clark
Just kind of ask a couple clarifiers here.
Um, I like what you're trying to do with the money, so this is all about the funding source side.
Um, the— I'm looking at, at decision package 26997.
I think this is the The one that creates the new coordinator, but I may be wrong here.
Is it the— there's another one, um, on the core services realignment for Civic Life as well, but it doesn't seem to have the, the dollar amounts in here.
Um, but it refers to a Coordinator 2.
So if I could get a little clarification on if that— if I'm just looking in the wrong place.
Um, As to what's happening here.
And the reason I'm asking is that is a— it says the changes to the bureau in the realignment package eliminates one part-time position currently funded at 0.65 FTE and changes it to a full-time, combined with the reclassification of one other position results in a budget change.
I see that Chief Engagement Officer Garcia-Snell is here.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thanks.
Candace Avalos
Hi.
Amanda Garcia-Snell
Yes, thanks for the question.
For the record, I'm Amanda Garcia-Snell, Chief Engagement Officer Sarah, and also the Director of Civic Life.
So in regard to the neighborhood program and positions and the Coordinator 3 and Coordinator 2 question, is that the question?
Olivia Clark
Yeah, which— I mean, is it the decision package I was looking at, or what are we looking at here?
Amanda Garcia-Snell
So there are— in the Civic Life decision package, there was a proposal to make some position changes, and then there's also position changes in the realignment.
With the neighborhood program, I think that change was incorporated into the realignment from the budget perspective, from the budget office's materials.
But essentially, that position is a coordinator, proposed to be a Coordinator 2.
That classification hasn't been determined yet, but it would be the elimination of the 3 existing FTE in the neighborhood program.
So there is a supervisor and 2 Coordinator 1 positions.
Eliminating those positions and creating a Coordinator 2 position to serve as a liaison to the neighborhood.
Olivia Clark
Okay, so just 2 quick clarifications.
One, this has nothing to do with the appointed bodies and commissions position, right?
That's completely separate.
Mitch Green
That's a separate position.
Olivia Clark
Okay, great.
And then second question, are any of the supervisor and 2 Coordinator 1 positions that are, uh, being replaced by this currently filled?
Mitch Green
The supervisor position is And the Coordinator 2 positions are both vacant due to recent retirements, one retirement in January and one retirement just in April.
And those were longtime staff that had been serving the neighborhood program.
Olivia Clark
Yeah, I'm familiar with them, with them both, and congratulations to them both on retiring.
Used to work across the way from them, so in the same area.
Anyway, that is helpful to understand.
Thanks.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Kanal.
Thank you, Council President.
So you have, if I'm not mistaken, you have 2 actions in here.
You have a budget note.
It says directs extension of existing district coalition contracts through fiscal year '26-'27.
This was a scribner's error from a previous draft that we forgot to remove before we pre-filed.
I'll be removing that part because the contracts have already been extended.
Okay, that's, that's what I was getting ready to tell you because we had a conversation with, um, Administrator Lee and the coalition folks, and we did get that extended.
So I was going to take that out.
Eric Zimmerman
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Um, so the Coordinator 3 position, is it an empty vacant position right now?
It is a proposal for it to be created.
Yes, there's no, not currently anybody in that role.
So, but it, but it's being paid for right now in Civic Life?
Uh, it was being proposed to be paid for.
It is not—.
By the mayor's office?
It was put in the mayor's budget?
This would be a new ad, yes.
Okay, okay.
Um, and so this is— it's not lost on me that you're putting money in Prosper when historically you've tried to take money away from Prosper.
So this is a little bit different.
I thought I was reading something wrong.
Um, I know, I know.
I'm a big fan of small businesses.
Angelita Morillo
I know.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Our NPMs do good work.
Unidentified speaker
Yes, sir.
Um, I'm not clear about this yet.
Um, and I get what you're trying to do because I think if we were going to put $200,000 into Prosper Portland for a position, I would much rather put $200,000 of access to capital or technical assistance Or I would put the IBRN money back in so that minority businesses could access that technical assistance.
And just— I'm just walking this through my mind and trying to figure out what the end goal is.
And this is not for a position within PROSPER.
It would be added to the pool of dollars that are already going to the NPN network to help Reduce the amount of—.
So is that the, is that the IPN?
Let me make sure that we're—.
The neighborhood prosperity networks are Historic Parkrose, Living Cully, Our 42nd, Division Midway Alliance, and I'm forgetting one.
And we currently do not give them funding?
We currently do.
This budget is reducing the amount of funding that we are putting into that program.
Jade District, thank you, and Rosewood Initiative.
There we go.
Olivia Clark
And St. Johns.
Unidentified speaker
And St. Johns.
We are reducing the amount that is in the pot, and this would simply add an additional $200K to the pot.
To the pot, not make— it says for $20K budgeted for that position to Prosper Portland to be added.
Move the $197K budgeted for the civic life position to Prosper Portland to be added to the pool of funding for the Neighborhood Prosperity Fund.
Lauren Johnson
Can—.
Unidentified speaker
Is this what Prosper wants?
Have they asked for this?
The Prosperity Networks themselves have specifically reached out to me, a number of them, and asked for any level of restoration that we could bring.
Okay, okay, thank you.
Thank you.
Councilor Ryan.
Loretta Smith
Thank you, Council President.
I'm not tracking exactly what the value is yet of this, What will no longer get done if we don't, or what we thought would get done with the Coordinator 3 position not moving forward?
I think I need to hear that again.
This is very opaque.
Anytime we start getting really micro in the org chart, it's always confusing to me.
Mitch Green
So the Coordinator 3 position is a newly proposed position that would really serve as a citywide initiatives lead.
For engagement.
So that would be someone to project manage and really provide that over cross-agents or organization leadership around like budget engagement, other types of town halls that are not budget related, or engagement that would cut across the whole city structure aside from the budget piece.
But they would also lead those budget engagements.
So the learning sessions, the listening sessions, the open houses, those types of events.
This position would project manage those.
In addition, it would also serve to be a leadership supportive role for programs across the— across Civic Life.
So we have several programs in Civic Life, like Community Partnerships would be one of those areas where that position would also provide some leadership support to the Community Partnerships.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you.
Loretta Smith
In my very brief experience overseeing civic life, all I heard from was the neighborhood associations felt as though their services have gone way down.
How would they respond to this, in your opinion?
Is— are you responding to their concerns?
Are you responding to their concerns?
Who's listening to the neighborhood associations?
Unidentified speaker
I will say that I have— I will say I have been specifically reaching out to both the individual neighborhood associations and the district coalition offices.
And what I have heard specifically was that the partnerships with the NPNs are vital for the work that they do, especially in my district.
And that they have gone a few years without a lot of staff support from the city at this point and are, as I understand it, largely supported by volunteers.
Well, my neighborhood associations are largely supportive of this move.
Thank you.
Mitch Green
So I'll just share, just for a point of clarification, most of this fiscal year there were 3 FTE serving the neighborhood association or serving the neighborhood program.
Mostly those positions liaised with the DCO leadership, executive directors of the 4 DCOs in the 4 districts.
This has changed over time because of the transition from 7 districts to 4 districts.
Last year there were some position reductions as part of the budget deliberations, and so there had been more staff in the neighborhood program.
Some of those positions were eliminated last year.
Starting this fiscal year, we've had 3 positions until those recent retirements.
I am very involved in those, and I do sign the grant or the their grant amendments and contracts, but that's because I'm the director in Civic Life and there isn't another position that can do that.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Ryan.
Councilor Vice President Clark.
Candace Avalos
Thank you, Council President.
Um, I'm not really familiar with the Neighborhood Prosperity Networks, and it sounds like they're mostly, um, Eastside.
Could you just talk to me a little bit about what they do and how they're different than the district coalitions or Yeah, the neighborhood prosperity networks are really targeted at the economic—.
Unidentified speaker
At economic development and support for small businesses in areas outside of— I mean, not necessarily exclusively outside of TIF districts, but it is a small business support program independent of the TIF district program.
For example, Historic Parkrose in my neighborhood, they are not only providing capacity to some of the Small businesses, helping them troubleshoot specific city liaison issues like RV camping or public space management, but also public space event planning and broadly sort of grant support and things like that.
They are really targeted to help those really micro entrepreneurs in distressed parts of our town to really get a little bit of a boost up.
And are they related to I would argue that they are related to the business associations in that, you know, the city has a neighborhood association system and a business association system.
Prosper handles the business association system.
Thank you, Vice President Clark.
Councilor Zimmerman.
Thank you.
I love the— I come from kind of the micro downtowns across Portland.
I think it's one of our jewels and gems of our city, right?
You think about downtown St. Johns, Division Midway, everything we've got going on on 82nd with the Jade.
I mean, I just think it's amazing, right?
And this is something that exists in all of our districts.
So from that perspective, I feel quite supportive.
I guess I am concerned because I can't see it, but I continue to hear that perhaps at the same time, Council President, you're bringing a cut to the downtown marketing initiative.
Loretta Smith
Yes.
Unidentified speaker
And it'll be hard for me to get in bed with this if I'm about to get smacked by something else right after this.
So I want to pose— I want to just put that out there.
The other part, I have very little faith in our relationship with the neighborhood associations continuing to exist through the Bureau of Civic Life.
And this is a position I kind of thought when and if we get the support to move them out of Civic Life, Yes.
That this could be a position that came with it wherever they live.
And I don't know the right answer to that, but that is giving me pause because I do think it needs help.
I think that the Council D4 coalition, because that's who I work with, and the neighborhood associations in D4 may be my greatest feedback loop when it comes to outside of regular constituent emails.
But that engagement is huge.
But, you know, District 4, you guys all know District 4.
There can be like, put the bat signal up and 400 people pack a room in District 4 with no big deal.
But at our budget listening session, there were more staff in that room than there were constituents.
It fell flat on its face.
The word engagement was nowhere within the zip code.
And so to screw up that much with the District 4 coalition, Um, I'm looking for a home, and so I'm looking for a home for that work, and so that we don't, as council office budgets, have to go beg them to get their money so they can do the work on behalf of neighborhoods.
And yet that is the case here.
So this position that you're talking about is something that I see a lot of value going to it.
Um, I'm, I'm willing to work through if we move neighborhood associations somewhere else that they don't have to have this position with them.
But at the same time, I don't want to support this if in the next couple of days or by the time we adopt a budget, you come after and remove the downtown marketing initiative.
So that's my big concern too, because frankly, that's a longtime item that has brought a lot of activity in.
And those types of activities and those business license taxes do pay for things across So I'm just— this one is a true balance for me because I, hell, I campaigned on the micro downtowns all over this city, and I think that you've hit an important sweet spot here, but I'm afraid it's going to come with some other things that are less palatable.
And I'm not sure if you have any comments there, or I can just leave it out there in the floating ether.
No, I have, I have 2 comments.
First, specifically, the executive directors of all 4 of the district coalition offices have reached out to my office and expressed support for this move, this amendment.
Second, I do have an amendment later that does look to redirect the funds from the downtown marketing.
We won't be getting to it today by any stretch, but that is Dunphy 2.
Dunphy 2.
It would redirect the money from the downtown marketing back to restore the cuts to the arts grants.
So that is an active debate.
But however, I will tell you, my team is actively working with actively the city attorney's office to see if there's any way that we can looking after today to see if there is a different pot of dollars that we could touch other than the downtown marketing.
So if that is helpful.
It is helpful.
Um, if, if you can eliminate that from, from your ask in Dumphy 2, I, I get a hell of a lot more supportive of Dumphy 1.
Sameer Kanal
Thanks.
Manuel Guerra
Point of order.
Um, City Attorney, are we allowed to— it seems like there's some making, uh, Votes contingent upon future amendments?
Is that allowed?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I would love clarification.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you.
Great question.
There might be 2 issues with that.
One is whether that one discussion is germane to the item under debate.
That would be up to the President to rule on the germaneness of that discussion.
So that's one issue.
I think the other is, That type of discussion may be an effort to reach a compromise in a public meeting, which I think would be an appropriate thing to do.
Steve Novick
So—.
Unidentified speaker
I wanna clarify, you said appropriate.
Appropriate.
The type of discussion among councilors at a public meeting, if you do this, I'll do this.
I think that's appropriate to do that here in this setting rather than in other settings.
Manuel Guerra
Great, thanks for clarifying.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor, uh, Councilor Koyama Lane, you're next in the queue.
Manuel Guerra
I am very supportive of the Neighborhood Prosperity Networks.
I know that, um, the main one that impacts my district is the Jade One, Jade District.
Um, but I will also say, I know Councilor Murillo and I went to NEA and had a tour of our 42nd Avenue and, um, got to explore that area and, uh, see how Thank you.
I've been there.
I know how important it is for the Native community.
There's an amazing restaurant down there.
This is a small amount of funds that I think are very impactful and have heard directly from many valuable CBOs that this type of support for these programs are very valuable.
So I will be very proud to support these and hope especially my colleagues in Districts 1 and 2 where the majority of these networks are that they will also be supportive.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Koyama Lane.
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thanks, Council President.
Thank you for bringing this forward.
In District 2, frankly, our neighborhoods have a little bit of mixed result with these neighborhood prosperity networks, but I have seen how successful it is along 42nd Avenue and in Cully.
And what I've seen there is Thank you.
So the neighborhood prosperity network is that often we have business associations and neighborhood associations that are coalitions of those who have the time, knowledge, and other social capital resources to be able to be involved, and they then make the decisions in the community.
And the neighborhood prosperity network has done incredible work to reach beyond the usual suspects, to bring in more people, to bridge the residents and the businesses within the district in a way that our neighborhood associations and business districts do in some communities but aren't able to do in all communities.
I'm a huge fan of the work that they've been able to do there and hope that more places in the city are able to benefit from it as well.
So I will be supportive.
Thanks for bringing this forward to us.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Councilor Ryan.
Loretta Smith
Thank you, Council President.
This does add to fund Prosper's work to help businesses and entrepreneurs.
I'm starting to get that.
I did the walk along 42nd Ave about a month ago, and what I heard was it was good for socialization, which is not a bad thing.
So there was like a soft investment, if you will, that mattered to them.
So they said as a network, So much more engaged with one another.
That helps with business.
It actually helps with them coming together to lobby PBOT to get a crosswalk.
It helps them with safety as well.
So I get the program.
I do.
They also made it really clear to me that they wanted the storefront support program because they need some more concrete investments.
So I don't know how we could support this and then not support the storefront support program.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
Loretta Smith
Anyway, I'll trust my gut on this one and go with it based on those 2 hours I spent along 42nd Avenue.
And thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Councilor Ryan.
Loretta Smith
Councilor Murillo.
Manuel Guerra
I have what I'm hoping is a quick question, and I apologize if it's already been addressed.
I kind of stepped out for a second, but is the position that we're cutting from Civic Life to give to PROSPER for the funding, is it filled or is it vacant?
Unidentified speaker
It is vacant.
It's a proposed new position.
Manuel Guerra
It's a vacant new position.
Okay, great.
Thank you.
Um, then I will be happy to support this.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you very much.
Councilor Smith, is that a legacy hand or—.
Candace Avalos
No.
Unidentified speaker
Okay, thank you.
I, I like the— what you're talk— what you're trying to do, but, um, I'm also struggling because we've struggled with civic life in terms of having some extra support with community meetings like, uh, Councilor Zimmerman is talking about, and I want them to be able to have the bandwidth to be able to help in a very meaningful way.
But I don't want to take their money that's already in the budget and give it to Neighborhood Prosperity.
I think we can find it somewhere else because I do think that they need the money too.
I think it's just the wrong pot of money.
So thank you.
Thank you, Councilor.
Okay, colleagues, seeing no one else in the queue, how's that $200 looking?
We'll see you in a second, I guess.
No, um, could we please call a roll?
Roll on Dunphy 1, moved by Dunphy, seconded by Koyama Lane.
Olivia Clark
Thanks for the— thanks for the information about the EDs.
Loretta Smith
I'll vote aye.
Manuel Guerra
Aye.
Lauren Johnson
Aye.
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Steve Novick
Aye.
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Smith.
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Lenz.
Eric Zimmerman
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Novick.
Steve Novick
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Clark.
Olivia Clark
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Green.
Mitch Green
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Avalos.
Candace Avalos
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Smith.
Loretta Smith
Aye.
Keelan McClymont
Dunphy.
Jamie Dunphy
Aye.
Unidentified speaker
The amendment is approved with a vote of 12 ayes.
Colleagues, we are out of time for the day to do anything else.
I am going to recess this meeting of the Portland City, City of Portland Budget Committee until tomorrow morning at 9:30 AM.
Okay.
We'll see you tomorrow.