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Transcript
Automatically generated transcript. It may contain errors and includes testimony in languages other than English that is not individually marked up for assistive technology.
Steve Novick 6:37 - 8:06
Is Loretta supposed to be here?
Good morning, everyone.
It is Tuesday, August 4th, 2026 at 9:30 AM, and I call this meeting of the Committee and Public Safety Committee to order.
Uh, could the clerk please call the roll?
Keelan McClymont 8:07 - 8:08
Good morning.
Uh, Morillo?
Angelita Morillo 8:10 - 8:10
Here.
Keelan McClymont 8:10 - 8:11
Zimmerman?
Eric Zimmerman 8:11 - 8:11
Here.
Keelan McClymont 8:12 - 8:12
Smith?
Loretta Smith 8:13 - 8:13
Here.
Keelan McClymont 8:13 - 8:14
Kanal?
Sameer Kanal 8:14 - 8:14
Here.
Loretta Smith 8:15 - 8:15
Novick?
Steve Novick 8:15 - 8:15
Here.
Sameer Kanal 8:22 - 8:42
Welcome to the meeting of the Community and Public Safety Committee.
To testify before this committee in person or virtually, you must sign up in advance on the committee agenda at www.portland.gov/council/agenda/community-and-public-safety-committee or by calling 311.
Information on engaging with the committee can be found at this link.
Registration for virtual testimony closes 1 hour prior to the meeting.
Keelan McClymont 8:42 - 9:09
In-person testifiers must sign up before If public testimony will be taken on an item, individuals may testify for 3 minutes unless the Chair states otherwise.
Your microphone will be muted when your time is over.
The Chair preserves order.
Disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others' testimony or committee deliberations will 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, the committee may take a short recess and reconvene virtually.
Sameer Kanal 9:09 - 9:10
Thank you.
Steve Novick 9:12 - 10:36
Thank you, Christopher.
So we need to start by acknowledging that today is August 4th, the anniversary of one of the greatest events in history, which— because it's on August 4th, 1789, that the representatives of the nobility and the clergy in the National Assembly of France rose up to renounce their feudal privileges.
And by the end of the night, the National Assembly had declared that the feudal system is abolished in its entirety.
So I always want to commemorate that fact.
The Oregonian reported this week that Oregon has already set a record for the number of acres burned during a fire season, surpassing 2 million, and we still have 2 months to go.
As we're experiencing this week with our air quality, wildfires across our state impact not only the communities they are in, but also those hundreds of miles away.
Here to discuss the city's response to active wildfires and how we as a community can support those affected particularly residents of the Warm Springs Reservation, are Tribal Relations Manager Gerald Skelton and Portland Fire Chief Lauren Johnson.
Please come up.
Please proceed.
Gerald Skelton 10:37 - 13:50
All righty.
Good morning.
My name is Gerald Skelton.
I'm the Tribal Government Relations Manager for the City of Portland and a member of the Climate Tribes.
Thank you for providing us the opportunity to raise awareness of the current wildfire impacts on tribal lands and possible needs for assistance.
Based on my conversations with the emergency management directors at their respective tribes and communication with Portland Bureau of Emergency Management and Portland Fire and Rescue, this is what we know.
Briefly, members of Portland Fire were deployed to the Warm Springs Reservation for structure protection and to the Bench Fire.
According to the Northwest Coordination Center, the fire has burned more than 64,000 acres.
8 homes and 5 other structures are destroyed as of Thursday.
Keep in mind, this is in regards to the Warm Springs Reservation.
Uh, water.
The most water and most as— and most as well as hygiene products, clothes and blankets are needed.
There is a water conservation order for Warm Springs because the water tanks are at critical levels.
Donation centers are set up throughout the city.
I know there's one at Bison Coffee House.
You can donate things there.
The easiest way to do that is just get the water and take it there, and they'll make sure it gets, gets there directly.
Burns Paiute Tribes are not requesting additional fire protection at this time.
Some tribal members are temporarily housed in hotels, and housing assistance may be needed.
Air quality due to smoke continues to negatively impact the Burns community.
And we could say air quality due to smoke will impact all those tribes that we're talking about today.
As well as the communities.
Umatilla tribes currently have areas under level, level 3 evacuation zones.
However, they are not requesting additional fire protection at this time.
Some tribal, some tribal members are temporarily housed in hotels or using Red Cross shelters.
Air quality due to smoke continues to negatively impact Umatilla communities.
Thank you.
Red flag warnings, high winds, and high temperatures in Southern Oregon means possible wildfire starts in those areas as well.
Oregon tribes in those areas include Cow Creek, Klamath, Coos, and Coquille tribes— Coquille tribes.
Although not in the state of Oregon, Yakama tribes may need wildfire assistance as well.
All efforts to date have been in collaboration with the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management and Portland Fire and Rescue.
We will continue to maintain contact with the emergency managers and designated staff of the 9 Oregon tribes and regional tribes throughout the wildfire season.
Thank you again for affording us the opportunity to raise awareness on the potential needs for assistance amongst the 9 Oregon and regional tribes.
Your time and consideration are greatly appreciated.
Lauren Johnson 13:54 - 17:56
Thanks, Gerald.
Good morning, chairs, um, and committee members.
For the record, my name is Lauren Johnson, and I'm the fire chief for Portland Fire and Rescue.
Thanks for the opportunity to provide an update on Portland Fire and Rescue's wildfire deployments across Oregon, and specifically to fires affecting the Warm Springs Reservation.
We currently have 8 members actively assigned to wildfire incidents throughout the state, our participation is managed through the State Fire Marshal when emergency declarations are made or when the Conflagration Act is invoked.
This year, we've deployed a total of 37 personnel to assist on fires in multiple regions.
Portland Fire's overall capacity to support the state's needs remains strong with 120 trained members across incident management teams, wildland teams, and rapid extrication and medical support.
This is called REMS teams.
It's important for you to know that while we're sending resources out, we continue to prioritize protecting Portland first.
We maintain the same number of frontline firefighters that we do every other day, and we're able to recover our personnel and apparatus costs because we participate according to preexisting agreements and the laws in both the state and federal systems.
Our firefighters and support personnel have been operating on incidents that you've probably heard about.
And Sisters and Warm Springs.
This includes the Cow Butte Fire near Sisters, where our REMS team, made of firefighters who specialize in technical rescue, provide advanced rescue capability for the firefighters working in rugged and remote terrain.
The Bench Fire near Warm Springs has been particularly destructive, burning more than 40,000 acres and destroying homes on the Warm Springs Reservation.
In response, Portland Fire deployed 2 incident management team members to support the statewide coordination of fire resources, and the Multnomah County Strike Team 10, which we are a part of, sent fire engines to protect homes on the reservation.
Over several operational periods, the team worked closely with partners to assess community threats, extinguish hotspots near residents— residences, and later provided structure protection in the Three Rivers community.
This season continues to challenge fire agencies statewide.
Oregon is experiencing record-setting fire activity, like Councilor Novick mentioned at the opening, pushing every department to stretch their limits in an effort to provide aid to others.
Portland Fire and Rescue has been central to several of those efforts.
For the first time, we've launched the standalone RIMS program, which has already proven its value at the fires near Sisters.
We've also helped pioneer mixed county task forces, which brings together partners such as Silverton and Mount Angel with our local resources.
And this approach has strengthened our collective capacity to provide resources to jurisdictions in need during periods of heavy fire demand while still maintaining the protection and capabilities that we need here at home.
As another example, a special PF&R rig from Station 29 was integrated into a Columbia County strike team.
Thank you.
Supporting operations across the state when resource availability is limited for most, if not all, agencies.
In short, Portland Fire and Rescue continues to lead with expertise, adaptability, and commitment.
I've heard from the State Fire Marshal about the importance of our partnership, and I'm grateful to have the support of our city to help others during such devastating times.
I've heard from Mayor Wilson that he is also receiving calls thanking Portland for sharing resources.
We know that fires don't recognize jurisdictional lines, and I believe strongly that these partnerships are a win-win for PF&R and the City of Portland.
Our members are making a meaningful difference on the fire line and in the communities most affected by this historic wildfire season.
Thank you for your support as we continue this critical work, and I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have.
Steve Novick 17:57 - 17:59
Thank you so much.
Councilor Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman 18:02 - 22:08
Thank you.
I don't have any questions, but Chair, I think it was smart to add this to the front of it.
Um, you know, it's present, and, uh, we often think about the towns and what they're going through, right?
And I appreciate you sharing the, the experience of the people where these fires are occurring.
Um, as a member of the National Guard, I've been a part of a task force.
I was a task force commander for about 150 Firefighters, forest firefighters at one point.
I thought I would share a little bit about what it means though in terms of the experience when, when our chief talks about Portlanders, people from our workforce who have picked up and gone to help.
Um, it really exemplifies the, the idea of a go bag, right?
You basically get the call and within hours you're expected to be on the road.
And so that means that there are families here who's having to figure out how to do the thing that 2 parents normally do with 1 parent for a while.
And we're really usually not sure if that's gonna be soccer practice for a week or 4 weeks while somebody's away, getting out to school.
You show up usually at night to a dark fairgrounds, and you realize that there's probably 20 or 30 lines of tents.
Like, when I say tents, I mean the tents you'd buy at REI, right?
People are just laying in tents.
You're gonna go to the restroom, maybe if you're lucky, in a porta-potty while you're deployed.
You're maybe gonna have a shower trailer with cold water.
You might have a stream nearby, but that's kind of what living at fire camp is like.
And you get up 2 or 3 hours before the sun gets up.
And you start moving out because you're pretty far away from the line.
And you go out and you get on the line.
You work all day long and then you come back when it's dark and you do it all over again.
And you use your little headlamp to find your tent where you're sleeping.
And it's a remarkable experience.
It's very rewarding, but it is a sacrifice for our employees, for the The firefighters who do this.
And one of the awesomeness about it is when you go look at the parking lot around one of these fairgrounds or wherever people have set up base camp, and you'll see firefighting apparatus trucks with names of towns you've never heard of from across the West, right?
Small towns all over the place.
It's really, to Chief Johnson's point, it's really remarkable in terms of the way the community shows up to take care of folks.
It doesn't— nobody cares about jurisdictional lines.
That's right.
At that point.
And it's always remarkable to me how the town that's in crisis also shows up, right?
There will be signs, there will be meals, there'll be restaurants with their doors open.
Anybody who's functional will be functional at 110% to take care of those who showed up.
And so the volunteerism and the sacrifice of everybody involved is pretty meaningful.
And it's also oftentimes in Oregon, I don't know many people know this, oftentimes in Oregon we'll see the state penitentiary will be the folks taking care of the life support on these fire camps, right?
So they're cleaning any bathrooms that exist or cleaning shower trailers, they're emptying trash, they're making all the meals.
Often these are prisoners who are on whatever the right term is, work outside work, et cetera.
So it is just a remarkable thing to see if you've been around a fire camp.
And so for those members, Chief, of your force who have deployed to do this, I respect anybody who has a go bag and anybody who is on the road within hours of the call.
That's really important.
And I acknowledge that sacrifice.
I have only done it once and it was a memorable experience and I keep that in my mind.
So thanks, Chair, for putting this forward because this is a record-setting year and it's— Portland doesn't always understand or feel that pinch that Central and Eastern and Southern Oregon feel almost every summer.
So thank you.
Steve Novick 22:08 - 22:21
Yes, thank you so much.
And although it's terrible that these destructive fires are raging, it's heartwarming to know that we are able to help.
It's— so, oh, Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal 22:22 - 23:47
Yeah, thank you.
And obviously we know that folks around the region are dealing with a lot.
I have friends in Spokane who I know are dealing with a lot, as well as around the state.
And it's always appreciated to know both how much we do in support, but also that the mutual aid is— it's obviously mutual.
So when we're in need, I also know that you're dealing with a lot locally.
I mean, obviously we had the Centennial Mills fire over the last day.
So that's something where we are appreciative of the work of your members, of your staff.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I'm looking forward to kind of following up on this conversation, and I'm curious how often we can sort of do this where we're able to talk about it maybe before next year's season.
Obviously, we don't know what the committees will look like next year, but just wanted to kind of flag that it'd be great to have that opportunity.
I also know that there's need for, going back to the sort of first part of the presentation here, some of our neighbors in reservations are in need of water, drinking water right now.
And so I think we'll be collecting water at— I'm doing a picnic this Sunday.
We'll be collecting water there.
And I'm sure there's many other opportunities.
If there's anything that you'd like us to boost to help with our neighbors there, please let me know.
I'm happy to send it around.
Thanks.
Steve Novick 23:50 - 23:50
Thank you.
Denise Peña 23:53 - 23:53
Thank you.
Lauren Johnson 23:54 - 23:54
Thank you.
Steve Novick 23:56 - 24:59
So I'm going to restructure the agenda a bit.
We're actually going to start with our guests from Multnomah County Department of Community Justice, then move on to the 2 grant items, then to the psychedelic item, and conclude with the concealed carry ordinance.
So first, I want to establish a practice of hearing from our county partners in public safety because the police and the police, fire, or other public safety aspects of the city are part of a system that includes the county.
And I hope to have the county ambulance folks come at some point, the DA, the sheriff.
But today I'm honored to have Denise Peña, Director of Multnomah County Department of Community Justice, to talk a bit about their work and the intersection of their work and ours.
And we'll have commentary from some city folks about that afterwards.
So thank you.
Keelan McClymont 25:01 - 25:02
Before we—.
Steve Novick 25:02 - 25:05
Oh, sorry, I forgot to ask you to read the— I forgot to ask the clerk to read the first item.
Keelan McClymont 25:06 - 25:10
I was going to say, can we read both the first item, which is the minutes, and then I can—.
Kari Mosdin 25:10 - 25:12
After we approve that, I can read the next item.
Steve Novick 25:12 - 25:12
Thank you.
Keelan McClymont 25:13 - 25:24
Oh, that's just fine.
Item number 1, June 2, 2026 to June 16, 2026, Community and Public Safety Committee meeting minutes.
Steve Novick 25:26 - 25:29
And I forget, do we need to vote in accepting the minutes?
Keelan McClymont 25:29 - 25:33
So long as there's no objection, they can be approved with unanimous consent.
Steve Novick 25:34 - 25:37
Uh, any objection?
Okay, thank you.
Loretta Smith 25:39 - 25:39
Perfect.
Keelan McClymont 25:39 - 25:52
Uh, let's see, item number 2, formerly noticed as item number 4, document number 2026-279, Multnomah County Department of Community Justice.
Sameer Kanal 25:52 - 26:02
Point of information, I, I have no concern with the reordering, but don't we have to do the reordering?
Don't we like need to do some sort of unanimous consent on that?
Keelan McClymont 26:04 - 26:07
So long as nobody— yes, you can do it by unanimous consent.
Steve Novick 26:08 - 26:15
Okay.
Do we have unanimous consent?
Yeah, I just— Yeah, sorry.
Okay.
All right.
Director Peña, please proceed.
Denise Peña 26:16 - 32:56
Good morning.
Thank you.
Good morning, councilors.
My name is Denise Peña.
I am the director of the Department of Community Justice, and I use she and her pronouns.
And I am joined this morning by our DCJ leadership team who will be introducing themselves a little bit later in the presentation.
Thank you to Councilor Novick and the entire Community of Public Safety Committee for inviting DCJ here today.
We are honored to share the work of our department and also elevate the ways that we are partnering and collaborating with the City of Portland in support of public safety.
DCJ is committed to our role as a key part of the greater Portland metro region's public safety system, providing supervision and services to justice-involved youth, adults, families, crime victims, and survivors.
As the Greater Portland metro region looks to revitalize and spur economic growth, public safety is an integral part of laying the groundwork for this revitalization, and we are firmly committed to this.
Our role is one of the least lesser-known roles in the criminal justice system, but it is a critical piece that supports behavior change— excuse me— contributing to safer communities.
And I'm looking forward to sharing a bit more of the how we do this work with you all this morning.
Thank you, Deputy City Attorney Nancy Thorington.
We're going to start with an overview of our department, core services, and funding before going into a more detailed overview work of our 3 divisions.
And we'll conclude with a focus on collaboration with the City of Portland and broader public safety system coordination.
And some of our partners are in the room with us today, and we're happy they're here.
And we are happy to take questions throughout the end, but we do have some side— some time set aside at the end as well.
DCJ's vision is community safety through positive change.
We aim to enhance community safety and reduce criminal activity by holding youth and adults accountable in a fair and just manner, assisting them to develop skills necessary for success, and effectively utilizing public resources.
And we have a core belief that people can change.
We accomplish this by offering supervision and services to justice-involved youth, adults, families, and crime survivors.
Our efforts rely on a very close partnership with public safety entities, including the Sheriff's Office, the District Attorney's Office, the courts, Portland Police, and the Office of Violence Prevention, as well as several key community partners.
In the last year, our dedicated DCJ staff of over 400 supported more than 10,000 justice-involved individuals.
And as you see here, this included over 7,000 justice-involved adults on either probation or post-prison supervision, over 1,000 cases for justice-involved youth, including youth diverted from the criminal justice system, youth admitted and supported in our juvenile detention facility in Northeast Portland and on probation or pre-adjudication status, and over 2,400 victims of crime during the post-adjudication phase.
The department has core mandates that we're required to deliver on based on Oregon Revised Statutes, or ORS.
In times of financial constraint at the state and county level like we're in now, we have to focus on how best we maintain these core services while maintaining committed to our community values.
Community corrections structure, structure vary county by county.
Here in Multnomah County, both adult and juvenile services are housed under one community justice umbrella.
Our 3 divisions deliver on these mandates.
The Adult Services Division manages supervision, sanctions, and services for adults on probation and post-prison supervision.
Our Juvenile Services Division manages pre-adjudication and probation supervision, and a juvenile detention for justice-involved youth.
And our director's office provides state-mandated victim and survivor notification and services post-conviction.
And they are also where our departmental infrastructure and policy alignment are housed.
And you're going to hear from our 3 division directors on this work directly.
Our total operating budget is nearly $116 million.
This funds 413 full-time equivalent, or FTE, positions that support client services that ranges from reentry support to behavioral health and treatment programs and community program.
And DCJ has 2 main sources of funding.
Our Multnomah County general fund accounts for approximately 71% of our funding.
As the city was finalizing their budget this summer, so was the county, with DCJ having to make difficult reductions amounting approximately to 5% from our previous fiscal year.
State funding is our second largest funding source in adult services, adult supervision, known as Community Corrections State Grant-in-Aid or Senate Bill 1145.
We also have funding from the state for treatment courts that we have for mental health and substance abuse disorders that we participate in.
And we also have our Multnomah County Justice Reinvestment Program that aims to reduce the reliance on prison usage by providing intensive community supervision for those eligible individuals.
Excuse me.
In our juvenile services, this supports detention diversion and gang transition services through our JCP, or the Juvenile Crime Prevention Plan, with the Oregon Youth Authority and the Oregon Department of Education.
And we also have a family resolution services team.
DCJ works within a network of criminal justice systems partners, and it is only through our strong partnership and collaboration that we can deliver on our vision of community safety through positive change.
And this specifically includes a partnership with the District Attorney's Office on victim and survivor services at the approach of sentencing, working with the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office to manage jail capacity in line with our community corrections plan, and providing 24/7 response when individuals on supervision come into contact with police, enabling parole officers to address potential violations.
Kyla and I, to my left, serve as members of the Local Public Safety Coordinated Council alongside Councilor Novick.
DCJ also contributes to the goals of the Homeless Respond Action Plan through housing and treatment programs provided for adults and youth on DCJ supervision and defection planning and implementation.
We also coordinate and receive guidance from state agencies as well.
The Department of Corrections, or DOC, oversees our Community Corrections Plan and corresponding requirements for SB 1145 funds.
The parole board and the courts serve as the supervisory authority that determine conditions of supervision and sanctions.
We also work with the courts through our treatment courts program, and the Oregon Youth Authority, or OYA, manages the juvenile crime prevention plan for basic and diversion services and gang transition funds, and their facilities receive youth that transition out of our juvenile detention facility post-adjudication when confinement is ordered.
And now I'm going to hand it over to Tyra Hubbard, who is our Adult Services Division Director, to cover the work of her division.
Tyra Hubbard 32:56 - 40:34
Good morning, councilors.
For the record, I am Tyra Hubbard, Director of the Adult Services Division, or ASD, and I use she/her pronouns.
Thank you for the invitation to share more about our work in collaboration with the city.
The Adult Services Division is Multnomah County's community corrections provider.
We provide probation and post- prison supervision, sanctions, and services for justice-involved adults post-conviction.
We operate out of 5 locations, 4 within the city— Portland city limits.
We're at the Mead downtown at 5th and Washington, and we house numerous specialty units including our Stabilization and Readiness Program, which I'll cover in more detail.
We're also at East Campus, and Gresham are 2 of our other main supervision locations.
We also have staff at the courthouse to support intake, post-sentencing, and also at the Justice Center to provide custody and release services.
This is a map of where Adult Services clients are located.
The highest concentration is indicated with the darker purple, with concentrations across Northwest, Southwest, and East Portland.
The orange markers are ASD's anchor buildings.
Where the majority of our supervision units are located.
In the next year, the county is moving forward with our expansion at the East Campus to better align our services where our clients live.
The black markers noted are ASD's satellite offices.
ASD supervises over 7,000 adults annually sentenced to probation, parole, and post-prison supervision.
At any point throughout the year, we have approximately 4,500 individuals on active supervision with our over 100 parole and probation officers, referred to as POs.
In the upper right of this slide, you can see the ethnic breakdown of individuals on supervision, with over 60% identified as white, nearly 24% as Black African American, and 9% as Hispanic.
The disproportionality of this based on Multnomah County demographics, also shown here, underlies why we emphasize culturally responsive services to to meet the diverse needs of our clients.
Some additional data about our population is reflected in the next 2 pie charts in the second row.
Of the over 7,000 adults on supervision annually, 79% of ASD's clients were on for felony supervision, and over 50% were on supervision for a crime that was committed against another person.
You can see the risk level is determined through the Public Safety Checklist, known as the PSC, completed by our POs.
With over 75% of our clients at high or medium risk to reoffend, this drives case management practices as outlined in Oregon Administrative Rule.
I'll now walk through how our clients come onto supervision with DCJ post-conviction.
We are funded by the state to supervise all felonies, drug enforcement misdemeanors, Sex Abuse 3, and domestic violence assault 4 and domestic violence menacing crimes.
In addition, DCJ, through our county general fund dollars, also supervises over 500 individuals on supervision for non-state-funded misdemeanors.
All clients on supervision come to ASD with specific supervision conditions based on the supervisory authority process, which then drives— oh, sorry, based on the supervisory authority.
These are reviewed during the intake and assessment process, which then drives our responsive case planning.
This includes identifying the criminogenic needs most likely to reduce the risk to reoffend.
POs then introduce skills such as decision-making and problem-solving, as well as referrals to treatment.
This slide shows the path of an individual assigned to supervision within ASD.
Our intake unit will review and connect clients with the transition services unit for access to basic needs that can include housing support, Health and community services, telephone access, or bus tickets.
Clients are assigned to specialized caseloads, including our African American, Latino unit, domestic violence, sex crimes, gang unit, mental health, women and family services, and our treatment courts.
That ensures culturally responsive and specialized supervision and services.
Our POs complete a needs assessment that drives the responsive case planning, and that is the core of our community supervision.
Our community corrections intergovernmental agreement with the Department of Corrections governs this work, including supervision, sanctions, and services.
Supervision is the main component of this work, as outlined here.
This means we have to meet the minimum contact standards in the office, in the field, and develop case plans to address based on their risk level, which is determined through assessments completed at intake.
We address criminogenic needs such as antisocial behavior, pro-criminal attitudes, lack of employment or substance abuse, and responsivity needs such as gender, culture, mental health, and cognition, as outlined on the screen.
All of this work is essential to support public safety by changing behaviors.
In line with this, POs recommend sanctions when conditions of release are violated based on Oregon Administrative Rules, Oregon Revised statute and the requirements of the releasing authority, with interventions also outlined on the screen.
POs also integrate connections to services based on criminogenic need, which impacts their risk to recidivate.
Multnomah County has, has historically supported expanded access to housing and employment services as funding is available, with significant recent decreases due to budget constraints.
But the key services required by ORS include cognitive behavioral services, substance use disorder, mental health treatment, and domestic violence and sex offense treatment.
I'd like to highlight one of our specialty units and services that is specifically aimed to support clients with behavioral health needs: our mental health unit and stabilization and readiness program that are located in the Mead Building in downtown Portland.
Our mental health unit supervises nearly 450 adults annually, and that includes participants in mental health treatment court.
Community supervision is focused on addressing risk, need, and responsivity for client success.
So I'd also like to share an example of our responsivity work that most effectively reaches the needs of individuals assigned to the mental health unit.
This is known as the Stabilization and Readiness Program, often referred to as SARP plays a crucial role in connecting clients with acute mental health challenges and housing instability with supervision and services in a day center format, helping to keep the streets of downtown Portland safer during business hours.
This program was established during the pandemic when DCJ saw a need where our clients were so acute that providers were not able to work with them.
Each year, this program supports over 280 of the 450 clients from our mental health specialty unit in response to their identified needs.
To give you more context about the clients served by SARP, nearly 70% of clients using SARP are on high or medium risk supervision, and nearly 62% have committed a person-to-person crime.
Clients who've engaged with SARP show more positive outcomes engaging with supervision, with 28% entering into treatment, and our absconding rates have decreased by over 50%.
This means clients are engaging with services, working through their supervision towards positive change.
I'm now going to hand it over to Dr. Kyla Armstrong Romero, our Juvenile Services Division Director, to cover the work of that division.
Kyla Armstrong Romero 40:36 - 50:32
Good morning, councilors.
For the record, my name is Dr. Kyla Armstrong Romero.
I'm the Director of the Juvenile Services Division, also known as JSD, with the Department of Community Justice, and my pronouns are she and her.
Thank you for having us here today to share the vital work our team carries out every day across Multnomah County.
At JSD, our vision is rooted in community safety and opportunity for young people and their families.
Our division operates a comprehensive spectrum of youth-focused services.
This includes juvenile detention operations, diversion and informal intervention pathways, restorative practices, pre-adjudication support, and community-based Post-adjudication supervision at the Donald E. Long Juvenile Detention Facility.
We fulfill our mandate to provide secure short-term detention for youth arrested in Multnomah County.
Detention is reserved for individuals identified as a public safety risk or a risk to reoffend, ensuring safety for the community while youth navigate the pre-adjudication legal process.
Finally, operating out of the Multnomah County Courthouse, We have our Family Resolution Services team.
They provide civil court support.
We deliver domestic relations mediation, parent orientation, and guidance for families navigating complex domestic disputes and court processes.
On the map in front of you, you can see where justice-impacted youth on supervision are located throughout Multnomah County and the Portland metro region, with a heavier concentration of youth on the east side The orange marker on the map indicates the location of the Juvenile Justice Complex and the detention facility in Northeast Portland.
Here's a high-level snapshot of who we serve at JSD.
Across our division over the last reporting year, JSD supported over 1,000 cases involving youth aged 12 to 21.
Most recently, we've had an 11-year-old.
Broken down across our units, That includes over 180 youth admitted into our detention facility, over 250 cases supported through pre-education, over 180 youth diverted from formal processing, and over 400 youth receiving community supervision on probation.
Outside youth supervision, our Family Resolution Services supported nearly 2,500 parents navigating domestic relations, and our team has processed over 450 juvenile expungements.
I want to pause on the second row because it reflects the serious nature of the cases before us.
Over 67% of the youth on our probation caseload are assessed at high or medium risk to reoffend on the Juvenile Crime Prevention Scale, which is a validated risk assessment.
Furthermore, over 42% of our cases involve serious felony allegations.
In a climate where we are seeing high-risk youth behavior and the devastating impacts of community gun violence, our response requires robust oversight and meaningful accountability to ensure public safety and enforce court compliance.
JSD utilizes tools including community monitoring 7 days a week, as well as electronic monitoring.
Every youth on pre- or post-adjudication supervision is held to structured responsive case plan designed to maintain boundaries while addressing the root behaviors driving high-risk actions and to ensure victim safety.
Looking at demographic data, nearly 35% of youth served identify as Black or African American, and over 22% identify as Hispanic.
As you compare this to Multnomah County's overall demographics, the dramatic overrepresentation of Black and African American youth in our system remains a stark reality that we cannot ignore.
Unlike upstream prevention efforts, our mandated services operate downstream at the point where severe harm or risk has already occurred.
Our goal is to provide meaningful off-ramps that stop the cycle of violence through responsive supervision and systemic reform.
Our programs are designed to provide off-ramps from overall community justice involvement and integrate culturally responsive approaches while simultaneously seeking systematic approaches in reform.
Building on Denise's point about the Local Public Safety Coordinating Council, I chair one of its active subcommittees, the Juvenile Justice Steering Committee, where we bring key partners together to strengthen our county's juvenile justice system.
We recently received a presentation from the City of Portland Ceasefire Team, and we remain fully committed to aligning our goals, sharpening response to violence, and enhancing joint leadership with our city partners.
This slide outlines our structural workflow and services at JSD built around targeted oversight, structured accountability, and youth development.
Regardless of how youth enter the system, through detention or police referral, allegations are triaged based on level and severity.
Low-level offenses are directed toward early intervention, diversion, or informal processing, while serious and violent allegations move directly into formal court proceedings.
Community supervision services encompass pre-adjudication diversion and informal supervision units.
These teams work directly with youth and families to navigate the legal process, conduct validated risk and needs assessments, and enforce compliance while linking youth to community support and community interventions.
When a youth is adjudicated and placed on probation, our juvenile court counselors, our JCCs, provide intensive post-adjudication supervision.
JCCs monitor court-ordered probation conditions, ensure compliance, and track progress.
To address complex risks and maintain community safety, our JCCs operate in specialty units with dedicated training to supervise specific high-risk populations.
As part of this work, our staff participate in collaborative meetings with the City of Portland to align resources, share relevant insights, and ensure we're providing comprehensive supervision for youth.
Spanning both detention and community supervision, our restorative practices team combines active accountability with skill building.
This team also facilitates restorative justice processes that hold youth accountable directly to harmed parties and the community, such as the partnership with Lutheran Community Services that you heard about in June.
We also have our juvenile detention services that I will provide more detail on.
The Donald E. Long Juvenile Detention Facility is one of 11 youth detention facilities in the state of Oregon.
It is structurally and programmatically designed as a short-term facility to hold youth while they move through the juvenile court proceedings.
As shown here— as shown in an earlier slide, I'm sorry— during our last reporting year, there were 182 admissions to our juvenile detention facility.
Our facility serves youth brought into detention by local law enforcement within Multnomah County, many of which are facilitated by the Portland Police Bureau.
Each youth brought into detention is reviewed using a validated detention screening instrument that assesses public safety risk score, as well as the risk for failure to appear at court appearances to determine whether a youth should be detained or released to a parent or guardian while they await the adjudication process.
Our detention facility prioritizes evidence-based practices to provide developmentally appropriate and trauma-informed care.
Based on our current fiscal year 2027 budget allocation, our facility is staffed for a total of a total capacity of 36 beds, which are allocated as 29 beds for Multnomah County youth and 7 beds reserved for other required holds.
In addition to Multnomah County youth, we're legally required to hold youth under the Interstate Compact, the Oregon Juvenile Department Directors Association, OJDDA, mutual aid agreements, out-of-state runaways, and Oregon Youth Authority sanctioned youth.
I want to provide a little bit of context on our juvenile detention population, length of stay, and allegation trends that impact our resource needs and response.
These graphs illustrate a significant shift in our detention population for Multnomah County youth over the last 5 years.
On the left, you see the population delineated by allegation type.
Since fiscal year '23, we've seen a steady influx of SB 1008 cases which keeps serious violent Measure 11 allegations in juvenile court rather than them being automatically waived to adult court.
The severity of the allegations are resulting in an increased length of, length of stay, which is shown on the chart on the right.
I mentioned that our detention facility is intended for short-term confinement.
However, today we are seeing an unprecedented increase in youth held for over 500 days.
Approximately 25% of our average daily population falls into this category.
In the last 6 months, we've reached this capacity several times, and the County Board of Commissioners adopted a resolution on July 2nd that governs our release procedures in the event of a population emergency that mirrors the sheriff's jail capacity management plan.
I wanted to highlight the allegations and length of stay to underline that our system is under strain.
Not only are we supporting youth and families through complex justice proceedings, but we're also responding to increasing mental health needs of youth amidst significant resource constraints.
I will now hand the floor over to direct— our Deputy Director Suzanne Brown McBride to review the work of the Director's Office.
Suzanne Brown McBride 50:33 - 52:19
Good morning, councilors.
I'm Suzanne Brown McBride.
I'm DCJ's Deputy Director, and I use she/her pronouns.
I'll present a very brief overview of the work that DCJ's Director's Office for you today.
Our office provides critical infrastructure to both Adult and Juvenile Services Division, as well as direct client support through our Victim and Survivor Services Unit, and that's what I'll be focusing on here today.
Within the Director's Office, our Victim and Survivor Services Unit supports crime victims and survivors harmed by justice-involved individuals on supervision with DCJ, that is post-adjudication.
They provide 3 key services for victims: informing of rights, providing notifications of critical stages in the justice process, both of which are constitutionally mandated here in Oregon, and additional advocacy to help victims and survivors understand their rights and options and identify supportive resources and support them in navigating the complex post-conviction system.
The team informed over 3,800 victims in the last reporting year of their rights, with nearly 2,500 of those victims opting in to receive notifications, and over 1,000 of those victims were supported with additional advocacy that can include things like safety planning and connection to additional resources.
We continue to leverage technical advancements as we improve this work.
For example, a new online platform called Case Companion was launched in this last year to help victims of crime understand their rights and stay informed about the justice process in Multnomah County.
This platform is designed for victims pre- and post-adjudication, enables a better handoff between our colleagues in the District Attorney's Office and DCJ once cases are adjudicated.
Our advocates also participate in multidisciplinary forums such as the Domestic Violence Enhanced Response Team, or DIVERT, as well as the restorative justice work through Lutheran Community Service contract implemented with our Juvenile Services Division that Kyla mentioned earlier.
I'll hand it back to Denise to cover more about our collaboration with the city and public safety coordination.
Denise Peña 52:19 - 56:32
Thank you, Suzanne.
We've covered the core of our work, and collaborate— and collaboration with the City of Portland is woven through everything we do, from early youth prevention with OVP and active field enforcement with the Portland Police Bureau.
And I'll highlight a few areas of collaboration specifically.
One of our most basic but essential functions, or essential areas that we rely on, is a strong partnership with PPB is on law enforcement coordination.
This involves not only our ability to access police reports, but we also have staff that connect law enforcement to a supervising officer 24/7.
This allows us to interrupt and intervene, and it is also critical to enforce probation violations, and without this, we cannot conduct our work.
Gun violence and community safety are challenges that do not stop at jurisdictional lines.
Over the last several years, DCJ has strengthened partnerships with the city to focus on coordination and responses within City of Portland entities.
On the adult side, our probation officers work directly alongside the Portland Police Bureau's focused intervention team that aims to reduce gun violence in real time.
During the recent summer cooldown mission, our POs were able to provide support and contributed to multiple firearm seizures and identifying robbery suspects leading to swift arrest.
Unfortunately, with budget constraints, our ability to authorize overtime for these type of missions is increasingly limited, but we're appreciative the POs are able to flex schedules to support missions such as these.
We have a dedicated PO that covers a sex trafficking caseload, and he works and coordinates closely with PPB's Human Trafficking Unit.
DCJ also participates alongside PPB and other criminal justice partners on the multidisciplinary divert to respond to high-lethality domestic violence cases that Suzanne referenced.
Both of our adult and juvenile staff are actively engaged with the community and participate in Portland events, whether it's our JCC's presence at the Wear Orange event in June and partnering with OVP during Youth Violent Prevention Week to speak directly to students across Portland Public Schools, or our PO's presence during high-profile gun violence or homicide trials and at community celebrations like Good in the Hood and the Mississippi Street Fair, we are partners in supporting a safe environment for all.
In that light, we're happy to participate in the Safe Blocks Program National Night Out and join the event at Director Park last Friday.
These are great opportunities to connect with our local public safety partners and community members to share our vision of community safety through positive change.
And as you can see, our collaboration is constant, dynamic, and we are deeply appreciative of our partners with OVP team and PPB command staff.
Before we close, I'll briefly discuss impacts across the public safety system.
DCJ sits at the end of the public safety continuum after arrests, prosecution, and adjudication has taken place.
This means that the work of the Portland Police, the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office, and the courts directly impacts the level of service and corresponding workload that will be required from DCJ.
Thank you.
As conditions change and charges increase, so do the requirements for our staff.
The length of time that DCJ engages with justice-involved individuals and crime victims through juvenile pre-adjudication support and juvenile and adult community supervision is the longest in the criminal justice continuum, ranging from 90 days to 3 years, and we even have some limited cases that have lifetime supervision.
We are seeing increased needs for our core legally mandated services We do not have the corresponding increase in resources to fund and staff the route services required.
Instead, we see our resources continue to decrease.
Housing and shelter is another area that DCJ has historically been able to allocate resources to respond to the housing needs of our clients on supervision.
However, these resources are increasingly being reduced and are compounded by reductions across the county and the city.
For example, in FY25, we reduced almost $2 million in housing contracts specifically designated for our clients as a result of state reductions in our Senate Bill 1145 funding.
To respond to these dynamics in a time of constraint, collaboration is needed more than ever, and we are happy to be here today in advance of this collaboration.
We are happy to take any questions or hear your feedback on how we can further strengthen this partnership.
Thank you for your time.
Steve Novick 56:35 - 56:36
Thank you.
Councilor Morillo.
Angelita Morillo 56:39 - 57:01
Um, thank you so much.
Thanks for this presentation.
It was really helpful to hear about all the things that you're working on.
Um, I was curious on the slide about the DeLong facility, is there any information with disaggregated data around which, uh, like demographics are being held longer, or is there any difference at all that you've seen?
Is that publicly available?
Kyla Armstrong Romero 57:02 - 57:12
We can absolutely provide the council with more data We've provided that to our subcommittee, our Juvenile Justice Steering Committee, and so we can definitely— we have that data available.
Angelita Morillo 57:14 - 57:55
Yeah, I'd be very curious to see that because I suspect that we are seeing youth of color, Black youth, being held a lot longer in those spaces than others.
And I'm just curious, like, what is being worked on to address that?
I'm assuming there's a disparity.
My staffer recently went to a juvenile detention facility and did a tour and had those discussions.
And obviously a lot of what we heard back was that a lot of the folks that are being held there, it's also largely crimes of poverty and things like that.
So I would just like to know more details on that.
Do you know off the top of your head if there is a disparity, even if you don't have specific numbers?
Kyla Armstrong Romero 57:56 - 58:02
There is a disparity, and I had the pleasure of being the person who co-facilitated that tour with your staff.
Angelita Morillo 58:02 - 58:03
Oh, wonderful.
Kyla Armstrong Romero 58:03 - 58:12
I had the opportunity to And so I, I can say certainly there is a disparity.
Okay.
Angelita Morillo 58:13 - 58:20
Um, is there anything that we as the city can do to sort of help address that from a policy or funding perspective?
Kyla Armstrong Romero 58:21 - 1:00:30
I think that, you know, with the conversations that are currently happening with youth and gun violence, and, um, especially the last, you know, 2 years, weekend, um, having more conversations about targeted interventions.
And one of the things that is impacting our system, uh, more than ever is the number of kids in detention.
So we have a lot of kids in detention who are waiting much longer for their cases to be heard and/or waiver process.
So we have kids who have more significant cases who are pending waiver.
Although since SB 1008 passed in 2020, there have been zero kids in Multnomah County that have been successfully waived to adult court.
However, going through the process takes a long time.
So notably last year, we had a kid who was there for over 920 days waiting for their case.
To, to move through the court system.
And so I— it's, it's tough.
Um, we've had to piece together things for kids because we are truly meant to be a short-term detention center.
And so we don't have funding for like college-level courses, things like that.
We're only required to, uh, do kind of the, the basic K through 12 education.
And so trying to figure out when we have kids who graduate Last year we had 6 kids graduate while in detention, which is— we think great, yay.
However, the fact that they're there long enough and some of them came in with 8th grade reading levels and then completed, that's quite significant.
So I think having more conversations, more targeted partnerships, especially with the city— we have really great partnerships with OVP and Ceasefire team.
And so just continuing to strategize about the community interventions and targeted interventions that can help.
I think that that's the long-winded answer.
Unidentified speaker 1:00:31 - 1:00:31
Can I actually—.
Angelita Morillo 1:00:32 - 1:00:35
Not long-winded at all.
I think very— oh, sorry, feel free to jump in.
Unidentified speaker 1:00:35 - 1:01:19
Yeah, no apologies.
I just wanted to answer, like, there's sort of like 2 levels of compounding pressures going on here, right?
It's what Kyla was just talking about in terms of how are we getting kids through the detention facility itself quickly.
You know, the average length of stay for kids in the facility is somewhere around 30 days.
And so when you're thinking We don't have the programming or the staffing to be able to really meet the needs of the kids while they're there.
So I think the policy question is really what are we doing to get kids through the facility as quickly as possible?
And that has to do with the prosecutorial challenges, judicial challenges that we're talking about.
But then as the kids are there, recognizing that these are more and more serious crimes that are taking longer to adjudicate, are we effectively supporting them in that context and able to provide them with the services that they need?
Kari Mosdin 1:01:19 - 1:01:19
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker 1:01:19 - 1:01:28
With the kinds of programming that will help keep them out and be successful once they ultimately do leave the facility.
So I think that those are sort of like the compounding pressures that we're feeling, particularly in detention.
Denise Peña 1:01:29 - 1:01:58
The other point I would add is that to your earlier question in terms of who is currently in detention, essentially we are kind of the receiver of those that get either remanded or being held prejudication.
And so that is happening more at the court level with between the courts, the DA and the defense attorney in terms of making the decision of who is the one, who are the youth that are actually held or not held.
And so at that point, you know, we just get the court orders and we ensure that the youth are being held safely and secure in our facility.
Angelita Morillo 1:02:00 - 1:02:34
Gotcha.
So would you say that this DA is pushing to hold these youth in this detention facility longer?
Because obviously we have a defense attorney crisis.
We definitely don't have enough people there representing, so our entire court system is extremely slow.
But does that play a role in that?
And how has the DA stepped in to sort of address these concerns?
Because it does seem like a lot of these youth are being confined without due process for, if, you know, 500 days, more than a year.
That's basically a sentence.
Kyla Armstrong Romero 1:02:36 - 1:03:01
I would say that we have seen— there was a period of time where the District Attorney's Office had a backlog of cases.
Specific to the juvenile courts.
And so there was a change in the, um, the juvenile deputy DA, and with that change in December of 2025, we noticed many more cases kind of moving more quickly through the system.
Loretta Smith 1:03:01 - 1:03:02
Mm-hmm.
Kyla Armstrong Romero 1:03:02 - 1:04:11
And most recently yesterday, I was attending a preliminary hearing in court, and I heard feedback that we are seeing cases move Quicker throughout the process.
And I think that there's compounding issues, if you will, of the crisis, the shortage of public defenders.
I think there's also a shortage of evaluators.
So when you waive kids to— when you're trying to waive kids to adult court, there's only a certain number of evaluators in the state that can fully evaluate youth.
And so, um, that's part of what has taken so long.
So I wouldn't say it's one issue over another.
I will say that there is more of a penchant to hold youth now who have firearm-related charges, and we are seeing that especially if it's their second firearm-related charge or third.
There's less likelihood for them to be released out in the community.
And that's, that's what we're seeing more of.
Angelita Morillo 1:04:13 - 1:04:26
Gotcha.
Okay.
Sounds like we have a loss of manpower within the whole criminal justice system overall that's slowing things down.
And a lot of folks needed to support in that space.
So thank you for your time.
Appreciate it.
Tyra Hubbard 1:04:27 - 1:04:27
Thank you.
Steve Novick 1:04:30 - 1:04:50
I put myself in the queue to ask about the availability of mental health treatment.
I mean, I would hope that most people in your system are eligible for Medicaid and theoretically are eligible then for treatment.
But I'm just curious, you highlighted the importance of mental health treatment.
I'm just curious about the availability and any problems with availability.
Tyra Hubbard 1:04:52 - 1:05:52
I think on the adult side, many of them are eligible for Medicaid.
There's never enough mental health treatment providers.
Available at the time that someone needs them.
We ourselves do not provide mental health treatment.
That's outside the scope of our work, but we connect with multiple partners who provide that.
Oftentimes there's a wait for our clients, really trying to get the sun, the moon, and the stars to align to get the Medicaid insurance going, to get them at the time that they're reporting and they're ready to engage in treatment, whether that, that be mental health treatment or substance use disorder treatment or any sort of cognitive behavioral.
It's certainly easier when we have residential beds available, when we have outpatient bed or outpatient services readily available.
Waitlists don't work great for our population.
We would definitely benefit from more mental health treatment access, specifically residential options.
Steve Novick 1:05:53 - 1:06:10
And how would that happen?
Would that be a matter of more state resources being dedicated, more county resources?
I mean, who is there?
I don't even know.
I mean, does the county health department have a mental health unit that you engage with, or is it mostly through, you know, Medicaid in the state?
Tyra Hubbard 1:06:11 - 1:07:06
Yes, through the county mental health services, as well as nonprofits, as well as for-profits, medical providers.
Anywhere that we can get folks in.
When we were talking about our, our SARP population, our stabilization program, many of those individuals are so acute they are not able to engage in mental health treatment because they're not stabilized.
That's why we developed that program.
They're unhoused, they're unfed, they're unmedicated, and they're also on supervision for person crimes against people.
So their behavior is also— can be volatile.
So that's really where we step in.
Thank you.
Is we work with them on managing some of those criminal behaviors to get them stabilized enough, as well as those humanitarian needs, food, safety, stabilization, so that we can get them able to engage with some of our mental health treatment partners.
Denise Peña 1:07:07 - 1:07:51
And I would also add is that SARP is a program that we received ARPA dollars several years ago, and we created this program specifically to address the needs That was being unmet for our clients.
This program had several years of one-time-only funding.
We were able to get it with ongoing general fund last year.
But again, as our resources, whether it's cuts at the county or the state level, are reduced and we have to prioritize the core mandated services, which for adult is supervision, in theory, that is a program that could become— that could be at risk because it does not fulfill the supervision piece of it.
But we know it provides the skills and stability that our clients require, especially our most vulnerable clients, to be successful on supervision.
Unidentified speaker 1:07:53 - 1:08:46
I would also say that there's been an enormous amount of discussion at the county level about, you know, can you be more efficient, can you try to sort of harmonize services, and we absolutely look for every opportunity to do that.
At the same time though, you know, when we talk to our community service providers or some of the other folks that provide these services, our clients do tend to sort of slip to the back of the line.
They tend to be the less desirable clients to serve, either because that's part of the reason why DCJ originally got into the business of funding housing independently, was to try to make sure that we had a pool of resources available specifically for our clients.
As those resources have started to dry up and as the lines for services have gotten longer and longer, sort of, you know, you're always trying to sort of struggle with all of the folks that need services and how to triage them.
And so I think the challenge for our supervising officers and community partners is, you know, how do we make sure that we're not how to get our folks into the door and served when there are so many other folks who also have need.
Steve Novick 1:08:49 - 1:08:50
Thank you.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal 1:08:51 - 1:09:14
Thank you.
Uh, I have 3 questions about slide 12 on the adult side, and then I might have a couple on slide 16 as well, but I'll start with slide 12.
Um, the first one is, is just for follow-up.
Is there, uh, disaggregated data On basically, do you have the demographics for each of the crime classes, each of the crime types, each of the risk levels?
Tyra Hubbard 1:09:15 - 1:09:47
I don't have those available.
Those are certainly information we can get.
The crime types, it's a little harder to look at that because oftentimes people are on for multiple different types of crimes.
They receive one risk score based on the public safety checklist, but they may be on probation, post-prison supervision.
They may be on for a theft.
So typically what we do when we look at crime types is we look at the most serious.
So putting it within the 2 buckets of a person or sort of non-person, that's information that we could compile.
Sameer Kanal 1:09:48 - 1:09:59
Okay, that makes sense.
In the context, I mean, I know we talked in the juvenile sense on disparity.
I mean, would you, looking at this, there is a disparity, right?
Keelan McClymont 1:09:59 - 1:09:59
Yes.
Sameer Kanal 1:10:00 - 1:10:07
And you're saying that based off of Just the 23.9% compared to the 6.4%, the 60% compared to the 77%, right?
Tyra Hubbard 1:10:07 - 1:10:07
Correct.
Sameer Kanal 1:10:08 - 1:10:20
Okay.
Why— I know there was a discussion of some of the impacts of that when we did this slide.
Why is that a disparity here?
Is it because of the front end of how you're receiving these folks?
Tyra Hubbard 1:10:20 - 1:10:28
Much like juvenile services, we don't get to— our clients are not voluntarily choosing us, and we don't voluntarily choose them.
Angelita Morillo 1:10:28 - 1:10:28
Right.
Tyra Hubbard 1:10:29 - 1:12:13
We get whoever the courts or the parole board sends to us.
So those who were sentenced to supervision become our clients.
So it's really decisions that are made at the— one of Denise's slides was talking sort of about the continuum.
So decisions that are made at the beginning of this, of the process in criminal justice, result in who gets supervision, who ends up being sent to prison versus who gets A downward departure, optional probation, um, the length of time that they're convicted for.
But we get whoever is sent to us.
And then that's why we sort of emphasize what we do once we receive people through intake is we get to control what types of services we offer, which is where we emphasize providing culturally responsive, gender responsive, specialized services to sort of meet the needs of the individual.
A lot of it that is actually outlined in Oregon administrative rule following risk and need principles, which is really to focus your service on those at highest risk of reoffending.
Public safety is best met through community supervision, through doing behavior change.
Behavior is hard to change.
I've spent my whole life trying to change various behaviors— how often I work out, how much cheesecake I eat.
Behavior is hard to change for individuals that are not stabilized, have family dynamics, who don't have housing, who have cognitive issues, they're facing even more barriers to behavior change.
So we sort of need to be able to meet people where they're at, focusing our resources on those most likely to reoffend, and then removing barriers so that they are able to change behaviors and not commit more crimes.
Sameer Kanal 1:12:14 - 1:12:42
Thank you for that.
And the takeaway to the direct part of that was to address disparities, we need to be looking at the front door effectively.
So I appreciate that.
I wanted to, switching gears to slide 16, I think just trying to understand, I mean, looking at putting a 12-year-old in that picture, the slide on the bottom right, I think we're a couple slides forward from there.
Lauren Johnson 1:12:42 - 1:12:42
Yeah.
Sameer Kanal 1:12:44 - 1:13:31
It's marked slide 16 on mine.
But that makes me question the need for this structure and for, I should say, the use of this structure at all and whether or not behavior change for a 12-year-old is best achieved through this.
I understand that that's not the scope of the decisions of anybody up here.
So I just wanted to take the opportunity to mention that.
Thank you.
And I think there's a lot of data that's been coming out about what actually achieves and what doesn't achieve some of the goals of reduced recidivism and things like that.
I also wanted to ask about the victims and survivor services work.
My understanding is there's been a bit of a scaling back over time due to funding.
Lauren Johnson 1:13:32 - 1:13:32
Mm-hmm.
Sameer Kanal 1:13:32 - 1:13:34
Can someone speak to that a little bit in terms of what's been happening?
Sure.
Unidentified speaker 1:13:34 - 1:14:25
Yeah, yeah.
And so over the last budget process, we did eliminate one of the positions in our Victim and Survivor Services team.
Um, so we still do have a team of folks that are providing services.
Uh, the initial, I believe, outcome indicator that we gave the county is that, you know, upwards of 98% of the victims and survivors that reach out to us, we're getting back to them within a day, right?
So this isn't a crisis intervention service.
It's a, you know, people wanting to understand sort of of like what the next steps of the process are.
Due to those reductions, we will see a diminished— not necessarily ability to complete the task because it will get done, but it will take longer to do it.
And we are feeling stress and strain on those services.
We continue to try to make every dollar stretch, and I think, you know, just like everybody else at DCJ, are trying to get the work done.
But, um, but there is going to be probably more extended times for us to be able to help provide some of those services.
Sameer Kanal 1:14:26 - 1:14:30
Do you have a model for what you expect that 98% number to move towards?
Unidentified speaker 1:14:30 - 1:14:38
We were positing 90%, but it's— it is sort of an unprecedented reduction, and so we're going to have to evaluate that over the year.
Sameer Kanal 1:14:39 - 1:14:44
How— one out of how many?
How many, um, you said you're losing one staffer?
Unidentified speaker 1:14:44 - 1:14:48
Is it one out of, uh, there's 9 FTE that were on the— so it's down to 8?
Sameer Kanal 1:14:48 - 1:15:30
Okay, okay.
Yeah, you know, I think my, my interest in this is around we don't really do We do a lot for crime victims.
We meaning American society, government broadly, not speaking here.
And I think that's a problem that both exists that we haven't solved, but also sometimes we talk around it.
A lot of what we do on both the city and county side on what we call restorative practices— restorative justice generally involves restoration to the victim, and a lot of the time it is a way of describing something that maybe another place would describe as deferment or diversion.
So I think that there are— I have an interest there and I'd like to follow up with you on that, but I'll leave it at that for now.
Unidentified speaker 1:15:30 - 1:15:47
Thank you, Chair Novick.
This is a table full of— every one of us were victim advocates in prior lives, so we appreciate that absolutely.
And I would also say that our Victim and Survivor Services really works actively with our restorative practices programs and our restorative justice programs.
Like, that's one absolute avenue, but it would be great to continue talking about that.
Sameer Kanal 1:15:47 - 1:15:56
And I hope you don't have to, as a profession, work with duct tape all the time.
I think that work deserves to be funded, and I hope the County Commission reconsiders that.
Denise Peña 1:15:56 - 1:17:55
Actually, Councilor Kanal, if I may add to that, I agree with you in terms of there could be much more to be done for crime victims, either prejudication or post-adjudication.
I do want to highlight the uniqueness of this service and this team in the post-conviction setting.
I started the unit 12 years ago, and prior to that, there was there was no victim advocate, there was no staff or personnel directly dedicated to, one, ensure that we were complying with victims' rights post-conviction, and also to be able to navigate the post-conviction world, which for a victim or a survivor is probably the least known and even more complicated in terms of what they can actually expect, how this all works, and who they need to connect with.
And so we have seen, unfortunately, some of our other community corrections partners around the state lose their teams because of budget cuts.
Because similarly, when they have to focus on core mandated services— we get paid by the state to supervise adults on post-prison supervision and probation.
We do not get paid by the state to help support victims of crime and to ensure that their rights are being enforced.
So that is 100% funded by the county.
Um, and so, but when we have to look at the totality of services, we did have to make the decision to reduce 1 FTE in that unit because it was vacant, we still could continue the services.
We could still continue our compliance with our statutorily obligated notifications.
But we're running into a lot of tension between what is mandated, what we have to do as resources still dim.
But the example I would give is that our neighbors in Washington County last year, as a result of their 1145 funding reductions, eliminated their entire victim services program.
And they had a very robust program that actually focused on counseling for victims, primarily victims of domestic violence.
And so unfortunately, we are seeing it.
And so I say that not to diminish the impacts and what more we could do if we had more, but I just want to actually highlight and uplift that what we do here in Multnomah County is pretty unique when you look at it in the post-conviction setting.
Steve Novick 1:17:57 - 1:17:58
Councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith 1:17:59 - 1:18:52
Thank you.
Thank you, Chair.
I want to thank you for bringing this presentation to all of us and to the public.
I don't think that people really understand the disparities, particularly in youth, that are happening.
I had the honor of being a county commissioner, and it is not surprising, these numbers.
I've seen them, the juvenile numbers.
Thank you.
They're about 6 times the number of Black folks who are in this community, about 5.7%.
And it also mirrors what happens at the higher level in our jail system.
They are— continue to be a high disparity rate among Black men in our jail system.
And I was thinking, now, are any of you all—.
Kyla Armstrong Romero 1:18:52 - 1:18:52
Yes.
Loretta Smith 1:18:53 - 1:18:54
A part of lipstick?
Christopher Petrov 1:18:54 - 1:18:55
Yes, we both are.
Loretta Smith 1:18:56 - 1:21:01
See, with this, this is still the same issue.
It's just a different day and a different year.
When I was at Multnomah County, I sponsored an amendment that passed for a year to increase the number of housing dollars that were there, because when youth go back into the same environment that they came from, came from, they're going to get similar outcomes.
And so I wanted to make sure that at least they had an opportunity to go and live outside of the community in which they were having and experiencing many of their difficulties.
And the reason why I asked you about Lipstick is because I think this level of disparity, it, um, it should signal that there is a call for a deeper yes.
It suggests to me that factors such as the socioeconomic disparities, differences in policing practices and school practices of Black youth, and/or potential biases at the various decision points— who's arrested, who's detained, who's screened, and who's sentenced to the many years that Black youth and Black men are sentenced to.
These are the things that are contributing to the unequal outcomes of what you see at the Donald E. Long and what you see in our prison system.
It's not just one thing.
It's, it's, it's, it's an entire ecosystem of our, um, of, of our different public agencies that that have contact with youth.
And I don't think we talk enough about it.
And I think that is something that needs to be addressed in LPSIC.
I think they need to talk about those things because it's easy to say that the police are policing Black neighborhoods more than they're policing white neighborhoods or underserved neighborhoods, but no one is talking about those folks when you talk about the DA's office.
Keelan McClymont 1:21:02 - 1:21:02
Who—.
Steve Novick 1:21:02 - 1:21:02
Yes.
Loretta Smith 1:21:02 - 1:21:27
Who are they charging?
What sentences are the judges giving to Black youth?
So they're the ones— there's a disconnect, and there's always a finger pointing at police.
But we have to go into the entire system and see where those disparities are coming from and why Black youth are being despaired in this fashion and not other youth.
Kari Mosdin 1:21:27 - 1:21:28
I agree.
Loretta Smith 1:21:29 - 1:23:30
I just want to say that I appreciate the work that you do, and I know that you're understaffed and you don't have enough resources to do those things that you need to do to be successful.
But I would like to— I'm going to get on the agenda at LPSIC because I want to talk about some of those things that we can do collectively together.
Thank you.
Even through like ceasefire, they're doing a lot of good work in this area.
And so I want to make sure if that's, if that's what we need to do, and I'm trying to alert the city administrator so that we, in our next budget cycle, we can do some things that might change the game.
Because just like my counselors talked about, we're talking about mental health services that they don't get.
Thank you.
Those are all things that happen in Multnomah County.
But I think we need to talk about the entire system.
And since I haven't been privy to those conversations and what that looks like, I'd like to be able to put that on the desk of LPSIC since everybody is around that table and talk about how can we partner better.
I just had a conversation with a guy last night who works at Donald I'm sorry.
And he was attacked.
He got put on, um, uh, not probation, but he, he is on medical leave because a 13-year-old attacked him and it messed his arm up and, and all sorts of things.
His back is messed up.
This is behind a 13-year-old who had amazing strength, and, um, he was trying to be helpful.
And it's not to the kids He can't help who he is.
He obviously needs additional mental health services, and I was told that he's not getting the services that he needs inside.
And you all talked about that you don't do that.
And so now I just thought that you did.
So go ahead.
Kyla Armstrong Romero 1:23:30 - 1:24:38
Councilor Smith, thank you so much for your comments.
And I know exactly the situation that you're talking about.
I didn't offer what we do in detention as it relates to mental health services, and we do a robust amount of things.
We partner with Corrections Health.
But what I will tell you is that in some cases that we— the kids that we have currently, some of them don't need to be in detention.
They need acute psychiatric inpatient care.
And we have, we have kids who've been denied Mm-hmm.
Or such.
And so our facility is not equipped to provide psychiatric mental healthcare for kids, right?
And so a 13-year-old, and honestly, we have, like I mentioned before, an 11-year-old.
And so when you have these kids, the kids at that age are not the problem.
They have, many of them have been victims themselves And it's the situation that we're in is very unique, I think.
Angelita Morillo 1:24:38 - 1:24:38
Yeah.
Kyla Armstrong Romero 1:24:39 - 1:25:20
I think that there does, we do have to have a conversation about the resources that do exist in the community.
We talk about OYA and the kids who succeed when they go to Camp Tillamook or they are sent away from Portland.
Yeah, they succeed because they're taken out of the environment, but then they're brought back.
And when they're brought right back into the environment, they're more susceptible to fall into the behaviors that led them to OYA in the first place.
And I will say that the lack of independent living— some kids may not need to go back home to parents or guardians.
Kari Mosdin 1:25:20 - 1:25:20
Yeah.
Kyla Armstrong Romero 1:25:21 - 1:25:48
Some kids, that may not be the environment for them.
And the lack of true independent living supports and resources in Multnomah County, in the state of Oregon, period.
There, there are none.
There are virtually none that focus on independent living skills.
They will give you some skills, teach you how to write a resume or do your laundry, but long-term solutions, we don't have them, and that's what's needed.
Loretta Smith 1:25:49 - 1:27:13
Yeah, and so I'm glad, you know, this this incident happened yesterday.
Yes.
So I was just minding my own business, going to get some dinner, and he came to my lap.
Councilor, this is what happened to me.
And we started talking about that.
But I'd heard about this kid over the last couple months as well.
And I was not happy to see him in this hand brace and all of that because he truly, truly thought he was making some inroads with the kid.
Was really upset, not necessarily about for himself, but he wanted to make sure that the kid was being cared for and that he had all the resources necessary.
And he said, we don't.
I have referred him before to Chairwoman Jessica Vega Peterson because of the mental health aspect of it.
And I hope the kid can get some really good help going forward because this is this is serious.
And in summary, I think that the data reflects a substantial inequality in outcomes for Black youth within the juvenile justice system, indicating that they are disproportionately impacted by confinement relative to their peers and in general population.
And I know this particular kid is in— he's in lockdown for like 7 to 9 hours.
That's what I heard.
Lauren Johnson 1:27:13 - 1:27:13
Yeah.
Loretta Smith 1:27:13 - 1:27:15
And that doesn't help.
Kyla Armstrong Romero 1:27:15 - 1:27:31
Not at all.
And coming in— and the youth has been here since April— and when you're there on a charge and then you assault staff or other people, then you're likely to pick up more charges.
Loretta Smith 1:27:31 - 1:27:31
Exactly.
Kyla Armstrong Romero 1:27:31 - 1:27:37
And so it's like a never-ending cycle, and our system is just not set up for that.
Loretta Smith 1:27:38 - 1:28:08
Well, thank you.
If there's anything else that I can do, I am going to have my staff look at the schedule to see if I can actually get on there, see if there's some things.
And I'll check back in with our folks and Stephanie Howard to see if there's some things that we can do that might help to increase the number of resources that we have.
But I think we can do a little bit better with a lot more coordination.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Steve Novick 1:28:09 - 1:28:17
I know we're running way behind, but this is an important conversation.
Councilor Zimmerman.
Hi.
Eric Zimmerman 1:28:17 - 1:29:03
So thank you, Director Piña.
Great to see you.
I'm glad my colleagues spent a lot of time on the youth side of it.
I've been to OIA, I've been to your facilities.
I've met a lot of pretty remarkable youth, right?
Really tough circumstances.
And when you go just past the surface, you also get some pretty remarkable reintegration stories or behavioral reset stories that I just think are important.
So I'm not going to spend time today on youth because so many of my other colleagues— I do want to bring it back more on the adult side.
So, um, Director Peña, can we— can you tell us a little bit more again about— I think I got this right— Senate Bill 1145 funding and what that means for your organization and for the, I think, the county jail as well.
Denise Peña 1:29:03 - 1:29:07
Yes, actually, I'm going to ask Tira to speak about the 1145 funding.
Eric Zimmerman 1:29:07 - 1:29:07
Yeah.
Tyra Hubbard 1:29:08 - 1:29:58
So, in it, community corrections used to be state, state-run.
In 1996, Senate Bill 1145 was passed, and that allowed for local counties to be able to have their own community corrections.
And so all but 2 counties, community corrections is locally controlled, which means that is ran by the county to meet the needs of their population.
We are still— we have to adhere to the State Department of Corrections Oregon Administrative Rules, our intergovernmental agreement.
We receive funding from the Department of Corrections to provide supervision, sanctions, and services based on our forecasted population.
That's why I mentioned what cases are funded by the state and which ones aren't.
So the state covers felonies, drug enforcement misdemeanors, 2 specific domestic violence—.
Eric Zimmerman 1:29:58 - 1:30:00
When you say covers, you mean they fund you to do—.
Tyra Hubbard 1:30:00 - 1:30:11
They fund it, yes, they fund.
And then a sex abuse 3 misdemeanor.
Any other misdemeanors are not funded by the state.
So they are not covered under the Senate Bill 1145.
Eric Zimmerman 1:30:12 - 1:30:29
I'm gonna pause you right there, Director.
So the way I wanna make sure I'm interpreting this is, so you're a convicted felon, you leave the state pen, and now you're on parole.
Probation, and we're asking Multnomah County to do the job that the state is saying this person is now allowed to go be on parole.
Is that the right term?
Tyra Hubbard 1:30:30 - 1:30:32
Post-prison supervision, most of the time.
Eric Zimmerman 1:30:32 - 1:30:45
That's the nice way to say it.
Okay, so now we're— but we're going to do it at a local level.
And I— the reason I'm highlighting this is the county taking on what is a state decision that that person is reintegrating into the community.
Angelita Morillo 1:30:46 - 1:30:46
Correct.
Loretta Smith 1:30:46 - 1:30:46
Okay.
Tyra Hubbard 1:30:46 - 1:31:07
All right, please keep going.
Yes, they get sentenced to time in prison, and then they receive a post-prison reentry amount of years afterwards.
The state does fund us for that post-prison reentry timeframe, 1 year to 3 years, depending on the crime of conviction, length of time that they served in prison.
Denise Peña 1:31:07 - 1:31:07
Great.
Tyra Hubbard 1:31:08 - 1:32:13
So we are funded based on risk, which is why we reference it often.
Greater funding from the state for individuals that are at a higher risk to recidivate, because we need to focus more resources on those who pose the highest risk, uh, less for those who pose a lower risk, with the idea that we shouldn't be involving ourselves more than necessary in those who pose a low risk.
We need to get them referred to community treatment resources and sort of move them through the system as quickly and with as much of a A touch.
So the Senate Bill 1145 funds very basic services.
It pays for our parole and probation officers, a handful of managers, some of our records technicians.
It's unable to fund programs like SARP, some of the more specialized programming.
That is where county general fund allows us to do more in Multnomah County than many of our other partner community corrections agencies throughout the state because they don't receive additional when I was at the county, we generally understood it, and I'm gonna ask you if this remains true.
Eric Zimmerman 1:32:13 - 1:32:23
We generally understood it though that the state funding for 1145 funding never kept up with the requirement that you all have to perform those duties.
Is that still an accurate statement?
Tyra Hubbard 1:32:24 - 1:32:25
Yes, that is still an accurate statement.
Eric Zimmerman 1:32:26 - 1:32:49
Okay, so if I were to trend line from, let's say, 1998, so 2 years after it was enacted, I'd probably see a DCJ budget that goes steeper than an 1145 budget if I were to look at that 30 years of that.
Meaning that the state requires you, this is the epitome of an unfunded mandate, right?
It's just a partially funded mandate at this point.
Tyra Hubbard 1:32:50 - 1:32:50
Correct.
Eric Zimmerman 1:32:50 - 1:32:52
Right, that's how we're approaching this role that we have.
Kyla Armstrong Romero 1:32:53 - 1:32:53
Yes.
Angelita Morillo 1:32:53 - 1:32:54
Okay.
Tyra Hubbard 1:32:54 - 1:33:07
Last long session, we brought forth the like cost per day that it costs to run community corrections and it was $1,880 per day.
Is what it costs, $18.80 that it costs to have someone on community supervision.
Kari Mosdin 1:33:07 - 1:33:07
Statewide?
Tyra Hubbard 1:33:07 - 1:33:15
Statewide, that's the average.
We are not funded at $18.18 per day.
I think we came through getting funded at under $16, like $15 and some change.
Eric Zimmerman 1:33:15 - 1:33:15
Got it.
Tyra Hubbard 1:33:15 - 1:33:23
So we do a cost study every 6 years, which informs the state how much it costs to do this work.
And what it costs is $18.18 per day.
Keelan McClymont 1:33:23 - 1:33:24
Great.
Tyra Hubbard 1:33:24 - 1:33:35
That's not what we're funded at.
So we're running on, Cost of living to do this work from multiple years back.
Okay.
There haven't been increases.
Eric Zimmerman 1:33:36 - 1:33:36
Thanks.
Denise Peña 1:33:36 - 1:33:51
The other thing I would add to that is that even though the cost study is mandated, to fund to the cost study as funding is not.
So that is why we have historically continued to be underfunded, even based on their own cost study of how much it costs to do the work at the local jurisdiction.
Eric Zimmerman 1:33:51 - 1:35:34
So Multnomah County taxpayers, they pay their state taxes, which funds the state penitentiary and that system.
They pay their state taxes that is in theory supposed to fund 1145, and then they pay their property taxes to Multnomah County.
And what Multnomah County's had to do is band-aid the state 1145 funding with additional Multnomah County taxes to not let the hole get bigger, right?
So I'm painting a little bit of an illustration here.
Now, Director Piña, a couple years ago, So you and I had a conversation and I, we talked about the availability of jail beds for your officers to use as, I'll use layman's colloquial, just like the backstop, right?
Somebody's out on probation, parole and probation supervision, whatever the right word is, they need some time.
And that practice has changed significantly in the past decade based on availability of beds, meaning there was a time maybe when an officer could refer somebody or send somebody back to jail here locally, locally in the Multnomah County Jail, as a behavioral correctional kind of moment for a certain amount of time because they violated something.
As the jail beds squeeze has squeezed the whole system.
That has also affected how your officers are able to use that, like, most last step, I guess.
Is that still an accurate statement?
Can we talk a little?
I don't know what the right terms of what this is called.
I'm just remembering this conversation in one of our visits and what its impact is on how you work with supervised persons.
Denise Peña 1:35:34 - 1:37:44
Yes.
And so we do get $1,145 can be applied towards jail beds.
And historically, when we received our $1,145 funding, It was a split between DCJ for the probation piece, for the Sheriff's Office for the confinement piece, where we do essentially pay for a certain amount of beds allotted for our clients.
And then Lipsync actually gets a small percentage of 1145 funding as well.
So 2 things in terms of a change of practice.
So I would even say even pre the pandemic, we started looking in our own kind of research in terms of what changes long-term behavior.
Like Tyra was talking about, and we know that jail does not do that.
It is certainly a confinement model.
There are folks that do need to be removed from the community when there is an imminent public or community or victim safety risk.
But we walked away from putting people in jail for technical violations, for not reporting, for drug use, where there wasn't any other kind of harm to it.
And so I think internally we made that shift that we were going to preserve jail beds for those that are again, posing that imminent public safety concern.
And that does couple, though, with the fact that jail is expensive, and that is a resource that we want to preserve for more of our higher risk.
A change that we did in FY27 is that we actually did a swap with the sheriff.
So now she is receiving what historically she would get from 1145.
So DCJ gave our county general funds to the sheriff, and now we are receiving the entirety of and this is for a couple of reasons.
This better aligns with the community corrections plan.
We still do have the number of beds that are allotted for our clients, whether they are serving a jail sanction or whether they are serving a revocation that's going to happen here locally.
So, but unfortunately, what that does do for DCJ is that it does make us more susceptible to the impact of susceptible, the budget cuts.
Thank you.
If there are additional 1145 cuts, then it would be DCJ needing to absorb all of that reduction.
And that's not going to be a 45-35 split like we have historically done.
I hope that answers the question.
Eric Zimmerman 1:37:44 - 1:39:30
That's very helpful.
I mean, it's challenging because you're asking Multnomah County, asking Portland to go along with you on this idea that, you know, maybe in your words, I think the less impact like you violated drug use, et cetera, et cetera.
And yet since 2020, right, my district, it's certainly representing downtown, Old Town.
We are constantly facing the person who has more charges than we know what to do with, and a whole lot of people who get told there's nothing that can be done.
But then you find out that they're on probation, they're on parole, they violate a thing, and no one has ever No.
No one's ever put that backstop to them because we've applied a different standard or a different perspective.
And while I think I used to probably fall in this category too of thinking like drug use is a personal, you know, it's a personal assault to your own body, but it's— we've learned in these last 6 years that definitely has a much deeper community impact, particularly the way it has yes.
Concentrated in this, I'll say, this new era of drug use.
And it's hard to hear about a person who's on probation, continues to make violations, and then isn't held accountable in any way that the public sees as meaningful.
And so is this the right approach?
What are the types of things that these, these, Folks who are kind of on their own, they're being supervised, but they continue to have the, I'll say, low-level stuff that has larger impacts eventually or leads to larger impacts.
How do we work with those kind of clients?
Because that's what the community talks about right now, of seeing like no solution.
Steve Novick 1:39:31 - 1:39:51
May I just— Councilor, I need to interrupt.
We are— I really appreciate the fact that my colleagues are really interested in DCJ's work, but we're way behind schedule.
I'd like to have a bit of a reaction from the city folks that interact with DCJ.
So Director Peña, could you try giving a short answer to the councilor's, you know, very large question?
Denise Peña 1:39:53 - 1:40:59
I will do my best.
And I actually realized that I did not answer a question that you asked earlier in terms of current jail capacity issues.
So we do— we are a part of when the jail hits, you know, capacity issues and at yellow alert, where we look at the population that are serving a local sanction for us and then we determine which of those individuals can be released early.
Again, probably pre-pandemic, we could probably contribute a lot to be a relief valve for the jail.
That is no longer the case because, again, if a client is currently in custody, it is because they are there for a community or a victim safety issue.
And so we will not be releasing folks early or recommending that we reduce a sanction in order to help the jail population.
To your point, Councilwoman, about the accountability piece, we do hold folks accountable.
There are different varieties of interventions that we can apply.
There are noncustodial sanctions, I'm sorry, such as community service.
But to your point, you're right, that is not something that is typically visible to the community or really see the impacts.
And we are more than happy to follow up with you or the council on more specifics about what sanctions may or may not look like.
Eric Zimmerman 1:40:59 - 1:41:15
Last piece, do you know how many out of the 36 Counties in Oregon, how many have a similar approach?
Is this a metro thing only?
This is a Multnomah County thing only?
Or 36 out of 36 counties are now kind of doing that the same way?
Tyra Hubbard 1:41:15 - 1:41:26
It depends on jail bed capacity.
Each county's pretty unique.
I previously worked in Jackson County for most of my career, and there wasn't a day that went by there where forced releases weren't part of my experience.
Eric Zimmerman 1:41:26 - 1:41:33
Oh, sorry, I don't mean the matrixing.
I meant the not using jail for the outcome.
Tyra Hubbard 1:41:33 - 1:42:33
That specifically informs those decisions that each agency is having to make, how they determine who gets put into jail.
Evidence-based practices inform that we should not be using incarceration for technical violations.
We have in Multnomah County, one of our 3 top priorities is engaging people into treatment.
And so we've been doing incredibly targeted efforts to make sure that our POs are engaging people into treatment.
If substance use is going untreated, it's going to exhibit itself in behaviors.
Those behaviors are going to result in new crimes.
Those new crimes are not technical violations.
And so working with them along the way, we want to get ahead of the new crimes occurring.
And so we are trying our hardest refusal to do so escalates the responses to that violation.
But really connecting people to the services they need is how we can prevent the crimes from happening.
Eric Zimmerman 1:42:33 - 1:42:34
Thank you for coming over here.
Steve Novick 1:42:36 - 1:42:57
Thank you so much.
Um, I'd like, uh, there's Chief Hughes or Director Howard to come up, or whoever they would like to designate, to just talk briefly from the city's perspective about the thank you so much, councilors.
Stephanie Howard 1:42:57 - 1:43:04
For the record, my name is Stephanie Howard.
I'm the Director of Community Safety here for the City of Portland, and Deputy Chief Hughes is joining me.
Denise Peña 1:43:05 - 1:43:06
I can be very brief.
Stephanie Howard 1:43:06 - 1:43:38
I think, you know, much of the information that you shared or that was shared today is information that we are continually discussing with our partners.
We are meeting regularly.
We are I think this will be probably our 3rd meeting this week, and as incidents arise, we're continually looking at how we can maximize resources, not duplicate efforts, make sure that we're identifying gaps and using whatever tools we have available to try to provide support to the folks that are within their purview and also those that are sort of on the fringes of that.
Brian Hughes 1:43:41 - 1:44:56
Thank you, Councilor, for having me up today.
My name is Brian Hughes.
I'm the Deputy Chief.
For the Portland Police Bureau.
I just wanna thank Director Peña and her team.
She and I are now at yet another table together.
Her team is constantly in the same spaces that we are at.
I interact with Director Peña at the LPSIC meetings, at the deflection executive policy team, and just a year ago, Thank you.
I came across one of her parole and probation officers at a National Night Out party.
So while they were there at Director's Park last week, that's not new for them.
They're constantly out in the community and interacting with us and supporting us.
And I just appreciate the work.
And I would also like to highlight when Director Peña said that their team comes in at the end.
While that's true, they're not out looking for people to supervise.
I would like to highlight that the people that they do supervise Oftentimes it's not well captured, the amount of crime that doesn't happen as a result of their engagement with those people.
So that's an important highlight.
And while they do come at the end, I would say that they also come at the beginning in preventing people from continuing on criminal paths.
So thank you.
Steve Novick 1:44:56 - 1:45:54
Thank you.
And I want to say, I was talking to a national criminal justice researcher a couple of weeks I think we have a few minutes left.
I think we have a few minutes left.
Thank you.
I think we have a couple of minutes left.
I want to thank all of our presenters.
I mean, there were a lot of folks who said, well, of course I know about Multnomah County DCJ's innovative and effective practices.
I mean, this is an organization that has been at the forefront of, you know, evidence-based practices.
And I really appreciate, Director Peña, you and your team coming here today.
And thank you, Chief Hughes, Director Howard.
I think I'm going to take a 10-minute break, and then I hope we can get through the legislative hopefully we can get through the 2 grant allocations quickly, and I think that we'll be able to simplify the psychedelic issue.
And then I think that we'll have presentations on proposed amendments on the concealed carry issue.
I don't think that we'll get to a vote today, but I hope we can hear from the presenters on the proposed amendments.
So we will recess until 11:21.
Kari Mosdin 1:45:54 - 1:45:54
Recessed.
Steve Novick 1:57:10 - 1:57:36
All right, this meeting of the Committee on Public Safety Committee is back in session.
Um, could the clerk please read the next item?
Item 3 was item 2, the street racing takeover grant award.
Keelan McClymont 1:57:38 - 1:57:51
Item 3, document number 2026-277, appropriate grant award of $207,411 for Speed Racing Street Takeover.
Steve Novick 1:57:53 - 1:57:54
Thank you, please proceed.
Kari Mosdin 1:57:55 - 1:58:16
Good morning.
I think it's still morning.
Um, I'm here on behalf of the Grants Management Division stepping in for Councilor Sheila Craig.
My name is Kari Mosdin.
Let me— thank you.
Does that work?
Lauren Johnson 1:58:17 - 1:58:17
Yep.
Kari Mosdin 1:58:18 - 1:58:37
Great.
Anything else I need to do there?
Okay, great.
Uh, so we're looking at an ordinance to budget appropriation for a grant award.
For Speed Racing Street Takeover for $207,411.
Hopefully my screen will work.
Sameer Kanal 1:58:39 - 1:58:39
Nope.
Kari Mosdin 1:58:39 - 2:00:33
There we go.
Uh, this ordinance amends the budget to appropriate grant funds awarded by the State of Oregon's Transportation Safety Office into the grants fund.
The grant application with SAP ID PL276 was submitted on February 5th of this year, Oregon Department of Transportation notified the city of a Speed Racing Street Takeover grant award to the city in the amount of $207,411.35.
The grant period runs from, uh, 7/8/26 through 9/30/26.
This grant does require matching funds.
Uh, the Police Bureau is providing those funds via straight time and associated benefits using the excuse me, the PPB's general fund in the amount of $50,000.
And as always, this grant is intended to supplement, not replace existing city revenues.
So just a little bit of an overview on what this grant funds.
We're looking at addressing the prevalence of speed racing and street takeover through PPB overtime missions to combat planned and ad hoc street racing/takeover events, which traditionally involve hundreds if not thousands of people, have led to severe injuries and deaths to bystanders and participants and routinely block important access points for first responders.
Also covers coverage for responding officer overtime and associated benefits, and provides funding for the police bureau to purchase supplies and equipment such as deployable cameras to increase the effectiveness.
Of responding officers' attempts to break up existing and prevent potential street racing takeover events and to prosecute those responsible for violating traffic law to conduct those events.
That is the end of my presentation.
We do have a couple folks here from PPB if there are any specific questions, or I'm happy to answer other questions about the grant award itself.
Steve Novick 2:00:37 - 2:00:38
Thank you.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal 2:00:40 - 2:01:04
Thank you.
Let me ask about the portion of this that's not related to personnel, but to technology.
Specifically, there's a drone component here.
So I guess let me start with the big question, which is bigger picture question, which is data-driven traffic enforcement.
And if we can get more information on what that exactly means in this context.
Kari Mosdin 2:01:04 - 2:01:13
Great.
Yeah, I'm gonna call on, we've got Captain Burley and Lieutenant Moore, who have joined me and can answer some of those questions with more detail.
Sameer Kanal 2:01:13 - 2:01:46
Okay, and then I guess the question that you might be able to answer or might be theirs is you mentioned prevent.
You said break up existing and prevent potential street racing takeover events.
And I know that there are restrictions on drone usage that, have been approved by council.
I think there's an open question as to how they're being used, but I wanted to ask about how prevention is gonna occur in the context of that, the technology usage.
Keelan McClymont 2:01:47 - 2:01:48
Great questions.
Sameer Kanal 2:01:48 - 2:01:49
Thanks for being here.
Chris Burley 2:01:49 - 2:03:24
Yeah, good morning everyone.
Chris Burley, I'm the captain for North Precinct.
Appreciate your question, Councilor Kanal.
So the prevention piece is by presence and it's also, as you said, As you said, the data-driven piece and finding information through open-source media to learn when an event might happen, we're finding that that's extremely difficult.
Fortunate for us, we believe that this grant will allow us the ability, with the complexity of trying to figure out when the events are going to occur, when sometimes they say they're going to occur and they don't, it gives us that flexibility to have the presence.
Thank you.
And to be able to go out and do traffic enforcement as it relates to these street takeover events, which we believe deters actions like this happening down the road.
And you mentioned the unmanned aerial support units or UAS.
At this time, based on the current budget, we have no intention of purchasing equipment.
That we're planning on using the monies that were given towards staffing.
However, we are following the standard operating procedure, which was approved by the prior city council and which is available on our website talking about the drone program.
Again, in that, we are following the directive and using drones yeah, thanks for that.
Sameer Kanal 2:03:27 - 2:03:36
Maybe in the context of this grant, because I know there's also on the next legislative item, there's a little bit more specifics on it.
For this grant, it talks about deployable cameras.
Chris Burley 2:03:38 - 2:03:38
Again—.
Sameer Kanal 2:03:38 - 2:03:51
Can you speak to what that— I mean, that might refer to existing equipment, so that's helpful to know, but also what that means in terms of the deployment of cameras.
Is that referring to drones, or did I make a leap there?
Greg Moore, Lieutenant out of North.
Eric Zimmerman 2:03:52 - 2:04:01
So no, it's not referring to drones or drone cameras.
It's referring to cameras like GoPro cameras that would be used during— for collection of evidence.
Sameer Kanal 2:04:04 - 2:04:04
Okay.
Chris Burley 2:04:04 - 2:04:09
But again, we have no intention of purchasing cameras as part of this grant.
Sameer Kanal 2:04:10 - 2:04:37
Okay.
I'll follow up on that because I feel like You have dashcams and bodycams, so I'm curious.
We don't have dashcams though.
Okay, then that— okay, great.
As we get into the time period is the other question I had.
This is backdated by a month, so just wanted to understand, will all the funds be spent by September 30th?
Are we gonna be coming back?
It's a relatively short grant period, so I'm just curious on that.
Kari Mosdin 2:04:37 - 2:04:51
It's a short grant period, and what typically would happen in that case is that if the funds aren't expended, there would be an extension to the contract to be able to spend those down.
But that's something that we would address as needed.
Sameer Kanal 2:04:52 - 2:04:57
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Appreciate it.
Steve Novick 2:04:57 - 2:05:06
I actually had the same question.
Would council— how did the extension work?
Would you just be able to— would the council have to approve an extension?
What would happen?
Kari Mosdin 2:05:08 - 2:05:13
That's typically administrative action, and so that's something that's executed by the city administrator.
Steve Novick 2:05:14 - 2:05:25
Okay, thank you.
Seeing no one else in the queue, could I have a motion to refer this item to full council, the recommendation that we passed?
Sameer Kanal 2:05:27 - 2:05:30
So moved.
Second.
Steve Novick 2:05:30 - 2:05:33
Been moved by Councilor Kanal, seconded by Councilor Smith.
Keelan McClymont 2:05:38 - 2:05:43
Sure.
For document number 2026-277, Morillo?
Angelita Morillo 2:05:45 - 2:05:45
Aye.
Keelan McClymont 2:05:46 - 2:05:46
Zimmerman?
Eric Zimmerman 2:05:47 - 2:05:47
Aye.
Angelita Morillo 2:05:47 - 2:05:48
Smith?
Loretta Smith 2:05:49 - 2:05:49
Aye.
Keelan McClymont 2:05:49 - 2:05:50
Kanal?
Sameer Kanal 2:05:51 - 2:05:51
Aye.
Keelan McClymont 2:05:51 - 2:05:52
Novick?
Steve Novick 2:05:52 - 2:05:52
Aye.
Keelan McClymont 2:05:53 - 2:06:00
With 5 ayes, the motion to refer the ordinance with the recommendation it be passed has passed.
Steve Novick 2:06:02 - 2:06:03
Thank you.
Please read the next item.
Keelan McClymont 2:06:05 - 2:06:26
Next item, uh, I currently— item number 4, previously labeled as item number 3, document number 2026-278, appropriate grant award of $103,600— sorry, $103,069 for expanded traffic enforcement.
Kari Mosdin 2:06:28 - 2:07:19
Hello again.
For the record again, my name is Kari Moss.
I'm with Grants Management Division and, uh, looking at another budget appropriation for a grant award, this one regarding a grant award for expanded traffic enforcement for $103,000 and, uh, $103,069.
I had the same problem.
Um, let's see.
Uh, so this ordinance amends the budget to appropriate grant funds awarded by the State of Oregon Transportation Safety Office into the grants fund.
This is grant application with SAP ID PL277, which was submitted on February 5th of this year.
Oregon Department of Transportation notified the city of an expanded traffic enforcement grant award to the city in the amount of $103,069.
The grant period is from 7/14/26 to 9/30/26.
This grant does require matching funds.
Christopher Petrov 2:07:19 - 2:07:20
Second.
Kari Mosdin 2:07:20 - 2:08:48
PPB, Portland Police Bureau, is providing those funds using their general fund in the amount of $25,768, and the grant is intended to supplement, not replace, existing city revenues.
Uh, just a little background on the grant fund.
Uh, this seeks to increase the efficiency of traffic crash investigations and to expand patrol-based traffic enforcement through officer training time, associated benefits In mobile citation and drone use, mobile citation printers and associated supplies, crash investigation drones, and a dedicated crash investigation computer.
Increased efficiency in investigations will improve the speed and accuracy of scene documentation, reduce roadway closure durations, and strengthen downstream case preparation for traffic incidents.
The expansion of patrol-based traffic enforcement will streamline citation issue— issuance during enforcement stops.
The removal of paper-based processes is intended to reduce stop duration, improve officer and driver safety, and increase the feasibility of proactive enforcement during routine patrol.
This will also streamline data collection and analysis to guide future enforcement resource deployments.
That is the end of my presentation.
I'm happy to answer questions about the award, and we also have Sergeant Petrov online to answer any questions about thank you.
Sameer Kanal 2:08:48 - 2:08:53
Um, so first question is just the same, the grant period's short, same idea as last?
Kari Mosdin 2:08:53 - 2:08:55
Exactly the same situation, yes.
Sameer Kanal 2:08:55 - 2:09:13
Okay.
Um, the other question I had, just on your slide you talk about, um, mobile citation and drone use.
I just want to understand, mobile applies here to drone as well?
It's not just mobile citation and drone use, it's mobile citation and mobile drone use.
Is that correct way to interpret that first?
Kari Mosdin 2:09:14 - 2:09:16
I'll call on Sergeant Petrov to answer that.
Sameer Kanal 2:09:16 - 2:09:18
The, the higher bullet point there, the first one.
Christopher Petrov 2:09:20 - 2:10:24
Good morning.
Apologies, I have a summer flu.
I'm Sergeant Christopher Petrov with the Portland Police Bureau, the Traffic Division, and the 2 are actually independent.
Um, all of our UAS systems or commonly referred to drones are used for photogrammetry, which is just crime scene processing to document for mapping and whatnot.
The mobile citation stuff is completely separate.
What we have is a handheld— our phones have an application system on them, and that allows us to electronically fill out citations, which then links to a mobile printer, and then we can print off citations, and the 2 are completely separate.
So the, the mobile application is strictly for the printers to make the citation process much more efficient, and then the drone use is just for crash investigations, or unless we supplement another investigative unit for mapping, just for crime scene purposes only.
Sameer Kanal 2:10:25 - 2:11:00
Okay, thanks.
I'm a little confused by that.
That all makes sense to me.
I'm a little confused by, there's a lot of conversation here about increasing, or I should say expanding patrol-based traffic enforcement.
And so how do these 2 things connect when we're talking about primarily stops through Or are these 2 different, completely 2 different parts of it?
How do the— how does the drones after— US is after the fact relate to patrol-based traffic enforcement in the moment?
Christopher Petrov 2:11:02 - 2:11:55
The grant is helping us purchase equipment.
One, one of the portions of the grant will purchase mobile printers.
The traffic division does what we call a build-a-cop program.
So we take officers from patrol and we, uh, help rotate them through the traffic division so we can expand their abilities to do traffic enforcement, DUI enforcement, DUI detection, um, and crash investigations.
So that way the printers will be used by these officers that are more inclined towards traffic enforcement to expand, because our traffic enforcement numbers are limited with motor and, uh, So the broader we can get through enhanced training for more patrol officers to be interested in DUI detection and traffic enforcement is where the mobile printers come in.
Loretta Smith 2:11:56 - 2:11:56
Okay.
Sameer Kanal 2:11:56 - 2:11:57
And drones—.
Christopher Petrov 2:11:57 - 2:11:58
Sorry, go ahead.
Sameer Kanal 2:11:58 - 2:12:00
No, I'll— sorry, didn't mean to cut you off there.
Christopher Petrov 2:12:01 - 2:12:41
Oh, that's okay.
And then I was— the other portion of the— another part of the equipment will be for UAS systems to help us be able to broaden our ability to process crime scenes faster.
So we'll have, uh, more UAS platforms to fly during a crash scene, especially on the more comprehensive ones where we have multiple fatalities, or maybe we assist, uh, the Forensic and Evidence Division or homicide in a major crime scene or of sorts like that.
Okay.
But the drones are not used for traffic enforcement in any okay, thank you for clarifying that.
Sameer Kanal 2:12:41 - 2:12:50
I think that addresses the portion of my questions that relate to UAS, so I'll focus on the training, the mobile citation printers, et cetera.
Kyla Armstrong Romero 2:12:52 - 2:12:52
Can you—.
Christopher Petrov 2:12:52 - 2:12:53
Thank you.
Sameer Kanal 2:12:53 - 2:13:01
Can you give some context to the data-driven— what exactly do you mean by data-driven traffic enforcement in the context of this grant or more broadly?
Christopher Petrov 2:13:04 - 2:14:03
The data-driven comes from multiple sources using, you know, high-crash corridors, crash data, the places where fatal crashes and trauma injury crashes are taking place the most.
So when we talk about data-driven enforcement, we're using historical data to use to enforce traffic laws for future crashes, I guess is how I'd like to look at it.
We're trying to take the resources and the data that we have available so we can focus the limited resources we have in the areas where we are seeing trends of crashes going up or fatal crashes going up.
Like currently this year for 2026, we're working on trying to slow down motorcyclists because we've had a tremendous increase in motorcycle fatalities.
So that's how we're trying to use the data to drive our traffic enforcement and focus on the areas where the, the most damage and the most harm is occurring.
Sameer Kanal 2:14:05 - 2:14:14
Thanks for that, Sergeant.
Does that also include the, uh, injury collision data that has historically been collected in the context of stops?
Christopher Petrov 2:14:15 - 2:14:19
Yeah, well, I guess, what do you— I'm not understanding what you mean there.
Sameer Kanal 2:14:20 - 2:14:47
In the stops data report, In the report that PPB puts out quarterly, and I guess the annual one has the benchmarking, there's a data collection related to injury collision where it measures the number of people who are involved in injury collisions and then has demographics on that group of people.
And I'm curious if that is an input that you mentioned in the context of how data-driven works.
Christopher Petrov 2:14:49 - 2:15:19
Yeah, if we find an intersection, uh, hypothetically speaking, we could use, uh, 2nd and Main downtown.
If we had an uptick in traffic crashes there, uh, we would focus on moving our resources there to try and slow cars down.
Or if it was impairment-based, trying to figure out where, uh, how to reduce the impairment crashes and making stops to just reduce okay.
Sameer Kanal 2:15:19 - 2:15:45
Kind of related, but switching gears a little bit.
The grant documents mention improving efficiency and accuracy in traffic stops, but nowhere do they mention improvements in equity.
And so I'm curious if there is a parallel plan for what PPB is doing to ensure Black and brown Portlanders are not subject to— continued to be subject to disproportionate to disproportionate traffic stops.
And that's also based on the Grand Evaluation Plan.
Christopher Petrov 2:15:47 - 2:16:26
Yes, our— the traffic division does not focus on, uh, stopping people outside of what they actually see that's being done in a motor vehicle or another vehicle, even like a bicyclist.
Our intent is to find the vehicles that are traveling at the higher paces or are navigating the roads in a dangerous manner, and then we stop the vehicle.
Like, the actual driver of the car is who we contact, but it's based on our perception of what the vehicle is doing.
So our intent is to never stop anyone based on, uh, a skin color or, uh, any particular demographic.
Sameer Kanal 2:16:26 - 2:17:09
We're just focused on traffic safety, and we contact members of the community of yeah, I appreciate that, and I, I'm not intending to, to make a comment on intent here.
Um, I can speak to the impact, uh, looking at the, um, looking at the stops data.
So there are disparities, uh, right now, and I'm curious as to how increasing and expanding this work, which is disparate, does not either perpetuate or expand that disparity and the harm caused by it?
Christopher Petrov 2:17:14 - 2:18:01
Well, I don't have a good answer for you in relation to the traffic division.
I know there is— it's a complicated topic when it comes to traffic stops and what police do, whether in Portland or around the nation.
But all I can say is that when we're making stops and it's in relation to the traffic division, we're not working towards any particular goal other than traffic safety.
And I, I don't know the numbers.
I, and I can work on those to show that I don't believe the traffic division stop data would We're just working on stopping impaired drivers and speeders and people running red lights to keep everybody else safe.
Sameer Kanal 2:18:02 - 2:22:20
Okay, I, I appreciate that.
That's, that, that's a little concerning to me in the context of, um, expansion, uh, and I want to just be clear, I'm citing my sources here.
This is from PPB's own stops data reports.
Specifically, the annual reports available at portland.gov/police/open-data/stops-data.
You know that I'm going to give a couple lists of numbers here.
This is the year, the percentage of drivers that Traffic Division stopped who are Black, and the percentage of the population.
So 2012, 8.0% stops for Black Portlanders.
Population not noted in the report, but census data shows it's just shy of 6%.
2013, 7.8% Stops of Black Portlanders.
Population not noted in this report yet, but was just shy of 6% from census data.
Starting in 2014, that is noted.
It's 8.2% to 5.7%.
2015, 8.9% To 5.7%.
2016, 8.8% To 6.1%.
2017, 10.9% To 6.1%.
2018, 10.7% To 6.1%.
It continues just inching up to where it's now 15.4% of traffic division stops in the 2025 report and 5.8% of the population that is Black.
And so there are limitations of the census, which I think the report notes, notably undercounting of people of color, complication with specific racial group tracking such as Middle Eastern.
That doesn't explain the size of the disparity nor the concerning trend line.
What concerns me is that the report notes an overrepresentation of Native American and Indigenous drivers often, but doesn't acknowledge the disparity in other groups, including Black drivers on a regular basis because of the use of the injury collection— sorry, injury collision benchmark, previously known as injury accident.
That's concerning to me when we talk about data and how we use it here, because after the first year of this report, 2012, which didn't have benchmarking, in 2013 it was added because of the pretty clear disparity, which was much smaller in 2012 than it is now.
Because it— PPB reports argue we should not compare the 2 numbers that I just compared.
The percentage of Portlanders of a given racial group and the percentage of people of that racial group who were stopped by police and instead say we should compare it to injury accident data.
And so I have more on this and I'm going to get into it, but I'm curious about the degree to which that is being reevaluated in the context of determining where to allocate and how to allocate police resources.
And again, all of this— I don't know how long anyone's been here or in their current role at PPB, but my anticipation, my assumption is that these practices, both in terms of how resources are deployed and how things are benchmarked, probably predates everybody who's in the role that they're in now, ranging from yourself, Sergeant, up to the leadership.
I know it predates everybody in the— Councilmember Herbold.
Chief's office now.
So I'm not trying to ascribe intent here, but to say here's a problem that you've inherited at some point, and can we fix it?
So I guess the the question I'm asking right here is: Do we have?
Is there a plan to evaluate what data is used and how it is interpreted in the context of?
And by the way, I should note patrol enforcement has greater disparities than the traffic division itself.
So everything I just said is actually a greater level when you go outside of the traffic division, which is both, I think, a good thing for the traffic division and indicative of the concern about expanding to where more parts of the bureau are involved in traffic enforcement.
Thank you.
Stops on a regular basis, which is something we just talked about in the context of mobile printers.
So could you speak to that at all in terms of what's being changed or what's being looked at?
Christopher Petrov 2:22:24 - 2:23:54
To put it simply, we are not changing how we come at traffic enforcement because we focus on where the crashes are and the severity of the crashes.
However, It doesn't mean we're opposed to changing.
I guess what I would have to figure out is if we create a change, how do we be comprehensive in reducing disparate treatment that you're referring to, or just disparate stops, but also combating traffic crashes where we have lots of injuries, fatals, and just overall harm to the general public?
Is what I would like to figure out, because I, I believe the crash data itself is super important to focus our efforts on slowing people down.
Um, and if, if that in some way is coming across as disparate, that is extremely unfortunate.
But the— as I'll always say, our goal— and I've been with traffic, just so you understand, I've been with the traffic division, uh, since 2012, and I've been with the Portland Police Bureau so I do have some historical knowledge where a lot of this did come from.
I would agree it does predate me, but in that same breath, the statistics usually help direct us where we want to go when it involves crash and who's dying.
Sameer Kanal 2:23:55 - 2:23:57
I know there are others in the queue, so I'll come back in.
Steve Novick 2:23:57 - 2:23:59
Okay.
Councilor Morillo.
Angelita Morillo 2:24:05 - 2:24:25
Thank you so much.
Yeah, I had some questions along the same vein as what Councilor Kanal was talking about.
So I just wanted to clarify from this slide, when you're talking about doing, you know, increasing this space, are you talking about more staffing?
Are you talking about increasing cameras?
It's sort of unclear from that slide what we're talking about.
Yeah, so we're talking about increasing staffing.
Christopher Petrov 2:24:28 - 2:24:35
Uh, we're not increasing cameras.
Well, if you're talking about— are you referring to photo enforcement cameras?
Angelita Morillo 2:24:37 - 2:24:41
Um, yeah, anything that would be—.
Christopher Petrov 2:24:41 - 2:25:08
Uh, I happen to be the photo enforcement manager, so yeah, there is a plan to increase traffic enforcement cam— photo enforcement cameras throughout the city.
Uh, but as in regards to camera systems for traffic stops, no.
Outside of the body-worn cameras that we use, we don't We don't use any kind of camera system, and there's no plans on expanding any type of camera surveillance or anything in relation to traffic enforcement.
Angelita Morillo 2:25:09 - 2:26:58
Gotcha.
Okay.
And first of all, I want to say thank you for answering all of our questions while you're not feeling well today.
Appreciate you.
I think it would be really helpful to have a breakdown of what exactly we're buying with these dollars.
Because it's a little bit unclear to me from this presentation what exactly we're purchasing.
And, you know, I'm also wondering if there is going to be a privacy impact analysis we have, or assessment.
I can't remember what it stands for exactly, but we do have the Data Privacy Office now at the City of Portland.
We are actively establishing it as we speak.
And I think that I'm going to be really pushing for in the coming months, both for, you know, this item, the last item, That anytime the city is bringing in new technology, I have questions, or just increasing surveillance and storing that data, right?
Whether it's with a camera or with a person who's just actively engaged in tracking that on their own, how is that information being stored?
What is it going to be used for in other contexts?
These are the types of things that I would want to know through a privacy impact assessment that would go through the Data Privacy Office.
And there's also questions for me about the vendor, the deployment of these technologies.
So are we going to be expanding the existing uses of this technology?
Are we getting new ones?
And I really firmly believe moving forward that as a council, we need to make sure that the privacy impact assessment happens long before we are deploying or purchasing new tech.
It doesn't— there's a chicken or egg situation here, and we have to have that assessment beforehand.
So are there any plans to do that before this moves forward?
Christopher Petrov 2:27:00 - 2:28:18
Currently, our— the UAS platforms that we use are the only ones that are authorized to use it.
I would not say it's new technology.
It's just current technology that we have.
And we don't use them for surveillance whatsoever in the traffic division.
These are strictly for crime scene management and documentation.
So if, if any public, any citizen in the City of Portland is impacted by this, like if a car crash happens and it goes on a private property, we actually have to get consent from the property owner for us to fly over their property.
So We're in no way trying to collect data that's not in a public space, so we can only use it over private property and record their property where something has occurred if we get their permission.
Outside of that, a lot of our UAS systems are done for fly-throughs, which are at a low level.
We do aerial scanning, and the drone only follows a mapped-out portion for the crash scene, and it's recording that, and that it's all just internal police bureau data.
I mean, people could obviously make public records requests, but in general, the data that we're using is just for the crime scene, and we do not use the platforms for any other purpose.
Angelita Morillo 2:28:19 - 2:28:46
Gotcha.
And I definitely understand, you know, that there's not the intent to collect that data, but sometimes the reason that we have those privacy impact assessments beforehand is because that data collection may be recurring regardless.
And so I think it's really important for us to do it beforehand.
But what I'm hearing from you is that you're saying that there's not— there are no new applications as of right now for new vendors?
Christopher Petrov 2:28:48 - 2:30:26
No, what we're purchasing is just the actual equipment.
We're not— we don't use a, I guess, a vendor like for the photo enforcement program.
We had to go out and outsource and get a company to come in.
These are just the actual UAS platforms that we fly on the scene.
So we buy the equipment, we keep the equipment, we maintain the equipment.
It's all logged, and all the UAS systems that are assigned to traffic are in an inventory assigned to us.
And so any transfer, change of hands, or any of that stuff with the UAS systems is all documented.
But we're not using, uh, I guess again, we're not using new technology.
We're just trying to maintain our current technology and add to it a little bit so we can manage more complex crime scenes easier.
That's where our efficiency comes in.
If we, for an example, if we had a crash, which has occurred unfortunately, off of say the Morrison Bridge where the car exits the roadway from the bridge and lands down below, those are very complex and very difficult scenes to just use our FARO scanner, which is a 3D scanner that does the mapping.
So now we have the ability to use the UAS system.
So we could use one on top and one below and split our crime scenes up and actually make it so we can open up the bridges and the roads faster and remove the vehicles that are damaged.
And that's how we're using our UAS systems.
Thank you.
Gotcha.
Angelita Morillo 2:30:26 - 2:31:26
Um, yeah, I think, I, I think I'm beating a dead horse a little bit.
I would say that the purchasing of any new equipment, um, even if it's old equipment, means that we're expanding the data collection that we're doing, which means that we do need to have a privacy impact assessment regardless.
And so, um, You know, it— what you're describing to me does sort of sound like a new application of the existing technology.
And I am not anti-technology.
I think it can be used for great things.
I just want to make sure that we start getting into the habit at the city of now that we have this new data privacy office that Councilor Novick and I co-sponsored, that we are going to be actually using it and getting these impact assessments before moving forward with new technology purposes.
Purchases and expansion.
Um, but I really appreciate the background, and I think I am again just beating a dead horse here.
So, uh, just know that moving forward, as these things come to the committee and to council as a whole, they're the types of questions that I will continue to ask.
Thank you.
Christopher Petrov 2:31:27 - 2:31:33
Thank you.
And I was not insinuating that we should not have a privacy impact statement, if I came across that way.
I'm just saying—.
Angelita Morillo 2:31:33 - 2:31:36
No, no, not at all.
Thank you.
Steve Novick 2:31:37 - 2:31:38
Councilor Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman 2:31:40 - 2:31:51
Thank you.
I know we've delved pretty far into the policy side of this.
Getting back to just the $103,000, and I'm sorry, can you say your name again?
I'm not sure I have it.
Kari Mosdin 2:31:51 - 2:31:52
Kari Mazdan.
Eric Zimmerman 2:31:52 - 2:32:13
Yeah, Kari.
Hi, Kari.
I'm looking at the document as it was posted and it's, I'm looking at this budget impact chart here.
It has some numbers.
But it has no other information.
Can you help us understand, I think Councilor Murillo alluded to it, what is it actually paying for in this?
Do we know anything?
Kari Mosdin 2:32:15 - 2:32:35
Those numbers refer to different, you know, it might refer to personnel.
I don't have it in front of me, so I can't look at it specifically, but it might refer to, you know, that it pays for personnel or that it pays for equipment, just the different things that we spend on when we do our ledgers.
What we could do is get you an accounting of what specifically the budget will be are you—.
Eric Zimmerman 2:32:35 - 2:32:37
I'm sorry, are you Police Bureau or are you Grants Office?
Kari Mosdin 2:32:37 - 2:32:38
No, I'm in Grants Management.
Eric Zimmerman 2:32:38 - 2:34:09
Grants Office.
So I'm using this as an example, but Mr.
Administrator, this document is not a helpful document because I think I would want that, right?
But I would want that in this.
And this ain't my first government, but this is my first one where this continues to happen and no one will submit a document for budget impacts that actually discusses and so I've said this now more times to the budget office than I can count, and yet this is the standard that they continue to put forward.
And the reason I'm upset about that is that it allows us to spend 30 or 40 minutes on $103,000 because we don't actually know what we're talking about.
And your central budget office is now putting, I think, other bureaus in a position where they're having to our grants folks, others who are kind of in the, in the sights of council because we don't have the information we need.
But that's— this is because this is the product they get from our budget office.
So I am highlighting some disappointment because of how much this keeps happening, and this is a symptom of a much bigger problem.
So this is not a you thing.
I'm going to support this 100%.
Thank you.
I do appreciate the questions.
I'm keeping in mind this is $103,000, but sometimes the lack of information allows us to not understand and spend a lot of time on some other things, because I have a feeling I know what these all are.
To your point, some personnel, some equipment, and unfortunately the document doesn't have that.
Thank you.
Steve Novick 2:34:10 - 2:34:38
Thank you, Councilor Zimmerman.
I put myself in the queue because I'd like to get through this.
And get to the psychedelics issue.
And Councilor Kanal, I know you put yourself back in the queue.
My impression is that you were planning to vote no because you have some big questions about traffic enforcement in general that you need to have answered before you voted yes.
So if that's true, I'd like you to quickly ask whatever other questions you have.
Sameer Kanal 2:34:42 - 2:35:20
Councilor Novick, I appreciate that.
I will say that this could be— the agenda could be reordered to get something higher up.
I obviously have interest in making sure we discuss psychedelics as well.
But I, I think that this particular area of PPB's work has benefited from a lack of scrutiny over well over a decade now, um, due to the racial disparities in traffic stops that have been brought up primarily in the Portland Committee on Community Engaged Policing and really only there.
Um, so, you know, cut me off if you'd like, But I have a lot of questions that I want to get through.
I got through my first half and I'm going to do the rest here.
Steve Novick 2:35:23 - 2:35:47
I kind of think that we can arrange for a session about disparities in traffic stops and have, like, they make sure that we've got all the relevant police brass here.
Chief Hughes, you're still here?
I mean, I think, I actually think that at a minimum, perhaps possibly we should ask Chief Hughes rather than Sergeant Petrov to answer big policy questions.
Sameer Kanal 2:35:47 - 2:36:05
That is very fair.
And I, whichever person in PSSA broadly, I welcome it.
I have made requests in the past that the data piece of this be handled by Enterprise Services as well.
So that is not in-house.
But I appreciate you being here, Chief Hughes.
Brian Hughes 2:36:06 - 2:36:34
Thank you, Councilor Kanal, for the question there regarding well, you're gonna ask some questions, but I'd like to flag, first of all, my name is Brian Hughes, Deputy Chief, Portland Police Bureau.
I do agree with Councilor Novick.
I think this warrants more attention and probably in a separate setting.
We are aware of the data that you have mentioned regarding stops data.
And as you said, the Chief's Office has, you know, we're all relatively new in our positions up here, but acknowledge that the disparities do exist and warrant additional exploration as to why.
Sameer Kanal 2:36:34 - 2:36:34
Thank you.
Brian Hughes 2:36:35 - 2:36:42
So I want to give time for that to be properly explained, bring the relevant stakeholders here to be able to more thoroughly answer your questions.
Sameer Kanal 2:36:42 - 2:38:19
That's fair.
I think the challenge that I have is I'm being asked to expand something without knowing that.
And so I was not intending to vote no on this.
My intent was to ask that we have equity added into the evaluation piece and to ask for that to be added before we're asked to vote on it.
Yes.
Because as I mentioned, the evaluation component of this grant from the documents refers to efficiency and accuracy, which are also valid goals and should not be supplanted in any way.
This should remain, but also add equity.
Because I think the challenge here is free money is good.
I think that's fair.
Obviously not free in the sense of you applied for it and earned it.
I don't mean to imply otherwise.
But money that is not coming from the city budget that is paid to cover costs of the city is good.
But I want to make sure that we're not expanding something without, at a minimum, evaluating it on the core values of the city, in addition to understanding the nature of this particular area of work.
And obviously I voted for the other grant.
I'm not— I have questions.
I don't have a concern about that grant, but for this particular one, I think it's, it's worth asking for a pause to ensure that those documents and that evaluation process includes an equity component before being asked to expand it.
And so that's why it doesn't make sense to me to, um, just vote this through without having that conversation.
Is that something that can be added to the evaluation process?
Kari Mosdin 2:38:20 - 2:38:20
Yes.
Sameer Kanal 2:38:22 - 2:38:24
Process, the grant evaluation plan specifically?
Kari Mosdin 2:38:24 - 2:38:30
In putting forward an application or in accepting the award?
Which stage are you referring to?
Sameer Kanal 2:38:32 - 2:38:41
Not the application, because that's already happened, but the acceptance of the award, since we're discussing that now, but also after the award is accepted.
Right.
Kari Mosdin 2:38:42 - 2:38:52
I mean, I would say that the award agreement, you know, goes through attorney's office scrutiny for those sort of elements, and it is signed by the city administrator.
Sameer Kanal 2:38:53 - 2:41:24
Okay, I see the city administrator.
There is an equity, uh, component of it, but I'm just emailing, uh, Latrice, our chief equity officer, to see how she can get more engaged in kind of these conversations as well.
So we'll work on that process because I understand exactly what you're saying and the comments that you're making.
So we'll most definitely look into it and follow up with you on that process.
Yeah, and I appreciate that.
The thing I wanted to mention, you know, in the report, which talks about the annual stops data report, which mentions not only traffic division stops, but patrol stops in a traffic context, and also focused intervention team stops, basically all stops are in that report.
There used to be another benchmark.
Which was also not census data, and it was called the crime victimization benchmark to pedestrian stops.
And I think this got added in 2013, 2014, back then as well.
And you'll notice there's a fairly long area in all these reports that explains why PPB feels that's the appropriate benchmark to use.
But in 2025's report, it offers a It's stunning, and I use that word with very high praise to PPB, a stunning reversal of this practice because that practice had been criticized just as roundly as the injury collision benchmark for the traffic division.
The second benchmark is no longer being used, and the report quotes, you know, for the 2025 annual report, all driver stops regardless of the operational unit were benchmarked against the injury collision benchmark, end quote.
So I I want to bring that up to highlight that PPB has listened on that one, has reevaluated it, and has chosen not to use that benchmark anymore.
The thing that is being used now for all the other non-Traffic Division stops is now the same as this one, and I think this one also needs that evaluation.
And so I want to first thank the PPB, even though it's outside the scope of this grant, for the change on the crime victimization benchmark.
But also rethink strongly the— or ask for the rethinking of using injury collision data as a way of justifying, again, not applying— ascribing intent here, but impact, justifying a higher level of stops for Black Portlanders.
And I'll note there are other disparities which are acknowledged, including the indigenous stops data, by the way, historically.
But that's what I'm affected by.
Okay.
Steve Novick 2:41:25 - 2:41:32
Councilor Kanal, I think that we should schedule some time in this committee to talk about the issue of disparities in traffic stops.
Sameer Kanal 2:41:34 - 2:41:35
But we should fund the disparities.
Steve Novick 2:41:35 - 2:42:18
Well, I don't think that a $103,000 grant, it is, you know, where not the entire hierarchy is here to discuss the policy issues.
Is the appropriate time to have this big, big policy discussion.
I mean, you aired it.
I appreciate you airing it, and I want to get a broader discussion on the agenda, but I don't think that we're going to resolve your issues today on this issue.
And I think that we should— I want to hear from Councilor Murillo, but I would like to move to a vote on this narrow issue, schedule a future time on the general issue of disparities in traffic stops and hopefully get to the next item on the agenda.
Councilor Murillo.
Angelita Morillo 2:42:22 - 2:44:00
Uh, thank you, Chair Novick.
Um, I, I have to say, I think this is very backwards because it doesn't really matter that the grant award is small.
The reality is that this is an expansion of an area of, uh, surveillance that has had really detrimental impacts to Black and brown Portlanders.
So the idea that this is a scheduling issue as far as how we schedule these meetings and what is put on the agenda— we spent over an hour talking about a county program that we don't even have direct influence or oversight over, and we spent a bunch of time talking about that.
This is something that we have direct responsibility to.
That can impact the lives of Portlanders very heavily.
So I agree with what Councilor Kanal is saying, and I would love to work with our new equity director to talk about when the Data Privacy Office is also consulted, because policy and funding go hand in hand.
They are never separate.
They are always intricately intertwined.
And so it doesn't make sense to me to fund something before we know the policy impacts of it.
Thank you.
So I am curious, does this particular grant have to move through today, or is this something that can be discussed at the next council meeting's agenda?
Because I, I don't think it's fair that we should continue to rush certain portions of the agenda that people have strong questions about that we directly impact, while also taking a very long time to talk about things we don't really have direct oversight over.
Loretta Smith 2:44:00 - 2:44:00
Thank you.
Steve Novick 2:44:04 - 2:44:04
Councilor Smith.
Angelita Morillo 2:44:06 - 2:44:11
That's not answering my question.
Can we hold off the vote for this grant?
Steve Novick 2:44:13 - 2:44:18
Uh, hey, Gary, is there an urgency in accepting the grant?
Kari Mosdin 2:44:22 - 2:44:23
Are you asking me?
Steve Novick 2:44:23 - 2:44:23
Yes.
Kari Mosdin 2:44:24 - 2:44:26
Oh, sorry, I didn't realize.
Loretta Smith 2:44:28 - 2:44:29
Can I take—.
Kari Mosdin 2:44:29 - 2:44:31
I'll defer to my colleague Ben.
Sameer Kanal 2:44:32 - 2:44:41
My name is, for the record, Ben Smione.
I'm a grants analyst with the Grants Management Division, and PPB is one of the bureaus in my portfolio.
There is a bit of an urgency.
Brian Hughes 2:44:41 - 2:44:42
So this—.
Gerald Skelton 2:44:42 - 2:44:45
The grant period ends on September 30th.
Sameer Kanal 2:44:47 - 2:45:01
We've mentioned that there is the possibility of extension.
What that will look like, what the possibility of that Or what the actual potential of it, I'm not quite sure because this is a pass-through from ODOT, from NHTSA.
Gerald Skelton 2:45:02 - 2:45:05
And in order to get an extension, it may look like a carryover.
Sameer Kanal 2:45:05 - 2:45:27
It may look like we have to reapply for a new grant.
There isn't a guarantee because they would have to get approval to spend their funds in the next federal fiscal year from NHTSA.
And working in federal grants right now, it says the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration will— could take months.
Eric Zimmerman 2:45:28 - 2:45:28
We may not know.
Sameer Kanal 2:45:29 - 2:45:36
And so if the sooner this is appropriated, the better.
Angelita Morillo 2:45:38 - 2:45:44
So it has to be done before September 30th, you said.
Is there another CABS meeting before September 30th?
Sameer Kanal 2:45:46 - 2:45:47
There is.
Steve Novick 2:45:49 - 2:46:25
I, I think that we should take some real time in a future meeting to talk about the broader issue.
And in response to your previous comment, Councilor Murillo, if I had been told that this $100,000 grant item was going to be used as a forum for a much broader discussion, then I would have scheduled more time for it.
I was not aware that this is going to be the subject for much broader discussion.
Thank you.
So I frankly would like to move ahead, vote on this, have the larger discussion later.
And I'm going to ask Councilor Smith to ask whatever questions she has to ask.
Loretta Smith 2:46:26 - 2:47:10
Thank you.
I do agree with you, Councilor Novick.
I think we need to vote on this.
This money comes from the feds that is passed through, through ODOT, that we need to do this before the next council meeting.
Thank you.
This is a bigger conversation.
It's not a CAPS conversation.
This is a policy conversation, a budget overall.
This is something that needs to come through the Committee of the Whole, Councilor Kanal.
We don't have the time or the resources to nitpick this process.
It's already in process, and it is actually going to do something to help streamline the data that we have, and I'd be supporting pushing this through right now.
Councilor Novick.
Steve Novick 2:47:11 - 2:47:12
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal 2:47:14 - 2:48:11
Yeah, just, I want to point out in the last item that the one that the county item that Councilor Murillo mentioned, and by the way, I agree with Councilor Murillo's other questions about this item as well.
We talked about disparities there, and the grounds for determining a disparity was comparison So I think it's really important that we observe that that standard is common, and the fact that we are not even acknowledging that a problem exists while simultaneously being asked to expand it by— I understand $100,000 is not a big amount.
I don't want to expand something that's a problem by a dollar if we are not able to have the conversation about how to make it not a problem.
Councilmember I think that's a fair thing because at some— I mean, we're going to be voting on this.
It's going to be our stance on whether or not to accept this money, which also means whether or not to do this work that is funded by the grant.
And that doesn't mean that we shouldn't do it.
It just means that we should evaluate whether to do it.
Steve Novick 2:48:12 - 2:48:21
I understand your position.
Uh, can I have a motion to move this item to full council with the recommendation to be accepted?
Loretta Smith 2:48:21 - 2:48:22
So moved.
Steve Novick 2:48:23 - 2:48:24
Do I have a second?
Eric Zimmerman 2:48:27 - 2:48:27
Second.
Steve Novick 2:48:28 - 2:48:29
Will the clerk please call the roll?
Keelan McClymont 2:48:32 - 2:48:33
All right, uh, Morillo?
Angelita Morillo 2:48:35 - 2:48:35
No.
Keelan McClymont 2:48:37 - 2:48:37
Zimmerman?
Eric Zimmerman 2:48:38 - 2:48:38
Aye.
Angelita Morillo 2:48:39 - 2:48:39
Smith?
Loretta Smith 2:48:40 - 2:48:40
Aye.
Keelan McClymont 2:48:41 - 2:48:41
Kanal?
Sameer Kanal 2:48:43 - 2:48:43
No.
Keelan McClymont 2:48:44 - 2:48:44
Novick?
Steve Novick 2:48:44 - 2:48:44
Aye.
Keelan McClymont 2:48:46 - 2:48:58
Uh, with 3 ayes and 2 nos, The motion to refer the document— or sorry, to refer the ordinance, document number 2026-278, to City Council with a recommendation it be passed has passed.
Steve Novick 2:49:01 - 2:49:02
Thank you.
Could you call the next item?
Keelan McClymont 2:49:05 - 2:49:29
Item number 5, shown on the agenda as item number 6, document number 2026-186, add psychedelic health please proceed.
Courtney Moran 2:49:33 - 2:50:11
Good morning, Chair Novick, members of the committee.
Thank you for having us here this morning.
I am Courtney Moran, here on behalf of the Portland Psychedelic Society Action I believe our sponsors or their staff are on their way up here, but I will just get started.
Thank you for the opportunity to continue this discussion today.
We've really appreciated the collaboration and the efforts made by our sponsors and members of the committee and also the County Health Department since the last hearing to address some of the questions that came up during the last hearing regarding the creation of the advisory commission.
Would you like me to pause, Devin, so you can—.
No, you're—.
Sameer Kanal 2:50:11 - 2:50:12
You take it away.
Courtney Moran 2:50:12 - 2:50:50
Um, so while we had hoped to advance the ordinance with the creation of an advisory body as originally introduced, our board understands that the committee has not yet been able to agree on amendments for language on the commission.
As such, we understand that Councilor Kanal's amendment, um, will likely get brought forward again this morning, and we we are, as a board, supportive because we do not want the concerns around the commission to prevent the deprioritization ordinance from passing out of committee to the full council today.
And as such, we will respectfully ask for your yes votes on the deprioritization ordinance to move to the full council.
Thank you.
Steve Novick 2:50:52 - 2:50:57
Thank you.
Councilor Karl, do you want to move your amendment?
Sameer Kanal 2:50:57 - 2:51:32
Sure, if there's the right time there.
Yeah, I, uh, First off, thank you for being here as well.
Devin, as well, I see you.
I formally move Amendment Kanal 1.
Just to speak to what it does, the amendment removes Directive B in the underlying ordinance.
It makes an amendment to subsection 14B.140.010C, which is new code being added in Exhibit A that just references the creation of the advisory body, and then it removes Exhibit B in its entirety, which has information specific to that.
And I would ask for a second.
Denise Peña 2:51:38 - 2:51:40
Second.
Steve Novick 2:51:43 - 2:51:44
Councilor Zimmerman.
Loretta Smith 2:51:47 - 2:51:47
Can you—.
Eric Zimmerman 2:51:47 - 2:52:15
I mean, this has been going on a while.
I'm starting to lose the thread a little bit.
Like what was the— you made some arguments about why the advisory board and the advisory body— I thought that maybe you were going to say what they would advise on would change, like harm reduction.
I agree, it's really not a city role, but maybe they would advise on enforcement practices.
So can you rearticulate why you want to get rid of this body?
Steve Novick 2:52:15 - 2:53:28
Because I'm not sure I'm well, my understanding was the intent of the proponents was for this body to, among other things, provide essentially public health advice to advise people on the appropriate use of psychedelics.
And I was concerned about potential liability for the city if there was a city body that was giving advice on that.
I was concerned about our capacity to even figure out who the right people were to be to give that advice.
I think that's a very fair point.
And I was concerned.
It seemed to me that this is a public health issue that I would have expected the county to take on.
So I was simply uneasy about the idea of having a city advisory body on psychedelics, given that it's something that we don't have much expertise in.
I actually was willing to continue the conversation and see if some of my concerns could be addressed.
Thank you.
And I did not tell the proponents that I was just— that I was insisting on stripping this out.
But since the proponents are comfortable with moving forward with just the deprioritization and putting a pause on the advisory body, I was willing to accept that suggestion.
Eric Zimmerman 2:53:29 - 2:53:31
Councilor Kanal, anything else to add?
Sameer Kanal 2:53:31 - 2:55:02
Yeah, I appreciate Courtney being clear about what the relative priorities are, and I think that the idea of doing the The primary purpose of city legislation now and not delaying on that while we figure out what might be possibly a good way to do an advisory body is one of the big reasons why this isn't a wholesale rewrite of Exhibit B, but is instead a removal.
Everything that Councilor Novick said, as someone who staffed 5 different bodies related to police, I think that this is a good way to go.
Thank you.
I can't speak for PSSA, but I don't know that we need another advisory body to advise the Portland Police Bureau at this moment.
I only advised 5 of them.
There are many others that I didn't directly work with, but had the sort of knowledge of.
And then the last thing I'd say is, I think that without that comprehensive conversation, Mm-hmm.
I don't like the idea of not being fully developed enough where we're asking volunteers to step into something that is going to be, um, outside of the scope of the city, meaning that their, their advice would not be able to be heeded by the city.
Um, and I can tell you from talking to volunteers— I tried to do exit interviews as people left— um, that's something that was concerning to me, is the idea that I'm here, I'm talking about it, I care about this issue and I'm putting in free time as a volunteer without the ability to be successful.
Angelita Morillo 2:55:02 - 2:55:03
So that—.
Sameer Kanal 2:55:03 - 2:55:18
Those are all the reasons.
I will say that for me, I would be very open to the conversation about what to do.
It just doesn't have to be through this particular legislative item.
And I do want to commit again to having that conversation separate from this.
Eric Zimmerman 2:55:21 - 2:55:32
And then from the proponent's perspective or sponsor's perspective, The reason that you all wanted an advisory panel or advisory body to the City of Portland, would you mind restating that?
Max Kellman 2:55:44 - 2:55:50
Hello, uh, my name is Max Kellman.
I'm the executive director of the Portland Psychedelic Society.
Can you please repeat the question?
Eric Zimmerman 2:55:51 - 2:55:54
They're asking us to cut out a thing you like.
I'd like to know why you like it.
Max Kellman 2:55:55 - 2:56:25
Why we liked it, because this is a very fast-moving field of research and study right now.
The impacts on policy and communities is real.
And so bringing experts together to help advise legislators, bureaucracy, would be advisable.
And that's what we want to bring to the table of what's already happening in the field already in our city.
City and our state and beyond, uh, to bring it to the table of the city, the county, and the state.
Gerald Skelton 2:56:29 - 2:56:29
Okay.
Eric Zimmerman 2:56:30 - 2:56:51
I mean, I think last time I highlighted some challenges here, which is I don't see the county public health department promoting, right?
This is this balance between harm reduction and promotion, and I've said on the record many times in terms of this aspect of the county's public health, I don't think they have a great record.
Loretta Smith 2:57:00 - 2:57:02
The—.
Eric Zimmerman 2:57:02 - 2:57:41
It gives me a little bit of pause in the I don't even know what the right word is, but we decriminalize this thing that will then be available with a void of information about it.
I don't know.
I didn't know that this was being developed, so I am reacting a little bit just since late last night, frankly.
I'm going to actually just hold my comments.
I'd like to see where others' questions go.
Sameer Kanal 2:57:41 - 2:57:41
Thanks.
Courtney Moran 2:57:42 - 2:58:26
Councilor, can I add just a few comments here?
I just want to clarify, we are not decriminalizing.
It's just a deprioritization for law enforcement.
So that is not something that the city can do.
That has to be done at the state level, and that's not what the ordinance does.
The other piece is that the advisory body was never intended to promote use.
It was to have a group of experts available to the city to provide evidence-based information as the police need it for any sort of implementation or for guidance or for the council as they want to develop future policies.
So there's never any intent to encourage use.
It's really just to provide that evidence-based information, have a group of experts available to all of you, to the mayor's office, to the city, to our police bureau.
Eric Zimmerman 2:58:27 - 2:58:55
That's the intent.
I think that—.
Thank you.
You said it so much better than I did.
I think the point there was something attractive in the original ordinance, which was a deprioritization.
Thank you for correcting me.
Deprioritization and how to implement that, meaning law enforcement knows what drugs are, they know how to enforce drugs.
I know what a nail is if I'm a hammer.
Loretta Smith 2:58:55 - 2:58:56
Yeah.
Eric Zimmerman 2:58:56 - 2:59:19
But if I need to do something a little different, I might need to be advised on the other tools.
And so there was an aspect of that that was attractive to me that now taking this out puts us into a little bit of a decision advisory void space.
So I think that's what I'm probably wrestling with.
So I appreciate that.
Again, I'm going to kind of listen to the rest of the conversation on this.
Courtney Moran 2:59:20 - 2:59:41
I think that's a very fair comment back, and I just I just want to also say that the advisory body was not necessarily to advise the police on their implementation, but more to serve as a reference for the police in their own implementation of the ordinance.
If they needed access to information or experts or some other type of resources, that they would have a group to go to that has been vetted for their access.
Sameer Kanal 2:59:51 - 3:00:13
Thank you for that.
Yeah, I think the 2 things that were brought up last time and not yet on this one is one, the responsibility level of jurisdictions, meaning a lot of this is about, I mean, as we just heard, advising the county and the state.
But once again, them not, those 2 jurisdictions not taking on this work.
Steve Novick 3:00:13 - 3:00:13
Mm-hmm.
Sameer Kanal 3:00:13 - 3:02:02
Means that us with our limited tax— taxing authority would be asked to take on a job that would be better done at another jurisdiction, in my opinion.
I do see a merit in the idea that, I can't remember who brought it up a couple weeks ago, about seeing if we could work together like a Multnomah Youth Commission type of thing.
But that's not something we can do unilaterally through an exhibit here.
The Exhibit B is not in my amendment because my amendment just removes it.
So for reference, it's not in there, but you can see the file if you go to the page for just this proposed ordinance.
And, you know, first thing is harm reduction, research and recommend evidence-based harm reduction approaches.
Second thing is study the use of natural psychedelics in alleviating alcohol or opioid dependency and other addictions.
Third thing is a strategic plan for Benchmarks for city consideration about natural psychedelics being used safely.
It also includes the low priority for law enforcement.
So 2.5 of the first 3 are sort of outside the scope.
And as you continue down it, a lot of it is things that I actually very much support and I think is great to do.
But a lot of it is outside the scope of what the city does.
In terms of the— I think Councilor Zimmerman's point about advisory deficit.
I think that it may be worth considering how to ask for— I mean, there is a Behavioral Health Unit Advisory Committee that has some interest and has discussed this at PPB, not to the degree of the expertise that something like this would be seeking to do.
But I do think that there are places for entry into that space that don't necessarily require a new thank you, councilor.
Steve Novick 3:02:02 - 3:02:08
Seeing no one else in the queue— bless you— could the clerk call the roll on this amendment?
Lauren Johnson 3:02:10 - 3:02:10
Sure.
Sameer Kanal 3:02:11 - 3:02:14
Kanal?
On the amendment, aye.
Keelan McClymont 3:02:16 - 3:02:20
Morillo?
Apologies.
Angelita Morillo 3:02:20 - 3:02:22
Because I— Oh, sorry.
Keelan McClymont 3:02:23 - 3:02:24
Oh, apologies, I called you out of order.
Angelita Morillo 3:02:26 - 3:02:32
Oh, that's okay.
Um, I— because I think it's what's needed to make sure the broader policy passes, aye.
Keelan McClymont 3:02:33 - 3:02:34
Zimmerman?
Eric Zimmerman 3:02:34 - 3:02:34
No.
Keelan McClymont 3:02:36 - 3:02:36
Smith?
Loretta Smith 3:02:37 - 3:02:37
No.
Keelan McClymont 3:02:38 - 3:02:38
Novick?
Steve Novick 3:02:39 - 3:02:39
Aye.
Keelan McClymont 3:02:40 - 3:02:55
With, uh, 3 ayes and 2 nays, the, uh, motion to amend the directive in the ordinance and subsection— and remove subsections A out of Exhibit A and Exhibit B has passed.
Steve Novick 3:02:57 - 3:03:01
Any discussion of the underlying ordinance?
Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal 3:03:02 - 3:04:21
Yeah, uh, now that that is passed, and thank you colleagues for the support for that, um, this ordinance is a great thing and I'm very glad to the sponsors for putting it forward.
Um, I think as I read through the code, um, it's pretty clear and it aligns with some of the other things we've heard from not only the police bureau, but broadly the administration about sort of how we should prioritize our efforts with limited resources and a need for ordering of priorities.
I think that the statement in the ordinance language that particularly talked to me was about the effectiveness of law enforcement prioritization.
I think we've had this conversation in 15 different ways Councilor Dan Ryan.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
I think we've made some progress in the, in the council, but defining low priority as having, quote, I think this is a quote, little or no measurable negative impact on the health, safety, and welfare of the public, but also stating that enforcement of this will generally get addressed, if at all, after higher priority crimes.
It's clear that we're not completely stepping away from this, but just having a clear measurement and order of operations.
So I'm very supportive of this.
I appreciate the work of the sponsors in developing it in the first place, as well as the advocates.
I know some of the others, uh, are not just at the table.
I see in the back as well.
So thank you.
Steve Novick 3:04:22 - 3:04:23
Councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith 3:04:24 - 3:05:07
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilor Novick.
I asked this question in committee on June 2nd, and I asked it again on June— July 7th, and I have yet to get a clear answer.
If this is all already a low priority for PPB, what is the purpose of putting in an ordinance?
If PPB decides to make it a high priority at any point, then they can do that.
Even if we pass this ordinance, it is up to PPB at their discretion to determine and prioritize based on the need of the community.
So I will ask the question again.
If it is already a low priority for police, why are we putting this forward?
Unidentified speaker 3:05:08 - 3:05:10
I'm not going to share.
Go ahead, Max.
Loretta Smith 3:05:11 - 3:05:11
Nathan?
Unidentified speaker 3:05:12 - 3:07:08
Yeah, please.
Thank you for asking the questions in those 2 committees.
You also asked it in a meeting that we had with you, and all 3 times we've answered it.
We've also sent an FAQ that answered this question.
So to offer it again, there's a public policy best practice, which is that when a social norm or a practice of a bureau, whether it's police or the Bureau of Sustainability, is doing something that is out of alignment with a directive or a law, it's to change things to reflect the reality.
There's a principle in city planning which is if somebody keeps walking across a path that has no paver or no pathway, it's not to try to get people to stay on the path if it's not actually efficient or what people need.
It's to put the path down.
So there is a thing here that's a little bit effervescent.
It's a little bit difficult to explain.
The word that we use in all of our answers is to ensure that everyone has the same psychological safety when healing with these non-toxic, non-addictive plants and fungi.
And so the limited research that we have shows that there's roughly some number of tens of thousands of Portlanders who have experienced experienced these what we call medicines, mushrooms.
They look like vines.
This is the kind of thing that the commission could help detail and show photos of.
I'm not sure if people know what ayahuasca looks like.
And so, uh, just that's the purpose of the commission.
In the absence of it, we will still put up our own resources.
We will still try to help educate folks so that people do not have to spend money they don't have to try to find, you know, forgiveness to their parents or whatever.
So that's— it's a little bit challenging.
It's not a bumper sticker, but enshrining in a, in a prac— in a, in law or a directive what is already a practice, and to help ensure that they're going, you know, limited resources, they're going after things that they want to focus on, is part of it.
And then psychological safety being shared by everybody, so it's not just folks who feel comfortable breaking the law can find the healing.
Sameer Kanal 3:07:08 - 3:07:09
So—.
Unidentified speaker 3:07:10 - 3:07:13
And I'd also like to I understand that.
Loretta Smith 3:07:13 - 3:08:25
And the psychological safety, I don't think you can legislate that, because if we could have, I would have gotten some legislation to give me some psychological safety when my Black son goes out at night to go party, to make sure that he comes home safe and that he's not shot by someone or the police.
So I don't know that this is the same thing.
I still think that if we are already not giving this a high priority and no one has lost their life, or there are no physical things that have happened to people who are using these psychedelics, I'm still not understanding why we have to put this into code, because they can change their mind at any time to make something a priority, and we can't do anything about that.
I don't have the ability to prioritize what the police, what they put into, you know, what, where they spend their time or their energy or their priorities.
So I'm still not understanding the answer.
It's to give people psychological comfortability?
Unidentified speaker 3:08:26 - 3:08:34
Safety.
Well, safety, you do, you do have the ability.
That is the job.
Is to help inform directives and support law enforcement.
So I don't know how to—.
Loretta Smith 3:08:34 - 3:08:35
Oh yeah, I do agree.
Unidentified speaker 3:08:35 - 3:08:37
I don't know how to explain that understanding of logic.
Loretta Smith 3:08:37 - 3:09:11
If they're doing something different, Nathan, if they're doing something different from what they're saying, if they're saying, oh, we're not making this a priority, but yet they're targeting folks who are using this, then I can say, oh yeah, you say it's a low priority, but you keep putting folks in harm by enforcing it at a greater rate than you say that you're prioritizing it.
So if that was the case, then I would be like, yeah, we need to put something in code to protect folks.
But they're not bothering anybody.
Unidentified speaker 3:09:11 - 3:09:37
I hear your point.
In 2017, when there was a renewed force to— or renewed push to move people out of the country, even if they were here legally, we renewed our— and I worked on this policy.
We renewed our sanctuary city law, and the pushback from some was, why do this?
It's not a problem yet.
I don't know how to explain that other than that is a well-traveled policy and cultural phenomenon where we change laws to reflect a cultural norm.
Loretta Smith 3:09:38 - 3:09:56
Over at the county, me and Chair Kefaurui, we sponsored that and it passed because we wanted to give people the sense that we would not be coming for them because there was a direct I don't see a direct threat coming from the city police in regards to this.
That's all I'm saying.
Lauren Johnson 3:09:57 - 3:09:57
I—.
Loretta Smith 3:09:57 - 3:10:08
Look, you may have your votes for it, and it's fine.
I'm just saying I don't see that there's been direct threats to this group of people from city police doing anything different from what they've said they were doing.
Unidentified speaker 3:10:08 - 3:10:16
Totally agree.
And it's not really about them.
It's the people that we talked to, which is a ton of people who are living in the 56th anniversary of the drug war.
Loretta Smith 3:10:16 - 3:10:16
And so I think that's what we need to be talking about.
Unidentified speaker 3:10:16 - 3:10:34
And that is the thing that they can't detach between certain bureaus and agencies.
They don't know what the acronym is.
And so it is, if you talk to a person in this space, I think you'll be happy with what you hear, 'cause nothing you're saying is off, but it is different than the experience of the people on the ground that we're talking to.
Steve Novick 3:10:34 - 3:10:39
We need to wrap this up.
We're over time.
We need to let the clerk's office go.
Councilor Kanal, quickly.
Sameer Kanal 3:10:40 - 3:10:50
Yeah, I find it, Thank you for the answer.
I think there's a broader conversation that we need to have later about what our role is.
If PPB decides—.
Unidentified speaker 3:10:50 - 3:10:50
There's a quote—.
Sameer Kanal 3:10:50 - 3:11:14
If PPB decides to make it a high priority at any point, then they can do that even if we pass this ordinance.
It's up to PPB, end quote.
I think implies that either PPB will be breaking the law or that the legislative body of the city is an advisory group.
I think neither of those is true.
And so I think we should put this forward and understand that we have a legislative role as a city.
Thanks, City Council.
Steve Novick 3:11:14 - 3:11:24
Okay, seeing no one else in the queue, uh, like, do we have a motion to, uh, send the underlying ordinance to full council, the recommendation to be adopted?
Did we already have that?
Angelita Morillo 3:11:24 - 3:11:25
So moved.
Steve Novick 3:11:25 - 3:11:25
What?
Angelita Morillo 3:11:27 - 3:11:27
So moved.
Steve Novick 3:11:29 - 3:11:33
Okay, Councilor Morillo moves, Councilor Kanal seconds.
Could the clerk please call the roll?
Keelan McClymont 3:11:34 - 3:11:39
Sure.
For document number 2026-186, Morillo?
Angelita Morillo 3:11:41 - 3:11:41
Aye.
Keelan McClymont 3:11:42 - 3:11:42
Zimmerman?
Eric Zimmerman 3:11:42 - 3:11:42
Aye.
Angelita Morillo 3:11:43 - 3:11:43
Smith?
Loretta Smith 3:11:44 - 3:11:45
No.
Keelan McClymont 3:11:45 - 3:11:46
Kanal?
Sameer Kanal 3:11:46 - 3:11:47
Thanks to the sponsors, aye.
Keelan McClymont 3:11:48 - 3:11:48
Novick?
Steve Novick 3:11:49 - 3:11:49
Aye.
Keelan McClymont 3:11:50 - 3:12:04
With a vote of 4 ayes and 1 nay, the motion to refer the ordinance as amended, document number 2026-186, to City Council with a recommendation it be passed has thank you.
Steve Novick 3:12:04 - 3:12:11
Thank you.
Thank you.
Um, with that, this meeting of the Committee on Community and Public Safety is adjourned.
Sameer Kanal 3:12:13 - 3:12:15
Thank you.