Transcript
Automatically generated transcript. It may contain errors and includes testimony in languages other than English that is not individually marked up for assistive technology.
Olivia Clark
Good morning, everyone.
Ah, after a 3-day weekend, it's a little confusing.
Um, I'd like to call the meeting of the Public Works Committee to order.
It is Tuesday, September the 8th, at 9:33.
Diana, can you please call the roll?
Good morning.
Koyama Lane?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Here.
Sameer Kanal
Here.
Olivia Clark
Smith?
Kanal?
Sameer Kanal
Here.
Unidentified speaker
Oh, there we go.
Catherine Schroeder
Thank you, Clerk.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Here.
Olivia Clark
And Claire, can you please read the statement of conduct?
Unidentified speaker
Thank you, Chair.
Good morning and welcome to the meeting of the Public Works Committee.
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Thank you.
Olivia Clark
Thanks, Claire.
Uh, colleagues, today, uh, it may be a fairly short meeting.
We had some items, uh, So what we're focused on today is public-private partnerships, and we're focused mainly on parks and recreation.
So we have the staff here to give us an update on community partnerships and volunteerism, and they're going to be joined by invited panelists who will illustrate some of this work, and then we'll open it up to the public.
I think maybe we only have one person signed up.
Oh, we have 2 people signed up today.
Okay, good.
So, Diana, could you please open both items on today's agenda?
Item number 1, document number 2026-315, Partnering for Portland's Public Spaces.
Item number 2, document number 2026-316, Public Hearing on Partnering for Portland's Public Spaces.
Thank you.
Colleagues, Portland has a long history of community organizations helping to steward programs to improve things, to fund things, to activate our parks and public spaces.
And these partnerships have taken many different forms, and you'll see that represented on the panels today.
But today is really an opportunity to hear about programs that Portland Parks and Recreation has made over the past year, but also to hear candidly, I hope, from the partners about their experiences.
I certainly heard about some of those experiences experiences when I was campaigning, which partly led to my interest in this topic.
We want to understand what works, what gets in the way, and what the city could do differently.
This conversation isn't only about how to use private nonprofit operators to run and take care of spaces, but also how we can truly engage with our community, encouraging volunteerism and engagement.
I've been very interested in this conversation, and I'm focused on taking care of what we have, as you all know, my mantra, and getting out of our own way to allow community members to work beside us for these spaces and programs.
Encouraging partnerships and volunteering not only benefits our work at the city, but it gives people in our community a sense of belonging within their community and ownership.
Thank you.
I was really excited to see last year that we not only met but exceeded Mayor Wilson's goal of hitting pre-COVID levels of volunteerism, uh, with I think an increase of about 7.3% above 2019, which is great.
So we're first going to be hearing from our interim parks director.
Hi, Art.
Art Pierce, on the progress made around partnerships and volunteerism within the bureau.
Over the past year.
And after that, we've invited 2 panels of partners from all 4 of our districts to share about the benefits and challenges of working with the city.
This conversation is going to help inform how Portland approaches partnerships, uh, going forward so that we can develop a framework potentially that aligns our policies around partnerships and removes any unnecessary barriers to our community members.
So with that, I'd like to hand it off to Interim Director Art.
Good to see you.
Happy Tuesday morning.
Yeah.
Bright and early.
We're happy to see you.
Unidentified speaker
Sneaker Monday, right?
Olivia Clark
Sneaker Monday.
Unidentified speaker
I like that.
All right.
Good morning, Chair Clark and members of the Public Works Committee.
My name's Art Pierce, and I'm pleased to be speaking with you today as the Interim Director of Portland Parks and Recreation.
While I'm new to Portland Parks, I have 28 years of experience serving Portland, utilizing transportation resources to create greater access to opportunity and leveraging our streets to unlock community vision and pairing that vision I've always seen public service as an extension of the hospitality industry.
We are constantly recreating a city in order to retain and attract residents and businesses and create a place that we all want to contribute to.
There is deep pride in Portland.
People deeply love this city.
Businesses and individuals want to contribute to our city but need to see themselves in a shared future.
Future vision.
Innovation occurs when the government sector can help curate community, public, and private resources to create shared outcomes.
How we show up as public servants matters and can either amplify or stifle that collaboration.
Portland Parks oversees 15% of the land area in Portland.
That's a significant public resource that can contribute— continue to be uplifted to support this moment for Portland, To create healthier natural areas, to create greater community welcome, to create greater belonging.
Uplifting to create a city we are proud to live, work, and play in.
In my first 2 months at Parks, I have been struck by how directly Portland Parks daily activities are focused on the act of hospitality.
I've termed this the hidden work of hospitality because a good host has anticipated your needs before you arrive, so the experience is frictionless enjoyment.
Whether that is curating our natural areas, the day-to-day care of our developed parks and sports fields, maintenance and operations of our community centers, all of that is an act of gracious welcome, of hospitality.
And these are incredibly important public assets that impact every Portlander's daily life.
There is so much potential to share this responsibility and the joy of hosting with community and with private partners.
About a year ago, Portland Parks was given a clear charge: take a hard look at how Parks works with partners and volunteers make it easier for Portlanders to work with us and increase volunteer participation beyond where we were before COVID so we got to work.
Today I want to show you what we found, what has changed, and where we see a much bigger opportunity ahead.
Our focus on how we invite Portlanders into the work of caring for, investing in, programming, and activating their public spaces.
You will see this on this, on the slide, that partnership is not new to Parks and Recreation.
We have hundreds of groups that work alongside us every day to provide critical care and services.
Each of our divisions has 25 to 90 recognized external partner organizations.
Portland Parks and Rec manages an enormous and diverse system of public assets, and that need— and the needs across that system are significant, and government cannot meet every opportunity by itself.
That does not mean replacing public investment with private investment.
Public parks and recreation facilities are a public responsibility.
But there is tremendous capacity in this city.
Community organizations bring relationships and knowledge.
Volunteers bring time and talent.
Nonprofit philanthropy and businesses bring programming expertise and resources.
Our job is to connect that capacity to a public purpose.
When the Parks Bureau started this work, we heard a consistent message.
Portlanders want to partner with parks, but we aren't always easy to partner with.
Proposals come through different doors, agreements can take a long time, and we don't have a comprehensive picture of our partnerships or their contributions.
So we started with the basics.
We inventoried partnerships, re-engaged partners and friends groups, improved volunteer tracking, and began creating clearer pathways for community ideas.
The question driving the work has been simple.
How do we make Portland Parks and Rec easier to partner with while protecting the public interest?
One of the first things we learned is that partnership at parks is much bigger than philanthropy.
Partners operate facilities, provide programming, steward natural areas, improve public spaces, raise money, sponsor programs, and organize volunteers.
When we put those relationships together, we found something significant.
Portland Parks and Rec works with more than 100 partner organizations, including 40 active site-based partnerships, providing regular stewardship, activation, and maintenance support across the city.
The International Rose Test Garden volunteers are a great example.
This year, hundreds of them were essential in keeping the garden looking its best and serving thousands of visiting guests.
They contributed over 2,200 volunteer hours alongside our land stewardship teams, deadheaded roses, and conducted group tours to well over 1,300 visitors.
This is substantial community infrastructure, and they come back and help every season.
Our opportunity is to make what we have work better and grow it.
This is one of the results I'm really excited to share.
We were given a specific directive from the mayor: get volunteer hours back above our pre-COVID levels.
Our FY 2019 benchmark was 400,052 and 170 hours.
Last year we recorded 396,000 hours, and this year over Thank you.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Mayor.
Unidentified speaker
In 2022, Portland Public Works served 485,000 hours.
That is 89,000 more hours than last year, a 22.5% increase, and more than 3,300 hours above our pre-COVID benchmark.
Using the independent sector value of volunteers' time, that represents approximately $16.9 million in volunteer community contribution.
But I want to be more precise in what drove that increase.
This isn't just 89,000 it reflects increased activity and a much stronger system for capturing what Portlanders are already contributing.
We implemented an online digital software program, added staff capacity around volunteer data, improved reporting across PP&R, and we also re-engaged organizations whose contributions had not always been consistently captured.
So the achievement is twofold.
We surpassed the mayor's goal and we built a better system for sustaining and measuring volunteerism.
Thank you.
Now we need to make sure that these opportunities are accessible throughout Portland.
I also want to clarify something that council has heard previously about outside investment.
Councilors previously saw comparative information from the Trust for Public Land showing Portland in the lower half of the top 10 systems for private and nonprofit investment.
What is important to understand is the Trust for Public Land was measuring something very specific: direct spending by a handful of nonprofits.
It was not measuring the size or strength of Portland Parks and Rec's overall partnership network.
If a nonprofit spends its own money maintaining a park, that counts as private investment.
If a nonprofit raises money, gives it to Parks and Rec, and we spend it on a park, TPL counts that as public spending.
So that earlier comparison didn't capture the full partnership picture.
I also think there's something useful in that finding.
There's room for us to grow.
Portland can attract more direct private and philanthropic Councilor Loretta Smith.
Thank you, Mayor.
I think we need to make a substantial investment like other cities have, and we should.
We have substantial partnership ecosystem already, and the question is, how do we build on it?
Another major part of this work is what happens when somebody has an idea for a park.
Historically, there hasn't always been an obvious front door for those ideas.
That isn't just frustrating, it's also an equity issue.
We are working towards a clear park proposal process with, with a visible entry point, understandable criteria, and accountability for getting people an answer.
Not every idea will work, but there will be clear and equitable system for how these ideas are submitted and vetted.
That leads probably to the most important policy question of this work.
Partnership creates opportunity, but partnership does not automatically create equity.
Some communities have established nonprofits, fundraising networks, and people who know how to navigate government.
Others have tremendous ideas and commitment, But much less organizational capacity.
So we have to think more broadly about value.
A neighborhood organization mobilizing neighbors creates value.
A culturally specific organization reaching residents we haven't reached creates value.
A recreational provider activating an underused park also creates value.
Equity doesn't mean turning away investment from communities that have resources.
It means growing the pie while intentionally expanding who has access to opportunity.
And this is where the next phase gets exciting.
We don't have to wait for partnership opportunities to find us.
We can be proactive in our pursuit.
Our new work with Portland State University is a great example.
This is in response specifically to Councilor Smith's requests about partnerships in District 1.
This fall, under the leadership of former Parks Board Chair Dr. Corbin, approximately 42 graduate students will focus on all 15 neighborhoods in District 1.
Looking at park access, activation, community needs, and opportunities for partnership.
District 1 was intentional.
We want to understand what partnership looks like where there may not be already well-established nonprofit and fundraising infrastructure surrounding every park.
Where are the underused assets?
Where do residents— what do residents want?
Who already is doing good work, and where can parks help?
Our goal is to cultivate partnership where it can make the greatest difference.
So where do we go from here?
We know Portland already has significant partnership ecosystem, more than, more than 100 partner organizations, 40 site-based partnerships, 485,391 volunteer hours this week, representing nearly $17 million in community contribution.
Now we need to build on it.
We need a clearer front door, consistent standards, better measures of value, more outside investment, and better understanding of where the partner opportunities are occurring and who has access to them.
That is the work we are taking on this fiscal year, but there are larger policy conversations with council in this.
What do we want partnerships to accomplish?
Where should we actively seek it?
And how do we use partnership not just to bring more resources to our park system, but to expand opportunity across Portland?
You will see potential elements of a partnership framework we're exploring on the right on this slide.
These are questions we shouldn't answer just inside bureaucracy.
So today we are modeling the type of conversations that we are already currently having with our partners.
We have invited a few of them here today to share their experiences and insights with you.
This story is documented in, in the FY25-26 Partnership and Volunteerism Report that we're proud to share with you today and would welcome opportunity to share for acceptance with the whole council.
I think you each have it in front of you here.
Before I turn it to our partners, I want to acknowledge the people behind this work.
The Parks Partnership and External Affairs team— Kelly Torres, June Bass, Megan Dirks, Kelsey Atkinson, and Sarah Myers— have been relentlessly driving this effort for more than a year, overcoming so many obstacles along the way.
And I want to specifically appreciate Kelly's effort in leading this, this team and arranging for the great session before you today.
That small team is building much of the infrastructure behind what I've talked about today.
They have established our partnership framework, track and manage partners' relationships, oversee parks proposals intake and vetting, and handle the day-to-day logistics that make partnerships work.
But they are only part of the story.
Across Portland Parks and Recreation, dozens of employees, including represented staff, work in our parks and facilities every day, spending hours training volunteers, coordinating projects, providing tools, and building relationships with Portlanders who want to contribute.
Other staff are ensuring that our assets and facilities are a hospitable place to direct your energy.
That capacity matters, and the current lack of resources strains our staff every day and limits their ability to engage effectively with partners.
We talk about partnership as a way to bring resources, energy, and ideas into our park system, and it absolutely can do that.
But partnership itself requires investment.
Volunteers need someone to coordinate with.
Community ideas need someone to respond.
Partners need agreements and guidance and relationships they can count on.
And if we want to expand these opportunities into communities that haven't historically had the same access, that takes intentional work too.
We are doing this at a time when resources across the Bureau are getting leaner every year.
So as we think about partnerships, I hope we recognize that the relatively small amount of city capacity that helps unlock this much larger community collaboration.
We have shown this year that the opportunity is there.
Portlanders want to contribute, our partners want to do more, and we are getting better at opening the door.
Our challenge is to open that— is to keep that door open, grow what is working, and extend the opportunity to more Portlanders and more parts of the city.
That is why we wanted you to hear directly from our partners, not just about what is working, but where partnership has been hard, where systems can get in the way, and where Portland can do things differently.
With that, I'd like to invite our special guests to the dais.
They are parks partners who represent all 4 districts, or at least we, we tried.
We had a couple people drop out at the last moment, and they will introduce themselves and their impactful work.
All right, I think I'll jump out of the way and let them come up.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Art, for that excellent presentation.
Colleagues, do you have any questions any comments?
I, I think it's amazing how far parks has come since we were all elected.
I heard when I was out and about, I heard so much about parks being talked to the hand, right?
And now I think this is a 180-degree switch, and I'm really proud and happy about that.
I love what you said about hospitality and a gracious welcome.
I think that's a wonderful way to look at the parks and the joy of hosting people in the parks.
I think that's very uplifting, and I appreciate that.
Um, I'm looking forward to hearing the panelists, and I hope they'll be very frank with us, uh, top to bottom.
Um, we can learn from your experiences.
And thank you again.
I also— I hope we can come back to the progress report.
I have a few questions about that too.
Great.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, please.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Yeah, I just wanted to say, Chair Clark, thank you for bringing this forward.
It's a wonderful opportunity to engage Portlanders and our park system and, and helping make our public spaces better.
And I just want to keep bringing forward and making sure that we're also being intentional about talking about parks funding and how we need to be thinking about how we are doing that better.
And when we make choices to cut funding to parks, then We have big gaps and we can't expect volunteers to fill the maintenance and operation gaps for PP&R.
You know, the recent levy was critically important, but still our park system is underfunded and remains a really valuable part of Portlanders— Portland's character and livability.
When I knock doors, I mean, people talk about how they moved to Portland for our parks and rec.
They add a lot to everyone's day-to-day lives.
Thank you so much.
Olivia Clark
I'm sorry, Councilor Kanal, did you want to make a comment too?
Sameer Kanal
A question, actually.
Loretta Smith
Oh, okay.
Unidentified speaker
Is that for—.
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, for Director Pearson and then, and maybe for others.
But when you track volunteer hours, I noticed over half of it's marked as citywide, and under that it has field use.
And I'm just curious if, like, I rented a field, does that count as a volunteer hour?
How are you tracking what's the component that that relates to?
Unidentified speaker
I think it's the direct contribution.
I don't think it's a field rental.
Is that what you're saying?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sameer Kanal
And I'm curious, I think I know that this is new and so over time I'm sure that you'll be working on disaggregation and things like that.
But I'm curious about trying to understand better how, what we're measuring because we're going to get to this afterwards, but We're having, and maybe this is something that's at a higher level on this side of the dais, but what we're often hearing described as partnerships from people who are working outside of parks are not what's described here.
So I'm trying to understand better if that's really just a rhetorical thing that's being described elsewhere and this is the actual thing, or if I'm missing something.
Does that make sense in terms of like a frame?
Unidentified speaker
Maybe we'll let the folks Just come up and speak and we'll figure out sort of the best way to answer that.
Yeah, cool.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you.
Olivia Clark
Just to build on that, as you bring people up, Councilor Kanal, I think that today we're only looking at parks, but I think some of this is citywide, that there are other bureaus that use volunteers as well.
Sameer Kanal
Yeah, no, I appreciate that.
To be clear, I'm talking about things like the Portland Tennis Center.
Oh.
Which is within parks, but is a privatization being described as a partnership.
So I'm trying to just understand what's being measured.
Olivia Clark
Thank you.
Great, let's have our panelists come up, if you will.
Welcome.
Thank you so much for taking time out to be with us today and to share your experiences, uh, running organizations relating to parks, how you got here with parks.
Um, I have talked to several of you directly about this over the last couple of years, so I'm really happy to see you here.
I don't know who wants to kick it off.
Who's listed first?
Anna, are you—.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
I'm ready.
Olivia Clark
Okay, go for it.
Unidentified speaker
Thanks.
Well, thanks for this opportunity to talk to you all today about how the Hoyt Arboretum Friends works and our partnership with Portland Parks and Rec.
Olivia Clark
Did you introduce yourself?
Unidentified speaker
Yeah, I'm Anna Goldrich.
This is the 40th year of the Hoyt Arboretum Friends partnering with PP&R.
This is my 10th year of working with the nonprofit Hoyt Arboretum Friends.
Today, I'm just going to tell you a little bit about how that partnership works for the care and management of Hoyt Arboretum, which is the nearly 200-acre park located in Washington Park.
When we are describing who does what in this partnership, to keep things simple, we tell people that Portland Parks and Rec is responsible for the trees and trails, and that the Hoyt Arboretum Friends do the people things in the park.
We program the park.
The mission of the Friends is to connect people with trees at Hoyt Arboretum.
Some of the ways we do that are by staffing a very busy visitor center that saw over 350 visits last year.
We create and provide visitor resources like maps for kids and adults, in English and Spanish, guided tours, hikes, and so on.
A major focus for the Friends are education programs for kids and adults, particularly kids.
Last year, we hosted over 7,000 Portland area students on school field trips.
Most of those were elementary school kids.
They came from all over the city and the region, and most of them were from Title I schools, over 75%.
During the summer, we run lots of free family programs Like family forest days and pop-up nature stations.
And then the third way is by coordinating volunteer hours.
Last year, we brought in over 11,000 hours of volunteer time to the park.
About half of that supports our parks colleagues through stewardship efforts, things like pulling ivy, mulching trees, fixing trails.
And the other half goes to provide visitor services.
Support education programs, and so on.
Hoyt Arboretum features a global tree collection with over 2,300 species of trees, including 67 that are threatened or endangered in the wild.
We are a Level 3 accredited arboretum, which makes us one of the top 100 arboreta in the world.
And that's based on a combination of factors, some of which are provided by Portland Parks and Rec, And some of which are provided by the Friends, like Portland Parks is responsible for the diversity of the trees, how they're cared for and managed.
But the Friends provide a wide breadth of and accessibility of public programming, and we both contribute to the science and conservation work that happens in the Arboretum.
Over the past 40 years, the Friends have funded many capital improvements at Hoyt Arboretum that make the park special.
Subhashini Ganesan Forbes
Yes.
Unidentified speaker
And draw many visitors, like the Redwood Observation Deck, the current visitor center and classroom, all of the interpretive and wayfinding signage throughout the park so people can find their way around our 12 miles of trails and learn about trees while they're doing it.
A current partnership project includes— involves the updating and expansion of an accessible trail at Hoyt, the Bristlecone Pine Trail.
Thank you.
Portland Parks and Rec is funding the majority of this project with Metro local share bond funds, and the Friends are adding funds that we've raised, some of them also coming through Metro, to improve a connector trail and provide interpretive signage in this area, which currently lacks signage.
Planning for this project started in 2019, and we expect it to finally break ground next month.
And then the Friends are currently in the quiet phase of a capital campaign to raise funds for updated energy-efficient facilities at Hoyt Arboretum as the park approaches its 100th anniversary in 2028.
This project will include a new visitor center with expanded educational space, allowing us to serve more Portland area students.
It will include more space for our plant nursery where our parks team conducts climate resilience research.
As they look for trees that will thrive in our changing climate over the next 50 to 100 years.
Hoyt Arboretum is a unique Portland park.
It's loved by many, including hikers, runners, tree enthusiasts, and also by the many tourists who visit Washington Park.
It's hard to imagine that park today without the private resources and volunteers that the friend bring to the park each year.
And then lastly, if you've not been to Hoyt Arboretum recently, or not for a while, I invite you to come up in the coming months, enjoy the amazing fall foliage in our nationally recognized maple collection, which features over 90 varieties of maples.
Thank you.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Anna.
That's terrific.
I'm sure we'll have questions for you.
Who's next?
We just—.
Catherine Schroeder
Should we just go down the line?
Okay.
Good morning.
I'm Catherine Schroeder, um, and I'm from the Community Music Center.
In Southeast Portland.
Thanks to the Public Works Committee for inviting me here today.
I am board treasurer of the Portland Parks and Recreation's nonprofit partner, also by the same name, Community Music Center.
So it's confusing to a lot of people because the PP&R program is named Community Music Center in Southeast Portland at 34th and Francis in an old firehouse, and The nonprofit is also named the Community Music Center.
So PP&R has been operating a music school by that name for 71 years, nearly 3/4 of a century.
The city's partnership with the nonprofit with the same name was formed 66 years ago, and this partnership has been unceasingly supporting the city's PP&R music programming since I don't want to reiterate a lot of what Director Pierce said in his comments, but some of mine are the same.
The city and the nonprofit's contract mostly outlines who pays for what and in what ways we each support each other in programming.
The nonprofit has no paid staff, and we don't own any real estate.
Its primary assets are financial.
Thank you.
And an extensive musical instrument collection of about $1 million, all of which have been donated, and some we've purchased when students need instruments of a certain sort.
And the nonprofit leases these instruments with the city's support to CMC students at greatly reduced rates.
So the nonprofit maintains the instrument collection We have a contract musician who takes care of them, and then the city— we pay the city to help interface with the students to rent those instruments.
Clearly, longevity in this music program is a huge success for the city, but the biggest success is the exceptional music education offered by talented teaching staff who are city employees to tens of thousands of students, aged youth through seniors, for many decades.
Highly successful CMC alum include Esperanza Spalding and Ben Landsverk, among many others.
And many of the teaching staff have taught at the center for decades and are highly accomplished musicians in their own right.
There are many private music schools in the Portland metro area.
However, most cannot offer access without financial barriers.
Another aspect of the relationship that has worked well is that the city provides a dedicated place for the Music Center.
As I said, the nonprofit does not own any real estate.
So even with the center's building, which is an old firehouse on Southeast 34th and Francis, suffering from extreme deferred maintenance, And being an unreinforced masonry building, having a space is critical to its success in the future.
Looking for safer and music education-specific space, it would be great for the city to partner with the nonprofit's support, which we are willing to provide, with a housing project or a multi-use property for a new home for the music school.
The partnership has also worked well for so long in large part due to the great support and constant interaction between the nonprofit's board and its members and the city's music program director and music coordinator on site at the center.
That's Gregory Dubay and Daniel Reyes-Linas, who are great to work with.
And with their engagement, the nonprofit can provide some nimbleness in programming and creative music-related activities, all within the city protocols and policies.
Challenges in the partnership are mostly with lack of communication with upper management in PP&R, and also with what seems like continual change in personnel.
And the siloed departmental structure of the city leads to inefficiencies also.
Thank you.
Our partnership often feels as if we're constantly on the back burner.
With a lack of continuity in upper city management staff and without regular engagement with higher-level city staff, even though the current nonprofit-city agreement requires this engagement, it is nearly impossible for the nonprofit to engage in any long-term planning.
To support the city with programming and more importantly finding a new space.
The nonprofit has had success engaging with specific city councilors, but access to upper-level staff has been problematic.
It would be great if city partners could be real partners engaged with city management and staff when planning or goal setting is done by the city.
The nonprofit's mission is affordable access to opportunities for all ages to learn about, make, and enjoy music.
And scientific research is uncontroverted that music education supports people of all ages with social, academic, emotional, and cognitive health.
Suggestions for a better partnership would include regular listening sessions like this one that we're having between the city and the partners.
Thank you.
And in addition, trading real specifics, not generalities like today.
And then listen to the partners' long-term plans and commit to supporting those plans where our priorities align.
An overall principle of whether and how to privatize PP&R offerings or not to privatize them is difficult as an overall policy, as You've already seen in 2 of us talking, uh, the partners are unique with different goals, leadership, and, you know, we each have different financial structures.
And so what works for a quasi-public-private partnership for one might not work for another, but yet, you know, the partnership is still vital to a healthy city.
CMC nonprofit is ready, willing, and able to continue partnering with the city Providing a safe, inclusive space for all ages to engage in exceptional music education.
And come see a free concert there anytime.
You will be inspired.
Thanks for your work and doing this listening and discerning.
Olivia Clark
Thank you so much, Catherine.
I really appreciate what you had to say.
I see a lot of parallels with the Multnomah Arts Center.
Catherine Schroeder
Yes, I have a meeting with them this afternoon.
Unidentified speaker
Oh, good.
Olivia Clark
Excellent.
Catherine Schroeder
We meet a lot together.
Olivia Clark
I bet you do.
Some of the same issues, particularly on upkeep and maintenance.
Okay, next.
Subhashini Ganesan Forbes
Thank you.
Good morning, Chair Clark and members of the Public Works Committee.
My name is Subhashini Ganesan Forbes, and I am the current chair of the board, the volunteer board if I may add, of the Portland Parks Foundation.
I'm grateful to Director Art Pierce, PP&R's External Affairs and Partnership Manager Kelly Torres, and PPF's Executive Director Jessica Green for inviting me to speak with all of you about Portland Parks Foundation— I'll call it PPF from now on— and our shared history of 25 years with Portland Parks and Rec, PP&R.
Really, for context, I, I want to say I come to you today as a long-term Portlander who for the last 18 years has served our city, our region, and state in various capacities to celebrate and promote arts, culture, civic engagement, and the overall vibrancy and livability for hundreds of thousands of creatives who call our city, county, and state home.
In addition to being the chair of the board at PPF, I am a choreographer.
I founded a nonprofit organization called New Expressive Works.
I serve as board member for the Miller Foundation and currently am the artist lead for Metro Future Vision 50.
I've also served as the city's creative laureate between 2018 And 2022.
And since 2018, I've been a part of the revitalization of the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center, first as community advisory committee member and over the years as a core member of the team.
So I'm saying all of this to provide you context that I come to you with history and commitment to public-private partnership.
Thank you.
And so now on to Portland Parks Foundation.
It's really a big task to encapsulate the relationship that PPF has with PPNR.
I'm going to give you as much as I can through words, and hopefully you'll form images.
But our fearless leader, Executive Director Jessica Green, does have a presentation, and we'll send it to you later if that's also helpful.
Unidentified speaker
Yeah.
Subhashini Ganesan Forbes
So PPF was founded in 2001.
We're celebrating our 25th anniversary this year, and we were founded as part of PP&R's 2020 Vision Plan.
And this Vision Plan called to establish a Parks Foundation to bring new resources and expertise to long-term stewardship of parks and recreation.
Joey Pope, who's a founding board member in July 2001, said this, and I feel it's important to really bring it back because it feels like we're still in the space.
She said, the bottom line is that we're here to raise much-needed money for parks.
There's such a discrepancy between areas such as Cully and Grant Park.
We need to reach for what seems impossible And think in the long term.
So PPF, we are here.
We help people help parks.
For 25 years, PPF has worked with individuals, communities, and organizations across Portland to transform our parks' potentials into beautiful realities for everyone to enjoy.
We are PP&R's Chief philanthropic partner.
We've built and continue to maintain trustworthy relationships with local and regional individual, organizational, corporate, and philanthropic entities.
Through these resources, we've brought needed financial support for capital projects across the park system for over 25 years.
We are PPNR's human-centered, community-driven strategic thought partners.
I think I got all those things together.
Our human relationship with the bureau is noteworthy.
A Parks and Rec board member is an ex officio board member at PPF, currently represented by Patty Miles.
PPF Executive Director Jessica Green sits as ex officio on the PPNR board, and there's regular weekly collaborative conversations and check-ins amongst everybody For this kind of strategic work.
PPF is also your mobilizer and professional development support wing.
PPF partners with about 200 over friends groups across the city in varying scales.
Through our deep connections with these friends groups, we support their capacity, their problem-solving strategies, and sometimes their relationships with PP&R, and we continue to build a much-needed parks network.
PPF is also your partner in long-term sustainability work.
We've been a key player in both levy ballots over the past 7 years.
We're also deeply invested and in conversation with PP&R leadership on sustainable strategic thinking and planning for healthy future financial structures.
So this list can really go on, but maybe we can shift gears and think about highlights of what this partnership has brought to our city in the last 25 years.
Parks are a tangible and physical occurrence throughout our city.
They're bastions of democracy because they're public spaces, and public spaces need to feel safe, and that's the work that we do.
Um, some of our major highlights of place and community impact include the Barbara Walker Crossing in Northwest Portland, which was completed in 2019.
The foundation managed the entire project, and that included raising over $3 million to build a footbridge, of course, over West Burnside.
And our partnership members included PP&R for sure, and also Metro, PBOT.
Um, playground replacements across the city has also been a real goal since 2023.
We've been raising funds, and sometimes we match funds, and sometimes we raise all the funds.
It's been a little over $1 million, and, um, it's in all quadrants.
Some of these playgrounds include Rose City Playground, Raymond Park, George Park, and Portland Heights.
We've also been supporting with funding and securing money for the North Park Blocks expansion.
That happened 2025, late '25 to '26.
And this project lives in PPNR, which means PPNR is conducting the whole project.
And this will extend the North Park Blocks to include the PNCA block, which is the block Between Northwest Hoyt and Gleason Streets.
O'Brien Square, which is now Darcel Park, right?
During March 2023, we at PPF partnered with several collaborators, including the Harvard Loeb Fellowship, PSU Center for Public Interest Design, and PP&R to build a way to gather ideas, hopes, and worries from nearly 1,000 Portlanders on how a new public space at O'Brien Square could serve our communities.
So that included webinars, surveys, stakeholder meetings, workshops, and even workshops that were particularly for 14 member safety, maintenance, and management groups.
So we know what we're seeing now, right?
PPF's initial groundbreaking work has now led to what we all enjoy today as Darcel Plaza.
And return of the elk.
In May 2022, with contributions by a generous donor, PPF began work on a feasibility study for the rehab of the David P. Thompson Elk Fountain and the return to its historic home on Southwest Main Street.
We raised as much of the necessary $160,000 from our part of the deal through 65 donors.
We supported in the creation of an improved design of the fountain by hiring the experienced historic preservation firm Architectural Resource Group, and we helped raise money for a worthy return party, if you will, of the Elk Fountain in April this year.
Currently, we're tackling Szymanski Fountain to support further downtown revival goals.
We also continue to work with our friends and allies, our Parks Network support system, as I mentioned earlier.
We support 2 yearly friends and ally summits, and the spring summit announces small grants that PPF provides parks-centered nonprofits across our city.
To provide important work.
And the fall summit is more of a professional development and networking space that provides workshops and opportunities for members of Friends groups to collaborate and co-learn.
Okay, so I hope by now, if you already don't know, you're seeing the varying ways we help people help parks.
So the history and partnership relationships we bring to the table are deep.
And they are varied.
As you, the committee, consider the impact of public-private nonprofit partnership models as a bona fide avenue for current and future City of Portland enrichment, I do urge you to talk to all of us partners at greater length.
This is because measuring the success or failure of partnerships purely based on completion of a capital project, the completion of a projected goal and objectives were met, sometimes can undermine or completely ignore the most important factor of a partnership.
And that factor is the human-to-human connection, relationship, trust-building, and design thinking and innovation that occurs.
So it is important to measure things like How many volunteer hours have been accomplished, how many park structures have been brought back to workable conditions, and how many people have increased their usage of any given park property in our city.
But let's be clear, partnerships can be successful in product but debilitating in human relationships.
The park structure might be completed on time, on budget, and to standards of excellence, but the humans who worked on that project could be left exhausted, feeling disappointed by how they were treated, and unassured of how to enter that next project partnership due to existing non-healthy relationship patterns.
These situations are not insurmountable.
We already showcase so many beautiful results that come from partnerships between government and community-based organizations.
Now it feels like we're being given that opportunity to work together and build a more human-centered approach to allow for sustained and truly collaborative ways.
What historical bureaucratic mechanisms could be redesigned or replaced?
What does it mean to allow partnering CBOs to truly find ownership and pride in the partner projects rather than feeling overwhelmed by paperwork, red tape, and other bureaucratic systems that folks within the bureau take as business as usual.
We at PPF are here to invigorate and design with you.
I'm looking forward to digging into this conversation, the questions you will have for us, and if you haven't already, please sign up for September 23rd Future of Waterfront Park Meet the Design Team at Portland Art Museum.
It gives community a chance to meet 3 designers working on our innovative plans for Waterfront Park.
PPF is a proud funding sponsor of this event and a community partner.
Join us, and thank you so much.
Olivia Clark
Thank you for a very comprehensive, uh, understanding of, um, what you do, uh, the great breadth.
Um, is it Shubhashi?
Subhashini Ganesan Forbes
Subhashini, you can call me Suba.
Olivia Clark
Suba, thank you.
Thank you so much.
I know we're going to have follow-up questions.
Um, let's move to Ashley.
Hi, welcome.
Ashley Murray
Hi, good morning everyone.
I'm Ashley Murray, the executive director of the Sellwood Community House, and I'm so thankful to be here today, both just being in conversation with you all and these other wonderful community partners.
I've already been taking notes.
You guys are doing such incredible work in this city.
A little bit of background information about our organization.
Sellwood Community House was from the city budget in 2019, along with the Fulton, Hillside, and Laurelhurst Dance Studio.
And we have been— we've been operating now for 7 years, which is so exciting.
So I'm going to tell you a little bit about— now we have 4 locations and we've just grown exponentially.
And I'm so proud of sharing kind of what partnership makes possible in our city for so many people.
So at the beginning of 2019, we took on this building that had severe maintenance backlog, really reduced programmatic hours and programs.
And today, that building is, you know, our thriving flagship intergenerational community hub.
We're open 7 days a week, 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM.
We have the Shack in Sellwood Park, which is free recreation serving 63 zip codes.
This summer for free recreation and programming from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM for 10 consecutive weeks in the summer.
We have PlayLab, which is our PFA site, welcoming this week our first 20 PFA students, and our Laurelhurst Dance Studio, which is our 4th location now.
So through 7 years, we have been able to really serve an essential public service.
With zero public investment.
I think that's something that makes our organization a little bit different because we are not receiving any public funding from the city.
And I'm glad maybe to share a little bit about how we are funded.
I think sometimes there's assumptions about you're successful and I wonder what is making you successful.
So our budget, when we kind of received it from the city, was hovering right about $500,000.
There was a $30,000 deficit.
Wow.
Deficit every year.
Right now we're about $3.2 million, but from that, just 5 to 7% is individual donations, 3 to 5% is grants.
Those grants are offering free programs anywhere from teen youth employment mentorship to free opportunities for seniors and a lot of parent education.
And most of our budget is made up of programmatic service fees.
But I think again what makes that unique is we are just the— we know it's so expensive to do kid programs in Portland.
The only other program that is more affordable than ours is Portland Parks and Recreation.
So I think that is something that really speaks to how nimble we are.
80% Of our operating budget is really accessible programs.
We have a robust scholarship that we write around $140,000 a year in scholarships.
And that's something that we're just really proud of.
So when people look at how are you guys so successful, it's really being nimble, responsive to community need.
And I have an incredible, hardworking staff year-round.
We have about 50 people on payroll.
During the summer, that swells to about 90.
All of my staff receives a living wage, 100% of their health insurance premium paid for, and 90% of our leadership staff are parents and caregivers, and we offer free childcare to every single person working.
And so when we think about what is making this possible, it is Portlanders that are powering a really just transformative partnership here in Portland.
Um, something else that's really exciting about what we're doing is just really filling this need.
Every year going to the budget hearings and seeing like anything from Golden Ball being, you know, potentially on the chopping block to community centers.
I think instead of looking at it black and white of is there money in the budget, can we say yes, or if there's no money in the budget, we're going to have to say no.
I think what our organization really exemplifies is the creative problem solving to making sure that we're serving Portlanders in the way that we are feeling most proud about, but in a really creative way.
And I think that is something that we are doing really well at the Community House.
And I know personally, my kids are in high school now, but I was a single parent.
Really, if I look back at every enrichment opportunity my girls had growing up, Yeah.
It was through Portland Parks and Recreation.
They received one week of swimming lessons every year.
That was the free week of swimming lessons.
We would go to ladybug walks at Leach Botanical Gardens.
Every single moment of my child's history of anything that felt enriching, that I felt really proud of offering them, was through Portland Parks and Recreation.
So not just through how we are showing up in the partnerships I really look at this as just the opportunity of, I can't sit back and think more things are getting dropped from the budget.
I want to think about creative ways that we can continue to not just maintain level of service, but really increase level of service citywide.
So something we're really proud of too is we've— our organization took the initiative supported by Kelly Torres and the Parks Bureau to initiate the project at PSU with the MERP program, identifying— a lot of people think, well, we can't do that.
Yeah.
That only works in Sellwood.
And I'm really hopeful to kind of show anyone that hopefully will come tour the community house and see what we're doing.
We really feel like this partnership and this pilot can completely transform the city and is possible in every single district, in every single neighborhood of Portland.
And I think how we're hopefully using the pilot that we are working on in Sellwood But working with the students at PSU to identify and collect the data and what are the points and the conversations we need to have to get us there.
So to move from this can't happen citywide to what kind of conversations, curiosity, and investment needs to get put forth to get us there, because all Portlanders deserve thriving communities where they can work.
You know, we employ so many parents and I feel like that is an area of when we talk about livability and cost, Right now, it's an area that we're able to address another city issue too.
It's not just transactional of coming and taking a class.
It's really creating a space where you get to know your neighbors, build trust with one another, feel like you can live in a space, work in a space, and play in a space is really what makes thriving communities.
And I feel like the partnership that we have with the city for the first 5 years was mostly just as a lessee.
We just leased to the building.
And I think we've always wanted to invest in a more intentional way, and we have been continuously showing up and hopefully been creative thought partners when we see things are, you know, getting dropped from the budget or aren't able to meet the community need.
I really hope that we're seen as a trusted thought partner in figuring out how we can get there, not just for our community but all Portlanders.
I want to make sure every parent who's Stressed about the livability in this city never has to jeopardize taking their child to swim lessons or participate in an activity or go meet another single parent at open play for a dollar.
Those things were completely changed the trajectory of my life and also my children's life.
And I think that is something that we could agree on, hopefully citywide.
And maybe one day there'll be a community house and an activated park in every single neighborhood.
And I think that would be—.
Thank you.
Transformative for our city, and I'm really looking forward to having those conversations.
So thank you.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Ashley.
Thank you so much.
Unidentified speaker
Is it Gina?
Gina Woolley
It's Gina, yes.
Olivia Clark
Welcome.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you.
Gina Woolley
Um, uh, I appreciate the opportunity to be here today.
I was kind of the, um, asked to participate at the last minute, so I'm going to be pretty impromptu.
Um, But my name is Gina Woolley.
I am the president of the board for a relatively new, unlike my colleagues here, organization that's working with parks called Friends of IFCC.
Friends of IFCC, and Subha even mentioned it, I'll give you a little bit of history about how we got here.
We were formed in 2023, so relatively recently.
Thank you.
But our history goes back to 2018 when Commissioner Amanda Fritz asked, assembled a group, a community advisory committee to determine what to do with the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center.
So IFCC stands for Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center.
The Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center has been a historic place for Black and BIPOC artists to perform, to create, to have the first opportunity to be on stage, to have their pictures hung on the wall.
And it was formed in 1982 by Commissioner Charles Jordan.
Took an old firehouse and reactivated it and created a cultural arts center there.
And it operated primarily as a quasi-city organization out of the firehouse for— until about 2014.
And the problem is, is that as a publicly dependent Cultural arts organization.
It wasn't raising a lot of money.
The majority of the budget was being financed by the city, and it couldn't survive, essentially.
There were also issues with the building.
There are issues with the building that make it impossible to create a revenue stream from the activities that you showcase, because you can only do one thing at a time, even though it's a A 9,000-square-foot building and has multiple— a dance studio, an art gallery, a 99-seat theater.
You can only have one activity going on at a time because of the sound bleed.
There isn't the opportunity to, you know, simultaneously program this building and really effectively utilize it, this space that is so desperately needed by the artistic community.
So—.
Thank you.
When Commissioner Fitz joined us together, she wanted us to give recommendations about how to operate IFCC in the future.
There were 9 of us.
We've all been volunteering for— since 2018 on this project.
None of us have been paid.
We have worked tirelessly to try to Preserve, rejuvenate, and revitalize, and create a plan for how to revitalize this facility to bring it back to life.
This is a facility that has weight in, in the mind of the Black community.
It, it is a place that many people saw their first play.
We've had so many people since we reactivated IFCC come in and say, I saw my first play as a kid in high school, and now I'm writing plays.
I, you know, saw— I hung my first art gallery— I mean, my first art display in this gallery, and now I sell things nationally.
So it's— I'm sorry.
Been an incubator for our community artists to actually step onto the stage, develop confidence, develop skills, and basically become mentors for other younger, for the next younger generation.
So how we've progressed from 2018 is in 2019, we produced a report for parks.
And the city, and there were 3, the community advisory, the IFCC Community Advisory Committee.
And the 3 recommendations were that it would, that IFCC would be redeveloped and expanded to serve as a center for Black and BIPOC arts and culture, that it would be, that a detailed feasibility study would be conducted to explore the viability of this option, and that a public-private partnership would be formed with PP&R.
To advance the project and to explore these possibilities.
And we've made a lot of progress on that.
So in 2020, the working with Parks, the community, the IFCC Community Advisory Committee working with Parks were able to get the feasibility study funded through the PP&R 2020.
Local option levy.
And we had strong advocacy from all of our, our members from the CAC, and we had strong support from the leadership of the city at the time, former Mayor Ted Wheeler and former PP&R Director Adina Long.
We, we had unanimous support for moving this project forward.
So we were able to get the resources.
In 2021, we worked with the PP&R and the City Council to approve an allocation of American Rescue Plan funds, which would be focused on artist support and relief.
And then in 2022, we worked jointly with PP&R to develop an artist grant and residency program that would be housed in IFCC to support artist residencies of 9 weeks of free space in the facility and $10,000 to $12,000 grants to these artists just to develop their work, to have a place to work, and to be in commune with other artists.
Which is extremely important.
And that— those funds went through March of 2025.
That was a 3-year grant.
And we've actually run a number of artists through the residency program.
And then we have, in 2023, we formed IFCC— Friends of IFCC.
To advance both the feasibility study and also to actually working with PP&R and also to raise additional dollars to keep the artist grant-in-residency program operating in these interim years while we're trying to figure out what to do with this facility.
So we have raised— we've secured additional money.
Thank you.
Through philanthropic organizations like Meijer, Collins.
We also have a grant from the Office of Arts and Culture, and we have an administrative grant that primarily allows us— from PP&R, a very small one that actually allows us to operate the building.
PP&R operates the building, so they still do all the maintenance and operate the building, but We essentially manage the entire grant-in-residency program, and we signed a license agreement.
Friends of IFCC signed a license agreement in 2025 when we took over the artist grant-in-residency program to operate that program out of IFCC for the next, for the, you know, next several years.
So What we're hoping is in our first cycle that we ran, the Friends of IFCC ran, we had 182 applicants for what are essentially limited grants.
They're limited by the amount of money.
And we awarded $209,000 to residents and grantees.
In our second cycle that we opened in 2025, We had 197 artists apply.
So there's a tremendous need, which you probably already are aware of, for artists to have space.
So many artists have no space to work in.
Many of our artists make under $30,000 a year.
They don't have the resources to, to pay to rent someplace, and they're trying to build their careers and build their reputation, and they're working out of their home or their apartment.
Some of them have children, spouses, families.
So just having a place that you have a key to, that you can go in and make your work and nobody's bothering you, has been a tremendous— you know, people have said how tremendously uplifting this has been to them and how encouraging it's been for them in their career.
But we had 197 applicants and we awarded 254,000 $25,000 to artists.
And we are now— we just opened our 3rd cycle of, of, um, for, for artist residencies and grants at the end of this August.
So we will be running our cycle and announcing the awards for the new residencies and grants for next year.
In probably December.
So the other thing that's kind of important for you to know is that we have completed the feasibility study.
So this was a partnership, a very intense partnership with Parks, and the, the first as the CAC and then as Friends of IFCC.
Thank you.
Once it was formed in 2023, we've worked very closely and we essentially have helped complete this report.
We essentially didn't feel that the consultants that were hired from out of town, and this is kind of the whole thing about that you've heard some of the other, some of my other colleagues talk about the importance of when you have a community that you're supposed to serve that is Yes.
And culturally defined that you have to be sensitive when you're doing the consulting work to define what a future facility might look like.
And you also need to have some grounding in the community that you're talking about looking at the feasibility of creating it in.
You can't be drawing on national— just national statistics and than trying to overlay those on Portland.
Portland is a very rich and deep community for the arts and culture.
We have a legacy of that.
Oregon, in one of the national studies, ranked as being 3rd or 4th in its participation in arts and culture by its citizens.
And so it's very, You know, you need to have people that understand Portland.
So what we did is, um, I'm a development, um, consultant.
That's what I do as a living.
Um, I understand development.
I do, but I do mostly development that's community development.
So there are a couple of us on the original CAC and now on the Friends of IFCC board that do this work.
And we have helped, we have worked very closely with Parks staff with their project management and capital departments to actually finish and complete, bring all the work that's been done by multiple consultants together to complete this report.
And it will be issued probably next month.
It's under review by Parks and by our board, but it's in a final form finally, and we are so excited to actually Bring this forward because we have a number of ways that we want to continue to partner with Parks and the city to move this feasibility project forward to create this expanded center.
We are talking about creating an expanded center.
We're talking about the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center facility is a historic building, so that defines what you can and can't do when you redevelop it.
So we've taken all of that—.
Councilor Mitch Green.
In consideration, our consultants have in the work.
And so we're looking forward to being able to share that with you moving forward.
So I'll stop there because I'm rambling, but I— what I want to say to you is that we— these kind of partnerships are critical.
And if you want to do work with communities and neighborhoods, Particularly those that have been overlooked historically, like the Black community, then these are the kind of places that need to be preserved and that we need to be able to partner with the city to maintain, to preserve them, and to maintain the programming in them that serves that broader community.
Olivia Clark
Thank you.
Well, thank you so much for sharing that.
What, 6 or 7-year trajectory?
I, I did go to a play there once.
It was original play and it was fabulous, but that was a long time ago.
So I'm really happy to get the update, and I'm sure we'll want to see that feasibility study once you get it done.
Colleagues, um, I'm going to propose something that before I allow my vice chair to speak, that we do a lightning round here real quick.
I want to ask one question, and then I would like to the 2 people, I think just 2 people who signed up for public testimony, have them come up before we start asking questions.
Is that okay with y'all?
Loretta Smith
That's fine.
Olivia Clark
Okay.
So— oh.
Unidentified speaker
I think we have one more invited.
Olivia Clark
Oh, we have another invited?
Unidentified speaker
Okay.
Loretta Smith
I'm just a—.
Unidentified speaker
You're a testifier.
Olivia Clark
Okay, just a testifier.
All right.
But just really quickly, and you can't use money as your answer, but I just— just really quickly, I know that there's been a lot of change in parks.
I think some of you are feeling it and experiencing it, but I just wondered if there was one thing that you could change right now, what would that be?
And not a money answer.
We all want money.
But think about that for a second.
If you want to come back and answer that, we can have the testifiers come up and speak to us.
But if you've got something right off the top of your head in a lightning round that you think the one thing you'd like to change and obviously you've experienced some change.
Why don't y'all think about that?
We'll have you back up, and let's have the 2, 2 or 3 people who've signed up to testify come on up, and then we will invite you back up because I know we have questions for all of you and your excellent presentations.
Robin Veazey
Thank you.
Olivia Clark
Yes, we have 2 people signed up.
We have Robin Veazey and Jane Monson.
Jane is joining us online.
I believe she's ready to go.
So Jane, if you would like to unmute and begin your testimony, you're welcome to.
Unidentified speaker
I'm sharing my screen.
I don't know if people can see it or not.
Olivia Clark
We'll work on that.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you.
Anyhow, I'm the president, Jane Monson.
I'm the president of the Eastmoreland Neighborhood Association.
And, um, can you see the screen yet or not?
Or is that—.
Olivia Clark
Councilors can see it, and we'll get, uh, okay, we'll get it shared with the rest soon.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Okay, so the, the thing you're seeing on the screen is our neighborhood.
Um, I'll make it bigger.
And that red line is the Reed College Place, um, green space that's located in our neighborhood.
Bisects the neighborhood into 2, and it's a mile long and it's about 25 feet wide, and it's lined on each side with trees, 250 trees.
It's been described to me by the city as a linear park, and it's a— there's a well-used path running down the middle of it that extends from Woodstock to Crystal Springs Boulevard.
In 2008, the city stopped watering and maintaining the Reed College Place green space, and in 2013, the neighborhood associated— association started raising money to hire a landscape contractor and convince the city to let the neighborhood pay the water bills for the irrigation.
Since 2013, our neighborhood has spent spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to maintain this green space, including the repair of sprinkler heads and valves that fail or break on a regular basis.
The space is heavily used by our neighborhood as well as surrounding areas.
When I became president of the ENA in May of 2024, I was not comfortable with the neighborhood maintaining a city-controlled property without a formal agreement with the city.
I learned that the neighborhood had attempted to get a maintenance agreement in 2021, but nothing ever came of it.
In October of 2025, we revived our effort and submitted a proposal to PBOT, who is the— they control the right-of-way, so we had to start working with them.
They worked with Parks and Rec and City Attorneys, and in May of 2026, we received a response to our proposal.
Unfortunately, the insurance liability requirements in the city's response were significantly higher than the coverage provided to us by our District 4 coalition policy.
In addition, the liability coverage requirements were higher than the original— sorry, were higher than the coverage our commercial landscape contractor carries.
It has been almost a year since we submitted our proposal to the city, and this issue has brought everything with the agreement to a screeching halt.
We are scheduled to have a meeting with PBOT tomorrow morning, and we're hoping that the insurance issue can be resolved.
Eastmoreland neighbors have been willing to maintain this city's asset for over 10 years, and hopefully the work you're doing today will help make this process Thank you, Jane.
Olivia Clark
Robin, you can go ahead.
Robin Veazey
Okay, my name is Robin Veazey.
Thank you, Councilor Clark, for inviting me to testify today.
I've been volunteering at this historic Tualagar Parkway a linear park in Southwest Portland, over 30 years now.
I've come today to express my frustrations with how Portland Parks, the Wildlands Division, has been treating Friends of Tewilliger, an all-volunteer nonprofit organization.
I learned my love of running at Dunaway Track and wanted to give back.
Thus began my efforts to remove ivy and other invasive plant species in the parkway and surrounding lands.
For almost 30 years, Friends of Tualagar has hosted and led volunteers in restoration events in the parkway.
For the past 20-plus years, I've organized, met, and worked with Multnomah County Alternative Community Service clients in Portland parks.
Last year, Friends of Tualagar hosted or co-hosted 39 restoration work parties, amassing over 2,500 volunteer hours and engaging over 400 volunteers.
In 2020— 2009, Friends of Tulegar was the first Friends group to sign a stewardship agreement with Parks.
As a part of this agreement, both partners commit to working together to enhance the parkway with stewardship of the natural areas and improving accessibility in the developed parks of Tualagar Parkway.
Tualagar Parkway is a hybrid park containing both wildlands and developed parks.
Per our stewardship agreement, Friends of Tualagar's responsibilities include, and I quote, supporting all scheduled stewardship opportunities for volunteers in partnership with Parks through recruitment, but it is the ultimate responsibility of Friends of Tualagarh to recruit and recognize volunteers.
When Friends of Tualagarh leads work parties with community groups such as Boy Scouts, college and university students, we share the sign-in sheets and volunteer information with Parks.
For decades, volunteers signed up through Hands On Portland, and park staff readily shared and transmitted these sign-in sheets to us.
Sadly, since Park City Nature has taken the sign-in and insurance waivers forms internally, uh, they claim they are not allowed to share volunteers' contact information with us, their partner.
Friends of Tualagar makes it very easy for those people to unsubscribe if they so choose.
To reiterate Parks brochure ending statement, Portland doesn't have to do everything alone, but we should be exceptionally good at partnering with people who want to help.
And I say we want to help.
So how is Friends of Tualoger supposed to recruit for these events if we're not able to reach out to past volunteers?
Loretta Smith
Thank you, Robin.
Olivia Clark
Thank you for taking the time.
And if you can hang around, I'm sure you can talk to the Acting Director of Parks about that very issue.
Thank you for coming.
Um, colleagues, should we call back up the, uh, panel?
Um, I think we have questions.
And while y'all are coming up— come on back— I'm going to ask our Vice Chair, uh, Councilor Smith, to—.
We had a lightning round.
Well, you want it— you want to do the lightning round first?
That's what you said.
Okay, we'll do the lightning round.
Do you have answers to the question?
What's the one thing you would change other than more money?
Do you want to start, or—.
Unidentified speaker
I would love, uh, our board would love regular meetings.
And when our contract was renegotiated in 2020 with the city, it was written in there.
Um, we would love regular meetings with city staff that can make decisions about Property.
In our case, you know, as you can see, every partner has different issues, but in our case, we would really like to partner with the city for a new space.
And, you know, the city's been running the programming.
That seems to go really well with Gregory and David or Daniel in charge.
And, you know, we've had issues with COVID and programming, but we need a new space.
It's unsafe and—.
Catherine Schroeder
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
It has a lot of deferred maintenance, so we'd like regular meetings to move that forward.
Olivia Clark
Great.
Okay, next, who's got an idea?
Subhashini Ganesan Forbes
I've got one.
Olivia Clark
All right.
Unidentified speaker
Okay, um, I'm thinking about partnerships, so that's what I'm focused on, or else I could spend all day thinking.
Um, it would be great if there was a clarification of how taxpayer money is spent or used so that organizations like ours, Portland Parks Foundation, that are raising additional money for the park system can be seen as complementary versus closing the gap that solutions like levies and bonds are supposed to do.
So to make it even more crystalline, can we get help in language that answers the question, Why should I donate money when I've already paid my levy contribution?
Olivia Clark
Terrific.
Thank you, Shoba.
Who's next?
Ashley Murray
Um, I think for us, a citywide strategy to recreation with clear impact goals where we're all heading— I think if we don't know where we're going and working backwards, it's really hard for us to show up as the most effective partners to meet that for Portlanders.
Olivia Clark
Terrific.
Thank you.
Gina, are you next?
Loretta Smith
You're grabbing the mic.
Gina Woolley
I guess I am.
I think that it would be helpful, kind of piggybacking on something that was said earlier, to have somebody at Parks who can make decisions, not just that we are coordinating with as we try to move forward on these projects, but that doesn't have to go through 3 levels of approval and review.
So if it needs to be a committee that we're meeting with, that— so that all of those people are in the room and we can do that with some kind of regularity as we try to move a project like this feasibility study forward.
We're going to be asking the city to do things, to partner with us in certain ways to do things to make this viable.
And, um, We don't want to put that into the Harper and then have it come back out several months later where it's had to be processed internally.
So I think there has to be somebody assigned essentially to be able to shepherd that and advocate for the work that we're doing together inside the institution.
Olivia Clark
Excellent.
Thank you.
Anna, do you have one?
Unidentified speaker
Same-ish.
Clear pathways for and timelines for decisions.
It's been a real churn at parks over the last years, and that just makes it hard to pull off these long-term projects like what we're describing.
Yep.
Loretta Smith
Great.
Olivia Clark
Thank you.
I've taken note of all of those.
Thank you so much.
Uh, stay tuned, we have our council— uh, our vice chair of the committee would like to make a statement or question.
Loretta Smith
Thank you, thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you for all the presentations that you all brought forward.
And just, just a quick answer, um, to, to most of your questions.
I would say there, there is a process.
We have a deputy city administrator I mean, it, it begins and ends with the Deputy City Administrator and then the mayor, because if you need to get resources, those resources are going to have to be identified from the mayor.
Um, and, and I would start working with the DCAs if you can't get what you need.
And, and the unfortunate thing is that you're not going to be able to get any property or anything because of our codes, it's going to have to go through council to, um, to get approved.
There's, there's not going to be a staffer that you're going to be able to go to that's going to be able to write off, okay, um, you can have something in Sellwood.
It all has to go through council and voted on in council.
So I, I know it's frustrating, but I think it can get fast-tracked if you're working with the Deputy City Administrator and the mayor's office and, and our committee, because we are the ones who will have to have it put on our committee for a sale or for a transfer or a partnership, and then it has to go up to the BIC committee.
I'm sorry, um, I can't give you a person that you can talk to that, that will, that will give you those resources without having to come through council.
All, all of these decisions that you all were talking about are going to have to come through council, and it's going to have to come through committee.
It'll, it'll come through the Public Works Committee.
But I hear what you're saying.
You should be able to have someone assigned to you, and that's something that the city administrator can do— assign somebody to your project, whether it be the IFCC, something in Sellwood, and say, look, this is something that we really want, the community wants it.
And that would, that would be the approach that I would take to it.
Like I said, unfortunately, we have city code that you're going to have to follow to come back through us.
We want to see your smiley faces anyway.
And I think it's important.
Along the lines that you all were talking about today, I appreciate the presentation's focus on finding, you know, new responsible operating models.
And all those models, they still have to come through council.
Yes.
Um, the presentation says Parks is exploring new operating models for underutilized assets.
And I, this weekend, I, I had my staff pull up surplus properties in, uh, the Parks Department.
They had surplus properties, I looked at those, and then they had the other properties that were not surplus, but they were on, they were on a list.
And so we're trying to get an entire asset inventory of vacant properties, underutilized, irregular, non-recreational parcels that could be evaluated.
Because one of the things that I want to do in the— the chair doesn't know this, but we've been working on a partnership to try to figure out how we can use surplus properties for housing.
Gina Woolley
Wow.
Loretta Smith
Um, where we create an opportunity for a community-based developer, uh, in the community that can develop these properties.
And these properties are off the tax rolls right now.
And to be able to put these properties back on a tax roll, partnering with a developer so that we can put housing in our communities, that is a, a, uh, resolution that we're going to be bringing forward, uh, specifically for Um, the public works, uh, agencies like the parks, the water department, and, and all those other things.
And I know housing is done out of another, out of another committee, but we have lots of property that we can, that we can actually partner with to, to deal with this housing crisis.
And since we've tried to deal with it through the system development charges, that's not working as, as fast as we wanted it to.
We thought that if we, uh, cut the system development, um, fees, that, that would, um, that would make developers come out in, in mass and, and produce housing.
But the, the issue is also on the other side.
Folks are not giving money on the private side to develop properties, um, at the rate that they were doing.
And, uh, we have this little reputational thing that we have to deal with in the city of Portland that people don't want to loan to us as we're developing these kinds of, of, uh, partnerships.
But I think that, um, it's important and it's necessary in order for us to get our economy moving here in Portland and to, to maintain at a certain rate.
Um, so the, the question that I have is, um, if council directed bureaus to complete a surplus and underutilized property review.
What would Parks need, need in terms of staffing, technical assistance, and time to produce this list of possible properties within the, the bigger, um, request that we have out?
Would that take additional resources?
Gina Woolley
Absolutely.
Olivia Clark
Is that a question?
Loretta Smith
Yes.
Olivia Clark
For parks?
Loretta Smith
Yeah.
Unidentified speaker
Well, I can address that for the Community Music Center somewhat.
So we almost— the nonprofit almost hired a commercial real estate broker on our own without the city to look for property.
For a new location for the Community Music Center.
We didn't do that in the end for various reasons, but we have often requested of the city property department or people about surplus property.
Catherine Schroeder
Right.
Unidentified speaker
Especially we are— we serve 50 zip codes among our student population, but we really wanna focus on East County, Because there is a dearth of performing space and music space out there.
And so we've often wanted to find surplus property that could be developed either as a multi-use property like housing.
In fact, we did a big— Gregory Dubay did a big workup for the— it was close in, 30th and Powell, that development.
Loretta Smith
Right.
Unidentified speaker
To put the community music center on the main floor and then housing up above.
'Cause we would ideally want like 10,000 square feet.
So we have been looking at this and our nonprofit is ready to support financially to find property or even develop property.
But if the city had surplus property that could be developed, that would be fabulous.
Loretta Smith
Well, I see one on CMT.
Catherine Schroeder
At every nonprofit's different.
Loretta Smith
Foster-Powell Boulevard, we have a property.
That is, um, zoned CM-2, uh, and I think that's commercial property too.
I think you can do exactly what you're talking about, and I will send you the link because I, I looked at that this weekend on Powell.
It's an open lot that, that is buildable, that is a— that is considered a surplus property, uh, in the Parks Department.
So the, the other thing, the question that I, that I wanted to ask you, Gina, For your project, you have a feasibility study.
How much, um, how much are you looking for to, to complete the IFCC project?
Gina Woolley
The number for expanding and completing the— that's in the, the, um, feasibility study, um, is about $35,000— $35 million, okay?
Because we are talking about Right.
Completely upgrading.
This is something that, that the— one of the values of a public-private partnership is we can go out and do a capital fund drive to support the redevelopment of that building.
We would hope the city, you know, one of the things that happened in 2025, we were put on Parks' capital project list as a capital project.
We were added to the list.
But we absolutely understand.
Loretta Smith
Are you still on the list?
Gina Woolley
Yeah, we're still on the list unless Art tells me we're not.
But I mean, as far as I know, we're still on the list.
But we expect that this would be a partnership and we would figure out, like, for example, we need to, in order to build what we're proposing to build, we need to take down the water tower, which is not used any longer.
That's to the east of the facility, and that property needs to be assigned to Parks so that you have a pad that is big enough for us to build the 22,000-square-foot facility that we're talking about that could be programmed simultaneously in a number of different ways.
So those are the kind of things we want to do.
Loretta Smith
And that's in District 2.
So I want to have a conversation, a deeper conversation with you on that.
I appreciate that because it sounds like the partnership— where the partnership also could come in is with some sort of private sector, a private sector industry that would be interested in the IFCC.
Gina Woolley
Well, we'd just be raising money.
We're not looking to have somebody buy IFCC.
Our plan is to work in partnership with Parks, and that at some point, potentially, the Friends of IFCC might own this, but it wouldn't be in the first probably 10 years of the project.
This, I mean, it's get it built and have a partnership where we are primarily responsible for programming it.
You guys own the building.
Loretta Smith
Yeah.
Gina Woolley
You know, so what, you know, there's a lot to be talked about.
This will all need, we'll need a session with the right people at the table to— with— to go through our recommendations and then to determine which of those recommendations can move forward and who's going to be responsible, who's going to take the lead, um, and how those are going to be worked through the city.
Loretta Smith
So yes.
Olivia Clark
I was just going to suggest, Vice Chair, that, um, you might even have a good conversation with Anna about their capital campaign and what they're doing to create a new visitor center.
I think there's some synergy between you two that it might be good for you all to talk to each other.
Gina Woolley
Fantastic.
Olivia Clark
About this.
But maybe we can pursue this offline too.
Loretta Smith
And we, and we will.
Thank, thank you so much.
Um, your son came here last week and he blew the house out with his comments, and I, I can totally see now where he gets it from.
Gina Woolley
Well, he's much better than I am at public speaking, but, um, thank you for that compliment.
Loretta Smith
And I just want to tell you that because, um, we do have to tell folks about their kids, not when they're doing bad, but also when they're doing good.
That's what I believe in.
I'm a grandmother, okay?
So, um, you have to do that.
And, um, Councilor, um, Kanal is the, uh, District 2, uh, Commissioner Councilor, and I would also recommend that you have a conversation with him and align.
Gina Woolley
We definitely will.
We've had, we've, we've had little brushes.
Um, he's been, you know, at different events, but we, we hope to have— once we have a, a study in hand that, um, is— that we can share, we, we hope to have discussions with all of the, the councilors.
Loretta Smith
Okay, thank you.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you.
Olivia Clark
All right, well, speaking of Councilor Kanal, I think it's— he's next in the queue.
Sameer Kanal
Thank you, Chair Clark, and thank you for bringing this up.
Thanks, Director Pierce, uh, Kelly, June, Megan, Kelsey, Sarah, everybody for that, and everyone in our panel.
Most of my questions are really for Parks, but I, I did want to just start while I have it here.
I, I— there was a lot of stuff I just kind of wanted to highlight and elevate.
Um, obviously you all know it, you just said it, but I, I, I want to make sure that, that the staff who watch this later know that we care about it.
Um, I think when we talk about partnership, one of the concerns I have is, is how that term is broadened to be used for things that are not partnerships at all.
Um, and I, I'll dig into that a little bit more later, but I, I wanted to, to start by saying Hoyt Arboretum is actually a very good example of, of that, not only because of the programming side, but because of— I think programming is probably the most ideal place for it, I also don't want to erase the work you do helping with maintenance as well in terms of the physical space and all that.
But I think programming's one of the most ideal fits.
So that is like squarely within what we're talking about.
I appreciate what was said in terms of CMC, the carousel of leadership at parks.
Normally we have—.
Councilmember Herbold.
Our city administrator in committee, um, I know that he reviews this, so I, I know that that's, um, something that will be tracked.
I, I particularly appreciate that you noted the contract accountability piece.
Um, we've had a lot of conversation on this dais about using time in the Committee of the Whole for oversight on contract accountability.
That's still something that we're looking at, at trying to do.
Um, that flows both directions, and I think for anybody out there who's a city contractor, if you're not getting from the city staff, the administrative side, whatever is in the contract, please call a councilor.
Uh, we care about this stuff.
We want to be, um, helping ensure that the administration does what we've committed to doing.
Um, unfortunately, the way that we've had, uh, contracting go at the city has been incredibly opaque to councilors.
Um, often we know significantly less than you do about what's going on until you tell us that— sometimes we don't even know the contract exists because the administration doesn't brief us.
So that's another reason it's important to call us as well.
Um, Subhashini, I appreciate the Parks Foundation so much.
I have a Cully Park poster from you all hanging in my office right now.
Um, but I, I really appreciated the point you raised about partnerships being able to be successful in product but debilitating in terms of human relationships.
I hear that a lot.
We heard— I was on the Parks Board, um, and I got to know Jessica, who I see in the back, Uh, of a lot through that process.
Um, but that's something we heard too.
Um, you're not the only one raising that, and I think it's, it's really important.
I think having, um, a team that is, is centered on that, which didn't exist a couple years back, uh, at Parks— and, and hopefully, um, I see Director Pierce taking notes as well— so that's, that's really important because often we're looking at the thing that we're doing right now and not What's the next opportunity we have?
And I think we have examples to your right of people who it's an ongoing relationship that's in theory better, I hope, you know, in terms of that, but not always.
And I appreciate that Friends of Sellwood House also, that you share this with other neighborhoods as well.
The—.
I want to make sure that we provide space for our partners to get to know each other too.
I know there's the summits, but also our potential partners.
That's something that's really interesting to me.
For IFCC, yeah, I appreciate Councilor Smith raising this.
Remaining committed partner for this.
I've reached out to both parks under previous leadership.
I'm hoping to make sure that that information has been shared over with you, Director Pierce, but also with water about the water tower.
I have not heard back from water at all.
They also were in a leadership transition at the time.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
As part of the One Water Initiative, I think one of the really big challenges that we've been facing, which is predictable and not necessarily bad if it is a one-time thing as the new government changes in, is that there has been a lot of change in top-level leadership.
I think one of the things that got brought up about having places to go where the decision makers are, the way that we're seeing leadership go at the city, Often everybody has to go up the chain to the mayor and we don't control his schedule.
So just to be fully blunt about it, if you, you know, we can't— I get asked all the time, can you help me talk to the mayor about something?
I wish.
I would love to get stuff on the mayor's calendar.
He takes my calls, but I don't control his schedule.
So I think that's a really big challenge that everybody's dealing with, and I think it's worth just naming it.
We need to have a place where the administration is able— this is a council-manager form of government.
We need to have management able to make decisions so that Director Pierce, if needed, with the CA and Deputy City Administrator, can do that.
And I also really wanted to daylight— so the Ainsworth Linear Arboretum is another similar to the Reed College Parkway, another situation where I noted just Director Williams was in here.
It involves both PBOT and Parks, and that creates a complication.
I don't want to— and I want to help get people in the room together on that.
I wasn't aware of the Reed Parkway thing, but I have toured the Ainsworth Linear Arboretum, and I think there are a lot of things we can do with that space.
Public space utilization is something that has not really been a citywide coordinated strategy.
I'm personally not interested in selling off city properties until we are 100% sure that they are in fact surplus.
And often surplus in the city's definitions has been we don't have a current plan for it.
Robin Veazey
Mm-hmm.
Sameer Kanal
And those are 2 very different things.
Gina Woolley
Mm-hmm.
Sameer Kanal
Both because sometimes bureaus are not interested in it or they don't think they have the funding for a project that would actually be a good fit on the particular property, and they don't think there's a path to it with the council.
Which may or may not be true.
But if that decision's being made without daylight to council, it often has a challenge there.
The other thing that I wanted to daylight from her testimony is the high— and I brought this up a million times when I was on the Parks Board— liability insurance is insanely high for parks.
And it's high if you're renting a field, it's high if you're trying to do a much larger project, it's way too high.
And it's higher than our peers.
I play dodgeball.
I tried to rent dodgeball space in a municipal community center.
I've played in municipal community centers in Dallas and Seattle.
It's in municipal community centers in New York.
It's not here.
And the reason is, compared to the suburbs where we do have one in a suburban community center here, and compared to private community centers, but also compared to Seattle, it's too high.
The liability insurance is higher for the same type of Um, and so it's not a question of— obviously we need to have insurance, I get that, but it's not a question of, um, the minimum.
It's, it's that it's become a barrier.
Another challenge with, uh, booking, by the way, and this relates to your, um, point about— we do not have a citywide recreation strategy.
Um, the Parks Board has discussed it, but I'm so happy you mentioned that.
When I was on the Parks Board, I was really pushing for that, and I know others, uh, who've been on it have talked about it as well.
But we have— if you try to book something and Parks takes forever to get back to you, and then you wait so long to get the information back that you've confirmed the space that you can no longer run the event you wanted to run as effectively, so you say, can I do it a little later?
You have to pay twice.
Oh.
So, you know, and liability insurance is about the same.
So I, I did an event where I had to pay 3 times what I thought I— what, what the, the stated rate was.
One for the original registration, one for the second registration, and a third time for exorbitantly high liability insurance.
And the last thing I wanted to mention from just kind of running through is public records should be shared when asked for.
We shouldn't have to go through public records requests to get it.
And volunteer information is actually a public record.
Not all of it, but a lot of it.
So I appreciate you bringing that up.
And I think we should have a culture where we don't force people to go through an arduous process if you just have the information.
I don't get why that's not being shared.
That actually really is frustrating.
The question about where taxpayer money is going, I want to enable you to be our best messengers, as you often are at the Parks Foundation, for people to be a part of it.
You have a different type of credibility than the city.
We have credibility, but you have a different type as well.
And one of the really big challenges is when we make a promise at the time of a vote on a levy that we are not going to cut services if you vote yes on the levy, and then the mayor puts up a budget that cuts services immediately after that, that diminishes our credibility immensely.
And when we try to reverse it and cannot easily get more than 6 votes to reverse that and hold to our commitments, it is incredibly frustrating because many of us in the administrative branch and on the legislative side wanted to hold to that promise.
And it took— it's a very unclear answer right now.
After all of the work for months to try and restore some funding to parks, whether or not we're even close to maintaining the level of service.
But we lost some really good programs, not just staff.
We talk about staff a lot as the thing because with the staff comes the work, but the work didn't get done for people as well because of layoffs and things related to a budget that did not comply with a promise that was made.
And That was really frustrating, and I just want everyone to know that there are a lot of councilors who've been fighting for that to try and hold to that.
And one of the— the way that that's related is I want you to be able to go out and say you're complementing, not replacing or supplanting, because it's not what we said was going to happen, but it's also not good governance.
Mm-hmm.
In the sense that I don't think We should be considering partnership privatization.
I've mentioned that.
I also think we should be considering partnership as basically relying on private— on donor funds when the public sector can and was perfectly capable of doing it.
So there's a lot more on the Portland Tennis Center that I'll get to later, but I'll stop there.
Thank you so much.
Thanks, everybody.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Councilor.
Councilor Koyama Lane, you're next in the queue.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Thanks, Chair.
Does everyone know the activity Rose, Thorn, and Bud?
Yes.
Okay, so Rose, I'm going to say some things that feel rosy and wonderful, and then buds, things I'm excited about, thorns, things that feel thorny, not so great.
So you all are my roses, and the— our Portland Parks and Rec amazing staff and our director, you all are my roses.
Um, thank you for being here.
Thank you for your dedication, your support, And all that you give to really make our city better.
I want to point out that the North Star Civic Foundation just published their report recently entitled Portland 2026: Your City, Your Choice Report, and it highlights that Portlanders noted the most satisfying aspects of living in Portland are our parks and outdoor areas.
So that's amazing.
Mm-hmm.
And also just I just want to continue and say thank you to the Parks Foundation in particular for the ways that you just step in so enthusiastically to support our community all around the city.
But especially thank you for your efforts in supporting to help raise matching funds for the Montavilla picnic shelter and just being responsive to what community's asking for.
I also want to highlight that I'm so thrilled to see the historic studio at Laurelhurst Park being reactivated, being reopened, um, now managed by Sellwood Community House.
That's where my son took his very first ballet classes as a toddler, so it's great to see that space being utilized.
And my staff really enjoyed their recent tour and were very, very impressed.
Um, in terms of BUDS, things I'm excited about— I'm excited to explore, um, more opportunities too outside of, um, parks and thinking about how we're partnering on our public spaces and continuing the conversation around even some broader community-led work that includes, you know, Vision Zero and work with PBOT.
Also an understanding for what can and can't be carried out by volunteers, but that can help get us closer to our safety goals.
And also how we can be thinking about this volunteerism work with civic life, with engagement on projects that are engaging our community from different generations and from all around Portland.
Another bud is just thinking about future efforts and contributions.
And as we're doing more of these, making sure that we're keeping an eye across the different facilities and partnerships, making sure that we're asking questions as we engage in partnerships, about making sure the public's going to have the same type of ongoing access to facilities.
You know, I'm wondering if there already is a checklist that we can look at when we're considering partnerships that cover things about like how we're working with our labor partners early and often in the conversation.
And then also, like I said before, making sure that we volunteers aren't feeling like they're being They're plugs to budget holes, but that they are adding and getting to improve things.
And those are my buds.
And I want to give a chance to see if Director Art Pierce wants to add anything about are there any checklists kind of used when considering partnerships about what types of things are covered?
And then you don't have to be up here while I say my thorns.
Olivia Clark
Some of that was in the presentation, I think, the fledgling checklist, if I'm not mistaken.
Unidentified speaker
Maybe we can release the panelists.
Olivia Clark
Yeah, release the panelists.
Thank you.
Don't leave though, don't leave.
Unidentified speaker
Well, yes, thank you for the thoughts.
I have been jotting down a lot of notes, so there's a lot.
As you know, I'm 2 months into my deep dive So a lot of it, I'm on the same learning journey that you are, or a better understanding.
I do want to highlight, I guess, one of the things that I'm noting is, and we highlighted in the presentation, is this shift towards trying to create a culture of partnership and sort of what that really— what that ends up really meaning and how much change management is involved in transmitting that, which I think was well led under Sonya's leadership as director.
Thank you.
And I'm sort of inheriting that momentum in terms of the creation of a team that is focused in on curating partnerships, the better understanding of how we're using that word even, as Councilor Kanal has been raising, of like, what does a partnership mean?
And then talking about how to shift the sort of posture of a bureau.
And I think when a bureau has gone through a lot of change, it sort of retracts into a sort of more defensive posture, and particularly when there's a lot of resource constraints.
And I think I've seen it at PBOT, and I'm seeing it now with sort of, as I'm getting to understand how Parks is functioning, there's a lot of sort of defensive posture.
And so I see one of the key roles for my job is how to sort of shift that posture to one that is a little bit more relaxed and composed and a little bit more open towards what it means to be partnerships, to do partnerships, but also that we're being really clear as bureau leadership on what are the shared responsibilities of entering into a partnership.
It can't be that you're just attracting more attention to your one facility that is your pet facility.
That it needs to be that you're understanding there's limitations to that.
And so that's, I think, you know, underlying a lot of the conversation that we're hearing today is how do we, you know, bring the culture of partnership as the overall bureau, but also some realism about what's potential for us to bring.
I do also think the shared frustration of, you know, who makes decisions and how do we get decisions made is something that Thank you.
I think that's something that we can work together on.
While council may be the final decider of a process, I've had 28 years of bringing thoughtful proposals to council for their decision.
And so it is also, you know, there's— I want to make sure that there's agency at staff within the Parks Bureau to bring together thoughtful proposals and bring that for your consideration, just to make sure that we're doing the work.
I think one of the interesting challenges that we're experiencing a lot right now is many people feel authorized to say no.
But a lot less people feel authorized to say yes.
And so how do we figure out how we're shifting that conversation to say, oh, that seems like a good idea, let's see if we can get to a yes by working that more fully through?
In terms of the specific criteria, the team is working on exactly that activity right now.
What would be the various sort of measures that we would be looking at that tell us whether this is indeed what we're considering to be a partnership, is a partnership that we think merits co-investment by the Bureau, merits the contribution of facilities and staff time, all those elements is exactly the sort of this current fiscal year's journey that we're planning to be on.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
And I appreciate your focus on the culture piece because I do hear oftentimes from volunteers, it doesn't feel great if we're trying to support and then we're getting roadblocks or not getting— not having that communication back and forth.
And sometimes it is, it's the culture, it's the feeling and wanting to know that there is too big of a wall between like the bureaucracy and people that want to support in the public.
Absolutely.
And when you think about creating that framework, are there any of those questions or touchpoints that you feel like come up the most that you feel like are ones that are the biggest hot points or challenges?
Unidentified speaker
Well, I think one of the general sort of dilemmas of governance in general is making sure that we're providing a level of thoughtfulness around equitable access of resources.
And so even access to my time or the mayor's time or your time is a form of that deliberation of, you know, who do we give access to to take a meeting to then discuss that.
And so I think as we're looking at how to, you know, embrace partnership and resources where we can and thinking about how that allows us to direct bureau resources where there may not be as fertile of a partnership at landscape, and we're putting our energy intentionally in that way.
I think that the work that PSU is doing with Dr. Corbin, it sounds like you all have some familiarity with that, is going to help us to really investigate an area that does not have as deeply of a developed environment of, you know, how do we pull out the community interest, how do we invest in their nonprofit sector capacity, those kind of partnerships.
Is really, you know, we need, we need ready partners on both sides to really make that work.
And so that's going to be really critical.
And then of course, what is the public good that we're perpetuating with this partnership?
What are we— what are— what is the product that we're producing together that wouldn't otherwise be possible?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Yeah, thank you.
That connects to what we see in our school districts too and where, where the support is.
Okay, so that leads me into my thorn which is the recent experience of how the Portland Tennis Center, the operations which have now been transferred already, how that played out.
As a District 3 councilor where the Portland Tennis Center is, I heard significant questions and concerns about this transfer to the U.S. Tennis Association.
They were shared with Portland Parks and Rec, I think many of them before you were here, and many directly to me through my concerns and I'll be clear that not everyone was on one side or the other.
A lot of people use the Portland Tennis Center from all around Portland, but I got questions because folks were really concerned that the access discount program wasn't going to be honored and that they would lose access to this space.
I heard concerns around maintenance and ongoing maintenance that, you know, who's going to be in charge of that?
And it sounds like— And who's going to pay for it?
It's currently still the city laborers, facility maintenance techs, who are expected to do the ongoing work at the center.
I also heard folks who've been using that space for a long time and were asking about, you know, can we pilot this?
Can we see how it goes rather than committing to decades?
And commitments were made to us, I believe, as council, that there were going to be— there's going to be an open accessible process as they— as Parks move forward with this.
I was even tapped to lead a technical amendment, technical amendment number 3 in the budget, which provided budget authority for partial operation of the tennis center.
And then it listed that there would be a— for to provide the space for careful and thoughtful decision for a potential transition.
And then I've had to tell my constituents, oh, it's It's a done deal.
It already happened.
The city administrator signed 2 agreements, a lease for the Portland Tennis Center and a license for seasonal programming at 6 outdoor court sites.
They both have 25-year terms with automatic 5-year extensions.
I have looked into this.
Our city administrator legally has the authority to do this without our committee or council.
But from my perspective, we were promised more communication, and I promised the public more communication for input and dialogue.
I do see, thank you to Parks.
I think some of the things that I brought up were considered.
I know that rather than the access discount program being honored, there's now going to be like a 1-year complimentary access, but that's also different than losing the access discount program.
And I think, you know, and I'm also really surprised not to see our city administrator here because my last message between my office and his office about this said that they were looking forward to further conversations today, September 8th, at this committee about this.
So I just, I do worry because there's so much amazing stuff that people in this room are leading and doing that's making our city better.
I worry that something like how this went damages community trust and can make future transfers or projects possibly tricky.
And just wanna make sure that we're taking actions to make sure that it doesn't pan out like this again.
And I know that you are the new director, but you can also see why I was like, I don't want all these people to have to sit up here for this part 'cause it's not related to you all.
But if you can—.
I'm sorry.
Speak as much as you can, or if CA Lee is available, would love to hear more about this.
Unidentified speaker
You bet.
Well, maybe I'll start with, I guess, an apology around the leadership transition and the timing of USTA.
So I was coming on just as they were finalizing the negotiations, so I was coming up to speed very quickly, and so wasn't fully sort of versed in the history of actually the council deliberations over the last couple years that we're sort of directing towards this or the commitments that were made.
So we— I know we did our best to do some quick briefings over the course of the recent months to make sure we were understanding the sort of major concerns of different council offices, including you, and make sure that we were relaying that through the negotiation with the U.S. Tennis Center and also sort of the— what the measure of whether we got to a good enough agreement in terms of the commitment with them.
Um, from what I have, um, observed, that the U.S. Tennis Center, um, is a good example actually of a committed nonprofit partner that is bringing an additional set of resources, an additional set of sort of focus and care towards tennis.
And actually, Tennis Center staff have approached me letting me know how excited they are that this transition is happening.
Um, and, you know, we've seen the great example in Vancouver around the success of their tennis center once USTA took on that partnership.
And so I do actually think while we all, I think, have many nervous feelings about change, I actually think that the way the agreement is laid out is actually something that's going to bring a lot of benefit to Portlanders in terms of the capital investment that USTA Tennis Center is bringing, as well as their kind of curation of the facility.
But I can acknowledge the, I guess, the sort of tension in terms of how to navigate between the administrative side and the council offices when we're doing this.
And I think you're spot on to say that if we're going to be pursuing more of these partnerships, we need to have a more transparent methodology that council is helping us understand ahead of time so that we're able to say we're following the rules we made together as we're proceeding through a negotiation that every council member can't and so I think this in a way is a really good example of what— where I think we can more successfully navigate in the next couple years if we spend some more time with you deliberating on what makes a good partnership, what are the measures of good partnership.
Then we know that we're following the direction that council has given as policy as we're proceeding through negotiations.
And whether we're bringing that back to you depending on the type of decision that needs to be made or bringing that through the city administrator, the mayor, we're a little less groping around in the, you know, whether we're bringing back the right rock kind of feeling and more know that we're on solid ground.
So I think it's fair criticism and, you know, acknowledge that for sure.
Tiffany Koyama Lane
I really appreciate your response.
And to be clear, most people reached out and said, I can see this being a good deal.
I want to make sure that you're engaging the people that use the Portland Tennis Center.
I'm like, I don't play tennis.
Like, you all tell me what might the pros and cons be.
Yeah.
And I do a constituent coffee every month.
And so I was like asking, hey, I could even do one there.
I think even just giving folks the opportunity to have some engagement, to be able to give their opinions and their expertise, because some of what people did tell me I did pass on to you, which I think was helpful.
So yeah, that's a thorn and hopefully a bud for the future as we just do it differently and a little bit better, and I'm, uh, really grateful for your leadership.
Unidentified speaker
Thank you.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Councilor, and thank you, Art.
I really don't think you need to apologize, um, having come into this.
I think a lot of what we're talking about today is change management, starting with the charter change all the way through, and now to a whole different ethic in the Parks Bureau.
I'm going to turn this over to Councilor Green, but before I do Colleagues, normally about this time we take a break.
If you're okay with going another 15, 20 minutes, we can keep going.
Otherwise, take a break and come back.
I don't— do you have a sense for that?
We've got 2 more people in the queue after Councilor Green.
I'm, I'm fine with just plowing through if possible.
Yeah, I'm fine too.
Okay, all right, let's do that.
Unidentified speaker
Councilor Green.
Mitch Green
Thank you so much, Chair Clark, and thank you to everyone who came today to kind of share your experience with the park system, or sometimes a lack of the park system in your purviews.
But then I just see it as a sort of recommitment to the City of Portland.
And so I really appreciate that.
I just kind of want to recite some things that I heard, and I'm thankful for the lightning round because these were all— I actually heard basically everything that is on my little list.
Oh, wow.
Of the things that I worry about with respect to this stuff, and it was validating.
So I think I just want to uplift, um, uh, Gina, I think you mentioned it, which was just, just having someone with some authority be able to interface with us so that way we can get to yes or we can get to no, but just get there in some sort of meaningful level of resolution.
And I know, Director Pierce, that, that's— I mean, I think you share that.
Um, That desire as well.
I know we have talked about at this dais in the budget setting context, but when you've got these layers of this reporting chain, the span of control thing that creates, I think, a lot of layers of middle management, it leads to that type of outcome.
And so the city administrator is engaging on that span of control study as we speak.
Maybe that's why he's not here.
Yeah.
In that case, then he You can get an excuse from me on that because it was my budget note.
But I am confident that's where we're going.
And so I'm just reaffirming my commitment that that's where we need to go, is providing some generally acceptable and democratic method for figuring out how to empower someone to just say, this is your scope, and within this world, you've got some level of executive authority.
And so you can just go and make decisions.
Thank you.
I think that'll improve the outcome for a lot of folks.
I think I've appreciated, you know, some clarification on how taxpayer money is spent.
I mean, that's a huge priority of mine.
I think about in the City of Los Angeles, they have a, I think, an elected controller who his whole thing is this like painfully detailed level of just transparent reporting on what's going on in the City of Los Angeles's budget.
And I know that we've talked about needing more, um, more looks at that just from the standpoint of being able to set a budget.
Um, so I just, I would say if you're out there in the community, you're thinking about, okay, this is hard to, to grok, uh, it's also hard for councilors too.
And so if we have a hard time parsing out the level of expenditures that are going on and really tracing the dollars from point A to point B to C, it can't be easy for the community.
So, and then ditto, ditto, ditto to citywide strategy for rec with clear goals.
At the risk of cutting against that, I do want to raise one thing that I've heard from our constituents, which is a desire to find ways as volunteers and with their own money to get Paddle courts.
I think that's how you pronounce it, but it's like a, it's like a play on tennis.
It's, it's not quite tennis, it's not quite squash, it's not quite, uh, pickleball.
It's padel.
Thank you.
I knew I was going to butcher the pronunciation because I've only ever seen it written.
Um, but yeah, I mean, we've got, we've got folks who want to put these courts in Willamette Park, and I think that they've been told no.
And so figuring out how to Figuring out how to facilitate those conversations, I think, is germane to everything we've been talking about today.
I'm not taking a position on padel as a sport.
I can tell you the last time I played squash, I nearly lost an eye.
And so maybe I'll have to be careful when I pick up that sport.
But I think that if we're not finding ways to bring in these thousands hundreds of thousands of dollars or thousands of hours of volunteer energy in our community, then we're just missing the mark.
And I think that's very different than this idea of privatization.
You know, when you talk about activating people who want to invest directly in our assets, help us out, find ways to clear the ivy out of Terwilliger Park, you know, that sort of thing, we should be falling over ourselves to say yes to that.
But I think that we should always be very skeptical, or at least really understand what the process is when we transfer an asset, even if it's in long-term contract terms.
When we sign a long-term contract that gives over control of an asset to a private operator, that's very different.
And we need to be very careful on that.
Councilor Koyama Lane, I appreciate that you kind of raised up the tennis center thing.
That's been on my mind.
It's in your district, not mine.
I'm trying to stay focused on my district these days, but I'm actually not convinced that it's within the city administrator's scope to sign that kind of a contract because the charter says the city administrator has the ability through the mayor to negotiate and execute contracts so long as it's consistent with the budget.
And so a 25-year contract, I don't know how that's consistent with next year's budget or the year after that or the year after that.
That seems to me like a council deliberation.
And so this is a conversation we absolutely need to have in the open.
The contract's been signed.
We're talking about it.
But, you know, we went through a dialogue in work session, I think it was April 30th, where councilors first got pitched on this budget adjustment for not making expenditures on the Portland Tennis Center.
And many of us said, wait, what?
I thought we were going to have a conversation around this and a decision point.
And that's where the technical amendment number 3 came from, which did a partial year funding in recognition that we needed to slow it down a little bit and pump the brakes and talk to council.
And then this contract just got signed.
And that's not your fault, Art.
You entered into this.
But what I'm saying here is that is something that did not have engagement at this dais.
And I think it should have been a council decision.
And we can't do that again.
So, I appreciate you listing that up, but—.
Loretta Smith
It went through committee.
Sameer Kanal
You cannot—.
Mitch Green
So it went through the Arts and Economy Committee as a presentation, and at that committee on December 16th, what we were told is that this would come back to council for a decision, and it never did.
So committees don't make decisions for this whole city.
City Council does, not committees.
And so that's just— we need to level set on what the facts were of that, and I think we missed the mark on that.
I think, I think I'll leave that there.
Um, but thank you so much for assembling this panel, um, and thanks for all the work that you do for our communities.
Thanks.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Councilor Green.
I, I just want to remind people too that when we transferred the asset of the Sellwood Community House, there was some skepticism up here.
I think we had a— I don't know if it was a unanimous or 11 to 1 or what it was, but I think now the proof is in the pudding.
You know, that investment, I mean, turning that over for a dollar to a community-based organization that already raised $3 million to fix it up, and look what they're doing now at other facilities and transferring that technology around the city.
I think that was a good decision.
But there was some skepticism when we had that discussion.
I don't know if you recall that.
Loretta Smith
May I make a comment?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Um, I, I hear that, and also we were able to vote on that, right?
Olivia Clark
Yes, we did.
We voted on that.
Yeah, thank you.
Um, okay, I think, uh, Councilor Smith is back in the queue, followed by Councilor Kanal.
Loretta Smith
Thank you.
Thank you, Director Pierce.
And I don't expect you to be Superintendent Kaiser or anything like that because he He spent 32 years here building this whole, uh, park system, which is amazing and outstanding.
Uh, a couple of partnerships that I think that are worth talking about is the golf course, um, partnership.
Um, we have a public golf course in every district except District 1 because we have the Heron Lakes, the Rose City Eastmoreland, and we have 2, and then we have the Coalwood and, and Huron Lakes in District 2.
And so I was wondering, um, while we're having this conversation about partnerships, we do have a, a public golf course in District 1.
Um, it's privately owned, but it's a public course to, to everyone.
And I was wondering if there can be some partnerships that would extend parks to be able to do some sort of partnership with underserved youth to teach them how to play golf and those kinds of things.
And it's out there at the— drawing a blank— the golf course on 140—.
Glenfair.
Glenfair.
A golfer.
Yes.
At Glenfair, if there's something that we could do, some sort of partnership, um, or if you have something in the works to do any sort of partnership with, um, uh, Glenfair, because we don't have a, a city-owned golf course out there.
And I participated with, uh, the Leisure Hour, um, their scholarship, uh, tournament a couple weeks ago.
I was a sponsor to, to, to their weekend, and it was amazing and outstanding.
I did— I had no idea.
I was It was at Heron Lakes.
I had no idea, uh, the history of what went on.
But, you know, since, since we're all being political up here, um, for the record, I did not support taking the $450,000 out of the enterprise fund to give to a small donor, uh, because I didn't think that was appropriate.
So there are a lot of things that people think that are not appropriate up here that, that are more political than, than appropriate.
And City Administrator Lee, he doesn't come to the, um, committee meetings.
He comes to the, the Community and Public Safety because he's the DCA, but not in his role.
He's not required to be here as a city administrator.
So we would be asking some of those questions that my colleagues had talked about.
And so I don't want you to feel like you have to answer those to me because that is a That is something that is given in the charter.
The charter gives the mayor and the city administrator the right to do contracts without coming to council, and that is the reason why.
Not because they're trying to not be transparent, it's because that is in the charter and that's what the charter gives them, that scope of work.
But I think in terms of our parks, if we have ideas— and I know that you've been talking to my staff, I know Elijah's been in conversations with you because we've been talking about these public-private partnerships in regards to making sure that we, we could help with the housing issue.
Um, and we'll be talking to you about that.
We have a couple of, a, a couple of things that we're going to bring forward in terms of, uh, resolutions.
Um, one in regards to the golf, because I, I'd like to see the, the full picture and us have a conversation about it because I think it's It's easy to take people's money when you don't have to see them and their supporters who really rely on these kinds of things.
And when you're talking about maintenance of stuff, I know that enterprise fund is used— it could be used for anything, but there's $43 million worth of back-deferred maintenance for the golf department.
And I was like, $43 million.
Am I correct on that?
That's my understanding, yes.
Yeah.
And so I got it off the website, so I'm, I'm just telling you what, what I learned as I was look— I was, I was looking this up.
But I think we have to be really clear, and I am very open as the vice chair of, of Public Works.
I'm very open to partnerships in ways in which to help us, because as you saw, we had a $175 million, um, deficit Uh, to our current operating budget to— for '26-'27, and we had to cut some of those.
And I was not happy about the cuts that were made to parks.
I was not happy about the, um, the, the opportunity for us to not level set parks in a way that they should have been.
And so for me, I want to keep parks where they're at, and I want them to grow, and I want the monies that the public Um, that they're paying extra to, to, to maintain them and to keep our folks where they are.
But I, I really want to set out, you know, offline, I want to be able to have a conversation with your folks about parks.
And the other thing that I learned, and I learned about it last week and they talked about it earlier, about the, the PSU partnership.
I like that they're going to do a, um, a kind of inventory of the parks in District 1 and find out what are some of the things that, that need to be updated, upgraded.
So I was pleased to, um, to see that last week because, uh, President, uh, Dunphy, he had sent out an email to the District 1 folks and to, to the staff and the councilors and saying this is happening, we want you to, to, to work.
And I immediately checked back, I'm in, I'm in.
So thank you for those kinds of things because We have to have partnerships.
We—.
No one does this thing alone.
We, we do this, um, with us linking arms with one another and trying to figure out how a whole community— um, before this meeting this weekend, I was looking up the history of Superintendent, um, Kaiser.
I mean, what he did over 32 years as the superintendent, and that's That's kind of like unheard of, um, of the superintendent of parks and bringing all these opportunities forward.
And, um, I— that's where I learned where the parks— when the Kaiser Shipyards were building for, for World War II, a lot of women went into the, uh, workforce, and parks became our, our mainstay to, to help with raising our children of sorts.
And that's how we brought programs into the, into the parks.
I never knew that.
I never knew that that was the reason and how that started.
I just thought they would— it's just a smart place to do because it's, you know, we have space and recreation.
And so, no, as I was reading about that and I was like, that is amazing and outstanding.
So I do think that we have to be a partner in this community, and we also sometimes have to partner with the private sector that will make all of us really proud to be able to have a system that works for everybody.
And that's where my concern is.
So I just wanted to tell you that I appreciate that, and I appreciate some of the partnerships that you've created already.
They're good and they're right on point.
Thank you.
Unidentified speaker
And it sounds like we should set up a follow-on conversation around the golf partnership specifically.
Loretta Smith
Yes, because I want to go to one of the GEC meetings I ran into one of— at dinner.
I'm always— I go to the Red Apple and I see everybody.
But, um, Azumada, what's her name?
Um, Catherine.
Um, she's on the— she's on the G. She saw me at another— at another, um, ordinance for, uh, Cesar Chavez, and I saw her at the Red Apple when I was eating on Taco Tuesday last weekend.
So she started talking about it.
Oh, that's great.
And, um, I said, okay, we'll, we'll have a conversation.
But I had been thinking about how we, um, continue to partner.
And yes, we do need to have some additional conversation.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Uh, Councilor Kanal, why don't you bring us home, and then we'll try to conclude in the next 10 minutes or so.
Sameer Kanal
Great, thanks.
Um, yeah, I appreciate, Chair Clark, you bringing up the vote on Sellwood Community House.
It was last December.
It was, it was 10 to 1.
Oh.
In the end, I was the one on that.
And without relitigating it, I think, you know, most of the time, there's some really egregious things, but most of the time, you know, I think when we make a decision, that's the decision.
So I'm, you know, and I appreciate the recognition that there was some skepticism and certainly not everyone was on the same page about how to do everything.
But, you know, it happened.
It's going well.
And I'm not, Concerned about that.
But what I think Councilor Koyama Lane's point was is that we did get a chance to talk about it.
Councilor Green brought up what happened in December at Arts and Economy.
He also brought up what happened in April at the work session.
I do want to read from a little piece here from a transcript of what happened when we approved Technical Amendment 3.
Thank you.
Which was— I'm oversimplifying, but basically there wasn't money in the budget originally for USTA, or sorry, for Tennis Center beyond June 30th of this year.
This gave— put money in to extend it till December 30th and sort of talked about thoughtful deliberation, et cetera.
So I just wanted to raise this here on amendment.
This is me asking on Amendment 3.
Yes.
And just to be clear, May 18th, 2026, 23 minutes into the meeting.
On Amendment 3, is the— it talks about thoughtful decision-making and implementation of the potential transition.
I'm a little curious as to— there hasn't yet been a council vote on transferring anything with USTA, and there have been several councilors who've expressed concern, trepidation, whatever word, hesitation, let's say, about it.
So I'm curious how much this commits us to that course of action without a debate.
And CA Lee responds, it doesn't commit you to it.
Council officially has to adopt the budget, which this would be a part of it.
This is just amending the portion of the mayor's proposed budget as it relates to this work.
Council officially will make the decision as it relates to the overall adopted budget, which this may be included as part of your deliberation with this amendment.
My question to follow up on that, so the adopted budget is where the decision on transferring the private— on transfer Excuse me.
On transferring, on privatizing this, the Portland Tennis Center, is that where it's made or is that a separate standalone ordinance?
And the response was, it's the appropriation of this money is done through the budgeting process.
If there's documentation as it relates to the privatization of that, that would be done separately.
And I followed up again, okay, does— but we're only funding half the year to operate this at the moment.
So as of right now, unless we adopted a set— a second ordinance, If we adopt this budget, the Portland Tennis Center would close on December 31st potentially?
And the response was yes.
So those last 2 things shows that while we did not fund it past December 31st in the budget, it would close, meaning it would not be privatized absent— that's the last question.
The second to last question is that we have to have a separate conversation about it.
I don't— I can't think of a thing I enjoy learning less or a time I enjoy learning something less than up here that a contract is signed.
That for 25 years, that is— I think it's a good thing.
Um, really, really last on my list, uh, of, of preferences.
Um, so I, I did want to point out, um, because I agree with the way that Parks has talked about this, um, Councilor Koyama Lane talked about the fact that the, the access discount going away and making this, you know, more, more of a pay-to-play situation.
Um, slide 12 of this, you said partnership creates opportunity, but partnership does not automatically Yeah.
Partnership expands, not concentrates opportunity.
So by those 2 definitions, this particular part of what we're talking about doing at the Tennis Center is not a partnership.
And I really appreciate what you said on slide 6, uh, partnership does not replace public responsibility, partnership expands what public resources can accomplish.
And I think it's fair to say that this is expanding what public resources can accomplish.
I think that part's Fair.
But not replacing public responsibility.
We, we've already seen this with all of our long contracts, this idea that, you know, it's, it's not us.
We've seen this with Urban Alchemy, we've seen this with Downtown Clean and Safe, we've seen this around, that we just absolve ourselves, uh, at the administrative side once we've contracted out and said it's their job.
And that's part of why we need to do contract accountability oversight at the city.
But we still own these facilities.
We still are responsible for public safety.
We're still responsible for the folks that are in our care when they are, or custody, or whatever the situation is.
And I'm particularly concerned because we're going to still own the tennis center, that we are absolving ourselves of the responsibility of ensuring access through this process and doing it in a non-transparent way.
So I, um, I'm comfortable.
I've always been comfortable losing votes.
I mean, that happens, right?
Um, this is a, this is an elected council.
I'm one of 12.
We're all going to have to lose votes.
But the idea of never even discussing it in public, uh, is problematic.
And it's particularly problematic that it was committed to us.
Um, and, and now we've heard this at at least 3 different meetings in this room.
It's been committed to us that we would talk about this as a And I'm going to be very specific when I say behind our back.
That is not an— that is an intentional use of the phrase.
So I'm pretty frustrated by that, and I'd like to follow up with this.
I agree with Councilor Green because actually— and I'll just note, anyone who has gotten attorney-client privilege briefings on this would know that the facts are not that the administrator can do this unilaterally.
I agree with Councilor Mitch Green.
Let me repeat that.
Anyone who has gotten attorney-client privilege briefings on this would know that the power is not absolute here.
The quote is, and this is Article 4, Section 2-401 of the charter, the city administrator may, quote, authorize, negotiate, and execute all contracts and intergovernmental agreements consistent with the city budget, end quote.
So I think we should be honest about what that means with the public.
It does not mean absolute authority.
It means that when the council votes for things in the budget, that is a constraint on the authority.
And from everything I've heard, and again, I'm learning today about the contract having already been signed while I'm in this room, everything from what I know from that sounds like we went out, that that was outside of the authority.
And so I agree with Councilor Green.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilor Clark.
Olivia Clark
Thank you, Councilor Kanal.
It's okay.
I just want to wrap this up by thanking all of you for spending your entire morning with us.
I think it was invaluable what you had to offer us today.
And I want to use something I think that Shubha said earlier, is that parks are a bastion of democracy.
I really appreciate that term.
Um, and in so many different ways.
And I think that you all are champions of democracy as a result of that.
Um, so thank you so much.
We have lots to follow up on.
I'm, I'm sure that you'll want to, uh, talk to our director here before everybody leaves.
Um, and we'll be following up on, on these issues as well with the Parks Bureau.
And we really appreciate the Parks Bureau leadership, the presentation.
On your forward thinking, creating a culture of partnership, all that change management that we have to go through.
We are going through it.
It's going to take time for Parks Bureau, and I would say all the other— the 26 bureaus— to go through change management as well as we implement the charter.
But you're ahead of the game.
I really appreciate it.
I can feel the results, and there's much more to come.
But thanks to all of you for being here all morning with us and, and sharing your Thank you.
We really appreciate it.
So, um, with that, uh, colleagues, our next meeting is on September the 22nd.
We're going to have a very full agenda for that meeting, including the return of our, uh, transportation funding discussion and the implementation of the TUF, um, along with several administrative items from PBOT and our colleagues in, uh, finance.
So with that, I will adjourn the meeting of the Public Works committee.