City Life Committee Meeting

6:47Good afternoon.

6:49It is It is 2:02 on Tuesday, October 27th.

6:52I am calling to order this meeting of the City Life Committee.

6:57Keelan, could you please call the roll?

6:58Good afternoon.

6:59Zimmerman?

7:01Here.

7:03Avalos?

7:05Present.

7:07Ryan?

7:10Morillo?

7:11Here.

7:13Pirtle-Guiney?

7:13Here.

7:16Kevin, could you please read our rules of order?

7:19Welcome to the meeting of the City Life Committee.

7:21To testify before this committee in person or virtually, you must sign up in advance on the committee agenda at www.portland.gov/council/agenda/city-life-committee or by calling 311.

7:35Information on engaging with the committee can be found at this link.

7:38Registration for virtual testimony closes 1 hour prior to the meeting.

7:42In-person testifiers must sign up before the agenda item is heard.

7:45If public testimony will be taken on an item, individuals may testify for 3 minutes unless the chair states otherwise.

7:52Your microphone will be muted when your time is over.

7:54The chair preserves order.

7:55Disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others' testimony or committee deliberations will not be allowed.

8:04If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given.

8:07Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting.

8:09Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass.

8:13Additionally, the committee may take a short recess and reconvene virtually.

8:17Your testimony should address the matter being considered.

8:20When testifying, state your name for the record.

8:22If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent.

8:25Virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the clerk calls your name.

8:29Thank you.

8:30Thank you very much, colleagues.

8:32The first item on our agenda today is approval of our meeting minutes for our 2 September meetings.

8:37I'm sure everybody has read them thoroughly.

8:39Do I have unanimous consent to adopt the minutes?

8:43Not seeing any objections, we will adopt the minutes for our 2 September meetings.

8:50Keelan, could you please call the next item on our agenda?

8:52Item 2, document 2026-383, public input on City Life Committee topics.

9:00Thank you.

9:01And for folks who are listening in for the first time, every week we make sure to have time for people to talk about items that fall within the jurisdiction of the City Life Committee but that are not on our agenda, and I believe we have a few people signed up today.

9:16Keelan, could you please call up our first testifier?

9:21Uh, first up today we have Galib Bin Imhotep El.

9:28Welcome.

9:28Thank you for joining us.

9:37Greetings, committee members.

9:39Um, usually I have a speech or something to say about city life that's more pertinent or civilly, you know, progressive.

9:52But today I'm just going to talk about something that happened here over the past week and a half that I think solidified my position in this city as far as whether I'm going or staying.

10:04About, I want to say, 4, maybe 5 years ago, I can't remember exactly how long, but LeBron James somehow slipped up and became a Los Angeles Laker.

10:13I stopped watching basketball.

10:15I could not bear to know that my team from birth decided to pick up a guy who I just can't look at as far as great basketball players.

10:26I just don't see it in him.

10:28Great athlete, not great basketball player.

10:30Anyway, he left the Lakers and I said, great, now I can watch basketball.

10:35Then lo and behold, he left something behind.

10:38What?

10:40His son, Bronny.

10:42I can't be a Laker fan, I'm sorry.

10:45So I made a switch, and what better switch to make than a team that I've always kind of enjoyed watching play basketball, a very gritty team, Portland Trail Blazers.

10:55I'm in the city, why not?

10:58So, um, the first game of the season happens.

11:05I get to see 21 points scored.

11:10Ja Morant and Damian Lillard get hot and get on fire before anything else happens in the NBA.

11:18What a welcome as a fan.

11:23I'd like to go on public record to tell the Portland Trail Blazers, thank you for such a great welcome package.

11:27The best opening game in the history of the Portland Trail Blazers was this season's opening game.

11:34Thank you.

11:34They won by, I think it was 42 points.

11:37It was outlandish.

11:38I, I watched it from probably the 5th minute of the first quarter to the end, and I smiled the entire time.

11:46They never let up.

11:47They look like they're going to do great things this year.

11:51I can easily see in 5 years a team of this nature making it a long way.

11:58Hopefully they make it another 2 decades and 5 years in this same city.

12:05I just wanted to let you guys know that I love the Portland Trail Blazers, I love the city of Portland, and I love you all unconditionally.

12:13Thank you.

12:14Thank you for being here and for the recounting of that fantastic game.

12:21Next up, we have Anita Davidson joining us online.

12:25Welcome, Ms. Davidson.

12:26Thank you for being here.

12:28Thank you.

12:29Yes, my name is Anita Davidson, and I own a condominium downtown in District 4.

12:34I'm here to give you a ratepayer's report card on Clean and Safe and to introduce a couple of new concerns.

12:40Unfortunately, from our perspective, and I speak for more than myself, almost nothing has improved since the city auditor reported recommendations in late 2020, and the consultant hired by the city echoed those in 2024.

12:53The first category was governance.

12:55The ESDs were to become more representative, transparent, and accountable.

13:00Ratepayer representation at Clean and Safe has not increased, however, and directors are still bound by nondisclosure agreements.

13:07Ratepayers still have no access to meetings, minutes, budgets, agendas, resolutions, or reports.

13:14The program measures Clean and Safe reports also need updating.

13:18The second recommendation had to do with oversight.

13:21The city established an ESD coordinator position, and the job has become one of liaison and advocacy.

13:26That has its purpose.

13:28Unfortunately, those are incompatible with oversight.

13:31A good cop, bad cop can rarely be done by one person.

13:35The 3rd recommendation had to do with creating guidelines, which was done in 2024 in a draft ESD handbook and draft ESD petition packet when Clean and Safe lobbied for expansion.

13:47However, the documents were flawed, were public— never publicly vetted, never run through City Council for approval, or approved as administrative rules.

13:56Essentially, the ESDs are running on procedures created by the ESD coordinator, and they remain flawed.

14:02In 2024, we raised multiple issues about those specifically related to insufficient notification and lack of criteria for the repair support required.

14:12The guidelines were rolled out anyway, and, and then the flaws have been caught by these new neighborhoods now considering ESDs.

14:18This committee itself has before it the tabled ordinance for— proposed ordinance for Parkrose with similar objections, and St. Johns and Pearl neighborhoods have withdrawn.

14:30So I consider this, this area of guidelines also to be a failure so far.

14:35But now I have my 2 new concerns because I've done additional research since.

14:40Actually, the days of enhanced services are gone, and I'd like the City Life Committee to consider this.

14:46Everything Clean and Safe does offers is now a basic service funded and provided more efficiently and more cost-effectively by our government than through Clean and Safe with its 20% overhead.

14:58The city's realized that— realized this, that we need this for revitalization, and now provides its own sidewalk cleaning, graffiti removal, extra security, extra lighting, year-round holiday lighting, PBOT pays TriMet to clean and secure the transit mall.

15:17The state has paid Clean and Safe to provide extra security downtown, and parks now are using Clean and Safe to run the extra parks.

15:25But why are we ratepayers required to pay for these as enhanced services?

15:31Finally, I'd just like to say that there is a better picture, a better model, and that is in Seattle.

15:37The links and so forth are in my written testimony.

15:41Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

15:42Thank you.

15:43Thank you so much for raising these concerns.

15:46We appreciate it.

15:48Next up, we have Alex Stein.

15:52Welcome.

15:52Thank you for being here with us.

15:54Yo, yo, thank you for having me.

15:56Yo, my name is Alex Stein.

15:57I came from Texas.

15:59I was here, uh, for a rehabilitation stint, and I'll be honest with you, Portland's got the cleanest and the best fentanyl In the world.

16:10And I know a lot of other people, a lot of other cities, they say, oh, our fennel's the best in Vegas.

16:15It's not as good.

16:16And that's why I love Portland.

16:18That's why I'm never leaving Portland.

16:20And my great-great-great-grandmother was a slave, and my great-great-great-grandfather was a plantation owner.

16:27So I'm 1/32nd Black, and I see a room full of whites.

16:32I see like one other Black dude.

16:34He's talking about LeBron James.

16:35And I was like, that's what I'm talking about.

16:37But LeBron James is not on fentanyl.

16:40And so what I'm saying, if you thinking about coming to Portland, if you thinking about it, you need to get up on here.

16:47So I made y'all a little song about how much and how clean the fentanyl is up in this.

16:53All right?

16:53So this is for all, all the people curious, all the addicts out there.

16:57Yo.

16:59Yo, I love that fentanyl.

17:02I stick that needle in my vein.

17:05I mix the fentanyl with a little cocaine, Portland, this city is insane, 'cause I'm freaking, I'm freaking.

17:17I think that we're gonna need to, uh, we need you in the chair, or—.

17:23What am I doing wrong?

17:26We're happy to hear from you.

17:27What am I doing wrong?

17:29We're happy to hear from you, but—.

17:30I'll leave, but just tell me why I'm leaving.

17:32I never—.

17:33Why?

17:34Wait, wait, wait, wait, I have my First Amendment right to speak.

17:37Thank you very much for being here with us today.

17:40Y'all got the cleanest fentanyl.

17:42Y'all got the cleanest fentanyl.

17:43It's causing illegitimate crap lives.

17:45I will just add to that in the time that's left that, uh, we are not suggesting folks come here to use illegal drugs, um, but we do provide opportunity for anybody who wants to to sign up and speak.

18:05Keelan, do we have anybody else signed up today?

18:07That completes testimony for this item.

18:09Hey, well, there we go.

18:12Um, Keelan, could you please read the next thing on our agenda?

18:17Uh, item 3, document 2026-371, declare 2 parcels of land as surplus property and authorize the Bureau of Transportation to dispose of the property for Thank you both for being here.

18:35Colleagues, I'll remind you that at our last meeting, we had a conversation about broadly when and why pieces of property are sold, when the city decides that we don't want to hold on to any property any longer.

18:51So this is the, the next piece coming forward for us to consider.

18:54Councilor Dan Ryan.

18:55Thank you, Madam Chair.

18:59Thank you.

18:59I'm going to have a hard time topping that last act.

19:06As long as you don't start dancing on the table there, we are fine with you continuing with content related to council.

19:13We just—.

19:14Thank you so much.

19:16Don't dance on the table.

19:18I am David McEldowney.

19:19I'm the real— well, I should say good morning, councilors.

19:23I'm David McEldowney.

19:24I'm the Real Property Services Division Manager for Piedmont-Wilshire.

19:28I'm joined by Kevin Balak, who is supervisor in our property management section.

19:34And we've got the presentation up.

19:36Great.

19:38Yes, as you mentioned, we were here 2 weeks ago to talk about a broader conversation on the city's surplus property process, and these properties will look familiar.

19:50Kevin, go ahead.

19:52As a reminder, these these properties or these parcels are located at the east end of the Foster-Woodstock couplet, which is about 2 blocks east of I-205 in District 1.

20:06And the parcels themselves are remnants left over from the construction of that project.

20:14And combined, they total about 3,500 square feet.

20:19They are zoned are considered a standalone building site, meaning that, you know, they're capable of housing and without being assembled to another property.

20:37Kevin, you want to go to the next slide?

20:40Some key points.

20:42This is what we talked about 2 weeks ago about a Category 3 property.

20:47So the Category 3 properties are the the highest level or most scrutiny is received by the review by the bureaus.

20:56During that review, PBOT determined that we needed to review or retain 3 feet or a strip of property along Woodstock for future widening of the sidewalk there.

21:08No other city bureaus nor outside agencies expressed any interest in these parcels.

21:14As a Category 3, that also receives a public comment period.

21:20During the public comment period, we did receive comments along the lines of, you know, yes, please develop that property, take care of this property, and folks who were just interested in buying it to develop it because they saw the signs that were posted out there.

21:37Signs were also— or the information was also posted on the city's website.

21:42As a reminder too, There's holding costs to this property.

21:49Last year, the Impact Reduction Program manager reported that there were more than 300 campsite complaints here.

21:58There were 60 risk assessments made by the city's contractor, resulting in 24 camp removals that totaled $45,000, or that was the estimate for last year.

22:11And with that, I will conclude our presentation.

22:14Happy to answer any questions that you may have.

22:18Thank you.

22:18Colleagues, questions?

22:25Councilor Morillo, go right ahead.

22:28Yeah, thank you so much for this presentation.

22:31I was wondering if PHB considered this land for land banking in making this decision, or if it was, you know, not chosen for that for a certain reason.

22:39Yes, they are definitely part of that process.

22:43We always reach out to them.

22:45The response back we receive from PHB is they're not really interested in onesies, twosies.

22:51They need the economy of scale of larger land.

22:54And so tomorrow you'll— the full council will hear about the ODOT trade we're doing.

23:00Those larger parcels, that's what they're interested in.

23:03It just doesn't pencil out trying to get the private capital for smaller parcels like this.

23:10Gotcha.

23:11Okay, that makes a lot of sense.

23:12And so I take it no one has been considering this specific land 'cause it's just too small?

23:17Correct, yeah.

23:18Okay, great.

23:18Thanks so much.

23:21Thank you, Councilor.

23:23Question along a similar line.

23:26Have we— I know there was some, when you gave the presentation 2 weeks ago, there were some properties that were specifically offered to certain types of housing development from PHB, if I remember correctly.

23:43Do we have a process whereby with a piece of land like this that is available for development for residential units, we check in with entities that develop the onesies-twosies for affordable housing to see if any of our providers of affordable housing opportunities were interested before we make it available on the open market?

24:05Not that I'm aware of.

24:07I'm not sure what PHB's process is when they get notified of these parcels, if they do something similar to that.

24:14Um, typically what would happen is if council, the full council approved this as surplus, we would put it out on the open market.

24:22If somebody was interested in that, they would have the same priority as any other purchaser, but I'm not aware of a specific process for that.

24:31Okay, I'd like to learn more about whether there is a process that we could be using there, and if we don't have something developed, whether we might consider developing something.

24:43We have a number of entities in the city who are trying to develop affordable homeownership opportunities through land banking outside of the city, and I, I recognize that perhaps the economies of scale are not there for land banking and development by the city, but we do have partners that do that work outside of the city, and it— I think we should consider, if affordable homeownership opportunities are a priority, a parcel like this for, for those partners.

25:17I would be happy to connect with PHB following this meeting.

25:21Thank you, I'd appreciate that.

25:23Colleagues, any other questions or comments?

25:26Okay, um, if the committee is interested in moving this forward to full council—.

25:32Sorry, sorry.

25:32Oh, do we have testimony?

25:34We do.

25:34I am sorry, I didn't think we had anybody signed up.

25:37I apologize.

25:38Uh, let's move to public testimony.

25:40Great, thanks.

25:41We have one person signed up, John Carmen.

26:01John Carmen.

26:05Okay, that completes testimony.

26:07Okay, um, is there a motion to move this to full council?

26:15So moved.

26:16I assume that's with a do pass recommendation?

26:18Yes.

26:19Okay, is there a second?

26:21Yes, second.

26:22Okay, moved by Ryan, seconded by Zimmerman.

26:26Uh, Keelan, could you please call the vote?

26:31Zimmerman?

26:32Aye.

26:32Avalos?

26:37Aye.

26:38Ryan?

26:39Aye.

26:41Thank you, Councilor.

26:42Murillo?

26:44Aye.

26:50Aye.

26:50And I'll appreciate getting that additional information before full council.

26:54A motion to refer the ordinance document number 2026-371 to City Council with the recommendation it be passed is approved.

27:02Thank you.

27:05Thank you.

27:09Colleagues, the final item on our agenda is a presentation By the— by our BPS staff.

27:17And we were going to take a break first, but we've moved pretty quickly.

27:22So if you are ready, Andrew, we can start now.

27:28And then if we get a significant number of questions, we'll take a break.

27:31And if not, we'll move through.

27:33Does that sound all right?

27:34That's great.

27:35Thank you.

27:35Okay, perfect.

27:37And colleagues, by way of background here, in the spring, we were given a fair amount of information about our cable regulatory environment, leading to some budget decisions around moving to regulating our cable industry ourselves as a city, as opposed to through a joint body with our neighboring cities.

28:03And we heard about the financial unsustainability of the programs that are currently funded through Um, our cable regulation sources.

28:13I had said at the time that it seemed to me that there was a need for a broader conversation about what the timeline looked like before we completely run out of funding to support the organizations that are currently supported through this funding stream, and also what the timeline looks like as more and more people within our community leave cable and receive their news and entertainment through other sources.

28:41There's also a piece of this around who we regulate and how we are able to regulate them.

28:47And so we are bringing back a presentation today— thank you, Mr. Speier— to delve into some of those broader topics.

28:56There is no imminent action coming for this council to take, but we wanted to make sure you had this background following the conversations we had in the spring.

29:05Thank you.

29:05Because there will be over the next few years actions that council can or eventually will have to take based on the direction that you'll see us heading in the charts that we have before us today.

29:18Great.

29:19Thank you, Chair.

29:20Good afternoon, council.

29:22My name is Andrew Spear, and I'm the Franchise Utility Program Manager here at the city within BPS.

29:28I'll be walking through some data and a little bit of background and also some structural information on how we administer access to right-of-way.

29:39This is just an overview of the items we'll cover.

29:42But again, we're wanting to key you in on how do we allow access to the right-of-way as a starting point, just regardless of who the actor is in the right— that has assets in the right-of-way.

29:54And then go into a little bit of detail on what is cable-specific and how that impacts our ability as a jurisdiction to regulate that entity.

30:04And then there's some other nuance related to cable around certain fees that we assess cable providers that are unique from other providers in the right-of-way.

30:15And then lastly, got— I have a little bit of questions I think to pose or just engage in conversation with you all on, on what does the future look like.

30:25Uh, first up is the right-of-way access.

30:27So how do we administer access to the right-of-way?

30:31Uh, when I joined the city in 2023, we were working on an effort to replace franchise agreements and instead go to a code-based system, and so that we'd avoid the need to negotiate franchise agreements into the future.

30:45We still have franchise agreements that are— our last one expires in 2037, with the exception of Comcast.

30:54But as those franchise agreements expire, they'll be coming onto the right-of-way code, which is Chapter 12.15.

31:01And then on the right-hand side of the slide here, you have the different yes.

31:07So those are the entities that are registered either under right-of-way code or have a franchise agreement.

31:11Just for reference point, the core utilities listed there— PGE, Pacific Power, and Northwest Natural— they make up about 60% of the fees we recover from access to the right-of-way.

31:26I wanted to demonstrate a little bit of what the benefits have been and were when we were proposing right-of-way code.

31:33Namely, we don't have to negotiate franchise agreements.

31:36Franchise agreements are one-to-one contracts.

31:38Contracts between an entity and the jurisdiction.

31:41And so they can include a lot of different provisions that may not relate to the right-of-way.

31:47And so they can be one-off things that are just items that need to be negotiated that don't pertain to infrastructure that's in the right-of-way.

31:55Maybe it's related to permitting or some other item that doesn't relate to the fees.

32:01But we also, through the right-of-way code, are able to have one universal code that that creates a level playing field for users of the right-of-way, which I think has a lot of benefits because we're not arguing with one company over— that's a different argument from Company B.

32:19And so there's some economies of scale on how we can administer and ensure compliance.

32:29Wanted to give you a little overview about who are the bureaus across the city that interact or engage with the right-of-way.

32:37So we as BPS, we provide the legal access to the right-of-way via our code and then franchise agreements.

32:45And then PBOT operates and maintains the asset, the physical asset itself.

32:50BTS has infrastructure in the right-of-way that they pay fees on, namely fiber.

32:57And then the Revenue Bureau, they are the entity that we work with to process our payments.

33:04Just for reference point, again, we bring in about just over $100 million a year, and we're the 3rd largest contributor to the city's general fund.

33:13And then the Water Bureau, via water and sewer, pay into the fund also as part of their fees with their assets in the right-of-way.

33:26So earlier this year, we brought forward the items related to the Mt.

33:31Hood Cable Regulatory Commission dissolution.

33:33So I just wanted to level set with you all about what the commission performed on behalf of the jurisdictions, and then that'll kind of give some context to the rest of the presentation.

33:45So the Mount Hood Cable Regulatory Commission provided this list of duties on behalf of jurisdictions.

33:52I'd like to highlight the first bullet, which is negotiate the franchise agreement.

33:56So the franchise agreement was negotiated on behalf of all member jurisdictions, so all 6 member jurisdictions, and then— Uh, we also applied compliance of the franchise agreement, uh, across all jurisdictions as well.

34:12So there were some instances where we would, you know, call out, uh, certain violations and then resolve that with Comcast.

34:20Many times it wasn't— didn't result in a fine, but, uh, there were instances where a fine was working towards being assessed.

34:28Um, also did a lot of work on the the advocacy front, right, tracking and maintaining awareness on FCC and federal legislation.

34:38That was critical, I think, mostly in the '80s, the early part of the commission's formation.

34:45But I'll get to some stuff later here in these slides that will show some other angles of federal legislation that are trying to take away jurisdictional authority to administer it right away.

34:58Access.

35:00And then we also did the contracting for— the commission rather did contracting for the community media centers.

35:07So we had the 2 community media centers within the Cable Regulatory Commission, which was Open Signal and Metro East.

35:14So those contracts were through the commission, and then we also through the commission provided the funds out to the community media centers, which were PEG funds, the public education and government PEG funds for assets that purchased on behalf of PEG programming.

35:31And then lastly, the key item which I think really impacted community greatly was the grants program that the commission administered, which created original programming and content that would be aired on the cable channels.

35:48These next slides will show some of the trends we've been seeing both to revenue and customers over time.

35:55And I think we'll give some context to the remainder of the presentation.

36:00This first graph provides a look at the cable subscriber trend, right?

36:06The cutting the cord has been around for some time now, maybe 2 decades.

36:10But here we can kind of see the impact of it with 2016 being the peak of our cable subscribers here Uh, in the city.

36:20And you see the 2025 amount.

36:23We don't yet have the '26 amount, but I would expect that we are another $15,000 or more less than this '25 amount when we end this calendar year.

36:33So how does that impact our revenues?

36:37Uh, this slide, uh, the upper line, which is the blue line, is a representation of the franchise fees and just for reference point, the franchise fee is a standard assessment of a fee, which is 5% of gross revenues earned within the City of Portland.

36:56So that's the upper line.

36:57And then the lower line that's in orange is a representation of the PEG revenue.

37:02So the public education and government revenue that is only allowable for capital purchases related to PEG programming.

37:10That is assessed also on gross percentage of gross revenues, but but for the most of this line, it was at a 3% rate.

37:20And so I just wanted to also key you in on the start date in 2026.

37:26Earlier this year is when we renewed the franchise agreement with Comcast, which was a 10-year agreement.

37:32And then our end date is 2036.

37:35I wasn't able to get 36 on the graph for some reason, so apologies, but the end date is there in red text.

37:42Thank you.

37:44So you can see by the time we get out towards the last 2 or 3 years of the franchise agreement, we start to get well under $2 million for franchise fees.

37:56And then PEG, we're near— we're under $500,000, probably closer to $350,000 or $200,000.

38:04So that really doesn't allow for us to accommodate for either inflation or any other, right, cost trends.

38:13And so how do we then look at this going forward is, I think, the biggest question as a city for whether or not we have a franchise agreement going into the future for cable.

38:26This next slide is keying in on some legal frameworks that impact cable uniquely.

38:31And so I'll just walk through those.

38:34The Cable Act is the federal legislation which governs how cable operates across the country.

38:42It's what formed the PEG, Public Education and Government dollars and the use thereof.

38:48It also sets out the requirement to— for jurisdictions to have a franchise agreement, meaning we can't have cable or Comcast be under the right-of-way code.

38:59We need to have a franchise agreement in order for them to operate On the right-hand side is an FCC regulation that I wanted to make you aware of.

39:10And I think we've talked briefly in a couple other contexts in other presentations on this mixed-use rule.

39:17But in short, the mixed-use rule was passed in 2019 by the FCC, and it prevents jurisdictions from assigning fees for other services who are cable operators.

39:30So what does that mean?

39:33Think of Comcast as a cable operator.

39:34Right.

39:34Cable operator and an ISP, an internet service provider, we can only assess fees on the cable portion of their revenues earned within the city.

39:46The internet that they earn— internet revenues associated with internet service, we cannot assess fees on.

39:52And so that's, uh, as you go forward through time, right, their, their customer base and growth is in the internet side and the decline is in the cable side.

40:00Thank you.

40:06Um, couple threats just to think of more globally when it comes to federal, uh, legislation and/or the FCC.

40:14So over the past 2 and a half, 3 years, there's been an effort by Congress to propose some legislation.

40:20It was first started as House Bill, uh, 3557, which, you know, without going into too much detail, it provided a pathway that restricted the jurisdictions, the local jurisdiction's ability to govern its right-of-way.

40:37And so the best analogy that there is, uh, with wireless, um, the FCC has been able to institute rulemaking that, you know, prevents us as jurisdictions from siting a location in the right-of-way.

40:52For example, if, if AT&T or Verizon says, I want it here, there's uh, any way for us to prevent that location so long as it meets, you know, reasonable land use standards and safety requirements.

41:05So that 3557 legislation that's popped up twice now in 2 different Congresses is getting at that at a more global stage.

41:14And so across industries and would impact, you know, mostly in the telecom— telecommunications sector and prevent jurisdictions from, you know, not siting or similarly, with the FCC rulemaking, we've just seen a trend with wanting the FCC engaging in open dockets to explore other rulemaking that would prevent autonomy of the jurisdiction, namely in the space of shot clocks or siting of facilities again.

41:52Community media and PEGs.

41:53So the community media centers, and for us here in Portland, that's Open Signal, are a critical part of the public communications and then PEG being the public education and government revenues, which was the orange line that we saw on the graph with the revenue slide.

42:10Public education and government.

42:11So there's 2 different modes that cities and jurisdictions will take.

42:16Some do in-house airing and recording of their public meetings.

42:22So most, you know, relatable to us is Seattle has all that in-house for their city.

42:29We have the model of using a community media center, which is Open Signal, and we contract with them.

42:36As part of the dissolution, we just created a citywide procurement contract that any bureau that has public meetings can access and get Open Signal services for recording and airing that meeting.

42:51They also interface with Comcast for the— there's encoders that transfer the signal from—.

42:55The internet.

42:58The recording that Open Signal provides onto the cable network.

43:01And so they have those encoders and do that transfer of the signal onto the cable network.

43:08And then we also, as a city, provide— so we have their fee for service via the procurement contract, and then we also issue them PEG revenues for their capital needs related to airing the the content onto the cable network.

43:26And then we also provide them through BPS a grant for their digital equity work that they do in the community as well.

43:37So I'll start to get into some just questions, I think mostly, but I'll have some commentary on those questions as we go.

43:46I think the largest question in my mind is the first bullet, which is you know, is a cable franchise needed?

43:54And what does that look like through time as we look at the revenues?

43:59And then we think about the growth of ISP service or needs.

44:05And what are the— what's the opportunity costs that we're looking at from a revenue perspective?

44:11And then I think we need to be vigilant on the areas My previous slides that were calling out those federal and legislative threats, being able to monitor those, advocate.

44:24We do through my program's work, we also advocate with the FCC and provide responses to their dockets.

44:32So we're doing that work.

44:33And then we're also a member of an organization called NTOA, which we collaborate and advocate on behalf of local jurisdictional needs around right-of-way and cable and access and telecommunication issues.

44:49On the PEG piece, you know, what is the— you saw the decline of PEG or the forecast decline.

44:55What does that look like and how does that meet the needs or not meet the needs of our current situation with Open Signal and their future capital needs over time?

45:06And how do we— what are the needs of our service for recording as public meetings through time as well?

45:17This is my last content slide here, but when I think of our program's work and what it does on behalf of residents in the city, it's really ensuring that we recover fair compensation for use of the right-of-way.

45:31And so with that in mind, I reference back to that previous bullet on the first slide, on the last slide of you know, how do we ensure that Comcast is paying its share appropriately for the revenues it earns within the jurisdiction?

45:48And so that's, you know, again, just both how I approach this work and then wanting to ensure that we're recovering the appropriate fees for the use of these companies with their assets in the right-of-way.

46:02And then, you know, how do we think about and deal with that that decline of revenues with Open Signal and their capital needs.

46:13And, you know, I, I think these last 2 bullets were repeated on the earlier slide, but I'm really interested in also thinking through, through our MHCRC work, right?

46:25We had the community benefits via the grants program.

46:29With the commission being gone, we don't have that same grants program.

46:33And so how do we as a city think about community benefits in the telecom thank you.

46:38So the question is, what's the impact on community space or cable space, and what can we propose moving forward?

46:44That's a question that me and my team are thinking through and recommending kind of a few options up through our leadership.

46:52So how do we move forward in that space, given that cable is declining and peg— and that's impacting revenues?

47:01That concludes my presentation, and I'm happy to take any questions.

47:08Colleagues, does anybody want to start us off with questions?

47:12Councilor Montavilla.

47:16Um, thank you, Chair.

47:17Um, thanks so much for this presentation.

47:19Uh, I just had one or two questions.

47:23Um, so it's my understanding that in 2018, the FCC adopted rules and regulations around fees related to small cells during the rise in 5G availability, um, and that ruling around allowed for one or two fee methodologies for local jurisdictions, a federally prescribed safe harbor fee, which the council adopted, or a fee calculation with the approximate actual costs of small wireless facility deployments, which is a cost recovery methodology.

47:52Has any consideration of changing the methodology to bring in more revenue to cover program costs been considered?

48:01Yes, it has been considered and was when we were bringing right-of-way code to the council for approval.

48:08And so it's— there's a few layers.

48:14I think there's some practical right-of-way code updates that we need to make and that the bureau is working on and we are working on to bring forward to you all.

48:22And then within that, I think we can then look kind of shift gears to looking at the fees, um, but it has been on the list of to-dos to circle back to.

48:33Gotcha.

48:34So if we were to make a switch, we would have to address those things first and then consider that, or would we not do that at all?

48:42Do you mean address the right-of-way code updates and then the fees?

48:47Yeah.

48:47Um, I, I don't— I think it's a little bit up to the willingness of what's recommended.

48:54I, I, from the programmatic end, I wanted to be able to get the, um, the administrative changes because that's really tying into our compliance enforcement and that being the first step before making any fee changes.

49:11Gotcha.

49:11Okay.

49:12And are there any other fee increases that we should be considering at this time?

49:18There was, yeah, I mean, for the right-of-way code, there was one other small practical item related to the per-foot fees and the minimum payment associated with that.

49:30But that, it's somewhat of a nominal impact because there's not a lot of per-foot payers.

49:38So we're not talking hundreds of thousands, but maybe tens of thousands.

49:43Gotcha.

49:43Okay.

49:44Um, all right, I think that's all the questions I had.

49:47Thanks for your time.

49:48Thank you.

49:49Thank you, Councilor.

49:50Councilor Ryan.

49:51Thank you, Chair Pirtle-Guiney.

49:54And a couple questions.

49:56Um, first one is slide 14.

49:59I just want to know what you mean— I'm assuming what you mean by permitting shot clocks, perhaps because we had a basketball testimony earlier.

50:07What is that?

50:08What does that mean?

50:09Yeah, with Order 621 that was passed in 2019, it imposed on jurisdictions an amount of days in which they must process permits.

50:22And so it required— I forget the number of days, but I think it was— I want to say less than 60, but don't quote me.

50:34It required— it put that, um, onus on, for us, PBOT, to process those permits in that amount of time or less.

50:44So it was kind of what I was thinking.

50:46Um, yeah, yeah.

50:47Okay, thanks, Andrew.

50:48The second one is slide 18, and you asked what our concerns would be.

50:53Probably the only one that's really rattled in my head has been how does the city manage the public education government PEG, the services over time.

51:03That's probably the main thing that I've been thinking about when we have this conversation.

51:08So I look forward to any suggestions you have since you live and breathe this daily.

51:12Yeah, I mean, I, um, I, I think there's both an administrative and a policy question there, right?

51:20Um, I, as cable declines, and if we didn't, for instance, after 2036 have a cable franchise there would be nothing for us to air to, um, under the current system we're on now, right, with how we use Open Signal.

51:37And so, um, I, I mean, that, that's just a question for that future leadership and council, like, how do we, how do we need to operate in a kind of post-cable world?

51:50Um, I wasn't necessarily recommending anything either way.

51:55But just illustrating that other cities have different modes of, you know, recording and broadcasting their government meetings.

52:05Well, I think it's great that you're suggesting something because it's going to go away.

52:08And so I think we all want access.

52:10So I think hearing what some of those other systems are and that you're, as the leader of this unit within the city, you're explaining to us what future could look like.

52:23Thank you.

52:23Yeah, I, I think there's an opportunity to assess what the needs are, and then how does that needs align with community and access, which kind of my— has been my operating.

52:34I think what you just said is really easy to go like this to, like agreement.

52:39So, um, anyway, here for this journey, and, uh, just know that's the top of mind for me, is to make sure that the public has access to government.

52:46That's all.

52:47And I have to say, I kind of like this permitting clock for permits in general.

52:52Hi, Donnie.

52:53Um, I think it's a good language that we can keep putting into the culture.

52:57And I do want to note on the permitting shot clock, I think industry came in for the wireless side and said, hey, you know, we're going to deploy 700 small cells into your community.

53:09What we ended up with was under 300 Uh, total cell sites, and then of that, about 230 were small cells.

53:20And so, you know, I think there's a— I, I just want council over time to be aware that when these new deployments come forward, there's a lot of, uh, expectation and forecasts and promise made.

53:32But, um, in Seattle, talking to my colleagues up there, they had this similar experience where yes.

53:39A large number was forecasted.

53:41And so that— it's the tail wagging the dog where you have a lot of staffing up within anticipation for those permitting inflow, and then the shot clock stress.

53:53And in talking with PBOT, they don't have the demand nearly to what they had staffed for.

54:00So it's a tension that has existed.

54:03And they've more than met the shot clock requirements with all their providers.

54:08And on the wireless side, What many times will occur is that a site will be permitted for, and then it won't be built within the year time that the permit was issued, and so the permit expires.

54:21Um, so there's a lot of industry, you know, construction build-out issues.

54:27I was actually kind of having fun with that, but I was enjoying the fact that I was learning about the forecasting of sales.

54:32And, you know, you don't take these jobs unless you're curious.

54:35So anyway, thank you for that education.

54:37Appreciate it.

54:39Thank you, Councilor.

54:41I've got a couple of questions.

54:44As we are talking about this and we see that chart with fewer and fewer people subscribing to cable and less and less revenue coming in from that to monitor the programs, as I have heard people talk about this and as we had the conversation in the spring, we talk about one provider, we talk about Comcast.

55:04How many cable providers are there in our community at this Um, let's see.

55:10I—.

55:11Oh, excuse me, cable providers?

55:13Providers.

55:13We, we only have Comcast.

55:15Okay, so that is the last cable provider left in Portland.

55:19And the FCC rule that you flagged, the mixed-use rule, did that say that you can't regulate an entity as an internet and a cable provider, or that you cannot regulate— that if If an entity provides some cable, you must regulate them as a cable provider.

55:37You can't regulate them as an internet provider.

55:40Is it an either/or, or is it an if A, then not B?

55:44Well, I think there's 2 ways to think about it.

55:47One is on the fee and the fee assessment, and then one is on the practical, like, operations of the right-of-way, so the permitting and construction side.

55:55So we have the ability through our— since it's a shared line that that, that their Comcast is using.

56:02We have full ability to regulate the construction and the permitting requirements as if it— we don't delineate between services there, right?

56:13But then on the fee side of things, for the compensation and use of the right-of-way, we can only assess fees on the gross revenues earned for cable and not internet.

56:24Okay.

56:25So essentially, we have many internet providers.

56:30We have one joint cable and internet provider.

56:33It takes the same amount of staff work to regulate the use of the right-of-way for both our solely internet providers and our internet plus cable provider.

56:45We can assess the full cost recovery from our internet providers and not from the provider that is yeah, there's a little bit of nuance there.

56:59The cable— we don't have maybe as many cable providers across the city as we might envision.

57:06We have Comcast, we have Lumen or CenturyLink, which—.

57:12Providers.

57:13Yes, which used to be— which recently sold their fiber assets to Verizon.

57:17Sets to AT&T.

57:20So AT&T is, is its only entity providing ISP service.

57:25And then, um, Ziply, uh, Ziply Fiber, which provides telephone, wired telephone service and internet service.

57:35The, the market share of Comcast is about— is over 80%.

57:40So they're covering 80% of the jurisdiction, and then and the other 2 providers are roughly 20%.

57:47And so that's the lay of the land in terms of who's out there as providers.

57:54But I'm sorry, and I forgot your question.

57:56That's okay.

57:57That's okay.

57:58That's actually helpful information.

58:00What would happen if we said we weren't regulating cable anymore?

58:04We're going to reach a point where there are, I'm going to use the number 10, 10 subscribers left.

58:14Sure.

58:14Do we, are we in this environment until that number naturally gets to zero?

58:24Or is there a point where we say we're not doing this anymore?

58:28And if so, what happens to those subscribers at that point?

58:33Yeah, I mean, I think that's the policy question of, Is it right?

58:39So we have the franchise agreement, which could be terminated if it was mutually agreed upon early, but let's just say it goes to its full term to 2036.

58:51So do we— we, you know, companies will reach out about 2 years before the franchise agreement is expiring to start negotiations to re-up, so there's a question in my mind of, is there— you know, we, we can see here what the— we expect the revenues to be.

59:10That's not correlating to customer counts exactly, but, um, at that— that is kind of my question to you all, is like, at what point is, is the floor low enough that it's no longer viable to maintain a cable franchise in the city?

59:30Okay, for cities that, um, would no longer have cable franchises, I'm assuming this has happened somewhere.

59:39We're not the only city facing this.

59:41I—.

59:42We are, we are certainly not unique with what we're facing, but I don't know of any city that said no, we're not doing cable franchises.

59:49Are there cities that do their, their PEG programming through other broadcast means, not through cable?

1:00:00Is there a city that's figured out we still want to have this public interest programming, right?

1:00:04And not just the streaming of our meetings.

1:00:08I know we are very funny and interesting and good-looking up here, but there's lots of other programming on Open Signal station.

1:00:18So are there cities that have figured out beyond just the streaming of government meetings, those public and educational pieces of the PEG work, um, a space to move those to off of cable?

1:00:32And what does that look like in those communities?

1:00:35Um, I've had conversations through conferences with, uh, entities that do the in-house work, um, where the employees are, are city employees.

1:00:46I've talked with a couple of them, and they, they're on the East Coast, I forget what jurisdictions, but they were telling me that they've worked out agreements with streaming services to provide like a, you know, kind of an on-demand option of accessing PEG-like offerings.

1:01:05So either council meetings or unique programming.

1:01:09But I don't know of any other tangible examples outside of those one or two conversations I've had.

1:01:15So presumably when we reach the point where we say we're not regulating cable anymore, we don't have a franchise agreement anymore, and we regulate Comcast like we do our other internet providers, um, we could have some sort of agreement where some of the funds that come in from that regulation pay for access to on-demand content through a streaming service, both both for our meetings and for the other public and educational content that Open Signal provides.

1:01:49That, yes, that could be an option.

1:01:51I, I think one thing that's helpful to keep in mind is PEG channels are unique to cable.

1:01:56Like, you have to have cable in order to have access to the PEG channels.

1:02:02And so, right, people are accessing, for instance, council meetings through YouTube, and other, right, the other streaming, or Open Signal maintains the links to meetings through their website as well.

1:02:18So I just think it's important that within the discussion, the only access to PEG channels is through one having cable.

1:02:26And when you put it on streaming, then it's limited to people who have that streaming subscription potentially.

1:02:31Correct.

1:02:32Though if the city were to use fees to subsidize let's use YouTube, a YouTube channel that then provided all of the content, not just again our interesting conversations, but all of the PEG content.

1:02:47And then we could also consider facilitating agreements with streaming services.

1:02:53Would that be the, um, the best— would that maximize access?

1:03:01I'm trying to think about how in the future we maximize access to the content that we are worried we're going to lose as the number of cable subscribers decreases?

1:03:12Yeah, I mean, I, I, I'm not sure I'm qualified to answer that question fully, but, um, I, I think there's— what stands out to me is that there's an opportunity to evaluate the need and then how access could be given out differently, um, through either Public spaces like YouTube or streaming services that are paid for.

1:03:35Yeah.

1:03:36Thank you.

1:03:36I hope that as your team is considering that, you're looking not just at the streaming of our own meetings, but the other content that is currently, I'm going to say, somewhat subsidized through those fees that we collect.

1:03:51And how do we make sure that as the paradigm of how people stream media changes, we continue to have access to that type of programming that is available to the entire community, whether or not you subscribe to a streaming service.

1:04:08And I hope that as you're asking the questions you listed, you're holding that as one of the goals that we ultimately get to in the answers.

1:04:16Yes.

1:04:16Yeah, for sure.

1:04:17Thank you.

1:04:17Great.

1:04:19Colleagues, any other questions?

1:04:23Councilor Zimmerman.

1:04:26Thanks.

1:04:26Um, as somebody who appeared on public access, I think my first time maybe at like 10, 9 or 10 years old, I also quickly learned in the '90s it was a great channel to go to in the middle of the night if you needed to fall back asleep.

1:04:39And so I just want to compliment you, Chair, for living up to the spirit of public access television today, that this session might be one of the greater monotonous sessions and I think it just made so much sense that there was no flair in this because— I appreciate you, Andrew.

1:04:55I'm being a little bit funny here because it is important and it's so dry and it's so difficult to like get through this.

1:05:01So I say all this because it's important.

1:05:04It's a part of our revenue stream.

1:05:06We're gonna have to figure it out.

1:05:07And I'm also just— for me on these types of things, I'm going to be looking for a staff recommendation for like what makes the most sense rather than A council-driven type of process.

1:05:18And I think sometimes we should say that out loud, that there are other people who are probably in the best position to make good recommendations.

1:05:26And I would say that you're one of those people right now for us, for the City of Portland.

1:05:29So you've done a great job living up to the public access spirit of committees and why we're boring, as government should be so many times.

1:05:38I hope that many people fall back asleep after watching this if they happen upon it.

1:05:42So thank you, Chair.

1:05:43Thank you, Andrew.

1:05:43Thank you.

1:05:43We had a session today where somebody rapped and danced on the testimony table, so I'm not sure what's boring about today's meeting.

1:05:54If, if I could maybe highlight one thing to your point, Councilor Zimmerman, doing some back-of-the-envelope math, if we look at the number of households in Portland and then we assume 80% of those households are in Comcast district, you get to about $12 million, just under $12 million of fees that we could be assessing to Comcast but currently cannot.

1:06:22And so, you know, I think at one time, right, you can see on this graph in, you know, 2015 era, we were getting, you know, we were up past $10 million for sure.

1:06:32And so now that cable isn't at that adoption rate, That feels like the important nexus to discuss about, like, the recommendation being that internet service is the important thing to go after— not go after, but to ensure compensation of use of the right-of-way for.

1:06:53Thank you, colleagues and, and Councilor.

1:06:55While this may be dry, I do think that when we talk about $12 million that could be used to ensure that the programming that while dry is important, is accessible.

1:07:11And also to think about how we could better, better secure access for all members of our community to internet services if we had some of those funds coming in.

1:07:25I think there's a lot of opportunity for the community being left on the table and also So to think that we are assessing for the, the use of our smaller internet companies and not the largest provider seems a bit, a bit off.

1:07:41So still dry.

1:07:43Still dry.

1:07:43Councilor Ryan.

1:07:44To add to the dryness, and the person has the most experience putting Portlanders to sleep because I was on the school board on Channel 28 and the aux, um, I'm a civics nerd, and so I like C-SPAN.

1:07:55I like these kind of programs.

1:07:57Where you actually watch the meeting and you get it unfiltered, as opposed to sifting through whatever's happening today with a lot of spin.

1:08:06And, um, I just hope we do figure this out because I think that a democracy doesn't move forward without providing such access to public meetings.

1:08:16So thank you.

1:08:21Seeing no one else in the queue, I think you've heard a little bit about some of our interests up here, and you and I have had additional conversations about what we might be able to do.

1:08:32Colleagues, like I said, there's nothing imminent coming forward, but this is a conversation that I think we just need to have in the back of our minds.

1:08:41Our next meeting is in 2 weeks, and we are going to be touching on 2 really interesting topics, Councilor Zimmerman.

1:08:50I'm not surprised.

1:08:51Councilor Dan Ryan.

1:08:53Thank you, Mayor.

1:08:54We're talking about our city's cannabis program and the fees that come in from that program and how they are used and our cannabis code.

1:09:02There is— there are some amendments to that code that the administration has asked to bring forward.

1:09:08And then you will remember last year we had a conversation about needing to change some of the equity and workforce provisions within the CIP in the P section.

1:09:19And we will have an ordinance from the administration coming to us at our next meeting with a proposal for new equity and workforce provisions within that program as well.

1:09:28With that, I will see you all in 2 weeks, and we are adjourned.

1:09:37Thank you.