The record · Transcript

Council session — 2026-04-07

Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (21,866 words), shown in readable case and split into speaker turns. Speakers are AI-suggested and editor-reviewed (low confidence — auto-captions garble names); each color marks a speaker.

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Good morning folks. Are we still waiting on a couple people? Do we have absences submitted?

We currently have quorum, so we can begin.

Okay, but I was just curious. We have our other folks are supposed to be here.

We have no absences currently registered.

I'll give it one more minute.

And I'm online, just so you know.

Oh, okay.

And councilor Novick. Oh, councilor O councilor Novick. I don't know if you saw, but councilor Kanal looks like he's virtual, but I don't see where the others are.

Yeah.

Oh, okay. Well, let's get started. Do do do. Good morning. I called the meeting of the community and public safety committee to order. It is Tuesday, April 7th at 9:30 a.m. Diana, can you please call the roll?

Good morning.

Kanal present.

Morillo here. Zimmerman here. SSmith.

Novick here. Christopher, could you please read the statement of conduct?

Welcome to the meeting of the community and public safety committee to testify before this committee in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance in the committee agenda at ww.gov/agenda/community-and public safety dash committee, or by calling 311. Information on engaging with the committee can be found at this link. Registration for virtual testimony closes one hour prior to the meeting. In person. Testifiers must sign up before an agenda item is heard for public testimony. During today's meetings, individuals may testify for 90s unless the chair states otherwise. Excuse me. Individuals may testify for three minutes unless the chair states otherwise your microphone will be muted when your time is over. The chair preserves order. Disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others. Testimony or committee deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, the committee may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Thank you.

Thank you, christopher, and I apologize for not being there in person. I have what appears to be a bad cold, and I didn't want to give it to any of you. If this are one of those weeks where councilor, aye, Morillo and I were really mad at each other, might have been tempted, but it's not one of those weeks. So the committee today will receive a brief presentation recognizing our public safety telecommunicators for their service and contributions to the committee. The committee will also receive a presentation and recognition of sexual assault prevention month. While this observance takes place in may. This presentation is scheduled now due to the absence of committee meetings during may. Finally, the committee will consider an ordinance to remove existing code exemptions for concealed handgun license holders, thereby prohibiting the carrying of loaded firearms in city owned buildings where public meetings are held. In alignment with last year's senate bill. 243. And I think that we will complete those items well before three hours are over. So I'd like to spend some time at the end talking about what people's thoughts are for what topics the committee should cover over the next year, which obviously isn't going to start until June. But I'd love to hear everybody's thoughts. Dana, could you please read the first item?

Item number one, recognize national public safety telecommunicator week.

It's an honor to have an opportunity to participate in this recognition. Our telecommunicators have such vitally important and such difficult jobs. One thing I remember hearing when I was the commissioner in charge of boec ten years ago, was that how emotionally hard it is to have a job where you're spend a few seconds dealing with somebody in a crisis and you generally don't know what happened afterwards? That's just one of the aspects of this job. And we have a panel scheduled and. Mr. Mr. Mawdsley at all. Please proceed.

Thank you chair. For the record, I'm Steve mawdsley, interim director of the bureau of emergency communications. I'm here to recognize our exceptional call takers, dispatchers and supervisors ahead of national public safety telecommunicators week, which this year is April 12th through 18th. Our center receives more than 900,000 calls per year from our community, and around 600 of 600,000 of those are on 911 compared to a few years ago. Call volume has continued to rise. I'm proud to share that our team at boec has reduced call wait times, an achievement that reflects both their professionalism and their commitment to continuous improvement. Our telecommunicators show up every day, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, ready to support our community. Their ability to remain calm, compassionate, and extremely professional under pressure is what makes our entire emergency response system work. Now I have an exciting announcement leading into national telecommunicators week. Boec has achieved accreditation for emergency medical dispatching through the international academies of emergency dispatch accredited center of excellence. This is a significant milestone in fewer than 10% of 901 centers worldwide hold this distinction. This recognition affirms what we have long known that our team delivers exceptional service to the community, uniquely positioned to provide service to all portlanders and every community across Multnomah county. Our team's strong commitment to quality, consistency, and equitable care for every caller raises the bar for public safety. Our team has achieved the highest standard in emergency medical dispatching, and I'm proud of their dedication, commitment and support across our organization. Next, I'd like to turn the microphone over to boec equity manager nikita thomas, who will share remarks about how we ensure that our services are equitable and accessible to everyone we serve.

Hello, and thank you for having me. For the record, I am nikita thomas, the equity manager at boec. My work centers around ensuring that everyone in our community, regardless of their ability or spoken language, has access to 911 and the emergency services they are entitled to at boec. We provide call processing through telephone typewriter, more commonly known as t. Text to 911. Language interpretation services and multilingual call takers. In 2025, our call takers and dispatchers processed 580 tt calls, 4558. Text to 911. Sessions, 8243. Calls in 48 languages through interpreter services, and our six multilingual call takers assisted with calls in spanish, mandarin and russian. You heard me mention text to 911 while voice calls to 911. Allow for faster processing of information for callers who are unable to speak due to their abilities or due to safety. There's the option to communicate with 911 via text for emergency assistance. As we head into telecommunicator week, I want to congratulate our staff for the amazing work they do every day and how they go above and beyond. For community members who don't have the same access to our services. Next, you'll hear from two of our extraordinary telecommunicators here, carolyn welch and erica gregg.

Thank you. For the record, I'm carolyn welch. I'll be speaking for both of us. Councilor Novick is not the only person who's come down with something recently. We're here to represent a group of call takers and dispatchers that serve Portland in the greater Multnomah county at the bureau of emergency communications. It is an honor to be here today while we celebrate national public telecommunicator public safety telecommunicator week, it is true that we show up 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, regardless of what is happening within our community. Our personal lives or even the weather. It is a calling that requires diligent effort to maintain a positive work life balance. Being exposed to the daily traumas of the community can have an impact not only on us as individuals, but also on our families and loved ones. We appreciate chair novak and vice chair Morillo for inviting us today, and for all of you, for taking the time to recognize and celebrate the work we do. We are also thankful for the support of our union, the Portland police association, as well as our partnership with boec and public safety service area leadership and city labor relations. Last but not least, we could not successfully do our work without strong working relationships with the other entities we serve alongside police, fire, amr, corrections, road and maintenance workers, and the countless other labor groups within the city and county. Once again, on behalf of our membership, thank you and happy telecommunicator week.

I'm so proud of these folks. Good morning. For the record, I'm bob cozzie deputy city administrator of public safety. Although I'm in a different role today than I was a year ago. I can see even more clearly that boec call takers and dispatchers are truly our first first responders. These professionals are the calm voice on someone's worst day. They serve our community with dedication, compassion, and professionalism, often under extremely challenging circumstances. What they do is foundational to our work across the public safety service area, and I'm incredibly grateful for their continued service to Portland and all of Multnomah county. Congratulations to boec for your hard won achievement of accreditation in emergency medical dispatch from the international academies of emergency dispatch. It seems like yesterday that we embarked on the pro qa journey, and I'm so proud of the boec team for literally proving to the world and to themselves that boec is a world class public safety dispatch center. I knew it all along. And how fitting to gain this recognition in conjunction with national public safety telecommunicators week. I'll close by thanking our bureau of emergency communications team for their life impacting service and expressing to them and to our entire community. Happy national public safety telecommunicators week. Thank you.

Thank you so much. I that's fantastic about the international accreditation. I was also happy to hear about text to 911. I remember when we implemented text to 911 something like ten years ago. And it's an important option not just for people who normally communicate by signing or writing rather than by speaking, but people who are in a dangerous situation, which may be more dangerous if their potential attacker heard them speaking. Councilor Morillo.

Angelita Morillo: Yeah, I just wanted to give my thanks to the folks that work in boec and who do this. Being the person that assists on the hardest day of someone's life, the most stressful moment of their life oftentimes, and having to hold all of that for the community in order to serve them is no small task. And the boec employees deserve all the praise, all of the love. You guys are doing just some of the most important work that we could possibly be doing at the city of Portland. That is our bread and butter. That's the thing that we work on that we should be focused on. So very grateful to you. Thanks for being here today. It's great to see you in person too, and thanks for everything that you do. Truly.

Any further remarks? Okay. I'm an old man, so I tell stories over and over, and you've probably all heard this before, but I can't resist telling one story from when I was doing a sit along out at boec where I saw come across the machine a notation that said cold beer run plaid pantry 122nd and something. And I asked, dispatcher what does that mean? Somebody like, you know, calling for somebody to bring in beer? And she laughed and she said, no, what that means is that somebody ran into the plaid pantry, stole a beer and ran. But it was a while ago. So it's a cold case at this point. So that's an example of sort of the, the shorthand that boec staff have to learn. Thank you so, so much for what you do. Congratulations for the accreditation. And I just, you know, overwhelmed with the with the work that you do, how difficult and important it is. Thank you so much. Diana, could you please read the next item.

Item number? Item number two, recognize sexual assault prevention month.

Again, sexual assault prevention month is officially may. But we wanted to recognize that this month because we don't have a committee meeting in may. Again, we have a we have a panel, which I'd like to call up to. And so assuming people I can't see. But assuming people are in place, please proceed.

Good morning. For the record, I'm bob cozzie dc public safety and April is sexual assault awareness and prevention month. And I have with me detective tori stride, who works with pb sexual assault unit. She's here to give a statement about about this awareness awareness month and the work that pb does to support victims in our community.

Good morning and thank you for having me. For the record, my name is tori street. I'm here to read an acknowledgment on behalf of the Portland police bureau. April is sexual assault awareness and prevention month, a time to unite as a community, to support survivors and reaffirm our commitment to prevention, accountability and justice. In the last 12 months, there have been 602 sex crimes reported to the Portland police bureau, according to the rape, abuse and incest national network. Fewer than one third of victims report an assault perpetrated against them to the police. So we understand that this figure heavily understates the prevalence and pervasiveness of sex crimes in even our own community. We are aware of and are sensitive to the myriad barriers to reporting, and we strive to conduct our investigations with cultural sensitivity and a trauma informed, victim centered approach. The Portland police bureau acknowledges and supports those impacted by sexual violence in all its forms. Sexual assault is a deeply personal crime, and every survivor deserves to be treated with respect and dignity and compassion. It is our mission to ensure that survivors feel safe seeking help. Whether or not a person is ready to report. We want you to know you have rights and there are resources available to you. Sexual assault investigations are most effective when approached through a multidisciplinary lens. These investigations involve collaborative efforts with partnering agencies such as the Multnomah county district attorney's office, community based organizations, the department of health and human services, and specialized health care providers. We work together to pursue accountability while also prioritizing comprehensive care for each survivor. This month and every month, we ask our community to stand with us. Sexual assault prevention is a shared responsibility. Support survivors, challenge harmful behaviors, and never hesitate to reach out. If you or someone you know has experienced sexual violence, help is available and you are not alone. Thank you.

Councilor. Morillo.

Thank you so much for being here to talk about this really important work. Really appreciate that overview. I was curious how how many rape kits does pbb currently have and how many of them are tested and how regularly is that done?

My name is jacob Clark. I'm the commander of the detective division for Portland police. I don't have the specific number on how many kits we've taken in over the last year. I know we're up to date on all of the kits that we've received, so as soon as we get them, they're getting sent off.

Okay, that's great to hear. I feel like that's an issue you normally hear in other departments. So it's awesome that our police bureau is very on top of getting all of those tested.

Oh, it was an issue for us years ago, but we we got through that backlog. We've now fixed that whole process. So they they get done really quickly.

Awesome. Thank you.

Appreciate that.

Councilor Kanal.

Sameer Kanal: Thank you, chair Novick. Thank you, everyone for for being here. I wanted to first appreciate the presentation. I I'm going to guess they probably weren't available, but I'd also love to, to hear in the future about the work that's being done on the prevention side by rose city self-defense from the service area. And just wanted to to take the opportunity to shout them out for the work they do and empowerment, self-defense training, which is among many other reasons why this is a good idea. It also helps with the prevention of sexual assault and domestic violence. And I was also hoping to hear from the victim's advocates. I think we still have that program. But while I while we do and I stress that because I know that that is a conversation in this upcoming budget to to really highlight the work that they do at pbb, that's a pbb program and thank them as well as you for the, the information and, and for, for the work that you do. Thanks.

Putting myself in the queue, one question I have is I know that it's resistant. National problem, the underreporting of sexual assaults. I was wondering this might be an impossible question to answer, but are there jurisdictions that think that they've done certain things, or maybe they haven't done certain things, but it's just happened where victims of sexual assault are more likely to report? Is there any research on that?

I'm not aware of any research. I would hope it's been done, but I'm not personally aware of it.

Maybe that maybe that's something we could I mean, again, in any given jurisdiction, people just might not know. But that would be interesting to see if there is some research there.

Yes.

Councilor Kanal is that oh go ahead.

Sameer Kanal: I was just going to say it's such a difficult topic to dive into because there's so many different facets to it. It's just such a personal crime that for people to be willing to share that kind of trauma with anybody just on the front end is a is a barrier. So yeah, it's a multifaceted issue for sure.

Any further thoughts from my colleagues or anything further? People on the panel would like to say? Thank you so much. We really appreciate you coming forward. And next year, I'd like to follow up on councilor Kanal suggestion about other folks that we should have we should have here at this time. Thank you.

Diana, could you please call the third item.

Document number 2020 6-123? Amend code related to prohibitions on possession of firearms within certain city buildings to disallow affirmative defense for persons with concealed handgun licenses. Amend city code sections 3.8.020 and 14. A60 .010 and 20 dot 1.01 sorry 050.

So my understanding is that the idea here is to take an action which the legislature authorizes to take last year, which Multnomah county has already taken. But evan, take it away.

I will defer to councilor Dunphy to start us off.

Jamie Dunphy: Thank you.

Jamie Dunphy: I'm sorry I didn't see councilor Dunphy's there.

Jamie Dunphy: No problem. Councilor Novick. Good morning, colleagues. For the record, my name is Jamie Dunphy. I have the honor of serving as a district one Portland city councilor, and the distinction of serving as the council city city council president before you this morning is a simple bill. Right now, people are allowed to bring a gun into places where we and the public meet to do work of democracy. If they hold a concealed handgun license after we pass this law, that won't be allowed anymore. I don't like guns. I started my career doing gang prevention and david douglas school district preventing trying to prevent 14 year olds from shooting each other. Guns have killed the children I worked with. Guns have turned arguments into funerals. I've seen scary behavior in this building. In 2017, when I was working as a senior policy director for then commissioner Nick fish, I had to apply for a restraining order against a member of the public who threatened me with some very specific violence here in city hall. In fact, earlier this year, after some tense interactions with an angry, a number of angry members of the public, I actually applied for my concealed handgun license. And when it arrived in the mail, I realized that that was the wrong direction. If we are having the hard, contentious, emotional conversations that we and the public sometimes have in this building that we are supposed to have here, nobody involved in those conversations should be armed to kill. Earlier this year, protests were shutting down, were regularly shutting down our evening meetings, and at one of those meetings, both protesters and counter-protesters ended up in chambers shouting at us, but also at each other. And it disturbed me that someone in that room could legally be carrying a loaded gun. So my staff started asking around, has anyone been working in this in this city system on preventing concealed carry? And I found out that a lot of work had already been done. I want to extend my thanks to the professional security staff here, whose words first inspired me to look into this, to the facility staff, the city attorneys, and the. Everyone from the public safety service area for all the the work that they have done. Councilor Kanal, I want to thank you for reaching out to potentially co-sponsor this. I would be very happy to share the load and I want to extend a thank you to city administrator lee. While this item has not been co-introduced by mayor wilson, it is a work of the administrative branch and I'm deeply appreciative for the opportunity to carry it forward. My policy advisor, evan hoffer, is here to walk us through a small presentation to explain some of the background of this and how it will be implemented. Evan.

All right. Chair Novick, members of the committee, for the record, my name is evan hoffer, policy advisor for councilor Dunphy. This will be a quick presentation. Guns in public buildings. So as discussed, unless you have an official job that requires carrying a gun, you cannot bring a gun into a public meeting in Portland unless that is a licensed concealed handgun. In 2025, the state legislature passed a bill that allowed localities to choose should those concealed handguns be allowed in public buildings where public meetings are held or not? In November of last year, Multnomah county chose to disallow that, and we believe that Portland should do the same. So that's sb 243. As councilor Novick said, signed on July 24th and in effect as of September, it allows city and local governments to ban concealed carry weapons in such buildings. It applies to city owned buildings that are used by a council and advisory body or an accountability group. So any of our abcs, our official abcs, this would qualify in those locations. And in practical terms, that is going to be city hall, the Portland building, the 1900 building where pnd holds meetings, and any city owned building where an accountability or advisory body is at that time holding a conversation or a public meeting. So just looking at the law real quick, this is what senate bill 243 does. So we have this existing language. Any person who intentionally possesses a loaded or unloaded firearm or any other instrument as a dangerous weapon while in a public building is, if convicted, guilty of a class c felony, then there is a list of affirmative defenses to that. This does not apply to. Among those, a person who is licensed to carry a concealed handgun. The legislature then gave us an option. It amended 166 377 to state that that affirmative defense concerning carrying a concealed having a concealed handgun that is licensed, that a locality may pass local laws to make it so that does not apply when those firearms are in a building owned or controlled by the governing body. Body that is used by the governing body for official meetings. So very specifically places like this where we meet with the public to have public conversations. So 243 puts the onus on us to make that choice to put it in our code. This ordinance would essentially do that. So just a brief look at the sections of code that are being touched and what's currently in here under Portland city code 318 020 rules of conduct at city property. Essentially, you can't have a deadly weapon already. However, the prohibitions of this subsection do not apply to handguns lawfully carried by persons exempt. Et cetera. Et cetera. Our bill adds a piece of language to that. Essentially, that is sb 243 language that says, except the affirmative defense of a concealed handgun license in a public meeting space does not apply. Similarly, 1460 010 possession of a loaded firearm in a public place. So a lot of places in Portland, almost every public place in Portland, you cannot have a loaded firearm. You cannot check your firearm to see if it's loaded. After a police officer has spoken to you. And all of these cases, there is a carve out for the concealed handgun license. And again, this would add language saying that in spaces like this, in these public meeting spaces, the affirmative defense does not apply. Finally, and amusingly, just for completeness, there is also a prohibition on firearms in parks. And in case we at some point have a park in a room where there is a public meeting, we add language once again saying that affirmative defense does not apply in this case. So everywhere in city code, where there is a prohibition on firearms or deadly weapons, this language is added. There is exceptions here for peace officers, anybody whose job it is for public safety to be carrying a weapon in this room or rooms like it still is allowed to do so inclusive of police officers, professional security, members of the military, or honorably discharged members of the military. Et cetera. Et cetera. That we are inheriting from state law. It is not changed by this. The legislature did not allow us to change that. Why should we do it? It's a little scary out there sometimes, and less guns is probably a good thing. Impact and optimization. Well, I don't know how to say that word, but how will this work in the real world? Our friends at the psa have done amazing work. This has been reviewed by the bureau of fleet and facilities and signed off upon and with integrated security for operational feasibility. From a financial impact perspective, they've checked with cbo. Essentially, what we're going to be paying for is some signage. The upfront cost is very minimal, and the operational impact in these locations will be relatively minimal. In the real world, if somebody comes to the door with a concealed handgun license at this point, generally speaking, security says, oh, that's great. Do you have a paper copy of your license? Oh, if you do, okay, let me get the pb over here to run this and check that it's real. There's a series of delay tactics that can be used to ensure that the firearm is not entering the building in a timely and a quick way. And I know some of you on this dais have experienced that or heard about those stories. There's maybe about five of them in the last five years, as I've been told. In this case, basically the difference is rather than going through that process, you can just say, no, you can't bring that in. I'm sorry. So it's a little bit clearer, a little bit more operationalized. There we go. And direct. So the practical impacts on our world will be signage. And a straightforward, pragmatic and legally defensible means to ensure that all persons entering city spaces to engage in civic discourse check their deadly weapons at the door, available for questions. We have folks from the staff linly up in the city attorney's offices upstairs, but is happy to come down and speak with us fleet and facility security and of course, psa. And that's our presentation. Thank you.

Councilor Kanal.

Sameer Kanal: Thank you, councilor Dunphy. Thank you evan. Thank you. Chair Novick. I wanted to ask a couple questions. First, and thank you to the psa for helping develop this. I know we've been working on something in this space, and you were much further ahead along on it. So I'm very happy to to be able to, to support this. I wanted to understand, and this is maybe just from the presentation versus the text, this, this is any park or building, I guess, where a, the, the governing body meets not only during the time it's meeting. Correct?

Correct. The, the three buildings that our city controlled, the 1900 building, the Portland building. And this building that is at all times. However, I would need to defer to psa on the exact function of how that will work in city controlled buildings where a, b, c, s may meet at specific times.

Hi bree brown for the record, legislative analyst for the public safety service area, this is a question that linda lau from the city attorney's office may also be able to weigh in on. But it is our understanding that there is something of like a transient space for where this will apply the language in sb 243, that specifically narrows it to city owned buildings where the governing body meets for official meetings is so narrow that it almost always will apply to city hall, and it will almost always apply to the Portland building. It will almost always apply to the 1900 building. The other spaces where advisory bodies may meet that governing body language also applies to them, so it will, on an ad hoc basis, apply to the locations where they host their meetings during the time that their meetings are taking place.

Okay. And then the the related, I guess question is this would apply if those, if the list of buildings should change, right. Because I'll be very specific. The community board for police accountability is certainly a part of this. It's a governing body. It has not determined where it's going to be. So I'm seeing nods just for the record in there, city leased buildings are not explicitly called out in the presentation. Can you speak to that piece?

The language of sb 243 is city owned and operated, so if the city operates that space, then it would fall under the purview of this ordinance.

So those are those are two distinct things not city owned and operated, but city owned and city operated. Okay. And so that would mean if we're the the only tenant of a building, it would be included.

If it is a location where the governing body has official meetings. Yes.

Okay.

Clarity. Councilor Kanal the language is owned or controlled by the governing body that is used by the governing body for official meetings. So if the building is controlled and there may be some flexibility on that definition, of course, but a sole use lease certainly would seem to apply.

And linda lau from the city attorney's office is available. If you would like to get into the nuance of that language.

That's sufficient. I think, in terms of understanding the confirmation, I would love to get out of the practice of of leasing space, not only from ourselves, but, you know, we have a lot of city owned property as well that that we can utilize a lot of the time. And sometimes it's not efficiently used around the city. So might be worth looking at that separately. But if it's controlled, it's sufficient. I'm reading the 243 language. Thank you for the quote. Was looking for leased, not controlled there. The last question I had related to in the presentation it says I think it's slide two. It talks about unless you have an official job that requires a gun, but it also talks about people who are retired. Can you speak to that?

Yes. Councilor Kanal so my theatrical turn of phrase there at the beginning of the of the presentation may have led you astray. So an official job that requires a gun in this somewhat florid retelling of the case, if we look further into the into the presentation, I believe on page.

11, I believe.

11. Yes. So and again, this is inheriting from from state law. So a police officer or other duly appointed peace officers, whether active or honorably retired, may may carry firearms.

So just clarifying, you're saying that the state law does not allow us to prevent retired from carrying.

That is my understanding, and I would I would defer to the city attorney on that case. I see a nod. So. Yes.

A nod. Okay. Thank you. Heather. Yeah, I will say that this does not affect my support for this because there's a state law, but it's profoundly disappointing. And I want to take the opportunity to tell the state to fix that. I think I don't know if it's true for everybody, but for those who don't know, if you get elected to office, you do occasionally get a death threat. And I will tell you that for at least a certain political persuasion, often those death threat, the the people making them does occasionally overlap with that particular population. And so it's not an official job that requires a gun to be retired. And I would love to to look at that being an option that the the cities have before them in the future and not be preempted from it. So it's, it's a local control issue primarily, but I wanted to to mention it while I'm here, and I'm going to guess that that also relates to the. The last question I had, which was it talks about inspection and being required to, to allow the inspection of I think it's inspection. That's not the exact word pulling up here.

If you have a citation of what you're looking at, that may be helpful.

Yeah, it's in your exhibits. It's in it is inspect. It's in exhibit c or sorry, exhibit b 14, a 6010 part d. It's unlawful for any person to possess a firearm, clipper magazine or in a public place, or while in a vehicle, in a public place to refuse to permit a police officer to inspect that firearm. Does that apply exclusively to pb, or would it also include county, state, federal officers as well?

Again, attorney law, the language here is police officer and not peace officer. So I'm not 100% certain in the context of title 14. But maybe you can speak to that. So we're looking at 14 a 60 010 subsection d here.

Good morning. Linda lau here from the city attorney's office. This is the language from the current code. And because our current code applies to the city we reference our own officers. But generally under state law it's the peace officer. So if Multnomah county sheriff's come in, they can examine it as well.

And I'm less concerned about the county or even the state. Can federal officers use this?

I would have to check the definition of peace officer in the state law. It would be, I believe, 166 three. 380 examination of firearm by peace officer in the state of Oregon.

Okay. Thank you. There's a lot of. 166 is a very long chapter. So thank you for for the particular citation. Okay. But either way, it's a state issue, not something that we're able to affect here. Okay. Thank you for the clarification. Thank you, chair Novick.

Councilor Smith.

Loretta Smith: Thank you, mr. Chair. Question. Councilor Dunphy, we had a district one town hall meeting at urco, and I'm trying to figure out would this since it is a town hall meeting with district one councilors, would this particular. Law cover going into urco?

No.

This would not apply to situations where we are out in the public outside of buildings that we control. This would be limited to specifically the the physical location that is used by the governing body for official meetings only.

So that's not enough. It has to be enough. What you call it an official meeting. It can't be an outreach meeting, right?

Yes. We wouldn't be able to apply this to yeah. Any any of our, our district level meetings or anything outside of a building where we are formally meeting to do the people's business.

Thank you. I appreciate you bringing this forward. Like you, on February 18th. I was really afraid in this in this chambers and knowing that there could be some people with concealed weapon permits in here, it also raised my anxiety in a space where I'm supposed to do a job for the public. So I appreciate you bringing this forward. And. We may have to figure out some other ways, because if we're all I know, there's some conversations about having our official meetings out in the in the community, and we may need to do some things to update it so that those meetings, if we do have a full council meeting at which we have their, their, their meetings that have been had there, that we need to update that.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that there's more work to be done. This is a small step right now to ensure not only safety of elected officials and their staff, but also ensure safety of the public who just want to come and seek redress from their government. We need to make sure that we are being very serious about safety at all interactions with this and not not taking this lightly. So. That's right. Absolutely. I would love to work with anybody on this committee on future refinements to make it so that we can guarantee that.

I'd love to work with you on it, because I don't want folks also to think that we're trying to take their first and second amendment rights away. There are some clear things that have happened in this city and across the nation around political violence, and it is becoming more and more. Scary. Yes, eerie. And it's it's unfortunate people have died who have set in our seats. And so thank you for doing this.

Thank you.

Councilor is everyone.

Thank you chair. So, evan, I want to go to your exceptions for officer slide. I think it's slide 11. In your remarks, you said that members of the military who are who are honorably discharged, that they would still that this would affect them. And I want to clarify, as I read all of the ordinances and as I read all the o r s, that is actually not the case.

You are correct. Councilor. I misspoke, honorably retired police officers may carry. But discharged military may not. It's only members of the military and performance of an official duty. Official duties. Thank you for catching that.

So and I just want to say for a clarifying reason. So for almost all of the reasons that councilor Smith said she likes this are the reasons why I don't like this. I, I think this is a strange way to go about trying to prevent guns in a chamber, for instance, and I just want to go over. I was I was pleased, council president, to hear that you had applied for your your concealed carry permit. So it means that my question about do you understand what it takes to get a concealed carry permit is probably answered by that, but for some record here, this is this is pulled in terms of what it takes to get one in Multnomah county must be a u.s. Citizen or there's some other documentation there. 21 years of age must reside in the county. Have no legal condition that would prohibit you from possessing a firearm under Oregon or federal law. Have no outstanding warrant for your arrest. If you served in the armed forces and were not dishonorably discharged, not to be a lawful and unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance, including marijuana, not to be in any form of pretrial release, not to be required to register as a sex offender in any state, no convictions of a misdemeanor or found guilty of a misdemeanor within four years prior to the application. Not been ever convicted of a felony or found guilty except for insanity of a felony. Completes one of the following courses, and I'll save the folks from reading it, but it lists a host of firearm safety courses, hunter safety courses, exceptions. I'll say for me, I've both used the firearm safety course that I've taken, but also my 20 plus years of being certified with a weapon in the military as reasons that my concealed license has been always granted. But it lists a whole lot of of training, firearm use, safety courses that are applicable and meet the the state and the sheriff's letter of the or the intent that this is a, a person who is not just buying one because they heard about a gun, but they've actually gone through a course to understand it. Applicants must also, of course, complete the application, submit to fingerprinting and photography, or photographing by the sheriff. And the sheriff initiates a background check through the fbi. A person has not been committee. Excuse me. It says committee, but I'm pretty sure they mean committed to the Oregon health authority and has not found to be a person with mental illness and has not has been discharged from the jurisdiction of a juvenile court more than four years if they committed that act. While it had constituted a felony or misdemeanor involving violence. I wanted to list those because it seems a little odd to me that your focus is on concealed weapons permit carriers, the q and a that was provided by somebody in the staff. I'm assuming a little bit of everybody who worked on this said in the last five years, there have been only three documented occasions where an individual was found to have brought a permitted concealed weapon to our facilities, which can be attributed to the proactive security measures, which I think we've all seen. When I think about the reasons that councilor Smith laid out, I'm not really thinking about a concealed permit carrier as the concern. And to councilor Nils point that some members who perhaps at one point had an honorable profession and now have engaged in death threats, which I take very seriously. A death threat is a crime. And therefore, if that was investigated and found guilty, they would immediately lose a concealed permit. So I just want to offer that perspective up as well, that a concealed permit is in some sense. A right. If you meet all of the conditions I read out. But it is also a privilege that you must meet all of the conditions that I read out. Our security leaves this building at 5 p.m. Most days I think I've left the building. It's been. After they're gone, many employees stay. I've never seen security here on the weekends when I'm here. So. I don't understand what it would be and why the administration is even putting this forward. Because. Councilor Smith and I are very experienced with the demonstrations that used to happen some decades ago, where members would come into Multnomah county, not with concealed weapons, but they like they used to do at the state house. They would come with with displayed full, you know, whether they be full size rifles, type weapons or hip pistols, that was an occurrence. That happened for a little while. There was kind of a fervor going on. And the law and I, and I always say, I think that was a, a stupid display and a stupid demonstration and laws were limited in how to deal with that because any person no, regardless of background check, any person who meets the requirements to own a firearm was allowed to do that in those times for us and I, and I will not say that those were the most wonderful times to be at the Multnomah county commissioner Meetings, but I, I am really asking that we take a look at just how much of a jump it is to be able to get to a concealed carry permit, the background checks, the fingerprinting and the host of things that you would essentially disqualify you from it. When things have gotten rowdy, or when I've faced my own threats and situations I'm not particularly concerned about on hold a concealed weapons permit, because they're a I, at least in the government sense, they're a known entity and they've at least done some proof of of responsible ownership, responsible caring, and frankly, a concealed permit means you should never know that they're carrying. And that's kind of the idea. So I'm challenged by this because I your slideshow is called protecting Portland or something along those lines. That's what your title was. And I don't know how this protects one iota. And it seems somewhat. I. I guess I, what I would love to hear from the sponsor is your, your motivation in terms of why concealed permit carriers are your concern because, I mean, you went through it, you get it. And I will say I have a record of, of writing, you know, for additional gun regulations been hosted as an op ed in the Oregonian for that. There's a, there's a, a lot of my life where I believe in, but a concealed weapon permit for me is one of those areas where I just, I'm not seeing the connective tissue. Why this will accomplish what I think you're telling us. You think it will accomplish.

Sure. Thank you.

Councilor I.

Councilor councilor May I? I was thinking of this as the sort of technical questions portion of the discussion, and we seem to have gone into sort of discussion of the merits. And what I'd like to do is give people signed up for public testimony a chance to testify before we go further, unless anybody has any amendments they plan to propose, in which case I'd like folks to identify those so that whoever testifies has an opportunity to respond to that.

Okay. Sorry, I didn't realize we had testimony sign up. So. Councilor Dunphy, those are not technical. I'll wait on that.

I will come back and answer. Thanks.

Thank you.

So does anybody have any potential amendments? Hearing none, diana, can we proceed to public testimony?

Certainly. We have one person signed up. Councilor Mitch Green, you're welcome to start your testimony.

Thank you. Diana. Thank you, chair. Novick thank you, vice chair murillo and members of the committee. For the record, my name is Mitch Green, and I am going to be trying to use these committees as a place to testify and provide my feedback on stuff before it gets to the full council. So this is one of those examples. I'm supporting this legislation with changes. I'm supporting it because broadly, I do think. I think it offers a control that we can. Have some measure of control around the risks that enter this building. Councilor Zimmerman, all of your arguments are valid. I think about those as well. It is very difficult to get a concealed carry license. I think the thing I worry about is what is our risk tolerance? Because there's no real time assurance that that person, once validated, will not become unhinged or will not become a threat. And that's just the sort of trade off we always make in society around community safety and individual liberty. And that's that's a thing. But what this body is going to contemplate is whether or not we want to accept that risk for not only ourselves, but other members of the community that are in chambers. And so for that reason, I do think it's a reasonable thing to do. I worry about the person who snaps one day and decides that they've had enough of the people disrupting our meetings, and then comes in not to target me, but to target someone who's a protester in this building. I don't want them to face that risk. I do have an issue with one piece in exhibit c. Which seems to expand into the discussion of the parks, which is not really about the affirmative defense piece in ours, but really becomes about adding more named and enumerated prohibited objects. Particularly, I'm concerned that if we include mace and pepper mace in the list of prohibited objects, that we are losing the distinction here that matters. Like we want to prohibit objects that are very obviously weapons and very purposely built to be a weapon. I don't view mace and pepper mace as, as, as an object that is built to be a weapon. I know that there are some people in our community that have used it in that way, but I also know that it's an important piece of the self-defense, low lethality. Sort of suite of options people have. And I want people to be able to feel safe in our parks at any time of the day. And, and so I would, I would please urge the committee to consider amending out the inclusion of mace and pepper mace or, or consider some other creative solution to to condition that because as it stands, I'll have a difficult time supporting that at the full council. If those words are included, I yield the 13 seconds of my time. Thanks.

Councilor Zimmerman.

Eric Zimmerman: Okay, thank you for that testimony. So let's just run that through a little bit. If that's the case. If pepper mace, mace, pepper spray is part of this of this ordinance, I can only imagine how many Portland city employees who are sitting in city hall, 1900 or the Portland building are currently right now carrying a little thing of mace, the way that I think my grandmother did for many years. And based on what the, the, the project or excuse me, the presentation said they would be now guilty of a felony if we were to both find it, which it sits on many people's keychains. So guilty of a felony, which is a life altering situation. That expand that further. And I recognize that people's tolerance for what is a self-defense mechanism, self-defense weapon offensive, etc. It changes for each of us. Probably all 12 of us have a different level in which we would say, well, let's run that through this testimony from councilor Green is is apt to me. And is that your intent as the author of this, that every Portland employee and every visitor to Portland who was carrying some mace should be convicted of a felony?

It's certainly not. No. This is language that came from a collaboratively. Through the public safety service area and the city attorney's office. This addition was part of those additions that the staff gave us. I wouldn't be offended if it was removed. It's not my intention to. My daughter carries pepper spray as well. However, I do want to say that, you know, perhaps the medieval maisa's a large club with spikes on it. We should prevent those from being in.

Here.

I would argue. I would argue that you probably can't conceal that.

Hard to do.

So hard to do just for. Is that what you're referencing? Councilor Green. I'm looking for a nod. I don't know what we're talking about here.

Maybe a morning star, I think is what he's referencing.

Okay, but let's use pepper spray since everybody knows that that is not a medieval weapon, but pepper spray.

May may I clarify. Councilor Zimmerman, just for what it's worth here, this is a 2012 050 the addition of of mason pepper spray, which again, totally happy to discuss making an adjustment there, but that would not trigger a felony. This is within city code. It's within parks code. So that triggers civil penalties. And not even local criminal penalties.

Okay, let's can you then clarify how that meets up to the rest of your presentation? Because in your presentation, I remember writing down felony because you had highlighted a felony for those who violate this in your presentation. And I was I was. Absolutely at that moment. Are we talking about different weapons get different charges?

No. So let's look over at exhibit c and and I'm happy to to defer to the administration partners on this. So there's a lot of little adjustments here. And among these adjustments here in the parks code, we have the inclusion or the addition of basically it says tear gas mace, pepper mace or silk. Similar deleterious agents just to the list of things that you can't have in a park. So there's, there's like an addition to the, the enumerated list of weapons that you shouldn't carry in a park that is substantively separate from the issue going on with concealed handguns. So down below here at the bottom of exhibit c semicolon, however, the affirmative defense, etc. That relates to c, h, s, whereas the additions above in that blue section have to do with the underlying ordinance.

So in this case we're talking some code city code minor violations. So if I was carrying a gun at a park, I get a slap on the wrist. But if I happen to be carrying a gun on a at a building, I'm going to get a felony.

You would what would happen in the real world is that you would come up to the door and there would be a sign on the door that said no guns, including no concealed handguns. If you then said to yourself, let me try to get this gun in here anyway. And that whole sequence of events ended up with you being arrested or in court because of some choice that you made while in that room. Then there could be a felony involved.

Okay.

And councilor, do you want me to answer your earlier question about the the. That'd be great. So I will say that my experience specifically in applying for the concealed carry license, it was a web based multi-choice or multi multi-choice question application where you have unlimited options to be able to go back and answer your questions. I did it in about 15 to 20 minutes while watching a movie with my family, and then drove about a mile from my house to get my fingerprints taken. In total, I spent less than 30 minutes on top of the 41 years that I lived an upright, admirable life that otherwise didn't disqualify me. It really was not a particularly onerous process and did not at any point actually involve me touching a gun.

Did you ever attend a gun safety course to be qualified for that concealed permit?

I did not.

Then that sounds like a Multnomah county problem. I'm not following the law.

Agreed.

The option that Multnomah county gave me was a reference to a over to the state run application for the test, and you can thumb through it on your phone. If you miss the questions, you can go back and take it again in an unlimited number of times.

So let me I've certainly taken the you know, when you're a young person, you take like a hunter's education course, right? I took the firearms training course for the utah concealed weapons, which allows, I think it's like 20 states. Basically there's reciprocity and also have had to submit my training record at different times from my most recent, like military qualification with a handgun or with a rifle and in those types of things. So I'm very surprised to hear, and that is concerning because as I read the o r s, it looks like you have to show proof for having gone through one of those courses. And I don't think a training course, a firearms training course can exist without at least one that should be a credible, accredited or credible without touching. Right. That was a major function of the courses I went through was how to handle it.

Absolutely.

I thought I was signing up for that course. I thought I was taking the introductory and at the end they said, congratulations, you passed pay your $60. Yeah. It was it was not a barrier to access it. And truly was. I mean, I appreciate accessibility, I appreciate the state trying to make things easy for people who have limited technology. But truly, it was a minimal process that I still, two months later now with my concealed carry permit in my pocket, but I do not own a gun and I still have not ever touched a gun or had to demonstrate that I even know which end works.

So I'll acknowledge that that is deeply concerning. I do hope that when they took your fingerprints and they ran your name, they actually conducted the fbi check, as they say they will in their documents. But that's deeply concerning. But I'll say it's a different government as well. Philosophically, council president, what I, I guess I'm I'm I think your conclusion after going through that experience of this isn't what this isn't right for me is perfectly sound. But you're asking us to say this isn't right for everyone, and I'm not sure that we can be in the position to say this isn't for everyone, because you're introducing similar to the the mace or pepper spray question, you're introducing this challenge. An operational challenge for the hours when somebody is coming to work or leaving work and they're not in the building. You're presenting a challenge there. That kind of seems like we just want to ignore that that part of life exists. Like when you leave your front door until the time you get to the place of business, and then when you leave the place of business and get to your front door, that then you're allowed to carry this thing or have this, this concealed permit. And we have and we're like, yeah, you're a law abiding citizen, do your thing, but not during the eight hours you're at work. And by the way, we don't know if you actually have any because in the last five years, we've only had three situations. But this would apply to to everybody coming into those buildings. And that's where what is your determination mean? That everybody's should have the same determination, right? Your threat posture is different than anyone else's. We all have our own and how we deal with it. Why is yours the one that should prevail here?

I mean, ultimately that is why I'm before the

The committee asking for my duly elected representatives to also weigh in on this and choose whether or not this is my best bet. We have. We have narrowed the number of situations historically to where a public employee may interface with a member of the public with a gun. Currently, it is the narrowest it's ever been, but there is a narrower ability under state law for us to specifically close this part of it. If this committee chooses that, this is not the direction to go. That is absolutely our prerogative, in my estimation, based on my life experience, both in doing gang prevention with guns and having applied for this concealed carry and my responsibility to all of us as a as council president, my judgment led me to this position to saying that I think that this is the the small step forward that we could do to ensure some level of safety. I don't think it's going to be the panacea that keeps us safe. I think that there will always be opportunities for people who intend us harm to find us and do that. This is both about protecting us as elected officials, but also the staff and the public, in my opinion, for when they come here expecting to yell at us about potholes or whatever the issue might be. Of the day that those passions don't then also facilitate violence. And if that if that is not the position that this council or this yeah, this committee and the broad council agree with, I can certainly accept that. But this is my attempt to try.

I appreciate it, and I'll wrap up here. I appreciate that. To me, it looks like you all have gone through a lot of thought on this and that this has been a deliberate rather than a reactive, reactionary kind of process. I'm left with the question of, do you really think that anybody who's intent on doing violence is going to follow the law? And for me, that answer is no. And then the subtext to that is, but we're asking people who could be the subject of that violence to follow the law when we know the people who are going to do violence are not going to follow the law. And I don't think this will actually do one thing to make anybody safer. And that that's the real concern here. I think we're actually eliminating other potential. Recourses for people who are in a variety of different situations, because this is the thing of the era right now. We want to talk about concealed permit carriers, I guess, but appreciate. Evan. Great presentation. It was easy to follow. I understand the differences. Thank you for that, council president. Thank you for getting into a philosophical discussion because I think that's a lot of what this is. And I'm disheartened to hear that the Multnomah county sheriff did not, as far as I can tell, follow. What is the expectation for the processing and permitting in a shallow state like this? So that's too bad. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor.

And I just want to add, when I was in at Portland state university, I was taught as a political science class that and maybe the teacher was being a bit glib, but they said 75% of people don't need a law in order to do what's right, and 10% of people will never do what's right, regardless of the law. So we govern for the 15%.

Catholic councilor Kanal.

Sameer Kanal: Thank you, chair Novick and thank you, council president, for giving us something to chew on there. Right. As I had the mic, I, I wanted to start by saying most of the, the second piece of, of what, or I guess the first half of what councilor Zimmerman just said is, are things I do agree with in particular around the need for us to have security longer in this building. Unfortunately, right now, as most of our committees, we haven't had a a presence from the people who can decide that this is like c-span. The camera doesn't show the emptiness of portions of the room. There are people in the in the audience here, but not in the administrative side here for those who are watching at home. But I do think that that's something really, really important for us to address. And it's something that came up last year behind the scenes in the conversation around security. And I think we were still catching up on the changes from a five member council to a 12 member council and a separate mayor, and that's what we were able to achieve. But now we need to do that next step in this year's budget as it relates to the the rest of the conversation, I think it's. Whether or not this prevents. The first thing is a important question, whether it removes the affirmative defense after the fact is a separate and also important question that may both have a direct answer in terms of does it actually help us holding a person accountable after the fact, but also does it help prevent the next the recurrence? A lot of what we do after the fact, and this is why investigations are so important with pbb, right? It still happened after the original allegation of a crime or alleged crime occurred, but it might prevent the next thing. And so it's I think similarly here, it's important for us to do that and to explore whether or not this tool can assist us in holding a person accountable who might try to as, as you put it, council president, bypass the rule and just bring in the the firearm. Anyway, I did want to to get involved in the conversation around mace. The, the exhibit a shows that this is already in the code for buildings and it appears to have been copied and pasted from. This is exhibit a 33 1820, part b six. It's in the list and it appears that the. The change has been to make exhibit c down at the bottom 20 1250 identical to the above. I do see the purpose of trying to align those. I also agree that we should not prevent this particular tool from being used. I agree with both councilor Morillo and Zimmerman on that, and so that might be something worth doing in both cases, because I'm concerned that we might already have a challenge here. I'll also point out that one of the challenges with these types of things is something I'm hoping to address in a semi very tangentially related piece of legislation, which is clarifying these types of weapons. And what makes them problematic or not is often the directed spray. The ability to direct at a person is sort of, I think, where the legislative tool of, of use or nonuse sorry, of possession or non-possession can be can be helpful in, in other words, tear gas or tear gas weapon is something which can affect not only the person that it's ostensibly targeted at, but everybody in the room. There's no way to tear gas. One person in this room right now. Right. And so it is inherently problematic as a result of that. Whereas there is a scenario in which one person could be pepper sprayed as a self-defense tool. So I am open to that. And then separately, we have regulatory questions to answer about usage. If someone is just hypothetically using it outside of a self-defense context. So I think there is sort of two different questions that we're asking here. And the terminology we're using isn't necessarily specific enough in either the current law. And I want to stress, this text seems to be pulled completely directly from existing code and just applied in the parks context now. So I do like the idea of harmonizing those two rules and also not banning a self-defense tool that is often used. It's kind of ironic that this conversation is happening today in this committee, given that we just had a conversation about sexual assault prevention as well. I should note, because that is often and should be mentioned often, one of the contexts in which people carry mace or pepper spray. I am hoping to clarify with the attorneys at some point, and I see if tear gas or tear gas weapon in this context encapsulates cs gas or c gas. All the other types of gases and powders which are in use at the present time. Because technically speaking, tear gas is not the chemical that is being used.

So in our current code, we already have prohibition in the city of Portland in all the public spaces as to the defined items, the main deleterious agents and whatnot, because that's already in 14 a 60.030 and there is an exception for the personal use. So I think that kind of addressed some of the earlier comments as well. In terms of the oc agent, I don't have the information on that, but I think it's what you all been discussing in prior council sessions in that respect.

So this definition is the the reference that's being used here in violation of 1463. I think that answers my question around cs. Oc all the other items. I also think given that it is actually one term tear gas, mace, comma, pepper, mace, comma or similar deleterious agent is one term as defined. There's a separate term as defined which is tear gas weapon. And so it's insertion in there. We might need to just make that clear. But I think that that clarifies insofar as personal use goes. I don't it allows for. Tear gas. Actually, I'm a little is unlawful for any person, corporation or association to offer for sale, sell, furnish, transport, carry, possess or use within the city limits any tear gas weapon or stun gun. This does not apply blah blah blah. And then there's seven lists down here and six and seven relate to. As a tear gas, as an aerosol tube and from an aerosol tube, sorry, as a self-defense weapon, and then separately, a stun gun for the purpose of self-defense. Maybe we need to dig into that as it relates to the, the, the, the gas versus the, the weapon. There's a distinction in the earlier section that I just want to clarify, and I won't go through this line by line here on the dais, but I am curious about that because it is, I think, a potential inadvertent interpretation might come out of this. If we're not clear on that, I'm not sure if I'm making sense, so I'll wait.

Councilor I'd say that from you're asking really good questions about ensuring that we don't take away the legitimate ability of people to defend themselves from attack while seeking the sort of clarification and unification of language that's being done here. We have not thought hard enough about that, and looked at the code to see where we can close those gaps, use those definitions to ensure that people can do what they need to do. So we absolutely be happy to work with you. Anybody else on this committee about truing up that language, find a solution moving forward, or just ensure that this is doing what we think it's doing. That's really important and worth the time.

Sorry, I didn't know if linda lie. If you wanted to say anything.

Oh, no no no. Okay.

Sorry not to put you on the spot.

I think in my opinion, I think there's a lot of code sections that council can probably review and look and do a refresh.

I bet. Thank you for for that. The last question I wanted to ask is, does this fall into the general framework? And this is this would not be something you're changing, but just does the do these sections of code that are referenced in a, b, and c exhibits a, b, and c fall under the general penalty provisions? Or are there specific penalties elsewhere? Because your exhibits just excerpt the part you're changing, or does this fall under the general 1.01.110.

General stuff? Okay.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

So one thing I wanted to mention is that although I think councilor Zimmerman is right that people with concealed carry permits are not like uniquely dangerous, they do occasionally use guns and unfortunate matters. The violence policy center says that there's. Since 2007, there have been more than 2500 non self-defense deaths involving concealed carry killers since 2007. And although a substantial percentage of those are victims of suicide, a substantial percentage are not. I also wanted to note, in response to president dunphy's comment about whether medieval maces that I'm actually not entirely sure that that's not what the code refers to, because there are a couple of references to what I thought of as rather archaic weapons, including dirks, which I think of as things carried by 17th century pirates and saps, which I think of is being carried by either police or or organized crime figures in the 1930s. So there are at least some archaic weapons that are covered. One thing I just I just want to clarify again, we are not. Other than in the case of parks, this legislation would not further restrict or criminalize the use of things such as mace or pepper mace. Is that correct?

That is my understanding, yes.

Okay.

Councilor Morillo thank you, chair Novick thank you both so much for this presentation today. This is, I think, a really fruitful discussion. I just to start us off with the mace thing, if you're open to having it removed, I would also like for it to be removed. I just think as a, as a young woman, if I were to go on a run in a park, I would simply not do that without mace. You know, I think we need like minimum protection in that case. And that's what I would feel most comfortable with. I think most of the young women that I speak with would also argue that they're not going to go on a walk in a park by themselves without some mace or something like that. And I find myself agreeing with a lot of councilor Zimmerman's points around concealed carry. Although I've had the same experience as you had, I haven't finished getting my concealed carry license, but I looked into what is it actually take to do that? And it was an online thing. You do get to do it as many times as you'd like, which you learn through the process of repeating those questions. But the fact that you can do it in about 30 minutes and then just go get fingerprinted and all of that and have it be done is pretty wild how easy it is. So I think that, yeah, maybe we should talk to our Multnomah county partners about that. That's a, that's a them issue. But I think something that I always come back to, especially with the parks portion, this is I honestly think about the 2022 normandale shooting. And for folks who don't remember what happened at that time, there was a group of community advocates that were holding a vigil for patrick kimmons, a 27 year old black man that was killed by police. And while they were holding that vigil, a white supremacist came to the park. He was flagged as a white supremacist and a potential threat for many, many years by the fbi. He came into the park with a gun. He tried to do a mass shooting. He ended up killing some of our community members, injuring others. And it was a protester at the vigil who was trained in firearm safety that ended up shooting that white supremacist, which stopped him, I believe, from doing a mass shooting in that park. And that is a very real thing that happened in our community. I know people who were there personally and frankly, if that protester who was there holding the vigil hadn't been there with a license, with training prepared to handle that situation, I think it could have ended up a lot differently. And I don't say that to perpetuate the myth that a good guy with a gun is going to resolve every issue, and that we should have a rambo style justice system where people just take matters into their own hands. But that is a very real thing that happened in our community. And I do share the concern that a radicalized white supremacist who wants to kill people who are holding a vigil for a black man killed by police, is not going to care that there is a law to stop him from carrying that gun in the park. It will probably stop those people who were holding the vigil. And so I do wonder about the the practical application of this. I think for city hall, it makes perfect sense for a building like this when we have people coming in and testifying. And things can get escalated in this space, and we have more ways to check if someone has a gun or a concealed carry. Like I know when people are downstairs, even right now, if they have a concealed carry permit, our security will run, run it and make sure that that's actually up to date, verify it, all of those things. So someone can't just come in pretty easily with it. But I think if we expand that to other situations, I'm not sure how this ends up working out practically. And so sorry, I think that's I didn't mean to make it so heavy, but the normandale shooting is something that I just think about a lot because I know some of the people that were there, and I'm not sure how this if a situation like that were to happen again, which I think is very likely to happen again, just because of the political landscape that we're facing right now, I'm not sure how this would harm or help that situation.

You absolutely raised some valid points. You know, this the the definitions currently under under our existing code limit opportunities for carrying a gun in parks. The specific language here that we are updating as it pertains to guns is r as it pertains to parks, rather is updating the definitions so that they're aligned. And primarily the. The purpose of this is to focus on places where public meetings happen. I don't believe that this would put additional restrictions on people's. In a park outside of an official meeting. Gotcha. My understanding.

Okay. And so for clarity, I think part of what councilor Smith had asked earlier was, say, we're hosting a public meeting in the 1900 building. It would apply, it would apply there. Or if we're using say we hold, I don't know, a meeting at a non city owned building, but we are having a council meeting there for like one of our budget hearings for something. Does that mean it applies there for the time that we are holding that meeting?

It would not.

The threshold is quorum for us as a body. So if we were having an official meeting in that capacity, as an official meeting of the city government, it could. But for a budget hearing, if we are under the quorum limitations and we don't actually control that building, if we you know, if we held it in the in a community center, potentially if we held it at a high school gymnasium, we couldn't that would not apply because it.

Speak to that. Yeah. So the language in the in the senate bill says it's, it's buildings owned or controlled by the governing body. So if we were going to do a 12 person full quorum council meeting in, say, erko, the question would be about, all right, do we control that building? And so in the preparatory process of doing that, we would need to have the conversations about how that was going to work and what constituted control. I'd say when when we organized the strategic goal setting conversation just next door, that is a city building, it would qualify under this in all of these ways, etc. But setting up a 12 person meeting there of all of all of you councilors involved, ensuring there's a security bag check, ensuring there was some kind of magnetometer situation, ensuring their security sitting in the room, facing the audience as they do here. That's sort of the basic structural ante of putting this body and the public in a room together, and that would be expected to be repeated in that in any other public location. So again, lawyers would have to be involved and do that work. But the target of any such circumstance would be to enable the city to be controlling that space, such that the same provisions would apply.

Gotcha. Okay. That makes more sense too. So there is a it is enforceable insofar as when we're holding a public meeting with all of us. You're right. They do update the security, the live streaming, all of that, even if it's not in this building. And then those folks would be able to, to check if someone has a weapon or something like that. Yeah. Okay. That's very helpful. Yeah, I think I that that helps me narrow it down a little bit more. And like I said, I think if we remove the mace part in parks, I'm pretty supportive of this on a whole. And I just want to say like, I appreciate you guys bringing this discussion. It's not existing in a vacuum. And unfortunately, we are existing in a time where the federal government isn't taking the action that they should on gun violence. And so we are piecemealing things together, and that has a strange impacts sometimes because we can't actually just live in a country that has full authority over whether or not people have guns. So I appreciate that, and I'm just trying to factor in practical realities as we discuss this, but thank you so much.

Thank you.

Councilor zimmermann.

Thanks. I'll start with the technical question here. There's been some discussion about a loaded firearm. And as I've always understood portland's law, that that's a particularly important point. So what constitutes a loaded firearm?

Let's go to the text just a moment.

And this gets to the there was a point earlier brought up about inspection and that is about is it or is it not loaded, which then is or is not a violation of law?

All right. So we're heading over to 14 a 60 010 possession of a loaded firearm in a public place. Let's see here. It is unlawful for any person to knowingly possess or carry a firearm in or upon a public place, including while in a vehicle, recklessly, recklessly, having failed to remove all the ammunition from the firearm. It is also unlawful for any person to knowingly possess or carry a firearm, and that's firearm clip or magazine recklessly. Having failed to remove all the ammunition from the clip or magazine. It is unlawful for any person who possesses a firearm, clip or magazine in a public place to refuse to permit a police officer to inspect that firearm after the police officer has identified themselves as a police officer. This section does not apply to law enforcement officers or members of the military and the performance of official duties, nor persons licensed to carry a concealed handgun, nor persons authorized to possess a loaded firearm. Clipper magazine while in that building. Et cetera. Et cetera.

Okay. Thank you. This seems minor, but I want to highlight this as kind of an important point. And I'm going to go in. The wayback machine is actually one of the very first reasons that I chose to get a concealed weapons permit because as I was a young person in the suburbs, and then I became aware of this, this issue with firearms inside the city of Portland. And I thought about, well, gosh, I, I have gone from deer hunting back to my home inside the city of Portland. And I had a rifle and I had a pistol and I had both of their magazines that go with those. Nothing is in the chamber, maybe even the. The magazine is removed from the weapon, but it is still co-located in. In the same case, and as I read that text as the way you just read it, that is the reason I thought, gosh, I need to get a concealed weapons permit because I think just driving home, even though it says going from the range and all that, but like the ability to convince an officer like, no, officer, I swear I'm coming from hunting or I'm coming from a range, I think that's a little loose. So it led me to get my first concealed weapons permit was to try and be in compliance with portland's law, which is quite strict, right? You can't have even ammo near a firearm. So I did that as an intent to be above board always. Now, this is many, many, many years ago, but you know, largely it seemed functional to me and I understood like how that worked using councilor, Morillo example and others. And I'm aware of how many people on this council and how many employees in this day and age do receive threats. And. I spent a whole lot of my career fighting something called don't ask, don't tell. And I'll tell you, this is an area where I think don't ask, don't tell is actually appropriate. I think actually a concealed permit is for those who are law abiding residents and citizens of the state of Oregon. Our system has been set up so that they can be unknown entities, and we will never know. And I think that's a good thing. I'm also, you know, I'm cautious and I'm very I'm very uncomfortable with situations where, you know, the idea is like introducing more guns into a gun ridden, riddled situation is not a good thing. I'm not I'm not advocating for that. But this and that has come up over the over the last several months in our in our community. But this is going into a direction that I'm worried that in your intent to make this room safer, which I don't know that it does, but I think that's a part of your intent. You're making all other hours of some people's lives potentially more dangerous because to follow this, essentially in in operation, even people who followed the law by getting a concealed weapons permit now are just leaving those at home. And that worries me. And that worries me from all levels of people who have to come in and do business at this city, city buildings as as you say. So the the loaded part is important here. There's one aspect that I'm curious about, and this got me thinking about it with regards to our now noted now disappointment with how y'all's experience of getting a concealed weapons permit has gone. But on exhibit b, number 13 under c, it talks about a person authorized by permit of the chief of police to possess a loaded firearm. Clip magazine in a public place in the city. So that leads me to can we, as the city of Portland, say, those who have a concealed weapons permit in order to receive a chief's permit must go through a sanctioned. I don't know, you name the thing, but not the online Dunphy experience, but but the, you know, firearms training at a location with a certain set of standards that have to be met. What does the authorized by permit by the chief of police mean? Because that leads me to think potentially there's something we can put in place here instead of just banning everybody. But say you must meet this threshold of competency in order to. I'm just. And also, I just want to say chair and vice chair, thank you for giving so much time to this and not doing a rush through on this, because, you know, this discussion has been helpful to hear all the different points. And it's really nuanced.

Councilor Zimmerman just again, for clarity, that number 13, there a person authorized by the chief of police to possess a loaded firearm, etc. In a public place that is a section of 14, a 60 010 possession of a loaded firearm in a public place, which is distinct from rules governing rules of conduct at city property. So we are talking about outside of the building public places. When we're talking about exhibit b here. However, frankly, neither of us know exactly the process that 13 is referring to. So you'd have to phone a friend.

Okay.

If we could ask attorney law to come back to the table. So this is to restate, this is looking at 1460 010c 13 a person authorized by the chief of police. What is that process and what is what are those circumstances?

It's an administrative process that you. We would probably have to ask the police bureau how they go about to allow someone. It could be an. An example of that could be that there is a firearms demonstration for the police officers, and they need to bring people in who are not persons that are police officers and for a particular event. So that could be a way of permitting, permission, permitting in this particular context, is this particular code has been it's iteration has been in existence, and we use the word permit for both the actual form of agreement permit as well as permit as permission giving. So so it depends. I'm not sure exactly right now without asking the police bureau how they have done the implementation of this particular section. So we could ask that for that if you would like.

Well, let me tell you, if you pass this, I'm going to ask him for it. Right. I just I guess. I'm looking to my colleagues and I, and I am asking you to and I feel like we are am I my hope here is that you can. I'm concerned, frankly, chair Novick, when you cite something like 2500 experiences, did you also pull the number of concealed permits issued across the united states since 2007? And how many people hold one? Because to throw out these numbers without some context is make me feel like perhaps this isn't a conversation where there's any sort of can we work this and make this workable? If it's a preconceived outcome here, okay, but I'm hoping that it's not. I'm hoping that we can we can both take the intent of the author, which I think is to, to minimize risk, but from the public safety service area and the security service area. And I'm glad you worked with them. But also, I'm not sure that their job is. How to apply this broadly to the public sense. I think their job is how to reduce all risk in this building to the not just the 1213 elected folks, but to the the folks who work here. I get that. But like a lot of things that come out of the city attorney's office, we have to weigh that risk against its practicability. It's operationalized nature, its constitutionality. Well, less with the city attorney on that one. But but in terms of public safety, there's always a risk because the greatest public safety is we just tell everybody where to walk, what to do and how to do it, and the nature in which to do it. Obviously, that's not workable in the united states system. Obviously, it's not workable in the Oregon system. And so I, I hear and I, and I think, frankly, our security here has done a tremendous job of getting things at the door, so to speak. And I appreciate that a lot. I think they have been allowed to do that, which frankly, took some doing because for a long time they weren't. And they have been and have been active. But. That. There's an autonomy that I'm trying to protect here a little bit in my in my comments and how this takes. And I think that this ordinance takes some of that autonomy away for people who've chosen to go through a background check, a fingerprinting, and are thus far found to be law abiding, and I will be the first for any councilor. If a person with a permit violates and commits a felony, a death threat like all yanc that thing myself, I'll help you burn it. But I just like I take this very seriously, so I hope that we can keep either massaging this to be okay. What is a level in which is accessible here, or if we can potentially not pass this, there's a reason for the state having this affirmative defense, and we're taking that away. And I and I have to think there was a reason for that affirmative defense. And I hope it stays there. I think it's been an important part which has generally worked for us. So I'll leave it at that. Thanks, everybody.

Councilor councilor Smith.

Loretta Smith: Thank you, councilor Dunphy, I want to go back to something. About a month ago, I witnessed firsthand someone who was in front of me who had a concealed weapon permit, and I watched what happened. They called PPB. He had to stand to the side. They had to show their their concealed weapon permit, show their gun. And and it took about 25 minutes for the whole process to, to go through. And once, once the person was approved, they, they put their gun loaded and went up to, to the meeting. They were going to. So the, so the question that I'm asking is. So now that same person comes through with a concealed weapon permit and a gun. Will he now have to leave his gun at the desk or. He can't bring it in at all?

My understanding is they would be not allowed to bring it in at all, that our security is not equipped to safely store while someone would be in in the public meeting, so they would need to leave it secured at home or wherever they think is the most secure place to store it.

And I do agree with my previous councilor, councilor Green and Morillo and Zimmerman that the pepper mace is an issue, and I do have pepper mace, and I think it's important. And I think particularly for women, it is a, a comfort level that that that pepper mace provides. And it's not to say that the pepper mace can't be used on you, but it can. But I think that that's going to be a hindrance in this particular piece of legislation going forward.

And I would I said, if this council is interested or this committee is interested in offering an amendment, I would be certainly accepting of that as an amendment to remove that component of it, I do think, as councilor Kanal was saying earlier, I think that bringing some consistency across our codes is always helpful. But if that is a that that section of 20 .12.050 was mostly intended to be housekeeping to bring our definitions and do some light cleanup. In addition to the narrow action that this is intended to do, that this is specifically intended. The most affirmative action that this is supposed to take is pertaining to only those places where we are having official meetings with the public and officially our official capacity. So I don't disagree, and I would absolutely accept that either here or at the full council, if that's how this committee chooses to move.

And not to be a full feminist up here. But you did say you were working with the administration and they are men. So I don't think they think about things like that, like me and councilor Morillo do when we're talking about protecting ourselves with some pepper mace in in all due respect to the administration, sometimes you have to put yourself in our shoes as as a woman and what we can do to to be safe and to be safe in, in our own workplace.

You make a valid argument, and I'll tell you that as I mentioned, I I'm a girl, dad, I purchased a mace for my daughter when she turned ten.

I'd also like to appreciate the work that brie brown did leading this ordinance.

Thank you, thank you.

Councilors, may I speak out of turn? How exciting for me. Thank you. It does appear that the language given us in 14 a 60 030, which is a limitation on tear gas and stun guns in public places, makes a distinction between mace, pepper, mace and tear gas weapons. And it moves forward to. Create limitations or to disallow the sale, selling, furnishing, transporting, carrying, possessing, etc. Of tear gas, weapons or stun guns, but not mace or pepper mace. And so, in fact, if we were trying to maintain continuity across these codes, most likely we should just strike the words mace and pepper mace from exhibit c, and we would certainly view that as a friendly amendment.

Thank you. Anything further, councilor Smith? Councilor Kanal.

Sameer Kanal: Thank you. I think the the question around the section in exhibit. Let me let me back up. Big picture. I think what this ordinance has done, in my opinion, is do a good thing in a section of code that has so many details and potential pitfalls in it that the act of opening any door in it has opened pandora's box. And so now there are 100 questions about other things that are all valid questions, all related questions, and frankly, may be necessary to do this and may not be, I'm not sure, but we're going to work through it. That, at least from my opinion, does not preclude or limit the benefit of what you're seeking to do here. So let me let me just put that on the record. I, as I read the the exhibit b, the list of affirmative, affirmative defenses is particularly broad. And I was even more concerned after hearing the definition of permit includes permission. And so I'd like I'm not just 13. I'm not sure why 14 or 12 or 11 or 10. Maybe ten. Makes sense. Actually makes sense to do in in, in a public building. But I'm guessing that that has to do with the way in which this section defines public place more than it has to do with building. So I think we need to like look into that element a little bit more. I would love to see a more clear definition of permit. To your point, evan, on the other item about mace, I'm not sure that that alone would fix it because the definition is of a singular term in 14, a 60, 30 part, a one tear gas, mace, pepper spray, comma, or any similar deleterious agent links all of these things together. And I'm not sure that I think we need to separate the definition. And I've been working on this for months now because it's necessary in order to do the ban on tear gas that I seek to do in another piece of legislation. But separately defining there is a, a, a substantive difference and a and a practical difference in implementing anything that would relate to something that creates a directed spray versus something that creates a cloud. And certainly there can be, you know, the person next to a person who is receiving, you know, some types of pepper spray or mace is going to be affected too, but it's not going to be the entire neighborhood. So I think there are, there are definitions that we might need to work out here. And perhaps as, as an interim step, just taking that that piece out as a whole from the faq section, leaving it as is, might be appropriate in order to allow for the, the sort of core function here to, to continue because as I look at the, the core function, which is the actual red line in the exhibits, I do not see a problem in the exhibit. A section or the exhibit first part of the exhibit b section. I have questions around that last part at the end. Or the. The part other than the the section we're talking about with tear gas weapon, etc. In exhibit c. So I, I'm trying to understand that piece of it. And then also to say that does, does making these changes, making the changes in a vacuum are not objectionable to me. In fact, I support them. But does that open this other door around inspection, around all this other stuff? I'll give an example. The section that that councilor Zimmerman brought up about loaded firearm, I'm concerned might be insufficiently strong because it says recklessly. And that is something that often that implies a, a intent or a. A mental state. And I'm not a lawyer, so I can't remember the exact latin term here, but the the conversation is different when we're talking about reckless versus it just is or it is not loaded. And so I'd like to have those kinds of conversations b b related, but I'm not sure that they should necessarily hold up the rest of the legislation. And maybe they should. Maybe they're important enough that we need to. I'm not I'm not trying to ignore it, because I do think there have been some pretty important questions raised here. I am concerned that in the context of the section that ibn you read, which is the part I read earlier as well, 14 a 6030 b. It it doesn't seem to relate. It doesn't seem to to ban any of these earlier items, the tear gas, mace, pepper mace or any similar deleterious agent. It just uses that definition to determine what a tear gas weapon is. Correct. And I'm not sure. In this section, in the public spaces, in the public buildings, and potentially in the park section, it does. So I think that might not be the the easiest way for people to understand it when implementing it. But also I think it leaves open the option of, of having to link these together as a package deal. And I'm hoping that we can look into that. I do have a question for the lawyers that didn't occur to me earlier, which is this is insect code title 14. My understanding is code title 14 is the one that does have criminal penalties on it. Is that why it's the distinction is made in terms of banning it elsewhere without the criminal penalty and banning the tear gas weapon here with the criminal penalty. Is that why it's in title 14 or elsewhere?

That title 14 section pertains to public places, which has broad enough definition of like the open spaces, the Green spaces, the parks, as well as public buildings. So. So the intention is to change the limited subset of the public place for the application of the removal of the affirmative defense in the building of that subset of the public place definition. And then. So. That's why there is only a minor change in 14 a 6001 0c4 as well as in d.

I think that makes sense in the context of firearms, which is I'm asking in the context of the. The mace, the mace, because that the definition, the ban on a tear gas weapon is in 14 a 6030, a two. But the any reference to. Tear gas, mace, pepper, mace or similar deleterious agent is in three, 18, 20 or in 20 1250. And I'm asking if that distinction as to placement has an impact with relation to criminal penalty for it. Because because I've previously been told that title 14 is the one that has criminal penalties.

Right. But but 2012 is the the non criminal penalty one. And so it's it's bringing in a related reference to elsewhere in the code. What are those things that are in violation. If you violate those in 14 there could be the same violation of 2012 because we already have the other one in existence.

And it's the same true in reverse. That last sentence you just said.

That violation of 2012.

Yeah. In the context of mace, pepper, mace or tear gas, tear gas, mace, pepper mace or similar deleterious agent.

If it is a violation of 14 a the public place where the public place is a park, then then that. 14 the stuff in. 14 of public place.

Can I ask you maybe a little more? Maybe. My question is not super clear. If we added the text to exhibit c that adds tear gas weapon, mace, pepper mace, or similar deleterious agent in violation of. And then somebody were to violate this, would they be subject to criminal penalty because it is also a violation of 14, or would it be civil penalty?

Only they might they would face two different things. They would face 2012 penalty if they also violate 14 a 60, which if they fit, they have two different offenses. So one incident can give you many offenses, including criminal penalties. I mean criminal penalties. So it depends. So in this particular context for your question, if they violate 2012 it's it's the civil penalty. If they violate 14 a separately if that same incident also meet the definition, then they would have that separate penalty.

So I'm reading that as maybe both, but not necessarily.

It could.

Be that's that's the.

It depends.

On the oversimplify.

Yeah, it depends on the situation.

Thank you.

Thank you chair Novick.

Thank you. Councilor. I want to say that I do hope that we are able to have a little time at the end of the session to talk about our vision for what this committee should do in the next year. So I'm kind of hoping that we could get fairly soon to proposed amendments and then to a vote, unless people agree that we're not ready for a vote on the ordinance as a whole. This session, in response to what councilor Zimmerman said about the statistic I quoted, I recognize that the 2500 cases of misuse of firearms by people who, I mean, resulting in death by people with concealed carry permits is a small fraction of concealed carry permit holders. I was just raising that to point out that it is not unheard of for people with concealed carry permits to engage in unfortunate and fatal behavior. I would also note councilor Zimmerman, I think that what you're raising is the prospect that city employees who have concealed carry permits might not be able to take advantage of that during the day, because they're going to work and they're not going to be able to pick up their their weapon until they get home. So I would I would note that that sort of anticipates that there's times where city employees might need to use their weapon to defend themselves other than at home or at work. And I suspect that would be a small sample too. I think that everything we're talking about is a small sample. And now, appropriately, I will turn the mic over to councilor Zimmerman.

Eric Zimmerman: Thanks, chair and noted. These are small samples. I think that my point here is that in the world of small samples, I would defer to or prefer that we not make the law more preventative for those who have chosen to follow the law. Right. I think that the great, grand, significant, whatever other large word of majority of people who are following the law by by having a concealed permit will never use a weapon. That's the goal. So I agree. Councilor Novick I just I want to share from my community some spaces where I know that this will bump up against against itself. So many people are aware of the. Pulse nightclub massacre that happened in 2016. It was a gay club. A person walked into that place and absolutely massacred many attendees. Pride happens in June. It happened just a few weeks, a few days after that event. I think it was actually the following weekend, Portland pride and I, I was there, I was in the parade and I, I saw a lady who I happened to know from a very long time ago. She's a mom. She's also a nurse. And her kid was at the parade. And she had this enormous backpack on. And the reason she had this enormous backpack on is because she had filled the thing with trauma gear, bandages, tourniquets, you name it, she was fully in a trauma kit, like the kind of trauma kit that my medics carried in iraq, because that's the level of concern that she had as a mom after a really serious targeting. She wasn't, as far as I know, she's not carrying a gun. Right. That's fine. I'm not trying to make the illusion that she is that she should be. That would have been her choice. But I'm trying to paint the picture for. First off, we were at the north park blocks because that's where the parade stages. And while most of the parade essentially stays on public roads, there's some walking in and out of the park that occurs, but that's the level of of terror I think that some people have to hold when they're in public spaces. I want to I'm going to be vulnerable here because I think this has been a healthy conversation. But there have been years when I've been at events like that where I've chosen, you know, what, based on the things that are going on or the targeting that's going on, that I have chosen to exercise my right with my concealed permit and carried because of the heaviness that has occurred at different times throughout the the years in how large events or public events like a pride parade have been targeted. Those are not those choices are not. I don't take those lightly, but I also am aware of many people who have at different times chosen, who have followed the law and done the right thing, and they stay right on the streets. They don't enter parks, etc. But we're we're introducing something here where a concealed weapons permit has been the thing that's allowed people to be above the or above board, not above the law, but above board, right? Doing it the right way and will be eliminating that. And I think what we'll be doing is actually just making a host of people's behaviors illegal overnight, without much thought to like why some folks may choose to, in those public situations, may choose to carry concealed right. And. I just want us to be careful with that. I hope that we don't actually, if we vote on this today, I hope that we don't pass it today. But but if there is room, there's been so much discussion on different aspects of this and different parts of it that I think if it's going to pass, I hope you all will, will make those changes to make this better. But I don't know that this is ready to pass today, chair. And. They're just the world, unfortunately, has not gotten safer for or as it relates to gun violence. And the idea that all public spaces, that public buildings, et cetera, will go fully without any concealed weapons permit is such a significant change. But I have this feeling that most of the time, because it's kind of an area that a lot of people don't understand, it's seen as a minor change. So I just I hope we don't pass this today. That would be my, my request to my colleagues. And I know that this is difficult, but there are real people who intend to do real harm. And passing this will not change their real intent. So I hope we can think about that. Thank you.

Councilor Kanal.

Sameer Kanal: Thank you. Councilor. Novick chair. Novick. Councilor Zimmerman. I wanted to to dig into that last piece a little bit more and just understand because it sounds like I think we're looking at three different, you know, sections three, exhibits one. And I think in an earlier comment, you talked about the conversation around. Buildings like this one. And then in this most recent one talking about b and c, exhibits b and c, sorry, is the objection to all three of these sections at this moment, or is it primarily to the third one around parks? I heard your comments and I appreciate them as it relates to, you know, the in and out of the park blocks example. And I understand that for me, that feels like a different enough idea that I can, I think I can separate the conversation, compartmentalize a bit. I'm not sure if the first and second feel separable, although they are a little different in terms of loaded versus and loaded in a broader area versus period in a narrower area. But I wanted to understand that a little bit better, because we do have the option to, to, you know, to, to advance a portion of this or not, and also to, to workshop some of this. As I've said, I'm, I would like to revisit the, the mace and pepper mace piece, but also I have questions that the, that your questions and the responses to them gave me more alarm as it relates to some of the the exhibit b and I wanted to get more clarity on that before engaging in. Having nothing to do with the changes that are being proposed today, but just having an understanding of the overall ecosystem in which those changes live. So I wanted to understand that a little bit better, if you don't mind.

Sure. I think I think I understand the question. So I think the discussion that you all have had and we have had around the various types of things in and around parks is a really valuable one. And I would support those changes. But then my underlying in all situations is that they each seem to have, and I don't think it's exactly the same, but essentially they have each of those sections exhibit c, b, and a have all inserted the. You are no longer exempt from this. If you have a concealed weapons permit and across the board. I object to that. I think that the concealed weapons permit should be a permissible. And as listed under the state, one of the defenses. So I think that. I hope that answers your question. Councilor. I know the parks one has had a lot. And those changes are fine, but but I would also apply the concealed weapons there and to what it means in be. And in a. Yeah, a does that. Is that your question?

I think so I'm, I think there's slightly different impacts of the same text. And so that's sort of my, I acknowledge that it is effectively the identical text. I think there may be some punctuation just because of the way the sentences end. That's different. But in terms of the impact, trying to understand that too, because I see a different impact in the context of a park personally. But I'm curious if you do.

To help me out with that. What do you what do you mean? I'm, I'm trying to follow along in a, in a situation where we just have single paragraphs of these exemptions. So what do you mean?

Yeah, I'm flipping between tabs here too, trying to contextualize the sections that are. And I totally understand why you didn't put the entirety of the title in here. So I'm not trying to do that. I guess my working assumption on this is that the definition of public place is broad enough that your example from earlier about driving through an area or passing through an area en route to or from a hunting context, is something that is reasonable for a person to be doing. Whereas entering this building would not necessarily be rational as I don't know, able to be rationalized in the context of an example like that. And so the affirmative defense and not that the concealed handgun was the affirmative defense in that example, but that there are that this tends to be its own destination.

Got it. Can I this is a really important point and I think thanks for bringing it up. Yeah, the transiting piece of it, I think we're I think you're understanding. I also would be concerned about a person who comes through the gates downstairs or to the, you know, not to overuse the term permit here, but since our permit window is an open space that people come to to get a permit for construction, it would be weird, right? Like in a, in just a normal non-legal sense, it's just kind of weird. Like why? Okay. What I'm really concerned about here are actually our employees who are concealed weapons, carry concealed weapons permit holders. Whether or not they carry it is a different question. That is where I think those people aren't making a trip here, so to speak, but this is their place of business. So that's, I think, a distinction I hope is helpful to clarify. My concern changes on each of those different paragraphs. Yeah. I'll just stop there.

Councilor Kanal did you have something to add?

Not at this time, thanks.

Okay. At this point, I think that would be worth having a discussion about whether people think that we should just postpone this item until the next meeting. I mean, I actually think that as a general principle, I'm not in favor of rushing to have a vote. The first time something comes before committee. But I also don't think that we should postpone just for the sake of postponement. So I'm curious. I mean, I personally think I'd be prepared to vote for an amendment deleting exhibit c, so just not addressing the park's issue and then moving forward to a vote on the underlying proposal. But I think that clearly, councilor Zimmerman is not going to want to support the underlying proposal. Councilor Kanal, I think you might be wanting to develop some amendments on on aspects other than exhibit c. So I'm curious I'm curious whether councilor Morillo and councilor Smith feel ready to vote on the underlying today, or would you prefer to, with perhaps some amendments, or would you prefer to take this up at a subsequent meeting after people have had a chance to think further and refine amendments? Councilor. Morillo.

Thanks, chair. Novick. Yeah, I think that I will be ready to support this with a few amendments coming forward from, I believe, councilors, probably Zimmerman and Kanal, although I don't want to volunteer you for work. But yeah, I think it needs just a little bit more time. But I think when it goes to full council, I'll be ready to support it.

So do you think that we should probably move ahead, that you'd like to see us move ahead today if we can? Or would you rather wait for another meeting?

Sorry to clarify. I think that we should give our colleagues an opportunity to draft amendments, run them by the legal team, and then we bring it back to another meeting. Vote it through then.

Okay.

I agree.

All right. In that case, we have, I think, a clear consensus. So let us do that. Let us and the discussion of this item today with the understanding that people will then develop amendments. So l a chance to address it in our next meeting. Now I would like to take some time to talk about what, particularly because we don't have another meeting until June to take some time to talk about what people's priorities are for this committee for the rest of the year. One thing that I am hoping to do is find some opportunities to talk about cities that, in certain areas, might be doing a particularly good job, and whether we can learn from those cities. Two areas that I have in mind are, although, oddly, in light of the advances in forensics over the past 30 years, the general national trend has been towards a lower solve rate or clearance rate for major crimes. And I know that there are some jurisdictions that are beating the trend in that. And I've reached out to some academics, and I'm hoping that we'll have a chance to hear some thoughts from cities that are beating the trend about how they've done that. Another area where I'd like to hear from other cities is I've been in touch with an organization called mapping police violence, and they've gathered statistics that indicate that there are significant variations between jurisdictions as to how often the police shoot people. And I'm curious as to whether there are jurisdictions which feel that they've engaged. In particular, they have particular training procedures or policies that result in them shooting fewer people. I but I'm I'm curious as to whether people have other examples where we'd like to hear from other jurisdictions that seem to be particularly well. And I'm also curious, just more generally, what topics do you think that we should try to. That. Vice chair Morillo and I should try to schedule during the next year. Councilor Zimmerman.

Eric Zimmerman: Thanks, chair. One of the areas that I think we owe the city some work on are what do we expect out of the ps3's, and what do we expect out of the park ranger programs? I've worked in communities where, you know, the name was different, but the the essence was similar of community service officers. These are the unarmed members of the public safety apparatus, so to speak. That certainly addressed a lot of what I would call the livability type of, of interactions with the public safety group. But in Portland, this area has been challenging for us. And I think one of the challenges is that those groups were largely created with commissioner in charge at the time, and now I think articulating what we want from them or what the role is moving forward is worthwhile. And and to highlight the or put my cards on the table. I am interested in why the park rangers don't actually work for the public service service area incense. So I'd like to see what that looks like. So that is an area that I hope at some point this committee can spend some time on, so we can provide some direction and some thought process around what do we want from these types of roles in our community.

Thank you. Councilor Morillo.

Angelita Morillo: Thank you, chair novak, I just wanted to add a few thoughts on some of the things that I hope the committee will take a look at as well. I think with public safety, we're obviously going to have ongoing discussions about how our local government interacts with federal agencies like ice. I think it's inevitable that that will continue to come up and that community needs will shift as well. I also really hope that we're going to dive into preventative violence work. I think about the office of violence prevention, a lot of the gun violence reduction measures that happen on the back end before it becomes something that is enforced by law enforcement, or like even today, we were talking about sexual violence. We know that the vast majority of sexual violence doesn't happen from some random criminal on the street who attacks you. It happens from a close friend, colleague, or family member. Usually it's someone's intimate partner. So figuring out what we do about public safety in a more holistic way on the back end and what it takes to keep people safe. I would also love for us to do a deep dive into emergency preparedness with pbem, with the federal cuts that we see regularly at this time, I think making sure that we know what we would be prepared to do as a city when it comes to emergency preparedness and maybe even talking about what would happen in the event of an earthquake and the critical infrastructure hub, what does it look like for us to respond in an environmental disaster like that, that could impact the vast majority of the city? I would also like for us to discuss the updated call allocation study to find out which where the bureaus are at with that information, about which are the best responders for which calls so that we can make the best decisions possible. And finding out about how Portland street response and other programs like it were maintained in other cities so that they can be entrenched as part of the permanent public safety infrastructure as a whole. And I think also just hearing from first responders overall about their emergency medical services and amr around their ambulance model is also something I'm hoping we would dive into. So that was a very long list of things that I am interested in. And luckily we are in the committee to discuss them. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor I should note that although I don't think we would have gotten to it today. Anyway, one topic that I wanted to take up this month, or at least before the budget process is concluded, is I was curious about how the police budget for the sort of special missions, including the stolen vehicles and street racing, and I was told that we it would be against the budget rules for us to discuss that before the. The mayor has proposed his budget. So they're apparently some constraints on how we can address budget related matters where we're in budget season.

Councilor Kanal. Thank you, chair Novick and first, let me state I had the privilege last year of serving as a coach for the committee. Have a lot of faith in chair Novick and vice chair Morillo to lead on this. I'm looking forward to being liberated from some of those responsibilities and being able to be a more active legislator as it relates to the items in this committee. As an outcome of that change, I want to first agree with councilor Zimmerman on cds and park rangers. I'm interested in examining and potentially increasing the relationship between park rangers, as well as other groups like the water bureau's teams and the psa. I also agree with councilor Morillo on examining particular types of violence, like sexual violence, as well as the pbem and emergency preparedness conversation. I know city life and the committee, they'll all have a role in that as well. Of course, I intend to bring back the conversation around which we started with the psr resolution last June to codify the program, build out a co-equal first responder system as that committee's work progresses that we created. This conversation may also relate to protecting the chat program. Ovp cease fire safe blocks for self-defense. And then, relatedly, I know that most of the conversation around bringing Portland solutions into the normal administrative structure of our government doesn't relate to this committee, but pmo, I think does. And I want to understand that relationship a little bit better, explore it, and potentially talk about if that relates to psa in the eventual. When when Portland solutions becomes part of the the formal, normal part of the government. I really appreciate chair Novick your your comment about comparing. I'm a member of nacole. I the national association for civilian oversight of law enforcement. Mapping police violence is also a great organization. I think the, the the comparison points are really valuable. If. Newark, new york. Sorry, I'm slurring here. Newark police can go an entire year without firing a single shot from their guns. That's 2020 newark, new jersey. I think that there's an aspiration that any police force can get to as well. And I'd like to to have that conversation around a vision zero for that also. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor I'm glad you brought that up. I actually had forgotten it now, but I noted that before and newark's, the fact that newark was able to do that is extraordinary. It makes me proud to have been born there, although I lived there for a grand total of six weeks. Councilor Smith, do you have thoughts you want to share about topics that the committee should address?

Thank you. I think we need to be clear on our role. One of the things that kind of frustrated me this last year was that we were getting into the to the weeds about what, you know, what we thought our public safety bureau should be doing more, more on an administrative side. And I'd like us to stay away from that and keep our, you know, say, in our own Lane and not try to micromanage the bureaus and how they, you know, procure things on how they direct their, their employees, all those things. Because I think that basically we're here to discuss budgets and make sure that they have the budgets that they need and that we do those kinds of things. Now, it's not to say that we can't ask questions, but I think us having a serious role in micromanaging them, I think we need to stay away from that.

Thank you. Councilor. All right. Seeing no, there's no other folks in the queue. Unless. Christopher. Diana, is there anything is there anything I'm forgetting that we should address before we bring this meeting to a close?

Nothing here. Thank you.

Okay. Well, thank you all very much. I'm glad that we have been able to keep this, this band together in this committee. Looking forward to the next year. And at this point, I will bring the this meeting of the community and public safety committee to a close. Thanks, everybody.