The record · Transcript
Council session — 2026-07-14
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (28,270 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.
And I will get.
Good afternoon. It is 202 and I am calling to order this meeting of the city life committee. Colleagues, we have a few things on the agenda today. We're going to start, of course, with our public communications, our public input topic at the top of the meeting. Talk about electric vehicle charging in an ordinance brought forward by councilor Zimmerman. Learn more about enhanced service districts and hear a proposal to create a new enhanced service district in councilor Avalos district. Thank you, councilor. And then we've got a quick item of business at the end that the administration has asked us to move forward. Wendy, can you read the roll call? The roll for us?
Yes. Thank you. Morillo.
I hear.
I hear I Zimmerman here.
Yes, here. Sorry. Avalos here. Ryan here.
Pirtle-guiney here. Did you get Zimmerman?
Yes.
Okay. And christopher, could you please read our rules of conduct?
Welcome to the meeting of the city life committee to testify before this committee in person or virtually. You must sign up advance on the committee agenda at www.Portland.gov/agenda/city-lie 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 the agenda item is heard. If public testimony will be taken on an item, 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 an 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. Your testimony should address the matter being considered when testifying. State your name for the record. If you're a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent and virtual testifier should unmute themselves when the clerk calls your name. Thank you.
Thank you, christopher. And I'm noticing that our screen on the north side here doesn't have the projection, which I think is fine for now, but we are going to have a presentation later. So if we can make sure. Perfect. Look at that. There we go. Thank you colleagues. The first item on our committee, which I'll have wendy call in just a minute, is our public input. And I just want to note that I have heard that two of the people who are testifying today are actually two constituents who wrote into our district office with concerns about topics that come before city life and our fantastic district admin, jennifer stewart, directed them to sign up for public testimony here. We have this space to make sure that when portlanders have concerns that we should all, as a group, hear about as we take on these topics, we have the opportunity to do so. So I wanted to call both to offer a warm welcome to them, but also to encourage all of us to make sure that our district teams know and that our individual office teams know that this is a place they can direct people to if they have concerns that we should hear at the committee, and I hope we see more of this. And with that, wendy, can you call the first item on the agenda, please?
Yes. Item number one. Document number 2026-232. Public input on city life committee topics. We have three individuals who have signed up. And please, if you all come up one at a time because of the mic issues. Olga, ghalib ghalib el my apologies.
Welcome. Thanks for being with us here today.
Okay. Good afternoon, committee members. Before I begin with the presentation, I.
Would you please pause for one second?
It's it's working and it's up just to speak up.
Please speak up and speak directly into the microphone. My apologies.
I am actually a little nervous. Before I begin, I need to formally correct the public record from my previous statement. Before this committee. I stated that I reside in district four. To be legally precise, I reside where I am now. I don't know which one of my sides is my good side, whether it's the left or side right, but I reside. You know where I am. My physical presence is dynamic, but I am formally and permanently domiciled in district four. With that being said, Portland has many, I would say problems, but I don't consider them problems. They have a lot of potential for definite improvement. And in one of those places is something that Portland was a. Even when I was younger and I was a lakers fan in la, and I noticed that Portland was always in the playoffs with arvydas sabonis and rasheed wallace and those guys. Portland's restaurants were a huge advertising point as far as why. To visit Portland or to travel to Portland or to vacation in Portland. It was the restaurants, the dine in restaurants, the selection. Well, here we fast forward to 2026. Now this was this was. I'm giving my age up, but this was probably about three decades ago. Now fast forward to 2026. I'm reading a post survey, I believe it was. And in this post survey, they said 97% of the restaurant owners do not feel as though Portland is moving in the right direction to support a thriving industry. Restaurants are dying. This is the fourth most difficult city for a restaurant to thrive in, or to even last for a year. If a restaurant in this city was to make $1 million, that owner would probably bring home about 30 to $50,000. That is staggeringly low of a number. To have a revenue stream of $1 million running through your restaurant, and to only be able to take home between 30 and 50,000. There's a lot of overhead and expense that is going into this, and we need to change a lot of that. I was looking at some of these specific issues, and one thing I noticed, there's a guy, an owner of multiple restaurants. His name is kurt huffman. He said, if it's $1,000 door that got broken, what's the point of filing 13 police reports to get reimbursed for 13 doors? And then our rates go through the ceiling? It's important for the city to realize that now it's just kind of a way of life. The city's gotten used to this. It should not be used to something like that. It should not be used to having its windows broken, smashed, and should not be used to opening up a restaurant and then closing. So what I'm proposing, I've submitted to the city council. City council clerk is a design that minimizes so much of that overhead that maybe Portland can have a thriving restaurant industry. Again, thank you for your time and I love you all unconditionally.
Thank you so much for being here and for bringing that proposal forward as well.
Jared watumull, please come forward.
Welcome. Thank you for joining us.
My apologies. Yes, that was my mistake. Laura feldman, followed by william koutsky kovalchick.
Welcome. Thank you. Thank you for being here.
Yeah, I left some fact sheets of research that I've shared with the city over the years about this subject. First of all, I want to say thank you. It's so wonderful to be greeting some of the councilors in person. I am inspired by you. I'm grateful for you. And I love being able to say that to you in person. My name is laura feldman and I work on the Portland harbor superfund site with the Willamette river advocacy group. I'm a member of the Portland neighborhood association, portsmouth, a member of the stop new nuclear work group. I served on the Oregon hanford cleanup board for seven years. I work with the Portland harbor community coalition on the cumulative impact health resilience project, a health study for communities who live around the superfund site on the lower 11 miles of the Willamette. I also work with hcc on passive pcb air sampling. Today, I'm here as one of the community members who suffers from the noise and lead pollution from the pier. I state my illustrious activity because this. This is what. Living in a blast zone on the north Portland peninsula inspires. Where I live, where I grew up from Thursday to Sunday. Last week we were blasted by the rose cup races and this was a shocker because we've had little racing recently because nascar went away. So we had quiet Sunday mornings where you could eat breakfast and think thoughts and read a book. Boom. Gone for for four days. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. It hammered us. And usually during these attacks, I ride out of earshot, which sometimes means leaving the surrounding area, bringing my work, my book, my food for the day. I'm 71 and at this point, it's getting harder to do this on my bike, and traffic continues to increase dangerously. As we know, I moved to portsmouth in 2018 from saint john's, but I also grew up on the peninsula, and since I began learning about the lead as well as the noise. Many have moved because of it, mortgaged their homes, etc. Every year I file a damages claim with the city always denied. In 2024, I went with other portsmouth neighbors to testify with representative travis nelson to urge the house committee on climate, energy and environment to ban lead at pier. That was hb 2738, which did not pass out of committee. This year. We're doing community members are doing a study with osu and PSU noise study of pier and canton has been conducting a community survey on pier. I didn't know how imperiled we were. We are living here when I first moved here or how imperiled we were growing up here with industries like columbia steel castparts dumping manganese in the air for 40 plus years, my. When I asked my sisters oncologist if. Growing up next to a superfund site and downriver from the most toxic site in the western hemisphere, the hanford nuclear reservation might have caused her breast cancer, he said, probably flippantly. We used to swim in the columbia during peak plutonium production years in the 60s. My. My brother's stomach cancer, my father's heart disease, my mother's alzheimer's, the diabetes that runs rampant on both sides of our family could all be traced to this sacrificial landscape, which we all live in. I ask that you get rid of the lead at the track immediately. It's most harms seniors and children. We have to live with that. We have to think about that.
Thank you.
We appreciate you being here. Thank you, thank you.
William kovalchick.
Welcome. Thanks for joining us today.
Pardon me. Okay. Good afternoon. I'm william kovalchick bill. I'm 72, retired construction manager for Portland youth builders for franciscan enterprise, currently an unpaid carpenter for family and friends. I'm I'm here today because we feel like our neighborhood is in crisis. I've lived in the lloyd neighborhood. We call it lower irvington. We. Distinct from most of lloyd neighbor, I mean, irvington in that we're high density housing, few mixed use buildings really affected by commercial activity on broadway, but a very distinct neighborhood with the intersection of industry, business and high density residential, very mixed class, mixed race. And it is so apparent that our neighborhood is the center of. Unhoused people with drug, alcohol, mental health problems concentrated in our neighborhood. And it's whack a mole. Last night I was driving home, there's a guy who's catatonic, sleeping in urine in a patch right next to the old on point building on point bank parking lot. He told me he was 27 years old. He hadn't slept in four days. I asked him, why does he go to a shelter? He said, because there's too many bugs. He said, well, you don't think the people who are sleeping here had bugs and. And you're sleeping in this urine? Can I help you? He just stayed asleep. So I raked all the debris and bottles onto the public property so that I could call the the public, you know, call the 311 number to get the city folks out here to clean it up to the same thing on 10th street. Basically with rake in hand, raked debris from the parking strip that two people were going through. Three other people in the back parking lot were using drugs. This. They walked away because I intimidated them. I think this is we have to put up with this day after day after day after day. Covid it was nuts. We had 40 people sleeping across from the post office. I have lived in this neighborhood for 42 years. I raised two children, the two children in this neighborhood, three children in this neighborhood. There's two children in the, in, in, in my in my own house that I rent out part of the building to. They can't go outside at night. The elderly people from across the street, a high rise Portland housing. What's the new name of the. Whatever the the the the project across the street, great people there. They've been our wonderful neighbors for all these many years. Those people can't safely go out at night because the city just does whack a mole. So in. In the end, we want the city to help us pull this together. We're not going to put up with it anymore. The kind of help we need is to demand that property owners who are absent, not allow people to be on the premises and have tons of garbage use drugs on it. That should be illegal. They're harboring illegal activity and they're making it dangerous for our community, and we're not going to leave. We're going to be fighting this day and night until we can walk our neighborhood safely after 40 years.
Thank you for being here. Thanks for sharing that with us. We appreciate hearing what it looks like in your neighborhood specifically.
I'm also a lifetime socialist.
Noted.
That concludes public input.
Thank you. Andy, we are going to move to the next item on our agenda. Wendy, could you please call agenda item number two?
Yes. Item number two. Document number 2026-206. Add electric vehicle charging systems funding code, ad code chapter 26.11.
Thank you, wendy and colleagues. I am going to turn this over to councilor Zimmerman, who brought this ordinance forward.
Eric Zimmerman: Councilor. Thanks.
I was going to use this mic so we can have an influencer moment of come with me while we increase safety to our electric vehicle charging infrastructure. So colleagues, to just to add a little humor, I know we're passing mics here because the sound system. But one of the things that I really care about is that the infrastructure for charging our electric vehicles grows and expands so that the ability and the and our access to electric vehicles is not just a high dollar or high earner thing. It's so that every portlander eventually can can see that. And we have made so much growth over the many years, but we I also think we have a lot of growth to still grow and to build out that infrastructure. But like any new industry, we also have to make sure that we are doing it safely and that we're doing it responsibly. And there is a safety and training program that certifies electricians who do this work. And like the state, in 2024, the state passed. If you're going to use state dollars to increase the electrical grid for these charging stations, that the folks doing that work have to be certified through the safety program, what this ordinance does is it brings the same level of standards, but instead of being state money is if you're using city of Portland money, that the electricians who are installing these charging stations in this network of charging stations, that the workers on site have to be certified in this training station, in this, in this safety program. So I've invited one of the directors of ibew local 48, chris carpenter, to come on up. If you wouldn't mind coming to the dais, christopher, as ibew local 48, you know, the premier electricians organization in our community. But I was hoping that, chris, you could share some of the primary talking points and reasons that your electricians, your members believe that this is an important training program. And I hope, colleagues, that you will consider questions that you might ask for for him or for I, and also give this some consideration so that if this is favorable, that we can pass this ordinance on so that we can mimic, similar to the state of Oregon, mimic that if city of Portland dollars are used, we're doing it in a smart, safe and certified kind of way. With that, I'll turn it over to christopher.
Great. Thanks, councilor. Good afternoon everybody. My name is chris carpenter. I'm the political director for ibew local 48. We are the electrical union for the Portland metro area. We cover all the way from the north coast to Oregon, out towards sherman county, up into towards goldendale Washington. So we're kind of the northwest Oregon and southwest Washington chunk. Obviously our most of our members are around the Portland metro area. We represent about 6000 members in the area. We operate our training program, our apprenticeship program here out of east Portland, off of 1/81, we have about 800 current apprentices that are still moving through the system. We, you know, always like to bring more folks in with everything that's been going on. We're, you know, trying to get more more jobs rolling forward so we can keep people getting trained. I really appreciate the opportunity. The electrical vehicle infrastructure training program.
Chris, I'm going to interrupt you real quick. I failed to mention colleagues. I put a one sheeter on your desks. This is essentially some of the points he's going to have, but so you can read along the same points he's going to make just as an ease. Please continue.
Yeah. Thanks. So yeah, we were in support of passing this at the state level back in 2024. Just a little bit of background on this itp, the electric electric vehicle infrastructure training program was pulled together back in 2009. It wasn't a union or nonunion program. It was basically the entire industry looking at we know evs are starting to come more, and we know that we're going to continue to see the growth of that industry. How do we make sure that the people that are installing those, which is one of those, one of the most public facing pieces of electrical infrastructure that we're going to be putting in, that people are going to be using every day so that we know that they're being installed safely and reliably, so that if somebody is in the whether it's they're in the middle of nowhere and they want to get their car charged and making sure that that charger continues to work or making sure that they go and they aren't going to get electrocuted because it was installed improperly. So the industry came together. It was utilities, it was contractors, it was vehicle manufacturers. It was, you know, the electrical union. It was the non-electrical or nonunion electrical. It was the whole industry just sort of came together and said, what do we need to do? And they designed a curriculum. So what the program does now is it essentially it's about a it depends on how quickly you move through it, but it's around a 25 to 30 hour course. Any journeyman electrician can go take it. They go online, they pay 250 bucks. They come out of this, they get their certification. What it's focused on is evs. The charging infrastructure for them are housed in a specialty piece of the electrical code. They're sort of like a specialty components code next to things like swimming pool lights, stuff like that. That sort of strange, but has a really direct public impact. You want all those things installed correctly. So when we did this back in 2024, we were also at that time tying it to a lot of what was going on federally. The national electric vehicle program that was tied in a lot to some of the money that was coming from the federal government, both for Green energy, for infrastructure and for electric vehicles, was also tied to this program. So as we were doing this, we were like, this is a common sense safety way to look at this. It's it's just something that's going to be easier for these electricians to go in and get that sort of brushing up on this specific area of code. And it's going to make sure that it ties to how the industry holistically across the country is looking at this. That's sort of the scoop on it. That's how it functions. Every single apprentice that comes through our program, we automatically train in this. I think other programs have probably tied in similarly around the state. So anybody coming out will have the certification. I do apologize, we were hoping to have either our training director here or one of our instructors, emily, who teaches this course. She is currently teaching this course this afternoon, so couldn't be here. But that's, that's roughly how it works and what it is essentially the, I guess the last thing I'll say is that it was one of those things that, as we looked at it at the state level, was that if we're going to be using public funds in particular, as we're going to be tying public funds to whatever potentially comes down from the federal government, that we should be using that responsibly, making sure these things are installed correctly and we're not throwing money away.
So thanks.
Thank you, chris chair, so I appreciate you getting us on the schedule this summer. It's not a robust, long winded piece of legislation, but certainly something that at this point, I think we could turn over to, to folks for questions or discussion. I obviously have a lot of interest in making sure that the grid is safe and accessible, and I think that this will help us do that. And so with that, I'll turn it back over to you, chair.
Thank you, councilor, and thank you, chris, for being here to go over some of the details for us. Wendy, do we have anybody signed up for public testimony today?
No one signed up on this item.
Okay, fantastic. Well, why don't we move into any technical questions and also deliberation then at this time, colleagues, does anybody have any questions, either for mr. Carpenter or for councilor Zimmerman? Councilor Avalos, go right ahead. You're going to want to turn that to Green.
Sorry. Let me get situated here. All right. Thank you so much. I know we just randomly talked about this the other day. I didn't realize it was coming, so I'm glad to hear that it's on the docket. So a couple of quick questions. So around the 25kw, I assume that that was the threshold selected because that seems to be on the lower end, like most ev charging stations are at the 25 level, some of the faster charging ones are at higher. Can you just talk to me about that?
25 yeah, so and I'm going to be very careful here. Thanks, councilor, for the question to not wander into electrical theory, which would get me in trouble with my electricians in a hurry, I'm sure. But yes, essentially what that looks like on the ground is, you know, if you're looking at this sort of 25 kilowatt threshold, that could be a much smaller installation, it could be a couple of chargers, some of the slower chargers and things like that, but it could be just a couple of them. When you get above that 25 kilowatt threshold, that's when you're starting to look at something like, oh, a grocery store or something is putting in a bunch of chargers at once. That's essentially what you're kind of looking at. So it was just sort of the scalability and the way, and I guess I neglected to actually say what the requirement is that we were putting in here, which is saying that below that one, that that that 25 kilowatt threshold, which might be a couple of some of the slower chargers, you have one electrician that would be needed to have the certification on that job. So say you have six people or whatever putting this in. You've got a couple people that do some of the the ground work. You've got an electrician or two. Somebody needs to have it. Once you start to scale that up, we bump that number up to a quarter of the electricians need to have that certification just to make sure there's good coverage on it. But yeah, so that's essentially what they what was kind of flagged for me was that, yeah, that could be a couple of the slower chargers that could be. But then you start to scale it up over that. And that was just sort of where we ended up with the numbers when we were working on this at the state level.
So is the intent then that you're trying to target specifically places that will have more than one charger? So because of how you describe the I mean, I don't know electrical theory either. So I don't know how to really explain how you just said that. But in my understanding that it's like you're trying to target areas that have multiple charging. And that's a big reason why that number came into play generally.
Yes. I think that part of it, the one thing that we wanted to make sure to target was, yes, you might be seeing folks putting in several in a parking lot or something like that. I, you know, one thing that we've exempted in this is like single family housing and things like that because we're like, okay, that's not something we need to try to dive into with this, but it's looking at those larger projects where you might have more than one. Yeah, great.
And then as it relates to the 25% electricians, I guess, how many electricians does it take to, I don't know, that's a joke. Whoops. I wasn't trying to set up that joke, but literally, how many electricians does it take to put together an ev station? I don't understand what the 25% of that is.
So that could be. So say you're looking at a project with that you're putting in. I mean, this would be an extremely large project, but say you're looking at one where you've got, you know, 100 chargers that's going in, you would have a lot of different folks on that job. I'm going to scale this back a little bit because that would be a very large project. Let's say you're looking at doing ten. You could have one electricians doing most of the work on a given charger. But as you start to scale that up, you're going to want to have more coverage as they're installing multiple of these charges at one time. The other thing here and that I think is important, is that we did specify it as electrician, because we didn't want to say that it's 25% of the workforce, because you have a lot of other workers out there that are doing a lot of work on this, whether it's, you know, trenching, grading, asphalt, work around whatever it is that are not the electrical side of the work. So we wanted to keep this just the electricians. But I guess the answer to that is it's very variable. It could just be one working on the charger. But if once you get into more chargers, you're going to have more. So it would just really vary with the project size.
So then per that standard, then if it's just that one electrician, then they just need to be certified per how.
This is. Yeah. If it was just one electrician on the job, that would be 100% of the electricians would have met that standard. So yeah. Okay.
And then I'm glad to hear, I think I heard you say that ibew already trains on that and you said a number. How many? Like, how common is it that people are already getting trained on this?
So 100% of our apprentices that come into the program will get the certification by the time they graduate. Every single one gets it. It's part of their course in their ninth term, which is towards the end of their apprenticeship. They get it so that when they come out as a journey worker, electrician, they already have the certification, they've been trained for it. They go online, they take the test through the through the program itself. We've trained. I'd have to get the exact number from the instructor, the training director. But we've trained hundreds over the last few years. What we also see is before we put that in as part of our curriculum, a lot of our current journey worker, our electricians come back and get that supplemental training so that they can go do this work as well. So a lot.
I guess what I'm getting at is like, this seems to be fixing a problem of like trying to make sure that our charging stations are certified, being installed by certified people. Right? So I'm trying to get a sense for, you know, ibew, obviously you all train a lot of electricians. I don't know who else is training an electricians. So what in general, how many like I want to know who's affected. So who if they cannot get this training, what does it look like for people that aren't getting it. Are there programs that don't automatically train in it? Are there other types of electricians that aren't going to automatically get it so that I can then assess, what does that mean for who's missing out and make sure we're not missing out. People that should be included.
Absolutely. No, that makes thanks for clarifying. Yeah. I don't know if what other programs do or don't train for it. You know, our apprenticeship programs have been around for a little over, you know, over 100 years. They've been doing this sort of evolving with tech and with the industry over time. So that's part of the reason that they have invested in doing this. Other programs. I am sure that there are other nonunion programs that do train for this as well. I couldn't tell you what's in each of their curriculum. What I can say is any electrician can go take this at any time. The entire course is offered online. So they can go do it. They can get the entire course online. Again, it takes, I think they estimate about 18 to 24 hours. Our instructors say it's a little bit closer to 30 just for comparison, as they go through our program to get their training. The classroom hours side of that is around 900 hours in the classroom. The on the job hours is 8000 hours on the job. So that's about 30 additional hours for this 30 or a little bit less for this specific certification. But any electrician can go online, take the course. It's a $250 fee for them to do it just to keep that program operational. They do that and then they test. They can do the full proctored test online as well.
And it's like a one time test that they so that fee is just a one time fee. They would have to pay to then be certified forever.
Yes. They might need to come back because some they can expire as code cycles change and they might need to come back and do it. I would need to check on the fee piece of that though. Okay. But that would be probably several years.
Okay. So then based on what I'm hearing you describe, this would particularly benefit, you know, it sounds like the unions ibew, and I guess I don't know, is there another electrician union? I guess I don't know the the market to understand.
We are the only electrical union in that's really around. But there are other nonunion electrical apprenticeship programs.
Got it. Okay. And those are the ones that you're saying you're not sure what the rate is of that being a trained thing in their programs. Okay. So I'm just asking these questions because I'm trying to get a sense of like, okay, I agree with this. I think in spirit, it makes sense. I just want to make sure I don't know who all are, the electricians, how they get trained. I don't want to create unnecessary barriers because now we're putting a standard, right, that if you're getting a government contract, public money, which I agree with the sentiment, I just want to make sure that we're not unintentionally excluding people, especially as like in general, we know with contracting with the government, there's lots of ways that lots of different people get excluded from being access to contracts. So that's why I'm asking these questions, not because I disagree. And I think that it's right that we absolutely have this standard, obviously, as we continue to invest in ev infrastructure, we need to be making sure that it is installed safely and correctly and just in general. Right. I think we need to do a better job as the city of setting a higher bar, because as we also know, in the general contracting world, it's a race to the bottom who can get you the easiest deal, and then they just change order it anyway. So yeah, I just want to get a sense before I make this decision that I'm not going to have an unintended, like there's going to be a lot of people that are excluded from access to this work because obviously we want to make sure that, you know, we can have a variety of people access our contracts. But overall, I think that this is great. I think that it is reasonable to expect specialized training for the workforce performing this. And I think that I like that the proposal is really targeted. So, you know, this is city funded projects focusing on larger commercial, not residential chargers. I could see how residential side that could get a little complicated for us as policy makers. So I do think it strikes a reasonable balance between supporting the workforce and ensuring that our investments are held to a high standard. So thanks for answering my questions. And that's all for now.
Thanks.
Thank you, councilor Colleagues. I will note that I got a message that all of our mike's up here have been muted. So we do need to use the portable mics that we've been given. Our normal table mics are all fully muted at this point. I put myself in the queue. And chris, just a quick question. You said that this was modeled after a program at the state. Is the language, you know, bodies that regulate it aside the same as at the state are the the definitions of the type of systems and the size, the number of kilowatts in the system, the 25%, the same as the state requirement. Or are we making changes based on lessons learned at the state level?
Thanks. Councilor. No, I believe it is the same at least. But I did not bring the bill with me, which I should have done from the state side when we did the legislation. But everything that we had been working on, this was the exact same. The thresholds were the same, the requirements were the same. We just wanted to pair everything up with what was happening with the state money.
Okay. So in terms of folks in the industry knowing what to expect in terms of a contractor who's maybe not on the cutting edge of making the policy changes, understanding what the requirements are for them. Same requirement, state and local, really easy to to follow for both the folks working on the job and the contractors who are running the job.
Correct? Yeah, yeah.
Great. Thank you so much, councilor Ryan. Go right ahead.
Thanks. I don't want to delay the meeting. Good questions. Thank you. I especially appreciate your questions, councilor Avalos. Mine might be to you then sponsor councilor Zimmerman. Everything sounds great. Yeah. Get your your mic ready. So is there an existing urgent issue that we're trying to solve, or is this primarily this is what I think. But I probably am wrong. So I'm asking the question is this primarily looking for the future for professional training standards. And are you trying to help build something for the long term with this action?
Great question. I think it I think the question itself kind of gets at the point here, which is I believe that this is a growing industry. And in a growing industry, there are those who can exploit it. And then there's that. Then there's a way to do it safely, appropriately. And if we're going to put city money behind building out this infrastructure, I think that the safety standards that go along with a new type of infrastructure is worth getting certified. And so seeing what the state did, I think us modeling that at the city level, because I do think we're going to have to continue to put money toward the grid, so to speak. And so that was the motivation that I was coming from. And the idea that if because, you know, it's not the city of Portland who's installing these, it's through other entities. And when other entities are doing it, I think we still, even if we're funding it, we have a duty to make sure it's done responsibly. So that, as chris said, when you when you pull up to do the to do charging, that you get the charge, you expect that no accidents happen, that it's not done faulty, that we're put in public money at a thing. So let's make sure the people who do that work know what they're doing. And it kind of gets to the point of there are there are chris has talked a lot about the new people coming in the workforce, right? It's included now in the standards of the training. But like any industry, I think about my own. I think about others. My father's there were things that in the 80s and the 90s or early 2000, they just weren't part of it because that wasn't a reality. And so you've got this other group of workers who, before they take this job on, instead of thumbing it, maybe they should be trained in it so that that workforce also knows exactly what they're doing. And I think that that option that's presented here makes a lot of sense to me.
Okay. So you're, you're aligning and to making sure that we're building the capacity. This doesn't have any budget issues with us at the moment. That's what I thought. But always good to ask at this time. Sounds good. Good work, very innovative, very smart. Great to partner with our friends. Thanks for being here.
Fantastic colleagues. Seeing no one else in the queue, we do have a little more time if there are other questions and if not, I would entertain a motion to refer this to council with a due pass recommendation. Since I have not heard any concerns from anybody up here.
I'll.
I was going to let somebody else move. Okay, I sponsored.
It here. Let me. So moved.
Is there a second?
Second.
You're going to need to borrow a microphone there.
Second.
Okay. So we have a motion to move this to council with a due pass recommendation. Moved by councilor Ryan and seconded by councilor Morillo. Wendy, could you please call the roll?
Morillo.
I.
Zimmerman thank you. Colleagues.
I Avalos. I Ryan. I pirtle-guiney I. The motion to refer the ordinance document number 2026-209 to city council with the recommendation that it be passed, is approved with five I votes.
Thank you chris, appreciate it.
Thank you.
Thank you, chris, for being here. Thank you, councilor Zimmerman, for bringing this forward. And colleagues will make sure that the council president knows this is coming so we can get it on an upcoming full council agenda. Colleagues, the next three things on our agenda are all related to enhanced service districts, and we'll start with an overview of enhanced service districts and an opportunity to hear from the leaders of a couple of the service districts that exist today. To get a sense of how these districts operate. We have a few across the city that all operate in slightly different ways and fund different types of services. So we'll get a taste of what that looks like, and then we will hear a proposal to create a new enhanced service district within the city. In the presentation and agenda item three, we'll hear a little bit about why this comes to city council at all and what our decision making authority is here. We'll start with item three and then move into items four and five together. I'm noting that I see some of our colleagues in district one in the chambers, and I think I want to have us do that. Overview in item three. First, if you all have time and then have you kick off items four and five and really intro us into the the new proposed service district in your district, I'm getting a thumbs up from the council president, councilor Smith. Does that work for you? Okay. Nodding head perfect. So wendy, could you please open agenda item number three?
Yes. Thank you. Item number three. Document number 2026-233. Enhanced service districts. Overview. Presentation.
Great. And I'll note actually we're going to need to take a break at some point, but we're running ahead. So I'm not going to do that yet. We'll probably do that after we hear from our colleagues. And before we get into the meat of the next two agenda items after this. But right now, I'd like to invite up devin reynolds, our esd coordinator. And devin, would you like to have keith and carolyn join you now?
I would, yes, thank you.
Okay, perfect. And whenever you have your presentation ready, we will have you jump right in.
One note as well. Is that caroline holcomb, executive director of central east side together, is going to most likely be unable to join us by the time. Her part is because of an overlapping meeting. But I've got notes or remarks for her.
Perfect. Thank you for that. Heads up.
Awesome. Thank you.
Okay, there we go. Wonderful.
Loretta Smith: Okay, let me kick it off. Good afternoon, chair pirtle-guiney vice chair Zimmerman. Councilors. I'm hank Smith, deputy director of Portland solutions, here with devin reynolds, cities program coordinator for enhanced service districts today. That's what we're here to talk about. The esds, in particular, the establishment of a new esd and parkrose area. But before discussing parkrose at the request of the chair, we wanted to do an esd overview and esd 101 brief, so to speak. Go ahead. Next slide. We do have some other folks from other esds that will be here to join caroline holcomb and keith jones later. But I just wanted to know Portland solutions is here because last year the esd program was moved into the Portland solutions program due to some natural alignment between the work that we do and what devin does with the esd program. And so that's why we are here. With that, I'll turn it over to devin.
Thank you. All right. It's a pleasure to be here to address this committee. And thank you for the opportunity for that. And without. With that said, I'll go ahead and get us kicked off here. So we're here to talk about portland's enhanced service district program. So you might ask, well, what is an enhanced service district program? I think it's important that we all get on the same page as to what this is, so we can make decisions that are effective and important. So we have the same baseline understanding. So Portland was one of one of the first in north America to establish an enhanced service program or something like that back in the late 80s. To date, there's thousands of these across north America. At this point. Enhanced service districts are independent nonprofits that are created by local stakeholders of a given district. They're governed by a board of directors of ratepayers, and they are also overseen by city code 6.06. They're managed locally by the sc with oversight and city council votes to establish, expand and or renew esds as well. So what are the motivators for forming an enhanced service district? Well, typically they are formed because community members of specific districts want programs and services that are above and beyond what the city can provide and are willing to pay a property management license fee or an esd fee to get that. Esd programs are chosen by, provided by and managed locally by the sc with city regulatory framework and oversight. Escs also have a reliable source of funding for ten years at a time, and the programs often focus on improving community resiliency, district vitality, and economic development. Why city council involved in this? Great question. So downtown Portland clean and safe was established back in 1988 as a volunteer type enhanced service district. In 1994, they asked the city to get involved and make this a more formal program. So 94, 1994, we did do that, and we now provide esc fee collection and distribution services for the esd. We also enter in a city contract for services with the esc as well. And because of those two, those two components, city council gets to vote on the establishment expansion and or renewal of an sd. So that's why we're here today. What is the duration of an esd? City council approves esds for ten year life cycles that are governed by two five year contracts with the city for esd services, ratepayers are decided on by that specific esd. They get to decide who the ratepayers are, what properties are exempt from the fees, but typically they include commercial property management companies or owners, residential property management companies as well, and generally assess revenue generating properties. Detached owner occupied single family homes are examples of property types that are typically never assessed. And then ultimately, who is a ratepayer is enshrined in city code 6.06 as well. To esd can be dissolved once approved by city council. There are a few ways that this can happen. One is that city council can decline to establish a brand new esd. City council can also decline to reauthorize or renew and esd at the end of its ten year period, or honestly, at any point city council deems necessary, the board of directors can decline to renew an esd as well if they feel like it's not working for them and their fellow ratepayers. And then if more than 33% of the district's ratepayers, by value of that district right into the city, we would then at that point likely bring it to city council to have you make a decision on dissolution or not. So, as mentioned before, there are thousands of esds across north America. They call them different things, but they're all the same for the most part. One of the ones that's maybe the most noteworthy that we're all familiar with is times square alliance in new york city. So they actually produced the new year's eve ball drop that we all watch on tv. So that is just one example of a very high level esd program that can be offered. The ec program was audited by the city in 2020 and found to be deficient in a few different areas, mostly around transparency, governance and oversight. Everything in this presentation, which is public, by the way that's underlined, is a hyperlink that will lead you right to the source material in case you want to look into that further for yourself. But we were audited by the city in 2020 and 2023. We were hired. We hired an outside third party contractor to take a look at that audit and then make 15 recommendations to city council on how to make improvements for that program. That presentation was made to city council February 14th, 2024. So some of the responses I'm going to highlight a few that we've we've made since the audit was the creation of an enhanced service district position, enhanced service district coordinator position, my position, which prior to this positions creation, there really wasn't anyone that provided oversight guidance of the esd at all. And so now we have a position that's created to do just that. Also, the esd position packet was created in 2024, which is a roadmap on how to establish, expand or renew an esd. The esd handbook was also created that year as well. Rate structures have become more transparent and simplified as we've had the opportunity to enter into new contracts with esds, and a ton of tracking measures are now in place contractually at this point. Okay, so what oversight does the city have? So the contracts that we have with the escs are overseen by the city's esd coordinator. We also have there also. So these are obliged to abide by their contract as well as all applicable portions of city code 6.06. As mentioned before, there's a there's a number of mechanisms, transparency and and governance mechanisms built into the contracts now. So they have to regularly hold board meetings. They've got to quarterly provide their esd program reports to me each quarter, and that's made public via the city's esd website. So if you want to know what the ecs are up to, we've got annual reports and program reports up there that are updated every quarter annually. Escs are required to present an annual report to city council talking about what they've done, their funding, the programs they offer and the successes they've had. Every five years. They're back in front of city council as well, to ask for renewal of a new five year contract for services. And every ten years, they're in front of council again to ask for reauthorization of that esd. The city also provides support for enhanced service districts as well too. So one of the main one of the main support mechanisms we provide is revenue collection and distribution services. So the city's revenue division can collect and distribute the esd fees because we have an esd coordinator position now, we also have someone who can guide these districts through the petition packet. If they want to establish an enhanced service district, renew theirs, or expand or change their boundaries quarterly. The city also has the report to the escs, the type of work and basic city services that are continued to provide in their neighborhoods. So if a district esd wants to know how many times PBOT street sweeps their district, there are past miles that they can they actual quantifiable data that we provide the sd and what the city is doing. And then as far as all contractual obligations. So as far as coming from city council making their annual reports available, city council helping to facilitate the five year contract renewals, etc. Etc. We provide that support as well. As mentioned, one of the products that came out of the 2020 audit was the creation of esd petition packet. This is the city recommended process for establishing, expanding and or reauthorizing esd. It is essentially a step by step guide that walks them through best practices on how to incorporate community engagement, and so they can build the most community driven, community supported esd proposal possible. This is a visual representation of what that looks like. So everything that's in blue is a step that is taken by the district themselves. Prior to submitting their esd petition packet to the city. So it starts at the upper left and it works its way across as you see it transition to Green. That is, those are the steps that the city takes. So once the city receives a completed enhanced service district packet from that district, we then jump in and we try to vet what is this community driven? Is it community supported? We do that through a series of mailers, public meetings and an online ratepayer ratepayer survey to gauge opposition and support for the proposal. If we can verify that there's enough support, we bring it to council and that's where we are today, which is the final Green rectangle on the lower left of the screen. Currently, Portland has three enhanced service districts. They are all centrally located in the central city. We've got the central eastside industrial district, which was established in 2019. The downtown Portland clean safe, established in 1988, and the lloyd esd established in 2001. They're all centrally located. And with that, I'd like to talk to you a little bit about the central east side and the lloyd, because budget wise and program offerings wise, they're the most analogous to the proposal you'll hear later from parkrose. So with that said, unfortunately, carolyn's unable to join us. As I mentioned, she had a scheduling conflict. If we ran later, she'd be joining us. But she did prepare remarks that I'm going to read to you. I will read them verbatim. So if you hear me reference me or I or us, it's actually her words. It's her. So we'll get started. All right. For those of you who may not be familiar with, essentially said together is the nonprofit that manages the central eastside enhanced services district. We were established in 2019 by property owners to provide services that supplement, not replace city services. Today, we represent approximately 900 ratepayers across 681 acres and include 1300 businesses and more than 22,000 employees, with priorities guided by an independent board of directors made up of district ratepayers. When people hear enhanced services districts, they often primarily think about private security. While safety is certainly part of creating a welcoming district, our role is much broader. We see ourselves as the management and placemaking partner for the central eastside. That means investing in central streets. That means investing in clean streets, connecting businesses and visitors through our ambassador program and making strategic improvements that strengthen the district as a place, as a great place to work, play and visit. This slide reflects something important about enhanced services. Districts were designed to respond to local priorities, while cleaning and safety remain our core responsibilities, our district's priorities have evolved. Each year, we survey our ratepayers and hold 6 to 8 listening sessions to understand what's changing where they want us to invest. As a result, we've expanded beyond our original focus to include district enhancements, grants, events, marketing, and other placemaking efforts to strengthen the central east side as a place to do business. Our area of ratepayers are one one area of ratepayers consistently ask us to invest in is bringing people back to the district. Over the past year, we promoted the central eastside through district branding, transit partnerships, visitor campaigns, and business promotions that encourage people to discover and support our local businesses. We've also invested in placemaking projects that make the central eastside feel welcoming, memorable and uniquely Portland. From public art and murals to lighting and landscape and streetscape improvements, these projects create pride of place while supporting economic activity. We've also created a better together grant program, which invests directly in community led ideas. Rather than deciding everything ourselves, we fund businesses and nonprofits that are creating events, public art, cultural programing and neighborhood activations. It's one of the best examples of how we can leverage relatively small investments into meaningful community impact. In our third year of funding, we've provided 23 grants totaling $131,450 back into our business community. And looking ahead, we'll continue to invest in the fundamentals, cleaning and safety while expanding the placemaking and economic development work our community has asked us to lead, noting that this fall, we will launch our annual ratepayer sessions to ensure that our work is in alignment with the ratepayer priorities. Our role is to remain responsive to them and continue strengthening the central eastside as a place where businesses can succeed, visitors can explore, and employees can thrive. I'd now like this opportunity to go ahead and introduce keith jones, executive director of the lloyd sc. The lloyd was established in 2001, and they've got approximately $685,000 budget to work with each year. This district's budget is much more analogous with what the the park rose proposal will be, so I think it'll be really important to see what the lloyd is up to.
Thanks. Thanks, kevin. Councilors. My name is keith jones. I'm the executive director of the lloyd enhanced service district. This is the borders of our district. It includes parts of broadway down to lloyd boulevard along 84 there, and then from the river to about 15th next. As devin said, we've got about $680,000 annual budget. That's probably the lowest of the three. While we do have programs that we manage directly, actually, the way that we extend those dollars is by supporting organizations in lloyd who are doing good neighborhood work that aligns with our vision and mission. One of those organizations is the lloyd community association. They are responsible for engaging small businesses and residents within lloyd. We pay approximately $20,000 to them for purely administrative costs. It goes right to venture Portland. That helps to facilitate things like the monthly coffee chats, where people can get together, and the quarterly luncheons to learn about what's going on in the neighborhoods. And then tournaments is a chance to get to know each other. Another organization that we support in lloyd is lloyd, which focuses on transportation issues. I don't think it's a big secret at all that lloyd has some of the best active transportation in the city. Three lines of max going in both directions, two lines of streetcar, lots of pedestrian walkways and bike paths, and a lot of that is due to go. Lloyd. Over the past 15 years, with matching funds from the esd, the lloyd has reinvested $2 million back into lloyd transportation issues. Thanks. This year, they've expanded a little bit more into placemaking by taking some tif funds and beautifying the neighborhood with murals. We're currently working on a giant one right now behind the Oregon convention center that will let people know that the river and downtown are right there behind the highway. The other organizations that we support is lloyd eco district. Lloyd eco district primarily does a lot of our activations this year. They've done about 110 events so far, engaging over 8000 people. They brought in about $500,000 in outside grants. And what's interesting about them is for every $1 that we give them, they bring back $4 in outside grant funding. So some of the events that you might know are the lloyd live events, which include programing at holiday park and also the very popular duckworth dock, which was previously a motorized dock that is now one of the best places to see a sunset and swim in the river in the city. Another one that I'm very proud that we support is retro dream two. We have a long term relationship with them, and when I was in lloyd community association, we made sure that we welcomed them into the neighborhood. And one thing I helped fight for was to provide operating expenses for them. And so we do that. Last year alone, they were able to serve 49,794 houseless individuals, food, clothing, blankets, hygiene and basic medical items and provided 13,138 nights of shelter and provided over 7506 showers. And then finally, one of the programs that we run is ground score. This is the cleaning program. It is something we've just started this year. This first year, they've already removed 48,000 pounds of trash, 2800 needles and 6,000 pounds of miscellaneous large items. The teams have had regular contact with 1750 unhoused community members, from whom they collected over 1000 bags of trash and 3,000 pounds of that trash was diverted from landfills. This is something that we feel has been really successful, and we're in the process right now of renewing that contract for another year. That's it for now. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.
And I think, if I may, I think the salient point that I that I hope is taken away is that each enhanced service district, those folks that make that district up that specific boundary, they get to decide what programs they want to offer based upon their needs. They're flexible to address emerging needs. And yeah, it's for the district, by the district. And with that, I thank you for the opportunity to give you this overview and open it up for questions or whatever next steps may be. Thank you.
Perfect. Thank you so much, hank and devin and keith, we appreciate you being here, and especially to keith. And please extend our gratitude to carolyn for providing us a bit of a grounding in what some of these districts look like. Colleagues, we will have public testimony on items four and five specifically related to a potential parkrose esd. We didn't extend oral testimony on this item because we were focusing testimony on those other, more specific opportunities, but we do have a few minutes now. If anybody up at the dais has technical questions about our esds, how they run and how the program runs that are helpful to, to ground ourselves in before we move into the more specific proposals before us today. I think. Councilor Ryan. Yeah, go right ahead, councilor.
Thank you chair.
Am I on.
You've dropped the microphone part.
I'm pretending this is the microphone. I'm sorry. Hi.
It's good to see the three of you. Thanks for being here. So some technical questions just to see especially. It's great to have you here, keith, as one of the newer esds. Thank you. When you all make community engage, when you do private, your private nonprofit and you make decisions on grants, how who makes those decisions? The granting decisions?
Are you referring to the central east side there esds like community grant program. Yeah.
Sorry, keith. That wasn't.
That's okay.
Yeah. You know, I wish that caroline were here to better address that. But what my understanding is, is they've got a committee of ratepayers and stakeholders from the district that receive incoming grant applications from businesses and nonprofits and community members within their district. They have a certain allotment of funds. They can distribute every like session that they have that that open and that group of community stakeholders and ratepayers get to make that decision as to what's funded. But typically, from what I recall, I don't know that they've had any that they were not able to fund or didn't fund. I think I think pretty much everyone has gotten funding from what I recall.
But it's empowered by the actual members within that district.
Yes.
The city doesn't get involved. No. Okay, great. When you were making decisions, this, I think will be with you, keith. So I've always asked questions. Why the go lloyd or the lloyd esd doesn't extend over to northeast broadway? Sure. And so I think when I look at the proposal on the table, the one that's coming up later, you know, in lloyd, there's more commercial properties, if you will, and then big government entities like the convention center. But when we got into the more retail area in northeast broadway, that's not included. Am I supposed to when I was doing some comparisons of, say, what we might be talking about later? I'm just curious, why did it stop after what looks like the lloyd center area, if you will, and the more commercial properties.
When it was the first established.
When it was first established, we you didn't include the northeast broadway area, the more retail part of the district.
I was not here for that discussion, but I feel like it was more. It was more related to the borders of the neighborhood itself. What is lloyd and the the borders that I see for community association, what's considered the lloyd reflect this. This neighborhood, our borders currently. I agree with you, though, that I've lived I lived in lloyd for ten years. I feel like northeast broadway is an extension of lloyd or a vital part of it. And I feel like there should be more interaction. I've. I've. I have a good relationship with neba as a result of that. And our organizations also support like I know that lloyd district has done some work over in northeast broadway, so there is a little bit of overlap. I'm bound where I can spend my money and it's within the borders. And that's unfortunate because as you know, even with the lloyd center relocation right now, that's a prime opportunity to, to, to, to fill up some spaces there too. So I agree with you. That's something that should be, it's interesting to think about that being part of.
And.
And I think that's the complications of some of these areas. They tend to show up in areas where there's more foot traffic, where there's more people coming from elsewhere to populate the space, and there's livability concerns with some of that in and out activity. And so those that are there want to make sure it's protected. We heard testimony earlier, unrelated, but related from lower irvington, which is basically the area that we were talking about in northeast broadway. And I was thinking, well, does this sd that you're a part of is, is that some aspirin to the headaches that were being spoken to? I don't know, but let's face it, this is all connected to the ecosystem of what we're discussing today.
I do know that there were discussions at one point about northeast broadway starting their own sd. It didn't feel like it. I'm not sure what happened within the process itself, but that is something that they were very much interested in and maybe something that we could look at with lloyd in combining forces there, because there's a lot of overlap.
And starting anything is difficult. This would go back to hank and devin, and I think it's always chicken and egg on these kind of conversations. And it's often a controversy on how to get started and who's who's on first at the beginning, who's who's included early on. So are the boards of directors that that are prominent once they're established. So when you're building, say, a community nonprofit, you often start with a group of board member types that help build something. So is that the prototype of these, or does the board of directors come after formal action by the city, which to me seems a little bit off on the chicken and egg. But again, I'm thinking out loud with all of you.
Yeah, really good question. Part of our enhanced or sd petition packet asks interested parties. And typically that is addressing like community nonprofits that want to explore the creation of their own. Sd one of the first steps that is spelled out in that sd handbook is I'm sorry, sc petition packet is to develop what's called a leadership group, and that is a group of stakeholders from that community who are likely to become potential ratepayers if it is passed by city council. So that is one of the first steps is asked is create a leadership group that's outside of your own nonprofit that can help speak for the district and help guide those 40,000 foot view. Steps along the way. Then below that is a working group creating the creation of working groups, which is they typically meet much more frequently and help really guide it also to the leadership group I mentioned is because that is the one who, who, who ideally would morph into the ratepayer advisory board. But that's one of the first steps in the petition packet is this form. That group.
Is a community leadership group. And I wasn't talking about them coming from a nonprofit. I was thinking more of the ecosystem that I understand better, which is when you're trying to start maybe a nonprofit, you start with that same idea. And of course, within that, it's very messy because of course, you have dissent about how you're going to build it, what's it's going to look like. So I'll wait until we get to the next items. But I wanted to ask technical questions about the history of these so I can better understand the next topics. So that's what I'm kind of grabbing at. And what have what have you learned from coming from seattle doing this work? And would you say the audit that was done, where do you how, what, what improvements have we made that you're proud of? And where do you think we can keep improving when it comes to the creation of these.
That's a good that's a good question. Yeah. For those who don't know, I've spent about ten years in the esd field, both working for an esd in Washington and seattle, and then also working here as the city's enhanced service district coordinator. So I've seen it from both sides, and it's been about a decade of my life working on this work. What I can say is that when I first was brought in to this position in 2023, there wasn't really anything in the way of oversight, really, for the most part. I mean, the city was still grappling with trying to hire someone into this position so they can start making strides towards addressing the 2020 audit. So yeah, I think the audit probably was was 100% correct. And there was just lacking on city oversight and guidance. Since then, we've taken a number of steps. We've we've looked to our partners in Vancouver, bc, seattle, Washington, oakland, california, denver, colorado, lethbridge, canada, and a few others to basically try to to put together the most comprehensive enhanced service district program we can. That does provide guidance, transparency, oversight so that we can build or partner with districts to make sure that they are building community driven, community supported esds. I think we've made a ton of a lot of strides towards addressing that, which is great. Is there room for improvement? There's always room for improvement in anything, so we'll keep plugging away to make sure we've got the best system here that works for as many portlanders as possible.
Thank you chair, that was helpful for me to just get a little bit more of a grounding, fundamental aspect of what these programs are and how the other ones came on. Before we start talking about the next frontier, which is really moving away from central city and looking at, I think, more properties that aren't commercial like they are in the central area. So I'm not surprised that we're having some messy growing pains as we explore further. That was an editorial comment that I probably shouldn't have made, but I wanted to let you know that it was helpful to have this presentation prior to diving into the rest. Thanks.
Yeah. And adding on to that, if I may, councilor, that the most recent esc that was established was in 2019. And, you know, at that time, there was no roadmap, there was no esc petition packet, there was no esc handbook, there were no guiding principles or rules the city laid out or had. So what you'll hear today is the first group to really have gone through this process with what we have in place now, which in my opinion, is a very compact plan to make sure that these communities are putting together, like I said, a community driven, community supported proposal that we, the city then vet after that.
Thank you very much. Thank you, councilor Ryan, for those questions. Councilor Avalos, go right ahead.
All right. Thank you. And I'll have some more thoughts to share later about everything. But just to get a couple of questions on the record, can you talk to us about how was support from property owners measured before bringing this to council? Just tell me about how you you did that. I know we're going to hear from a lot of folks in a moment, so I wanted to hear you explain that in your words.
Good question. I would like to actually just pull this slide back up here real fast, if I may.
And I do want to make sure we get through our general questions so we can have you all key up the specific proposal. So let's not get too deep into the next presentation.
You got it. That makes sense. I'm just going back here to this visual representation. There we go. So as far as outreach goes, like I said, everything here in the blue rectangles, that's that's that's where it all starts. And that and in this case that you'll hear in the next two ordinances that are, that are brought forth to you today. Historic park rose and their leadership group had to had to take all these blue rectangle steps here. So in that and again, without going too deep, I mean, high level, they did 46 different meetings. They did a whole bunch of outreach. They had their leadership group, their working groups, they did mailers, they did social media. They did a ton of stuff and then eventually put together their, their esd petition packet and submitted it to the city at that point. Then we had to vet, well, is this community supported and community driven? So what we did was we did a series of mailers to, to the addresses within the proposed boundaries. We also held two public meetings in partnership with the leadership group to put this proposal forth. We also had an online proposed ratepayer survey designed to capture support or opposition for this. And if we could vet that, there seemed to be enough community support for it, we would then bring it to city council, and that is the case.
Great. Thank you. I just wanted to hear more clearly and just how you're measuring it, right. Like of course, yeah, you did the outreach, but how do you measure what that yielded? And I just wanted to make sure we had that on the record. I have some other questions, but I'll leave it at that. But I'll leave you one question that you can answer maybe later. I just want to understand from your perspective as like the esd program, how the city ensures that esd funded services complement rather than replace baseline city services. I think that's a big question I'm hearing in the district. And so I just want to I'll put a pin in that that we could talk about later. Unless you have a quick answer you want to share now.
Yeah, I do have a quick, quick response for that. So in our city contract with esds, we have an exhibit b where the esd typically outlines their scope of work. They're going to provide for their ratepayers. And then there's exhibit c, where the city spells out their basic city services and frequency thereof. And so it's really spelled out in the contract. And that is, I think amendment a on the second ordinance, I believe for today. But yeah, we've got a contract that spells out and helps delineate that difference.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Great. Thank you, councilor Morillo. Go right ahead.
Thank you. And some of these questions might be better for the second presentation. So feel free to let me know that and we can move along. I was curious about the esds. So, you know, we're giving the broad overview of how they work. So the folks that live within the boundary and have to pay those rates, they do not get to elect the board members. Correct.
That is. Well, it depends. It's really it is that esd priority and how they set that board up so there can be broad elections. It's something that that independent nonprofit decides and we don't the city get to have purview over that.
Okay. Have any of the separate nonprofits decided to hold elections for these ratepayer funded districts?
Do you
Have.
A response for you.
I mean, we just held elections recently. We have a nominating board committee within our esd that names people. I recently I put forward a condo owner because I felt like a residential voice was important. But that's typically how we do it is through a.
And my understanding with the other two as well is that anyone can can email in or reach, reach out to that sc and ask to be considered to be on the board. And they have election committees amongst that board member, those board members there as well too, but they do have regular annual elections on that.
Okay. That's helpful context. And obviously, I think this district, the funding for it seems much smaller than like the downtown sd, for example. Are they also going to have sort of the private security stuff that we see? None of that. I see you shaking your head. No.
Okay. Out of the three sd, there's only one that has private security at this point, and there's no intention you'll you'll you'll hear in the next presentation, there's no intention to have it in park rows either.
Okay. And is any more funding from this sd going to be going towards the Portland metro chamber the way that the other esds do?
I don't know how to best respond to that question because I don't have the context for that. What I can say is the next presentation will explain their budget and what their priorities will be, and we can cover that in that presentation.
Yeah. I believe part of the sd funding funds, the metro chamber's salaries. So I'm just curious how much of this is going towards that.
Not not for lloyd.
Not for lloyd.
No, no. Or essentially side.
Just the downtown one.
Downtown clean and safe has a relationship with Portland metro chamber. My understanding.
They do staff sharing. Is that some cost overhead, cost sharing, office space and other technical things like phones and office supplies, etc. Etc. But yeah, they're the only ones that have any kind of relationship with Portland metro.
Okay, great. Those are all my questions. Thanks.
Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Zimmerman, you want to close out this section for us?
Thank you. I appreciate this kind of rundown of the process. I have worked with all three of the esds and all the main players in them over the years. And so your work really has made a lot of the century seattle a hell of a lot better, right? It is. It is really important work. It's been great. And it what I find most interesting, having worked extensively with all three, is that each of the esds has created a unique culture that is quite different from their their sister agencies, and I am excited about the future topics that are coming up today, because I know that that same individualized type of culture for an esd will exist in the next one and the next one. And I think that's actually the goal. I find that very important in terms of that, that those those micro downtowns that exist all over downtown, all over the city of Portland are the thing that I think make us a pretty special city. And so it's, it should be expected that an esd or a business district from, you know, downtown saint john's feels different than in in lloyd feels different in division, feels different in downtown Portland, feels different in lloyd. And so those are just those are those are great. I remind all of us and remind the city that the term enhanced service district is really important here, given where we've come from since 20, I'd say 18 or 19. I think there's a real argument to be said that maybe the city started pulling back from what would have been considered basic city services. And I think that this shouldn't be forgotten as we bolster enhanced service districts, enhanced service relies on a baseline existing and unfortunately, particularly, you know, we did when I was at Multnomah county with julia edwards as the commissioner, we did that pilot out on the gateway area, right between the city of Portland, TriMet Multnomah county, because they were also thinking about an enhanced service district in gateway. But really that was a response to us failing in the basic services, right? Basic services is that your trash gets picked up. That's not enhanced, but there sure are a lot of esds who have to do basic trash pickup basic services is that graffiti gets addressed, but there sure are a lot of esds who have to do a lot of graffiti cleanups. And so esds are important, but they cannot become the crutch that allows government to not invest in the basic services. And I find that incredibly important. And I want us to remember that as we look at all of the neighborhoods who I think we should encourage, this is a. You've laid out, devin, just a great process for. If you're interested, this is the way to do it, to be respectful of everybody's take. It's not right for every neighborhood. It's not right for every business district. I understand that, but you've laid out a process that I think people can track and say, I'd like to shape the culture of a future one in my area this way or that way, but it doesn't. And the city and our bureaus and our electeds up here, we cannot forget that enhanced districts can't exist if there's no basic district. And we are the basic district. And I don't know that we've always met that. Right. And particularly these last six years, we have we have pulled back from, as councilor Clark says, getting back to basics. And I think we really, really have to take a look at that, because if we get to a world where enhanced service districts are the only thing that provides what people think of when they think of their city government, we have really failed. We've missed the mark. And you have to question why we exist as a city government if we can't do that. So I'm all in on on allowing this process and letting different neighborhoods shape how they will. I look forward to, you know, the three that exist today, your continued evolution. You've all evolved a lot over the last five and ten years, and it's been fun to work with you. And I appreciate your work. Your members work, your volunteers work and your staffs work. So thanks to those who were able to make it. And I, I know caroline would love to be here. I've worked with her extensively as well. Thanks you guys.
Great. Thank you, councilor, and thank you all for that overview and just grounding us in how our esds work. I appreciate it and truly a special thanks, keith, to you for coming over today to do that. Colleagues, we are going to close this agenda item and do something a little funky with the order here. I'm going to have us open agenda items four and five have our councilors from district one introduce the parkrose esd have us take a break, because we haven't actually given our staff a break yet this meeting, and then come back to hear the presentations on those items. And then we have about 25 people signed up for testimony. I will need to break us from those items at 445, so that we can really quickly hear the last item on our agenda, which is a time sensitive item. So we're going to try to get through all of the testimony today, and then see if we have time to have our discussion as well or not. So with that, can you please move us on to the next two agenda items, which we'll be opening together? Wendy.
Yes. Thank you. Opening item number 42026-234. Adopt district property management license code to create parkrose forward enhanced services district and establish property management license fees and district boundaries. Adding code section 6.06.40026.06.450 and item five, document number 2026-235. Authorize agreement with historic parkrose for management services of the parkrose forward enhanced services district for an estimated amount of $3,876,970 over five years.
Great. Thank you so much, council president Dunphy, this is your neighborhood. Would you like to kick us off? And I'm not sure if we still have councilor Smith in the room, but I will turn to her if she is here and to councilor Avalos for anything else they'd like to add after. Go right ahead. Council president.
Well, thank you very much. Yeah. For the record, my name is Jamie Dunphy. I have the honor of serving as a Portland city councilor, representing district one. And as the chair just noted, I do live in the parkrose neighborhood. And so I'm here today to support my strong to voice my strong support for the proposed parkrose esd. As we all know, Portland has been an afterthought of city services from the day the city border moved over us. It's not just unpaved roads and missing sidewalks, it's the lack of regular services, emergency services and special accommodations that every part of our city is accustomed to. Parkrose businesses and residents pay into the system but don't receive their fair share of services. They've dealt with slow and inconsistent city response and neglect for years. That has resulted in safety concerns, illegal dumping, vacant storefronts, graffiti and a growing unhoused population with little to no access to services. Yet these business owners and residents continue to show up for their customers and for their neighbors. In a perfect world, we would be serving every part of our system equally, but we don't live in a perfect world. The proposed esd is one tool in our toolbox to let these businesses continue to help themselves. The esd allows us to utilize supplemental services as a layer of support for law enforcement, public works and maintenance and homeless services, and the esd service providers will be dedicated to providing those day to day levels of service, maintenance, security and intervention to only this specific geographic area, which, as anyone who may have grown up in the city knows, parkrose is kind of a weird little island where separated from the rest of the city by I 205 to the west, I-84 to the south, and the columbia river to the north. It. Honestly, growing up in northeast Portland, I didn't know where parkrose was. It really believes, though, that because of that uniqueness, we. We express. We have some specific unique challenges. For example, parkrose is not part of the east police precinct. It's part of the north police precinct, meaning that we have to have our police officers responding from north Portland. This esd could potentially alleviate some of the burden on those north precinct officers and other city services, like graffiti or loitering, so that there can they can be there when it matters. And when seconds count, we. As was said by some here today, some of these esds have some vaguely troubling history. And we can point to examples where our. Across the region where historically we fell short of what was promised. But parkrose forward is not downtown clean and safe. It is not the central east side together. It is not lloyd. It is, as councilor Zimmerman was saying, it will be its own unique, reflective version of the community. Its smaller, hyper local and designed around the specific conditions of the sandy boulevard commercial corridor and the industrial district north of sandy. It was built on recommendations that came out of the 2020 auditor's report and implements clear metrics, public reporting, annual work plans, transparent budgets, city oversight, and meaningful communication with ratepayers and community members as its structural foundation. And these folks have worked tirelessly to build strong community partnerships with organizations who serve the most vulnerable populations that were being criminalized and displaced instead of being met where they were at and served as part of that community. This isn't a perfect solution, but we won't know how close to perfect we can get if we don't try. As I said, I live in parkrose. These businesses and residents are my neighbors. I have a personal vested interest in seeing my neighborhood thrive. And as one of the first city councilors representing this area of town, I am determined to use every tool in my toolbox to support my neighbors and build the kind of community every parkrose resident knows as possible. So I urge you all to support this after we get the formal presentation and you know, the details of what we're actually going to be supporting. Thank you, colleagues, for the opportunity to talk with us.
Thank you, council president. We appreciate you being here. I think we lost councilor Smith. I don't see her in the back. Councilor Avalos, is there anything you'd like to add now before we take a break and get the presentation? Okay. You're going to hold your remarks. Perfect. Then we are going to take a 15 minute break. We will be back here. We're actually going to take a 13 minute break to make the time keeping easier. We will back be back here at 345. And we will jump right into the presentation on agenda items four and five. Hey. Oh, I do have this. Look at that. Order. Thank you all for your patience as we took a quick break there. And we are in the middle of items or beginning I guess, but into items four and five, we are going to have a presentation that I believe devin will come back up to lead for us with folks from the parkrose forward, esd, ratepayer board of directors, and from the executive director of historic parkrose, we will then move into any technical questions and then public testimony, and I will flag that. We do have, I believe, 25 people signed up for public testimony. Last I checked, maybe even more so. Devin, if you are ready, why don't we have you and our folks from the parkrose forward group as well as historic parkrose? Come on up. And colleagues ultimately will have these two items before us that will be discussing, but we will hear a joint presentation, and we'll take testimony jointly on both of them because they're ultimately leading us to the the same outcome here. And as folks get ready, I will say I know that our security team made an announcement about making sure that we are all following those rules of order. I would just ask that we all try to treat every speaker, whether we agree with them or not, especially as we move into public testimony as well with a high level of respect, knowing that this is an issue where often there there is disagreement and there are really strong, strong concerns, strong support, strong positions on all sides. Devin, when you've got that presentation up, why don't we have you all go ahead and jump right in. And for our presenters, as you prepare to give your portion of the presentation, if you can introduce yourself so that we have that on the record, that would be very helpful for our clerks team.
The microphone is on check, check check check, check.
I think they're getting it for you. Adam, give me the thumbs up when we're ready.
Check check check check check. Mic check. Mic check. You've got a Green light here. So it looks like.
So these are all.
Picking things up. And I'll note for the other speakers that I do believe the mics are still all picking things up for the recording and the online version. So just note that as you're up.
There, check, check check check check check.
Thank you.
Okay, cool.
So we've got we've got microphones now. Wonderful. Great. So continuing on from the previous presentation and moving forward to the park rose the proposed park rose forward. Sd just reminding that that the sd are for the community by the community and they are really designed to improve economic the economic or the community resiliency district vitality and economic vitality. So here with us, I guess honestly, I don't need to reintroduce anyone here today because you did such a good job, chair pirtle-guiney so we're going to move on, and I'm going to kick it over to executive director of historic park rose, hector marquez.
Hi, council members, thank you so much for listening to us. We started this process around a year ago, may 2025, and I'm going to be very candid. At the beginning, I was not very. Confident that it was the best tool. But after analyzing with a lot of care and input from our business community, I changed my mind and I changed my mind because as you know, park rose is a community that has been underserved for way too long. Way before that, I was here. And the results, especially after COVID, are. Sad, are very depressive. We have issues not only with security but also homelessness, narcotrafficking and drug addiction, prostitution, you name it, right? Unfortunately, as council member Dunphy expressed, we don't have basic services. The response of the police is to long. The cleanups in the streets are not often enough. You can see open prostitution in the middle of the day. The same with drug addiction houselessness, which is a shame for our community that has been in that situation for way too long. So that's why we started the process to figure out if there was a tool that the city and the community could use to improve the material conditions of our community. And so because of all those things, we started that process and we decided that we wanted to engage in, in community to see what were the needs, the most, most pressing needs, and what were the possible solutions that this city has to offer? And that's how we started that exploration.
Sorry, I forgot about that. Yeah. So there are a few slides you'll recognize from the previous presentation, this one being just reiterating the fact that we now, as of 2024, have an esd petition packet, which is the city's recommended process for establishing, renewing and or changing boundaries of an esd. This is essentially a step by step guide on what to do to make sure there is a community driven, community supported proposal at the end of it. This is another slide you've seen before, again, kind of visually showing the process. So here a historic park rose in the park. Rose leadership group undertook all these blue steps here. And once they put together a proposal that they felt was again, community driven, community supported, they turned in an esd petition packet to the city. And then all the Green steps are the steps that we took as the city to verify that that was indeed the case. We did so via multiple mailers. We did so via multiple public meetings and via an online ratepayer survey, to make sure we can give ratepayers an opportunity to officially oppose or support the program. What I'll note is the survey was open for 60 days or more than 60 days. We were able to identify that there was with that survey, less than 5% of the potential ratepayers that took that step were in opposition to this proposal. And now we're at the last step here, which is bringing the city council.
So we we we delivered to the city our package on April 8th. And that package is proposing the following services. These services, by the way, were a product of a swot analysis that we made with the work group that is confirmed by ratepayers that that will be ratepayers in the future. District cleaning is not only. Cleaning is. We. Thanks to canada's Avalos and our partnership, we managed to run a test with cultivate initiatives that started just in sandy boulevard, and that then got expanded to the rest of the map in the district. Unfortunately, the funding for that ended, but the results were great. People were noticing not only cleaner streets, but also less encampments, etc. So it's not just cleaning, it's going, it's addressing the, not the, the human condition as well. Now another service is ambassadors and outreach services. This is to address the problem of security. We do have a lot of security issues, but what we don't believe in armed security as a solution, right. That's the job of the police. The police has a lot of constraints and we understand those. So we were thinking, how can we support our police department and also our day. So we talked to them to see which solutions they were or which what kind of help they needed. And one of the things that they noted was that because in parkrose, people tend to not report things, given the fact that we are underserved, they don't have the statistics to, you know, prove that we need more help. So one way of addressing this is by having people in the streets being the eyes and ears that talk to businesses and community to see how they can support it and how they can choose the right authority to report these things to be more efficient. We've been working with both the police department and the da's office to make sure there's coordination and and we want to expand that to the territory of the esd, not only to the historic parkrose area, which is only sandy boulevard from 205 to 120 second. Then, of course, business engagement and support programs, grants, activations, etc. That will depend on the board, board of ratepayers and very, very important district advocacy. I think that right now, parkrose does not have a structure that functions as a voice that brings to you the the issues and the problematics that we live day by day. And I think that structure needs to be built. And the esd is a perfect tool to create that synergy between council members, the county as well as the mayor's office and whoever else wants to participate. Our budget is approximately 600 000 more accurately, 644,000 up to right now. And we had a large community engagement process we created podcast websites. In our website. We have our rate calculator to make sure that everyone has access to see what the rates are going to look like. We created, we have a presence in social media that is constant. It hasn't ended. We still trying to educate. We had more than 50 meetings with different actors that will participate in the esd. We sent 171 mailers to make sure that every ratepayer was was aware of what was happening. We've canvased multiple times around door to door, having conversations to people, with people. We have different versions of fliers with different targets. We partnered with the cc to, to make sure that we could contact our, our industrial side of the community. They've contacted around 82 businesses. They've visited 126 industrial lots. They've tried to contact around 80 property managers. They made around 160 calls. So it was an extensive, almost a year process where we tried to reach out to get people to participate. And in this slide, you can see the boundaries. The boundaries is basically from 205 to 120 second sandy boulevard all the way to the slu. We chose that boundary because we thought that was manageable to start being that this is a community that is commercial and industrial, very similar to one of the other isds that we have. So we thought that it was more manageable not only for the establishment, but also for the first stage of, of an esd to start smaller and see if there is interest, interest in other neighborhoods to be added. We've had a couple conversations with our neighbors, and they are interested in starting the process to see if in the future they also want to be an esd or to be added to an existing esd. If that passes.
Good afternoon. My name is roger copi. I'm the lead revenue and tax specialist for the property management license fee and the revenue division. I'm going to present this one slide to you. This is how the park district will get their revenue stream, how they're going to be funded. So generally the esd code's 6.06 categorizes properties into three categories nonresidential, residential and exempt in parkrose. What they are proposing is the same formula for both nonresidential and for residential properties. However, the residential properties will have a cap on them and not all residential properties will be subject to the fee. We'll get to that in a second. So let me talk about the the the residential properties will have a cap. So we'll talk about the nonresidential first, the formula or the amount of each property will be assessed will be determined by taking the square root of the land on which a building sits, a property, real property parcel. Multiplying that times $8 to that will take the square root of the building on that land and multiply that times $20. So those two sub calculations added together will get us to the annual fee assessment for any given property. For residential properties. However, again, the same formula, but there will be some exemptions. Like I said, as far as you know, they may not have to pay. Typically the exemption is depends on district by district owner occupied properties with their own water services are exempt in all districts. That typically manifests itself as a single family residence. Parkrose is going one step further. When you look at properties that are duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes, they don't typically have each unit, or each dwelling unit doesn't typically have its own water service, so they will also exempt owner occupied dwelling units in a duplex, in a triplex and a fourplex. Once you get over four plexes, you're talking, you're getting into apartment buildings. Those will be subject to the fee. However, there will be a cap on how much those apartment buildings will be assessed, and that cap is $150 per unit. Unless it's affordable housing, then that cap is $35 per unit.
Per year.
And then lastly, the.
Per year.
Was that.
That's per year. Is that correct?
Correct. Annually. Correct. Sorry. And then the fee will be adjusted annually by inflation. This is what clean and safe uses. We look at the consumer price index averaged over the course of a year. And whatever that change year, year to year change is, then the fee increases by that amount. Parkrose has opted to put a cap on that so that if inflation is greater than 6.5% for a year, it will be capped at 6.5%. They've also opted for a floor, so it would be great if that ever happens. But if inflation ever was below 2.5%, then the floor will be 2.5%.
And I'll oh, this is a part of an outreach and engagement. Well, as I mentioned, we, we did an extensive outreach program. We, we talked to a lot of people. A lot of people wanted to participate. That's how we formed the workgroup, right? Like part of that outreach was like, we want your input, not only because we're, we're only the conduit, right? Like we're not the owners, we're just the vehicle to form this. It's a, it's a community structure. So we were worried that the structure needed to be strong from the foundation. So we tried to work with people that not only were passionate about it, but also had a stake on it.
Yeah.
And while that previous slide talked about the community outreach and engagement that was conducted by parkrose, the community, this slide covers the community outreach engagement that was done by the city after we got their esd petition packet. So stewart park rose and the leadership group worked from June 2025 to April 2026 on their esd strategic plan, submitted their esd petition packet in April 26th and after that, then we stood up our proposed park rose forward esd website on the city's webpage so that we can inform the community and keep things up to date. We sent out our first round of mailers to at least 272 addresses that were that were within the proposed esd boundaries in April. We also stood up our proposed ratepayer survey so we could have that online and start gauging opposition and support. In may, we held our second public meeting on may 12th. We also continue collecting survey data on support and opposition from ratepayers online. And then in June, we we closed that survey on June 15th. It was open for more than 60 days. We sent a second round of mailers out to at least 272 addresses within the boundaries. Notify them of this hearing and of the steps that we're at now. And then July, we are here at the city life committee hearing. And as mentioned earlier, the results of the proposed ratepayer survey was less than 5% of the ratepayers that chose to use that channel were in opposition.
Good afternoon, city councilors. My name is Olivia spitzer, and I'm here representing spitzer technology consulting, which is a business that my husband and I run in the parkrose neighborhood. We moved to parkrose seven years ago, specifically because of that iteration that councilor Dunphy mentioned. That cross between 205 and 80 for our particular business, requires us to be able to get on the road and go out and solve tech emergencies for businesses all over the city. Beaverton, Gresham, all the way up to longview, Washington. So that crossing makes our lives a lot easier. And that's the reason why we chose to move our family to parkrose. Eventually, as the business grew, we rented an office space on the other side of sandy. So we are both business owners and residents of the parkrose neighborhood. We also had a baby two years ago, so we're parents there as well. We've had the experience of having our business broken into. Two people, took a stolen car, drove it through the garage door of our warehouse and stole about $100,000 worth of computers. We've also had the experience of having someone throw a rock through our window at our home, which I will tell you, one of those was a lot scarier and it was the rock. We really love parkrose. We love our neighbors, we love the community. We really appreciate working with other small businesses in the area. We run community movie nights out of the coffee shop with our equipment that we have for events, and we want to see parkrose thrive. But we also cannot deny that there are a lot of things standing in the way. And for that reason, I decided to reach out to historic parkrose and see how I could get involved in trying to make our neighborhood better, which kind of naturally turned into me becoming part of this esd effort. And if we are approved, I would serve on the governing board as a ratepayer and a representative of a business in the neighborhood. I know that something needs to change. I believe that this is the change that we need to do.
Good afternoon councilors. My name is charles mcgee. I work with workplace change. Workplace change is a human human resources organization headquartered right in parkrose. We live during challenging and unique times, and parkrose neighborhood is a lot different than the neighborhood that I grew up in adjacent to as a young person, property values are changing dramatically. Many longtime residents and small businesses continue to face safety crisis. Our business has not only experienced someone decided to take all the copper off the building a couple of years ago. We've had two windows broken since the pilot has ended. We're experiencing these challenges. Parkrose has inadequate infrastructure, limited neighborhood investments. Despite being one of portland's gem neighborhoods, parkrose has fewer community amenities and continues to face displacement pressures every day. At workplace change, we work with organizations to inspire one simple truth places thrive when people choose to invest together. As the proposed enhanced service district is not asking to replace city responsibilities. I believe one of the councilors spoke to that earlier. We still want the city to be a partner in this effort, but we also know that as a community, we have to take this on and we have to address our needs, because if we do not, no one else will. Yes, in many ways this is another cost. And this is another set of meetings that, you know, especially as small business owners, we don't want to do, but we know that we have to do this. What we're asking you is to give parkrose the tools to partner with the city in a meaningful way so we can create a cleaner, stronger business ecosystem, safer spaces, and greater community and local accountability. Portland's comeback will not happen if neighborhoods like parkrose are not at the center of it. Parkrose has to be a part of this comeback story, and we respectfully ask that you remove this. You move this proposal forward. Thank you all for your work.
So yeah, we're we're asking the council to to move forward with ordinance one and ordinance two as well. Thank you so much.
Ordinance one being established, the parkrose forward sd ordinance to being authorized city administrator to execute the contract for sd services. If both ordinances are passed ultimately by the full council, then. Parkrose. The timeline looks like this. Parkrose sd or parkrose ford sd would be established July 1st, 2027. They would be approved for ten year life cycle with two five year contracts with the city, which means they'd be back in front of council every five years. City code 6.06 would also oversee them, as well as an esd board of ratepayers, and then they'd be beholden to all the contractual transparency and oversight obligations that were mentioned earlier today as well, which is to hold regular board meetings to quarterly report on all their programmatic successes and and or not successes. So just numbers on their programs and annually share report with city council and hold one board meeting, at least one board meeting open to all ratepayers every year. With that, that concludes the presentation.
Thank you, all. Colleagues. I'm going to ask us to just stick to very technical questions, because we have 35 minutes and 25 people or more signed up to testify. Councilor Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman: Thank you. I want to make sure I understand right parkrose is larger than the map that you've proposed in your presentation here. In my review of the map, it it is really just a couple of lots south of sandy. Along the way. I want to make sure I've got that right. And I say it just having worked with some esds, it's it's an unusual map. It was smaller than I was expecting in terms of the the business district area, but I'm getting head nods that that is accurate. You mentioned that 5% of those who took the survey were against it. Can we talk about out of and I don't know, the number out of potential ratepayers. How many people what was the percentage that actually took it though?
Good question.
There we go. Good question. We had I don't have the numbers in front of me. What I what I really honed in on was that there was the majority that took it were not actually within the boundaries that are being proposed for the esd. The five, the 5% are less than 5% were composed of two ratepayers that old that own multiple properties within the proposed boundary. So out of the ones that took it, the majority that took it were not actually in the proposed boundary. But. But I don't have the I don't remember the exact numbers.
Okay.
And then can you talk a little bit, given the, you know, litter a long time? They're fairly familiar with some of these areas, but there's a, there was a deliberateness around this map not going much further south than sandy. So that means not the high school, not along shaver. These are when we talk about park roads, these are areas we usually kind of think about. Can you talk a little bit about what that you drew a map that was very technically included, because we spent a lot of time in this presentation on residential ratepayers. And while you were doing it, I went around and I think I counted the number of residential properties. It's very small from what I can tell. So. Can somebody answer what the map generation was, what your what your motivations were with respect to that?
Yeah. Thank you so much for your question. The reasoning was the commercial districts exist on sandy boulevard. Everything closer to northeast weigand is residential. And given the fact that our residential area is. So it's there's not a lot of commercial property. There was not a lot of interest on on expanding that way.
And in part it was for the sensitivities around displacement and some of the sort of the economic stuff. We really were thoughtful about realizing sort of the intersection that parkrose currently sits in and how to, how to, how to how do you start an effort like this in a neighborhood that has been divested, that has not been invested in, that needs to generate revenue in a way that's thoughtful.
Thank you. And the last last, because I'm sure some other questions I'll get into it in terms of the governing and what the initial board would would look like. Can you talk a little bit about is that makeup? What are we talking nonprofit? Are we talking profit? Are we talking resident? What is the makeup of a board, given that the rest of the country calls these business improvement districts, we call them enhanced service districts? But there's a business aspect to this, and I'm trying to get a sense for this.
And ratepayers are owners of commercial property or business.
I know, but now out of out of that, it sounds like you have some who are selected maybe to serve in the future board. Have you identified the board already and what does that make up?
Yes, the makeup is according to the bylaws, actually, we're trying to make to create a balance between industrial and commercial. So right now, as it is, we have a balance of commercial and industrial. That is 6040.
Okay.
Yeah. Having the 60%.
And then I would just go back. It would be helpful as this conversation continues to get a sense for you cited the 5% a few times in 5% is the opposition would be helpful to understand how many even took it who were qualified to take it. The survey to get a sense for that, because this is a sensitive area where we're imposing a rate that's a tax, in all normal words, a new tax on a group. And I want to get a sense for like who participated in saying, yes, I want to be a part of this. So that would be helpful to, to find some more information about. Thanks.
Okay. I think we are going to move to public testimony. Now, I will note that when we get into council deliberation, which may be at a later date, I will have some questions about the outreach as well. So just a fair warning there, wendy. I'd like to get through as many people as we can. I think we have limited testimony to two minutes per person, and I will be doing a hard stop at two minutes so that we can make sure to hear from as many people as possible and as folks come up. I'll note that we are having these tech issues still. Oh, we're not. We have microphones that work. Perfect.
Check, check.
Okay, then we will proceed as normal. And if we can call up five people at a time so we can try to hear from as many as possible, why don't we go ahead and jump in.
Thank you. Yes. Oh, no.
No. No I can't.
Jared. Hanan patel, kareem.
Hassan. Jen. Helene. Annette. Stanhope, could you all please come up and you'll note the timer will display on the screen there and you'll hear two dings. The first one when you have 30s left left to testify, please go ahead.
Okay. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, chair and committee members. My name is jared watumull. Speaking on behalf of watermill properties, my family company. We own the park rose business center, which is about six, 16 or so acres of industrial land in the park rose area. And I'm here today to ask you to vote no on this effort. I want to be clear we're not against a cleaner, safer park rose, but we're against a mandatory ten year fee that we don't get to vote on. It funds zero additional police officers and that we can't opt out of individually if we don't feel like it's working. Here's what this actually does. It collects roughly $644,000 a year, over 7,000,000/10 years from 272 properties. It is called the fee, but it's mandatory city collected and based on property ownership. That's a tax in every practical sense and just without a vote of the people paying it. The money funds graffiti removal, cleaning safety ambassadors, but not police, not law enforcement. Nothing that addresses why our tenants deal with break ins and thefts. Once approved, we're locked in. For a decade, the only exit of owners representing a third of the total revenue formally object, meaning we have to organize our neighbors to undo what one council vote created. Spending decisions would sit with a nonprofit board, not elected officials, that we can hold accountable. Our tenants are already absorbing rising costs and real uncertainty before committing hundreds of owners to ten years of mandatory payments, or as a direct vote on people paying for it. We own other properties throughout the Portland metro area, including a couple in the central eastside district. We're already part of an esd and we've seen no tangible benefit from it as a property owner, just additional fees and taxes. I'm asking this committee to vote no. We do not need to burden property owners and in turn our tenants with additional costs. Thank you.
Myself. I am a business owner as well as a residential owner in parkrose district. I'm here to urge an approval of esd in my day to day life. We are scared to walk on the streets along with my kids. A lot of shooting happens on the streets openly. The people, people carrying weapons openly on the streets. I, as a mom, I never keep my kids along with me though I am a residential owner on sandy boulevard, I have to keep my kids away from me to my parents or my in-laws. We miss that time with my kids. There are always commercial corridors and public spaces that are struggling with facilities that are really needed. We need reliable, localized way to manage and maintain our streets to ensure a safe, vibrant environmental for everyone. The esd provides targeted funding and dedicated management that we need to keep our area clean, welcoming and spatially to have our economies strong. There is always an open prostitution on the streets. A lot of homeless people making tents outside our property, asking them open, asking them to live on the sidewalk of the property. They always answer us that this is a government property. So we. We lose our we lose a lot of businesses. The prostitutes coming in my property, knocking my business doors. So even I lose a huge contract which was on which was really helping me to pay my bills. So the question comes here when the when there is always prostitutes standing outside the properties, how are we going to get good customers? How are we going to pay our bills? Who is going to be responsible to pay huge amount of taxes and huge amount of bills on behalf of a business owner? Thank you.
All right.
Good afternoon. Thank you, councilors, for having us. My name is karim hassanein and I'm a six year resident of parkrose community engagement specialist and co-chair of the space tif district. Although I'm only speaking for myself today, I've tried to read nearly every piece of
Have written testimony that was submitted in advance of this meeting, both in support and in opposition, because it's all valuable and it helps inform me as a resident and a neighbor. And what I saw was many folks raising their concerns, some of which you all have echoed already, concerns about the reality of our national economy, whether performance will be measurable, whether an esd is right for an area that's still waiting on the promises of annexation. Parkrose has honest reasons to be skeptical, and I don't want to minimize that. But I'd also like to respectfully note from my own experience that it is a lot easier to organize a no than a complicated yes. Fear of a new cost is immediate and familiar. The benefit of shared services can be diffuse, and it takes time to prove itself. A late funded opposition campaign can amplify that fear pretty effectively, but it does nothing to improve on our current conditions. Many property owners are already spending tremendous amounts of their own money in isolation on things like private security and fencing and cleanup, things we've heard about. And frustratingly, the status quo is not sustainable or efficient.
Thank you.
Oh, I still have 30s. All right. Great. Pulling those resources is basic economies of scale. More consistent results for less duplicated efforts, which will benefit not only the residents of the district, but the commercial and industrial property owners. So in summation, what I believe parkrose deserves is a connector, an organization that is local and accountable to us. Thank you.
Good afternoon councilors. Thanks for the opportunity to speak on the establishment of parkrose forward, the proposed enhanced service district in parkrose. I'm speaking today not as an employee of historic parkrose, but as a resident and community member that's lived in parkrose for 21 years. Over those years, I have volunteered with numerous neighbors, business owners, and other volunteers who work hard to improve our community. Like many people who get involved with community work, I started with no political experience. I simply wanted to meet my neighbors and help make parkrose a better place. During that time of organizing and participating in community meetings and events, I've come to realize that volunteer passion alone isn't enough to address the complex layers and multiple needs of parkrose. Parkrose needs dedicated, paid professionals with time and management expertise to advocate for the district, coordinate improvements, and work consistently with the city. That's why I support creating enhanced services district. It will give businesses and commercial property owners an organized voice and establish clear expectations for services within the district, starting with holding basic services accountable with the city. I also understand why some business owners and property owners are frustrated. Asking them to contribute additional funds is difficult, especially in today's economy. Like many of them, I wish these services could be fully provided through the taxes they already pay. However, I appreciate that these funds will be governed locally by a board of ratepayers who know the area well, can set priorities, measure results and adjust strategies when something isn't working. That local accountability and responsiveness matters. The topic of safety ambassadors has been a debated topic topic. However, there's a difference between law enforcement and crime prevention and in terms of crime prevention, safety ambassadors can make a difference. Their role will help by providing eyes and ears in the district, helping businesses navigate reporting, connecting people with services, and building trusted relationships. This improves safety and the perception of safety in the esd. It complements law enforcement. It doesn't replace it. And I'll close with something I heard recently. We all care deeply about parkrose and want to see it thrive, even if we don't always agree on how to get there. Thank you and I appreciate your support.
Hi. Thank you for your time this afternoon. My name is jennifer keelan and I'm a beautification team lead at cultivate initiatives. I came here today to help advocate for the establishment of an esd in parkrose. True safety isn't built on fear, displacement or a heavy security presence when we rely solely on policing to address complex crises of crime and homelessness, we're not solving the problem. We're merely moving it. Pushing vulnerable people from one block to another does not get to the root of why they're suffering. It simply fractures our community and delays real healing. Parkrose deserves better. Our neighborhoods deserve a safe, supportive environment for all populations our businesses, our residents, and our unhoused neighbors alike. Over the last several months, our team has had the privilege of working closely with parkrose. Even with the limited footprint of just six hours a week, the impact has been profound, and we have listened directly to local business owners and residents and unhoused neighbors and deliver both community outreach and debris removal. What we heard across the board was a shared desire for connection, cleanliness and stability, and the secret are in fact lies in who is doing this work. Many of our dedicated team members doing our daily outreach and debris removal have lived on the streets themselves. They're not outsiders enforcing mandates. They're hard working community members who lead with lived experience, empathy, and unparalleled insight, who has walked in? We've walked in their shoes. They built bridges of trust and a badge or uniform never could. And we and we clean up the street. We're not just removing debris. We are restoring dignity and hope and love to people who have been marginalized and unseen for too long. And when we hand out resources, we're not just providing aid. We are giving love and hope, which in turn can lead to build a path to home. By funding the enhanced service district, parkrose can transition away from reactionary measures like heavy police involvement and actually invest in a resilient framework of community partnerships.
Thank you to all five of you for your testimony today, wendy. Let's call up the next group.
Lindsay berschauer, tabitha milliken, melissa finkle, gordon nichols, and we have justin ortiz joining us online.
Okay, let's start with our folks in the room and then we will move to our online testimony. Go right ahead.
Just a friendly reminder to please state your name.
Ready? Okay.
Cochairs, pirtle-guiney and Zimmerman, members of the committee. My name is lindsay berschauer, and I'm the registered lobbyist for city of Portland property llc, a member of the group protect parkrose, which is a coalition of property owners and business owners within the proposed parkrose forward esd. Over the past two weeks, I have spoken personally with dozens of the people who will actually pay this assessment. What began as a handful of concerned business owners has become an extraordinary grassroots effort. Volunteers gave up evenings, weekends and workdays to knock on doors, make phone calls and educate their neighbors. Because so many affected property owners had no idea this proposal was moving forward. As of this morning, protect parkrose represents property owners responsible for $319,780 in proposed annual assessments. That's 49.6% of the district's total assessment revenue. That is well above the city's own one third threshold used in the process for seeking dissolution of an esd before this district has even been created. Nearly half of the assessment base is already united in opposition. This isn't just about large businesses, it's about people like ingrid nichols, who who is about to turn 80. She has faithfully paid her property taxes for decades. She pays to clean up trash, needles and debris because the city hasn't solved those problems. Now she's being asked to pay an additional $1,200 per year on a vacant lot, in an amount equal to more than half of her current property tax bill on that property. For ingrid, it's retirement income she cannot afford to lose. We have also submitted a formal procedural complaint identifying significant concerns about notice, public outreach and the petition process. Those issues deserve to be addressed before this proposal moves forward. I respectfully urge you to deny a recommendation of the proposed parkrose esd. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Aye, Morillo should I go? I'm ready. Okay. Hi, my name is tabitha milliken. I'm a resident of saint john's and I'm also the hoa president for james john village. We went through this process as well, and I went to the first meeting that devin came, and I was left with a real confusion. This process has been opaque and dishonest. A lot of the text is not true to the actual assessment. I'm a financial analyst. When I went to the first meeting, I was asking about why this tax was regressive, how this tax was made. Devin was like, ha ha ha, I'm not an economist. Well, I'm used to being thought not much by men, but I am a financial analyst and I worked with a data scientist, and I also worked with a statistician. And what we saw is that what they said is not true. This neighborhood led an initiative. When we looked at the facts, which we have published, and we'll share with you later, 72% of the people within this district, 7%, 72% of the owners are not in saint john's. Only 28% of the residents who live there also own their property in this district, which means we would be giving away the ability for our public space to be ruled by people outside of saint john's. And I'm talking about kroger. I'm talking about people who have businesses registered in texas to be able to do our public square. In addition, this tax is regressive. Properties under $2,000 pay 2.7 times the effective rate as properties that are worth between 1 and $5 million in. Additionally, the people in saint john's will pay 1.36 times as much. This business improvement district. Only 49% of the ratepayers are businesses. Additionally, we are thirsty for democracy. One person, one vote. Wealth doesn't vote. This allows wealth to have a vote over what is happening in my area, and kroger would have more of a say than me, even though my personal effective rate would be higher. Thank you.
Hi, my name is melissa finkel. I own property within the proposed park rose forward isd boundaries. I respectfully ask you to reject this ordinance outright. I want park rose to be cleaner, safer and better supported. I understand why some businesses owners want to support these goals. I want these things to. I want security as well. But supporting these goals does not answer the most important question who pays? This proposal is coming exactly the wrong time. Recent federal and state data show Oregon businesses are closing faster than new ones are opening, with closures outnumbering new establishment by 1720 24 and 6000 in the first nine months of 2025. Oregon's unemployment rate is 5.2% and job growth has been stagnant since 2023. This is not the time for the city to add another reoccurring cost to small business. My family is third generation park rose. The third generation is learning the business as I speak. We maintain our properties ourselves, keep them in excellent condition, and intentionally keep rents below market value. Because this is a lower income area, half of my tenants are barely surviving. Even if the city bills the property owner or property manager, the cost does not disappear. It creates pressure on rents, lease renewals, utility charges, operating costs, maintenance budgets, or all of the above. A tenant may support more cleaning, safety, outreach and advocacy in theory, but if this fee is passed through in any form, that same tenant may end up paying for a program that they cannot afford. The proposal lists broad categories of service cleaning ambassadors, outreach. I asked the question, what's my property going to receive? How often? Who's going to perform this work, what standards are going to apply, and what metrics are going to be measured. If the problem is cleaning, vandalism, safety and lack of responsiveness, the city should address those issues through its existing budget. Park owners should not have to pay an extra fee just to receive attention and services the neighborhood already deserves. I also asked council to distinguish between support from people who actually bear this fee in district one, and support from people who like the concept, but will not be responsible. Thank you.
It's my wife.
Go right ahead.
My name is nick nichols, age 85. I've been a park rose merchant for 51 years. Almost 50. Excuse me. Just turning 51 years. I have two non income producing properties with portland's foolish zoning. They say I have to sell both tax lots to one person or entity. So far they have cost me two sales to. One of them was to a fortune 500 company. When the city annexed Multnomah county, they placed that restriction on me. It is the only acre on the north side of the sandy boulevard, clear into northwest Portland. You can sugarcoat these initials sd, but for this process. But it's still, in my opinion, a tax. This is not justifiable. This is not justifiable. It would put a tremendous burden on me and my wife, ingrid nichols. I also mo there's a half acre of one of the pieces of property. I mow it down every single year to keep these homeless people from it. Last year it cost me labor and equipment. It cost me to get the campers off of it. $2,600 park rose is very impoverished. I think the city is short lived, has shorted us for a long, long enough time, and now you're asking us to pay for improvements by the money coming out of our pocket. What have you guys done? You know, I mean, this this half acre. I mean, I have to sell an acre of ground. I have to sell it to one person. They put that restriction on me. That's absolutely ludicrous. Yet a fortune five company that could have been paying your taxes, o'reilly auto parts or a fortune five company. I lost two sales with those people. Anyway. That's all I have to say.
Thank you very much to all of you. And I think we had somebody online next.
Justin ortiz, go ahead and unmute and begin your testimony.
Hi. Good afternoon, council councilors. My name is justin ortiz. My family lives in the proposed district and our prospective ratepayers. The proposed plan claims that owner occupied residential is exempt. This is not entirely true. Our home was built in 1948, but at some point in history the lot was rezoned industrial. Because of that zoning, we will still be subject to the commercial rate, even though it is owner occupied. And we have many neighbors who are in the same situation, who live in older homes that have been rezoned to industrial. At some point in the past, we have witnessed the city forced neighbors out of their homes due to the lots being rezoned, industrial and technically you cannot live in those homes anymore. This esd is putting us in a situation where we either stay silent and pay over $1,000 that we can't afford a year, or we speak up and we could potentially be forced out of our homes like our past neighbors, due to the mismatch zoning. We are working class neighborhood, and my neighbors and I cannot afford $1,000 a year for services that we don't benefit from. We are already dealing with an affordability crisis and homelessness crisis in the city. This plan will force my family and our neighbors out of our homes, either due to attention being put on that. We are living in an industrial lots, or because we simply cannot afford these rates. That is forcing onto us. And while I have your time, I am sympathetic to all of my neighbors who spoke, who are concerned about safety issues. And I have those same issues around safety. But this sc will not solve our safety issues. And so that's all I have. Thank you.
John mckeever, joe rossi, dylan evanson, chris wagner, sean hogan.
Thank you all. Why don't you go ahead on the left or on the right there and get started as others come up.
So my name is don mckeever and I'm the owner of the former parkers grocery outlet. I've been in parker for over four years and I know all the problems, the violence, the theft, and everything that goes on. I had it daily. I had to deal with it daily in my store. Armed security did not solve the problem. We had armed security and we still had these ongoing problems. So I believe we need to address these problems as a whole and attack it from the roots. I think that the esd is a good way to attack these things, because we'll have cleaner public spaces, streets and sidewalks and parks will be better maintained. It will reach out to the people, like through the cleanups and everything they do talk to the homeless people. They motivate them to help get the community involved. There are additional safety programs, ambassadors, lighting, etc. Community events, festivals, farmers markets. It supports businesses. When local businesses are successful, they create new jobs. They provide more services and the businesses contribute back to the local economy. I don't see the fee as a tax because it pays for services above and beyond the services that the city does not already provide, even though it overlaps with some of the other services it gives services the city does not provide. And I think over the time, the improvements can help reduce crime, reduce store vacancies, strengthen local business, create jobs, support higher wage rates and improve the life quality in parkrose.
Go right ahead.
Hello, my name is dylan evanston. I live in sumner, about a ten minute walk into parkrose. I'm on the sumner association of neighbors board and the historic parkrose board, both of which are unpaid positions. I joined both organizations because I share a sentiment and understanding. A lot of folks here today have expressed. Things in our part of town are pretty rough. They're not improving nearly fast enough, if at all. Businesses are closing, vacancies are up, buildings and lots pick up squatters or metal strippers fast. My dog ate human off the sidewalk last time I tried to walk to lily's coffee shop, my fiance was charged by a madman screaming violent threats in don's parking lot until private security intervened. I've paid for forgotten groceries on my way home, through a sliding tray and bulletproof glass at the gas station, while spotters for drug dealers keep an eye on me to make sure I'm not a cop. I am pretty hard to run off, but it is not a pleasant way to live. The board of an esd is made up of ratepayers and sets its goals, supervises spending, which is the folks that are paying the dues. Businesses and property owners here in parkrose. Our neighbors would be the ones setting the priorities. Historic parks staff work here in the neighborhood. We meet as a board here in the neighborhood and shop and eat here too. I believe a well supervised local esd, managed by people who are here in our community, can do something that complaining to the city is an individual or individual business cannot. I believe that an esd would improve conditions on the ground, but also keep issues in parkrose regularly in front and center for leaders police bureau staff to ensure that we are not last in line for basic services. I've heard a lot of passion from folks opposed to the esd both for and against. No one is arguing that parkrose is fine, as is. I volunteer in sumner and parker's. At cleanups. I call serious crimes in. When I observe them. If that was going to solve these problems, it would have. By now it is my hope that we can find a way forward together to address these concerns with the esd process, because it can be a valuable and powerful tool to improve parkrose. Thank you.
Thank you. Go right ahead.
Thank you. Joe rossi, business owner, property owner in parkrose historic parkrose member. Real active with the community and different things. I love my community. Crime and safety are common theme here, but I actually chose the seat in the middle because I used to sit here and I used to advocate for parkrose and for prosper Portland and some programs that were not additional taxes. It'll probably surprise you to to know that I'm a very hard no on this, and I'm a hard no for the unintended consequences this will cause our community. And there already was two people spoke here that they're older members of our community and they don't have income producing properties. And they would pay. The unintended consequences are this property owners are forced to pay. It is a tax. I'm sorry. It just is. If you're forced to pay it, it's a tax. There's just it really unnerves people when you say it's not. But to go back to the point, property owners pay. The property owners don't have. Tenants have to pay. They're on fixed incomes. A lot of them. We have small property owners, small properties. We have a disadvantaged community that can't afford to pay the property owners that pass it down to their tenants, which is common in a triple net lease. It goes straight to the tenant. The tenants don't know that they have to pay, and they have businesses and they have stakeholders, and a lot of them are family businesses in our community, and they have to pay. And there's two choices after that point. One is either they pass the expense down to their customers and our neighborhood pays extra. They just do or they don't. They don't raise their prices and they're in danger of going out of business. I just think this is the wrong time and this is the wrong community to oppose the tax. I don't see the return on benefit to our neighborhood. And there's a legitimate fear about fair representation. If this is enacted that hasn't been solved. And there's and and councilor Zimmerman, you asked the key point and try to get the information, those who voted yes on this that are actually property owners.
Hello, my name is chris.
Wagner with gold star property management. And I would also agree, I would also echo councilman Zimmerman's concern of the voting numbers very, very legitimate and also of the use of the name park rose because as you pointed out, the boundaries did not comprise all park rose. It was a limited few, just the 272 properties. Also, I would. What stood out in my mind was that that the fellow hector mentioned that there was 171 mailers that were mailed out, and devin stated 272. And for a project that started back in in may of 2025 is what my understanding is. You'd think that that would be established. So the the properties that I manage in that neighborhood that are within that map that was provided, neither of those received any mailers. So please make a note of that. And thank you very much for allowing us to testify.
Please go right ahead on the end.
My name is sean hogan and I work with cultivate initiatives. Next week will be a year of my employment. I first went through their internship program over five years ago, and I've been working with them off and on ever since. But like I said, for the last year, I've been there as an employee. I participated in the the program that we just the trial program that we had in parkrose where we went and picked up trash cultivate initiatives has picked up over 1.1 million pounds of trash in the last year. It's something that I feel very blessed to have part of my life, because I've been a member of this community since before mount saint helens blew up. I've been homeless. I've been homeless in parkrose. I'm currently housed. I've been housed for a year now. It's because of initiatives that I've been able to stay home, stay housed, and purchase a vehicle, have plates on my vehicle, have insurance on my vehicle, all that's because of a program that would become available to parkrose. With the funding that this program would allow parkrose to have access to. And I understand the concerns that the business owners have. And I've worked at rossie farms and great to work there, working on their grape vineyard, and I really appreciate them. So I understand their concerns. But I think that the opportunity for others to be able to get off the streets and have a path out of parkrose and the streets would be something that I think everybody would benefit from. And I do spend some money back in the community there. So I think that's something to consider.
Thank you. Thank you all very much, colleagues. We have a few more people signed up to testify, but we have an emergency ordinance on our agenda today that I'm told we really have to move forward to council or decide we can't move forward in order to execute a lease. So what I'm going to do is ask us to hold these items over. We're going to open the last item on the agenda, see if we can get through that in five minutes, if possible, so that we can get back and call up another panel on these items before we close our meeting today. Wendy, does that work for you?
Yes.
Okay. So can you do whatever you need to, to pause this item and open the next one?
Item number six. Document number 2026-236. Authorize a five year lease with American property management for community safety division, east side office.
Okay. Thank you. And rick and stephanie, let's see how quickly we can do this presentation.
Good afternoon councilors.
Thank you for setting aside the time. My name is rick dyer. I'm the real estate planning and portfolio manager for the bureau of fleet and facilities. The ordinance you have before you today is to seeking budget approval to enter into a five year lease for the community safety division operations, including Portland street response, office of violence prevention and cease fire involving 13,386ft■!s, it represents an expansion of the current Portland street response operations, a new home for cease fire currently embedded in the north police precinct, and new space for the office of violence prevention, whose lease is expiring in their current northeast mississippi location. The property happens to be located within one block of the max line and three bus lines. Next slide please. The new space is located in the Multnomah plaza building, located at 305 northeast 102nd avenue, which is where councilors Avalos and dunphy's district one office is located. It also happens to be a half a mile within councilor Smith's office in the nick fish building on northeast glisan. The rent is the same rate that was negotiated one year ago. Earlier for councilors Avalos and Dunphy, and while a few terms are still being finalized, the overall rent is not expected to exceed $400,000 per year based upon a full service gross lease. The landlord is also providing all the requested tenant improvements at no additional cost to the city. In addition, there is a four month of rent abatement at the at 50% of the rent amount, funds have already been budgeted to be spent on one time costs such as furniture, fixtures and equipment, and other associated costs. Finally, the lease is for a five year term with annual 3% escalations. Stephanie is here and she can provide further context and answer any additional questions.
Thank you, councilor Stephanie howard. For the record, I do not need to add to the presentation, but I'm happy to answer questions given the circumstances. I know you're we really appreciate you fitting us in today.
Thank you all for being here. Councilor Avalos. Go right ahead.
Sorry.
I just wanted to say, when councilor Dunphy and I chose that spot for our office, we saw so much potential in a lot of the other ones emptying out, and it was on our list to try to figure out how to get psr there. So I'm very glad to see that it's already happening. So thank you.
Councilor Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman: Thanks, stephanie. This is where Multnomah county, dc is at. Is that right? Or do I have that?
I think it's one of their vocational service organizations. But dc is not in this building.
It's not in this building. Okay. I guess I'm struggling a little bit with the why behind this. Since so much of the city's workforce has not come back to work, and we have buildings that were built out for that workforce. So to go to the private market is a challenge for me. And the numbers were presented, but I get I didn't get a why. What is the why here that this needs to occur?
Happy to to answer that. Thank you, councilor Zimmerman. So as you all know, the three programs under community safety, Portland street response, ovp and the cease fire program are all in different locations right now. As rick mentioned, the ovp lease at their current site in mississippi ends in August. And frankly, that site has not been a functional site for that program for several years. And so we've been working on trying to identify a new site over the last year. And the site that we thought we were going to be able to proceed with in the normal course did not work out. And so that's why we're here now at this last minute, I can tell you that this location is strategically important because particularly for the Portland street response piece, because having an eastside presence will help with our response times in district one and on some of those other districts, rather than having them all coming from our southwest curry location. So there's a that's a really, really important part of why this particular area was selected, and also because of the, the engagement that these particular teams, psr, ovp and ccr, are doing with community there. We wanted to be housed in the communities that are being very deeply impacted. And so again, this location being, you know, on the east side of town in an area that is that's in need of services and need of some city presence, that was really important. And bringing all of these teams together, I think to build cohesion is really important as well.
And I would add that we did we always do an internal search. We did not find anything suitable in the city's portfolio, either owned properties or lease properties that would match the needs. Stephanie indicated.
That's very surprising.
Okay, thanks.
Colleagues. Anything further on this? I will just note that we will miss having these programs in district two. And also I am. It is bittersweet that the need for the programs has shifted in the city. Okay, if there are no other comments, is there anyone signed up for public testimony?
No one signed up. Okay.
Colleagues, I would entertain a motion to pass this to council, move this to council with a due pass recommendation.
So moved.
That was so moved from Morillo. And I think Avalos is trying to. Second, is that correct? Okay, a thumbs up from Avalos to try to. Second. Wendy, could you please call the roll?
Morillo aye, Morillo.
Zimmerman no.
No.
Avalos I.
I yeah.
Brian I.
Pirtle-guiney I.
The motion is approved with four eyes and one no.
Okay. Thank you all so much. Sorry to rush through that. We are going to close this item and return to agenda items four and five and get at least one more panel of testimony up, maybe two if we can.
Terry murphy, corky collier, Steve mcginnis. And then we have two folks joining online.
And my apologies to all the testifiers. I will listen to it after on on youtube, but I have to leave for an event at 6:00. So thank you for your time today.
Go right ahead, folks.
Hello, my.
Name is terry murphy, citizen of parkrose for 23 years and a newly minted member of the revitalized parkrose neighborhood association. I've been authorized by board members of that association to respectfully ask you to not move this proposal forward to the full council. The sd program. It's really an expensive duplication of existing efforts that's been pointed out. I mean, we've got all these all these systems and all these services available. And as councilor Zimmerman points out, to bring in a nonprofit to add on to these services is really is a crutch. It's nothing but a crutch. This really is a battle, a challenge between nonprofits and neighborhood associations, right? The. The list of services, the list of services that the, the parkrose esd proposes one through five on the. You can find this online one through five on their website. Really mirrors quite closely. The list of services that Portland lists for a robust neighborhood association. So they've got one through five on theirs. A robust neighborhood association has one through five plus an additional six that have to do with mediation and zoning and what happens in an earthquake, that sort of thing. So a robust neighborhood association could do much more than that than they can do. And if you look at the action, the work that that east central has done, what they do is they call the city services that we already have and ask them to do things for them. A neighborhood association would do that in spades. So the other thing is the neighborhood association doesn't have large salaries. We do this because we love our neighborhoods. We don't need nonprofits coming in and taking that money. Thank you very much.
Good afternoon. Corky carter, executive director of the columbia corridor association. I'm going to forego my testimony and just give you some results on our outreach. Hector marquez brought that up earlier. And councilor Zimmerman has mentioned asked about the the survey a few times, we did outreach 160 calls to 80 property owners in the industrial zones only. So this is 60% of the sd. It was not intended to be a survey, but it's clearly a lot better than an online survey. So out of the 80 people that we were trying to contact, we only managed to discuss the issue with about half of those. Of those 54% opposed to the sd, 18% supported and 28% needed more information. So as I mentioned, I'll forego the rest of my testimony. Maybe one other person can get in.
So hello, I'm Steve mcginnis and I represent several properties in the parkrose neighborhood. We actually have two of the properties out of the 41 that were never notified about that this was going on. And we we also excuse me and I'm sorry, we also have seven other lots in the neighborhood in the parkrose right here. And that is affected. We have about 150 employees that work for us. We have three different companies in the neighborhood. I would like to say that we have went to all of our neighbors to talk to them. As of right now, out of 144 of the dollars, we have 49.6% of the people that are saying they don't want this. We have that testimony. We actually took papers to everyone, had them sign it. We'd love to share those with you. Sit down. You will see that we will. We are way past the 33%. We're actually 16.6% past where we need need to be. So with that, I'm asking please stand down.
Thank you all.
Gail palmer is joining us online. Gail, go ahead and unmute and begin your testimony.
Hello. My name is gail palmer from the thrive east pdx economic equity workgroup and district one. I support the park grows forward esd because park grows, needs consistent, reliable services that are controlled by the community. We've heard many people say that the services have not been there to date. The city frequently encourages community volunteers to organize and contribute to projects that enhance community, help to build our neighborhoods. That is the exact scenario that is behind the efforts of parkrose businesses to organize and contribute to a parkrose eds. Businesses operating in the neighborhood want cleanliness, safety, graffiti removal, business support, and a coordinated voice, so those people who are objecting can certainly join the efforts in the leadership to achieve the services they say they want that have not been forthcoming from the city. I believe that esd is an essential tool to help parkrose move forward, build community, build economic development, and I urge the committee to approve it. Past councils have not supported the efforts in parkrose to promote community efforts for residents. Do not be the council that continues to ignore and undervalue community efforts in district one. Be the council and committee that supports community over corporate property owners. Thank you.
Marcos rodriguez, if you can hear us online, please follow the prompts and unmute yourself and begin your testimony. And while he were trying to get marcos online, I'll call the next group. Timothy hart, zach flanagan, samantha montanaro, john tran, leslie angeles.
I'll come up. You're welcome to give your testimony.
Good afternoon. My name is timothy hart. I've been a resident for 16 years in this community. I know many of the business owners. I have done work for them. I've had them work for me and other people. I know this isn't fair, and to them especially, they're already being taxed. It's like everybody says it is a tax. I've repaired so much fence in the area, people cutting it down. I've installed fence and we're talking $100,000 worth of fence. That's a lot of fence work in one area in park rose. It's astonishing to me that nobody is talking about the police and follow the laws that are on the books. If you follow the law that's on the books, the safety is there, the graffiti is gone. The homeless are not wandering around. It's that simple. Thank you.
Zach is joining us online. Zach, go ahead and unmute and begin your testimony.
Thank you. My name is zach flanagan. I was contacted by protect park rose. I've been working in the parkrose neighborhood for the better part of the last ten years. I want to speak in opposition to this. First and foremost, we are one of the highest taxed cities in the united states. If the money is not there, it's being mismanaged. I completely sympathize with people that do not see the service as I drive through this neighborhood morning, noon and night. And when I mean night, I mean in the middle of the night, 3:00 am in the morning, I see the issues that exist. We can come together and we can petition the city for better services. We do not need to set another tax against a group of property owners. And if you see that map, it is nothing short of gerrymandered. It does not affect any of the people that are the residents. It affects strictly the property owners and the industrial complex. And please, I lend my voice to severe opposition to this and I'll yield my time. Thank you.
John chan is joining us online. John, go ahead and unmute.
Hi, I'm john chan, I'm with columbia recycling. I'm asking the committee to reject the proposal, as it says, like the security doesn't fit our operation. Like, like usually the theft is usually on the back where like the railroad where they would try to enter, not the front where they would patrol. I just feel like the money doesn't add up. Like, why is everything 31%, 31%, 31% where you would want more money into the cleaning and mandatory or cleaning and like monitoring and even the monitoring, like the security can't legally intervene. They would just call the police anyways, which we would do anyways. And we have cameras set up for this very reason. And we, we have to clean, we clean up our own area as well, and our tax bill is already so much. And then just this adds more tax. And it's just it's very hard to run a business with like everything's being taxed. And this is I know they say it's a fee, but it feels more like a tax that you can't opt out of. And this I feel like this mainly helps sandy boulevard, but I understand the safety and aspects of everything. But I feel like there's other ways and avenues to look up that rather than just throw money here, money there, money like management and whatnot. And that's all I have to say. Thank you.
Leslie is joining us online. Leslie, hello.
Good afternoon. I'm calling on behalf of my family who owns property in the proposed district. The proposal would charge my family over $1,000 a year. On and on top of all the newly increased city taxes, we cannot afford another tax rate. This would essentially ruin our small business and force us out of the neighborhood. As someone who opposed my local sd in saint john's, my continued biggest concern is with the lack of transparency regarding specific information that is being shared with ratepayers. A lot of the concerns shared are with safety and livability, and it's our city's responsibility through real action, policy and accountability, not through a glorified hoa of supposed business owners that are supportive of this. If we want to support small businesses, we need to start over and include all of them in a genuine, transparent process that actually benefits them. We also are friends and neighbors with several businesses in the area who have attended informational meetings solely to learn more about this proposal, but were ultimately listed as supporters of this proposal on the website, which is not true. They were simply present at meetings, so I would encourage parkrose forward to please double check their list of supporters to make sure it is correct and accurate.
Thank you.
Samantha montanaro, are you in the audience? Jana tessman.
Welcome. Go right ahead.
Jana tessman. I am a five and a half year resident of the parkrose district, and within the first year that I was living there, a car ran into my house. I fell for the cop propaganda and called the non-emergency line because I thought the cops weren't going to respond anyway. And mostly my concern was if this car was going to catch on fire or not. And anecdotally, the cops jumped at the opportunity to arrive on time because they had a chance to chase down like a drug user, ultimately. And so. Like, I've always hated isds since 2020, when I read the audit of the clean and safe, I feel like a parent trying to get a kid out of a grocery store like we already have isds at home. They're not being held accountable. I don't think it's possible to hold accountable because ultimately it is taxation without representation, which I thought was un-american. So I don't see why we as a city should be spending $4 million on administering a tax for businesses and. I. I'm going to yield my time.
Last call for marcos rodriguez. That concludes testimony.
Thank you very much. I want to thank everybody who came today to share with us your thoughts on this proposal, and just extend gratitude to our staff who are willing to stay a little bit over our scheduled time. And my colleagues who were still able to stay till the end of the meeting to make sure that we could hear from everybody who had signed up and was present today, it's clear that there has been a lot of work done, but also a lot of folks who did not initially get information about this. We are going to hold these items over so that we can discuss them at a future meeting. We'll work with the folks who brought the proposals forward. It will likely be our meeting in two weeks, but we'll need to work with those folks who brought the proposals forward to make sure that that date works for them. So we will have this posted on an upcoming agenda. Thank you to everybody for staying through the end. And thank you to everybody who was here to share your opinions. With that, I will close today's meeting.
I want to.