Skip to content
The Portland Record
Automated data, not yet fully editor-reviewed. Figures on this site are collected automatically from the linked official sources and currently publish without line-by-line editor review. Records about a named person's votes, attendance, or statements still appear only after the editor approves them — one at a time, or in a batch that is labeled as such. See the methodology and report errors via corrections .

← Recent meetings · September 2026

The record · Transcript

Council Session — 2026-09-10

Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (11,831 words), shown in readable case and split into speaker turns. Speakers are not yet identified (colors just separate consecutive turns). Auto-captions can contain errors — check the recording for anything that matters.

watch the recording

Thu, Sep 10, 2026 · meeting length 1 hr 46 min · council salary-time ≈ $1,362

Council salary-time = 12 councilors × ($133,207/yr ÷ 2,080 hr) × meeting length. Attendance varies and salaries are fixed regardless of meeting count — this contextualizes the council time a session takes; it is not money the meeting "spent."

Session TL;DRAI draft · not editor-reviewed

Key points

Where the council disagreed

No substantive disagreement recorded in this session.

Roll-call votes from this session date

None published yet. Votes from this session appear in the vote ledger once verified; this summary never states a vote result.

AI-drafted from the session's auto-captions and not yet reviewed by the editor . It describes the discussion only. Each point links to the transcript turn it rests on, and a program checked that the words it relied on are in that turn; the wording of the point is the draft's own. Positions are given without names because captions do not show who is speaking — follow a link to see for yourself. Recording times are not stored for this session, so the links go to the transcript turn. Captions contain errors.

0 Good morning. I'm going to call this meeting of the Portland city council committee of the whole to order. It is 9:34 a.m. On September 10th, 2026. Rebecca, will you please call the roll?
1 Good morning. Koyama Lane here. Morillo.
2 Novick here.
3 Clerk Green here. Zimmerman. Avalos.
4 Present. Virtually.
5 Dunphy. Smith. Pirtle-guiney here. Ryan. Here.
6 Kanal here. And, christopher, will you please read the statement of conduct?
7 Welcome to the meeting of the finance and governance committee of the whole. To testify before this committee in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance and the committee agenda at www.Portland.gov/agenda/committe or by calling 301 information. 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 and ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, the committee may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Thank you.
8 Thank you. I'll note that today we have our council president and vice president our have preplanned absences. We do have a couple folks online. So if you're watching at home and seeing this looks pretty empty up here, we do have a couple folks online as well. Today we're going to be doing only two items on the agenda. One is a little bit of a two parter. The chair update will also include a continuation of the city administrator update. You may recall that last week at the full council meeting, there was a a packed agenda, and the city administrator update was something that we felt could could kind of be continued here. So we might, if anyone has any questions on that, feel free to be prepared for that as part of the chair update. And then after that, we have one sort of traditional agenda item, which is a proposed appointment to the steering and oversight committee for the homelessness response system for a one year term. As a result, I will maybe unwisely put into into the world that I hope we can end a little early today. We do have a work session later today as well, so I'm hoping we can get not too much time. All right. With that, I will ask if rebecca, could you please read item one?
9 Item one committee chair updates and continued. September 2026 city administrator update document number 2026-313.
10 Great. Thanks everyone. I'm getting printed copies. They are online as well for the chair update. And you know, towards the end of this one, we are going to hear from, I think actually the date. We're going to actually skip the committee update because it would have been chair clerk today, I think, or no, actually, it's your turn, isn't it? My my apologies. It is city life committee. That's an error in the in the report. So we'll hear from chair pirtle-guiney before we get to the city administrator. All right. So the the big things to to note here, you'll notice that I'll mention three things. One is we erroneously did not include 3.02 in the unscheduled items last time. So my apologies for that last week. So that's been added back. The second thing which came up yesterday is that foreclosures have been added back to the unscheduled agenda items list. You may recall that yesterday when we were talking about this, council president Dunphy noted that although the batch that we were dealing with on the council agenda yesterday had come through the housing and permitting committee, that future ones would come to the committee of the whole. So that is something that that's been decided there. But I don't have the timeline. So it's in the unscheduled items. The third thing I wanted to mention is you'll notice that ci hub items are no longer reflected on the meeting calendar. Last week, there was a four councilor Discharge to pull this item to the full council, rather than having it routed through the committee of the whole. The plan for the ci hub items is now to discuss them at a full council work session on the afternoon of September 17th. So my guess that'll be 2:00 and then the items will proceed to the full council shortly after. Please feel free to reach out to my office or to the council president's office. If you have any questions about how these items will be routed or how they'll be heard. So those are the three updates to this first section here. And the second section sort of related. I did want to flag that we are putting the future of downtown. We're going to be adding in some folks to that group work group. This is on page three to join with the vice chairs on planning out that agenda item. I know we're asking all three of the district four councilors, and then based on their responses, see how much space we have left, because obviously we can't have a majority of of this group do that. And then I'll be reaching out to councilors Novick Morillo, Clark and Zimmerman about how to start planning for the street renaming code conversation and how we do that discussion. Yeah, that's all I have for my part. So any questions for me before we go on to chair pirtle-guiney?
11 When is the future of downtown?
12 It's not currently scheduled, but I think it there was a there was a request to have it moved later than what is showing on this update. So I'm still discussing and I want to talk to the vice chairs about it, but I haven't had a chance yet because our schedule hasn't aligned yet. Okay. I'm not. I personally don't have a strong opinion either way. I just want to make sure it works for everybody.
13 I don't know who brought the title, so I'm not sure what the intention of the agenda is.
14 Future downtown was, you'll see. It's actually my apologies, I was incorrect. It's on November 12th right now, penciled in the that's my placeholder title. If those who are planning the agenda item would like to retitle it, I welcome it. That's just how it was discussed when we first debated having a committee. The whole.
15 We are moving our planning meeting to a different time than wednesdays at noon. I understand, so that's why we have a planning meeting discussion here at this meeting because we haven't had one in a while. Yeah, I look forward to understanding what that means. I know that I've been in conversations with chair pirtle-guiney about how we have to get economic development back on the calendar somewhere on this council, since it's one of our biggest issues. And downtown is such a big part of it. As everyone knows, that's where a lot of the revenue comes from to run the city. Thanks.
16 Yeah, I appreciate you highlighting that, chair Ryan. And just for transparency on that, we do have a planning meeting for the the chair and vice chairs to talk about it. And as everyone has noticed, I'm sure recently our council meetings have run long and that's eaten up our time. So we're we're rescheduling. All right. I'll pass it over for our committee update to chair pirtle-guiney from the city life committee.
17 Thank you, chair Kanal. I really appreciate these opportunities for us to each reflect on our committee and share what we're doing, and hear a little bit more about committees we're not sitting on. I want to start this week by highlighting the work that the city life committee did on Tuesday, where we had a committee session focused on climate policy. This was, I think, a really important opportunity for us to take a step back from individual policies coming forward and think strategically about how we are advancing portland's climate goals across our portfolio of work. We heard from multiple panels, all of whose presentations urged us to recommit to our 2030 carbon reduction goals. Pair high level strategy with evidence based initiatives, build on some strong cross-sector interest in working collaboratively on climate issues that's already underway and across the board. Do more. We heard from our chief sustainability officer. We heard from a group that is bringing together city bureaus, community activists and our business industry to create a clean industry partnership. We heard from a number of members of our Multnomah youth commission and from a group called the climate optimists, who look for win win situations that pair climate action with other good policy goals. And they actually brought forward some concrete examples of actions they think we could take to make a big difference on climate policy. And each of them, either some environmental justice goals, affordability goals, economic development goals. I'm hoping that the discussion will help us identify concrete opportunities for the city to move forward, because one of the things that we heard loud and clear is that we are behind. We are not currently on track to meet our goals. One of the things that I committed to as chair was to make sure that these broader policy conversations had space, but that they were also tied to tangible actions. And that presentation from the climate optimists was an important way to make sure we were really tying into tangible actions that we can take. Previously, since I last presented, the city life committee has also heard a number of pretty big issues that have already advanced to council. We moved forward the resolution that will initiate city action on working with a community partner to develop city owned land surrounding the moda center and veterans memorial coliseum, something this council passed unanimously. We also spent an entire session and then some on the resolution we passed just yesterday, directing the administration to engage in future planning for our city venues. Looking ahead, you have in front of you a sheet of paper that says city life draft, year end schedule. And I think we are getting this to the clerk to make sure that it is posted online as well. And this is a draft subject to change. Please don't hold us to the specifics here, but this includes everything that has currently been brought forward to the city life committee, where folks, either councilors or the administration have asked for things to be scheduled. Councilor Ryan just mentioned an interest in making sure we're having economic development conversations, and we are beginning the big picture conversation with a presentation on advanced Portland, which is technically our economic development strategy and direction to prosper Portland, to ground ourselves in that work. From there, I know councilor Ryan, there are a number of other conversations we need to have and actions we need to take. We will also, in that same meeting, that's two meetings from now, have a discussion around privatization of publicly owned land, and try to take a big picture view on when and how we do that, what the current policies are, and what council's priorities might be that will lead into the first ordinance brought before this committee around the privatization of publicly owned land, which happens to be a property in the menlo park neighborhood that habitat for humanity is interested in developing, and has already had significant conversations with the administration around our next meeting. I'm backing up here going in reverse order. We have three items coming from councilors, an ordinance and a resolution that councilor Zimmerman is bringing forward, asking us to consider a prohibition on certain types of dynamic pricing and surveillance pricing within our retail establishments and our resolution. Looking at some of the job related risks that our firefighters face, that we currently don't have protections for them on. And then a resolution from councilor Novick around immunity for big oil companies. So those are our next two meetings. You've got the rest of what our year will look like laid out here, and I'm happy to take any questions.
18 Thank you, chair pirtle-guiney. I'll just wait to see if anyone would like to get in the queue and ask any questions. I wanted to ask one. Do you know if there's information available for. On October 27th? I know the declaring two parcels of land as surplus property. Do you know if there's information available already on what those are, or if we've just been given the title, as we often.
19 Let me find out. I do not remember offhand. I do think we have it, but I want to look back and make sure that I'm not confusing that with the October 13th item. That will be our second potential privatization of publicly owned land conversation.
20 Okay, great. Any other questions? All right. Thank you, chair. Pirtle-guiney. I do see that we've been joined online by city administrator lee. And so I did want to just kind of recalibrate here again. Last week, we were just starting to discuss the city administrator update. And for the the purpose of protecting the rest of the agenda and the rest of that meeting for the, the items on the city council agenda, we kind of deferred that to here. So the item is the report itself is reposted on this on the chair update item online, but you can also find it in last week's city council agenda. And if there were any questions that anyone wanted to ask, we wanted to give space for that here. I have some, but I'm happy to defer to anyone else who'd like to go first. Okay, I'll get started. Thank you for being here. Administrator lee, there's a lot of good news in here, and I wanted to just start with that. I did want to ask that if you could give a little bit more information on where we're at with the equity corps realignment. I noted that in the report. It talks about it being part of the fall towel, but I'm not 100% sure if you can kind of give the sort of paragraph level of what exactly we should be expecting to hear. This has been an item where I think several councilors, maybe all are getting asked about by city employees and certainly by some of the folks out in the public as well. So I wanted to start with that one.
21 Currently, right now, there's just internal discussions that are happening with respective bureaus and the equity staff that they have within their respective bureaus. There's also conversations of what does realignment mean with necessarily pooling some of those staff into a centralized system. Within our engagement. I'm sorry, equity department. Those conversations are continuing. We're still having conversations with bureau directors way before we started having conversations regarding any realignment. We all were that bureaus were looking at their own alignments and how do they build equity into the just daily work and fabric of who they are as bureaus? And we're still looking at that. And where does it make sense to keep those built into the bureaus itself, and where does it make sense to actually pull those out and have those a part of our equity team? I know our equity chief equity officer, latricia tillman, will be meeting with me in the near future to kind of break the logistics of what will be coming, what will be staying in the near future before we actually get to the fall towel conversation. And we will also work through kind of the communication strategy as it relates to the organization as a whole. What are those expectations? Some of you may not be aware of now, our first work unit, which was communications and who went through the realignment now is working through those service level agreements as it relates to kind of expected outcomes for services to be rendered to bureaus across the city. We'll be doing that same thing with our technology arm, our hr arm. And then the last two follow up will be that equity arm. There is no other realignments outside of this that we will be really doing this fiscal year. We want to assess from a lessons learned as it relates to how do we better do realignments moving forward from a communication and implementation standpoint. But we are committed to ensuring that whatever we move forward with is ensuring that our government is operating in the most efficient, effective and economical manner.
22 Thanks, administrator lee. I'll pass it over to councilor Green.
23 Thank you, city administrator lee, thanks for joining us today. I have a question about there's there's an update on Koyama Lane 11 a which is utility rate setting. I, I, I see in there that it says the public utilities group will be retaining the service area, will be retaining a consultant to engage with. The study work as well as the community engagement. And I just like to know a little bit about like, what is that RFP? What's the scope of that and whether or not any local utility analysts are involved in that?
24 Yeah, I don't know if we have anyone from my d.c. Office that can speak to that component of it, and I'll allow them to come to the dais to speak.
25 There's some folks looking at each other here, so I'm I don't know if they're checking who it would be. And by the way, while anyone may be coming up, I did want to express a lot of appreciation for all the staff who are making time, a second time for this city administrator update for being here. I know that your schedules are incredibly busy and appreciate it. Welcome.
26 Good morning. Thank you. Millicent williams, interim deputy city administrator for public works. Thank you for the question. I am sorry that I'm not able to answer that question yet. I am still getting myself up to speed. I will be meeting with the shared utility director on Monday, running through all of the key areas of concern, and will be happy to report back to this body about what I am able to glean from that conversation, and to support the ongoing conversation that needs to happen here.
27 Thank you. And I recognize you just stepping into this role.
28 Three four. Yes.
29 And you have stepped out of your other roles.
30 I have not, but looking forward to digging. I know this is important. There are several key priorities. Even as we initiated the work, the city administrator shared with me the things that he knew that I would need to prioritize. This is but one. There are several other key areas of concern, all of which I know this body would be interested in. Knowing that I am intentional around supporting the conversation and getting to some solutions.
31 Thank you. I I'll just share a little bit what I shared with dca. Donna paul on, you know, on this, this topic is we do, we do have a pretty robust local bench of expertise on, on rate making and sort of it, it's just because bonneville power administration is here and there's a whole cottage industry of people who engage in very public rates, rate making process. And so I would want us to not not lose that local level. Even though that's electric utility work, it's still a lot of those municipal utilities also do water and sewer. And so making sure our isp looks locally as well, I think will be important. And then I'm glad to see that the pub is is mentioned there as an engagement partner. I would also think about reaching out to the citizens utility board, which is routinely engaged with Oregon public utilities commission. They might have an interest in this as well, and it might strengthen the process. So those are my suggestions.
32 Thanks for the recommendations. We will certainly note those, and you will likely see an update in the information that's shared to ensure that we are including that wider range of stakeholders. Thank you.
33 Thanks. Councilor Green. I'll go to councilor Ryan next.
34 Thank you, chair raymond lee kelly, good to see you. Thanks for the first time. I've seen you without a suit on. Anyway, you're always so dapper. My question is more of a curiosity. I was listening to your statements about core realignment and then about the equity system that's been a conversation about for years. The, you know, do you integrate it centrally? How is it integrated within the bureau? So I'm really pleased that you're going to get to the bottom of that, because I know back in 2023, that was a confusion point and I appreciate that. Did I also hear that that's the only core realignment system that you're looking at this fiscal year? Or is it just that's the only one you're looking at right now?
35 Only one that I'm looking at this year. In this current year, what I told everyone from an organizational standpoint, I want to ensure that the realignment that we went through this previous year, that all those have been implemented appropriately. But I also have kind of an after action after we've gone through all this to kind of get lessons learned, how can we better do these type of realignments in the future? How can we apply that? So we are better at how we engage with employees, how we are engaging with the outcomes that we're trying to deliver upon with these realignments, engagement and also equity was some of the things that we were doing. And just at the tail end of the engagement work outside of hr procurement and it. But those are things that are still being worked through today. And we'll be having a work session around engagement work in the near future before we finalize anything as it relates to the outcomes that we're trying to obtain through engagement, an alignment, I want to make sure there's clear direction from the city council of what those deliverables are that you want to see us deliver on as administration.
36 Okay. And when is that work session?
37 I'd have to look, council president may know if he's in the room. I know we've been working with his office to actually have a separate work session. I believe it's this month, though.
38 And I'm happy to hear that. I think getting on top of that in the first quarter. Second quarter is a lot better than doing it in June. And so I hear translation then is that a lot happened last year. And there's a lot of lessons to learn from, and there'll be adjustments. So it's not like core realignments on a pause. It's more that it's in a continuous improvement state always.
39 I think as an organization, we're approaching everything from a continuous improvement state. I think as we go through this and you think about all the transition that staff has gone through through this transition and transformational period of this organization, it's just trying to pace, and timing is going to be key in how we move forward with realignment work moving forward. And I just want to make sure the organization is equipped from a cultural standpoint and a resource standpoint, to be able to make sure that realignments are done in a way that is efficient for the organization and also beneficial to the employees and employees feel like they were engaged in this process and it just wasn't happening to them, but happening with them.
40 And I think all of us respect what you just said. Thank you. We look forward to that work session so we can do the tough work and learn from what did work and what didn't work. Thanks.
41 And just clarification, councilor Ryan, that work session is really around the future of civic life and engagement work that we do, and ensuring that we have council's outcomes, that they would love to see us be able to accomplish, that. We have a clear understanding of that. That will help shape some of the work around civic life and engagement, and how we move forward in that work and the resources that are being needed to ensure that work is done successfully.
42 Yeah, I think I've done this work in terms of doing continuous improvement work to do core realignment to system change work, and it's really the secret sauce is how you engage those on the ground and get their wisdom during the process. So that we have our partners at the unions involved at the front end in those difficult conversations. So there's not surprises or there's not the authentic dialog that you need the tough, necessary, authentic dialog that's necessary. That doesn't really provide a space for that. When you're in the last minute of doing a budget.
43 Most definitely.
44 Thanks.
45 Thank you, councilor Ryan, I did want to note to add to administrator. Leave a comment. Council president is absent today, but we'll check with his team if we can get information on the date for that work session. I'm next in the queue, so I wanted to just kind of continue a little bit here. First. I did want to highlight that once again, Portland remained in the top ten cities in the united states for its gun violence reduction efforts. I think we're number seven, 57% year to date reduction in gun violence is a is a pretty notable thing. And I wanted to commend you, administrator lee, and your role as administrator and in your role as interim dca for public safety, as well as the whole service area for that. I know the work has been significant. Relatedly, I am grateful for the PBOT PPB collaboration with relation to messaging around motorcycle safety. I hope that that leads to even more down the line and appreciate it. For those who have been tracking the vision zero updates, we have an increase in traffic deaths this year, and it is primarily driven by motorcycle, by deaths of people who are on motorcycles. So I think anything we can do, there is a good place to focus. I did want to ask two questions. One, and I'm not sure if this is something that's part of it, but I wanted to ask how we're going to be part of the decision making process. But I would like to ask about how we are messaging around it. I noticed that there is a third contractor which is joining the pmo sidewalk cleaning program in October, and generally speaking, the people who are doing the sidewalk cleaning are interacting with folks who are houseless and are going to be involved in sometimes their stuff. And the the name of the contractor is junket junk. And I'm curious about how that is going to play out in the community with folks who are often separated from their items, and how we can get to a place where we're not conveying a sense of heartlessness. And I imagine that can't be. That's not part of our procurement standards directly. But I am concerned that that although maybe in their other work makes a lot of sense in the context of this particular line of work, might be something that we would need to accommodate for and mitigate the harm of. I just wanted to kind of put that on the record and ask if you had any thoughts on that. Sally.
46 No thoughts on that. I'd have to look at that individual contract. But what I will share with you, councilor Kanal, is anytime we're doing this type of work throughout the city, we want to make sure we're doing it in a respectable manner. We know that the belongings that people have, this is their life belongings. They are carrying these things with them every day. It's not trash. It's not junk. It's nothing like that. It's their personal belongings. And we want to make sure we're treating them with dignity and respect in any time. We're trying to clean a public right of way to ensure that that is safe and secure and clean as well, but respect the people that we are encountering and that we're dealing with to make sure that work is performed at a high level. But I will take a look at that individual contract. I'll have my team make a note of that to get some more details as it relates to the actual work that will be performed and how that work will be performed long term.
47 Thanks. The other question I had, and I appreciate you responding to this one, is maybe something that I would ask if dca warren might be the best person to answer it, or someone from the mayor's office. There were there was a report about six different investigations into pbb from 2020, of which two of them related to former chiefs of police, and there were reports about them being different recommendations coming from independent police review or internal affairs. And I had two questions about the specifically, the two related to the former chiefs of police. One is, as someone who's worked in this system for a while, I can't recall a previous time where the the decision on whether or not to accept the discipline recommendations was made by the dca as opposed to the chief and the mayor. And I wanted to to understand sort of the the the rationale for that, as well as the legal authority for that and just understand why that position was involved in it at all. That's the first question. I'll get to the second one, which is about the decision itself. So I'm not sure if you wanted to start dca. Warren is here.
48 Yes, I'll give it to dca. Want to start out okay.
49 Thanks.
50 Thank you. Councilor Kanal for the record dca warren you know the investigation presented some unique circumstances through the 2020 protest. You know, one of the persons who were subject to investigation was a residing chief during the time that the incidences occurred. The city does have a past practice of asking for a neutral party to review outside of the Portland police bureau, so that folks who are at the same rank are not reviewing. So a current chief of police is not reviewing a previously residing chief of police activities and making decisions related to that. So we did work. The mayor's office did work in consultation with the city attorney's office in prior instances to ensure integrity of the investigation, avoid any conflict of interest. The bureau of human resources has provided that recommendation to the mayor, and the mayor has made the decision at the time that this decision was made, I was the human resources director, and it was determined that by the mayor that it was appropriate for me to review the cases and provide him with a recommendation, that he would then ultimately make a decision based on.
51 Okay, so just to clarify on that, that means that although at the time of the reporting, you're in the role you're in. Now, the involvement in this was in the previous capacity as human resources director.
52 That's correct. It originally was assigned to me as the human resources director. When I transitioned into the interim role, we had a follow up conversation and decided we should just keep the consistency and I would finish it out.
53 Would you describe it? Is it more accurate to state that you were a second recommender in that role, along with independent police review, to the mayor who ultimately made the decision? Or is it more accurate to say independent police review made a recommendation to you and the mayor who were the deciders, quote unquote.
54 It would be the first. So ipr did their investigation. They completed reports. They then handed that off to me for review. I then reviewed all of their recommendations and reports, and then I provided a follow up recommendation to the mayor. We reviewed that information and then he made a decision.
55 Okay, I think it's appropriate to ask this from a a process question, because I'm not familiar with it happening this way before. Can you are there any previous times where the hr director was involved in this process? I understand this is not you know, these are not unionized positions. The chief of police. So I understand it's not in the normal structure that's bargained. But if you could are you aware of previous conversations around this?
56 I have been told by the city attorney's office that there is precedence for this, and it has happened before. It has not happened while I have been the city human resources director. Okay, so this is the only occasion that I've been involved in.
57 Okay. And this is maybe the broader question, you know, independent police review had a different recommendation than yours. The memo that you wrote on in June was recommended not imposing any discipline or response. And I wanted to ask about, you know, as we move forward, this is particularly relevant in the context of current conversations around similar uses of force around chemical weapons that are happening today and the need to, to sort of, you know, rid our city of the environmental scourge of that, but also from the perspective of public trust as we're setting up the new system that obviously you're very aware of and heavily involved in. And I wanted to ask about that and just sort of to the degree that you're able to, because I understand there's some things you won't be able to say to just kind of talk through the thought process as it relates. I understand that there are some that ipr made a different ipr didn't recommend for everybody. And so I'm just talking about the ones where they recommended a finding, a sustained finding. And you recommended not. So for those, can you give a little bit more as to the thought process on that?
58 I can. So, you know, there were five cases and for the record, two were sustained, three were not sustained. And there were, I believe, 1 or 2 that were different from the ipr recommendation. And I'd have to refresh myself with all the pieces. And, you know, when I'm reviewing it, I'm looking at it from a perspective of, did this individual do everything that they could in that moment to mitigate the, you know, the, the potential charge that is being investigated. So, you know, in my documentation and, and the findings memo that I provided, I kind of outline the why, right. Which is in different instances, there was corrective action being taken place during the moment. And in other situations, there did not appear to be corrective action that was taking place. So that's the the big, big picture basics on it.
59 I want to just understand that last piece. When you say in different instances, there was corrective action taking place during the moment. In other situations there weren't. Is that talking about the precedent for people in this type of role before, or are you saying that they actually imposed it on their the people that reported to them?
60 So let me be clear, when I'm talking about corrective action, I'm not talking about discipline, right? I'm talking about they took steps to work the process and create the and correct the outcomes that they were receiving on the other side of that. Right. So they were taking steps internally to look at policy, add additional personnel, really working hard to meet the policy standard. But based on the circumstances, they were not able to fully achieve that.
61 Okay. I would ask, I guess two, two final things on this. And that's this is my last topic. One is I know that multiple times in the reporting on this, in the background documents and even referenced in your memo, it talks about members of the rapid response team asserting that they were not provided with sufficient training and support to underline the levels of uses of force that were used in 2020, including in August. When you know the the colloquial term teargas. Tuesday in August 2020. How is it? Is it fair to to say that the the that the idea that that does not require any sort of corrective action to the people that were supervising and were responsible for that means that those assertions by our team members were untrue? Or how is it possible that that those could be true and yet nothing be done about it?
62 I can't speak to that specific. So, I mean, I would need to go back and review that specific piece.
63 Okay, I may I.
64 Can't speak to that.
65 Follow up with that as well.
66 Absolutely. Happy to have a follow up.
67 The last thing I wanted to say, and this is I want to give you a chance to respond is more of a comment. This is on page three of the memos you have, you know, sort of one file with all the different memos about the different cases. There's a line in here that says, compared to the bureau, sorry, quote, compared to the bureau's usual operation of around a dozen uses of forces a week, the bureau was faced with dozens of uses of force and evening for a sustained period, end quote. The. The use of passive voice there obscures the responsibility of the people who are using. The force was faced. If I was faced with banging the gavel, that obscures the fact that I'm the one who banged the gavel to start this meeting, and I am concerned about. Especially as we have conversations around force usage. The implication that the force that was used by Portland police was something that was imposed upon them when it was choices that were made, perhaps not by the individual officers, perhaps by their command staff. And I think there's there's a lot to talk about there. And whether or not that's misconduct or not is a separate question, let alone whether there should be corrective action or not. I recognize all of that. But in terms of the basic idea of who did the thing. And so I wanted to to just kind of talk about the language that we use here, because it sort of obfuscates what actually occurred and who did the thing that we're talking about. And I want to give you a chance if you'd like to respond to that. I don't want to just talk at you and cut the mic, but I did want to get that on the record.
68 Thank you. Councilor. I appreciate the feedback. You know, I can speak to the intent was not to minimize the impacts of individuals who experienced use of force during that activity and time period, right. The intent was to speak about the process itself around increase in numbers, in the capability of folks to be able to keep up with the review process. So my focus was really limited and not on the intent or the impact to the individual.
69 So, okay, thanks for that.
70 I'll be following up on a couple of the things. I don't know if you had anything you wanted to add before I move on.
71 No, not at this time.
72 Okay. Thank you very much. Seeing no one else in the queue, pausing for dramatic effect. I'll say thank you for the update, and that will conclude this item and we can move on to the next. Thank you, kelly, for joining us remotely. And thanks again to all the staff for making time a second time for for this. Rebecca, could we please call the second item?
73 Item two, appoint omar k solomon to the steering and oversight committee for the homelessness response system for one year term to expire September 30th, 2027. Document number 2026-310.
74 Thank you. And I'm going to invite up to the present to present. Yeah. Jillian shawnee from the.
75 We told him to aim for 1045. He's not here yet.
76 Oh, okay.
77 So what do we want to do.
78 That is.
79 I can't remember the full agenda.
80 Yeah. It's a little unusual to take a 28 minute long break, but does anybody mind having a longer break than normal? No. Okay, everybody grab a coffee. We'll come back at 1045. For those following at home, that is a 28 minute break. See you again in a little bit. Thanks.
81 I'm just going to be all right with that.
82 Thank you. We are now going to come back from recess. Thanks for bearing with us. I realize I didn't say for those online may have not had the mic pick it up earlier. We were running a little early, but our next item has an appointee who we had told a later time. So we took a break to align that, and I appreciate everyone bearing with us at this point. We'll invite back up jillian shawnee, robin johnson, as well as our our nominee, omar suleiman and ask, I don't think we read it already. So rebecca, would you please read? We did read the item into the record. Okay, great. Well, we're resuming that one.
83 We're ready to go.
84 Okay. Thank you so much.
85 Welcome. Thank you, everyone for the accommodation. By way of reminder, the city and the county have worked in partnership on homelessness and housing since 1983. The homelessness response system is simply the latest iteration of that partnership. It is a shared oversight and accountability structure that primarily oversees two bodies of work. First, data driven decision making, primarily through the identification of performance indicators and any goals set there within that are then reported out on a quarterly basis and used to inform our collective budget processes and second oversight of the action plan, which is where the policy work lives. Looking at numerous policies and programs and identifying opportunities to improve or use data to inform the work we do. You experienced a bit of that yesterday with the behavioral health bed simulation tool that we've used to inform the next state legislative ask. So we, the hr staff, if you look at this graphic, we and our three oversight bodies,
86 We hover above, so to speak. All those who are funding, implementing policy or providing the direct services of the homelessness response system. Next slide. Today we're here because we need to fill a vacancy. The business sector representative on one of those oversight bodies, the steering and oversight committee. That position is one of five non-voting members of the committee. And the process by which that person is appointed is dictated by the hrsiga per an amendment by the previous city council. That person must be nominated by a chamber of commerce staff, then recommend one or more persons to both the chair of the county and the mayor of Portland for their support. And after that, after we received that Green light from both of them, we then bring the recommended nominee to both the city council and the board. County board of commissioners for the official appointment. Our previous appointee was nominated by the Portland metro chamber. That was peter andrews. He was an absolute joy to have on the committee. And the nominee before you today was elevated by the hispanic chamber of commerce. Next slide. Before we get to further detail on the process and the official introduction of omar, here's a slide that shares with you the overall membership of the steering and oversight committee. Just so you have that context, there's five elected officials, five community leaders, the ceo of home forward and health chair are dictated by the iga. And then the other three positions are the business rep, a person who works in behavioral health, and a person who is subject to the sales tax that does not live inside the city of Portland. And those are the three positions that come to you and the county board of commissioners for approval. With that, I'll hand it over to robin johnson, my colleague.
87 Great. Thanks.
88 Chair Kanal vice chair, Ryan and Koyama Lane. For the record, my name is robin johnson. I'm a policy advisor on the homelessness response system team. So you see the timeline. Thank you. You see the timeline for the recruitment process? It took us about four months working, outreaching to 17 chambers and business associations across the county. And we used email, public announcements and good old fashioned person to person outreach to, to find folks who both had the background and the interest to serve on the soc. All recommended candidates filled in an application. Those applications were evaluated by staff. Then we had a meeting with them, and omar was the singular person that sort of met the the very specific recommendation standards, the background, and being a business owner in Portland. And so I'm very excited to. And he was enthusiastically recommended by the hispanic metropolitan chamber. So I'm very pleased to have omar solomon here today. He's the ceo and founder of zocalo, which is a juice and smoothie bar with two locations here in Portland. In addition to being a business owner of two brick and mortar businesses, omar brings an extensive background in social services, having worked at 211 and in housing and an extensive, extensive experience in public service. And so with that, I just want to I think he's going to be an excellent addition to the soc. And with that, I just wanted to hand it over to omar to introduce himself for a moment and then answer any questions folks may have.
89 Thank you very much, robin. I truly appreciate the opportunity to be here. I feel really honored of having this position offered to me. I've been a business owner for a little over eight years here in the Portland area. It's been, you know, like a, an up and down, a great adventure to. But I, I feel that I have to give back something to, to the city. And I love this city. I've been here for many years and I've seen good changes, some not so good, but I am really committed to give back to, to the city what I have learned and experienced through all these years of, of work and as a social worker and a business owner, I think that this opportunity will I will use this opportunity to express my voice and my opinion and recommendations, probably to, to see this city to, to grow and thrive. I, I understand that many small businesses are part of this economy that that moves Portland. And I think also we have a big problem with homelessness, which I previously had worked with families who were experiencing homelessness. Homelessness or were at risk of becoming homeless. And I think that this combination of experiences gives me a lens that I can use to, to give back to the city and express my, my interest in, in making the city better. So I really thank you for the opportunity of being here. And I'm also ready to learn a lot, I think. Thank you.
90 Thank you so much. I think that that concludes the presentation.
91 Yes. Thank you.
92 Great. I just one clarifying question. What's the timeline with this has to go through the board of commissioners to right. What's the timeline relatively there.
93 It's tentatively on the consent agenda for September 17th.
94 Okay. Just to give everyone an idea there. All right. I'm going to open this up for questions. Please feel free to ask questions of the staff or the or our nominee. I'll start with councilor Ryan and feel free for everyone else to get in the queue. Yes.
95 Thank you for being here, omar. You're a busy guy, especially running two businesses. When we were building this, as julian recalls, I was really a strong voice to say. We needed to have independent thinkers that aren't connected to the industry, if you will, but are impacted by it and are providing revenue for the city and the county through their business taxes. And so you have a really big role to play. And so I'm just so grateful to read about your biography, just persevering through the fires at the mercado. I remember that story vividly. And so you're that person. I remember some of the times you I heard from you during that period and that you now have two businesses. So that says a lot about your resilience and your perseverance and where you get all this energy. I also acknowledge you're on the board of the hacienda community development. Yeah. Can you tell me how the experience of serving on that board also connects the combination of being a private business person, coupled with your perspective of being at that board table, it seems like that's a good match, right?
96 So I, yes, I had a business at the Portland mercado for about a little bit over five years when the fire happened. And my experience as a tenant in the Portland mercado and interacting with the management from hacienda cdc, well, led me to express my interest of, of being as part of a committee for the reconstruction there. And I think that as the end up being. A key partner in the community, you know, developing affordable housing for a specific niche and, and also promoting latino businesses, which we were part of that cohort about eight years ago. And I think that I felt the need of expressing my opinions about the administration of the, of the property and some kind of rules among the other business owners. So I think that it connects well, because hacienda cdc, as a housing developer and basically one of their vision and their mission is to close that gap of, of affordability and housing among the latino population. Mainly it goes well, I, I, I, when I sit down in, in the meetings, I, I see how they're, you know, managing properties and, and facing problems here or there with tenants or with permits and things like that. It, it gives me a broad perspective of the, the housing situation in, in Portland too. So in one hand, the economic development is a is very important for, for the city and to get revenue and income through taxes. So I, I think that having the opportunity of, of seeing like the, what, what happens with the developers and what is happening also with the small businesses, it, it correlates a little bit. It connects there's a relationship. And I think that we can use that lens to, to make things better here.
97 So I really appreciate it. And I hope that you feel comfortable expressing yourself at the meetings. I've had people be on meetings like that that are from the inter entrepreneur, independent, creative side of the world, not in government. And they, they get into meetings are like, I, I don't know what people are saying. So there's sometimes a lot of jargon, so feel free to speak up and really own your voice, julian recalls. I really wanted all of you to be voting members, so I'm still a little bummed that you're categorized as a non-voting member. Don't let that stop you, okay? Express yourself. We need you. Thank you.
98 Thank you, vice chair. Ryan, I am next in the queue. First off, I feel like this is a very good nominee. I'm intending to vote yes on it. I ask questions about process on on board recruitments, largely to try and prevent a problem in the next recruitment. That's how I always view it. So don't take it as anything about you. I intend to vote yes and today, as for sure. But I did want to ask a couple questions about the process. Can you speak to how many of the you mentioned, I think 17 business associations and chambers of commerce. You reached out to all of those folks, and I think that's that's great. How many of them gave recommendations of candidates?
99 Two.
100 Okay. And did they each give one recommendation or were there multiple from either of those?
101 Each of them gave one recommendation in this round.
102 I know that this is a new setup. So the sample size is pretty small in terms of recruitments for this type of role. Because as as councilor Ryan mentioned, vice chair Ryan mentioned, there's it's not this is a relatively new position, but from your knowledge, is that normal to get two of the 17 to reply.
103 So on the first. So we have recruited for this seat twice and we received two the first time. Two direct responses from chambers and then two additional. No, no, no, that's it was just two the first time. Sorry, I was confusing it. And then two the second time as well. So yeah, in this realm normal. So previous to this position, I've worked in community engagement across Multnomah county and other statewide organizations. And we've and other at other recruiting for other positions, we received hundreds. And so part of and part of it is the process that was the process that was recommended and adopted sort of shrinks the candidate. The candidate pool. Yes. And intensifies the level of outreach that we have to do because it's so specific. Luckily, our team holds a lot of relationships across the county, the business world, and I was truly walking into businesses introducing myself to people. If someone said, oh, hey, you should go talk to this person, the owner of east glisan pizza, for instance, like I went and talked to her and she's like, we just rebuilt our business because we just rebuilt our business. I need to be sitting here for six months. I can't do anything else. And so part of that was to really hear and understand what's happening for business owners across the county. And then, I mean, the sincere story is I went to talk to omar because he was a business developer across the region. And I said, omar, do you know anyone? And then we just kept talking. I was like, oh, it's you. So and yeah, so it all of us have done outreach. So the process is person to person and relational, but it, it takes months to fill these types of positions. And not everyone wants to sit at a table like this, you know, at a table like the sock.
104 Absolutely. You know, as a son of a small business owner, it's I am very aware of how, how it is difficult to get the time and to even imagine that you might have it at a, at a consistent time to do this. And obviously it's not a paid position. So. I will ask, were the two chambers that were involved, associations that were involved in nominating somebody last time? The same two as this time.
105 One was consistent was which was Portland metro chamber. And previous was the east county chamber recommended someone who came on to our community advisory committee, which was amazing. And this time it was the Portland metro chamber and the hispanic metropolitan chamber.
106 Okay, great. I think, you know, as we we currently have a vacant position for the city's chief engagement officer. When that person is hired, I think maximizing the number of folks that are are providing nominations is probably a good look. And they can help. Obviously, the good news is it's good to have as many candidates as possible, but ultimately you only need one that's good. So and having more helps raise the chances you have one that's good, but you can have two nominees and have at least one that's good as we've seen. So for this, it doesn't have a huge impact and I'm not concerned about it. I'm mostly thinking about the future and I guess committing the the city administrator to, you know, that new position when hired, helping assist in the in the liaising with the, the, the folks, the different associations and chambers. Thank you. So that's it for me. Thank you for the answers to that. Councilor pirtle-guiney.
107 Thank you, chair omar, thank you so much for stepping up and being willing to do this. I wanted to just give you the opportunity, if you're willing to say a little bit more about what you're hoping to accomplish on the board. Robin said that in talking to you, it was obvious that you were the right person, and you spoke a little bit to your experience as a business owner and working with hacienda cdc as a developer, right? In their role as a developer. But it also occurs to me that in that role, you've seen the work that they do as a housing provider, slightly different than the developer side, that social services side. I'm guessing that you have seen the work interacting between the city and the county and the work that we need to do to make sure that through the soc, we are staying on the same page as we provide services. And I'm wondering if you can just share a little bit more with us, what you're bringing in terms of your thoughts on the system and what's working well, where we need to go, anything like that.
108 Yeah. Well, first of all, it's a lot of curiosity. You know, as a entrepreneur, I think that's what drives us, right? Curiosity is one of the things that that is driving me to learn more about how things are managed. Because as a, as a business owner in my own business, my perspective as a business owner, you know, we're paying taxes and we understand that they go to expenses from the city and the local governments and all that. But we really. Question sometimes things that are happening in the area. And, and a lot of people who I interact with, they're always like, oh, you know, where are my taxes going? Like, why I see a lot of tents. What is happening with the, the services here and there? So also, you know, when I work with, with northwest housing alternatives, I was in charge of a homelessness prevention and rapid rehousing program. I had the opportunity to learn a lot of what people would go through when, when they became homeless or when they were at risk of becoming homeless. So I missed a little bit of that work where you are like interacting with people sometimes in dire straits, and sometimes in situations where they're helpless. And, and that is some of that compassion. I, you know, miss to apply because in the, the business world is a little bit different, you have to be a little bit more aggressive. And probably you use different ways to communicate. And I miss that. That part where I sit down and help someone to, to, to, you know, get out of the situation that they're living. So I think that that's what drives me the most. If I can use a little bit of my experience in both worlds to express my, my, my view under that lens and, and help, it's, it's what it drives me really, that need of helping others.
109 Thank you.
110 Thank you. Councilor pirtle-guiney councilor Ryan.
111 Oh, yeah. Just a couple quick things. Yeah. I just want to acknowledge it's actually good to say that it's a charitable act when someone from the private sector is on a commission like this, because you don't get paid, others that are there, the voting members, they actually are paid to be at the meeting. So I really appreciate that. Hence giving you the freedom at the meeting. And also I just want to acknowledge peter andrews for his service. I think he was on for two years. Yeah. So thank you so much. I look forward to supporting this.
112 Thank you, councilor Ryan. Councilor Zimmerman.
113 Thank you, chair omar. I look forward to working with you. I said on the sock. And it's been a voice that's been missing for a few months now since andrew had to step away. So welcome to the team, I hope. Thank you. And I look forward to seeing your perspective working with you. And it is a hard committee to serve on. It deals with the hardest issues and it has the most complex set of opinions. And so but it has been worth my time these last two years to serve on it. And so I hope that it will be worth your time. So thanks for stepping up and I will certainly support you.
114 Thank you.
115 Thank you, councilor Zimmerman. Councilor Green.
116 Thank you so much for stepping up to volunteer for this. I'm going to echo what my colleagues have already said about service and about your willingness to take time out of your, your, your life to, to contribute to the greater good here. I'm excited about the recruitment. I'm impressed by your background. And it's a voice from a part of the business community that that doesn't always have a seat at the table. And I'm, I'm glad that we have that. I do have a question for you. This would be a nonvoting board membership seat. So how do you how do you imagine interacting and influencing the discussion as someone who's not a voting member, like what tools do you have to to engage in on that?
117 Well, just coming up with ideas, I think that a part of the having an entrepreneur is that ideas flow to you all the time, a little bit of adhd, you know, and you have always this input of, of different things that you connect in your brain and you bring probably a couple more ideas than someone who's not probably a business owner. And having that. Ease of bringing alternatives, you know, just a little bit different from the norm. And I, as I said, I don't have like experience in, in politics or government, but I know that sometimes you need to be out of that box to bring something different. And I, it resonates to me. Like in the business I own, I have to create like almost every day a new thing, a new drink, a new recipe. And it, it flows to me like almost naturally. And is that feeling of having probably ideas coming and, and expressing them. And probably one of those would work. I, I think that creativity is one of the things that drive most like small business owners, you know, they, they have to be creative in order to survive. You know, we, many of my colleagues at the mercato, they survived the pandemic when it was like a very difficult to continue with your sales. And they had to. Be very, you know, just creative in, in making it. So I think a little bit of that is what I'm expecting, you know, to, to bring that set of ideas on the table. And if one of it probably from ten works a little bit, I'll be happy with that.
118 Thank you.
119 So yeah, I just want to interject here since the voting keeps coming up, I just wanted to let you all know that the steering and oversight committee ended up adopting sort of a, let's call it a two step voting process. We do consensus voting for the first vote, which is a three, two, one model that every member of the soc participates in. And we all definitely. Understand and what.
120 I said and that we all definitely understand.
121 Yes. And and then we move to the official vote by the five voting members, just for context.
122 Thanks for that context. And that actually sort of reminds me that as I was preparing for this nomination hearing, I was going back and trying to sort of look through the minutes of previous soc meetings, and I found it difficult to find minutes. I think there are some recorded meetings are recorded, but it'd be helpful if, if the public could have access to maybe some vote tallies or some summaries of what, what some key decisions were made in there, because I think it's very difficult to parse that and for folks to, to follow along because these are these are big decisions and big conversations that happen in there. And so I think it's important for, for us to be able to really understand what's happening there. So thanks for clarifying on how the voting stuff works. I'm glad that there is a two step process. I think that gets more opportunity for someone like omar to, to help steer this. And I I'm that entrepreneurial thinking is actually very important because we're dealing with a situation right now where the resources that we have in the community to address our homelessness crisis are, are at risk, frankly, because voters are kind of like, I'm not seeing the problem being solved. And so I'm worried that they're going to make a decision that turns off the flow of those funds. And so being able to have new voices at the table to think differently is super critical. So for that reason, I'm going to support I'm going to vote to support you, omar.
123 Thank you, thank you.
124 I appreciate the feedback to councilor.
125 Thank you. I just wanted to if anyone else want to get in the queue before I kind of ask for the the motion here. I just wanted to add, I agree with everything councilor Ryan said about it being a sacrifice to join. I'd say any volunteer putting in their time, it's it's something we're we're grateful for as a city. I had a question that's not exactly related, but as someone who went to the mercado frequently and obviously, like many, is looking forward to its its eventual reopening and repopulation, all that stuff. Do you have plans to go back.
126 To the mercado? We just opened a second location at the moment, and the mercado has some limits on how many people can come back. I think now they are going to have only six food carts and two other businesses. The space that was occupied by by my business, it's been basically removed, and they're expanding operations in the bar area, which I believe brings more revenue to the mercado. So they're doing that. But we we're not going back to the mercado. We want to explore probably other areas. Right now we're on the vision and and we have a commissary kitchen there where we do the preparation for the other smaller locations. So right now we don't have any plans to go back to the mercado. It's still in reconstruction. And, and probably in order space I can do. Thank you.
127 Thanks. Well, I look forward to coming to one of your other locations. All right, colleagues, this is a report introduced by mayor wilson. In order to refer it, we would need a motion to refer it to the full council with a recommendation.
128 So moved.
129 Second.
130 Okay. I'll take the motion from councilor Zimmerman. I think councilor Pirtle-guiney with the second. Is there any further? I beat you by a half second. Sorry. Any any further discussion on this item? All right. Rebecca, will you please call the roll?
131 Calling the role on document 2026-310. Moved by councilor Zimmerman, seconded by councilor Pirtle-guiney Koyama Lane. Aye, Morillo Morillo. I Novick.
132 Thank you for serving.
133 Aye, Morillo clerk. Absent. Green. Zimmerman I Avalos. I Dunphy, absent. Smith absent pirtle-guiney. I Ryan. I Kanal.
134 Thank you for being willing to serve I.
135 And the motion to refer to the report document number 2026-310. City council with recommendation to be accepted, is accepted with nine I three absent votes.
136 Thank you. Just two quick housekeeping notes before we adjourn. One for this item, we expect that it'll go on a consent agenda. Council president's decision. I won't speak for for when that would be, but soon. And then secondly, colleagues, this is and anyone listening at home, this is welcoming week. And I wanted to take the opportunity to to shout that out. There is a proclamation that is, I believe, being read right now over at the Portland building. And if anyone has the extra time, because we're adjourning a little early and you may want to join for that celebration, it is out front. Welcoming week. The proclamation. Yeah. And so, you know, we did just on the consent agenda yesterday, approve the nominees that came out of this committee to the new portlanders policy commission. And just wanted to, you know, thank our our immigrant affairs lead, brennan alvarado, the mayor for the proclamation, and wafa almutairi for her work in supporting all of that. And if anyone has some time to go over there, please feel free to, to join me over there. Yeah, yeah.
137 And just to clarify, for folks listening who don't know, welcoming week is when we intentionally have events, work programing to recognize new portlanders, to recognize the work of the new Portland policy commission, and to make sure that immigrants and refugees within our community know that this is a welcoming city and that we see all of the value that they bring to our community.
138 Thanks for putting that in. Yeah. All right. With that, this meeting of the committee of the whole is adjourned. See you at 2:00 for the work session.