The record · Transcript
Council session — 2026-03-17
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (19,997 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.
Councilor Zimmerman, can you hear us online? Yes. Thank you.
Good afternoon. I call the meeting of the community and public safety committee to order. It is Tuesday, March 17th at 2:30 p.m. Rebecca, will you please call? Oh, sorry. Diego, will you please call the roll?
Good afternoon. Smith.
Just verify that. Morillo here.
Novick here.
Zimmerman. Here.
Kanal here. Christopher, will you please read the statement of conduct?
Welcome to the meeting of the community and public safety committee to testify before this committee in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance in the committee agenda@ww.gov council agenda slash community dash and dash public safety committee or by calling 311. Information on engaging with the committee can be found at this link. Registration for virtual testimony closes one hour prior to the meeting. In person. Testifiers must sign up before the agenda item is heard for public testimony. During today's meeting, individuals may testify for 90s unless the chair states otherwise, your microphone will be muted when your time is over. The chair preserves order disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others. Testimony or committee deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, the committee may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. 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. Virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the clerk calls your name. Thank you.
Thank you. Christopher. This meeting, the community and public safety committee will consider two items the. Consider an ordinance to add identification of law enforcement officers. Code to prohibit facial covering. Require badge visibility, and require identity verification for individuals conducting law enforcement activities. Following that, there's a resolution to affirm council support for transparency and accountability and law enforcement. I just want to note there's two items that are two things that make this committee slightly unique. One is that we're going to be passing the gavel back and forth a little bit. The councilor Novick and I, as my co-chair as we've been taking turns who's chairing. But this is my turn to chair and I propose the first item we passing him the gavel for that part. And the other is this is the the last meeting of this current iteration of the community and public safety committee. We're all all the committees are on break for a little bit. It'll look pretty similar, but not identical. And we'll talk about that more at the end. All right. I guess we should get started. So with that, diego, if you could call the first item.
Item one ad identification of law enforcement officers code to prohibit facial covering require badge visibility, and require identity verification for individuals conducting law enforcement activities. Parentheses. Ad code. Chapter 23.30.
All right. I'm going to pass the gavel.
Loretta Smith: Point of order. Councilor wanted to take. Yes, this is councilor Smith and I wanted to table my resolution.
Councilor Smith has moved to move to table. Do I have a second?
Sure.
Second.
And I apologize. I can't remember it's tabling. Require a vote. It doesn't. Okay. The motion. Councilor smith's resolution is hereby tabled. Thank you, thank you. All right. So we're going to. Do you mind if I. Yeah. So just to get the presentation started, I'm going to ask my my senior policy advisor to come up here. That's jack jaden. And then also to get the screen share going for our slides. Bear with us a minute here, please. Okay, we got it shared on our side, but not yet in the room. So just bear with us a second. There we go. Colleagues, I'm excited to bring forward for your consideration and referral to the full city council, an ordinance to ensure that all law enforcement in the city of Portland are unmasked, identified and verified. Portlanders, you have the right to know who's policing you and today's ordinance. If the full council adopts, it will enshrine that right into law. Next slide please. So we're going to do a quick presentation at the top. This will include the updates. Since January 13th, we've already discussed much of the content of this ordinance. We're going to hear about the precedent set by denver and saint paul through some invited testimony. We're going to talk about the legal implications of it, as well as hearing from some of the experts on this. After we do wrap up the presentation, we'll have time for technical questions and answers. We have a technical amendment that will be putting forward. Also, councilors can float any other amendments that they wish to propose after public testimony, and then we'll take the public testimony and then go into committee consideration. The the thing I wanted to note for those who have signed up to testify, I believe the clerk already emailed out just to make sure that we have enough time to hear from everybody. I believe testimony has been shortened to 90s. I apologize for that. We do have a lot of written testimony as well, so if anyone would like to still submit what else they didn't have the chance to say, please put it in in written testimony as well. And my main focus on this is to make sure that people understand the legislation. It's strange how straightforward it is, and don't get lost in any of the misinformation out there. Next slide please. The big question that this ordinance aims to answer is, who are these people we've seen around the country? But we've seen here in Portland people who are masked, smashing windows, pulling fathers out of their cars as they are dropping their children off at school, using unmarked vehicles with no license plates and broadly spreading terror and fear. We also have heard a great number of stories of impersonation from around the country, and we'll talk about that more later on. We know that ice is not telling where and when they are operating in the city. There's a concept called deconfliction that we'll talk about later, which is a crucial practice to inform one another when agencies are operating in the same area. This helps avoid accidental interference and safety concerns between law enforcement agencies as well as for the public. And so this is a practice that we're also talking about assisting through this process because we want and need to know where people are in our community. Next slide please. I already talked about that. Skip ahead. One more, please. The key purposes accountable, transparent law enforcement at all levels, prevention of kidnaping, fighting fear and intimidation and accountability and transparency. Next slide please. The key parts of the policy remain the same. While the masking ban was passed at the state level in house bill 4138, as you'll hear later on today, one of the core components is requiring that the city and all local jurisdictions adopt masking and identification policies within 180 days of it being signed. Right now, Portland police does not have a masking policy. I want to acknowledge that there is a practice that's been in effect for a number of years now of not masking at the Portland police, and I want to be clear that we have not found in our constituent communications or research in a recent example of Portland police masking in the past few years, however, there's no policy yet. The next part is identification, which includes clearly visible badge numbers, agency insignia and names. Portland police has always had higher standards in the state on identification, and we're going above that practice by by raising it for all the other agencies as well. We talk about verification, which is the idea that if a person is doing something that requires law enforcement authority and it's not visible, that they have it in an obvious way, that we need to make sure that they have it, and that Portland police will look into those situations as they come up, whether they're seeing it directly or whether someone in the community is calling for help. And finally, documentation is relevant throughout the policy. Next slide please. And this includes written reports, body worn camera when possible, documentation of the incident, and of course, creating a public record that can be asked for by a member of the public. So someone's lawyer or family member, but also used when and I do believe this will happen someday soon, that we have a federal government that is interested in accountability, that we have the records that we've been maintaining them. Now. Next slide, please. Yeah. This is the end of the sort of introductory piece here. I just wanted to to make sure that we're our our intent here is known. And I believe this sets us up for our first invited testimony. I want to note that the city of denver has voted to pass a mask ban. They're one of two cities that that have done so recently, the other being saint paul. I'm a little jealous that they beat us to the punch. I want to be acknowledging of that because we got started a while ago, but I did want to acknowledge that we do have online with us council member from denver, chantal lewis. I don't know if we also have councilor Alvarez, but I want to pass it over. Oh yes we do. We have both. Excellent. And right before I pass this over, I do want to note that we do have spanish interpretation available here for today. And I wanted to just acknowledge that. Now if it comes up, I think the just come on over and talk to the folks over here on your right, but I'll pass it over to our our colleagues from denver. Thanks so much for being here.
Great. Thank you. I'll start and give councilwoman Lewis a moment to to get with us. But my name is flora alvarez. I serve on denver city council, and I am honored to be here to urge you to pass this policy. In denver, we realized that we had taken something for granted. That was that local law enforcement do not operate without with a mask and unidentified. But we began to see more instances around the country and here locally, where this is happening and what residents. The question that was posed to me is, what are we supposed to do when someone shows up with a gun and a mask? This is not something that we're used to. We don't know if we have the right to ask these questions. We all know that our constitution has been put into question, and the fourth amendment guarantees people the right to be secure against unreasonable search and seizures and to be able to. If someone is enforcing law, they are required to identify themselves. And when someone's masked, they're not identifying selves. This is what our residents have told us is the bare minimum that we can do at this very uncertain time. This is not extreme. It's just, again, literally the bare minimum in a democracy. And authority should never operate anonymously, and people shouldn't be allowed to hide their faces. As we are not allowed to hide our faces. We respectfully urge you to pass this legislation and help protect both residents and the integrity of law enforcement, and really appreciate you bringing this forward.
Thank you. I believe, councilwoman Lewis, if you're able to get started.
Aye, Morillo, yes, I am here. Thank you so much for having me. My name is councilwoman Chantal m lewis. I serve on denver city council with my colleague here, flora alvidrez. And as she spoke about, she and I cosponsored a piece of legislation that we were actually pretty excited about that has made a huge difference in the communities that we serve. In terms of the representation that I have in the neighborhoods that I represent, I have a large population of immigrant and refugee refugee communities, as well as folks of color in my community, as well as those that speak english as a second language. And I remember hearing from one of my schools in the district and from my principal, and she was quite panicked, and she was panicked because she had heard that ice was in community and her family were absolutely terrified because these folks were in mass. She had no idea who these folks were. If they were ice, if they were law enforcement, if they were impersonators. And each, every single day, we saw that the attendance within that particular school and many of the schools within our communities started to see a decline in the number of students that were coming because families were too afraid to come to their schools. And one of the things that I love for one of the things that I love about the work that councilwoman Alvarez and I were able to address, is that we started working on this back in June, and we were able to think about what how can we make sure that this is operational for the law enforcement folks who would be responsible for putting this into operations, understanding that we are a legislative body? And so we really wanted to make sure we hit in on that as a councilor. One thing that I really appreciate is the opportunity to turn pain into policy. And so often we have policies that are painful to individuals in our community. And I think this is an opportunity to turn pain into policy. And so I appreciate the work that you all are doing, and I'm happy to answer any questions if you all have them. And with that, thank you.
Thank you, councilwoman Lewis, I know that our denver colleagues have some time constraints on them. So while we're going to get through the whole presentation, I just wanted to allow for any question briefly, that that anyone may have for them before we move on to the rest.
Councilor Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman: Thank you. Thank you. I don't have a question. I'm just going to give great gratitude to my colleague and friend, chantal lewis from denver. We know each other from some other organizations and appreciate your work as always, councilwoman. So thank you for showing up. We're missing you at nlc, which is where you should be. But thanks for thanks for stepping up. And to colleagues. That is where I'm at. I'm sorry I can't be there in person. I'm back in our capital with nlc. Thank you.
Thank you.
Great. Thank you both so much for being here. Our next folks coming up to the front. I believe they're here in person. We have a representative chosen as well as anne marie backstrom from representative psyche's office. I'm not sure where exactly, but. Oh, there.
I can just let you know. The rep chosen is on his way. He should be here any minute now.
Okay, well, we're happy to let anne marie. If you would like to get started, we'll make it work.
Wonderful. Thank you. For the record, my name is anne marie backstrom, and I'm the chief of staff to Oregon state representative farah chi chi. She represents house district 35 in Beaverton and aloha. So rep chi chi was the champion in chief, sponsor of house bill 4138, which is the law enforcement accountability and visibility act, also known as leiva. This passed during this most recent 2026 legislative session, and it's currently sitting on the governor's desk awaiting signature. I'm here today just to testify regarding the standards leiva sets and what the bill accomplishes on a statewide level. So house bill 4138 established a uniform minimum standard for all law enforcement operating in Oregon. That's local, state and federal. The goal is that authority will be visible, accountable, and transparent. It's based on a really simple and widely shared belief that when someone has the power to stop you or detain you or arrest you, you deserve to know who they are and who they work for. Importantly, I want to state that leiva sets a floor and a statewide standard, but it explicitly says that local jurisdictions and governments can set more stringent policies if they would like to so quickly. Here's what the bill does. When officers are on duty and actively engaged in law enforcement activities, they must clearly display their name or identifying number, their agency and their badge. It also limits the use of facial coverings that would conceal the identity, with a narrow and practical exceptions for undercover operations, tactical response teams and legitimate health and safety needs. It requires that law enforcement agencies operating in Oregon have this written policy in place no longer than 180 days after the measure takes effect. It also creates a process for challenging policies issued by an agency for not meeting the requirements. It also includes safeguards for democracy. So during periods when ballots are being collected or state or federal elections, officers may not wear facial coverings while performing their duties within 250ft of ballot drop sites, ballot marking areas or voting booths. Lastly, the bill provides that state and local employees may not intentionally assist unconstitutional federal investigations, so that includes those that would target people for protected speech or discriminatory reasons. It's really to create a clear line between Oregon and federal overreach. And in all of this, people may seek injunctive relief on agencies only, not on individual employees, to address violations. So our office does not currently have a position on the ordinance before you today at the city level. But we do want to acknowledge that local law enforcement is widely following these practices already in the city of Portland, and we're really excited to work with local jurisdictions such as the city of Portland. As you implement these policies over the next 180 days, and as you craft your own policies using leiva as a base standard, I'm happy to answer questions if you have them. Thank you.
Councilor. Councilor Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman: Hi, emery. Thank you. I want to say that the last part of your testimony said that law enforcement in Portland is largely already complying with this. I understand that representative chosen may have said that we were the gold standard when you were writing this bill. Can you talk a little bit about the lessons that you got from the Portland police bureau's, you know, approach to this topic? Because I really just appreciated the points that you've made in terms of we have a right to know, and you all have identified that there was a gold standard. So what what was Portland doing right that you guys used? It was you crafted this. Thank you.
Yeah. So we actually worked really closely with local and statewide law enforcement here in Oregon when crafting the bill. It was a really good process, I can say, as a staffer. So we worked with them to really write the language of this bill. So especially when it comes to what are the narrow exceptions when an officer may need to wear a mask for health or safety or when they're, you know, doing undercover operations and duties as well. So that really came from local law enforcement. A big lesson we learned, and I believe that representative chosen may speak to this is due to the supremacy clause. We have to include all law enforcement when we are creating these pieces of legislation. So in california, they ran into some issues in the courts because they didn't include state law enforcement. And so our legislation specifically says it's our local law enforcement, it's our state law enforcement, and it's the feds. And I think, again, it really goes back to this belief of you deserve to know who's knocking at your door, who's assisting you, who may be potentially detaining or arresting you.
Thank you. Going a little bit further on the supremacy piece that you just ended on and aye, Morillo, good to see you again. So I have all faith that that local and state will comply with state law. Does your bill outline what happens when the federal government proverbially tells us to shove off? Because I have a feeling that will be. Some of their approach based on on what we've seen so far, what what provisions exist there. You talked a little bit about about, you know, citizens rights with agencies. And can you go a little bit further in that?
Yeah. So the bill only includes a private right of action so folks can submit a lawsuit basically for injunctive relief only. And we, we do foresee this being litigated in the courts. If with whatever the feds decide to do or not do.
I just wanted to note that representative chosen just got here. So for those who might be able to not see online.
Thanks, chair. That's all the questions I have right now. Appreciate it.
Well then I'd love to.
Thank you.
Pass it over to rep. Thanks for being here.
Great. Thank you so much for having me. This is my first time testifying in front of city council. So very excited to be here. For the record, my name is lily and I'm proud to be the state representative from house district 46, which has a large chunk of southeast Portland. In my legislative capacity. I am vice chair of the house judiciary committee. I sit on the budget committee for ways and means, and this last legislative session that just wrapped up a couple weeks ago, I was really focused on our immigrant justice package, as well as coordinating our federal response package. And so I didn't have the pleasure of hearing the testimony before me. I'm sure anne marie covered a lot of the things that I would have liked to talk about. So I'll be very brief, and I'm mostly here because if there are any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. What I will just say briefly is, as I'm sure many of you have experienced, one of the top issues that every town hall I think I've had in the past year and a half has been the role of of masked agents in our communities. The fear that that is leaving community members with the uncertainty when they're talking to somebody about who that person works for, what their responsibility or their role is, if they even work for where they claim to work in the first place. And just the fear and uncertainty that that has created and the undermining of trust that I think much of our local law enforcement throughout the state has been spending decades and decades working to build. So when we went into our legislative session, making sure that we took on the issue of mask law enforcement was one of our top priorities. I was proud to be a chief sponsor of the bill, the law enforcement accountability and visibility act. The process we ran was really kind of substantive and cohesive process. We were working with aclu and latino network and so many other great groups, but also cities and counties and police unions, police chiefs, sheriffs trying to make sure we understood what is the current common practice of our local and state law enforcement, what was already codified into law and what wasn't, what was just kind of the best practices that they were following that maybe weren't required. And then how could we raise the bar and also really standardize the norms for everybody? So leiva does a whole lot of things. It deals with the interaction of public bodies and the federal government investigations. It has protections in about voting rights and making sure that we don't have masked agents near our voting locations during election time. But I think most relevant to our conversation today was really around uniform requirements and masking requirements. Let me pause there. But but just really say that there was a lot of thought into the ways in which leiva does and does not preempt local law enforcement. I think that's a nuance and technical area. So I'd be happy to talk about the details of leiva, the process of getting there, but also what I believe, you know, it does preempt and what I believe it doesn't preempt and what some of the unanswered questions are so happy to take any questions. Thank you for having me.
Councilor Zimmerman.
Eric Zimmerman: Thanks, representative. Good to see you. I noted that you had called Portland the gold standard earlier, so I won't I won't bring that up again, but can you talk a little bit about, you know, if so, let me rephrase this. Does your bill does it direct that law enforcement intervene or contact or I guess, put themselves on scene any time that there's an ice action? Is that is that what the state bill is doing? And can you talk a little bit? I know that's been thought of in different spaces at different times. Can you talk about that a little bit?
Absolutely. Councilor Zimmerman, thank you for the question. Good to see you. No, it does not. In fact, I think it absolutely mandates nothing related to what local law enforcement is doing when there is ice activity. And so that was an important question of what we did and didn't do. There were thoughts and questions along the way about where that was going to land. Specifically, the only enforcement mechanism within leiva is, and it's both broad and narrow depending on how you're looking at it. It's a civil court action. Anyone can bring it. It's brought in that sense that a member of the public can see something that's violating leiva and bring that to court. But it's narrow in the sense that the only result, the only accountability mechanism, is injunctive relief. As a judge can say, you need to follow this law and you need to stop doing any action that's not following this law. It does not have a role for local police, and it doesn't preempt that. It doesn't prevent from any jurisdiction from requiring that. But leiva itself does not require any sort of action, any sort of documentation, anything of that nature of local law enforcement relating to ice. It requires local law enforcement to have clear policies around masking and uniforms that are in compliance with leiva, but not not to the question that you're asking. It does not require that.
Okay. And I understand that that maybe had been floated at one point. It sounds like that was not decided upon. Any thoughts on like that? Just a matter of getting getting votes in the legislature. Was it an operational concern? Is it just the fact that there are just so many different police agencies in the state of Oregon that trying to do a one size fit? What what was the thought process around that? Because I know it's just been a huge part of the community concern, which is how do we deal with this?
Absolutely. Councilor Morillo appreciate the question. I think everything you just said is right in the sense that I think it's all of the above. There was a number of different ideas floated in terms of more involvement in terms of we've seen california go with criminal penalties. So that implicitly or explicitly requires a lot more law enforcement involvement. If there's a crime, an earlier draft or an earlier version of leiva had had civil penalties, kind of akin to a traffic violation that still would have allowed local law enforcement to intervene in a more direct way. And so part of it is about making sure that we can get the votes. Part of it was about meeting with opposition, hearing their concerns and figuring out where was the consensus path forward. And then to your point, right. I think it's important that we passed policy at the state level because we've got a need for, I think, uniform clear requirements across the entire state. So most people don't know when they've crossed over a city line or a county border necessarily. And we want to make sure that someone living in Oregon has a certain standard of how law enforcement in Oregon is going to act, how visible they're going to be, how accountable they're going to be. That goes across the board. And we're talking about rural communities on the other side of the mountain. We're talking about, you know, Portland. We're talking about other cities, smaller cities, and, you know, all of that. So in terms of kind of that one size fits all state level policy, we didn't end up going there.
Thanks, representative. I appreciate your leadership on this down there. I think it's been the topic of our era. Thank you.
Councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith: Thank you, mr. Chair. Question. Representative, thank you for coming by to to talk with us. So I'm curious, since the state basically trump's local law will this particular piece. It will it be negated because of what you all passed in the legislative session, which is very similar to this? I'm trying to figure out what the difference is between what we're trying to put forward and what you all have done in terms of trying to make sure people can recognize who law enforcement is.
Thank you for the question, councilor Smith. It's a good question. It's one of the core reasons I wanted to be here is to make sure I could lend clarity there. The shortest answer is no. The slightly more nuanced answer is I do believe leave preempts one very specific area which is in drafting leave, right? We say you must not wear masks, except here are the circumstances where you can. Maybe you're doing an arson investigation, maybe it's a swat team response. Maybe it is, you know, temperatures that are negative ten degrees. And so we laid out a number of exceptions in the preemption language. We're really clear that we do not preempt local governments. That was a real moment of negotiation. And we were really clear on that. And I think everyone passed it clear eyed that we were not preempting local governments. But local governments can go further in what they require. They can go further, I think, in what kind of accountability metrics they have or what kind of duty to investigate there is, but they cannot change what those exemptions to masking are similar with uniforms. So with uniforms, you must wear uniform except if you are an undercover officer, etc. So so I don't believe that a city under if it goes into law and it's awaiting the governor's signature, but I expect it will get it when it goes into law, I do not believe it preempts what the city is trying to do here. Other than those exceptions that leave includes must be included at the city level. This is maybe speaking even one step further. I think that the exceptions which are also baked into this, the language is slightly different and there's some room to argue whether those are kind of 1 to 1 or not. My instinct as a court would probably rule that that anything that is less of an exception than leiva provides would be kind of read to to comply with leiva. So I don't think it would be preempted, but I do think a court might read the exceptions in the city law to comply with the exceptions that are already within our state law.
And.
Yeah. And just like you have taken a clear line to what is federal and what is local law enforcement, I'm just concerned that we're we're going to be asking the Portland police to do a little bit more than what you're talking about, because I don't think yours has anything to do with that. And I'm concerned that that that we're we're being a little bit too granular in how we're looking at this. And I appreciate what you all have done, but I'm just trying to make sure that we're within our rights and what's and what's what we're able to do and not trying to, you know, be preempted by the state.
Thank you so much, councilor. And just so briefly, but I think there's a legal question. There's a policy question on the legal side. I think we were really clear when we crafted that. But for those exceptions that I just mentioned, were not preempting locals from deciding what's best for their own communities. The policy question I completely leave up to you all. I think that, you know, that's not my role to weigh in on. But on the legal side, we were really clear that we were not preempting.
Oh, okay. I thought you were here because you were in support of the current policy.
I felt it was really important for me to make sure that the story of leiva was told, the choices and the distinctions that we made, the lines that we drew around, what was preempted and what weren't preempted. But but no, councilor I, you know, my personal capacity, I might have beliefs, but I feel like I'm here as a state representative that worked on a state law and wanted to make sure that I'm not telling you all what to do for the city, but I want to make sure that I am really, really clear. Yes.
About that.
At all. Yeah, totally.
I just thought that you were you were coming to testify to be in support of councilor Kanal. Mass. And and I think, you know, we all have lots and lots of work to do. And I just want to make sure that if there's something that's already. I think leiva really kind of took care of everything and it took care of what, what's required by the state. And I don't want to be jumping all over your, your, your, your bill, but I just think that you all took care of it. I don't think we really need this bill right now.
I asked people to react, not non-orally with the jazz hands or thumbs down or what have you. Councilor Smith can we move on?
Loretta Smith: Oh, sure. Okay. I'm finished.
Okay. Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal: Yeah, thanks. And just to be clear, we have expert panels coming up here and, you know, testifying with their, their, their experience and their expertise. I also want to note that there is a technical amendment package, and we've been presenting on that because this was filed before the state legislative session finished. And so we have updated the language in this technical amendment package to align, I believe, verbatim with the the state legislation, which is house bill 4138, I believe. And so once that is adopted at the start of our conversation will be operating off of the literal exact same words. So just wanted to clarify that and then let me know when I can go on to our next as we do have a few more.
Actually, I do have a question, which is kind of a subjective question for both of you, which is you both said that the state law provides a floor, not a ceiling. But I'm just kind of curious. Did you feel like what you wound up with was something that you know will make a difference and you were proud of, or was it like kind of weak tea and you grudgingly supported it because it was the best you could get in terms of the requirements for identification and masking?
I can I'm anne marie again, for the record. I can speak to that a little bit. So when I first introduced this bill, it did have a lot more components in it and we worked really hard, tirelessly. I mean, there were 11 p.m. Phone calls trying to figure things out and make amendments. I think we settled on amendment 11 in a short session, which was wild. And every step of the way we we looked at community, we looked at our partners, at the aclu, we looked at immigrant communities that are doing this work every day. And we finally decided that, you know what? We needed to get something across the finish line. But I think I can speak for representative chai chee when I say the intention is to come back and make it stronger. And we're really excited to see this become state law and see what our local jurisdictions do with it.
And thank you for the question. Councilor Novick. I'm extremely proud of the work that we accomplished with levi. I don't think it's weak at all. I don't think it's performative. I think that, you know, the california case came down, you know, on the california's mask ban in a moment where we were already pretty far along in levi. And it was really great confirmation that the path that we were on was likely to hold up in court, that it was carefully thought through, that it involved a lot of stakeholders. So I think that it is incredible work. It's one of the pieces of legislation I feel most proud to have worked on in my brief time in the legislature, and I don't want that to be misinterpreted for a position on this that I don't intend for it to be. I think that the role that isis is playing in our communities and the way in which they are terrorizing our communities, is a civil rights issue of our moment. And so it is incumbent on every single layer of government to use their power in the smartest, most nuanced, most actionable way possible. It's for you all to figure out whether this is the policy that you want to pursue in that area, but it was a state policy I was very proud of. And also, we knew that there was going to be room for local jurisdictions to come in and figure out if they felt like there was more to do. And I feel like that's exactly what you all are doing.
Thank you. Councilor Kanal who do you have next?
Sameer Kanal: Sergeant paul steigleder from the law enforcement action partnership is next up for while you're swapping out, just let me say congratulations to you on the end of a of a strong session. And, and thank you both for being here and your whole team's as well.
Good to see.
You all. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Good afternoon. Thank you for having me here. My name is paul steigleder and I'm a retired sheriff's sergeant. I'm also a district four representative. I'm here on behalf of myself in the law enforcement action partnership. We're a group of criminal justice professionals, and we're working on pushing forward with justice and public safety issues. And we're here to say that we're supportive of the idea and the intent.
I'm sorry to interrupt. Could you bring your mic closer to your mouth?
Sorry about that. How about if I just scoot up? Would that help? Okay, there we go. So I'm here to say that we leap are in favor of and support the intent and direction of this ordinance. The we do have a respectfully offer some recommendations and refinements. Number one, the ordinance should only expressly reference the masking prohibitions that are currently listed in house bill 4138. We don't know what the irs number is yet, but people in this room. Aaron schwartz with cop and ppa and the two distinguished people that were here just before me, they worked tirelessly to create this bill. And so in in my simple deputy sheriff mind, I went there and goes, what's different about this bill as a as opposed to 41, 38 and the only thing I can figure out is that as far as the masking, it just talks about operational accountability. That's about the only difference. And so we as this as this law comes out and rolls out, I think you're going to be really happy with with the way that Portland is in compliance. Portland's been in compliance with the spirit of this law since 2020. They are the gold standard of identification of who's out there policing you. The. And we really need to be careful that we don't add confusing language when we're introducing ordinances that that are mirroring house bill 4138. We got a call apples, apples, and we gotta call oranges, oranges. Otherwise we get confused. And that leads us to where operationally officers aren't going to be able to perform to their best. If we try and confuse the language. Point two with respect to masking prohibitions, the ordinance should limit any additional administrative requirements to only ppe. So if aggression police officer steps into the city of Portland when they're doing law enforcement or assisting Portland, they shouldn't be held accountable to the to the administrative requirements. Section 2330 33 relating to documentation. Again, it should refer to Portland police bureau only, which you have operational control over. Point three is section 2330 50. And this is your sticky wicket. You know, this is this is the reason that we're here. This is this is an issue that's transfixing the nation. We have law enforcement, local law enforcement, encountering people in camouflage, wearing masks, driving unmarked vehicles. Are they impersonators? Are they federal agents? We need to know who's policing us. But if you're going to codify this operational requirement, we need to be exact and we need to be right. Do the right things for the right reasons, the right way. We need to slow down and look at. So denver came and talked. Awesome. And they talked about the masking. This ordinance goes further than that. And, and the way it goes further is it talks about not just masking, but documentation and identification of who is out there doing those kind of things and what's going on. And so in my humble opinion, that's what it does is it goes further than masking, and it's going in a direction to actually have the police be present at these things and be useful to the community. Remember that you're going to be the first in the nation and we need to do it right. We need to set the standard. We need to use the gold standard of the Portland police to make this this ordinance, the gold standard of how other policing agencies should work in the future. Remember that these encounters are not one size fits all. And so you really need to focus on policy and not procedure. We need to ever you need to be ever mindful that PPB is under a consent decree. They're under a consent decree with the us department of justice, and we want to further recommend that clearly, clearly states, absent a probable cause of a violation of Oregon revised statutes, Portland police will not detain or interfere with federal law enforcement or apparent law enforcement activity. So you're going to when the police are only going to show up because of a call for service.
Can people be quiet if. Hey, hey, if if people aren't. Can't be quiet and have to ask. Ask people to be removed. Please let the. Let the testifiers speak.
Your police are going to be called to a situation like this, or they're going to stumble upon it. And so when they stumble upon it, they need to have the, the this, this ordinance as they go forward and act and interact, because this directs them to do something specific when they get there, as soon as it raises to the level of probable cause, they're going to do what they have to do. But before that, they're just really good witnesses and they're there to provide a community service bridge between the activity of the actors and the community. When when those bad people are those bad people. But when the situation nullifies itself, who's going to be standing around? Portland is going to be standing around, and they're going to have to be the ones to try and help the persons that were encountered get through this encounter and be whole. We have to remember that it's not it's it's very important that we don't micromanage Portland police as every move, and that this is when they come up upon these fluid and dynamic situations. Bottom line, chief dave rocks. Your Portland police bureau rocks. They're doing the right thing. They're doing the right things for the right reasons, for the right way. They have our they have our interest at heart.
No they don't.
I'm going to ask security if they can identify if there's just a couple of people that are continually disrupting, and if they can ask them to be removed, if that can't happen and there's continued disruptions, we're going to have to clear the room. Councilor Kanal is your next.
Sameer Kanal: Thank you so much.
One last point. We can't make a decision or we can't do anything in a vacuum. I was asked really late on Friday night to come here and talk to you, and I was operating in a vacuum, and as soon as I got a chance to talk to some folks, I got a well rounded up knowledge and I was able to come here and effectively speak to you. We need all of the stakeholders, the police agencies, the associations, all the stakeholders here. When we make, when or when you craft an ordinance that can be looked at on a national basis and go, we want that here.
Thank you, sergeant, and I appreciate the comments. I do think we'll definitely be sharing with you the amendments that are coming forward on this. And if there's anything that you'd like to tell us before we get to the full council, we appreciate it too. Next on our run of show up here is bringing up our city attorney, mike porter, who I believe. I'm not sure where he's at, but upstairs. Okay. Thank you. Sorry.
I was wondering, can councilor Kanal can you say again when you were planning to? You keep referencing an amendment that you're bringing to that is aligning with the state law, and I recognize the timeline was a little off. Is there a place that we can see that now? I'm having trouble tracking that a little bit.
Yeah. It's posted on where on the agenda as Kanal one.
You're going to propose that today though.
Yep.
That's a technical amendment. And it's been written in large part by the person we're about to hear from, to make sure that it aligns the ordinance with with the state law.
Okay.
Got it. And I think, you know, in general, the way we've handled technical amendments as a council has been largely, you know, that the sponsor gets to sort of establish the starting point of conversation and when there's been a need to change it because of some external force that we do that, and then we feel free to amend it any other way, of course. But that's sort of the context in which we're putting it forward. Thank you so much for being here, mike.
Happy to do it. Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal: And I want to acknowledge to everybody who's out there, there is a memo. We can acknowledge that it exists, but that that councilors have seen. And so I wanted to make sure there was an opportunity here for folks to to talk and for for mike, for you to speak. But there is a thing you'll hear us reference that is attorney client privilege. So I just want to acknowledge that before we get into it. And then we'll get into public testimony very soon after that. There's one more group after this. Yes.
Okay. So I'm happy to answer any questions. I can give a brief overview of what the the substance of the ordinance today. And sort of it's, it's major talking points. So the draft ordinance serves two primary functions. First, it codifies with city code the identification and masking framework reflected in house bill 4138 that you heard about already, which is pending in the governor's pending the governor's signature, while adopting more stringent local requirements governing how law enforcement officers must identify themselves while operating in the city of Portland. Second, it overlays existing Oregon criminal law, specifically statutes governing criminal impersonation and kidnaping, with a structured set of investigative steps and documentary requirements that apply when Portland police bureau officers encounter individuals purporting to act as law enforcement. House bill 4138, among other things, establishes a statewide framework governing officer identification and facial coverings, and expressly permits local governments to adopt more stringent requirements in these two areas. The draft ordinance operates within this framework while imposing additional local standards, including the exclusion of certain forms of identification otherwise recognized under state law, and the requirement that officers display a first, initial and last name on their uniforms. These provisions reflect the policy choice to change the authentication beyond the statewide baseline. But as anticipated by the language of the house bill, at the same time, the draft ordinance incorporates the subject matter of existing Oregon criminal statutes and establishes operational framework governing how officers investigate, verify, and document potential violations of these statutes. This approach is generally not reflected in the criminal law context, where statutes typically define prohibited conduct without prescribing investigatory methodology or documentation requirements at the municipal level, and where investigative practices are instead governed by constitutional standards, state law and agency policy, rather than city ordinance. Although the latter introduces structured investigatory expectations that may occur earlier on an encounter than the traditional reasonable suspicions threshold described in terry v ohio. It preserves the requirements that detention or restraint be supported by reasonable suspicion. As a result, the ordinance remains aligned with constitutional investigatory standards while introducing a distinct operational framework. Governing officer conduct. The draft ordinance also reflects some policy decisions which may have operational and interagency impacts, which can be addressed by the subject matter experts here today.
Thank you. Any questions for mr. Porter? Thank you. No questions. Apparently. Councilor Kanal do you have another? Yep. Last group.
I wanted to invite up sandi chung from the aclu. Yazmin ibarra from the seiu, as well as we have representatives from perc and I think online as well. This will be our last panel before we get into the public testimony. So thanks, everyone for bearing with me. We'll get right to you.
Good afternoon, councilors, I'm sandi chung. My pronouns are she and her. I'm the executive director of the aclu of Oregon. On behalf of the aclu of Oregon and our 52,000 members and donor supporters across the state of Oregon. I'm here in support of the right to know ordinance with the Kanal one amendment. Also, my colleague jessica Montavilla, our policy director, and michael abrams, policy counsel, who worked on the bill at the state level, are here so that they can answer any questions you may have during the first and second trump administrations, portlanders were targeted with extraordinary abuses of power by the federal government, including masked, unidentified federal operatives kidnaping people off our streets. However, when comparing 2020 to current times, what portlanders have experienced has been night and day. This, in our view, is because under the leadership of the current city council, the mayor and police chief, robert day, the city of Portland has embraced this basic understanding that trust and transparency between law enforcement and the people they serve is vital to public and community safety, including officer safety and effective policing. The right to know ordinance is an extension of this effective public safety strategy of trust and transparency. Similar to portland's sanctuary city ordinance, the right to know ordinance aligns Portland regulations with state law, in this case, the law enforcement accountability and visibility act, the right to know ordinance implements, at the city level the important public policy of law enforcement being identifiable to the public while also setting common sense, reasonable guidelines for Portland police. And this is very important. Under this ordinance, Portland police are expected to investigate, which is consistent with their current practices related to ice activity, and they are expected to address potential violations by government agents or impersonators in appropriate ways that best serve public and officer safety with flexibility and discretion when detention may be appropriate. We strongly urge the committee and council to adopt the right to know ordinance. Thank you for prioritizing trust and transparency in order to create real safety for all portlanders, including our immigrant and refugee neighbors.
Good afternoon. My name is yasmin ibarra. I'm the political director for seiu local 49. I'm here today speaking on behalf of seiu Oregon, which represents over 85,000 workers in Oregon and southwest Washington. Our members are health care workers, public employees, health care workers, nursing home workers, janitors, security officers, folks who keep our community functioning every day. I'm here in strong of in strong support of the right to know who's policing you ordinance and the need for this is very clear. Earlier this year, aye, Morillo and seiu member and us citizen was driving alone in Salem when she was followed and boxed in by unmarked vehicles with no plates for masked individuals wearing. Police approached her and when she didn't respond immediately, they shattered her window, dragged her out and left her injured. After finding her passport, aye, Morillo suffered a concussion, a torn rotator cuff and bruised ribs, and when she called local police, she was told to call fbi. No help, no investigation. No one in our community should experience this kind of fear or uncertainty about who's detaining them, or, in maria's case, injuring them. The state's new law enforcement visibility act is a strong start, but local governments can go further this ordinance. Insurance officers cannot conceal their identities, requires visible I.d. And gives local police the ability to verify anyone claiming federal authority and document encounters. When it's unclear who's detaining someone. These are simple, common sense protections that are urgently needed. Secret policing has no place in our democracy, and on behalf of our members like aye, Morillo and communities we serve, I urge you to vote yes on this ordinance. Thank you.
Good afternoon, councilors. My name is alyssa walker, and I'm the coordinator at the Portland immigrant rights coalition. I'm here today to share our support for the right to know who's policing you ordinance. We are grateful to councilor Kanal and his team for inviting perk and other partners in this room to be a part of the review process for the ordinance. Our perspective has been formed by the on the ground observations and more than 20,000 phone calls to our hotline since the last year. From people looking for resources in Oregon and reporting possible ice activity, we've borne witness to the confusion and the lack of clarity due to the actions of agents who dress in plain clothes, wear drive vehicles with no license plates and, of course, cover their faces and do not provide identification. At least 258 detentions have been reported to perk in Portland proper since July, making this issue an issue that is very much impacting your constituents perks. Incredible. Dispatchers have told us how challenging it is to receive phone calls from callers who are unsure which agency they are dealing with. Many hotline calls involve unmarked, suspicious vehicles and people, and this uncertainty results in lost time. They shared that police verifying. They shared that police verifying whether someone is a federal agent may help with imposters, like those who were reportedly interrogating young people on the max early last year. And most importantly, it would be helpful to answer the questions of the loved ones left behind. Minutes often mean the difference between transport out of state and access to legal counsel. Having PPB officers able to ascertain with clarity who is involved in a detention or provide documentation of violations, would be of great value to the families seeking justice when ice has broken the law. The reality is that every day, courageous portlanders are already taking it upon themselves to ask agents who is detaining their neighbors and loved ones here in Portland, Portland police being mandated to do the same and to verify indicia of authority, of agents to detain people will help protect your constituents and remind them who the local police are here to protect. I am reminded of a very real moment. This would have been appreciated. I happen to be the person accompanying the very next human leaving court and on their way to their vehicle. After the first detention and immigration court last June. I will never forget the terror on this woman's face when I met her at the doors of court. Who was that? She asked me. It was ice, I think. I explained to her. Well, why are they wearing masks? What happened to the girl in the pink sweater? Those masked men had walked in, surrounded a woman and took her out of court, leaving everyone stunned and unsure about what had happened or why and nobody to ask what authority they had to do. So, like so many others, this woman shared with me that she never thought that something like that would happen in the place that she had fled to. And so I asked this council move to pass this proposal and make it an ordinance, because if agents are bold enough to kidnap people in broad daylight from our communities, they must be held accountable and law enforcement agents should have the responsibility to document crimes against Oregonians. Thank you.
Thank you. And we have ira from online to close this panel out.
Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is ira martinez and I'm providing comments on behalf of bitcoin. Oregon's farm worker union. At bitcoin, we work to empower farmworkers and latinx working families to improve their working and living conditions through community building, organizing and policy advocacy. I'm here to express strong support for the proposed ordinance requiring clear identification of law enforcement officers. Our members are experiencing the level of fear and uncertainty that is deeply concerning. Farm workers and immigrant families in Oregon are closely watching what is happening across the country and here in our own communities. Reports of mass individuals in tactical gear claiming to be law enforcement have made it increasingly difficult for people to know who they can trust. One of the most common concerns we hear is about encounters with officers whose faces are covered and whose identities are unclear when law enforcement is not easily identifiable, people cannot determine who they're interacting with or what authority they have, and this creates confusion, fear, and in some cases, real danger. Oregonians should be able to clearly see who's operating in our communities and which agency they represent. Transparency is not optional. It is essential for public safety and trust. Our members are also deeply concerned about impersonators. When officers are allowed to obscure their identities, it creates opportunities for bad actors to pose as law enforcement and commit harm. This is not a hypothetical concern. It is already happening across the country. We have heard directly from community members about the need for accountability. One of our members shared that we don't want anyone to touch us without a warrant signed by a judge. This reflects a broader demand for transparency, due process and respect. This ordinance takes an important step toward addressing these concerns by requiring visible badges, clear identification, and limiting the use of facial coverings, it helps ensure that individuals engaging in law enforcement activities are accountable to the public. They also creates a clear distinction between local law enforcement and federal agencies, which is critical in a sanctuary. Cities such as Portland. Community members deserve to understand who is present and what authority they're operating under. And at its core, this ordinance is about trust. When people cannot identify law enforcement, trust erodes. When trust erodes, public safety suffers. By passing this ordinance, the city of Portland can affirm its commitment to transparency, accountability, and safety for all of its residents, especially immigrant communities who are being disproportionately impacted today. We urge you to support this measure.
Thank you so much. And just to close out our presentation, I wanted to just kind of piggyback off of that. And I've got about a minute left, actually.
Councilor Kanal councilor Zimmerman, is that legacy hand or do you have a question for the panel?
Oh, I did have a question for the panel. Thank you chair. First off, for those of you who just testified, thanks so much for your work. You are all important people to portlanders and Oregonians and to me. So thank you for for showing up. I am hoping that you can help us understand what or where you think that this action, because we're really we're really talking a lot about the. I'll just articulate the terrible operations, frankly, of of ice and what they've done in our community. I am trying to understand what your organization's what you think that this will be enforced. Like what, what change will happen at the ice level? Because we have articulated a lot about our local police, our state police, our Portland police, our sheriff. Is there something in this that. That you're anticipating or hoping that federal officers will also have to follow? Or are you under the same, I think assumption that I am that we can write it down. And it's really a choice whether or not the federal administration follows. I'm just hoping to get a sense for for your thoughts here, because I think most of us are understanding that all local is going to follow this. And we all have this great worry that federally they're just going to ignore us. Is is that how you do you feel similarly to that or what sense is from your organization's. Are you personally, are you feeling with respect to this ordinance and, and your support from it?
Councilor, if I may, what we've seen across the country is when there are more checks and balances and both governments, but also organizations and people responding, that actually has been effective in checking the actions of ice. And so one of the things I wanted to note is, for example, in February, the detentions that were recorded were significantly less. And we attribute that not just to the protest and opposition of everyday people and organization to ice actions, but also to court actions like by innovation law lab, where they got a preliminary injunction against warrantless arrests. And so oftentimes, as the aclu of Oregon, we get asked this question, are the courts going to hold? And we've seen the courts hold. We've seen the rule of law hold. But that means that every person and every body and every government has to do what it can and what it has the power to do. And so I think the beauty of this ordinance is it's aligns with state law to provide clear guidance to Portland police in a way that's reasonable and commonsensical. And not only does this protect then our community members, but also is protective of Portland police officers, because now they have a clear framework with which to act with liver and act against federal abuses of power.
So so thank you, sandy. So when you say it gives clear guidance to Portland, you mean with respect to when a Portland officer does or doesn't mask? But I think maybe you're extending that. It gives clear guidance to how they will.
Engage with federal.
Go ahead. Please.
Sorry to interrupt. It also gives clear guidance about how they will engage, how Portland police officers will engage with federal agents who engage in these violations of masking and lack of identification. And I think this is.
Really helpful to hear that I, I want to it sounds like what we are going to need is right. We're going to have this law on the books. And that's a good thing. We'll have this local. We'll have state and the courts will hold is the meaning. We know we're going to get challenged and we think we've got something that is challengeable and holdable. I want to make sure, and I think acl is helpful to hear about this. Is that kind of where you're where your thoughts are at?
Yes. Councilor.
Thanks so much.
Thank you. So just to kind of close out this idea and pick up on something that ira brought up, we have the next slide, please. This is not a hypothetical risk as it relates to impersonation. And I'm not going to go through all these, but I did just want to show some of the particular examples that we've seen around when we do simply accept that someone's saying that they are ice is ice or any law enforcement without double checking it, without looking for any particular type of evidence to that. We've seen reports of sexual assault. We've seen reports of attempting to enter a dorm room. We've seen reports of fake traffic stops. We've seen the speaker of a state house killed by someone impersonating law enforcement. We've seen bombs. And by the way, this one goes back to 2018. These are not new things. They're not only in response to the federal government, however, as I think it's the next one. One more that's actually from the federal government itself. They are increasing during this time as well. And so as we go through with this, I want to make sure and I appreciate, alyssa, you bringing up what happened reportedly at the max stop, because we have seen things here as well. But these are not hypothetical risks, and we deserve the level of security that we can have here when we look into it. And don't simply accept that someone claiming to be law enforcement while masked up and doing god knows what, don't just accept that without looking into it. Thanks so much. That concludes the presentation and I look forward to any quick technical questions before we invite up our our many people that want to do testimony.
Thank you. Councilor Kanal. I'd like to invite up some of the people who will be involved in implementing this ordinance. If it passes. I'd like to hear and I realize people are waiting testimony, so you can ask them to limit what they have to say, but I'd like to hear from dca, corsi and from assistant chief hugues and from sergeant aaron schmaltz, just to offer their thoughts on the legislation and any operational issues, suggestions they have about it. Bob cozzie.
Yeah, thank you. Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to speak today. I'm bob cozzie deputy city administrator of public safety. In a time when the political climate has amplified the public's concerns over unconstitutional and unethical policing by federal agents, we find that identification, visibility and accountability are topics of notable interest and importance on all levels. We have seen that public public sentiment reflected in legislative action being taken by both state and local representatives, with a nod to representative chi chi's law enforcement accountability and visibility act and a councilor, Kanal proposed ordinance that we're discussing today as deputy city administrator for the public safety service area. I want to be clear in speaking to a worried and rightfully upset community that myself and the bureau's I represent are in agreement. Law enforcement must practice accountable constitutional policing to maintain public trust, and we recognize that breaches of that trust erode both tangible and perceived feelings of safety. I agree with councilor Kanal that our community has the right to know who is policing them. Under Oregon state law office, officers are required to self-identify upon request from a member of the public, and agencies are required retroactively to provide a name and dps number for an officer, as requested by a member of the public. In the development of the law enforcement accountability and visibility act. Pbz practices and policies around masking and identification. As we've discussed earlier today or heard mentioned earlier today, were described by legislators as gold standard. I think it's also important to note that state law already establishes a reasonable suspicion standard for investigating offenses like kidnaping and misrepresentation of an officer. Pb has been instrumental in preventing violence, protecting first amendment rights, and providing expert and witness testimony in crucial lawsuits against federal overreach. The testimony of pb leadership was key in obtaining injunctions against some of the most concerning federal actions, including the attempted deployment of the Oregon national guard. I say this because public safety wants to be a trailblazing partner in the development of meaningful policy. To that end, I think it's important to respectfully bring up some concerns. I want to express my concern over the lack of time that the public safety service area had been given to review and provide input on this ordinance. Previously, when this item came before this committee, our service area was informed. However, since January, we were not actively engaged in the ongoing development of this legislation without our insight being incorporated throughout the development, it fails to be meaningfully actionable. As will be outlined shortly by assistant chief hughes. The other concern I have is regarding fiscal responsibility. The ordinance states that there is minimal budget impact and in fact asserts that pb resources would cover additional costs. However, during the previous committee meeting in January, we shared that there would be a non insignificant cost that pb would incur to add identifiers to all external gear. In order to adhere to this new standard. The estimated cost ranges from 51,000 only to replace name tags to over 500,000 for all exterior, uniform and badge replacements. Replacing all of these items would likely take over a year. And now I'll hand it over to assistant chief hughes to talk about concerns regarding operations. Good afternoon.
Chair, co chair, members of the committee, thank you for inviting me up to speak. My name is brian hughes. I'm the assistant chief of the operations branch for the Portland police bureau. And I'd like to highlight some concerns that the police bureau has with regard to the ordinance. First, Oregon already has a statewide framework on this issue. House bill 2936 regarding identifying officers and house bill 4138, as discussed earlier, addressed officer identification and masking and ppe, and pbb policy already aligns closely with that framework, and councilor Kanal want to call you out and appreciate your comments earlier regarding how Portland police bureau does follow our own policies and directives.
I've sent the reports for masks.
So one concern is whether this ordinance.
Please be quiet.
A meaningful new public safety outcome, or simply add a separate layer on top of existing state law and current bureau policy. I'll highlight this aspect again. When you spoke earlier about the bureau currently does not have a masking policy. You're right, we don't. We are operating in alignment with state law. As the representatives just stated, within 180 days, we will have that policy and it is being crafted right now. Second, there are constitutional limits on how parts of this ordinance could operate. The city attorney's office has advised that detention authority remains governed by the fourth amendment and article one, section nine officers cannot be required to detain based on a checklist of predetermined criteria, and concepts like credible indicia have to function as factors within a totality of the circumstances analysis, not as automatic triggers for detention. Third, there are jurisdictional jurisdictional limits. Federal officers operate under federal authority and under the supremacy clause, the city cannot regulate federal operations through city code. That means some of the conduct that appears to motivate the ordinance may fall outside the city's actual authority to control, which risks placing expectations on PPB that cannot be applied to everyone operating in the city. Fourth, are some operational concerns. The ordinance creates additional documentation, reporting, verification, verification requirements that would fall primarily on PPB officers and supervisors. That means more administrative work and less time available for direct public safety work. It also creates potential uncertainty when Portland officers are working with regional and mutual aid partners under a different local standard, and I'd like to highlight that those mutual aid agreements are just starting to come back into play. After a rough 2020. Fifth, there are safety and implementation. Implementation concerns, the ordinances, facial covering restrictions and documentation requirements affect working conditions and officer safety, and the city's attorney city attorney's office identified potential bargaining issues associated with that, and we'll probably hear about that soon. So in summary, our concerns are about duplication of existing law and policy, constitutional limits, federal jurisdiction, operational burden, and whether the ordinance creates more uncertainty than practical benefit. And one more piece I wanted to highlight. I really appreciate the state reps for for being here today and testifying about the state law that they so carefully crafted. But the one point that was asked that really didn't receive a clear answer was, why doesn't the state law enact similar things regarding reasonable suspicion and authority to detain? I think that's important. And I think that it was looked at, and I don't understand why it wasn't in the state law and why it is in the city law. I think we have to take a look at that and understand why. Thank you.
Sergeant schmidt's.
Excuse me. For the record, my name is aaron schwartz. I'm a registered lobbyist and the president of the Oregon coalition of police and sheriffs. I'm also the president of the Portland police association, our city's police union meetings like today are always kind of interesting to me, because someone I'm fond of often says that problems unite and solutions divide us. I've spent the last I don't know how long ago was September, that many months dealing with an existential thing I never really imagined I would, which is navigating very complex conversations about law enforcement with law enforcement. I spent time here in dc with local officers and also representing our state, trying to navigate the differences in roles, the different venues in which these conversations are placed, and, frankly, how to solve some of these problems in the right venue. I have comments I want to prepare. I mean, even I mean, councilor Morillo, you know, watching you navigate, I mean, as your own as an immigrant, navigating the very hard conversations and expectations the community has, and also your role as a counselor, like that's really kind of what I'm talking about, the very facts of trying to navigate your own personal feelings, but also navigating the laws that you have access to and the power you have and how you use that. That's what I'm talking about. It's very difficult. The legislation, legislative session ended this this last week included progress on several critical public safety issues. And I was encouraged to see that lawmakers engage thoughtfully, proactively, and productively, including passing a statewide masking and identification law. The law enforcement accountability and visibility act, or leiva for short. It strengthens transparency, visibility, and accountability for law enforcement across Oregon. Senator prozanski representative chi chi representative chosen, the aclu, the Oregon league of cities all participated with the united front of both cops, which is the largest organization of police officers and sheriffs in the state, and the Oregon chiefs and sheriffs organizations, and identifying current practice and collaborating with stakeholders to address community concerns and strengthen and streamline masking and law enforcement identification policies. During this legislative process, pbs's existing policies were widely considered, as has been stated, I think, 15 times today, the gold standard for the state. The goal of this new law is to provide statewide consistency, so community interactions with law enforcement are predictable and constitutional. Community conversations clearly indicate that this is a central priority for Oregonians, and we were thrilled to be part of this important work. And I cannot say thank you enough to representative kai kai and representative chosen for the leadership on this issue. Leiva went into effect immediately or will go into effect when the governor signs it. And now all Oregonians can know what to expect, regardless of which law enforcement agency they encounter. This is critical. As the president of the Oregon coalition of police and sheriffs, I know that other agencies are going to align their policies to match leva's standards. In conversations this week, I learned that not all of council had registered yet the new statewide law. And yet today we're considering creating a different standard for Portland. The ordinance before you today will break the accord created by leiva. And I will note this always happens when we testify. I have not yet been able to review the amendments, and we will need time to do so to figure out where that lands. For example, residents could experience different law enforcement, masking and identification requirements depending on which side of the street you are at our city's borders deep in east Portland, which was my district for quite some time, the city's borders follows the sewer line. There's different places where you are, but again, this is a very big issue. For instance, if you're interacting with Portland police aggression police or Multnomah county sheriffs, depending on where you're standing, the rules could be different. There are even homes within the city limits, but are outside of pb's jurisdictions in the west hills. The standards need to be the same, and that is what was was established by the. Speaking on behalf of the ppa, I must also state that nothing I say here should be construed as bargaining. I hate this conversation, but when I reached out to council in September to say, we've got to bargain some of these things and we should do that first. The very reason I said that, then, is we had not yet started bargaining. But once we started bargaining, we create a separate issue, which is now all bargaining has to take place at that table. The ppa remains committed to bargaining in good faith under state law. And as I've stated repeatedly in writing to councilor Kanal and the city no less than six times since that September email, this council venue is not the place for bargaining that occurs at the bargaining table. Again, not in this chamber. Adding language to an ordinance saying that bargaining can occur afterwards is insufficient and is in fact unlawful. Bargaining must occur before an ordinance is passed. Attempting to write city law while ignoring state labor law will create chaos. Council enacts legislation, but what is being proposed here isn't in fact, an administrative policy for the police bureau that is outside of this council's purview. Any outcome here will still require mandatory bargaining and will set an ordinance, not policy. Policy must be bargained, reviewed and in Portland, it must be reviewed by the federal department of justice to repeat. Passing this ordinance will require PPB to negotiate the underlying and outgoing policy with the united states department of justice, as opposed to allowing the chief of police to enact state law and ensure the bureau is compliant. If the city has concerns about the federal government. Federal courts are the proper venue. We've seen those outcomes recently. If it has concerns about partner agencies, we saw what we can do by working with state legislature to pass laws with stakeholder input. If it has concerns about its employees, you bargain not from the dais, not on social media, but at the bargaining table, which is already set. And I will see. The city's representatives are on Friday. And at the risk of causing problems, I will also offer a solution, even though I know they said they tend to cause problems. We have 180 days from the date that the governor signs this bill. To enact it, you should tell the chief to enact it. And 181 days from there, we should all get together and look at the outcome and see if our community still has concerns. And I'll pay for the catering to sit down and have the conversation to ensure that we keep portlanders safe the way that they want to be kept safe. Thank you.
Thank you, sergeant councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal: Thanks, everyone for for being here. Thanks for being a part of this. I'll keep it brief because I know there are people waiting to testify. I just wanted to highlight and I again, apologies for not being able to reference this specifically that the conversation for ac hughes's comments relate to the last full paragraph on page seven and the paragraph. The last full paragraph, the second half of it on page nine, and the. The the conclusion of the the document on page 13 of the memo that I can acknowledge exists, but not go into detail on which is that legal memo. And I just wanted to reference that. I do appreciate the point about the cost. And if there's a $51,000 cost to, to, to make up, we'll continue to have that conversation as to whether and how we can make that not an impediment to achieving public safety here. But I do appreciate everything that that you brought. And I have other questions, but I'll keep them for discussion.
Thank you. Councilor Kanal chief, I just wanted to follow up on something you said about jurisdictional issues and just wanted to give you a chance to clarify. You were saying that when we're working with jurisdictional partners, this legislation I think might create some issues. And I just wanted to elaborate on that.
Yeah. So in two ways that could create issues. One, we routinely work with federal partners on issues. In fact, some of the downtown livability things with the drug, open air drug dealing that was going on is attributed to those partnerships. And the requirements of of the appearance of the federal agents when they're with us, could present challenges there as in regards to what they wear and how they operate and the specifics that they go by. And we'd have to have an exception for every single time that happens and a documentation for every single time that that happens. And it happens regularly. We work with task force officers almost daily in Portland. The other aspect has to do with the partnerships that we have with outside agencies that come to assist us. Nobody would have ever imagined that we would have had 130 days of unrest, or however many days it was that really stretched the Portland police bureau thin, and that also stretched our interagency agreements with outside partners and their ability to come and work with Portland. And frankly, some of them refuse to come help. And over time, under chief day's leadership, he's done amazing work at building those relationships back up. And an ordinance like this would present challenges with regards to outside agencies coming to help us.
I actually want you to elaborate on that. I mean, my thought is that if we simply required of officers working with us from other jurisdictions, what the state law requires, I would assume that wouldn't be a problem. Are you saying that if we're asking if we're imposing requirements, as far as masking identification that goes above and beyond the state law, then our partner organizations might be less likely to come and join us because their folks would be saying, wait a minute, I might run afoul of the Portland law.
That's correct. And that's one of the benefits of having a state law. So there's a common operational understanding.
Thank you. Councilor. Morillo.
Thank you. Councilor. Novick. I just wanted to clarify the record a bit before we go into community testimony. As we heard from some of the legal experts that came earlier and from the legislator who actually wrote the state policy, this local one will not break the accord. And I want to be very clear about that, that they are complementary policies. That's why they are being proposed. I also, frankly, heard some contradictory testimony as far as was there time for the police union to give feedback, or was there not because there was talk about extensively emailing back and forth with councilor Kanal office, which I think I am aware of and did happen as far as negotiating the policy. We've also heard this issue in committee twice now. This is going to be the third time that we're going over this policy, with edits made to accommodate the state policy. And I assure you, to the members of the public watching this, that if a policy did nothing, then there wouldn't be law enforcement opposition to it. The reason that this matters is because it will have an impact for our immigrant communities. We have limited time at this committee, and I suspect that with all of the testimony, we will not get to a vote today, let alone to extensively go through all of the amendments that were brought forward last minute. I am curious, colleagues, if you were contacted at all by the head of the police union in the past few weeks regarding this policy and what was discussed, if so. That's to my fellow councilors on this committee.
Particularly over the past few days, I have had some conversations with people in law enforcement, including dca, corsi and chief de and chief hugues and sergeant smeltz, and a variety of other people. And what was said, and I think that. Conversations councilor, I, I don't think if we're calling in retired sergeants from Clackamas county to opine on this, this measure, I don't think that it's untoward to talk to serving sergeants in the Portland police bureau about this measure. And I would like to get on to public testimony. Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal: Yeah, I'd like to just answer the question briefly, which is, yes, I did get a chance to engage, which I'm grateful for because, as was noted, there was some radio silence there for a long period of time. And I have a document here that I can circulate showing all of the engagement that we've done with public safety service area PPB leadership, and as well, the ppa and as well as the details of that for my colleagues. But I also want to get to public testimony.
Before we move on to public testimony, I want to briefly mention for amendments that I'm planning to bring forward. One is that as I read the current language, councilor Kanal proposed, it could be that a Portland police officer who goes up to verify that a federal agent is a federal agent and sees that they have the required the identification required by the state law, that they're wearing a unique identifier and a badge that the Portland police officer then have to either to demand additional documentation or else launch an investigation. Councilor Kanal tells me that's not the intent. My amendment would simply say that if a Portland police officer sees that an alleged federal agent is bearing the identification required by state law, they can take that as as, as evidence that this really is a federal officer. And based on that, the totality of circumstances yet doesn't have to launch any further investigation. I also am concerned about the requirement in councilor Kanal proposal that each exception to the mask policy be individually member by member, authorized and documented. And my concern there is that on a really cold day, I don't want 200 police officers to have to call up and say, hey, sarge, as you noticed, it's 13 degrees out. I'm wrapping a scarf around my chin. So, so okay, again, if this restaurant does not start, we'll have to clear the room. There may be that there's it may be that there's a way to address that. But I think that, you know, for right now, I would remove that documentation requirement. And finally, I do think that it could be problematic for us to try to impose requirements on masking identification other than those in state law and anybody else operating within the city of Portland, because, as chief hugues said, we occasionally need to call on our local jurisdictional partners to come in and help us out. And I don't want to do something that would prevent them from doing that. And again, I think there are state law requirements are pretty good. Finally, there's councilor Kanal. Did you already talk about the criminal penalties issue? I think you were both bringing an amendment on that.
Yeah, it's in the.
Okay. Having said that, let's move on to public testimony. Can we hear the here the first first people on the list?
Thank you. Co-chair. And if I may just offer a couple housekeeping items for those signed up to testify, just a reminder that each testifier will receive one minute and 30s. For those testifying in person. The timer is displayed on the monitor in front of the testimony table. For those testifying virtually, the timer is displayed in zoom. The timer will ding twice, once when there's 30s left and a second time when your time is up. We did receive a few last minute cancellations and I see some members who were invited. Testimony were also included in this list. So if you were invited testimony and hear your name called, feel free to disregard. And last, before you begin your testimony, please state your name for the record. Thank you. First up, we have anne marie backstrom, marcus mundy, devin ruiz, rachelle chase miller, heather hellman.
My name is tyler. I'm speaking in place of anne marie. So good afternoon, councilors. My name is tyler pirtle-guiney. I'm the executive director of and a registered lobbyist for Portland office of justice. I'm here to urge this committee to pass councilor Kanal ordinance and to send it to the full council immediately. In 2020, our streets became a laboratory for state terror. We all remember the chilling sight of roving, unmarked vans abducting portlanders off our streets at the height of the federal invasion. For many portlanders, that terror has not vanished. A fresh wave of kidnapings by masked, anonymous agents has driven families into hiding for students out of classrooms and compelled workers to carry passports just to feel safe walking to the store. We can all agree that portlanders deserve to live without fear, but true safety is impossible when people are snatched off of street corners by anonymous armed actors. When law enforcement officers hide behind tactical masks and unique identifiers accessible only via police databases, they are operating as a paramilitary force. They are choosing to be unaccountable to the public they claim to serve. While the state's hb 4138 provides a starting point, Portland must set a higher standard for our own protection. If ice or any federal agency claims they are above our local laws, the burden of proof rests entirely on them. Secret police are the tools of authoritarianism. They have no place in Portland. I would once again like to remind everybody here that the hb 4138 is a floor, not a ceiling. Accountability starts with visibility, and it's time we give our neighbors the tools to defend our own rights. Please vote to move this forward. Thank you.
Go ahead.
Hello, I'm heather hellmann and I serve as pastor of a congregation in district four. I would like to see you pass this resolution today to know who is policing you. It's overdue. Ice agents and people cosplaying as ice agents have already been terrorizing our communities and eroding trust with local law enforcement. I see this as I serve weekly as a chaplain outside the ice facility, where I have repeatedly been injured by ice as I stood peacefully. If they are that violent in very public space, imagine what they are doing out in our neighborhoods and behind closed doors. We need to help hold ice accountable. We need to identify them and make sure they aren't impostors, because I've experienced them too. The people we refer to merely as counter-protesters have an agenda to harm. I've seen them target the vulnerable. I showed students a picture of these impostors that stand outside the facility, and the students thought they were ice agents because they looked exactly as ice agents do in the neighborhoods. I've also witnessed the tension the feds are causing for our local police. It's adding to mistrust that our community has for them. This ordinance and the ways it goes beyond, will help to rebuild the trust, which will make our police and community safer. Most importantly, our immigrant neighbors want this ordinance. A resolution is not enough to protect them. I urge you to vote for this today because the threats, especially to our most vulnerable, are only getting worse. Thank you.
Go ahead.
Chairs Kanal and Novick and members of the committee. My name is devin ruiz. I live in district two and I'm a registered lobbyist for next step. We are a local nonprofit organization working to amplify the voice and leadership of diverse young people across the state. We are horrified by the ongoing terror that ice agents have inflicted upon oregon's immigrant communities, including young people, a part of our organization, and know that there needs to be immediate action taken to bring increased transparency and accountability. Ice federal agents and law enforcement must be identifiable and accountable to portlanders. As such, we are in strong support of right to know who's policing ordinance and urge you to finalize and pass this out of committee at a statewide level. Next up, action fund was one of the many organizations that supported house bill 4138, which passed through the Oregon state legislature this session. This law sets the floor, but explicitly says local governments can set more stringent policies. For the last several months, councilor Kanal and this committee have been working to refine this ordinance. And now it's time to listen to the call of the state legislature and sent the stringent policy needed throughout the time that this ordinance has been discussed in this committee, I have heard Portland police bureau say this would be difficult to implement due to the support the city depends on from officers outside of PPB who would refuse to identify themselves with the passing of hb 4138. We need to be done with excuses surrounding implementation challenges. We need to pass a city ordinance that mandates that law enforcement be apparent and transparent and accountable to the public. Our communities have a right to know who's policing them. Community safety can only be achieved when there is opportunity to build public trust with law enforcement. Thank you.
Once more for marcus mundy and rochelle chase miller. Okay, our next set of five is reverend dick nystrom, reverend sarah fisher, lynn smouse lopez, allison keelan, juna kim.
My name is richard nystrom. I'm a retired pastor and a grandfather and living in district two. When I was a young boy, I remember watching on cbs evening news as police officers and their dogs viciously attacked black protesters in alabama. It wouldn't be long before the entire country was shocked by the brutality of such state sanctioned cruelty. It wasn't so many years later, in christmas of 65, that I traveled to barnwell, south carolina, to work alongside other civil rights workers. We were there to encourage blacks to register to vote, but time and again found ourselves listening as people described their fear of the kkk and the police in the segregated south. It was a story they knew so well about state sanctioned cruelty. And then, not so many years ago, my wife and I served as peace corps volunteers in southern africa, where we heard story after story of life, lived under apartheid in south africa, day after day, year after year, witnessing the violence of state sanctioned cruelty. So many stories. And if I had time, I could tell so many more. But never did I imagine the time would come when I'd have such stories to tell about state sanctioned cruelty within my own community of Portland. For indeed, that is exactly what is happening here today. State sanctioned cruelty as mass federal agents roam our neighborhoods, shredding the very fabric of our civil society. It is shameful and it must be stopped. And I'm convinced that a very necessary step is to ban the mass that hide the faces of the ice agents who are striking terror in our hearts and minds.
Good afternoon councilors. My name is sarah fisher. I'm an episcopal priest and I pastor a community in Montavilla park on Sunday evenings, and I'm going to try to speak as fast as representative chosen. Most of you are used to hearing me testify on behalf of safety and livability. For portlanders living in extreme poverty, what is good for our poorest neighbors is good for all portlanders, and vice versa. And this ordinance is critical for keeping our whole community safe without codified transparency and accountability, there is no true community safety. In 1967, my parents protested the vietnam war in new york city. The police stood by while counter-demonstrators began to throw things into the crowd of peace marchers. This concerned my dad, and he wrote down the badge numbers of several officers. All of a sudden, three of them jumped on him. Get the paper, they shouted. They had the note card. He had the note card in his hand. One of new york's finest bit him in the thumb to retrieve the card. I remember him coming home with a bloody bandage on his hand. The officers were never charged. My father and his community were not safe because he could not identify the officers he felt were failing to keep the peace. I like to think that that was then, and this is now, that we've come a long way since 1967. But it is still true that none of us is safe if we cannot know the identity of those who have the power to arrest and harm fellow citizens. Thank you so much. I'm reverend.
Lynn lopez. I live in district two and I work I serve a small community, united church of christ in district four. And I thank you for the opportunity to speak in support of this ordinance. I think it is so important, as I've spent as had, has many of the clergy here hours outside. I'm supposed to be retired, but that's my job that I don't get paid for around food banks and outside the ice building and outside the federal court building, accompanying people trying to to pretend like I had any power. If ice agents come and try to arrest them and I can't share enough of the tension, the terror that they have and the thanks I have gotten from people who feel they can go to the food bank to get food, they can do what they have to do because they feel I'm protecting them. Well, I tell you, it's a tension that I'd never expected to experience myself and I'm not in danger. But this this ordinance is one more step to help us feel safer and help them feel safer because we should all be able to see the the person who is law enforcement and not think of them as a masked robot or something else. Thank you.
Good afternoon. My name is allison killeen. My pronouns are she her, and I'm the pastor at salt and light lutheran in northeast Portland district three. And I want to tell you a story about why I'm in support of this ordinance. Three years ago, when I started this role at salt and light, one of the first people who I met was mariana sri. She and her three year old daughter were attending an event at church, where I had also brought my three year old son. And as our children played together, we talked about what it might look like for our worship services to center our children. Mariana joined a leadership team and together we developed this child centered service. It still goes on monthly the third Sunday of the month. Except one thing is different, which is that mariana no longer comes to services because mariana is afraid of being kidnaped by ice. Mariana doesn't come to church anymore. She's had to stop working. She cannot take her daughter to school. She cannot take her daughter to the park, and she only leaves her home for the most essential outings. Her absence has left a tear in the fabric of our community and in so many communities like ours. So this is why I support this bill, because we need to know specifically who specifically is kidnaping our community members, and specifically who is terrorizing our community members out of the fabric of our community life. We need to be able to unmask them and hold them accountable now. So I want to know if it's not the police who are to do this work, who? This is what it looks like to be the gold standard. So I support this ordinance and I look forward to continuing to work with you on it.
Hello, my name is chun ho. Kim and I live and work in district two. I am a pastor at westminster presbyterian church in Portland, and I'm here to demonstrate my strong support for the right to know who's policing you ordinance. I'm a first generation immigrant from korea and have been a naturalized citizen for over 15 years. I was raised by and have lived with communities made up of immigrants from countries all around the world. And I heard from many of these testimonies, both in favor and against this ordinance, using the phrase fear and uncertainty. And I want to name that that fear and uncertainty is a fear and uncertainty that immigrant communities have had to navigate for generations, because that fear and uncertainty is not only because there is a lack of transparency and accountability from the law enforcement agencies, but because those law enforcement agencies are violently detaining, kidnaping families and families from families from their homes. Myself and other immigrant communities are asking for this policy because it is simply an alleviation of this fear and uncertainty, one tool that we might be able to use in alleviating that fear and combating that uncertainty ourselves, because the fear of being detained, the fear of being kidnaped, the fear of being sent to another state, the uncertainty of whether or not a child's father comes home, the uncertainty of driving without your passport, the uncertainty of whether or not I carry around my correct documentation, including my passport, every day. And it is clear from this hearing, as it has been for many decades, that law enforcement wants little to do as possible to protect me. And so this policy will be at least one more tool I can use in immigrant communities, can use to stand up for themselves so that they can try to hold the law enforcement agencies accountable themselves. Because again, as reverend allison names, if not the police, then who? Thank you.
Next we have allison miller, jasmine sprague, yanlee carranza, josh dunham, cristina saldivar.
Hello, I am reverend allison miller, and I serve as the senior minister of first unitarian Portland, located in downtown and district two. I'm here to give my full support to the right to know who is policing you ordinance. I'm speaking up as a pastor who counsels people not born in this country who are fearful to go about the ordinary business. They have a right to engage in for fear of being snatched in the neighborhood in which they live. Our congregants and neighbors have a right to go to work, to shop for groceries, to go to the doctor, to send their children to school without concern that they or someone that they love won't make it back home. I'm speaking as a minister with congregants who reside in every district in Portland and in the surrounding counties. Congregants are witnessing neighbors essentially kidnaped by unmarked vehicles, by people in masks with no verification of who they are. And this is causing them to lose faith in the police department. We need to work together to restore trust, unmasking and identity verification is required for this. I am speaking up to voice the values of democracy, which include transparency, accountability and following just and reasonable laws. All of us engaged in public service. Me, you, police officers, we all exercise authority with accountability. You cannot have one without the other. And finally, I speak as someone who has counseled sexual assault victims. This is happening. People are posing as ice officers and getting away with terrifying bad acts. And finally, I speak as someone that can add. And Portland has a much higher proportion of immigrants than anywhere else in the state, and they're.
Going to have to ask you to wrap up.
We have a higher responsibility and accountability and the amount that immigrant led households contribute to the taxes that support the police department dwarfs the amounts we heard earlier. So imagine a.
Portland I'm going to have to ask you to wrap up so other people have a chance to speak.
Thank you for the efforts you're putting into this, and I hope that you will pass this essential ordinance.
Good afternoon, councilors. I am the reverend joshua dunham, a local pastor and a resident in district one. Thank you, councilor Kanal, for bringing forth this ordinance to the for to demask ice and law enforcement in the city of Portland. I'm here today to say wholeheartedly that I insist you should pass this ordinance out of committee for the whole city council to discuss and vote on. I believe you should do this because Portland should be a city where secret police not be allowed to roam and harass our residents. As a resident of east Portland, I also know that ice and other federal agents have disproportionately stalked the streets of my district more than anywhere else in our city. I've had masked and anonymous ice agents abduct a young man in front of my church on a Sunday afternoon while worship was going on inside our building. I've been called in to provide support and care for residents of an apartment complex who were traumatized by multiple armed and masked agents rolling into their parking lot using unnecessary force, threatening residents, and even threatening a young mother. And when my neighbors uranus and louise, who live just blocks from my house, were shot by border patrol agents outside adventist hospital, I had to walk my neighborhood and I heard my other neighbors frustrated and angry about how little it appears that the city, the police and others even care about what is happening to us in our community. Ice is terrorizing our city and our people. People who have put their trust in you as their elected officials to fight for them and do whatever it takes to ensure that our neighborhoods can be safe and prosperous. And so I say to you, I implore you to pass this ordinance out of this committee and discuss it as a full city council. Thank you.
Good afternoon, councilors. My name is jasmine sprague. I live, I work, I play, I worship, I eat, and I shop in district one. My children attend school in district one, and I'm speaking today in support of the right to know who's policing you ordinance. As a community organizer with a protestant church in east county, when I say that I live, work, eat, play, worship, and shop in district one, I really mean it. As a hearing impaired person, people covering their mouths makes me not able to understand what they are saying. I need people's lips. I am not the only hearing impaired person who needs lips. As a mother with children who attend school at two of the most diverse schools in Oregon, where 35 languages are spoken within those school walls every day, can you name 35 languages? 35 languages, and those 35 different words for police or officer or immigration enforcement? My children and their peers have the right to know who is holding a position of authority over them. My children and their peers have the right to see the face of a person who would make demands of them. My children and their peers have the right to be spoken to in their mother tongues, but unmasked faces are a great place to start. I will never teach my children to blindly follow orders from an adult who makes a claim to hold power of authority over them. I will never teach my children to blindly trust the demands of an adult unwilling to show their face, and I would not ask that anyone else do that either. And in fact, I'd hope that they would not. In what other ways do we expect our children to believe masked strangers when they demand that they listen to them? We don't. And in fact, we teach and we preach the exact opposite. I support the right to know who is policing you ordinance, because I cannot and will not teach my children or the communities I organize with to trust adults wielding authority from behind a mask.
Be quiet. Applaud with jazz hands. Please go ahead.
My name is kelly and I'm a community organizer with together love. I support councilor Kanal councilor Kanal masking ordinance. The saddest memory I hold of my family came last year in October, when we got a knock on the door and a dark figure wearing a normal clothing and a black hat stood outside. In a time of racial profiling, regardless of citizenship, we immediately thought the worst. But it turned out to be a kid just looking for different apartment. When I turned, my brother was in a room caring for my then one and a half year old and seven month old baby. In another room, I saw my family sitting on the edge of the bed, holding back, holding hands in fear, thinking it was going to be their last day in their home. After being here for 35 years, I have had many family members and my own partner, who worked in clean energy and served in the us military, lose their jobs overnight and stay home in fear. I went to a local university. I worked in policy direct services. I was one of the navigators who distributed rental assistance funds during COVID to those who most needed it. We thought we did everything right. And yet somehow, overnight, I became the sole breadwinner and I struggled to even feed my babies. This story reflects many of the stories I hear from your community members who are immigrants or just people of color. They tell a stories of fear regardless of immigration status, losing family members or breadwinners to kidnapings and children having nightmares of masked people taking away their parents, or kidnaping them on their way to school. What we need are wins in a time when we are losing everything. This policy will make it so. We are not scared of knocks on doors, so we aren't scared to go out to church, to go to the emergency room, and to stop having nightmares of mass agents kidnaping us. What we need is for you to pass this so we can unmask and verify law enforcement. Passing this ordinance does not give us false hope, but shows that we have allies in our local government who will fight for us and care, and who will document ice activity. As our immigrant communities are coming out to support people.
Who need. I'm sorry, I need to ask you to wrap up so the last couple of people a chance to talk.
Who need food or rent doulas bringing life into this world. We need our elected officials to show up when times are hard and fight for us too. We are living in times where we are feeling powerless. But we aren't. You aren't. Please don't get caught up in a narrative where we can't do anything.
And I really need to. Please ask you to wrap up. We've got a lot of people waiting to testify. We've only got time for a couple of them.
And we need you to systemically fight alongside us.
Go ahead.
Good afternoon. My name is chris saldivar. I live in district two and I'm a community organizer with youth in district one together lab. I'm here in support of councilor Kanal masking ordinance. I work alongside middle and high school students in east Portland. They are incredible leaders and right now, many of them are living through what feels like yet another disaster impacting their families. Increased ice activity has created deep fear and instability in our communities. Parents are being detained. Livelihoods are being disrupted. Young people are afraid to leave their homes, worried that when they return, a parent may be gone or that they themselves could be detained or taken by someone in a mask. I know this fear personally. I grew up with a constant worry that my own parents could be taken away at any time. I remember the panic when they didn't answer the phone, wondering if something had happened today. Today, the young people I work with in district one are carrying that same fear, all while watching their city be terrorized by masked federal agents. They're being forced to grow up far too quickly, missing school, taking on work, and making plans for how to take care of their younger siblings if a parent is detained, I know this fear is constant. It shapes every decision that they make. No young person should have to live like this in our city. This is not community safety. Pass. This ordinance require officers to identify themselves, restrict the use of masks, and today give our young people a city where they don't have to be afraid, and where no one with power gets to hide.
Thank you. I believe we have senator pham next on zoom.
Hi, chair Novick, chair Kanal and members of the community and public safety committee. For the record, my name is khan pham, and I'm proud to be the state senator representing district 23 senate, the state senate, district 23, southeast and northeast Portland. I really appreciate the opportunity to share my support for the right to know who's policing you ordinance. As a state senator, I have heard clearly from so many of my constituents about how mass kidnapings are striking fear in my district and across Oregon in the state senate, I was proud to be a chief sponsor of the recently passed statewide legislation known as leiva, or hb 4138. Leiva requires local law enforcement bureaus in Oregon to have a masking ban policy and the right to know who's policing the ordinance meets this new state requirement and adds some additional components that strengthen transparency and accountability in several key ways. This ordinance directs the Portland police bureau to protect portlanders by verifying that people who are detaining someone are actual law enforcement, and it requires law enforcement to document these encounters when they happen, so the public can receive clear information about the impacted members of our families and communities. I'm delighted to see the city build on leiva and provide greater protections. Mass kidnapings are an authoritarian tactic meant to sow fear in our communities, and this ordinance, by making it clear that there are consequences for misconduct, reinforces our democracy. At a time when portlanders are asking whether our institutions will protect them, I'm heartened to see Portland stand with all our neighbors to make sure we are welcoming and safe home for all residents. I urge your support. Thank you.
Thank you, senator. And we're about to lose quorum. So councilor Kanal, any final thoughts?
Well, I believe councilor Zimmerman is online, so I'm not sure what the situation is. Okay. I'm so sorry, everybody. I'm very grateful for your testimony. I have to leave for another meeting right now.
Thank you. I didn't see councilor Zimmerman still there. Thanks, councilor.
Oh, councilor. Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal: Final thoughts.
Are we.
Closing this out? Let's go on. Okay.
All right. Sorry. I mean, we were told by the clerk's office we have to close this out now. I apologize to the people that are waiting to talk. We'll take this up again on April 7th.
So on that subject, I'm about to gavel out the committee. This committee, it's it's a strange the committee will remain a committee and will have the same five members starting in April. Councilor Novick will be the sole chair. Councilor Morillo will be the vice chair of the committee, and there will be a new committee of the whole that I'll be chairing that has as its responsibility. Emergency response, including federal response. So I'm not actually sure where this one goes, but I know that that one starts meeting on April 2nd. And so please keep an eye out. I'll be on our social media as well for where it goes next. And I want to thank also the 84 people who wrote in testimony in support of this. And that's the same as the 84 people who wrote in testimony, period. So 100% there. Thank you. And with that, if I may, I'll gavel close the the last meeting in this iteration of the committee on public safety committee.