The record · Transcript

Council session — 2026-02-24

Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (19,469 words), shown in readable case and split into speaker turns. Speakers are AI-suggested and editor-reviewed (low confidence — auto-captions garble names); each color marks a speaker.

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Good morning everyone. Welcome to the arts and economy committee. This is actually our last one before we transition. Do we have one more?

Yeah, we're doing one in March because we have.

Oh, that's right. We squeezed one in March. All right. Thank you, council president, for allowing us to squeeze that last one in the second to last arts and economy committee meeting clerk, will you please call the roll?

Good morning.

Dunphy. Here.

Smith. Clerk. Here. Breen.

Here.

Ryan, here.

So before we get started, it's always appropriate for us to read the the conduct, the rules of conduct. I don't have a script, so I'm winging it. Yeah.

Welcome to the meeting of the arts and economy committee to testify before this committee in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the committee agenda at w-w-w. That Portland slash council agenda slash arts and economy committee, or by calling 301. Information on engaging with this committee can be found at this link. Registration for virtual testimony closes one hour prior to the meeting. In person. Testifiers must sign up before the agenda item is heard. If public testimony will not be taken, will be taken on an item. Individuals might testify for three minutes unless the chair states otherwise, your microphone will be muted when your time is over. The chair preserves order, destruction, destructive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting other testimony or committee deliberation will not be allowed. If your car's destruction, a warning will be given. Further destruction will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave to leave once ejected is subject for for arrest or trespass. Additionally, the committee may be short recess or reconvene virtually. Your testimony should address the matter being considered when testifying and state your name. For the record, if your lobbyist identified the organization, you represent, virtual testify should unmute themselves when the clerk calls their name. Thank you.

Thank you so much, ashley, and it's good to have you here. Diana. I'm glad to move some important work forward today. We have six items on the agenda. I think they'll go pretty quickly, especially the first one. We'll take a vote on what we heard at the last meeting on February 10th about the exciting storefront report. We'll hear a presentation on portable sign permit requirements and compliance changes. That's going to be daylighted. Today we'll receive a report of the cully tiff action plan. We will also appoint and reappoint leaders to the cully tax increment financing community leadership council, and will appoint Eric kress to the prosper Portland board of commissioners for the term, which will expire on September 5th. So we'll have a lot of partnership work with our friends at prosper Portland today. So, diana, please were the first item.

Item number one January 13th, 2026 to January 27th, 2026. Arts and economy committee minutes.

Okay. Any objections? We're all we're all good with that. Yeah, well, please read item two.

Item number two. Accept the supporting portland's storefronts. Report to establish a storefront support program.

Thank you. Colleagues. As you recall, at our last committee meeting, we had a very robust presentation and a lot of great dialog regarding the storefront support program. It's an action plan with recommendations. And today we have the opportunity to formally move this report forward to the full council for consideration and approval. We all decided, after being in that conversation, that all of our colleagues should have the opportunity to hear an update on that report. Before we vote, I want to share my appreciation for my team, who have been working with city operations and city administrators, lead team, and engaged small businesses over the past year. It was truly a collective effort to build the action plan before us. I know it will take a lot of continued partnership to move this successful plan forward to implementation, so let's keep that momentum going. As a sponsoring councilor of this action plan, I will remain involved and actively advocate for our business, local business community. And I would be remiss if I didn't lift the very good work that we experienced last week from the administrator, victor sanders. Victor, there you are in the back. Victor is here in case we have any last second questions, but hopefully he's here to just take a bow. And extremely talented project manager who built this action plan, used objectives, used metrics. And we really had a lot of buy in. With that said, I will ask my fellow councilors if they have any brief comments before we vote to move this report to the full council. Keep in mind, we did a lot of this before we hit the gavel on February 10th. Councilor clerk I'd like to say something.

Mr. Co-chair. Thank you. I just wondered if we can ask the staff if they made any changes from the first version to this final version, because I know we had some questions and some additions, and I didn't have an opportunity to really comb through the second version. Can we ask them?

So we were just going to vote on what we heard last week to accept that report.

So there's no changes.

And that's what my understanding was. So victor, at this time there were are there any changes that you want to report on from the last two weeks? This wasn't a formal ask of you, of course.

The record, victor sanders solutions.

There's just a few minor changes that we made, a few to the content that doesn't really change the substantive. But you had a comment around tech sizes, so we made some design and formatting changes. There was some minor language updates that we made to some of the goals, just to make them clearer based on some of your feedback. So you're not going to see major substantive changes from this version to the one you'll see at full council.

Yeah.

Thank you. Councilor. That's really fair to ask. We that's kind of wanting us to just think where we were on February 10th. At that moment, we just didn't have the paperwork to the clerk so we could take the vote then. So it's kind of like trying to freeze you at that moment and say, okay, remember when we wanted to do this vote? We get to do it today.

Thank you.

For sure. Absolutely. Okay. Please call the roll.

Can I get a motion and a second, please?

Yes. It's been moved that we approve the report on the storefront program.

Second.

So just to confirm, moved by Ryan and seconded by Green. Yeah. Thank you.

Dunphy I.

Smith, absent clerk. I Green. I Ryan. I with a vote of four I and one absent the motion to refer the report document number 2026 080 to city council with a recommendation to be accepted has been approved.

Thank you so much. Thank you, colleagues. And sorry that we missed that technical thing at the last meeting. Got it covered. Onward. Please read the next item.

Item number three portable sign permit requirement and compliance changes.

Okay, so now we have a presentation from councilor Novick's office regarding the portable sign permitting. So thank you, councilor and your team's presentation today. It looks like we have spencer chief of staff spencer nils from councilor Novick's office. Spencer, take it away.

Steve Novick: Thank you committee members for having us here today. My name is spencer knowles. I'm chief of staff for councilor Novick. Let me just get my slides prepared. And shared. So councilor Novick regrets not being able to be present here today. He's out of town dealing with some family matters. I will give my best Novick impressions. So while you may not hear about the favorite sandwich of an exposed player or a favorite sign he's seen at a stevie nicks concert, this will be a more mundane presentation for what I think is a kind of mundane, sensible change. So we're talking about portable sign permitting today. They're also known as a boards, sandwich boards, and a frames. And we feel like this work really aligns with what this committee has talked about and what many of you have talked about as priorities. Councilor Dunphy, the cap one and cap two code revisions. Councilor Ryan, the storefront support program that we just heard about, this could fit very well into one of those action items of looking at permits that small businesses are facing and feel as a burden and councilor Green, the connection between the right of way and commerce in hot dogs and sandwiches. Which begs the question that I think this committee or council should debate is whether a hot dog is a sandwich, and that's something that we might want to take up at some point. So what is a portable sign? Oh, I'd also like to note that we have folks from PBOT and pnd here in the room today. If there's questions or follow up. And this is just a presentation to daylight, the concept, and we plan to bring legislation forward at a future date to a future committee. With the feedback that we hear here today, portable sign is a moveable sign not attached to a structure or the ground. Currently, it's regulated by the sign code in title 32, which was broadly established, or at least the a board permitting part was established in 2001. Right now, to place a portable sign in the right of way, you must apply for and display a permit from the city. There are a few reasons why these regulations were put in place. One was a lot of conversation around right of way management back in 2001 related to the sit lie ordinances that were passed back then. There's also considerations about ADA accessibility, the opportunity for revenue, especially in the previous years. However, we'll make the case today that permitting is no longer necessary and creates a burden for many of the small businesses here in Portland who are following those rules. The eight board regulatory program offers three different types of permits at different prices. So there's a one year, a two year, a four year at 114, 203 and $364. Respectfully, over the past 15, ten years, we've seen the number of permits and the revenue drop considerably. Just in 2023, for example, it was 582 permits that were either new or for reapplications in 2025, that had dropped to 259. And then in fiscal year 25, the program cost was about $46,000, but only brought in $39,000, which led to a loss of $7,000 approximately. Furthermore, the sign program as a whole has a reserve deficit of about $250,000 that this program only added to if we were to see a board permit requests increase, we might see a change in those numbers, but the trend in permit applications has been going down, so there's not a strong expectation that that would happen anytime soon. Compliance is complaint driven and investigated by the ppd enforcement team. Credit to them that they take a first step of education and problem solving. Instead of jumping straight to fees, they post a notice. They send a letter. If that's not corrected, then a citation is issued. You can see in the table that they haven't been issuing or receiving funds from citations over the last few years, with compliance is pretty low. If you walk down any main street or neighborhood corridor in Portland and look at the board signs, you won't see a lot of those permit stickers. But complaints have also been falling, which suggests that businesses and owners are somewhat self-regulating. So on to what our ordinance would do. There are two pieces of code changes. One would remove the permit requirement for boards from title 32. It would retain some of the standards within that title. About how a boards could be placed and designed specifically in specific districts or zones of the city. For much of title 32, in order to make amendments, you have to go through a land use process. And what we were just trying to do here is to remove the permit requirement and lower the burden that does not require those sections of the code does not require the same process. So we believe we can just do this through an ordinance without any sort of land use review. The second is to add to title 17 to certify PBOT authority to regulate portable signs in the right of way. This would make sure that we can maintain the standards for ADA compliance, and make sure that those right of ways are passable. It would further consolidate right of way management within PBOT, as well as maintaining penalties for violations under the transportation fee schedule. I'll note that the right now, the draft ordinance reflects adding chapter 17.110, but depending on potential council action on other items, we might have to change that number. And then why this matters. I think this gets to the report that you just adopted the storefront support program. Small businesses are the lifeblood of Portland. In fact, I pulled a lot of these bullet points from that very report, 35,000 storefronts in the city of Portland. We have a large share of our businesses that are small storefronts and small businesses. They created diverse ground floor storefront environment that supports jobs and stability and a particular Portland vibe, which I liked in the report that you guys just adopted. We've also heard repeatedly from small businesses that they feel like it's death by a thousand cuts, and that there's a lot of different burdens being placed on them. In fact, the idea to start looking into this came from a business district that said they would like to have purchased a boards for every one of their business members, but that the cost was just too high considering the price of the a board and then the permit on top of it. So we started actually digging in back in, I want to say August of last year. And it's just kind of been a slow simmering exploration to get to this point. And while it is a small change, I think we've been talking in this council a lot about sending a signal to the broader community about the importance of supporting business and small business in particular. And we feel like this is a good way to do that. We also think it's a more efficient and sensible approach to boards consolidating within PBOT and allowing pd to focus on many of the other pressing issues that they have. So at this time, I'd be happy to answer any questions. I'd be happy to allow any other, any of the staff to come up and answer questions you may have about these changes or the impacts, and I will pass it to you all for discussion.

Thank you so much, spencer. Thank you for listening to the small businesses and doing that work from the ground up. It's really refreshing and it does really ducktail so sweetly with the last item, we have everyone's hands up. Councilor dunfee.

Thank you spencer, I'm so glad that your office is bringing this councilor Novick. If you are watching or listening to this, thank you for your work on this. I used to own a storefront business. I owned and operated a coffee shop in the Sellwood neighborhood, and my first year we paid. I made our sandwich board out of plywood and some paint, but I paid my first year to have a permit and then no one ever checked and I never renewed it. And I can tell you that the death by a thousand cuts is absolutely correct. There are, again, 999 more of these little cuts in our system that I think are making it just that much more difficult for small businesses to succeed. And so I think this is I'm deeply supportive of this. I am going to sing this from the from the rooftops, but I have a couple of questions about it. I also recognize that some, while most business owners are self-regulating and are doing the right thing because it's the right thing to do, there are also situations in which maybe a storefront owner wants to really be flashy and really get that attention. How do we, without having a permitting system, how do we prevent somebody from taking over the entire sidewalk with a distraction, or actually vending off of a built environment on the sidewalk outside of permits? Or, you know, how do we maintain sidewalks broadly if we don't have a permit system?

Yeah. So I think that's already considered under PBOT right of way compliance program. I don't know if PBOT would like to come up at this time, but I would welcome you to to answer how that would happen in practice. Chapter 17, which we plan to add, would create standards for how it's placed. In order to maintain that, there is a passage for folks through the right of way, you know.

Good morning. My name is Dan barton, for the record, and I am the manager of the right of way compliance program for PBOT. From what I can see of this, this plan is essentially keeps most of the requirements in place that currently exist. It just shifts enforcement from bp and to my group. We already enforce title 17 as well as title 16 for various other obstructions. Anything from fence encroachments to sheds and things like that. And so it would fit neatly into what we currently do.

Perfect. That's excellent. Well, great, because I don't I don't have a lot of worry about that, but I want to just make sure that our, our critics might be a assuaged by that. So that's fantastic. You know, I am excited to support this when it's ready to be voted on. And I hope we will go further. And I'd love to work with your office on other things. I mean, we have a handful of other challenges with signage, not just on the sidewalk, but also signs that hang on the side of a building. It's basically impossible now to get a new lit up sign. You can change it a bit, but it's almost impossible. It's functionally impossible to get a new display sign, and I think that's a bummer. I think that there's a lot of opportunity for creativity and excitement. If we just make the path simpler. We also still do things like I walked into parkrose hardware a couple days ago, and they have all of their spray paint behind a lock box because of a city ordinance, and the owner told me that under city code, every time they sell a can of spray paint, they have to fill out a piece of paper and get the person's driver's license and their information. And when they called the police with a when the stack of papers was over a foot tall, the police said they literally don't have a way to even intake that anymore. We truly are a nickel and diming our our small businesses, putting regulations in place that they cannot meet and distract from the work of the business. And so this is a fantastic step, and I look forward to supporting it. And then also finding a dozen other ways we can support small businesses. So thank you all.

Yeah. Thank you councilor. We would welcome the opportunity to work with you on that effort. This is part of what we're calling maybe a crusade to liberate the city of Portland from unnecessary code items. Another one is permits for pool tables and pinball machines that are currently required. That's very low compliance. We'll be looking at that. And I think the spray paint rule has pretty exorbitant fines attached to it as well, which are somewhat shocking. And then I was just talking to one of your staffers yesterday about the sign stuff that you're exploring. So welcome. Those conversations.

Thank you, councilor Dunphy. Councilor Clark.

Olivia Clark: Thank you, mr. Co-chair. Wow, this is great. This is so exciting. I like the liberation idea. Actually, council president Dunphy is an example of something I wanted to highlight, and that is that if we're not enforcing these things, then we're creating scofflaws, you know? And that could be just a snowball. You know, if I don't have to, you know, pay attention to this. I don't have to pay attention to that or that or that. So, you know, we just we we create scofflaws by, by not being able to enforce. And I do have I have friends on northwest 21st who have gone through terrible machinations to get signs, hanging signs outside. And when they opened the business 5 or 6 years ago, they were telling me all about this. I'm like, oh my god, I can't believe it. Well, before I ever thought about ending up here. But so I'm really glad we're we're taking this on. I did have a question similar to council president Dunphy around compliance. And, Dan, now that you're up here, let me just ask your compliance efforts. Are those complaint driven? Primarily?

Primarily, yes. We have an intake form on online where people can submit complaints. We also get calls forwarded from 311, primarily. Those also come directly to us. We do not so much with the the signage since they're not in our purview. But there are some efforts that we. Run into on more of a routine patrol basis. But I would say 95% of what we respond to is complaint driven at this point.

So if there was an ADA complaint, what's the turnaround time for addressing? Is that do you prioritize those kinds of complaints?

And we do we we have. Last year we responded to a little over 1000 complaints. We've got a very limited staff. But because of that we do prioritize safety issues first. Ada issues are also up there. I don't have the specific numbers in front of me, but last year, our turnaround time for general cases was a little over nine days. Right now, this year, we've got that down to three days. A situation like this where I would imagine we could make contact with the business in question, probably within a couple of days.

I'm just thinking, colleagues, that this will be an issue. I think for some people on council, should we and I assume we're going to pursue this as an ordinance change. It would be good to have more information about how we respond to complaints of ADA related complaints or safety complaints, and I think that information is going to be very valuable when we pursue this. But I appreciate your efforts and thank you for bringing this forward. Thank you, councilor Novick, wherever you are. We really appreciate this, and I'm really looking forward to the next iteration of this, maybe addressing the sign code if if you're going to take that on councilor Duffy. Thank you.

Councilor Clark. I'd also we talked to nicole sharon from the office of equity, who focuses on ADA issues, who flagged that in reporting there should be an option to take a picture and send that in and that actually already exists through the pdx reporter. There's an option for right of way blockages and ADA issues. So the reporting structure is there. But yes, the turnaround time will be important.

Terrific. And I would just add to my friends who have businesses on northwest 21st, they you couldn't find their business without the sandwich board. It's those are really important. But thank you for your work, spencer.

Thank you, councilor Clark. Councilor Green.

Mitch Green: Thank you. Co-chair Ryan spencer, thanks so much for bringing this forward today. I think it's it's a slam dunk for me. I think that we shouldn't sort of use an onerous permit process as a substitute for kind of our space management and our enforcement piece, which are two distinct and separate actions. I appreciate that you laid out that this is actually a source of, of net cost to the city. And so if that's the case when we're entering a fiscal crisis, we need to look at opportunities to, to, to get rid of those net liabilities and, and actually unlock the ability for our ppe and staff to focus on other issues. So that's a pretty important piece. Thanks for using the kind of policy preview type of model. You're not bringing forward a fully developed ordinance, but you're socializing the concept so we can start to talk about it and that, you know, whatever committee this lands at next has a head start on that conversation. We can kind of get right into it, because councilor Novick's not here to engage in some of the the more ironical back and forth that he and I have a banter about. I will note, because you because you mentioned that a hot dog is a sandwich, I'm going to say that that's true. I'm going to send I'm going to send the clerk a model that I wrote some time in my past that actually lays out a taxonomy that says a food is either a slurry or it is an assemblage, and it's on a continuum. And if you go far enough on the assemblage, you're now in the wellington sandwich frontier and you have to ask the question, is the food of wellington or is it a sandwich? Can either be a wellington or sandwich. A corn dog is a wellington, a hot dog is clearly a sandwich. So we've got a packed agenda. I'm not going to pull up the model and walk you through it, but I'm going to send it to the clerk so those following along can can know what I am talking about. I can't wait to I can't wait to do this and hear from our constituents that this is a way that we've used some of their burden. Thanks.

Thanks, councilor I look forward to reading that research.

Thank you, coach Green. You definitely brought the spirit of councilor Novick to this meeting with what you just said. I just want to acknowledge again that what you're the problem you're trying to solve is twofold. The one that's first and foremost is providing less headaches for the small businesses and allowing them to nimbly put up their their boards. I think the internal part is where maybe this would be more offline, but I want to hear from the people from paddy about this transition of the said compliance, if you will, which is in your wheelhouse. So it seems organic for PBOT to take this on. So I think it's one it appears to be one of those hopefully countless little operational efficiencies we can look at right now at a time of trying to find creativity to become more efficient with with less revenue coming in. And so I want to acknowledge the councilor Novick office, how you've been working with the two bureaus to figure out how this transition is is seamless. Am I picking up on the twofold nature? I think the first part is, of course, easier to celebrate and and do headlines on. The second part internally is the geeky stuff that of course we have to iron out. So it actually does provide some also aspirin to the budget headache that we have. When you say I'm kind of catching what's happening here.

Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. And like I said, we started this conversation back in August and developed it slowly with paddy and with PBOT looping them in along the way, making sure that everyone was comfortable with how, like you said, this efficiency was being put into place. So we're hopeful that it will go very smoothly.

Great. And just so we can be excited about the vision forward for this, what what do you see as your process to for your next steps? And I do appreciate that you daylighted it. I think socializing, daylighting, whatever word you want to use before you come with the official ordinance to a committee is actually really helpful. Yeah. What do you see the next steps like, and when do you hope to get this to the whole council?

Well, I think there's a filing deadline at noon today, so I plan to file the legislation in the next two hours. And then I'm not sure which committee we would request it to go to. It could be city life. It could be public works with the transportation nexus. I may defer to the council president for that.

All right. Sounds good. I think it's all your urgency was heard. So standing between you and your deadline, councilors, are there any more questions? All right. Thank you so much. Thank you, councilor. Thank you. And thank you so much. To the the barton's no relation. Okay. Thanks for being here. So diana, we're going to be moving to the next items and that was plural. We'd like to hear the next three items together. So please call items four, five and six.

And item four approve the cully tax increment financing district five year action plan. Item five appoint and reappoint members of the cully tax increment financing community leadership council. Item six appoint Eric kress to the prosper Portland board of commissioners for a term to expire September 5th, 2026.

Thank you. Diana. Colleagues. First, we have the cully tax increment financing district five year plan. I would like to welcome our presenters from prosper Portland, the housing bureau and the leadership council. Welcome. Welcome to the podium. Please introduce yourselves and take it away.

Well good morning. My name is cornell wesley, and I proudly serve as the executive director for prosper Portland.

Good morning. I'm brian moore. I'm a development manager for prosper Portland.

Good morning, leslie goodloe, equity and business operations for the Portland housing bureau.

Well, good morning, co-chairs Green and Ryan and members of this committee. Thank you for the opportunity to present the cully tax increment financing district five year action plan. This plan represents an important step forward in aligning our economic development tools with the community's vision for equitable growth and long term stability in cully. Cully is one of portland's most diverse neighborhoods and home to a strong network of small businesses, community based organizations, and families who have shaped its identity over decades. At the same time, it faces persistent challenges, including limited infrastructure investment, industrial land constraints and displacement pressures. The five year action plan is designed to respond directly to those realities. It focuses on strategic investments in infrastructure, business stabilization and growth, community serving development, and partnerships that center historically underserved residents. This is not just a funding document. It is a commitment to transparency. It is a commitment to accountability. It is a commitment to measurable outcomes. It reflects extensive engagement with community stakeholders and outlines how we will deploy tif resources in ways that expand opportunity, while strengthening neighborhood resilience. And so we look forward to walking you through the plan, the investment priorities, and the outcomes we aim to achieve over the next five years. So thank you for your time and attention, and I'm happy to pass it to brian to begin the presentation.

Thank you, director wesley. Good morning. Committee chairs, co-chairs and councilors. Thank you for the opportunity to share with you the work that we have done with community to develop this new approach to investing tif dollars. We're going to cover context and background of what was happening in cully that led us here. We'll highlight how this work with community is now codified. Then we'll share with you the co-created plan for investment of tif resources over the next five years. On to some context. Go ahead. Two slides, please. Around 2010, four key nonprofit organizations in the cully neighborhood verde naya family center, hacienda cdc, and habitat for humanity created a coalition with a shared mission to introduce new environmental assets to the neighborhood to improve quality of life and prevent displacement for communities of color and low income residents. In northeast portland's cully neighborhood. Focusing on community led improvements. Then, in 2012, prosper Portland created the neighborhood prosperity network. We call them npns, as a citywide initiative to foster economic opportunity and vitality through Portland neighborhoods. In partnership with community based organizations. Shortly thereafter, living cully, in partnership with the PSU masters in urban planning studies, some students developed a special report called not in cully, a report that focused on anti-displacement in the neighborhood. These three efforts laid the foundation for the co-creation of the first new tif district in Portland in over a decade. The district was created with these two foundational concepts at the heart of the work. Co-creation should drive tif district decision making, and tif resources can be used to mitigate and possibly prevent displacement while still supporting growth. Next slide please. The co-creation of this district was made possible by partnerships with local nonprofit organizations and community members in cully. Again, this includes the original living cully partners, hacienda habitat for humanity's ne, and of particular note, verde, whose former executive director is now one of your colleagues on the city councilor Council, councilor Avalos. While the coalition did dissolve at the end of 2025, each of the member organizations remains a partner in ongoing work for the life of the district. For the district plan, these coalition partners worked with two npns the culley association of neighborhoods, individual community members. They all contributed their input to an exploration leadership committee. The organizations remained engaged throughout the action planning, providing feedback to the clc and helping push information out through their respective networks. Verde also hosted a community based liaison and worked with partners to lead some of the community engagement around the action plan. Next slide please. The co-creation was also informed by lessons that prosper has learned from past harms resulting from previous tif investments. These lessons include. That community partnerships in co-creation, implementation, and oversight is critical. It's necessary to be explicit, to be accountable, and to measure who is benefiting from the tif investments. That tif is a tool that can intervene in market forces, but not change those market forces. That successful community development efforts require a layering of financial and policy tools to focus early on. Sorry to focus early on residential and small business stabilization to align or proceed with infrastructure investments. Zoning changes effectively, and the action plans can be used as a tool for incremental, stable and predictable five year priorities. Next slide. With that knowledge, the community in partnership with prosper Portland and hb, embarked on the co-creation of the tif district. The idea originated from the community in the form of a letter from the cully partners, requesting the consideration of tif district focused on mitigating and potentially preventing displacement. An executive leadership team was formed with representatives and organizations from the community. Reports, plans and charters were developed, culminating in the tif plan that was presented and approved by the prosper board and the city council previously. Next slide. The resulting district encompasses 1623 acres and is bounded by 82nd avenue on the east, 42nd avenue on the west, the columbia slough to the north, and to include critical employment lands and to the south, bounded by skidmore, with some adjustments to include key commercial nodes such as the intersection of fremont and 57th. While the majority of the land is zoned residential, the commercial land in the district is the heart and soul of the neighborhood. The two districts are 42nd avenue and the cully boulevard. Alliance capture. Commercial property. And have spent the past ten plus years building critical relationships with businesses in the district. I learned of an example of these relationships. Just recently, I had the opportunity to tour the two of the district with the npns and a couple of years ago, a beloved restaurant on 42nd avenue had a fire and had to close its doors with a name like 42nd avenue fish and chips. They obviously had to stay in the neighborhood. The npn staff team had built such strong relationships with the businesses and with property owners that they were able to facilitate a key introduction that allowed 42nd avenue fish and chips to relocate just a few doors down and stay in the neighborhood, where they now continue to operate. This happens to be a black owned business that was able to stay in the neighborhood through the support and investment of prosper Portland and our community partners. Next slide please. That is an example of the human side of the goal for this tif district. More broadly speaking, the goals include preventing displacement of vulnerable people, communities, businesses and community based institutions to preserve existing opportunities for affordable housing and economic prosperity, while creating new economic and housing opportunities for priority communities in the district. To ensure that current residents benefit from investments and neighborhood change, so that economic prosperity and housing will be preserved and expanded for future generations. To ensure that priority communities, those most often affected negatively by market and displacement pressure, have the opportunity to play lead roles in guiding decisions about investments and policies that affect them and their communities. To develop and inspire a new model for the creation of future tif districts in Portland and beyond. To actively work to remove barriers that could preclude community members from accessing tif funded projects and opportunities, and to incorporate environmental and climate change innovation and prevention into tif projects. These are ambitious goals for tif district and to help drive accountability. We have a community leadership committee. Leslie, would you take it from here?

Certainly. Good morning, councilors. I'm going to speak a little bit about the role of the community leadership committee. Next slide please. So the cully leadership committee, cully community leadership committee is intentionally structured to bring together a broad range of lived and professional experience to guide implementation of the district plan. Members contribute insight grounded in their life experiences, community relationships, leadership roles, education and professional expertise. A core priority is that the committee reflects the diversity of the cully community, with particular attention to voices from populations disproportionately vulnerable to displacement. Committee members are expected to understand, champion, and uphold the district plan's goals around stabilization and inclusive growth. Collectively, this body strengthens accountability, community trust and equity centered implementation of hb and partner investments. You can see that the membership to be on the committee, they either have to live, work or worship, have children enrolled in school, or have been displaced from the cully tif district boundary. We have team members, half of which are from appointed by prosper portland's board and half of which are appointed by city council through hb, which we'll be doing after this next slide, please. The community engagement and validation portion. This phase of work builds on the four year cully district planning process, which included two full years of robust public engagement. The purpose of this step was to reconfirm with community members that the proposed action plan reflects the priorities identified during the district plan process, and to assess whether community needs or conditions have shifted. We approach this as a validation and listening effort, honoring the extensive work the community has already invested. In partnership with the cully, npns, eddie martinez organized a series of small business tours for clc members. These tours highlighted the on the ground work of the neighborhood prosperity networks, and provided direct feedback from small business owners. Overall engagement activities ensure the action plan remains community grounded, responsive and aligned with inclusive growth goals. Next slide. So you can see I'm not going to walk all the way through the timeline, but you can see the the clc was appointed in October of 23. They began work in early 2024. We drafted the first action plan in September of 25, and we completed the final vote of this action plan in January of 26, and we're presenting it to you today. Next slide. All right, brian.

Thank you. Leslie. The work of the clc truly drove this action plan. As you may recall, a tif plan is a 30 year plan. The action plan focuses on five year increments and identifies immediate priorities within the scope of the overall tif plan. Cully, more specifically, has a forecast revenue. Next slide please. Here we go. Cully more specifically has a forecast revenue of more of I'm sorry, $350 million over the 30 years. The plan allocates funds to economic and urban development with affordable housing buckets, with lists of eligible projects. The cully five year action plan has a forecast revenue of just 30 million and identifies shorter term specific priorities to be tackled in that five year period. The priorities are divided into three major buckets 45% in economic development, 45% in affordable housing, and a 10% allocation that is flexible between either economic development or housing based on the priorities that the community sees at at the time of the action plan. Leslie.

You may note that this plan is actually six years, not five years. We in order to have five full years of a plan, we added another year because by the time this plan is approved, we'll have very little time left in this fiscal year to implement. And so it is actually a six year plan. If you count three months of this year.

Okay. Next slide please. The economic and urban development priorities that the community identified are to support small businesses, support commercial property owners, and to support cultural and community assets. This is implemented through programs like prosper portland's prosperity investment program. Micro-grants, delivered through our neighborhood prosperity network. Tenant improvement loans, affordable commercial tenants, predevelopment and construction loans. Acquisition of property by prosper Portland and by providing community livability grants to the local nonprofit organizations. Leslie.

Next slide. Next slide please. So the housing affordable housing priorities, the committee worked on them over several months. These investments reflect the strong focus on stabilization and anti-displacement. Priority one expands pathways to home ownership through permanently affordable units and down payment assistance, creating 25 to 30 new homeowners, depending upon how the committee what percentage goes to each program. Priority two stabilize existing homeowners through home repair grants and loans, with a goal of retaining 200 plus homeowners in the first five years. Priority three develop and implement a mobile home stabilization program, focusing first on program design and then implementation. Priority four acquire land for future permanently affordable home ownership. So the first 2 million will go to home ownership, and then the second 2 million will go towards buying land for affordable rental to be developed in later action plans. Together, these strategies prevent displacement while creating new pathways to ownership for the future. Next slide.

The 10% flexible resources. When we originally imagined this would have been dedicated to the same exact programs that we discussed in the previous two slides. However, through our work with the community and the clc, they had a different idea. They specifically directed us to use those resources to acquire a property, to partner for and prosper, to actually partner on a mixed use development project rather than dedicating the funds to just economic development or just housing.

As brian said. The clc intentionally recommended that prosper Portland and fb partner on a future catalytic project or projects in cully. This reflects the community's desire for coordinated housing and economic development investments, similar to what we did with the nick fish. Setting aside flexible funds now allows the city to act strategically when the right site or opportunity emerges. Ultimately, this approach advances placemaking, long term affordability and stronger cross bureau impact. Brian.

Next slide please. So our next steps, our next steps include an anticipated council date of March 11th, requesting approval of the action plan. Our work with the community leadership committee over the coming months includes updating the bylaws to better address logistical needs of the group, such as. Term lengths for co-chairs will also be identifying desired criteria for scoring grant applications to the various tif funded programs. We'll also be kicking off the very first community livability grant for cully. We're very excited to move this work forward. The clc members want to see investments made in their neighborhood, and businesses and residents want continued reassurance that the city is working hard to help them stay in a thriving, community centered neighborhood. Thank you, and we're happy to answer any questions that you have.

Thank you. Great presentation. We have hands up. This is the first of the three items, and we're looking to approve their action plan. The first hand up is councilor Dunphy. Thank you. Dunphy.

Thank you very much. Can we go back to slide 16, please? The forecast income for the district. Am I correct in reading this that 33% of the proceeds in the first five years are going to administrative costs? And then if that is the case, does that mean that just adding 45 plus ten plus 45 plus 15 plus 14 plus four is 113%? So what am I? What am I missing here? And how do these percentages break down?

Do you want to do you want to do that okay.

So with oh do.

We actually.

Yeah we'll bring our cfo up. Great. Thanks tony.

Good morning. Councilors tony barnes, cfo prosper Portland this slide illustrates what the estimated both program delivery which is staffing directly in community supporting projects and programs as well as administration which are facilities it costs systems as well as other administrative expenses. That's not that supporting the programs and projects, but it's allocated across agency for both php and prosper Portland. And so.

Okay.

Please. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you.

So the breakdown is approximately 30% of the total proceeds over the forecast period. And that includes that's an average over each fiscal year that totals to about 11 or $12 million over that, that total.

And then from there we then allocate that into the buckets of housing and administrative economic development and the flexible priorities.

That's that's correct. The 6.1 is the estimated for total php and prosper Portland. So that's split estimated to be approximately equal between prosper and php. But the php portion would be coming out of the housing set aside portion. Right php.

Okay, that just feels counter to even what I've seen of other tif districts, even at this body in this position, we had a conversation very similar, in which at one point, at least in the way that tif districts were done previously, it was the tif to 45 effort was an effort to of the overall pot, including administrative costs. But it seems like now we take the administrative costs off the top and then divide the pot into like in the lens town center. We got lens town center to 45%, 35% for or 30% for administrative costs and 20 or I'm sorry for economic development and the remainder for 20 for administrative. So that's obviously a much smaller pot of dollars. And I'm a little surprised to see a third of the dollars going out, going just back to the administration and delivery of it. Is this unique to the fact of the geography of cully? Is this just help me understand how we got here.

This is fairly consistent with recent history. Both php and prosper Portland have looked back over the last 10 to 15 years on the delivery of projects and programs across tif districts. It varies depending on the types of projects and programs that are being delivered. But the average that we're using for estimated costs are pretty close to to what we've experienced over the last ten years in other districts across. When you look at all districts combined.

Okay, well, I.

I this is concerning to me. I think that if, if, if, if we were, you know, we put pretty strict administrative caps on any dollars that go out of here ever. And, you know, I have been pretty vocal about my skepticism of tif. I have some broad concerns, continue to have broad concerns. I lived through the lens tif district. I was involved in the interstate tif district. I really appreciate that you all have a lessons learned task slide in here. I totally agree with that. And everyone I've talked to has said that cully is the new way that things are meaningfully different. My my colleague, councilor Avalos has said this is a different beast, but it is really up to you all to prove it. I have railed against beautiful pdfs in this, in this job, and my biggest concern about tif broadly is that the these projects inherently have longer timelines than political terms. That's probably the reason why prosper exists in the first place, is that it takes ten years to build a building, and I'm only here for four. And so I get that. But this still makes me really nervous because the you have laid a good foundation and you are starting the work to execute, but the follow through is what really matters here. And we must have accountable outcomes for this. And the inherently just starting off on this five year financial forecast, the the dollar amounts and the percentages being displayed on in this way just makes me really nervous. Cully is outside of my district, but I lived in cully for many years. Well, the district of the the the the cully tif is outside of my district. And I will I mean, I'm lucky to to see that the outcomes will hopefully start accumulating in my term here and I will, you know, trust but verify that we can do this. But. I the presentation but for this slide felt great. And I just continue to have some worry. So thank you.

Thank you thank you president Dunphy. Next we have councilor Clark.

Olivia Clark: Thank you, mister chair. Thank you for the presentation. All of you. I cully has a special place in my heart because I drove across town every Thursday night for many years to choir practice in this very tif district. And I think the school that I practice has been torn down because of asbestos problems. But I somewhat familiar with the district. So I really I appreciate this presentation. Just following off of council president dunphy's question is, could you just talk a little bit more about how this is a new model? What makes this the new model? I'm not that familiar with the tifs and how how this in particular is different.

You want me to join?

Yes, please.

Good morning. Councilors lisa buffo, director of development and investment with prosper Portland. So I'm going to be institutional memory for probably one last time with the city. So I think it's a new model in multiple ways. One is we committed to having standing community leadership committees. Those were memorialized in a governance charter that was actually attached to the tif plan. We never had that before. And so what you see before you in terms of the nominations is distinct. Some of that also answers council president dunphy's questions, which is to do that engagement takes additional staff. So historically, I think we were at 25%. As tony mentioned, it does take a certain amount of kind of commitment to engagement and accountability to staff a committee on a monthly basis to make sure they're getting kind of good information, to make sure that we're leaning in to engagement and accountability. But so having a governance charter attached to the tif plan and a community leadership committee that really is guiding the investment priorities is new. The other is a standing commitment to five year action plans. Again, in the past, we didn't actually have a standing commitment to five year action plans that are approved by city council to ensure that we are in alignment with you around the investment priorities. That is really important. One of the lessons learned coming off of the past is also otherwise, council was approving the budget on a year by year basis that didn't account for kind of both political changes but also market changes. So the action plan is intended to give the community stability over a 5 or 6 year period, so that they really know that you are in alignment and you stand behind kind of the investment priorities, and you support the investment priorities that they have identified. So those are the ways that I would say it's different. I'll add one more for cully in particular, but certainly I think we see this in our other tif districts, which is making sure and ensuring that the first action plan really funds and invests in stabilization of existing residents and businesses rather than in the past. Historically, the early funds actually were matches to large infrastructure projects that were city priorities, which really kind of were an additive impact in terms of displacement. And so you see in cully, actually in the tif plan, they both precluded kind of significant investment in large infrastructure projects. But also you see in the action plan that's before you today really prioritizing priority communities and folks who are most at risk of displacement, whether they are business owners, owners or residents.

Great. Thank you so much, lisa. That really helps me. And your last comment about the infrastructure investments, I was part of those when it came to the interstate. Max. And I think we made a lot of mistakes up there in terms of displacement. So that kind of leads into my next comment. I want to make sure that I'm understanding what your strategy is to prevent displacement. And what I think I heard you say was it's a homeownership strategy. You're looking at land banking, I think, did I understand that right. And that there and something about a mobile home park is that mobile home park already exists then.

Yes. So we there's two strategies that are really around displacement. One is the supporting retention of existing homeowners with a home repair program. We'll be speaking with the clc tomorrow about what percentage of those dollars goes to grants versus loans. And then there are 4 or 5 mobile home parks in this district. And we'll be working to develop a program to stabilize mobile home parks. We don't currently have any kind of programing for mobile home park residents. And so over the next year, 18 months, we'll be doing community engagement, working with them to figure out what what services we can provide them within the requirements or the restrictions of tiff and and then implement that in year three when we have a significantly higher amount of money, we'd have over $6 million that year. And so to that, $2 million is programed into year three for us to begin serving mobile home park residents.

That's really helpful, I appreciate that. Are you looking at those state? Didn't the state used to have a mobile home co-op program?

The state does have a program, and our neighborhood housing program manager has participated in that. And so we will combine wherever we can with state funds to ensure that we're reaching the most number of people.

I think that's that's great. That might be a option to develop a co-op. I want to ask on the homeownership retention and creating homeownership possibilities. Has there been any talk about I don't know how much of a grant you're looking at, but is there any exploration of a limited equity or a payback or anything like that?

So our current down payment assistance program, so we have what's called a d pal based on the analysis of home sales. Our team worked with realtors and we determined $100,000 is the down payment assistance amount for cully. Up to 20% of that can be used for a home improvement grant. And so that part is not they don't have to pay that part back. So 80,000 would go towards their down payment. Up to 20% could be used for fixing a roof or landscaping or putting in new flooring or whatever it is that they want to do that's permanently attached to the house. The loan is a no interest, no payment loan, and if they stay in the house until year 15, 50% is forgiven and then 3% per year up to year 30 when the whatever remaining balance is fully forgiven. We also have a permanently affordable development where we work with community partners like habitat and proud ground to build affordable units where there's limited equity if someone sells the property. So in that model, we put the money, the subsidy into the construction and the development of the unit versus the d pal, which goes directly to the homeowner. So the committee was very concerned about having both opportunities for people to be able to buy on the market as well as permanent affordability. And so that's why as part of the land banking, we added, we specified $2 million to go towards purchasing land for permanent affordable homeownership development.

And I you know, given today's market, I don't know how far $100,000 goes. I don't know what it's like in cully, but I really appreciate getting the additional information on that. It's very interesting. I started my career in affordable housing, so I'm just kind of interested in digging in a little bit there. Just my last comment is that I'm very supportive of public private partnerships, and I think I saw that possibility in your 10% flex, which you called the catalytic fund. So anything any opportunity to have a public private partnership, I think should be encouraged and I appreciate that. So thank you for the presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you, councilor Clark. Councilor Smith.

Loretta Smith: Thank you. Thank you all for the report. Could I have the cfo come up again? Director goodloe, I'm looking at this prosperity report and first time home buyers. 4 million. Just as councilor Clark suggested. With this $4 million, that's only going to help 40 people at $100,000 apiece.

No, that's not so. The committee allocated a dollar amount, and we have yet to decide how much is going to go towards down payment assistance versus how much would go towards permanent affordability, permanent affordability we subsidize right now, if we did it today at about $150,000 per unit. So and then it's affordable for after every sale the some of the equity stays in the house. So the next buyer is at 80% or below.

Okay. Again that's even less than 40 that I have a problem with. So the people program so that I understand this correctly. The depot program is not exclusively being used on cully because other folks can use the depot program outside of the cully.

No, these funds can only be used in cully.

No, no no. But what I'm saying is we have a larger depot program that can be used in the city of Portland. This is just $4 million taken off of that chunk that we have total. No. Am I not understanding this correctly.

In so in each of the tif districts, we have down payment assistance and then we have some citywide funds that we use for down payment assistance.

Exactly.

That's what I'm saying. And those dollar amounts differ based on the funding source. So in interstate the down payment assistance right now is $150,000 because of the home prices in if we use cdbg funds, it's 80,000. If we use city funds, it's 100,000. So it just depends on the funding source. But each of those have different restrictions. These funds are restricted to just be used within the cully boundary.

That's the point I'm making. My former chief of staff got the depot program. She got 150,000 for wilkes out in district one, and it was she could she had a zip code that she could use. But what I'm saying is there's a bigger there's a bigger home ownership pot that is within the Portland housing bureau. These are not the only home ownership dollars. That's what I'm trying to say.

But they're each of them are restricted to certain parts of town.

Exactly. So that's that's what I'm trying to make the point that this is just a small piece of the housing. Owner home ownership piece that you all do. There are a couple of things that that I find through the tif district. That is concerning. So my thought was that when you use tif dollars, you just using straight tif dollars for the entire project. But what you all have done, and that's why I wanted the cfo to come up, is you've put 15% of Portland housing bureau money within these tif districts to make this tif district go. Is that normal?

Councilor. So the the housing set aside is approximately 45% of the total tif proceeds, and within that 45%, the staffing and allocations for administrative costs for fb are funded from that. Out of those tif proceeds, that's directly related to implementing the projects and programs in the district. So it's it's not other dollars from outside the district that's supporting.

And I can understand why people get Portland housing bureau and prosper Portland mixed up. And because you all are mixing money and it just makes it more difficult. And then you put Portland housing bureau in there and you don't say where the money is coming from, if it's coming from cdbg, if it's coming from the home dollars, if it's coming from general fund, Portland housing bureau, and for for just so that I can keep things straight on what we're paying for. Because when it comes under your umbrella, under tif, it the public doesn't get a extensive presentation on where dollars are coming from. They just assume that it's all coming from tif. It's all coming from prosper and not coming from the city of Portland at all. And in fact, we do have money. So my question to you is the 15% that was up on the board, what where is that coming from? Is that coming from cdbg or is that coming from general fund.

Councilor that's coming from the cully tif district proceeds. So approximately 15% of the proceeds over the five year forecast and the action plan would come from tif proceeds and cully to support the staff and the operations to stand up those programs and projects.

So it is to support the staff at the Portland housing bureau.

Yes. So we we provide services and then monthly we send a bill to prosper and they pay us.

So that's the so that's what I'm trying to figure out. Is it money. Because I was thinking the money from the Portland housing bureau is going over to tiff. And I said, why is that.

No, no, no. So we we provide services. So for every down payment assistance loan that we do, we then invoice prosper and then they send us the money.

You all.

Out of the 45%. So both for the staffing costs and for the program costs.

So this is this is very incestuous here. How all this is working. And it's, it's it's never clear. And I understand because you had a commission form of government and the commissioner in charge, they knew all the the intricate details of this. And this is where we get into trouble, because those dollars that you're being reimbursed, they now become general fund dollars because you you pay them, right? No, no, no, they pay you.

They pay us. It's tif money. So it's restricted to cully. We don't mix it with other. So if we do a project, a tif project and for home repair grants if we put out. So we put out $1 million across our network for home repair grants. Those are grants that are up to $10,000 that are neighborhood partners, can award to a homeowner. They do the work. We have a contract manager at the office that manages those contracts, manages those outcomes and ensures that the work gets done. And then we bill prosper and they reimburse us. But that's tif money. It's not general fund money.

How is it? Noted director goodloe? How is it noted in the budget when we get.

Tiff.

Is it noted as tiff?

Yes, ma'am.

In the budget that this is this you were it was a reimbursement.

It's we we budget a certain amount of tiff every year. So for home repair grant, I'm not sure what how the budget looks right now because they've changed it so much. But under each program offer it would have a line item that says interstate tiff, x number of dollars, Lents tiff, x number of dollars, cully tiff x number of dollars for for for within that program offer.

And I like that how you say the x number of dollars because what I've noticed about this budgeting on the from the bureaus and from our bigger budget, they always use percentages. And I like to use actual real numbers. And as we're working out our budget issues, I want to see a line item of how much money you got reimbursed from the tiff. I want to see a line item. I don't want it all put in one big lump and says, oh, this is tiff, but I want to see that this is the amount that was that was reimbursed, because that is that gives us an idea, because if you're not paying for it out of out of your Portland housing bureau budget and you're getting reimbursed, we don't know your the full the full picture of your budget because that is not that is not anticipated or included in the overall budget. When we get the budgets and say, you know, we don't know that you're getting reimbursed from that.

That's how we budget is based on how much we believe we're going to get reimbursed for. So if I put $2 million of cully tiff in the budget for this year, then that's what we're expecting. We're going to spend or be able to get put out in the community and then prosper. Will will reimburse us. But that's that's the.

$2 million in there. But let's say you don't spend $2 million. Where does those where do those dollars go? How is that noted?

We only get reimbursed for what we spend.

Okay.

So so it just stays in the pot of our 45%.

Okay. All right. I'll leave it alone. I will have a separate conversation with you because I'm somewhere and I know where I'm going with this. It is a bigger problem. And how we account for reimbursements and how we account for money that crosses between prosper and and okay, there is a problem. And the problem that I have is we owed money. We had to come back and pay 8.5. This has nothing to do with you. We had to come back and pay $8.5 million for something that we owed prosper, but it was not noted anywhere. And so I'm trying to figure out how these things are noted and how publicly they are noted, so that I understand that that $2 million that you say is in the budget, but it is not recognized like that. Okay. That's you see what I'm saying?

I understand.

So we'll talk later, okay. About it. Thank you.

Thank you counselor. Great conversation. Colleagues, we have less than ten minutes on this item before we go to the other two. Counselor, co-chair Green.

Thanks, co-chair Ryan. And I'm going to help as coach. We're going to help move us along here. So I'll keep my comments very brief. Thanks so much for presenting today. You know, I grew up on 78th avenue between skidmore and mason, so I was in rose way. I went to scott elementary school. So this is this is very near and dear to my heart. There's some folks in the audience who I'm, I'm eager to vote to appoint to the, the clc. And so this action plan being linked close to the work with the clc does is very, very critical for me. It's a strong signal that we are we're going to make investments that are going to be aligned with the community's intent, which is which is frankly the strongest signal that we're committed to. Anti-displacement. And I see that. I think the only question that I have, and we don't have to do this now because we do have limited time. But I want to pick up where councilor Dunphy started. This is I still don't really understand the difference between the two line items of of the overhead. There's the fb prosper program delivery, which to me feels like an overhead cost bucket. And then there's the the admin cost bucket. And then those total up to about $12 million. I'm going to need to see a little bit more that fleshes that out and makes the case that ties that to the execution of all this, because I don't see it here. And the five year action plans are probably the most important decision point that council has when it comes to these tif districts. We only get to basically intervene every five years on on sort of steering how we think that these monies should be spent because the charter, you know, chapter 15 of the charter basically says as prosperous budget committee, city council shall have the duties and responsibilities of a budget committee as provided in state law. But but in exercising those duties, we're we're supposed to really tie it back to our city adopted policies and goals. And it's the action plan that is the adopted policy and goal specific to that tif district. And so it's really important, I think, that we understand what it is that we're going to vote for. And when we come forward into the budget process, as we've experienced, there's not really any discretion or time to to negotiate. Once we've approved a five year action plan, my intention is to approve a five year action plan and say, okay, good, the clc is on it. I can trust that they're doing good work in the community, and I'm I'm ready to go every budget. Right. So I think after today, but before this goes to the full council, I would really love to see a little bit more tony in those two line items. That kind of help make the case for that, that $12 million in the aggregate.

Councilor councilor would you prefer that in a written form, or would you like a separate briefing?

I think just in the interest of everyone's time, just a written response to the committee would suffice my my interests and make sure everyone else gets the same email that I get.

Happy to do.

So all right. Thank you. And then I think that's all I'll say.

Thank you. Co-chair Green cornell, it's really good to see you. This is a very important topic. We're spending more time on it. And I apologize to those that are here to be appointed. I also think it's great that you're listening to this conversation, and we'll have to we'll do that in the last half hour. Michael, I really appreciate the context, the history. I was fortunate to have some of that, but I think it's very grounding in this dialog. Also, as a teenager of a single mom living in a mobile home court on hayden island, I really appreciate that we're lifting mobile home courts. They're very complicated in their zoning, and they often get the they get the shaft many times, and they don't always have really good representation. So their advocacy is not always there. So thank you. So cut to the chase. I know there's tension always between industry and environmental groups. And it just so happens along columbia boulevard. We have a lot of industry jobs. And we also know that currently in our very tough economic conditions that we're dealing with in Portland, one of the bright spots, if you will, is that we we have vacancy rates everywhere that are really high, except for in the industrial zones. And so I just want to hear is the columbia corridor organization that they've been involved in any of these this dialog, because I didn't hear one mention of them in this report. And you mentioned that you want to make sure that and I appreciate that, that you want to protect existing businesses and existing housing, and those are existing family wage jobs. So I just wanted to hear some of that from you.

So the boundaries of the cully tif district do include some industrial, but not a significant portion of the overall district. And as a result, the the bulk of the conversations with community have centered around the the nonprofit organizations that we mentioned earlier, earlier, as well as community members and our the small businesses in the commercial portions regarding industrial, one of our newer tif districts, the sumner park rose rj columbia corridor tif district actually has a much more significant portion of the columbia corridor industrial section. And we did engage with columbia corridor association in that in the conversations around that tif district. And they continue to be engaged partners for what we call the space tif district.

Yeah, that was that was great. So you have had conversations with the columbia corridor about this district. There are some that are included in these boundaries. I know this area pretty well. Used to be strawberry fields back in the day. That's how old I am. But I really appreciate that we continue to focus on those existing industries. I would like a list of the industry organizations in the district and the number of employees they currently have. That would be fair, don't you think? Okay, I just have found myself to have to advocate for such a lobby, if you will, in this council, because I really believe that we must continue to offer family wage jobs. And I just want to make sure we keep lifting that. And with tif districts, there is an equation, economic equation about the prosperity of businesses providing the revenue streams for the housing and such that we speak of. So there is a new relationship that the nonprofit community has now, and that's why the tables you're setting must continue to be balanced with those that are in the business sector, doing economic development, with those doing community work, that are building resilience for their communities so they can have a part of that prosperity as well. Totally get it. I'm sold. I just think it's really important that we don't go from one extreme to the other, and that we continue to have the table set so it can have that tension. That's creative tension that's necessary to build prosperity. Sometimes my hometown shies away from such important conversations, and I think as a nation, we're doing too much of that polarization. And we need to figure out how to keep including the dialog. Is that a fair statement?

Yes. Thank you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I just want to say that I really like the five year action plan because you you make it sound like there will be adaptation and pivots based on what you're seeing from the data. Is there any is there been anything in your first year where you've had to pivot based on findings? Just curious.

Well, I'll jump in real quick. One of the I think one of the biggest pivots from the housing bureau was including land banking. When we initially did the priority setting land banking was a low priority of the committee. And so after having habitat and proud ground coming, bring testimony and write a letter. The committee decided to include land banking and to specifically set aside dollars for land banking for permanently affordable homeownership. So I think that's that was a big pivot on the side.

I applaud that, of course, because as you recall, my brief time as housing commissioner, I put in a budget note for that, got approved for land banking, and it was met with some controversy because something we haven't done much of. So I appreciate to see that that continues to be a sage action so that we can get some affordable housing for the long term. So thank you. And I also noticed that the history that you have with the north, the north, north and northeast strategy, those teachings and learnings are being brought to this. And I just want to lift you, leslie goodloe, for being at the table. Basically, thank you for not retiring and and bringing those skill sets to this table. We really need to go to the next two items. I want to thank you for this. Before we approve this. Of course it will be a motion.

We do have ginger, who's the co-chair. We didn't bring her up sooner, but she's co-chair. She's going to speak today about the action plan and the clc's involvement. So if we could she has to leave in a couple minutes. So if we could have her speak now, that would be fantastic.

Take it away, ginger. Thanks for letting.

Me know. Leslie.

Hey. It's good to see you. My relatives. My name is ginger. I'm hoopa, and I'm the co-chair of the cully community leadership committee. So everything that you guys are saying is incredible, and I'm super happy to be here also. And I just wanted to highlight a couple of the things. So much of what you saw in the presentation is what I was going to share included in the letter and memo that was given to you. But I just I do want to highlight the beauty and the uniqueness that come that comes with being a part of the community leadership committee. And a lot of that is exactly what was mentioned with leslie. And just just with all of the collaborations of folks who have come from businesses, from agencies, from the city, and educated us. So the committee is made up of different individuals who live and or work in the cully neighborhood. So folks are invested in the neighborhood. We have people, single mothers, business owners working for nonprofits. You know, we've got across the board representing the 13 folks who make up the clc for cully. We also really appreciate the time and commitment that has come from folks who have given testimony and who have come forward, and a part of the committee has been really requesting from our supports to bring in different spaces to talk to us, to, to educate us. So I think that's a challenge with it being two years to come up with this five year action plan. There's a lot of educating that had come to this because some folks had never sat on a board advisory board like this before, so there was a lot that came from all angles. Some of the spots that we wanted to to highlight one of them on there was the support for manufactured home park residents that came from folks coming in and speaking, giving testimony and the committee being so moved and so touched and understanding with our relationships with leslie and the questioning on what can we do. At multiple clc meetings, we heard compelling testimony from neighbors living in manufactured home parks in need of financial support. Php does not currently have a plan geared toward manufactured home park residents. The action plan directs fb to develop a program, and allocates $2 million for repair and other supports, so that became a huge priority. Land acquisition initially was a big part of our conversations, but as we as we all did our writing down and leslie put it all together and, you know, we based on the priorities, it did not reach that top and community partners saw that and felt concerned because this is an ongoing thing. Right click the committee. Some of us had just come in during this phase, but this is an ongoing thing. And folks partners came in like those who were mentioned before, and they said, hey, what about land acquisition? That's habitat for humanity. Hacienda cdc, verde proud ground. They had to sign on, but they had mentioned that. So towards the end of our process, we received this letter, and then we invited them to do a presentation to give us further information for the committee to make a collective decision. And in that the committee held numerous discussions. So this led us into subcommittees meeting more extensively and sitting down and having deeper conversations. Because knowing this is just a five year action plan, we also know the state of our nation. We also know the condition of our neighborhood. We know, you know, we're we're living people through all of this. And so that determination was it was hard fought. A lot of as indigenous people, we believe in seventh generational planning. We have to look at today. We want to get our help and support to today, but we don't want to go off a scarcity mindset, you know? So what are we looking towards and how do we create that long term? We need land, you know. And so that became a top one as well. We also had small businesses come in and we also did tours as a committee. We had gone through and gotten information notice, see what's happening, see what the needs are, hear from folks on, you know, minor to major repairs and how can we contribute and how can we continue to support our businesses here in the cully neighborhood? A part of that makeup, being folks who live in and or work in the neighborhood, that is a priority, that the tif funding stays in the community, that this is something to to prevent gentrification, right? To stop. We want to support the community in cully, and that's a huge drive and push on why we have our community in general, but on the work that we're doing, I really also wanted to just mention. Councilor Dunphy, just, you know, in bringing up and questioning the 33%, that's something that we did as a committee as well. So, you know, in looking at that, having the makeup of this committee and looking with different strengths and expertise on saying, hey, what is this? And we also have individuals who are saying, how are we talking to folks in the community? What are we doing? Where is our data coming from? And so that did go into saying, okay, we need somebody who's going to be running these surveys. We need somebody deeper going in. And so that shift in covering that is is not just covering. They're already done. We're not overlapping. Right. So I appreciated you bringing that up and challenging that. And then I just wanted to acknowledge that the committee did as well. Or looking at these things, councilor Smith with depo actual real numbers, that also was the committee saying, hey, percentages are kind of challenging. My brain doesn't work that way. What does this amount, you know, and. Yes, councilor Clark mentioning the 10% public and private, the partnership. You know, that's something that's really was really big on folks too. We don't want to say we're giving you or they're we want this partnership. This is our community. We're looking at it as a whole. So how do we do that? Beyond that, it's with this. And councilor Ryan balanced state of the nation, all of what came to the conclusion on what we stood for in creating this action plan is in consideration of the state of the nation, and it's just really beautiful to hear that you guys are doing this work, that you're focusing here, that you're questioning it. And I just wanted to honor and acknowledge the clc committee and just say we're doing the same thing. So thank you.

Well, thank you so much, ginger, and thank you for your leadership and for reminding us the importance of looking forward seven generations. And people want to acknowledge you, so feel free to. You were clapping and clapping now and then when it's positive they want us to go like this.

Yeah. Yay! All right. Thank you. I gotta get my daughter to an appointment.

We really need to get to the motion and the vote. But, councilor Smith, you have something burning.

Yes.

I promised.

Something brief. I support this very ambitious plan in the four points of the first time. Home buyer. The retention of existing homeowners, supporting the mobile home residents, and the acquisition of land. But as I was thinking about this from a 30,000 foot level, I wanted to ask you this, director wesley, how or ask this question, will the realignment that's happening that the city administrator and the mayor are embarking on? Will will that impact your ability to work with the Portland housing bureau? And maybe this is better suited for for director goodloe, if you have to have a 20% cut of your services, how will that impact the processing of these four items that we have in the report? Because if you reduce the number of folks and then you're also bringing in, or did you already include that in your assessment of the realignment?

So the realignment at this point doesn't impact the services. These services these are primarily going to be managed through our neighborhood housing program. And so the the only potential impact could be if our finance team, if we lost part of our finance team, our loan team. But at this point, I don't see any any significant impact on us being able to implement the services for the first five year plan.

Okay, okay. I'm just asking.

To your question. Yes, it will impact our ability. We we are confident and excited about the the the move towards building efficiencies. But reduction in resources is a direct corollary to our ability to do the work for more specific information. Obviously we have our cfo here who can go deeper, but for the sake of.

Can.

Do that, I understand what you're saying.

Put a lot of items on today I want.

To get, but I we will talk about this later because I'm concerned about it. Thank you.

My pleasure.

Thank you so much. We have had a great presentation and dialog. Colleagues may have a motion to to move this resolution forward.

I move the motion.

Second.

And so we have councilor Smith moves resolution document number 2020 6-082 to full council with a recommendation to be adopted. And we have a may I have a second? I already heard that from councilor Clerk. The motion has been moved by councilor Smith and seconded by councilor Clerk I think we've had enough discussion. Are you fair with that assessment? Clerk please call the roll.

Dunphy.

Lot of great work by the clsi, but I cannot justify the admin costs of $50,000 a week for five years, so I vote no.

Smith, I. Clark. I Green.

I'm looking forward to seeing that email on the breakout of the two categories of admin costs. I'm also a note today.

Ryan I.

With a vote of three I and two nos. The motion to refer the resolution document number 2026 082 to city council with a recommendation to be adopted, has passed okay.

And the next item has been read. Where are we on that? You're up there. Great. So, prosper Portland representatives are there. Director wesley, you're up to as we consider appointments to the prosper board of commissioners.

Good morning again, leslie goodloe from Portland housing bureau. And I'm going to be speaking to the reappointment and appointment of a new member to the to the clc. And we're getting the slides up right now. We have three members of the committee that are here to speak. So I'm going to prioritize giving them time. So I'm going to run quickly through the slides. So I'm going to go to slide view okay.

Sorry.

That's okay. So I'm going to do a quick overview. Although I did a lot of that in the previous presentation, the process and criteria. And then the requested appointments will go let's go to the next.

Feel free to cut to the chase. We're low on time and we want to hear their voices.

So as you know, we you know, the we want to provide decision makers and staff with advice and on essential guidance, public recommendations and oversight. And again, all the committee members must live, work or worship or have children enrolled in cully or have been displaced from cully. Next slide. So the process is fb and prosper work together with a living cully coordinator and the exploration leadership committee to select folks to do an outreach, to select people, to participate on the committee. Folks that had expertise in housing, small business, workforce, real estate and community building, building and advocacy to participate on the committee. Next slide. This is the current list of committee members. The top six are from the prosper board nominated positions, and then the bottom six are from the city and we are renominating the those five. And we have a new nominee, veena rainwater, who will come up to speak in just a moment. So the reappointments are elizabeth dejesus, lopez, baya mata, jorge bautista, who is also here, and he's no longer a mcdaniel high school student. He's now a PSU student, julia tinson, who will be here to speak, and laura campos. Next slide. And then veena rainwater is our new appointee. And so I'm going to call julia, george and veena up to speak. Come on up here.

Welcome to state your name for the record. And I apologize that this will be so brief that it's great to have you here. Thank you for being patient. I hope you enjoyed the last conversation.

I did enjoy the last conversation. I'm just really grateful to be here too. My name is julia tinson.

And I'm.

Veena rainwater.

Good evening. Co-chairs members of the committee.

So feel free to get close to that mic. Yeah.

Yeah I just I was tearful during ginger's testimony, and I think I'm the one who initiated the applause. It has been such an honor I to be on this committee. I have actually of the 13, apart from veena being appointed today, I'm actually the only white woman of 13 people on the board and I live in cully. I worship in cully. I walked my kid to school in cully today at rigler. Ps I'm a spanish speaker and I actually became a business owner as a private practice, licensed clinical social worker and cully as well. I bought my first home in cully in 2016 and it has just been like just such the roots. I grew up in northeast Portland and attended sabin elementary school, so all of this is just very close to my heart. And I think something that wasn't mentioned that feels really important is, you know, as I imagine your board to or council members, you become kind of this like micro of the macro. Right. And so we're humans and things happen with humans as we're trying to make big decisions about investments while being confronted with the state of our nation. And, you know, at one point early on, actually, we had some conflict in between members. We just bring together diverse people and think, everyone's going to get along. No, that's not how this works, right? People have been marginalized and are coming to this committee with a lot of investment and backgrounds and things that have been really near and dear to their heart. And so we ended up having some inner conflict and actually bringing in someone from the outside to sort of manage that, but bring some harmony back together and help kind of create an infrastructure that in two years I can say we have harmony. Like I can touch jorge's back and I can cry when ginger gives testimony and hug her and see her daughter and feel really committed and invested. And so we are challenging, you know, fb and prosper. But they have also, at every meeting, come back with the numbers that we've asked for. They have been absolutely invested at hearing the testimony at like when I said, hey, my neighbor makes mexican food and I want to support her small business. Can we order her food instead of the pizza place down the street next month? We got her food, so they have just been so responsive to everything that we have challenged them on. And we have been vocal and we have a lot of harmony, and I'm just grateful to be reappointed to continue that, because it takes a long time to build to your point. Like you don't just, you know, you do this in four years and then just as you're making progress, things turn over. So thank you for your critical thinking today.

And then co-chairs Ryan and greg, I'll make my remarks brief. As you mentioned, we're short on time. But for the record again my name is lori sanchez bautista. I serve as the co-chair of the tax financing community leadership committee, or the clc. As leslie stated, my statements weren't fully updated, but a little bit about myself. I'm a current college student at Portland state university, majoring in political science and minors in criminology and criminal justice and law and legal studies. I'm a longtime community organizer and advocate many of you not to put you on the spot, but many of you, you know, know my history in the city. And I am recently a graduate from mcdaniel high school in northeast. So I have to emphasize, my fellow mountain lions in northeast, outside of politics and policy, I'm a, you know, a very big personal and volunteering. So I'm really out there in community and I really enjoy it. My statement of interests focuses on this. Really, I just wish to be reappointed to this body to continue my service to my community during these difficult times, but also providing the only youth voice in the body. As the 19 year old who's very, you know, uninvolved and who's really passionate about politics and government. So I'm, you know, I thank you for your consideration, and I'm happy to take any questions that you may have.

All right.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you both. Great examples to follow I'm vena rainwater. I've lived in cully for the last ten years. My youngest well, both of my kids went to local schools. My youngest is currently at beaumont. My oldest graduated from mcdaniels. I've actually been involved in the tif district work since 2021. I was on the executive. I don't actually remember what we called it. One of the committees working on the establishment of the initial language that went to city council in 2023 and have been involved in a number of different efforts across the cully area over the years. I was the treasurer for the neighborhood association. I would not recommend that role to anyone, in case you're wondering, I have also been working with our local npn for the last three years. So with eddie martinez and very familiar with the sort of view of the economic area in cully, and I'm really excited to continue to participate in this work, I think it's incredibly important. I got my undergraduate in urban studies and community development from PSU in the early 2000, which means that I really got to firsthand watch what happened with our initial tif districts. And I have very strong feelings about how we need to protect existing residents in the neighborhood. Yeah.

Thank you for wanting to meet us. This hadn't happened at the last council, so I appreciate you wanting to put faces and some stories to to who we are.

Thank you.

Thank you. That's the end of our presentation. No, I just say I started working with cully clc just about a year ago, and it has not always been pleasurable, but it's been hard work and they have kept me on my toes even after all of my work in interstate. But I appreciate the commitment of the the committee and that they keep coming back every, every month and wanting to see things go well in that district. So thank you so much.

Miss goodloe. Colleagues, we can either move right to the vote, which we have to do, and probably two minutes anyway. You're all saying, let's do that. Anyone have a quick question?

I'm my hand.

Is oh, your hand is up. Councilor.

Yes. I just want to say thank you to all of you for for your service. This is really time consuming and it's important and critical work. And I always like to see young people involved in the process. So thank you so much for being willing to serve. Again this is this is good work. Thank you.

Thank you, councilor Smith.

Loretta Smith: I'll just add yes, george, you were on another commission as well. Are you still on the new portlanders commission.

On three bodies right now?

Wow.

Hope you get some credit for that at Portland state university. Anyway, thank you all for being here. May I have a motion?

So moved.

Second.

Okay. Thank you. Councilor Dunphy moves to recommend the report. Document number 2026 084 to be sent to the full council. And may I have a second? I heard it from somewhere. Thank you. Is that you, councilor Clark? Okay, so the motion has been moved by councilor Dunphy and seconded by councilor Clark. And we are Clark. We are ready for the roll.

And just to be clear, it's document 2026 083 that we're voting on currently. So, Dunphy.

Aye, Morillo.

Smith, I.

Clark I.

Green. I Ryan. I with five eyes the motion to refer the report document number 2026 083 to the city council with a recommendation it be accepted has passed.

Thank you so much.

Okay. The final item. Cornell, you're back up.

And I will talk fast once again. Cornell wesley, proudly serving as the executive director for prosper Portland, okay. I am joined by our board chair, tom cruise, and our prospective appointee, mr. Eric. Chris, again, we have limited time for this discussion. So just as a brief overview, prosper Portland is the city's economic and urban development agency. Like hundreds of economic and urban development authorities around the country, we were established as a separate entity by voters to carry out certain work on behalf of city government. And we also implement the city's goals pursuant to Oregon state statute. That being said, we work closely with the mayor and city council to deliver on the city's priorities, and our budget has been approved by council since 2007. I will now like to turn it over to our chair, cruz, for a brief overview of our appointee and of our board function.

Good morning. Thank you for having us today. For the record, my name is gustavo cruz and I currently serve as chair of the prosper Portland board of commissioners, and I've been a member of the board since 2015 and board chair for approximately ten years. I am a native of Portland, grew up in northwest Portland, attended couch elementary school in lincoln high school. I'm a business lawyer here in Portland now. Prosper Portland is governed by a five member volunteer board, who are appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the full city council. These volunteers give three years of their time, and some are reappointed for subsequent terms, as determined by the mayor. Dca donnie oliveira couldn't be here this morning, so it's my pleasure to introduce you to Eric kress, the mayor's nominee for appointment to the prosper Portland board of commissioners. I've known Eric for several years, and I'm delighted to be here today to have this little responsibility. It's our it's a critical time right now for our city. And it's essential that we continue strong, community centered leadership on our board. The mayor believes, as do I, that mr. Kress demonstrates the values, the real estate acumen, development expertise and volunteer service experience to guide prosper Portland through this pivotal period of our city's future. This appointment is intended to fill a vacancy on the board, and is therefore a partial term set to expire on September 5th of this year. We expect to return to you this summer for reappointment for a full three year term for this position, and a second position for consideration for reappointment to the prosper Portland board. Eric kress is a real estate excuse me. Eric kress is a real estate principal and civic leader. He currently serves as president and founder of urban development partners udp, and brings nearly two decades of executive leadership in the real estate sector. Eric has built a reputation for managing complex urban, mixed use projects that drive economic activity. He's organized seven private equity funds deployed across projects in Oregon and northern california. He has led the acquisition, development and asset management of projects valued at over $500 million, including multiple leed certified developments. As an added bonus, Eric began his career as an engineer. His earlier work included roles in design and research for technology firms such as cypress semiconductor and maple optical systems, as well as the national science foundation's research center for computational fluid dynamics. He holds eight us patents and multiple publications in error correcting code research. The prosper Portland board would welcome his unique expertise. I'd like to now turn it over to Eric, who would like to share a few words.

Thank you.

Thank you for your kind words, chair cruz. And thank you, mr. Wesley. Good morning, chairs.

Green, Ryan and councilors, thank you for your time today. It's an honor to be here. I'm going to read from my statement of interest some points. My interest in joining the prosper Portland board derives from my role as a parent raising three children in the city, appreciating all that Portland has to offer families and as a community member, a community oriented developer who continues to invest in Portland and as a champion for Portland, working outside the city and state to bring additional needed investment in support of housing production and equitable job growth. It is an honor to be nominated for a prosper board position. I am excited for the opportunity to serve the community and prosper team. Having worked in civic and private sector roles in Portland and beyond, I have a deep respect for the importance and difficulty of balancing short term and long term capital allocation requirements for economic development, providing for short term needs and long term vision, both of which are needed for an organization and a community to prosper. This work is complicated by the fact that devising and forecasting the outcome of an economic strategy is complex and uncertain, communicating that complexity to stakeholders with diverse interests and perspectives is even more vital and challenging. In my capacity as an investment and development principal, reporting to multiple financial and community stakeholders, I hope to bring my experience in financial and investment strategy and communications to this role. I've also had the opportunity to work with prosper Portland on the delivery of multiple leed certified mixed use buildings and on investments in the central east side. In my capacity as former central eastside industrial council board president, these engagements have deepened my appreciation for prosper portland's vital role in supporting portland's path toward equitable, long term economic growth. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions you may have, and I'm grateful for your consideration.

Thank you so much. We have some hands up council clerk.

Thank you, mr. Chair. Thank you, mr. Christopher. Your willingness to serve really appreciate it with your background. And I'm hoping that at some point you'll be able to raise our ranking on the urban land institute list. I notice you're associated with the uli. I don't know if you want to address that, but I do have another question for you.

Yes, I'll do my best and recruit my colleagues to sway that ranking as much as I can.

There you go. Excellent. I wondered if you have any thoughts or or anything you can tell us about what you think the role of prosper is, given its really our economic development agency, but it's also an urban renewal agency. It works with trade sector, it works with small business. Where do you see the balance there?

Well, they have a stated goal and equitable economic development and job growth is an important component of that. As well as housing. All of these things are things that the community needs. And particularly now in this point in time, economic development is an important consideration for Portland, and it's a tool that is needs to be carefully administered. There are plenty of historical examples of the those tools being used for public benefit and not so. And I think we've learned a lot. And as you heard today, many of those learnings have been incorporated in how prosper is administering tif or looking to administer tif. And I think that that those learnings need to continue to be incorporated. You guys asked some hard questions. That's your job is to look over, because you have seen both the positive and the negative of those types of tools. And I think prosper's role is to administer those responsibly for the benefit of the community.

Do you have any thoughts about traded sector emphasis versus small business with prosper?

I well, both are important. I think it's a false choice to choose one or the other. I've been a long term advocate of small business, and so I've come become very close to a lot of small business owners, both as a for by providing space to them and also as a big advocate in my role at the central eastside industrial council, I consider those small business owners, my friends, kids, classmates, parents, whatnot. So I'm certainly close to them and aware of their struggles we need. I mean, we need gmp for the city. So traded sector is important because we need to bring money from the outside into the city as well to support ourselves economically. So they need to work hand in hand.

Thank you very much for that response.

Appreciate it.

Thank you. Councilor, clerk colleagues, we have about a minute each. Councilor Green, co-chair. Green.

Thank you. Co-chair. Ryan. Eric, I'm really eager to to vote yes to appoint you. I've been impressed by your resume. I think we've had a conversation before, and I was immediately struck by the acumen and the expertise that you bring to the table here. So I think this is a great contribution to the board. Thanks for recruiting, Eric. I have a question on can you just say a little bit about how you've how you view being a board member as part of the very important oversight function for the use of public dollars that prosper? Portland is the steward of.

Yeah. Thank you, councilor Green. Oversight is the operative word there. So that is a responsibility. And. And it's also so it's a role of both oversight and service. And those go hand in hand. So service to the community but also being a supporter for helping and supporting the the staff to administer those jobs. Well be an interface in communicating and providing them a different perspective than they might otherwise have internally. Working within an organization. So I'm asking questions, potentially preparing the staff to answer questions that might come from city council and making sure that we all are feeling comfortable and maybe not 100% satisfied, but comfortable with the way our public dollars are being spent.

Thank you. Co-chair Green councilor President Dunphy.

Jamie Dunphy: Thank you. Eric. What is your definition of success in your role on this board? You know, you're applying for a shorter term, and we'll have you back before us. I think you said in a year.

Or.

So, what will the board look like if you are successful? How will you have influenced it versus your the person who held the seat before you?

Over this short term, it'll be quite tactical, frankly. So projects will be presented to the board. I will provide feedback, I will ask questions to understand them. And. Seek answers to my satisfaction at the public. Monies are being spent in a responsible way, both for short term goals and long term goals. So it's the balance of those two that are important. We're in a period of I mean, some would say long term during those periods, but then we also have to be tactical to make sure that we're around, or at least in a place where we have flexibility to make good long term choices. So keeping those two points of view intact during conversations around how we administer our public monies are, is is an important, I feel, my most important role on the board.

Thank you, president Dunphy. Councilor Smith.

Loretta Smith: Thank you.

Thank you for your service. Thank you for being willing to to learn. I followed you when I was at the county, and I've known the work that you've done, Eric, over the years. So I appreciate your your insight and your willingness to be able to take on this, this responsibility. And my question to you is, what do you think is the most important and critical issue that you see going forward sitting on this board?

Well, there are a number of important issues to choose from right now, by the way. Thank you, councilor Smith, and I appreciate our relationship and having followed you as well. The. I mean, I think it depends on which seat you sit in. I think what I bring to the board and other members of the board will bring other perspectives. And part of my role is listening deeply to those perspectives and seeking to understand what they are. So I'm going to speak from my perspective. But I'm I want to make clear that's not the perspective. I think in terms of economic development, you know, improving our ranking and attracting investment dollars into the city is very important. I think that sometimes I was at a humans for housing event last night, and one of the things that came up is, is, you know, the conversation around housing and is that a public, you know, is housing a right, which for those we want folks to have all of our housing, is housing a public financed or shelter, publicly financed housing, or is it privately financed? Well, that's a false choice. So we want to bring both private investment dollars in public dollars as a safety net into our economy and locally for housing development and frankly, job creation as well, and figuring out what the balance of that is, is an important component of this. And one of the complexities of administering these, these monies. So for me, the most important thing is bringing bringing focus focused outside investment and also helping us focus our internal public dollars for advancement.

I so appreciate that. And I can see why director wesley identified you, because he's been talking about bringing in new revenue, and we have to bring in new investment and new business here to the city of Portland if we want to be effective and we want to be not just surviving like we are now, we want to be thriving. So I appreciate that perspective that you're going to bring, and I will be supporting your nomination.

Thank you. Thank you.

Councilor Smith councilor Smith, just before I say a brief comment about Eric, just a real quick housekeeping. Who is Eric replacing?

Mitchie.

Mitchie slick.

Okay, great. And the term ends in September of 26, which is like in a few minutes. So is there a more nimble process we can go through in September to to state a full term? We figure that out.

Happy to work with you to do that.

Okay. Thank you. I just always noticed because the other person must have left a little bit early. So you're fulfilling the remainder of that term. But I just wanted to make sure we could be efficient with time as we go forward. What what's not to like? An entrepreneur who lives in Portland. Thank you. And is raising three children here and you're paying taxes in Portland. I mean, more of this, please. And we might just start to get out of the very dire economic challenge we're in. So you represent a profile of what we want to attract in Portland. And so I hope that you always have that in your mind as well as you're serving. And so please speak up and share your knowledge, because I think our economic iq must advance at this time. And if it doesn't, we're going to continue to be in some really dark places economically and with our budget. So appreciate that you suited up. Thank you for the recruitment and colleagues. We don't have any public testimony, do we?

No one signed up.

Okay. In this case, I'm thrilled with that because we're really in a time crunch. May I have a motion?

So moved.

Second.

All right. So I will ignore all of that and just say that councilor Smith has moved to recommend report document 2026 084. I just changed the number. That's right. Okay. Be sent to the full council for acceptance. And we have a second by without you, councilor Green. Okay, so, clerk, please call the roll.

Dunphy. Aye, Morillo Smith. I Clark. I Green. I Ryan. I I with five eyes the motion to refer the report document number 2026 084 to city council with the recommendation it be accepted has been has passed. Thank you.

Clark. Council operations, thank you for allowing us to go over a few minutes. Prosper Portland, thanks for hanging in there. It was a great meeting. The meeting of the arts and economy committee is now adjourned.

Thank you. Okay.

Well done.

Yeah. Thanks so much. Really excited to have you on our board. Yeah. Be great to have you and looking forward to it.

Thank you.