 Okay. I think we're good to go. Yep. We'll get this, we'll get this meeting started. Welcome everybody. Welcome in chambers. Welcome on zoom. This is the Portland city council. We're meeting in a special meeting. We don't normally, we didn't have this meeting planned until last week, but so it's a one item agenda. And so we'll make our way through this one important item. And then we head into a workshop. So, welcome. We it's an abbreviated agenda, but we will make our way through it. We please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge of Allegiance to the flag United States of America to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God and divisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you very much. And will the clerk please call the roll. Councillor Fornear. Here. Councillor Rodriguez is absent. Councillor Dion. Here. Councillor Ali. Present. Councillor Traparo. Here. Councillor Pelleteer. Here. Councillor Phillips. Here. Mayor Snyder. Here, and I do know that Councillor Rodriguez will be joining us just a few minutes late. So, because this is a, it's a, it's a meeting of the city council, we will take public comment on items that are not on tonight's agenda, rather than do that at five o'clock, which is what's stated by our rules, which is the normal start time for a council meeting. We will, I will look to him for a motion to suspend our council rules in order to take public comment now at the beginning of this four o'clock meeting. And then we will head into the agenda itself. So moved. Councillor Dion with a motion. Councillor Ali, can I get the second from you. Thank you so much. And we'll go ahead and vote on that. Councillor Fornear. Yes. Councillor Dion. Yes. Councillor Ali. Yay. Councillor Zauro. Yes. Councillor Traparo. Yes. Councillor Pelleteer. Yes. Councillor Phillips. Yes. Mayor Snyder. Yes. And we've been joined by Councillor Rodriguez. Good to see you. So we've waived our rules in order to take public comment at four at 4pm at the beginning of this meeting. And so at this moment in time I ask if you're in chambers and you'd like to speak to the council go ahead and step forward to the podium. We'd be happy to hear from you if you're on zoom, raise your hand and we'll make sure we get to that way but I think we've got a speaker here in chambers who'd like to come forward. George row West Bayside, you know you can always change your rules at any time to fix that little five o'clock rule. We'll be back in a few minutes. A few times a year. So three quick things to fill the public comment vacuum. I had requested a copy of the fire department agreement with poor properties or the use of the old Oxford Street shelter for some kind of fire department training. And that was a few weeks ago haven't gotten it. I thought it would be a fairly straightforward request. I know if I was a property owner and I had a bunch of firemen running around an old building of mine I would probably want that to be pretty clear that it's not my responsibility if someone gets hurt. I'm also concerned that the city of Portland is happy to sign an agreement to possibly even burn down the Oxford Street shelter rather than trying to find a way to put it back into use, even temporarily because of the homeless situation that we're facing and it's also the subject of today's special meeting. I wanted to ask about the listening session tomorrow, which I almost certainly won't be attending but I would like to know if it's going to be recorded. I think in the past, there's been some listening sessions that have not been recorded and unfortunately, I think the value of a listening session that doesn't get memorialized in anywhere is kind of pointing towards the homeless. If you don't record it and have it as a record for other people to parse and understand including yourselves, if you wanted to learn some things and have that as a record to go back to. I urge you to find a way to record it. The Ocean Gateway may not have that capacity but that's something you should have probably looked into ahead of time. Lastly, it's been a little over a year since I had asked about street lights and the seemingly large number of them that are broken and out of service across the city. And to my knowledge, both the sustainability committee and the finance committee, neither of them have taken that up to investigate more deeply what's going on there. In the previous talk, there was a news story that came out in the press Herald shortly after my comments about some defective materials and lights and lamps and all kinds of things including some staffing shortages. I don't know if things have gotten better. Nobody does. Maybe the catches catches catch is catch can replacement of certain lights has taken care of some people. I notice a tremendous number of lights off across the city and maybe that's a conservation measure and maybe we're saving some money by doing that but the point of these lights is to make our city safer at night and that doesn't seem to be the case and a lot of cases a lot of corners thank you. Thank you for your comment. Is there any other public comment this evening on zoom or in chambers. I see none so I will close public comment on items that are not on tonight's agenda. And in answer to the question about tomorrow night's event at Ocean Gateway it's a 530pm information sharing session as well as a listening session, there will be recording. So we urge folks to come in person and speak to the council and city staff if you cannot come in person but you want to be sure that your comment is registered, you can go ahead and email that in. We won't be set up like a regular zoom meeting, but we will have it recorded and available for post review and analysis and so again, please attend in person if you can. If you can't send your comment ahead of time we'll get those and we'll have the recording made available. Okay so moving on, like I said we have one, one item on tonight's agenda and I look to the city manager to tee that up for us we will also take public comment on this item before we come back to the council for action and will the clerk please read 247 into the record. 247 2223 approving the service provider subcontract between DC management LLC DC blueberry LLC, the main immigrants rights coalition and the city of Portland regarding 166 we're beside industrial park right sponsored by Daniel West city manager. I just want to first thank Kevin bunker and developers collaborative and follow gentlemen main immigrants rights coalition. Without them we wouldn't be here tonight. This is a agreement in front of you that has a three party arrangement including the city of Portland that we would be operating along with main immigrants rights coalition a shelter at 166 Riverside. Street, and it is Kevin who will be doing, along with all of his subcontractors, all of the work to make sure that the site is prepared and ready to be used. It will house a single asylum seekers specifically and I'm going to kick it down to Michael who has more of the details about all of the agreement that's in the backup materials. I'm going to talk about all the specifics of the operation period as well as how this arrangement will specifically work but I did want to specifically start by saying thank you to everybody who's here tonight and specifically the Kevin and follow for their help and to Michael for all of his work on this as well. Thank you Danielle. I'll give you a brief a brief overview of the agreement the agreement and the exhibits to it are included in the backup materials. And I'm happy to answer questions after I get through it and feel free to interrupt at any time. The, as Daniel said it's a, it's a, well it's actually a four party agreement between the property owner and the property manager both of which are developers collaborators entities, the main immigrants rights coalition and the city. Under the agreement which has and you'll see in the materials there's a grant agreement from main housing, which is, which is attached as an exhibit to the agreement. Under that grant agreement developers collaborative will be purchasing the property renovating the property and fitting up the property. What's included in there is, is the city's ability to, to, to review the, the purchase of all the furniture and fixtures and that and equipment that will go into the into the property. The, the agreement requires the city to act as the primary service provider essentially operating the shelter for a period of, likely about 18 months, the first 18 months of the operation during that time. The rights coalition will be providing meals and also be providing staff to shelter, or I'm sorry to shadow city staff, who will be sort of learning the ropes from city staff as the process goes forward with the goal of, of Merck taking over the operations after that first 18 month period. And also a lot of mostly the rest of the agreement is sort of standard city. You know, contract boilerplate information I'm happy to answer questions about that, but, but that about sums up the, the, you know, the, the basics of the transaction and I'm happy to answer questions. Thanks, Michael. I just wanted to add one last thing at the end and obviously the funding to make sure that this all works as provided through main housing and specifically through the funds that the legislature and the governor have set aside for these types of emergency shelter situations so that's how the building will be developed and with using those funds, specifically, and also to address the, the period of time in which the city now we will have the cost of our staffing that we're currently using at the Expo, it'll basically be funded and addressed using those funds. It will be basically provided for and paid for in that way so there's no amendment to the budget that has to happen at this time. And so it is not it didn't trigger a fiscal note either because we receive reimbursement to cover those costs as well as have some additional funding sources including donations which we've been so thankful to receive that will be helping to meet those needs. Moving forward I just want to put the caveat out there for the council and for the public that if that situation should change if the general assistance funding system should be adjusted at any way at the state level. We would be coming back to you all to talk about that because this agreement does lock us in. And so that would be the risk that we would be asking you all to take. But we would be monitoring that and come back to you with an appropriation order or the necessary ways in which we would be moving or proposing to fund that in the future if that should arise or that need should arise in the future. Thank you city manager thank you corporation council at this point in time we will take public comment before I look to the council for emotion in order to have our own discussion so is there any public comment either on zoom or in council chambers. Please feel free to line up at the podium make your make your presence known so that we we don't close public comment inadvertently, but we've got somebody here in chambers and I do have a couple of hands up also on zoom so we'll start in chambers and I'll toggle back and forth as we go so welcome. Please give us your name and either your address the neighborhood you live in or the organization that you represent. You'll be given three minutes on the clock the city clerk keeps time and will give you a 30 second reminder. Thank you. My name is George Folster. I live in the Riverton neighborhood. Once again, it feels like Riverton is being left without a voice with just a handful of days between this being announced and the vote taking place today. It hasn't left very much room for public comment. Many of my neighbors are still unsure about the proposed location. I'm hearing many different locations or people think that it is having the vote after the informational meeting tomorrow I think would make for a much more inclusive government process. From the start, Riverton has always asked for smaller scattered shelters in part to keep from any one area of the city from shouldering the load alone. I still think that's the best path forward. If given the chance, I believe that many of you would go back in time and do things differently in Bayside, and I think you're given that opportunity today. Thank you. Thank you very much for your comment. And thanks for being here in person. We'll head over to zoom we've got Kate Sykes as a hand up. Thank you, my name is Kate Sykes I'm in the during center neighborhood out here in District five homeless shelters are us. And with the previous speaker that there's many, many things wrong with this, this process and with this agreement. First of all, it is ludicrous that you're having an informational session tomorrow about this yet you're taking a vote tonight, someone on this council needs to make a motion to to push this decision forward until after that informational session or all the work you do, asking Portland residents about homelessness homelessness is absolutely for nothing. So, the other piece of this that makes no sense to me and as much as city manager, Daniel West says that all the specifics are in the contract. There are no specifics in the contract. We don't know how many beds, this homeless shelter will have. We don't know how much it will cost. We don't have any idea what this this contract that we're supposedly doing tonight, how much it's going to cost the city. You say that that will be getting some of that reimbursement back from general assistance but we know that general assistance is not reimbursed at 100%. So there is a price tag for the people of Portland yet we don't know what that is our counselors on this, you know that are going to be voting tonight don't know what that is so I would I would need some questions answered there. What we're going to do is that, you know, here we are again, pushing the issue of homelessness out to the borders of the city where no one can see it in order to make a downtown core that's ripe for development. In addition, this money that's coming from the state is going directly into the pockets of a developer. This money is not going to help with the running of the shelter it's for private development for Kevin Bunker to own this property, to manage it. This is a really inefficient way to be be trying to address the homelessness problem and trying to address affordable housing. In addition, this grant money is coming under the heading of being for long term solutions to homelessness, yet I've heard people here tonight say that this is about emergency shelter. So which is it. I mean, it we're just all over the map here and it's just not enough information to actually cast a vote. One of the reasons why we're doing this is that because this end runs city financing. The developer does not have to comply to fair, fair wage standards, and the Green New Deal and the other issues in the Green New Deal that we put in around LED certification, efficiency, and other things that would help our environment. So again, we're building cheap housing for, you know that that basically helps private developers. We're in the pockets of the middle class and we're putting it in district five where middle class people live. So who is this helping exactly. You know, I would rather see again a smaller shelter a second warning, a smaller shelter model where every district has a small shelter that could be specifically targeted to populations that need certain kinds of services instead of warehousing of individuals. Thank you very much for listening to me tonight. Any other comment. Any other comment in chambers please step forward. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. It's been great four years since I've been on this chamber. Claude Roganje, I'm from Westbrook, but I also work in the city of Poland here. Thank you for the support of the shelter and I want to first of all to thank you, the counselors and the city of Poland for what you have been doing for the community as a whole for new men as asylum seekers. I can't really thank you enough for your always support. And I'm grateful for that. I want to just share what happened to us last week. We went to the courthouse for families that were being evicted about the hotel. It was sad day for me and the people who were there to see hundreds of families, including children and mothers at the courtroom, just waiting to hear from the judge about the eviction notices. I know this shelter will be for singles, but every little thing that we do will be helping to alleviate this burden of unhoused people. So I please urge you to not look at these are political issues as sometimes we all try to do, but look at this issue as humanitarian issue. And please think about those children every time when you make a decision and figure out what is the next step for these families for these children. I'm here. I know we can say all many things in terms of somebody making money. I don't think Kevin really is making money over this shelter. He has so many other properties that he can make money over. But this is an issue that we all need to come together to address and resolve. Please, if you can, vote in favor of this issue so we can try to solve the unhoused issue. Thank you so much. Thank you for your comment. And next we'll head back over to zoom where we have a hand up by Skyway by micro. That's all that I can see. Okay, it's Ken Capron here. How are you. Oh, hey, I'm sorry. I just see Skyway by micro. Welcome and thanks for your comment. Go ahead. I'm Ken Capron. Fortunately from the Riverside community, what a great place to live until today. First of all, nobody in the Riverside community knew about this until Friday. And only then because one of one or two of us were student enough to check the city website and find out there was a. We were actually looking at the meeting for tomorrow until we looked a little bit deeper and we found out that today you're making the decision about something we won't find out about until tomorrow. There are a lot of people in the Riverton community who are really pissed at you folks for for letting this go forward. And I have to say that strongly because I've been feeling a lot of calls about what we're going to do. We don't want to shelter here right now, at least not with the amount of information we we have right now. And I can honestly say I don't think a whole bunch of us are going to be real good friends with Kevin bunker down the road because he seems to be making money off taxpayers left and right. He's getting special deals or the rest of us are having to have it in a live with the consequences. I don't know what came across your folks is suddenly in a last minute with no notice give give the show away but it's got to stop. This is not how we want our city run. I know we need a shelter. I all I can say is what I've been saying for four years, I've got right now a cruise ship or two or three that are in affordable range that could house between 1000 and 2000 people. It's a similar deal from the main housing authority and the main and fame and what have you, but wouldn't end up costing the city forever and a day. The city is committed for some reason to subsidizing this and not letting private entities take over any of the housing responsibilities. That's wrong. I'm going to get out from underneath this this beast and find alternative solutions and that means stop trying to do everything yourselves and stop being being impractical about the solution. Lastly, I want to say to the seven counselors around the dais. Good morning. Elections are coming up. And I hope some people will will express their opinions through the through the boat. But I don't know anyone who's really happy with counselors actions over the past year and a half and this is just the BS the resistance of goof ups. Stop doing this stuff to your your constituents. Thank you for your comment. Bye bye. Thank you. Any other public comment either in chamber in the chamber or on zoom. Okay, we've got some folks here in chambers great and we'll continue to toggle back and forth. George row West Bay side, I had been alerted about this agenda item popping up. I've had problems with the city's website calendar and agenda portal in terms of sort of ghost meetings kind of hanging out with nothing attached to them. And so I had been watching this for the last week because I was like oh I didn't hear anything about a meeting on special meeting on Monday. And if I probably hadn't checked it over the weekend I probably would not have had the time to submit the written public comment that I did. It's not clear to me from the agreement and maybe that's a question for all of you tonight to get down to the bottom of that this is going to be only singles. I don't know if the state or the agreement or anything else is actually preventing you from turning this into a family shelter from turning into any kind of shelter for anybody at any point during the next 18 months or beyond so that needs to be clarified I had noticed because I've never been on the premises of this particular parcel, just an aerial view it's obvious there's like a big drainage ditch of some kind or some kind of a free flowing creek or diversion stream of some kind in the back, and that really limits what you can do with this property on the backside of the building, and the front side is pretty close to the road and there's not much frontage there to work with so. It's not going to be a very pleasant place for people to hang out and spread out. Maybe there's a plan that you'll soon be seeing where that will be a little bit clearer. But unfortunately, you know, I don't know if you're interested in getting down into details tonight and that's why I asked you to postpone this. A lot of respect for the main immigrant rights coalition but it is a fact, I believe that they are not really in the shelter business and their track record may be very limited in that regard. And even though they're very transparent on their website with their 990s and whatnot there's a big time lag in terms of what their financials and their employment and their staffing issues are right now. So, a lot of time I guess to get things get ducks in a row in the next 18 months but I do think that this particular partnership is an untried untested partnership and I that definitely gives me pause. And again, as I mentioned in my general comment second warning, we have the Oxford Street shelter sitting empty. It is transit perfect versus this outlying area. And it is a facility you know, really, really well. And the fact that you're going out of your way on an exigency basis to make this happen. But you've as far as I can tell have done absolutely nothing publicly at all to try and ask the landlord to bring that facility back online on a temporary basis just like here is a lack is a failure of leadership, and I don't understand it. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Next we'll head over to zoom where you have a hand up from Mary cook. Hello, my name is Mary cook I work the opportunity alliance. I'm the director of the emergency rental assistance program and the path program which works with unsheltered homelessness. Thank you for speaking tonight in favor of this and hope that the city council votes in favor. Glad to hear that we're coming up with some creative and ways to solve around the housing crisis that impacts asylum seeking folks and those that are involved in sheltered homelessness and I think that this is a great step to addressing the overall need for the state. And I hope that the city continues to find ways to find solutions around the housing crisis and shelter crisis, but glad to see this is on the table and being voted on, and commend all those that are involved. Thank you for your comment. And I'll see if there's anybody in chamber, first who would like to speak. Thank you. Thank you for the main meal right coalition. Your concerns about how fast this is going a valid as an organization that's very, very small, and has grown in the last 18 months. You know it makes me tear up because. Yes, we are small. But we don't have the privilege to walk away. And thank you. This is an organization that is shepherding municipalities. This morning I got a phone call from from Sanford in less than four weeks. The community, we had a meeting similar. And the community was as angry. They didn't want anybody in their community. It was a very painful meeting. And this morning, I'm told, we found 17 houses. The same community that was saying get them out. They're the same community that rallied around and found the houses. It was, it's an emergency. So mark standing here and be partnering with the city and partnering with Kevin. That's all we have. And so in this, this shelter, we're calling it the center for transition asylum needs. Because what we've learned since 2020 2019, we're putting that we're putting that into that center. Right now, we have people who are who are in, you know, 10s around 80% of what people who are at the asylum at the, at the Riverside shelter asylum seekers. Majority of them don't qualify for the services there. We're placing the services and we're trying to correct that so that we can support people who are out in the encampments. Yes, it is fast. Yes, it is fast. But we ask you to vote from a place of humanizing this, this, this crisis. Thank you. Thank you very much for your comment. And we will head over to zoom we've got a hand up from Belinda Ray. Hi, thanks. Wow, clock's already going. Thanks, Mayor. Thank you so much council and thank you everyone for being here. Thanks to Kevin bunker to main immigrants rights coalition to prosperity main to all the folks who are doing the work to create this shelter that we need. I hope, council, that you feel good about this I think you should feel very good about this. The price tag for Portland is zero, unless something changes, because you're looking at transitioning people from the Expo over to this site. And that will help you to be able to find. Actually, you won't be transitioning I'm sorry. I misspoke there because the Expo is a lot of families I think at this point in time. The price tag for Portland is zero. And I did want to emphasize that public private partnerships are crucial to solving the housing crisis that we find ourselves in. So we really need to make sure that we are including private developers in conversations they are often people that have the ability the financial acumen to help make these deals a reality. And I know that Kevin bunker has worked tirelessly with the city of Portland with Merck to get this agreement together and to to make it come to fruition. I know that Kate Sykes raised an issue around this not being a long term solution but this is in fact a three year lease, and I did want to emphasize that the information around this is in the packet I know it's a lot of reading but if you scroll through in the description you can see that there are 180 beds, and that the target population is in fact single asylum seekers, the placements are to be handled by the city of Portland, city of Portland is to work with Merck, so that Merck can build that capacity to be the shelter operator over time and it will be a transitional housing facility where people will be able to have a steady place to be they'll have their food they'll have their meals. They'll have connections to services, all of these things will be on site the way that we know it works very well the way it's working very well at the expo, the way it's working very well at the homeless services center. And I do hope that people will listen to Claude and follow who are on the ground who are in eviction court with people who are looking at having no place to go at the end of this month, and understand that we do need to make decisions for the community when it comes to providing people with the food and the shelter that they need. I also just want to add I do not think you need to wait for this listening session tomorrow night. That is about homelessness in general in Portland is about the encampments. It's about trying to figure out what approach people want their city to take. It's not about whether or not these 180 people should have beds, and I do not believe this will impact the community. I'm running out of time but thank you so much, and I do hope you will approve this agreement tonight. Thank you for your comment. Is there any other public comment in chambers. I'll go ahead. I've never done this before. Welcome. I live on 152 Tucker Avenue. I live. This is probably can't see it. Needless to say, I'm opposed to it. I'm lying here because you know I did come here one time before and that was a permit to make my residents a multifamily because I have both my parents that reside with me. My father passed my mother's 89 and she lives right behind this building. I also have dogs because you know what, I lived there for 25 years. I chose to live there, because you know what, I raised a family they were raised two boys. I chose that. I worked hard. I retired, and that's where I reside and that's where I thought I could raise my family. That's what I chose. I did not choose to live next to 180 beds. I haven't been here before. I don't protest. I don't, I'm a gay woman. I could kill us. I say love is love and you know what, we should figure out problems and we should figure out and make them long term. I don't like to be generalized as being an angry person because I'm not angry. I'm disappointed in the city of Portland. I've worked my whole life, my whole life to be back here, mind my own business at that dead end street. I've lived in Portland and I've seen what happens at Oxford Street. I live in Portland and I see what happens on Riverside. I see people laying across the sidewalks. I know what happened on Oxford Street and Maria's restaurant moved away from it because of some of the lewd behavior that happened over there. These people can get in my yard. There's singles. I don't know any of these people from a hole in a wall. I take exception to that. I have my mother there. And to me, it just seems like it's so unfair that I have built my life. I didn't just land here and look for somebody to help me. I have worked my whole life to be there and to establish myself and to enjoy my grandkids. And you know what, have a few dogs out there. And you know what, somebody's going to sit there and arbitrarily decide and say, you know what, this is a good idea. Let's put this back there. Well, you know what, there's no transportation back there. There's no transportation back there. How are these people going to go there? I was fully aware that this was an industrial road. Not an encampment. Not a place where people would just suddenly appear 180 beds. I don't live in an apartment complex and I didn't choose that. Did any of you. You know what, maybe stand in my shoes and you know what, that's what I look out every day. I don't care. I'm sorry these people are homeless and you know what, I have no anger. But you know what, I want to enjoy my quality of life too that I thought and I have lived my entire life for. Thank you for your comment. Madam Mayor. Thank you so much for the introduction. I'm getting texts from constituents not clear how to sign on to zoom. Can someone, can you address that just for them? They're listening. Thank you. I believe the instructions are right on the agenda center of the, the city's website. So just like you would log into any other council meeting or workshop, you can do that right through the agenda center on the council's website. Any other public comment in chambers. Go ahead, Stephen. You're taking comment on the proposal for the site. I just walked in. Right. We're taking comment on order 247 which is the agreement between developers collaborative main immigrants rights coalition in the city of Portland. I understand that this meeting was going to be a five o'clock. I don't know where I read that but I, that was my reading of the meeting. We do have a five o'clock meeting tonight, which has been on the calendar. It's a workshop. Five o'clock originally. My name is Steven sharp. I'm with a little bit record stream Portland. I am going to tell you that this without notes because I have chance to follow up on stuff. This is not the correct place to hold house. Anybody. It is an industrial park. This building is wedged between two high. I use industrial buildings. And it just makes no sense that anybody would decide to site a homeless shelter here. It is probably worse than picking blueberry road as a homeless shelter site. And that's, that's really the gist of where I come from on this. But, but just looking at the details of it. It makes no sense. It is over. I'm sorry, it's just under half a mile from the nearest bus stop. And I ended up going back and looking at the set of rules you were going to put in place and turned out you ended up. Killing it. So I didn't realize that, but the rules originally had stated, the bus stop must be at least a quarter mile from the location. And that is, to me, a bare minimum for inciting a homeless service center of any type, or shelter or any emergency, you know, you must be near a bus stop. I'm not sure you're, you're within a quarter mile on the homeless service center, and you've got a shuttle bus. You build a new sidewalk. By the way, there is no sidewalk between this service center facility and Forest Avenue. So you see regularly we need to build that next couple months. So there is access to the bus stop, the number two, which I believe is a one hour loop on that bus. But this, this is absolutely not the correct place to be citing a, any kind of facility. 30 second warning. Lastly, the idea that you would throw this on your gender at the last minute, create a meeting, not publicize it that well. Like I said, I hadn't thought this meeting was at five. And, you know, why you popped in at four does not make any sense. This is inappropriate for the way you're going to try and ramp this through your process. Besides the fact that you don't even have the correct zoning at the location. So I really think you need to kill this. Now, there is no reason to be building a shelter. Thank you for your comment. Any other in chambers. Okay. I see none and I'm going to close public comment on order 247 and come back to the council please for a motion. Second, Councilor Rodriguez with a second from Councilor Travara. Okay, now we have the opportunity to ask questions have some discussion have some debate among us with regard to, to the item before us tonight and I, you know, before before I launch into my my own thoughts and opinions I do want to say that we have been doing since last summer to try to expand space. So, as we all know over the winter we opened a middle school gymnasium to try to meet needs, we then opened the expo, which currently holds 300 people that's in addition to the 208 at the homeless shelter and the 146 at the family shelter. There has been a lot of talk and press coverage with regard to different properties in collaboration with developers collaborative. So, we've been trying to problem solve the issue of emergency shelter for quite some time. And it will not stop tonight. We need housing for families we need housing for individuals we need emergency shelter for both of those populations so the agreement before us tonight is the culmination of a lot of consistent work and ongoing work. So, I look forward to the discussion with the council but I do want to say that in terms of providing solutions to very very complex and dynamic situations. The problem solving doesn't stop. It's never simple. It does require partnerships. It clearly requires patience, and then it also can require urgency. So I think that's where we are tonight is that we are consistently looking to respond as a municipality to the issues that we have right here in our midst. And again, I look forward to the discussion I have more to add but I just wanted to say that for context sake. I personally don't see that we're rushing anything. And this isn't going to this tonight's not a one and done we're going to continue looking for solutions and working with partners. So I looked to my colleagues for any questions comments counselor every guest. Thank you mayor, and I guess I should start just by thanking everyone who's been involved to get this ready and at least prepared us for tonight's meeting so we can dive a little bit deeper I do want to acknowledge that what we heard from the public about this feeling rushed I think that's a legitimate you know feeling from our community I think all of these. All these negotiations all these dealings are probably going to feel that way because I'm quite literally on so they're in your backyard. It, you know, you usually don't hear about it. These are communications issues challenging that way. So I just want to leave it at that and acknowledge the what we heard. I'm just wanted to start. There's a lot of questions, but I want to ask about the transfer of services after the 18 months take place. And so what I understand from the agreement is it's DCM or DC management is going to be has to kind of clear that Merck is in the position to take over the services. So the training that the city staff will be doing to new staff of Merck. I just want to understand. Not entirely whether it's DCM or staff. What kind of what is the expectation is there an aptitude that staff need to meet with, you know, because if that if DCM doesn't feel that that's, you know, that that expectation has been met. The city has to continue on providing services. I just want to understand exactly what DCM needs to see for the transfer services to happen after 18 months. At that 18 month period or sooner, if it's determined that Merck is sort of ready to go, there will be a three, there'll be a discussion between DCM and the city and Merck to make that decision if they're, if we're all comfortable that they are going to take on the responsibility at that time. I think that that that issue will be sort of further fleshed out in the management plan that's going to be created during the planning process. And so I don't I don't know that I have a there isn't a particular license that's required. It's going to be a matter of them having sufficient staff who have been trained. Training is going to happen over the course of, you know, the first 18 months by city staff. And so, at this point, we don't have a, you know, there isn't a checklist, but those will be the types of things that we'll look at. And that'd be an expectation that they are providing I think it's in the, it's in the agreement they're going to be providing these every day who are going to be shadowing city staff for quite an extensive period of time and learning how to do the how to how to operate the shelter. So does that answer your question? It does answer but it doesn't answer it because then it sort of kind of leads me to understand that the 18 months are not necessarily a, you know, that doesn't mean very much because the meeting has to take place and the agreement has between 18 months seems to not have a lot of water on there. There's a pop, there's certainly a possibility that that we could get to that point of handing over responsibility before 18 months, and it's also very possible that it will take longer. And so they're, they're, you know, I think everybody hopes that we don't get there, but there's there's also the possibility that that the city will be in there for the entire three year period. And I noticed Kevin was raising his hand at some point if Kevin, if you want to jump in with you definitely to be involved in the answer or in America as well. Yeah, I felt like I was big asked the question but I want to jump up and please protocol Kevin Bunker developers collaborative. So, the basic concept here is I'm, I'm not, I'm agnostic about which service provider it is I just need the services to be appropriate good and safe, and that's not to say that I understand the service provision as well as either the city or Merck, but what I will be as the building owner as liable if something goes wrong if there's a tragedy or something happens or there's a lawsuit I'm, I'm going to get sued or I'm going to be, I'm going to have liability I need to know that whoever is providing the services is providing them in an expert way. And as soon as I'm comfortable the transfer can take place. So, again, I just as soon to be as soon as possible, it doesn't have to be 18 months if it happens sooner than 18 months they think any legal agreement, what it comes down to in the end is can you trust if you don't have some level of trust in the person you're doing the whether the entity you shouldn't do it if I, I thought the city of Portland was a little bit slippery and I wasn't quite sure about Danielle and you know all that I wouldn't be entertaining this at all. For example, just something that happened today I don't know if it even reached Danielle's desk but the city was late on its first rent payment the homeless services. I don't want to blow that up in public but I just did the So they, there's a 5% late fee so the management company has the math and sends out the late fee and we need to pay the bank so we had to get the rent. And we didn't get the rent from the city because the city was still processing paperwork and I think the late fee was pretty sizable as 5% of the rent whatever that is and they said please just wave the late fee won't happen again it was the first time we said fine wave the late fee. Let's you know that's a small example that's not necessarily directly to your question but the point is I'm, I want to work with the city I want the thing to go smoothly and go well and means a small state Portland's a small city and I stand on my, the work I've done. I can appreciate that I should also say I'm framing my questions also from a place where I'm very, very is important to me as well that the services that we're delivering are adequate right that we're providing quality services to these folks that that's the I certainly appreciate your comment there. You know, I still just to restate it I'm a little bit concerned about the 18 months and the explanation of it. I'd like to have a better understanding because in the contract it says that it's just DCMs, you know, up to their discretion. I'm sorry, which is makes me feel better about what the discretion means. I'm going to pause there because I know there's a lot of other questions that are probably related to the nature of the of this project so I'll pause for now. Thank you, counselor for your question. Any other counselors with questions. Discussion. I'm looking for hands counselor Ali. Thank you mayor. My question. I don't know if it is stuff or curving. Today we receive. I'm sure that some of my colleagues also did receive that, but I receive a lot of phone calls and we may have received some emails have there been any outreach to the address to this property, or if not do we have any plans to do that. I don't have any specific outreach but I would defer to Kevin there's going to be public process that happens around this in front of the planning board I mean that will be the future there's approvals that are required. And there'll be a temporary approval they'll be put in place and then to allow for the emergency use and then a significant, you know, usual public process in front of the planning board so that will happen. So we move forward and I think that I'm not sure of Kevin if you've done any specific outreach to the to the neighborhood. No not yet I like to answer that question but I think since it was so much comment about the time and the rush and the accusations that you all were rushing it forward I think it's important to explain a little bit about that. Thank you all for this vote to be held quickly and that is a result of the pressure from the grand tour, which is the state around the source of the funds source of this funds is winter warming shelter money. colloquial has different name but basically it, the grant requires that these shelters be open for this coming winter. Everything is backing into how much construction time it takes to get this thing ready for the winner or we can't accept the money. So, the, what I do is try to match the opportunities with the funds that are available and this this specific use we first worked on blueberry road didn't work out blueberry road is essentially too big to make work. We found a smaller location that does work but all that time the clock was ticking and when you back out of the time that is required for construction we're right up against the deadline to get it already and be able to accept this money so we can do a lot more public process and workshops and listening sessions and those kind of things but we can't do it with this money. So, this opportunity is here now and this is an opportunity that has to buy the nature of it really has to be voted up or down. And if it's voted down it's down and we let the option go tomorrow and we don't do this, but for this funding requirement. This is the timeline that is required it's not that people are trying to get something through without any kind of due process and to speak to Danielle specific comment. This does require a change of use every emergency shelter in the city is a conditional use, even if it's already permitted as a shelter but most new shelters aren't and so they have to be a change of use process that happens. That is a public process, not entirely sure yet whether that occurs the ZBA or the planning board because at a certain point it goes to the square feet it goes to the planning board. This on the first pass appears to be under that but I'm not sure if some of the other things that we're doing would kick it to the planning board so it's going to happen either at the ZBA or the planning board but there, it will be a public process the comment that this wasn't zoned for was incorrect. That's another thing driving this the city zoned immersion had a long public process a few years ago about where to site shelters in the city absent any specific zones and they basically decided on downtown business zones and industrial zones and that was where shelters could be allowed in the city so given that downtown business zones are the land and the buildings on them are absolutely prohibitively expensive. It really that zoning decision means that the available parcels and of land and buildings that are available for emergency shelters are going to be an industrial zones, and those basically are where they are. I have an idea about pushing folks out so people can make money. I still don't have any investments in Bayside. That isn't what's going on here it's a it's a reflection of what the zoning is and the universe of possible lights that we have and then just layering on top of that emergency shelters that are congregate nature they lend themselves well to these wide open industrial buildings. That's really the options that we have we don't have a lot of other options and I know there are still people that are talking about smaller shelters but the smaller shelters people were talking during the hsc process about all the solutions they had underway all the things they were going to do. And I don't know if they've done anything yet so I'd rather be someone who's doing something trying to work on the problem then someone who's just sort of professionally angry. Thank you. My last question is, can someone work me through on this, not on Kevin but on the city's side between now to when this comes to the planning board. Where do we place that outreach and I'm asking that so that if constituents call me I will know what to tell them. Councilor could you repeat the one part of that where do we place. When are we going to start doing outreach to the. Well I'm not sure it would be us that would be doing it be the applicant, which would be Kevin but specifically that would happen during whatever process whether it's in front of the zoning board or from in front of the planning board. I think the only thing the city's being asked to do here is to act as that operator who's going to help train Merck, really the applicant and the person getting all of the work done at the site is going to be Kevin and DC management and his company. So, I think that it would happen during that process obviously there's specific time frames laid out in the land use code that that he would have to comply with and there would be notice that would come out from probably the planning office itself, or the zoning office depending on which board it has to go to. Thank you. We would begin that process immediately. Not sure exactly when that would result in any required meetings but we've got approval process. Thank you, Kevin. Next to you counselor Dion. Thank you Madam Mayor. As Council for District five. I've received a notable volume of feedback from my constituents and others. And I think this is the tale of two shelters. Many of those who called. I was impressed that this initiative was directed at creating a derivative of the homeless service center, not a homeless shelter to use their comments. So understanding that the intent was to address the unhoused immigrants who arrived in the city, and even that concept for us as evolved from immigrant families to now unhoused single immigrant males. I would presume some females possibly. They haven't understood that. The ribbon and has understood is somehow. This wasn't a fair deal. There was a lot of contention. In that neighborhood surrounding our decision to place the homeless services center on Riverside Street. That's been resolved. A decision has been made. We have an operational center. And the rivet and neighborhood association has a fully participating representative on the advisory board. And I think for the average rivet and resident. They thought that was the end of the story and that moving forward, their role was to do the best they could to accommodate that new reality and how they view their neighborhood. And now they've been subjected to media accounts to suggest not with a lot of clarity that some manner of homeless shelter is going up on the parkway. So, I identify with that. I've tried to reach out and talk to some voices in the neighborhood to try to explain that and I want to give this as a footnote. We've had a lot of conversations about this, many of them behind the curtain of executive session. We understand what's what's going on, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it translates with clarity to the people call rivet and home. It's, it's really that simple. I think they also labor under the idea that this council has the responsibility and the authority to make decisions about this initiative. Holy that it belongs to us, but instead, the nature of this collaboration has shifted those questions to the planning board. That's not readily understood trust me when I tell you, that's a pretty alien process for many. And worse. Yeah. If you believe okay. I'll take this to the planning board. They don't even get to answer the questions or ask the questions that they think are relevant to this initiative. They're going to be concerned about why is this happening who we're going to serve how we're going to serve and what's the adverse impact that I can expect from initiating this new service center in my neighborhood. They don't get to ask any of that at the planning board. They're going to be captured by discussions of land use code, building standards site development. All right. So, I think it's incumbent on us, or someone to give them fair, honest clarity about what type of debate will they be asked to participate in, if they take the issue forward to the planning board. I think that's incumbent on us. And it's also incumbent on us if we want to consider it is that we need to clarify that there are two significant categories of unhoused individuals in this community. We don't say it enough, and we don't draw enough distinctions between it. There are those who are unhoused by virtue of their resident refugee status and there are those that are unhoused by individual circumstance, and they need different kinds of services in a reality that we could also with more clarity is that our one resource for the circumstantially unhoused has been overtaken by the unhoused or here because of political decision to allow them into the country for any number of reasons. So we need to sort that out. So close with this. I have a hard time telling them that it makes sense to vote on this the day before we have a hearing a listening session. I understand the pressures that bunker and his team and the immigrant agency that's here this evening have in order to meet in the deadlines, but I just need to put that out there. I understand what we need to do as a city, and we'll act that way. But I think it's imperative and I'll close that the issue that's confronting river then, and how they see themselves to have been a participant, or possibly a participant in this decision is really up for discussion. Thank you Madam Mayor. Thank you counselor Diane other questions comments from the council. Thank you mayor. Just a comment I agree everything that counselor Diane has said is is true I and it's clear I think from some of the public comments tonight that there hasn't been a lot of opportunity for people to fully understand this and and to sit with it and think about the ramifications however. This is an emergency solution to a humanitarian crisis that is in our city and is with us and the people that we are looking to house through this project have traveled far and through dangerous conditions and I deserve a new home and my most immediate concern is to put a roof over the heads of people who are deserving of a new home. So I'm going to support this because I see it as as crucial and as a moment of crisis, and we need to step up to the crisis moment. I appreciate all the work that has gone into this it has. There are a lot of pieces that have to fall into place I understand for something like this to work which is part of why it hasn't been readily accessible throughout the throughout the process to the public. But I think that it's the right thing to do and I appreciate that that it is being done so I'll be supporting this this evening. Thank you counselor counselor Diane. I, thank you for giving me the latitude I'm not going to respond to Council Travaros comments, but in terms of the clarity issue. I spoke with Corporation Council just before the meeting and I talked with the team that's looking develop this as an example of clarity, the contract in the initial paragraphs refers to the initiative as a homeless shelter. So if you were citizen reading that I don't know if you go to all the rest of the pages. And to discover it might not be. I think that the Council should decide to approve the contract should amend the language to say what is is. I understand that the grant is very clear on the purpose for which they're funding this initiative. And as a lawyer understand that we use the term that's incorporated there in. It's like a magic. You can just say it's all inside of here you just got to go find it. I think a citizen deserves better than that. I think the contract should express the exact purpose for which this project is moving forward. Thank you Madam Mayor. Thank you counselor Diane. And so I think I am to understand you will be bringing an amendment forward as we move through. No, I don't, I don't think an amendment is necessary. Unless I'm told otherwise by Corporation Council. It's my understanding that, as I told him I would tell the rest of the body that I think there should be amendment to the language at least some clarity. And if it requires an amendment, so be it if not, it can be just corrected. And then subsequently adopted by the majority than fine. Okay, I just wanted to make sure that I'm clear Corp Council would you like to weigh in on that front. Yeah, I think that the, the order authorized city manager to sign the agreement and substantially the form that was presented. And the, the issues that that counselor Diane is addressing are, are in the various documents as he said, they're incorporated by reference the grant agreement does specify that that priority is going to be given to asylum seekers. And, and first to, to individuals residing at the homeless service center. So I don't think that I think we can work through those tweaks it's not going to change the substance of the agreement it's already, it's already in there. But we can certainly add some language that will clarify that up on that first page. I don't, I don't foresee any problems with that. So I don't think an amendment is necessary. Thank you for the clarification. I had a hand up from console Rodriguez. Thank you, I guess I have a question about the, the number of folks that are at the homeless services center and the expo that they're considered singles that would, you know, meet, you know, I was supposed criteria to take up a space one of the 180 beds. I'm trying to understand the effectiveness or, you know, how much are we moving forward by opening 180 single beds. I, I, again, the city decides the placement and the city has decided that single adults is their priority and the best use of the space if the city change that that would be okay with me I don't I don't presume to know the number as well as they do but just want to point out a little piece here that can be revised maybe something councilor Dion said and touches on your point as well as part of that public process that will be going through councilor Dion's right land use is really what gets talked about at the planning board storm water zoning, those sorts of things however, in the case of emergency shelters is this big thick management plan that has to be proved as part of the of the approval that then becomes part of the approval and then has to be followed so what we have in the agreement now and appendix a or what it is is a draft management plan as to how the city and Merck want to run it until that management plan is done, at which point that management plan will supersede it but that would have all the detail in it about exactly how people get selected to be in it. I would defer it to the to the city manager or others to talk about the target population. And I guess as a follow up, I appreciate that Kevin as a question I'm trying to understand. Who are we seeing coming in. I think we're seeing over, you know, a number of people obviously we have about 300 people as the mayor mentioned at the expo which is mostly families. Right now, which I believe the follow articulated as well at the homeless services center we have. And I'm going to get the percentage exactly right but it's about 85% is single asylum seekers. And so they are, you know that that that center was developed to provide specific services for a lot of our unhoused people actually in the tents and encampments you see around the city and they're unable to access those services due to the single asylum seekers there which is why we focus this on single asylum seekers but I know that in talking with Kevin obviously the target is asylum seekers period. And so if that were to change we would we would speak with him about that but right now that's our focus. So we're 85% of that's that was looking for that's the question I was looking to ask I'm so sorry. Yeah, 85% of the folks at the homeless services center are single and that would still not meet the whole 180 beds. It would actually it's been fluctuating it's been about, I can't give you exact numbers but it's been about 150 to 160. You know it's a significant, you know, and then up and sometimes it's gotten up higher even than that. So I think that the majority of the beds would be taken potentially by single asylum seekers. And so that would be the focus at this point, would that would we be ever able to change that like good down the road if we see that the need is more towards like families like, and I'm not entirely sure if this is even the trends, change this in this manner but if we start to see families not singles would we be able to reuse or repurpose the space. I think that right now the agreement has a provision for prioritizing individuals at the at the homeless service center. But there's also room there's room in the language for change down the road. If that need decreases. The state had clarified that they were concerned about the initial move in new shelter that it be prioritized. After that they say it's up to the city or whoever the subsequent service provider is just a little a little background to the this the idea for this started in a room with Kristen and Aaron and myself and Colin Ryan and Brian Townsend where we were talking about the policy was about to open and it was about talking about turning it over to the city finishing construction and filling it up and it became clear during that meeting that it was likely going to end up the way it has ended up mostly filled with the asylum seekers and that while a good thing in one sense it's it hurts a little bit another to have thought so much about designing this building around kind of a different population and then having that population not be able to get into it. So, I kind of said what can we do, and Aaron said, boy I wish we had that blueberry road building we looked at last year and then that's what started the whole thing. So that's, that's how we originally conceived of it with an idea that hopefully we could prevent some of the encampments from needing to be there. That's, I think that's the last question that I had, I guess I'll say, you know, I agree with Councilor Chavarro's framing that, you know, or rather her perspective of seeing this as a crisis and understanding that our action will be faster than what we normally would want to set as a standard for engagement and here in feedback from the community. So I think I'm aligned with that. There's still some things that as I mentioned before that I don't feel entirely comfortable with because there's a lack of clarity but I'm starting to sort of get the sense that there's not a lot of clarity and then, you know, these things, despite how much we want to expect it so I will be supporting it as we have it right now. And I suppose that's the end of my comment. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Rodriguez. Over to you, Councilor Phillips. Thank you. I certainly can't sit here and I'm not going to sit here and reiterate what everybody says this. This is an emergency situation. We do have to look at it as human beings and all those things I think Councilor Dian said beautifully and so did Councilor Chavarro. My question really has to relate to the building and what's happening with the building how soon the building can get up to code if it has to be put up to code for emergency shelter. So can you take me through that process. That's my first question and then my second question comes back to the city which is this has to go back to the planning board so normally we get stuff from the planning board then we go back to the planning board. So is there doesn't need to be any kind of process once we approve it here it goes to the planning board does it then come back to us. So those really are my two questions on when is it ready. What's that process, do you have to hire folks in order to build the bring the building up to code like can you explain a little bit more of that to me please. Your second question first and the second question was we'll come back to the Council afterward. I don't believe that it would I think that there's a provision in the agreement however that says that if for some reason, the building doesn't open, ie doesn't get its approvals, then the city can break the contract and then there's no more recourse so I think there's an out if it doesn't come together, but I think once it's signed an official I think then it's done. That's my interpretation on that Michael can correct me if I'm wrong but I'll just jump in really quickly to answer your second question which is this the agreement that is that you're being asked to approve tonight is a service agreement where DHHS staff are going to be providing a service of operating the shelter. And so it's not there isn't anything that will come back. I think this team will be responsible for getting all permits and permits and approvals required through the planning process, and but it won't be there isn't any reason that I know about this point for it to come back. So this particular thing will come back but through the planning process doesn't. Don't we have to approve. In general, not for the, not for this. There's nothing that I know of at this point that would require it to come back to this body. There's no construction and getting up to code there is a construction process that has to take place. Fair amount of work adding a bunch of bathrooms and showers. A couple tweaks to the fire alarm the fire alarms in pretty good shape the sprinklers in very good shape we need to switch out the sprinkler heads, adding a kitchen, there's no kitchen in there today. We ended up putting a new roof and some insulation those sorts of things but that construction process going to take us into November. If we started immediately so that's where it's winter warming money we have to start so it'll be construction throughout the summer and fall. Thank you. Thank you counselor. I will jump in unless counselors already have something you want to add. Did I see your hand about to go go. Yep. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you to all my colleagues you've asked a lot of the questions that I think was on everyone's mind. I have a few more. I'll start by saying that I actually was kind of surprised this weekend by the lack of correspondence in my email. I think it was a little bit misleading to hear from people. And until this evening, hearing public comment, I think I understand a little bit more why folks didn't know, they didn't know enough they didn't look. So I, I want to acknowledge that because that's frustrating. It's frustrating for you it's frustrating for us, right because we do have trying our best to to hear folks when, whether it's a large issue a small issue it doesn't always try our best. My first question is can, and maybe this is for the Corporation Council, can you help us better understand why we can say this shelter is exclusively for asylum seekers but our current homeless services shelter cannot have, you know, an exclusive use for type of occupant at this point it isn't exclusive, there isn't an exclusive use there is an initial preference and that's part of the part of the grant agreement and furthering the goal of getting the homeless service center to its intended use. I don't know if Daniel if you have anything you want to add to that but, and I know we also have Aaron gear I think is on the zoom and available to answer questions about, you know, the current situation at the homeless service center as well but I think that Michael summed it up pretty well counselor I think that I mean obviously this isn't being owned by the city and this is by developers collaborative. So that's that's one distinction I think where the difference it matters. Specifically, we're focused mostly on making sure the individuals get the services they need so for example as we've been talking about the homeless services center was developed for a specific group of individuals. We're focusing on and trying to make sure that that group of individuals gets those services. And similarly, that was be what we would be doing here focusing services making sure that Merck gets everything the setup that they need to provide those services, and make sure that the legal the medical the food all of that specific for asylum seekers is met at this location so I think it's not really about specifying specific populations of people but more about the services that those populations need and they're very distinct and very different. Can I get into that a bit. The way though the preference works the preferences you can specifically say none of you people can be here and only you people can be here that's kind of against a lot of laws but I'm doing an apartment project in Brunswick at Brunswick landing and it is designated for those who are homeless and asylum seekers that is a preference. The fact is the demand is so overwhelming that that preference is all that's ever going to make it in because there's so many people that need it so we have 60 apartments for building we're hoping to open the first 12 in August. We open up the wait list a few weeks ago and within an hour and a half we had 250 names. We close the wait list I think a vet for a vestus project they got 1000 names. So and those are just preferences so in theory, if there were no asylum seekers the someone who was homeless but not an asylum seeker could qualify for those units but what we know is that just the numbers that are here we don't see any way that that preference will not be what governs the lease up. Thank you, you both started touching on my follow up question which is I guess, how can we ensure that the 150 give or take folks who are currently in the homeless services shelter will make their way. Sorry, once that space is freed up once those beds are freed up how are we going to make sure that the folks who are now on housed in encampments on the streets are going to get access and priority for the shelter. I think that's going to be a process that will be working with mark on ensuring that these individuals get the services they need to get moved over into the space once it's ready. And then from that point it'll be, you know, using the existing staff that we have and the great outreach team that we have to once those beds are freed up to be able to offer those to the individuals that we have on the streets. And to ensure that that they get access to them and really working hard with our community partners as you all know we have the crisis response team, which has been put in motion. And so we have about 18 different service providers who are assisting us with that team and so I'm I think calling on those resources and ensuring that we're all working together to make sure that the people specifically in the community at that point get what they need will be would be the next step. Councilor, I think I saw my follow from mark perk up do you have it I just wanted to tag it and ask you if you would like to respond as well. We are running a 77 bed shelter at salvation army. And we, you know, got the same funding, which was initially given to us just for April I think March and April, it's been extended to to the 31st of July. And then now with the losing blueberry land, we're all in holding pattern. And so, in terms of our expertise, yes, we're not in the shelter business, but we've been standing in, you know, in the emergency and so we're running right now 350, you know, the budget of 350 for salvation and that's 77 beds. We created that shelter from scratch, you know, without no city without, you know, what we will benefit from this, you know, partnership is also being able to help some of our organizations who've been providing culturally appropriate, you know, services. You know, the model that we're trying to do, even as we are shadowing is creating a center that is a transitional place. When you look at asylum seekers, especially single adults, there are people who are able body, but they just don't have the system to help them to the place, you know, so we're hoping that this place again, the city, one of the closers I was telling our attorney to put in is a place of where the city is not even after 18 months, you're not off the hook, it's a partnership. And that's why to your point around how will you know, because what we want to make sure is when people wake up right now at the Riverside, they don't qualify for majority of the services there. It's a street that's misplaced of resources. When that happened it was during COVID. It was, you know, there was no intention of saying you put this asylum seeker you take this mainstream person, but it just happened that way. Now that we know we're trying to make that correction and that's one of the things I as an organization I talked to Danielle and Christian to say, how can Merck support to make sure that people who are in the, in the, in the in the communities can come and access this, the services, because we see that, and we want to make that correction. But in terms of the center that we get to open. This is a place where we are creating, it's, you know, if you look at the model that we, we shared with the city which will be part of the development, this is not going to be similar to like just woke up in the morning and then that's it. This is helping you, you know, you're going to be applying for asylum seeker in the next 18 months. Here is what it will look like. You'll be you'll be layered with organizations to help you to train you work for development. So we're looking at a center that is, it is not a shelter and it's a shelter in terms of roofing, but it's the systems. And I would be able to graduate one of the things I've said to the city is, how can we create centers where people are able to graduate. You know, when I came, I was, Claude has left, you know, Claude's brother, and found a job for my husband. He stayed in somebody's house. If there was no system there to graduate us, we will still be in somebody's house. But right now, because of the crisis and how people arrived. Our services are not able to look at that to say, how do we graduate and that's why we're looking at this model, not so much that we don't have we're not in the business but we're going to bring. Claude has almost 97 organizations, and we're going to bring those organizations to start graduating people into so we're hoping that this is transition for real. So I'm hoping that, you know, the city is not off the hook after 18 months, we're going to write that into. It's a partnership. And that's what we're doing even in Sanford is, how can the system, you know, be led in a right now in Sanford we're working with the CAHP agency there, we're working with the police, every part of that is led so that they have the expertise and we're moving people around so that they're in their homes. We couldn't have the help to find 17 houses if we didn't create that system. So we're trying to help, again, in this model is a transitional place, but if nothing, if anything that's more important for us is making sure that the services at Riverside can be accessed by the people who qualify and create a place of where these adults in the single in the single shelter can also be moving around its transition it's not we're hoping again it's crisis but we're hoping to create models that are not there now that we know. Thank you very much for the additional information counselors are you have the floor. Thank you. I really appreciated that and the way you just connected the dots for us. I'll wrap it up. We, I understand there, there is a political lens to this and there is also the humanitarian lens. People have been asking us with great fervor for lack of a better term. Regularly for the past several months to do something about the housing crisis that we're dealing with here in Portland and I know this isn't just a Portland issue. We've been told we're not doing enough or not doing anything. And we're trying to do something here and counselor Diane was totally correct in saying that all of us were very familiar with this conversation but the community maybe not as much. And that's on us to do better I think next time to talk more about it with the community. I want to own that. But we do have a crisis right now. And we do have something we need to do right now and at this point, we have a path in front of us with partnerships from from both Merck and developers collaborative to work with the community to to try and feed two birds with one seed to help move folks into asylum seekers into a space that is is more conducive to their needs and to open up space and our homeless services shelters so that we can address the issue of the almost 200 people who are on housed and on the streets. And it might not be the perfect solution. But it's us doing something with the community and so I'm grateful for everyone who is working with us on doing that. We need to move all three lanes though, we have to address emergency housing transitional housing and permanent housing we can't just do one at a time, we're playing a game when we're only doing one at a time so that's that's for us to continue working on as a council and a community. And then the last thing I'll say, someone said it earlier I can't remember who it was but it reminded me of this phrase that neighboring is a verb, and when we have new people joining our community. And it's on us to meet them where they're at, and and try our best to to be good neighbors even when it's not always easy so I'm, I'm supportive of this I will be supporting this, this evening, and thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you counselor counselor for near. And I won't repeat a lot of what everybody said, you've said it really really well. And Mofalla thank you so much for that context because I think I've had the opportunity to work with the asylum population when I worked at main health and the pediatric clinic and often saw children and families the day or the day after they arrived here in Portland to do wellness checks and started to just understand a little tiny piece of how disconnected our systems are to support this population and now living it as a counselor trying to help find resources. And I think that to counselors are as point, you know it feels like we're getting a lot of voices telling us, do something do something do something. And when we have an action before us to do something. Now we're hearing also a lot of voices. Don't do that don't do that don't do that. And so I also acknowledge that the, you know the information has not been out there. It's difficult when you're talking about contracts, because you can't talk about contracts and public we have to talk about them in executive until something becomes fully baked that we can share with the public, there's not a whole lot that we can share so I can understand how this feels like a surprise. And if you are not working with this population on a regular basis, if this is not your identity, or this is maybe not on your radar, as much as it is for the rest of us, because we're doing this work on a regular basis so I do acknowledge that but I do also lift up that as Mofalo share this is a transitional program so it's not just a roof, it's so much more, and it's exactly what we need to be able to move people out of emergency shelter into permanent stability as members of our community to work towards being able to work and do whatever occupation that they had maybe been trained for wherever they're coming from and to be able to raise their families as part of our community. So I'm so grateful at the lens at which we're going this we're trying to correct exactly as Mofalo said the chaos that ensued during COVID-19 where we're just trying to protect public health and protect everybody. Now we have the opportunity to untangle some of those threads and really start to get people the resources they need so that they can really live sustainable lives here in our city. I'm also grateful that that's a partnership it's not just people have asked us don't let the city just carry this alone, and we're not, it's a partnership, and that feels really important to have not only community organization that is working with our asylum seekers but also developer and business who's willing to say all right I have this spot I'm willing to work with others to make sure that this is a viable solution. And so I'm grateful for that and that we also have the opportunity to teach others how to do this work that's the only way you're going to expand capacity is by giving the information to others so that others can carry that work forward and I believe that's what this is doing. And this is absolutely an emergency response to a humanitarian crisis and when you have an emergency response you have to have creative actions and this is a creative action that I believe. Of course it's not ideal, we want everyone to be able to have their own homes and be able to build that but you need to have an intermediate step to move the needle, a little bit forward and so I'll close with. This is a process. So if we make this approval tonight it's not all of a sudden in the neighborhood tomorrow it still has to go through the planning board. It still has to have zoning approvals there's still more community conversations to happen. And so I am looking forward to having the community engage in those conversations, but I will be supporting this this evening. Thank you. Thank you counselor counselor Phillips. I just kind of want to piggyback on what counselor phonia said because I think she read some good points as we all have here. But the other thing is, is that this is a partnership across the city. And I think one of the things I think we've talked about it tonight but I think one of the things that we are forgetting out or I hope that we're not forgetting is is that if we approve this plan. It's going to open up 180 beds at the homeless service center. We're doing this because we need to we want to was it rushed. Yes. It isn't an emergency. Yes, we're doing all these things because that's what we do in the city, sometimes because we have to. What we have to remember is moving that population and I can't remember who said it but there were three, three, I think it was counselor sorrow. But there is a population of asylum seekers that are coming into our city that need different services that mark can provide. We're going to be aware of those that are on house that are staying in campments. And if we move those and maybe this also the city manager said we move those folks out into a shelter that will follow and mark is more than capable of within 18 months of serving this population. We're going to be opening up between 150 and 180 beds for those folks staying in encampments. And the last count that I got, I think that we all got a folks that were staying in the encampments is about 183. So I just really think that that is in a very, very important piece that we really need to remember in all of us. Thank you counselor counselor Palatier. Thank you. Oh my gosh, I'm not going to take very long because everybody has already said a lot that I'm thinking. I did just want to say that it's an honor and it's an honor and a privilege to have an organization like main immigrants rights coalition in this community. And you do significant work, and a lot of it goes entirely unnoticed. And they're lifting up so many individuals in need of shelter. And so, you know you are our partner and you are a neighbor and I very much appreciate your work. And I also just want to add that the asylum seekers are our community as well they are our neighbor as well. And I really urge leading with a level of respect in that in these conversations because I'm very aware of the thin line that we walk. When we talk about this and when we border on demonizing people for circumstances that are out of their control. I look forward to the city that I love growing and diversifying I look forward to working to do whatever it is that we can do to make sure that we are advocating for our under resourced community members so you know I again just think it's a privilege that we have this organization as part of our community, bringing so many people into our community in a safe way. And that doesn't go unnoticed I very much appreciate you. And yeah, I mean I agree with every what everyone else has said this was something that we needed to move quickly on. It's not perfect or ideal. But again because we have mark as a partner I trust the process of it because I know you and I know your work. I would have loved for us to have had a you know a listening session for this as well and I think that time is just moving quickly. And I agree with my colleagues that I would love for us to find better ways to engage with the public beyond putting things on an agenda. And that's something I think we can talk about because the community engagement around this is important and I definitely want to recognize that. And I know that a lot of this is significant and people are feeling all types of way about it so the community engagement piece. I look forward to doing better as a group as we continue forward with this and making sure that we're making ourselves available, shouldn't all be on the district five counselor as well like I want to make sure that we are all doing and to be part of these conversations moving forward as the elected officials of Portland so yeah I'm going to support it as well and I really look forward to the next steps and ensuring that we can and will do whatever we can to advocate for our on house community our asylum seeker community and understanding that this is really complex and I think everybody is is we're all working really hard and this job is not easy and I think that there are a lot of moving parts. So I I appreciate the information and I look forward to to seeing what our next steps are on this so thanks. Thank you counselor. I will take this opportunity just to add my two cents. I think that sometimes when we're sitting here in chambers and we've got an order before us it feels abrupt, and yet, as I've been listening and thinking and preparing for tonight I think about where we are in context, and I'm just going to go back to the fall of 2021 as those of you who know me know I love breadcrumbs and I love to understand how it all goes but in the fall of 2021 we started to say asylum seekers are coming consistently. The numbers are increasing. It's not what happened in the summer of 2019. In the legislative committee, we started talking about that a lot and talking with our delegation and talking with folks at the state, because we knew that there was an opportunity during that legislative session to advocate for services funding, all of it with state partners. And so the funding that we actually are seeing in this contract tonight is a result of work that started in the fall of 2021, because it was approved during the last legislative legislative session, it's f y 23 state funding. So, what we're contemplating tonight is year old funding from the state that has helped to a, it's a it's a response to the work we started doing in the fall and the winter of 2021 which was, we really need help here. And I would say that that advocacy and that work has not stopped for one day in the city of Portland. Starting last in that session we were advocating, then we as a council passed unanimously a resolution in June of 2022 asking for more help, more coordination. Last summer we started with the blueberry road option and having discussions and some press coverage with regard to that work and that collaboration to try to work with both state partners and community partners and developers to figure out what could be possible. And then it's crazy to think that just a few months ago in March the HSC opened, and we moved out of rented space at Oxford Street into a new 208 bed facility. And at that same time we opened middle school gym to house people because it was very, very, very cold. And then in April, the expo opened and was immediately filled with 300 families. And here we are in the spring of 2023. And on May 2, we took over the HHS committee meeting and talked about what's before us, we did it again the next week on May 9. On May 31, the encampment crisis response team that was formed by the city of Portland and is attended by 20 community organizations came together and that was less than two weeks ago. Last week at our meeting on June 6 we announced an information sharing session and listening session with the community to talk about the increase in the number of tents being used as emergency shelter for people. And it wasn't until the next day that we learned that a proposed contract would be ready for council consideration on the heels of a whole lot of work. I know that it can feel like where did this come from but I urge folks to reach out to us. I urge us all as representative of constituents to reach out and to make sure that we're communicating. Because this work, like I said is ongoing it's every single day. So this item didn't get calendar until last week, but I would say that for me it very much is within the context of the work that we all have been doing for years. So I want to I want to also shout out some thanks I want to thank the state of Maine and the funding that's being used in this partnership I want to thank developers collaborative and Kevin. Thank you for for your comment earlier that it can be it can be hard when there are solutions on the table sometimes those solutions aren't perfect and we actually don't go with them and that has happened. In recent memory, but sometimes the solutions are good enough and we need to act on them. And so hearkening back to things that may have been, but aren't it. I don't know if it's helpful to me I see what's before us and I see a lot of hard work by you and your team so I want to say thank you for continuing to try to find solutions along with community partners like Merck and along with the state of Maine and along with the city of Portland. Who finds itself at the center of a whole lot of things. So, so the last thanks is shout out to our own city of Portland staff. And as folks know I attended that first meeting of the crisis response team I was lucky to be able to sit in on that. And I don't know that I've ever been more impressed by city staff from all departments pulling folks together and saying, we're going to figure out a way to get this done. And by get this done I mean get people out of tents and into emergency shelter or other housing options that are not outdoors in the elements. So, I'm going to be in support of this, this evening. I do also just want to respond to something that Mofalo mentioned about appropriate services and potentially misplacing services and I think part of what we have before us tonight is getting the right services to the right people in the right place. We've all been mindful of that for several months now we really want to align the services with the population that needs that those services, whatever those services may be and we do talk about the two distinct populations that we find ourselves serving in the city of Portland with regard to homelessness at the moment, asylum seekers and folks who find themselves circumstantially homeless but within those two distinct populations there's a whole lot of need. And that customization that you talked about Mofalo is it's appreciated and it's important and it just adds to the complexity. And so these are not simple. It's not simple answers to simple problems. So, I'll be in support of this tonight again thank you all for the work you did to bring it to us. Thank you so much for the questions from my council member colleagues and so I am going to recall that we have a motion and a second before us, and we are ready to vote on approving the agreement before us in order 247. Councillor Rodriguez. Yes. Councillor Dion. No. Councillor Ali. Yes. Councillor Zauro. Yes. Councillor Trevorrow. Yes. Councillor Palatier. Yes. Councillor Phillips. Yes. Mayor Satter. Yes. Order 247 passes eight to one with Councillor Dion in the minority. Thank you everybody. And that is it for this meeting's agenda. So I'll ask for a motion to adjourn and then I'll tell you what's next. Councillor Oli with a motion. Councillor Fornir with a second and we'll go ahead to vote to adjourn this meeting. Councillor Fornir. Yes. Councillor Rodriguez. Yes. Councillor Dion. Yes. Councillor Ali. Yes. Councillor Zauro. Yes. Councillor Trevorrow. Yes. Councillor Palatier. Yes. Councillor Phillips. Yes. Mayor Satter. Yes. This meeting is adjourned, but we are not adjourned fully. The council will stick around. We've got a workshop that will I'm going to give everybody a five or 10 minute break. Go grab something to eat. I'm going to go back here in chambers to commence the workshop that was targeted for a five o'clock start. Once we move ourselves from our workshop into executive session where we'll go into 209. We won't come back into chambers. So we'll begin the workshop in here, public session opportunity to hear from staff and others. Once we need to move ourselves into executive session, we will leave the chamber for good tonight. And we look forward to seeing you all in about 10 minutes. We'll reconvene at six o'clock. Okay, so thanks everybody for your patience as we make our way through agenda items this evening. We are reconvened as a council in a workshop session, we're still on zoom we've got 12 folks with us on zoom and some people with us here in chambers as well thanks for being here in both formats. I'm going to hand things over to Corporation Council this evening to begin. Oh, I'm going to hand things over to the city manager this evening to begin the workshop at at some point, we will be voting ourselves into executive session. When that happens, we will not come back into chambers so already stated but just wanted to be clear on that front so thank you for for taking up the request to have a workshop tonight and I will hand things over to you. So this I just wanted to sort of ground us where all where we are. This was in follow up to some questions from a lot of counselors but specifically counselor Phillips and counselor Ali. And in speaking with staff we've put together information hopefully responsive to your specific questions. One piece that you had asked a lot about was the first amendment. I talked with Michael about it and he will present who we have this evening to present on that very important topic and answer your questions. And then the second piece of this will be addressing specifically the, the rally itself and the subsequent follow up that the police department has done. But due to the fact that there's an active criminal investigation that's occurring with regard to the the rally itself and specifically some participants in the rally and some maybe after action steps that will be taken. And that discussion has to occur. That discussion has to occur an executive session in order to ensure the, that the specifics of that investigation are protected and remain confidential so we will be doing part of this in public session the first amendment discussion and questions and then the second piece, we will be moving into executive session as the mayor said, and I'm going to refer over to Michael to introduce our special guests this evening. So Daniel, as Daniel mentioned, part of the discussion tonight is a discussion about the first amendment, and we decided to bring in a local expert in the matter. Zach Hayden, who's going to do a presentation for the council tonight and hopefully maybe answer a few questions. We're not taking public comment but questions from the from the counselors. He's the chief counsel at the ACLU of Maine. He joined the ACLU almost 20 years ago Zach, as its first staff attorney and has served as its legal director and now is chief counsel. Zach is got his JD from Boston College Law School where he founded the schools chapter of the American Constitution Society. He's litigated cases to defend civil rights and civil liberties of a wide variety of individuals including artists, immigrants, journalists, pregnant women, prisoners, protesters, religious minorities, students and whistleblowers. He frequently testifies before committees of the main legislature and he has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Maine School of Law, where he taught constitutional law. So we think he's well qualified to share his thoughts tonight and Zach, I'll let you take it away. Thank you. Thanks so much, Michael and Danielle. And to all of you, thanks so much for the invitation to speak with you this evening. As Michael said my name is Zach Hayden, I'm chief counsel at the ACLU of Maine I'm also a resident here of Portland I know some of you. I don't know all of you but looking forward to speaking briefly and then happy to try to answer questions or have discussion with you if that would be helpful about some of the issues that I know you've been dealing with and that local governments deal with all the time. Some of you have probably I'm guessing engaged in First Amendment protected activities you've maybe marched in the streets you've gone to parades or demonstrations you've handed out leaflets you've spoken to voters. You may have held signs up for some cause or some of some kind or at some public event. You may have protested. But I don't think you've you've invited me here to talk about the First Amendment activities that you all can engage in free from government interference I think more you're interested in as the government, what is your, what is the scope of your authority to regulate or to interfere with First Amendment activities and and this is a complicated topic. There are some easy answers, but not that many, and there are some open questions in the law and I'm going to talk a little bit about them. But in, in thinking about this, the presentation tonight that I was going to give and talking with with Michael a little bit. What I came up with that I thought might be helpful, and we'll find out if it is, is to talk to you about areas of expression that are not protected by the First Amendment. What is the zone of expressive activity or speech, where the government is allowed to regulate is allowed to, in some cases, punish, because there are such areas. And rather than trying to delineate, what is the First Amendment allow, we can think about what is the First Amendment. You know, not concerned with what are some areas of expression that are that the first that are outside of the protections of the First Amendment. So, I'm going to start with some non relevant examples. Copyright infringement using copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright owner to for your own profit. That's a form of expression right that's expressive activity. That is not protected by the First Amendment. You can be fined for violating somebody's copyright you can be sued for it there's actually such thing as criminal copyright infringement you could you could go to jail for violating somebody's copyright fraud. Expression speech act or written act, also not protected by the First Amendment and intentional material misstatement that induces somebody to engage in in action that's going to benefit you. That's, that's expression, not protected by the First Amendment defamation. Now we're getting a little bit more relevant you as public officials may have had people say, unkind things about you. We are not able to access as readily the protections of defamation law because we're all public officials under defamation law. But defamation is a form of expression that's not protected by the First Amendment, particularly their First Amendment limits on defamation. Whether it's lander or liable, making knowing incorrect or harmful statements about somebody. When you're talking about a public official when you know that those statements are are incorrect or you should know that they're that they're materially incorrect and they're going to be damaging. Another area that I think is outside of the really the topic today but I wanted to talk a little bit about it because it I think provides a good grounding for the, the topic that we're dealing with, and that's obscenity. Why I think this is helpful is when people in general people who are not lawyers or even lawyers when they're not acting as lawyers. They use terms. Sometimes that usage lines up very neatly with the way that lawyers and judges and justices use those terms, but usually it doesn't. Usually when people in public use terms, they use them in ways that are broader and more general than the way that lawyers and judges and justices use them. So let's say the word obscenity. What does that, what does that bring to mind, what does that mean, you know I used to getting questions from this side right. You might think somebody somebody saying something incorrect something inappropriate words that you don't let your children use or words that you wouldn't let your students use that those are, these are all things you might think of as obscene. You might think of them as sacrilegious people often get think obscenity has something to do with with sacrilege obscenity and the law means something very specific and it's not none of those things. It's a three part test from a case called Miller from the early 1970s obscenity means that a person applying contemporary community standards. You find that the work taken as a whole appears to the prurient interest that it depicts or describes a particular sexual act, and that it lacks serious literary artistic or scientific value. The reason I bring that up is not to talk about it in the context of any events that have happened or any legislation that you might be contemplating ordinances that you might be contemplating. I want to draw your attention back sort of to ground us in this idea that words in the law have very specific meanings, and that they're not meanings that we can be flexible with. That's true in the law generally. It's especially true in constitutional law. So when you're talking about the, the First Amendment and the scope of the First Amendment protections, we're all bound by these common definitions that are often handed down from judges or justices, and that provide a minimum level of protection to everybody. Everybody in the country to whom the First Amendment applies and protects. Two other areas of non protected expression that I think are more relevant to what brought me here tonight through true threats and incitement. These are different forms of expression that the Supreme Court has said are outside of the protections of the First Amendment. First I'll talk about what a true threat is. And we get the current understanding of true threats from a case called Watts versus the United States. It's a case from 1969. I was concerned a prosecution of a person under 18 USC section 871 a, which is actually a law that was passed in the early 20th century that made it a crime to threaten the life of the president, the willful and knowing the threats against the president were a federal crime. So, Mr Watts was an 18 year old. He was speaking at a rally, and he was speaking about the draft. And he said at this rally is protest against the Vietnam War quote. If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is lbj. He was prosecuted for that as a brain making a threat against the president. The US Supreme Court overturned that conviction. They said that was at most a crude statement of political opposition to the president, but did not amount to a true threat. What developed out of Watts was the idea that there needed to be an objective component to a true threat. If something is a true threat, if a reasonable person hearing or reading these words would honestly and sincerely believe that a person meant to cause the threat that this was actually threatening conduct. I'm going to go ahead, a number of years to a more recent case, a case from this year. It's actually currently being debated by the US Supreme Court. Some of you probably know the US Supreme Court typically ends its year. By the end of June, it is now the middle of June they have 23 decisions from this year that they have not yet handed down. This is one of them. It's a case called counterman versus Colorado, and it involves the true threat standard. Applying this this decision from Watson and decision since then counterman asks whether it's also necessary in addition to this objective component for there to be a subjective component. That is, does the prosecution of somebody for making a true threat have to show that that person personally actually intended their speech to be threatening. And that's an open question in Colorado Mr counterman was convicted of making true threats. The judge never found the judge never asked the prosecution never asked whether his speech was intended to be truly threatening. Mr counterman sent a number of messages social media messages and text messages to a musician that he was somewhat obsessed with over the course of two years. And the jury said that the messages were objectively threatening, but there was never any evidence whether Mr counterman intended for the messages to be threatened. So we're going to know likely in the next couple of weeks, whether that is a requirement for a true threat under the First Amendment slightly related but different doctrine is the doctrine of incitement. The truth threats as somebody using words directly to cause harm to somebody to put somebody in fear. Incitement is using words to get somebody else to hurt somebody to get somebody else to put somebody else in fear. Their speech itself isn't necessarily harmful. But they're urging somebody to be harmful. Like true threats is outside of the protections of the First Amendment. I talk about two cases involving incitement. The first is the case that hands down that the current test that we use a case called Brandenburg versus Ohio from 1969. Brandenburg was a leader of the Ku Klux Klan he was speaking at a KKK rally. And he expressed the kind of harmful and disgusting racism that you would associate with a leader of the Ku Klux Klan. Part of his speech, he expressed an elaborate fantasy for what he would like to see happen to black people in Ohio. And he encouraged the audience to engage in generalized violence. When it got up to the US Supreme Court, they said that the speech that he was engaged in was not directed at anybody particular. And it wasn't directed at actually bringing about that violence that the speech was not specific enough to be validly criminalized under the First Amendment. So making generalized harmful or hateful or racist speech was not enough to be validly punished under the First Amendment. The next case that we're talking about is called Claiborne hardware versus NAACP and it's actually one of my favorite US Supreme Court cases. The case is actually handed down in 1982, but it involves activities that began in the late 60s and went through the early 1970s. There was a town in Mississippi, where a number of businesses were extremely racist, and the NAACP organized a boycott of those businesses. And one of those was Claiborne hardware, which is where the name came from. At a rally one of the NAACP organizers, my name Charles Evers who's a hero in civil rights movement engaged in very powerful rhetoric about maintaining the boycott. And he said to people during his speech, if we catch any of you going into any of these racist stores, we're going to break your damn necks. Couraging people to maintain this boycott respect this boycott, and arguably calling on there be some sort of violence, right, I'm going to break your damn necks. Was not directed at anybody particular was not the courts found aimed at inciting imminent lawless action imminent harm or imminent violence. It was generalized. It was more of an expression of a desire not a call for an immediate action. And therefore, Mr ever's speech could not be validly criminalized couldn't be punished for that speech consistent with the First Amendment that this was not incitement within the context of the First Amendment. I share just three final thoughts and then I can answer some questions or try to answer some questions. Sometimes people try to understand the First Amendment and the scope of the First Amendment's protections in relation to particular speakers. Does this group have First Amendment rights or does this person have rights under the First Amendment. And I don't find that to be a generally helpful way of understanding or analyzing an activity for First Amendment purposes. That's not how courts generally go about thinking about the First Amendment and the scope of the First Amendment. Does this person or this group have First Amendment rights. Sometimes people try to understand the First Amendment in relation to particular actions. Is this activity protected by the First Amendment or is that form of expressive activity protected by the First Amendment. It's not closer to how courts deal with it, but it's still not. It's not exactly how they deal with it it's not precisely how courts analyze activities or actions under the First Amendment. It may be a piece of it but it's not the most important piece. And I don't find it particularly helpful to think about like is this activity or this action protected under the First Amendment. I found to be the most helpful framework anytime I mean is sort of approaching a particular event or a particular set of behaviors to think about them in relation to the First Amendment is to think about the First Amendment as a restriction on the government. This is a limit on the government's authority and the government in this case means legislative bodies means the police. It means school officials, assistant principals, anybody who is a part of the government anybody who works in public. And it is a limitation the First Amendment is a limitation on the government's authority to interfere with activities engaged in by the public or by members of the public. Leave you with a quote from a case from 1972 called Police Department of Chicago versus Moseley. The US Supreme Court said above all else. The First Amendment means that the government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter or its content, which if you think about the First Amendment is a limited on government authority. Those are some substantial limits. It does leave open to the public to largely police itself in the realm of ideas and expression. I think I say this as a now I've been a First Amendment lawyer for almost 20 years. And part of the idea behind that work is the idea that the public left on its own left unregulated will do the best job of sorting good ideas from bad of sorting truth from false. And that's an idea I don't blindly follow. I find it's an idea that I have to re examine and re interrogate and current events in our country have certainly made me think about that idea rethink about the idea rethink my commitment to defending that idea. I still believe that it's true but it's not because I've sort of blindly signed on or because my paycheck comes from the ACLU I feel some obligation to blindly sign on to that view I do actually believe it's true, but it's a hard idea if it's an idea that you all find yourself grappling with with difficulty if you find it to be a problematic idea then I share your view on that and if there's any questions that I can answer any thoughts that you want to share on that subject. I'm happy to try to to do so. Thanks so much for the opportunity. I didn't thank you so much for being here with us it's nice to see you. And I would be happy to look around and see if there are any hands of counselors who'd like to ask questions or make comments counselor pelleteer. Hi. Thank you so much for. And like none of what I say is directed at you I'm just like, I have like a little bit of frustration and maybe I feel like I misunderstood a little bit maybe to, in terms of the workshop. Because the end this was very helpful I do a question for you but I thought we were talking about specifically the, the neo Nazi rally from April 1 and our immediate next steps for the public, like, what do we do when this group comes back and like what steps do we take to show the public that we're hearing them they gave two hours of public comment on how they didn't feel safe. And how do we as a council create a framework within this body that's consistent messaging on our website or social media pages regarding violence and hate speech so that's what I thought and I know we're going into executive session, which is also tough because I know there are people that really want to they're waiting for us to do something or they've been waiting. It's been two months since this happened I understand like, it's hard to schedule things but it's it has been two months. And people are waiting for an answer from us. So, I feel as though I just had to name that where this is a really helpful portion but I also hope that we can have a deeper conversation about what are we going to do next like the next step for the messaging and the, how do we as a council show up better for our community the next time that this group comes back because summertime is coming it's already here pride is next is on Saturday like they're kind of come back and I just hope that we can have that conversation really honestly in this group of what we're going to do to make sure that we are immediately able to show up for people so that they don't feel like they need to come in here and give two hours of emotional public comment hoping we have an immediate response and we don't have an immediate response for them. So, yeah, I don't know I'm I'm frustrated I mean we, I'm sure you know this we you know we had a group of 20 people and masks coming to Portland and yelling the n word of black people and doing the Hitler salute and holding a banner that said defend white communities and physically assaulting counter protests who were holding a pride flag. And I know that you talked about true threats and incitement. And if I'm understanding what you said, a true threat would be the person would honestly believe that it is threatening conduct. Do I have that correct. Okay. Yeah, I don't know, was just tough, because it's I mean like as a black person when I see a group of 20 to 30 white individuals and masks holding a banner that says defend white communities, specifically going to places like the immigrant Welcome Center in City Hall. I feel like that is a true threat. I feel scared to walk around I feel scared to be out there when a group is is saying defend white communities and do not want my existence in Portland or otherwise so But I'm feeling like what I'm hearing is that that's not actually a true threat and our true threats. Like is this just subjective and are we just kind of benefiting from the fact that threats can be very like you, the person who is giving the threat or receiving the threat. If it goes to court, it's up to the court to determine if that's really a threat so I can say I feel threatened. But it's even though I feel like it's a true threat, it may not be a true threat. And I. Yeah, I just I guess I want to know if I would love to know your specific feedback on what happened I don't know if you're able to share that but if you think that these were categorized as threats or incitement or if what happened. was protected under the First Amendment and like what we now as counselors. Like what are we supposed to say to the community that's asking us for answers, other than like that's the First Amendment and that wasn't, you know, I don't know. I'm kind of rambling now but I would love any feedback on that. I think I know enough to give you any advice on whether that activity was a true threat, whether it was incitement. I really I've not reviewed that I know that something that you all have spent a lot of time reviewing that your, your police department is reviewed, and your attorney and they're probably in a better position to tell you with about those specifics. You know, it just hasn't been something I'm mostly here just talking more generally about the First Amendment and the scope of the First Amendment that may inform what you do in in future actions, but I'm not sure it has much bearing on what happened already. Thank you. I'm just going to think for a minute and I'll leave it up to my colleagues. Thank you though. It was this very helpful. So I didn't want you to think that I was like, you know, having my energy towards you. I really appreciate it. So thank you. And I just want to add counselor that I think that when we were putting this together I think that it's difficult to talk about next steps if we don't know what the bumpers are. And we heard a lot from a lot of counselors talking about different, you know, steps they wanted to take different ordinances they wanted to pass and those types of things and so getting a good broad understanding of the First Amendment I think is really important for that discussion and that piece of it. And so having Zach come and talk about what those bumpers are and what it means because I think the case law is sometimes can feel counterintuitive that sort of like you were just talking about right there. And I think that that was really, really helpful Zach to lay that out and talk about, you know, maybe what you think obscenity is not what the court thinks obscenity is and so that's really, it helps in my mind at least color the entire discussion because it helps you to be able to see where where where can we go what can we do and I think the second piece of this conversation is the piece we're going to have to have an executive session. And that is an important piece so there are going to be some open things here and I understand that that's unsatisfying, but really getting that framework out I think was the most important piece and I really appreciate you for for helping us with that. Councillor Palatira you also for the moment. Okay, Councilor Travaro. Thank you. Thank you for coming and educating us. What is hate speech under the law, or is it anything. It's really not much of anything under the law. It's not a legal term. You know, at least in terms of constitutional law. I think there are hate speech criminal piece of things that are like hate speech statutes. But it's not one of the categories that's used in First Amendment law to differentiate between types of activities that are expressly protected on the First Amendment, or not protected on the First Amendment. And that tends to be a framework that's more applied in the political arena and the social arena people talk about hate speech. But it's not, it's not really a First Amendment category. I have a question. I might have to talk my way through this one. Within the context of structural bias, which is present in communities and in our community in the social world in which we live. The position of neutrality can actually sort of tip favor towards one side or the other. Are there examples where communities have kind of gotten creative within the law to counteract that effect. One example that comes to mind is so just as a baseline idea what I was talking about earlier was the First Amendment to the US Constitution, the US Constitution applies everywhere in the United States, it provides the minimal level of protection. States cannot provide less protection for expression than is provided in the First Amendment, but they can provide more protection. So there's an example of a case from Washington DC, where a group of people were camped out in Lafayette Park, and they were camped out for an extended amount of time this is long before occupy. It's similar to occupy and what people remember from from happening here in Portland, that people were engaged in camping out outside and in the cold to demonstrate against homelessness. The case was called community for creative non violence versus I can't remember the name of the defendant. The courts said that that was not protected by the First Amendment that camping out expressive camping out was not something that was protected under the First Amendment. States have said under their state constitutions that there's greater protection for expressive activities in public, and that that would fall within that state constitutional protection so greater protection for expressive activity than is provided under the federal Constitution to address that idea of structural imbalance that this is about a particular economic disadvantage this the Constitution has generally not been very helpful or protective of people who are economically protected. It's often described as an instrument of preserving the status quo, when it comes to economic relationships, but states have found greater protection in their state constitutions. And the same could be true of a municipality right a municipality could provide greater protection for expressive activity than is found in the state Constitution or in the federal Constitution. The state or city can't do is provide less protection for expressive activity. Can I ask a quick follow up on that. So they could provide greater protections but it would have to be across the board, going back to the other case you mentioned that based on content or yeah. Great question. Yeah, great point Daniel that you couldn't say we're going to only allow people to engage in expressive camping to demonstrate against homelessness but not to demonstrate in favor of something else. I don't know I can't think of another cause. Thank you. Okay, great. Thank you. Good to see you as I could see you share. Don't worry about that. They remind me every day. Listen, I want to be clear about this because to me, we're going to skate out on some thin ice. Clearly, the testimony that we all heard on one particular evening was a tested to the emotional trauma that many of our residents experience as a consequence of a large criminal act roles and exclusive attack to exclude rather than invite in. And the standard responses, this part of the political marketplace. Right so I like you if you can is to address the level of tolerance and that's not a user often apply but I think it makes sense here that the public has to have a certain level of tolerance to let the marketplace sort out these ideas. My concern is the suggestion that the municipality could engage in a first amendment ordinance structure that would act to exclude groups and their speech simply because on this given day I don't happen to agree with them. That's kind of being facetious almost. I mean clearly I don't think anybody around this semi circle would endorse any kind of Nazi type organization, but at the same time in reference to your earlier comment. It's difficult for me to accept the fact that they have to be granted space that they can't be excluded or barred. And the question is, how do we manage the spaces between they and those that they intend to be the recipients the true recipients of their message both in terms of victimization. I mean, they know they're hurting people when they say what they say, and in terms of soliciting others into their fold. I think it's the most difficult thing for government to manage and I want to be clear that it's just not a question of, okay we're going to pass the ordinance, and we're going to make it real tight, so they have no way to come in here because it is a limitation on what we can do, not a green light to expand this idea of constitutional intervention, so if you could comment on that that'd be helpful. Right and I, you know, where I began I think I'll sort of go back to that that this is not speaking to you all as as a government body, you're, you're here and your power as, you know, governing body of the largest city in the state, which is very different than your authority as a citizen, and your responsibilities as a citizen. So you as a government body, you as a police chief, you know have one set of limited the First Amendment is a limit on you limit on what you can do as a government body. You have a limit on you as as a citizen as a member of the community. And, in fact, what it carries with it is an obligation, not to tolerate, but to loudly shout down and to loudly counter protests. And in particular, for people like me, who are white and have a lot of privilege in this society. It carries even more of an obligation to protest against people who would use their speech to demean or to harm or to threaten. I don't want to misconstrue how I apply the word tolerate. I only raise it, because in the marketplace of ideas. There are some who subscribe to the idea that if there was an expression that they would experience as racially divisive, or assaultive against some manner of identity. That the police should be compelled to intervene and criminalize that. And that's, I'm saying, I hear things often that I don't agree with I don't like it, but I'm not in a position to suggest the mechanics of government. I may as a citizen either tolerate and ignore it, write a letter to the editor, organize a counter rally or any manner of strategies. And that's why I was talking about tolerate. You've got to hear it incorporated decide what's the next best step, but it doesn't necessarily mean a green light for the police to make an immediate law intervention, simply because you experienced it so adversely. Thank you. Any comment there before we move on. Okay counselor for near. Thank you and thank you so much for being here. So, putting inside what we've gone through, because we can't change the past obviously we can learn from it and of course do better. So one thing I'm very mindful of is this coming weekend we have our pride parade that's going to happen here that I'm incredibly excited for to be able to march in it and to celebrate our community and so one of the things I think that you mentioned with true threats is, and I just pulled up the ACLU definition because I couldn't keep that in my brain because it's been a long weekend it's only Monday. So what what it says is the government can prosecute someone who intentionally threatens another person with death or serious bodily harm, and whose language is reasonably perceived as threatening. And so, today's Monday, we know this is happening on Saturday. And from this point up until the pride parade happens on Saturday if there are individuals in the community, like NSC 131, like others who have been marching around with, you know, white lives matter to type signs. And I think that we're able to address or something that we're able to perceive as a true threat, because their intent is to intimidate, and to call others to create harm at this event. The First Amendment requires and specifically the interaction of the First Amendment and criminal law requires a lot of specificity it doesn't, it's very hard to, to analyze in the abstract, it's especially difficult before the speeches happened to try to think of like what, what is this group intending or what do they mean to do before before it takes place. And after the fact you can go back and try to look at the speech and the effect that it had and you can discern what a person's specific intent was if that turns out to be something that the Supreme Court requires in the counterman case. And in the abstract to say oh this you know you can go after this group because they have a history of engaging in eight full speech or they have expressed antipathy towards particular groups. Councillor Phillips. Yeah thanks for that I appreciate it. I'll probably be all over the place because I've heard a lot of different things from you and a lot of other people for me the differences is that this group is known to use hate speech and then escalate that to violence. And so when we talk about definitions, right, so you talked about defamation you talked about true threats, you talked about incitement, all of those are leading up to this group, inciting violence, and they're inciting violence against folks that look like me. Right, and so, given this whole situation with it what happened on April 1, there's a lot, a lot of moving parts, some that we after executive station still will not be clear on what happened, because it really depends on who works that on what the situation is, and all those stuff so we can't you know we'll get some clarity, but I'm not sure if I'm going to be completely comfortable with everything that I learned tonight regarding the situation, which brings you back to free speech. And so, again, I hear you when you say that everybody has that right to free speech. I certainly don't want us to go down that pathway of trying to figure out was this free speech or it wasn't. I'm still back at main sound a little corny but her words hurt. And for me there, there is a level of, of what those words are. And so when you talk about defamation, it call it, I'm gonna be straight with you because I always have, right. But calling somebody a nigger is not to me, free speech. Calling somebody a faggot is not free speech. At that point in time somebody to me has crossed the line and I totally get where you're going with this, but I also understand that it's on a case by case basis because you just said there's a case going through the Supreme Court that we don't know what's going to happen. So for me, all of those times and in all of those situations. I don't care what happens after what I care about is holding that person accountable so that they know, number one, we're watching them. They know that we're not going to tolerate it. They know that we are going to do everything we can in order to protect everyone, including me, and including other people that are in a disenfranchised community, so that we, they don't insight violence. Well, I don't really have a question other than it's really extremely frustrating. Everybody has a right to free speech, I can't control that nobody can control that. But when your free speech again turns into something violent. And then I think we need to look at that and I know again we're going to go into executive session. And we'll, we'll figure that out. In other words, to me, that are not about free speech, and every time that is heard in our city, whether somebody is criminalized for that or not, we need to react. There's a, there's a wonderful book I'll just say is sort of a baseline, the presentation I'm here to give to you tonight is descriptive. It's not really what the law is it's not normative I'm not saying what I wish the law was what I think the law should be. I'm telling you about the cases, as I understand them that that have already been decided and what those mean how you can put those together as doctor. But if you're interested in in a normative view of free speech there's a book that you might like called words that wound that goes into exactly what you're talking about with words of themselves. People scholars that have thought about this a lot believe are themselves direct friends just the use of those words it's by Mario Metsuda and Charles Lawrence. It's a sort of associated with the critical legal theory movement. And they, you know, or take they take issue and Charles Lawrence has come and spoken to my group at our conferences and takes issue with some of the cases that we've done and said, this is the first amendment should develop in a different way that's developed the neutrality on the basis of subject and viewpoint, and is not is not desirable is not leading to societal good so they are they share your views on that. Thank you. I have a question it's a. I'm going to make up something, but in line of what I want to act and actually to probably two or three scenarios is building. It's the building that house the city government and the city administration so by to some extent it's a public property. I know that there is an individual who is from the protective groups that works here. And I know that if I paste something in front of the building. It will intimidate the person emotionally, and maybe the person may not come to work. And in the day that I know and there's only one entrance, and I post anti whatever group the person is from will that be considered as a free speech and is it protected by free speech. But as you've described it it doesn't seem to me that that would qualify as a threat as a true threat under the true threat doctrine, which, but but maybe there are facts that could make it more of a true threat if it was clearly identifying this person and clearly aimed at harming a person and any objective viewer would regard it as intending to harm a person then it might be characterized as a true threat. Whereas if it is more of a generalized statement about a person's characteristics about their race or ethnicity of religion that applies more generally and isn't isn't specific and targeted. Then I think it would be less likely to be characterized as a true threat, and more likely to be found as, as protected under the first amendment. Well, that's, that's helpful way of analyzing or answering question, but it's, if you know it sounds sort of lawyerly I guess that's day occupational hazard. Yeah, what if that building, I give an example of this building as a public public space. What if that structure is a private property owned by that somebody from that group. I mean, I don't think that would matter necessarily that that a person, if you're, if you're engaging in a threat and a true threat, somebody could be engaged, you know, somebody could be the object of a true threat. Anywhere in a private space in a public space so I don't know that that fact is, is particularly important for First Amendment perspective. Thank you. And my question so. Thanks counselor next back to counselor Diana. Zach I was going to use counselor Ali's hypothetical, because I think it's instructive in so far as my understanding of what he described would be evidence of a bias incident, as opposed to a bias crime, and sometimes this confusion between the two. Where you may see the police a hamstrung initiating a bias crime investigation, they could on the other hand, conduct a bias incident documentation process to inform the attorney general and others of at least an environmental issue that's attached to certain individuals that need bears watching for lack of a better term I haven't done good with terms tonight so have to be careful. But could you comment on that if you feel comfortable as to how main law, if at all makes that distinction between bias incident and actual bias crime. Yeah, I think your distinction is helpful the other this other sort of layer of it is, we're mostly talking about this in the context of criminal law but there's obviously other forms of law there's civil enforcement. So, somebody might engage in a pattern of behavior in a school in a place of public accommodation and in a credit arena that is carried out by acts of speech, but that is preventing somebody from accessing that space in a way that might violate the main human rights act and that's the state law that prohibits discrimination on a number of categories. So that could be also a way that discriminatory acts are addressed, even on those acts are carried out by use of signs or text messages or letters or any of the other ways that people have engaged in discriminatory conduct. Thank you for those comments counselor dip as our. Thank you madam air. Thank you for the presentation. I feel like I'm back in grad school. This has been exceedingly academic and cerebral and it's useful, but also it's challenging because we obviously can speak to the specific incident that I think brings us all here this evening. We don't typically have this sort of conversation. I'm going to go to the city council. I guess my question for you as you cited the 1969 Ohio case about incitement. I'm curious though. I'm going to be careful. Be my guard rails. At what point, if there's a protest counter protest freedom of speech both people have that access right. That's our right. It's nice to impede the other man and therefore prohibit their access to their first amendment right of free speech and expression, and, and what what happens there what is that what what I'm asking is where's the handoff where we go from constitutional law first to criminal law when there's an act of violence when there is something that has now stopped. You know someone from whether it's an assault, which would be criminal or, you know, an impediment to their own, their own free speech. Great question protests and counter protests. This is often the case, specifically with events that are sort of planned ahead of time and that people know about ahead of time there's often a counter protest group and sometimes the counter protest is larger than the original protest. And in those circumstances the police have an obligation to keep the group separate. The general understanding under First Amendment law is that they have to be sort of within sight of each other. You're denying people the right to protest or counter protest if they're not able to to see each other, but need to be kept. So far enough apart where they can safely express themselves, the right freedom of expression is supposed to be a peace flat, not supposed to be, you know, not supposed to lead to blows. If that seems like that makes it, you know, imposes a lot of challenges on the police department. Yeah, it does. It's pretty difficult. I'll tell you about a case actually involving that I don't know how many of you know Susan finer used to teach over here at usm. The other Irving was involved in a very famous US Supreme Court case called finer versus New York. He was standing on a street corner in Syracuse, New York in 1949. And he was saying all sorts of incitement sort of things he said that Harry Truman is a bum. And this is 1949 this is what, you know, it's really inflammatory and a crowd gathered around and they were very worked up, calling the president a bum. And the police didn't know what to do so they arrested Irving finer there and charged him with insight and said that he, you know, he had created this violent situation the reaction of the crowd was directly attributable to his and even though they were not in agreement with him they were quite vocally disagreeing with his views about the mayor and the president. And they arrested and they charged him with these, these two counts and it's case went all the way up to the US Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court said that you can't blame the speaker when people for people's reactions and this is what's sometimes known as the hecklers veto doctrine, you can't hold, you can't allow people to, you know, violently, loudly disagree, and then hold that against the speaker, simply because the speaker provokes a strongly held reaction that the police needed to do more, engage in more non punitive measures to keep the group separate, so that there wasn't violence, but allow the speech to continue and that's finer versus, you know, finer, ultimately was the US Supreme Court found him guilty, you know, upheld that that conviction, and then years later that that doctrine, the hecklers veto doctrine is abandoned. Thank you. That's it. You just spoke about the, the right of a protester and a counter protester, and we've had this situation many times in Portland, and they're in the same vicinity, and the police has, you know, presence, and kind of awareness. And I think there's a little bit about that desire I guess to keep a separation so that it doesn't escalate to violence and so I'm wondering if you can talk about that more for us to understand because so many times we see that the two groups are unable to be kept separate, and then things can escalate into a situation where you go beyond the rights of free speech and actually into assault or criminal behavior. And I imagine if you've got dozens and dozens or even hundreds of protesters and a handful of police that's kind of an impossible situation so I'm just wondering if you can talk about that a little bit and what Yeah, just talk about it a little bit because it seems to me like a very, it's a tricky situation and we've seen escalation a lot in the last few years, and, and well beyond that but just I'm thinking the last few years here in Portland where situations have escalated. Yeah, it is a difficult situation I wish I could tell you oh no there's some easy things you can do there really isn't very much that's easy. The best. The best key scenario is the demonstrations are planned in advance or rallies are planned in advance. The First Amendment provides protection for spontaneous demonstrations. In response to breaking news a decision comes down from a court or a something happens a politician says something and people want to spontaneously take to the streets in response to that that's protected under the First Amendment. But, you know, far better is when people can plan ahead of time, and to work with city government and the police and here's where our roots going to be here's how many people were expecting. You know, here's what maybe we might anticipate in terms of counter protests, and that's, you know, been generally understood for for many years that when people are planning activities. It's best to try to do as much planning ahead of time and to work with government officials to let everyone know what's happening so that, so that people can be kept separate that these are supposed to be peaceful events. And even speeches that are supposed to elicit strong feelings. If somebody is engaging in expressive activity within the framework of First Amendment protections. It's supposed to be peaceful. And so working ahead of time to try to make those arrangements maximizes the chances of those being peaceful events, though it doesn't guarantee it. And there's no guarantees for that. Can you just comment quickly on section 1983 and 1988. And just about some of the implications of that just because I know that we, when we're dealing with a lot of situations here in the city, specifically you're talking about the interplay of the First Amendment and police officers actions. So those, those two provisions of federal law do come into play and I think it's just important to sort of ground us in those. So section 1983 is the federal civil rights law, it's actually a part of a statute that was passed in the wake of the Civil War, one of the reconstruction civil rights laws that is still on the books. It makes government officials when they're acting in their official government role to violate somebody's rights that are guaranteed by the federal Constitution are guaranteed by some other federal statute liable. They can be held accountable they can be made to pay monetary damages they can be subject to injunctive relief or declaratory relief. So section 1988 is a related law that also says that that that person if they're found guilty of violating somebody's rights can have to pay attorney fees to the person whose rights they violated or to their attorney. So this is the most powerful tool that civil rights advocates use to vindicate people's civil rights. It is the law that I use the most, you know, in my, in my work whenever I'm trying to bring a federal case. So the very first case that I brought as an ACLU lawyer was against the city of Augusta on behalf of a group that was anti war protesters that wanted to hold a march down Western Avenue and protesting the Iraq war and the Iraq war invasion. They had restrictions in place that would have prevented that group from holding their march they had a requirement that the group get insurance that they couldn't afford they were just a group of small group of anti war protesters. So we, we brought a suit, we asked the court under 1983 to say that these restriction violated the Constitution violated their First Amendment rights and we were partially successful. Thanks I just wanted to ground us in that because that does come into play I think with a lot of the situations that we're talking about when we think about, you know, different actions that may or may not be taken I think it's sort of an umbrella that's always over a lot of government officials including police officers in their minds. I think that's something that's going to be found personally liable for my actions in a situation and have to pay attorney's fees and go through all of that. So that's always something that's there and I think that that when I think about our ordinances specifically in place with regard to events like protests. And I know I think Gary maybe had worked with you at one point on reworking that ordinance Gary Wood former city attorney and, and that ordinance specifically has a lot of triggers in it but it has a lot of relaxed provisions specifically to allow the First Amendment on both sides of the issue to allow people to be able to protest and to be able to articulate their viewpoints in certain in easy ways and and to also give notice to the police but I think what's complicated is it also says that if you're going to, if your event would trigger 25 or less people to come to it that no, no notice is required and I think that's good in certain instances if you're trying to do something last minute, it does help. But I think in this case that's exactly the provision that was in place. So that notice that Zach was just talking about was not present. I think those are just a couple of factors to always keep in the back of your head we have a lot of great ordinances on the books that have been reworked and thought about in the context of all the things that has been discussing. But it does make the police officers involved their lives more complicated in every situation but it also allows for certain things to happen like no notice in this case which also complicates the situation. So I just want to keep us all sort of on the same grounded playing field when we're thinking about that and thinking about ways in which we move forward from here. Thank you. Counselor Zorro. Thank you madam air on question for the manager. Walk me through both procedurally what would happen if someone triggered the ordinance and there was 26 people. What happens. There would not be I mean we haven't. I don't think enforcement wise we've ever triggered had an issue like that we do try to work with everybody who's organizing an event and come in after the fact and try to say hey next time. If you if you think you're going to have 50 people, you need to go through this process and so we make sure so that we do get the notice and that the appropriate staff is involved in that the appropriate people are notified including the police whether it's a protest or a rally or even just an event in a park that's going to bring a bunch of people so we try to work with event organizers across the board. It's helpful to know in theory though just to say hey next time you know you need to have a permit would they have to be a deed. Do you have to know who they are. I mean we do have certain provisions in place, some of the ones that Zach mentioned that Augusta have we do have for certain events when they're big large festivals we require insurance and those types of things but we do have a specific category for what we've labeled First Amendment events. Those don't trigger fees they don't require trigger a lot of the specific requirements under the ordinance so it's a very intricate set of rules that that the events group here in the city always manages and keeps a good handle on, and there's a significant number of departments that are involved in that that review all of those permits that go in notify everyone we get the notice out. You know sometimes those events get are put on our calendar so other members of the public note about them as well. So there is a lot, a lot of process that happens. And that's we, we like process that helps things you know make sense I think what I'm trying to get at is and this is an interesting. This is kind of maybe where some of that tension is where we're talking about the First Amendment it's the anonymity. It's the unknown it's the I don't know who you are your face is covered. That is what I'm trying to get out here. And I don't know if there's a remedy for it, but that's, I think a part of this. Thank you. That's a rally. I think you may have, I have a question. Can we be specific. Oh, we can just it has to be asked the lawyer. I know we may be going into executive session that is why I'm asking. I think, because we're going to into executive session to discuss the April 1 incident. I would, I would suggest not asking specific questions about that event. So if it's a different event I can ask. If that's nothing to do with a professed, but it is about, I think that's fine. Okay, thank you. If one group is organizing an event. And they do everything that a city has them to do. And then on the day of the event, someone who do not agree with them, attend that event, hold their flag across the street, and then slowly and eventually they keep working slowly and getting close to the group that apply for permit and the permit is being granted. And then they find themselves right in the middle of the group, holding a flag that they know is going to intimidate this group and started fighting with people. Not physically but verbally yelling at people right in the middle of another group. Is that considered as a free speech and is that protected. Yeah, that's a, that's a difficult question. In general, the way that demonstration public speech law works is that the sort of first in time. Right I've we've reserved monument square that's where our group is going to be on Friday at noon and in the basic laws of physics two people cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Somebody else is going to have to get that next week, right they're going to we've got that space. We've signed up for it. But the First Amendment also protects the rights, protesters and counter protesters, they have a right to be within sight of one another. It's going to be, we get it quickly into the area of fact specific of how much is that creating a danger. Of somebody getting hurt versus how much is it simply that people are uncomfortable. You know, people are uncomfortable because they're being exposed to a viewpoint that's different than theirs. That's generally part of what you know the First Amendment protects and contemplates that that's going to be about when people are expressing themselves in public they may encounter people very close up even who have different views, but that they're at the line is really about violence, threats to people's lives or their safety, and particularly imminent threats is the term that's important in the law, that this is something that's going to erupt in violence, right away. And obviously the best management is to try to keep people at a safe distance if there's a, if there's a possibility of violence. Part of the experience of engaging in public speech is that you will encounter people who feel different. You know, when I was growing up we have something that we say to when you are in a classroom like elementary school middle. Yeah, this is how we say that your freedom to do something ends at the length of your nose. So we as a municipal government. Can we put something in place. That is close to what I just shared about my elementary school teacher saying that if I stretch my hands. I get my right to speak to touch to do whatever ends where my hand is, if I touch someone's hand, or I get closer to someone's nose, then I'm breaking the classroom source. I don't think so. Okay. Better question for, you know, your lawyer to answer but I have my instinct is, as you've described it this hypothetical it's that would be hard to regulate. My ex three of my lawyers already so. So, Zach, you talked to you talk about peaceful, you know that that competing free speech is protected it's allowed it potentially can be encouraged. But it needs to be peaceful. And I think it's so hard and unsatisfying to think about the term peaceful when what you've got are potentially two groups with very very different views who are screaming at one another. And it doesn't feel peaceful at all feels violent. The words feel violent, the rhetoric may be violent in nature and hateful and, and, you know, so, so I'm just trying to square that and, and think of maybe what I'm doing is thinking and inviting you to talk a little bit about this but as a municipal government what can be really hard as we think about our role as policymakers is, how do we live within that place which is, we uphold people's right to free speech we uphold people's right to peaceful demonstrations protest rally, but we understand that words on social media words on texts and emails in the in any kind of media and and right out here in front of city hall can be so incredibly violent hurtful awful and destructive. How do I square the notion of peaceful with all of that that can come from people's signs and out of their mouths and from the things they carry. That's a great question. I think the word peaceful in this context does not mean peaceful in a way that that our homes are peaceful or the way that we hope that our workplaces are peaceful that we hope our dinner conversations with our friends are peaceful, rather thinking back to what I was talking about earlier with obscenity that laws words in law have very specific meanings and peaceful in the context of law in the context of free speech really just simply means the absence of violence and the absence of violence. The mere absence of violence is not what we would collect with collectively colloquially call peaceful. And in fact, the idea of public expression is that it is intended to excite emotions, it's intended to provoke feelings, not just thoughts but feelings. It's intended to engage with people at a deep level. A colleague of mine who does First Amendment laws says that you, you don't need the First Amendment you don't need protection in the Constitution for the ideas that we already agree on, you don't need it for things that are generally in offensive or non controversial views that are lightly felt. The First Amendment exists rather is a limit on government bodies authorities or limit on police authority and the limit of school officials authority for at times when the desire to exercise that authority that desire to censor is the most strong. Now, I know some of you I don't know all of you, I would guess that we all agree on a lot of public policy matters, and that are our views and values are probably the same. But if it of being a part of this national organization, that's not the case for all of my colleagues all over the country, right there, they're dealing with the government officials who feel very differently about racial minorities about people who are transgender. They're not spending a whole lot of time thinking about how to make their cities more welcoming for asylum seekers or finding better places for people who are homeless to live, rather they're trying to think of ways to punish those people or discourage them from coming to live in their cities. And that's the First Amendment protection that we're talking about here applies with just as much force to those government bodies as it does to this one and I think that's an important characteristic of it. I think it's sort of stands in counterbalance to that desire which we'd all feel about peacefulness. Thank you that's helpful. Other questions or comments from the council. Okay I'm going to turn it I think over to, should I turn it over to Michael Danielle. The next step is to go into executive session. I think the citation is in your, in your materials, and so we would need a motion and the second would take public comment unless Michael has some additional information. No, just before we do that I just would want to thank Zach and yeah, you gave us a lot of your time and we really appreciate it and a lot of a lot of helpful information I think so I really appreciate you coming. Thank you. Thank you very much for being here. Council. Oh, oh, and thank you also to Michael Goldman for making sure that we had expert input tonight for this workshop. So at this time I'm looking for a motion to go into executive session pursuant to one MRSA section 4056 F to discuss the Portland Police Department after action report regarding the April one 2023 rally. I take that motion though I'm going to ask if there's any public comment on the motion to go into executive session. Hi Zach bearer it's under street Portland. I first have a sort of point of order in that reason for stated reason for the executive session was the confidentiality of a criminal investigation. I don't think much I don't think it is in order to limit any of the questions by the counselors in the workshop that just seated. That is not that is relevant to the April 1 event. I'm going to come up. In terms of the executive session. I think that this workshop was was interesting from a sort of, what do they call it a 10,000 square foot view. I defer my belief that this is not that there were no everyone was in their rights, their first amendment rights of free speech rights of free speech were duly, duly protected. Don't what I would have liked to have seen today was a criminal lawyer because what I saw was on April 1, the crime or several crimes I saw assault in video I saw battery I saw that of a banner. That was one thing and I appreciate that counselor Zara and major Schneider picked up on this that on the ACLU website it says, police may treat protesters and counter protesters. Please must treat protesters and counter protesters equally police are permitted to keep antagonistic groups separated, but should allow them within sight and sound of one another. Clearly this not did not happen. And clearly this should have happened. And the question is, why didn't this happen. And I think this is something that should be spoken about in public session 30 seconds and not in executive session. Thank you very much. Thank you for your comment, trying to keep time here. And thank you just a reminder that we're the public comment is specific to the motion to go into executive session. Thank you mayor and thank you counselors and I will do my best to keep my comments pertinent to the motion on the floor. I'm sorry tonight because I've waited a really long time for this meeting and I'm really disappointed in the content of this workshop so far. I think I agree with the previous commenter and a number of counselors that this is academically interesting and pertinent. However, I want to know what the action plan is. I want to know what the next steps the council is going to take our, and maybe what I'm learning from this meeting is that the council is not prepared and the city is not prepared to defend people like me. Who are threatened in our city from impending fascist threats. So, with that in mind. I would love you to vote down this motion and continue the workshop to discuss the matter as it was presented in the agenda to discuss the events of April 1 and not to hide behind a state law that allows you to shelter the victims in this executive session so that the police can deliver their report behind closed doors when I and countless others had to stand up here using our legal names. In front of the city council and anybody who wants to tune in on zoom to go into the public record, tell about our experiences on that day. What happened, we know they happened. I want to know what the police observed. I understand there's an ongoing criminal investigation, and I believe that there are facts that are not pertinent to that investigation that would be illuminating to the council and to the members of the community that can be discussed publicly in this meeting, and I would highly encourage the police or any representatives from the district attorney's office to share those facts with us in this community and not behind closed doors. As some members of the council were so helpful to point out, I'm really worried about pride next week. There are guys in our community who are actively making maybe not true threats, but threats of some sort towards queer people like me, my comrades who are going to be out there on Saturday and to be totally honest, after I was physically held in front of city hall for holding a pride flag, and the city council has done nothing to no statement no comment about that kind of threat, and instead has spent hours and hours of my time in the community's time with legal fictions to try to understand the speech. I'm quite frustrated, and I really appreciate that you're all here and willing to listen and that I can use this public comment, but I am worried that if you listen to what the police have to say behind closed doors, they're going to feed you a lot of stuff that is simply untrue, and that people in the community will not have the opportunity to debunk and help you to understand why those facts are simply not true. There were two harms that were caused there may have another moment please. Thank you and we'll just keep it specific to the motion to go into executive session please. There were two harms that were caused. There was the fascist attack and there was the neglect by the police department to act on that threat, and that attack, and it is really pertinent to our community that we hear specifically from the police about their decision making process in public. Thank you. Thank you so much for your comment. Is there additional public comment on the motion to go into executive session. Seeing none I'll close public comment and I'll ask for a motion from the council please. Councilor. Councilor Ali with emotion counselor Diane with the second, and we do not have our clerk with us this evening so my good. So do we have discussion on the motion to go into executive session. Thank you I just have two quick questions and I might have spaced this out beginning and I apologize the transition from one meeting to the next was a little bit for my brain. And so, I guess to the public's point I think we've gotten also a couple emails is the reason that this is going into executive session because it's a personnel matter on pending litigation, or, I guess help me understand and Michael could speak to that it's about an active criminal investigation involving the incident and sell itself so we're protecting the investigation that's going on at the district attorney's office right now into the rally and the protesters that were there and potential for criminal conduct cases that have come out of that nothing to do with anything related to personnel. And so then my next question is really what are the next steps to share the results of what we've found so far of the incident as far as what did we do right what did we do wrong. How do we fix it for next time considering we have another giant event that is likely to create the same type of situation coming up on Saturday. Unfortunately, due to that active criminal investigation we can't share the specifics of the report. And so that is that's sort of the pickle we're in right now. But we have, you know, I think the chief has spoken to it to obviously they're well aware of the situation and have taken and continue to take significant precautions and are prepared for this weekend. And we've been talking about it and he and I have checked in on it there are additional measures that they're taking obviously we don't want to reveal any sort of tactical decision making or information but that would be something that the police is well prepared for and I know that they would be able to speak to that more generally. Next question, do we have any sort of timeline on the investigation about when this would wrap up and when we would be able to give any sort of update to the public because I don't that's governed by more of the criminal court system and that that process. And so I don't have a specific timeline I'm looking at both of the chief chief do you have a specific. Thank you. Thank you counselor counselor Palatier. I know that my question, my one of my questions was similar to counselor for near so I'm not answered. But I guess I'm wondering, are we after the criminal investigation has been completed like, are we not able to have another workshop until that investigation has been completed. Like, are we at a pause until the investigation, we wouldn't be able to reveal anything with the report or anything along those lines until that's done. As my understanding there's a, there's a statute Michael, what is the statute I know you have all the specific I'm actually going to look to, to Nicole, I'll bear this here as well do you have a response for that Nicole. Is there is there a point in time where the confidentiality has lifted on a report like this. Next up to the mic please. Thank you. Louder than I am. My name is Nicole out there, and I work for the Office of Corporation Council. It, and probably what's more important is that I was an assistant district attorney before I took this job so I'm very intimately familiar with the criminal justice process. And unfortunately, I can't, it really depends on what happens with any criminal case, whether it's pursued whether it's not pursued. There are statutes governing dissemination of information. For instance, if a case doesn't go forward at the district attorney's office decides not to prosecute there are severe limitations and remain statutes on what we can and can't even we can't even talk about the fact that there was a criminal case. So I don't, unfortunately, it really is very dependent on what happens next. That could take a bit. The courts are backlogged as I'm sure all of you know. So if the case does go forward and it's charged, it would have to work its way through the criminal justice process. Okay, thank you. Councilor Pelletier you have the floor so we have no, we just have no timeline at all. I guess just because of its backlog didn't I don't know how I'm asking I'm sorry. I'm just. We just, we don't know how long that would like could that take anywhere from six months to like two years is that the time frame we're talking about I would say two years is probably long but it could take six months for sure. Okay, longer. Thank you. So I guess my question is, are we able to have another workshop, while we wait for this piece of information to talk about as a council. And how we're going to make sure that this, we are prepared if this isn't happening in. I guess I'm, I think that was why the bumpers were here I think that we have ordinances on the books I'm happy to have those discussions with the council about what would be your policy ideas if you have any that are within some of those bumpers. I think that we have it's like, we already have the, the tools there, and then moving forward with the, you know, the next steps after the criminal piece. There are certain things that we'll be working on with with the staff and trying to address those training pieces if there's anything that's necessary there. I've had a discussion with the district attorney's office, spoken with her about what, how she, how she views these types of situations in these cases and trying to take that information in and educate ourselves on that front. But other than that I think the policies next steps if there were changes or tweaks that the council wanted to make that would really be within your purview and I would defer to you all and suggestions and ways in which you would want to address that. So I think I'm hearing you say yes we could get into workshop to talk about policy initiatives. I guess I am but I'm careful to say that I think that some of that would have to be fleshed out and what we were specifically talking about but happy to have that discussion with you all. Okay. Yeah, I mean that's that's helpful I just. I'm getting just like a significant amount of people asking me what just like what's what's next and they're waiting and I just feel like it's a, it's just frustrating and this is helpful to hear like that we could potentially talk about something while we're waiting for this report and have something with that like tomorrow can be a part of as well with some of his work so I would love for us to do that and actually have him here as because that will fall into a lot of his expertise around racial equity and so I would love for to have a another conversation, potentially another, like a listening session or public comments just because people are. Yeah, people are just waiting for us to have an answer that's more concrete than this and it's just tough so. Going to an executive session feels like procedurally I don't know it just feels like we are now going to have like a really significant conversation that people want to know about in an environment where they can't know about it so. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. So I guess I understand that we cannot discuss anything that's pertinent to open investigation. But what I'm what I think I'm hearing from the public and what we've heard in calls for our transparency. And I guess the discussion about potential policy that the council can take on is not necessarily where my mind was going as to what the public wants to hear. If there were, for example, you know, from the department themselves like new SOPs or things like that, that would be, you know, kind of global not unique to this particular investigation. Is that the because I feel like that's kind of what again what we're hearing from the public. Is that a needle that's just too difficult to like thread so to speak. Not not specifically I think it's difficult when we're talking about policy versus operations I think some of that would be maybe a discussion between the chief and I will tell you that it's very complicated right now because we're in a time of transition at the police department. It's been very helpful to have the interim chief here but he's leaving in how many days here nine days. And so it is. It's extremely difficult it's something that yes we have policy initiatives I'll be looking for we're hopeful that this police chief search process is going to, you know, find a candidate and that would be something that I would work with that next chief on. And I think there are specifics in this report which are unfortunately confidential at this point that could that could maybe help educate us and help us move forward but it may take more time to go to attorney Albear's comments more time than than we want, due to that criminal process that we don't want to impede at all. Thank you. Thank you counselor Diane. Did you have a comment for the commission counselor there. Did I say your last name correctly. Albert. I made you into an air dare. Sorry. Can you come up to the mic for a second. Hi. Sir flattery will get you everywhere. Listen, I, again I'm hung up on this clarity stuff. What is the posture of the case. You see telling me went to the da is like telling me the sun's coming up tomorrow doesn't really tell me anything I don't know is it up for review of a complaint has a complaint been approved. Is it awaiting the grand jury I just I just want the posture of the case don't even know the answer to that. So did some detectives walk it over. Is that is that what's happened. I don't know. Okay, this is the chief know it was assigned to a detective and has been submitted to the DA's office for review for a complaint for possible complaint okay. That only enhances the reason that we should have this confidential given it's at the earliest posture possible. I think that's helpful for the public that's listening it's not just a went over the DA's office I think we need to be specific where we can be thank you chief. Thank you attorney Albert. Thanks for nothing. I want to call her a da Michael we got to do something about that one. What is she ACA under your rules or what associate corporation council ACC ACC out there. I'll work on that. Okay we have a motion and a second but before I call a vote I'm looking to see if there's any additional comment on that motion to go into executive session. In the absence of the clerk I'll call the role so counselor for near. Yes, counselor Rodriguez. Yes, counselor Diane. Yes, counselor Ali. Counselor Zaro. Yes, counselor Travaro. Yes, counselor Pelletier. No, counselor Phillips. No, and I may yes so we will, we are voted seven to two to go into executive session it's 745pm. I will not be coming back into chambers will adjourn ourselves over to 209, and we are now an executive session.