 Hi, I'm Lisa Savage. Welcome to Pathways to Progress. This is a show where we discuss municipal politics here in the city of Portland. We've just had a big election, so we have a lot to talk about tonight. I'm here with Councilor Victoria Pelletier here at Portland Media Center. And tonight's an exciting milestone because we are live on YouTube as well as our usual live streaming on the Portland Media Center site, so that's exciting. So we are looking for one of our counselors. Councilor Roberta Rodriguez is missing in action at the moment, but we think we have located him, so we'll get started without him and then hopefully he'll join us before a half hour's up. So Councilor Pelletier, quite a week, eh? Again, you got a week. Yeah, we have the election on Tuesday, which it's now Friday and it feels like so much time has gone by since we voted and found out the results in now. But yeah, I mean, I think it's gonna be really interesting now because we'll have two more meetings with this current Council, one that's coming Monday and then one a week from Monday, so two weeks in a row, and then we'll have the inauguration in early December and that will be the changeover for the new Council. And so it'll look a little different than I think people are expecting and we'll have a new Council body and we'll be welcoming two new, two brand new Councilors and then obviously a new Mayor, so it'll be really fun. So say their names for me again, the two new Councilors. So the two new Councilors, so there is Anna Bullitt, who won for District Four and she'll be taking over Andrew Zaro's seat from District Four and then there is Kate Sykes from District Five and she'll be taking over where Mark Dian is now. And Mark Dian, obviously, will be the new Mayor. The new Mayor, yeah. That's right, yeah. So no big ranked choice voting surprises there. He was in the lead in the first round and then by the second round he had clinched it. So you've obviously worked with Mark Dian for a while now so probably not a lot of surprises coming in how he will conduct the business of the City Council but it will be a change. It will definitely be a change. Yeah, I think it'll be interesting to see what happens. What I will say is that he and I have come a very long way from where we used to be so at least we have a little bit more of a dialogue than I think that we used to have when I first started the Council. I think a lot of that was due to meeting on Zoom and just not knowing each other, not knowing the Council and not having anything to go off of. So yeah, I think it will be different. I think naturally with the changeover from Mayor Snyder to now Mayor-Elect Dian and then having two new Councilors join us and having two new Councilor, I mean, Mark Dian will still be there but Andrew Zaro will be gone and I just think that will, the dynamic of all of it will change and then myself, Councilor Rodriguez and Councilor Trevorrow will be the seniors on the Council at that point which is really crazy. How does that feel? That feels really crazy. It feels, in a way it feels like a triumph because I remember when we first got elected like it's weird to even have election day and think that two years ago it was ours and we were finding out whether or not we got elected and so much has happened in two years that now thinking about like, oh, we have a year left and this is our third and final year before we would have to run for reelection if we decide to do so. So just thinking of the fact that we have made it to the, you know, over the two year mark and will be in our last years is pretty wild to think about but. So would I be right in thinking that the Council will become a bit more progressive after the change goes into effect? Councilor Dianne will no longer be voting, Councilor. I mean, do they have a tiebreaker vote or they still? We'll still get a vote. The mayor still gets to vote. So they'll, we'll go around and he'll just be from the mayor's perspective rather than District Five. But we're nine people including the mayor so we get nine votes. So he'll still be a voting member of the Council. And I don't know, it's so, it's interesting with the word progressive because people said that about us. Like I remember when I got elected in 2021, everyone was like, this is the most progressive Council we've ever had. And like, oh my gosh. And I don't know, I still don't feel like we're that progressive. I think a lot of people thought we would be a little bit more. So it's always interesting to hear like this is gonna be the most progressive Council ever because we really won't know until we get into the session until we get into conversations around policy and votes and things like that. And things I think have been flow with people too as they're trying to figure out, you know, you feel differently about every issue. So I will say that, I mean, the exciting part that I didn't even realize that Councilor Fornir actually told me was that all the district seats now have women as representatives. I think that's the first time in our city's history that that has ever happened. And now we have six women on the Council. So six, three majority with women, which is also really cool to be a part of. I think last year was the first time we had an all women committee for the Health and Human Services Committee. So we'll probably be seeing more of that in 2024. And then you always have the checks and balances aspect of municipal government, particularly the way Portland's is structured. The Council could be very progressive, but there is quite a limit on whether you can implement your policies through the existing structure of the city manager and the city department heads. Right, yeah, the city manager essentially has full authority over things that we do and manages city operations, which is a lot of what we do. So we can create policy, but at the end of the day, there are a lot of things where the city manager can have the final say and doesn't have a vote. It is an appointed position. And I know with the charter commission work, we had lots of conversations around strong mayor model and whether or not that would work for Portland. And ultimately that question did not succeed. So we are still subservient to the city manager in a lot of ways. And I think that even with the mayor position, it is, you know, you are at the top and you are setting the agenda and you are leading the conversations at times and you are definitely the facilitator. But I think too, even with the mayor position, I think it's still, the mayor Snyder used to say this a lot that she still considered herself an at-large counselor and you are still one of us in a lot of ways, so. Yeah, it'll be interesting. It will be. Question A, failed spectacularly. 70% of people voted. No, we don't want to exempt any landlords from rent control. Were you surprised by that or that was what you... I was not surprised by that at all. I think it's, I think multiple times now, the tenants of Portland have really made their voice very clear at the polls about how they feel about rent control. We are a city of renters. We have the largest demographic, I think of renters in my district, district two. So I always love to see those numbers come out of district two because it's pretty intense no across the board, which is great because I think that we need to let time to enjoy rent control. Like I hope that we can actually just enjoy it instead of always fighting for it, instead of always having it be under attack. And I think now twice in a row to see a question in terms of amending rent control really fails spectacularly at the polls. This happened again, this happened in June and is now happening again in November most recently. So I think the tenants have spoken and made it very clear that rent control is something that they hope to have and to hang onto. And I think it really reflects the priorities of Portland in that way. And really I think empowers the tenants to make their voices heard as much as they can at the polls. So I was happy, as a renter, I was happy to see that. Yes, I know that you represent the renters on the council. I feel like so tired of me saying that, but I was like, I was one of the renters. So, you know, I'm pretty sure that some cities in the country, such as New York, such as San Francisco, they've had rent control for decades. Once it gets in there, renters are very loath to give it up. Of course, then landlords start looking for all the loopholes and the workarounds and that sort of thing, but you know, there's a pretty good track record of once you get rent control, it's in there. Yeah, and there's such a power dynamic. I know that with this most recent referendum, it was landlords that had nine or fewer units. And I think to those landlords, they are looking at nine or fewer units as like, well, it's just nine. And for us, as renters, we're like, that's a lot. That's still so much. So I think it's always perspective. And again, I only have a lens from as a renter. I only have a lens of somebody that is consistently struggling to live in Portland. And so many of my friends and community members are as well. So we're all just clinging on to rent control because it's really one of the only rights that we have as tenants. I mean, we're really at the will and at the discretion of the landlords. We are basically asking them, like, can we please live here and can we hopefully afford it and please don't kick us out and please don't evict us? So being able to have rights is really important. And I'm hopeful that with these two significant votes, that again, we're overwhelmingly no votes that hopefully we can just relax a little bit and enjoy having rent control and enjoy having at least a little bit of autonomy over feeling like something has our back if there ever is any type of behavior by landlords where we feel like it's not in line with the policies or illegal or whatever. So it feels good to just have a little something to hold on to to say like, okay, this policy has my back. Well, I personally thought nine units was kind of a strange number. And with property values being what they are, someone who owns nine units in Portland, that's a fairly, yeah, that's a lot. If they had said one or two, they might have gotten more support for it. Like, some older person that owns a duplex lives in it and rents the other half kind of thing, nine. Nine is a lot. Yeah, yeah, so I was, I was happy with that. That was a good outcome. I was happy to see that. So there's some big items on the agenda coming up. Just to clarify for our viewers, when the next council, next two council meetings occur, the changeover will not have happened. So the newly elected counselors will not be seated yet. Mayor Dion will still be a counselor, not the mayor and so forth. So that's something to bear in mind as we move into our discussion about the attempt to, and that I know you're part of, to ban sweeping encampments. I'm unclear whether I should say during the winter or should I say at least during the winter or should I just leave that qualifying phrase off? Yeah, I think the way that they had it written and again, it's, I know has been worked on extensively by councilor Travaro and councilor Rodriguez. So I wish councilor Rodriguez was here to be able to, to give more of the specifics on that. But I think that the date, they said until at least April 30th, 2024, to just have no sweeps in Portland. And then I think at that date, it would be, we're revisiting this conversation because I think they wanted to have a sunset date in there so that it wasn't just kind of forever, but I think it was looking to be at least through the winter and through some of the spring. Okay, so it would be realistic to say that. So our last show, we discussed how councilor Rodriguez had tried to bring an emergency piece of legislation is the wrong word, but an emergency, what's the right word? A piece to the council to ban encampments. But at the very last minute he and councilor Travaro found out that that would have kicked in emergency pay for every worker in Portland. And that was not their intent. And they did not realize that the way they had structured their proposal would do that. So now if I understand it correctly, they kind of backed up and went at it from a different approach, which is amending an existing law that's in place, regulation that's in place. Is the regulation about camping? I think it's about camping currently, yeah. And this just got posted on the agenda yesterday, I think, so I haven't even had a chance to dive into it, it's got posted Thursday, it's not Friday. So I wish I had more of a chance to really like go through the specifics, but the overall theme in terms of what this ordinance is is to just stop all sweeping until the April 30th date. And that's correct that they had to amend an existing policy and I think it was our existing camping ordinance that we had, they're amending that and then just saying we're not sweeping any encampments regardless of I think size or impact or whatever until we can make it to that April 30th date and then they're hoping by then the Incantment Crisis Response Team will also be able to do significant work of hopefully placing people into shelters. Okay, I have an email that Councilor Trevorrow sent me this week where I had been asking about why, I was asking someone else who then forwarded the question to her, I'll just read it if that's okay. Highly say it's an ordinance amendment, specifically it is three amendments to the sections of city code from which the manager derives her authority to enforce the no camping administrative policy. The sections are in chapters 17, 18, and 25, they address loitering, parks and public spaces. It basically adds a not withstanding section to each which allows for camping by unhoused individuals through April 30th. Yeah, so I know that this is something that people feel really strongly about in the city of Portland. Of course we should note that it will not stop the state of Maine from doing encampment sweeps because if I'm not mistaken the last or one of the last couple encampment sweeps on Marginal Way was the state Department of Transportation. I saw a post on social media shortly after saying, oh it's so great that they did that encampment sweep so they could go back to having an empty parking lot and it was a picture of the Marginal Way parking lot with like no cars. Well nothing there, yep, yep. But of course the objections that lead to sweeps are not no one can park their cars there, it's the nearby businesses objecting to all sorts of things that they experience because of the proximity of the encampment. So we've seen that time and again as well. So Monday night you'll be having the first reading of this amendment. Yep. I saw the Party of Socialism Liberation is asking people to come do a candlelight vigil outside City Hall while you're having the first reading in support of it. You don't take Zoom public comments anymore do you? Not anymore, no. So people gotta, people have to come get dressed, get out of their sweatpants and go down there and show up if they wanna say something. Yes, yeah, I think we will. So we'll have, it's the first read so there'll be no action on Monday. People I believe will still be able to come in and give public comment on non-agenda items. It's on the agenda as a first read but people should be still able to come in if they wanna speak on the item cause we're not doing any action on that and then on the meeting on November 20th will be the vote. And yeah, we're already getting a significant amount of feedback. I think that this is probably the biggest conversation that we're having in Portland that we've been having for a very long time. So this topic will draw out a ton of people and that's just based on, again, the agenda for Monday's meeting was posted yesterday and I think there was a news article posted about this yesterday and even in the past 24 hours we've gotten hundreds of emails at this point from people with their feedback about how they feel about this ordinance or this amendment, whether to do it or whether to not do it and it's definitely one of those votes where it's gonna be very emotional and regardless of the decision, we're gonna... A lot of people will be unhappy. A lot of people will be unhappy. No matter how. No matter how it goes. So it will absolutely be, if I had to predict especially because the vote will be the 20th and that will be our last meeting before the new counselors come in. I predict that City Hall will be very full with public comment from people who wanna share and yeah, I think we'll see what happens. If I had to predict it now, I really have no idea if it will pass or not. I think it will be a 5-4 again. You do. I do, yeah, I think either way I'm not sure but I think it'll be very close and that's just based on the history of some of our votes around this and around, for example, adding 50 beds to the HSC was a 5-4 vote and then it was a 4-4 vote because one of the counselors was absent. So all of our votes in this way have been really close and I predict it will happen like that again. So one criticism that I heard voiced was, oh yeah, sure they would do this and wait until after the election to take this up but as you pointed out, well the council is likely to get a little bit more progressive after the changeover. So actually it doesn't really matter that the election happened. The new counselors have not been seated yet. Yeah and I do know because Councillor Rodriguez talked about this at our last month's Pathways to Progress. This was already supposed to be on the agenda for one of our earlier meetings prior to the election but because there was so much back and forth I think with the counselors and with city staff and a lot of issues of putting it on the agenda, it got extremely delayed. So this actually wasn't, I don't think a strategic move to wait until after the election because I was looking for it on the meeting that we had in October. I thought that that was actually gonna be something we were voting on just based on what I was hearing. So it just happened to fall I think or the next meeting that they could get it on the agenda because people need to also remember that we amended our schedule based on the election. So that's why we have two meetings in a row. So we haven't met since October 16th I think was our last meeting. And so because of the election, we have a shift in schedule and this is the next closest meeting that we could put this that they could put this on the agenda. So, and I think too with this happened when we were elected in 2021, we had our first big vote actually on the inauguration which was the shelter licensing vote. That was like a four hour conversation around and around and that one actually did get pushed so that the new counselors could vote on it. Cause I specifically remember not thinking we would vote on that and then seeing that it got delayed. So, you know, I don't really know the specifics in terms of, you know, what counselor Travar and what counselor Rodriguez have been talking about or working with city staff on but I do know that getting things on the agenda is not always as easy as people maybe think that it is. So, yeah. Sure, there's a lot of moving pieces and parts that have to fall into place before it can really happen. It's an interesting issue because the Portland voters are very split on it. You know, people feel very, very strongly and also it's a seasonal issue saying, oh, you know, sure they would wait until, well, we're talking about the cold. It is Maine, we're not in San Diego. So, a decision about not evicting people from what little home they have in a tent, in a community is, you know, becomes a lot more urgent whether it's October or November or December. Yeah, I saw a quote from counselor Rodriguez actually in the article today that he said that even if the shelters were at 100% capacity, we would still have hundreds of people outside because I think what we're hearing is like, we don't need to do this, we need to get people into shelter which has been actively something that the Incantment Crisis Response Team has been working on since their inception since I don't know, it was probably January, February, when we really started having these conversations about creating this task force. So, I feel like with this conversation specifically, which I do know draws out a ton of people with different perspectives, the one thing I think we can all agree on is that sweeping in campments hasn't been working. Regardless if you are pro sweep or whatever, what we've been seeing is that we are sweeping in campments and then an encampment is created elsewhere that's even larger than the previous one because when we sweep encampments then we designate that location as a place where there's no camping allowed. And so I think that this has been said multiple times, we're funneling people into specific areas of the city based on the fact that we continue to sweep. So right now the significant growing of encampments that we are seeing is in the Harborview Park area which is my district, which is district two. And we've had three, I think, encampment sweeps and it really has not alleviated the problem. So I know that people are feeling frustrated by the fact that we have encampments all over the city but sweeping them isn't resolving anything. And so I think that when thinking about what do we wanna do? How do we wanna make sure that the providers can actually work with people that are in the encampments and that they're not getting lost by being swept? How do we wanna, what can we do to make sure that through the wintertime people that are unhoused at least have the resources that belong to them and aren't losing their belongings and losing the place that they go to every single day or night to call their space. I don't think anyone wants to be outside when it is negative 20 degrees. But again, even at full capacity of our shelters, hundreds of people will still not have a place to go. So what we're hoping is that in the meantime we're not also saying, well, you can't be here. So we're just sweeping your encampment. And then again, this is a fairly small city. So we're sweeping a lot of areas and then calling them emphasis areas. And I really don't know what's gonna happen. I know right now the encampment crisis response team is working on Harborview. But if this ordinance doesn't pass and let's say Harborview gets swept and is now designated an emphasis area. What's left? What's the next spot? And it's just not working. And so what we'll end up with is a city filled with emphasis areas with no room for camping. And then we are naturally going to have issues where people are gonna just pick locations that they feel that they can camp, whether they're emphasis areas or not. And with that I think is gonna cause a lot more. Explain to me how the emphasis areas process came into being. So once there's a sweep, there can never be an encampment there again. Where's the, what ordinance designated that? How did that happen? I think it's through some of the work with the encampment crisis response team and just the current ordinance that we have. Because basically they're saying, this encampment has grown to be a public health hazard. And so we're sweeping it. And then this is now like stamped as a location where we can no longer have camping in this spot. So marginal away and the area of Trader Joe's now are emphasis areas. Again, like if we sweep Harborview Park, emphasis area, if we sweep Derry Oaks, emphasis area, Eastern, all of that, I just, I'm like, where are people supposed to go? And I think that that's been the question that we have been going back and forth on since this conversation really took off at the beginning of the year. And I think we're waiting on this shelter to hopefully open up in Riverside, which is a 180 bed shelter that we're hoping some of the asylum seekers can go into that shelter. It will free up some space in the HSC as well. But it's just gonna take significant time and significant dedication and a lot of patience from people. And I think, again, it's an emotional conversation and I totally get it. We're all coming at it from different perspectives, but I would hope that even the pro-sweet people can understand that the sweeping is not working. So I just am kind of like... Well, it's working as a punishment. Yeah, exactly. And it's working as a, okay, you're never having an encampment here again. I got that logic of, well, it was a public health hazard because there were too many people and no sanitary facilities were not inadequate. Yeah. But once it's empty again, what is that? Why is it a public health hazard now with a small encampment or an encampment with toilets and showers or whatever? Right, yeah. How are you feeling about the 50 bed, the vote to not add the 50 beds? Do you regret your stand? Have you, do you still feel as strongly about it or have you kind of... Um, no, I feel the same. And this is so wild that it'll be the third time that we have this conversation because we didn't table it indefinitely at the last meeting. So it'll come back up for a conversation on Monday. I, it's not an easy vote to make. And I really try to look at that from every angle. But realistically, the shelters and the numbers that we were receiving were showing that that shelter wasn't at full capacity even remotely. So adding 50 beds to me didn't feel like it was like a viable solution of actually solving the problem that we're trying to solve. And I think it would be one thing if we weren't already working on opening another shelter in Riverside that hopefully will be able to house unhoused asylum seekers and that that point maybe we can focus more on the HSC. But I'm also just, we've heard direct feedback from individuals that are unhoused that they do not want to go to the HSC based on the amount of barriers that exist. Based on the fact that you can go in with a partner if you want to be able to sleep with a partner or you can't do that because they're separated by gender or you can't bring in a pet. So if you have a comfort that you want to have in, you can't really have that in there. There's a significant amount of barriers to going in there. And I think if we're not resolving that, I don't want to add 50 beds to a place that a lot of people don't want to go. Well, it was also designed to have enough space and to be the kind of shelter where people could feel more secure and have a little autonomy and have their own dedicated, it was designed that way, was it not? So to immediately break that doesn't make a lot of sense. I think the people that think that shelter is a solution to the encampments have never been on house, have never spent the night in a shelter and they kind of honestly don't really know what they're talking about. Yeah, I think it's really complex because I know a lot of people were like, well, why didn't you add the 50 beds? Like if we add 50 beds, then magically people are going to want to go in. But people, if they don't want to go in, if we have individuals saying there's no way I'm going into that shelter, that's I think the problem that we need to be resolving and not just being like, well, we added 50 beds and you don't want them. So because, or we have a shelter that you're not utilizing, so your punishment is we're just gonna sweep the sample. We often do a parachute and you're arguing what color it is. Yeah, so I think that we have the capability of being better than this and being able to really fix the systemic issues that we're seeing. And again, like I said this every time, people hate it, but our goal was racial equity and I put this under the umbrella in terms of racial and social equity of making sure that we are looking at the actual root of the problem and not just all of the stuff on top of saying like, well, I don't like seeing encampments in my neighborhoods, we'll get rid of them. But there's just the sweeping, as we've seen, it's not working. And again, I don't know where everybody is supposed to go. These are individuals, these are humans, these are our community, they're in our community. And I think by just going sweep, sweep, sweep, we're actually not solving anything and other than re-traumatizing and already traumatized demographic of individuals and continuing to not come up with any type of solution. I think the encampment crisis response team is great and I'm really hopeful that in pausing encampment sweeps that they can actually stay with the context that they have and really try to also address the barriers at HSC and at the same time focus on the opening of this new shelter. And all of these things I think working in tandem, I'm hopeful that we can get somewhere. So we're almost out of time. I believe that you would like to encourage people who want a ban on encampment sweeps, certainly during the winter to come to Monday night's meeting and give public testimony. You can't do it on Zoom anymore. You have to show up, but the city counselors can really use your support. They're hearing many, many loud voices saying, we want sweeps to continue. And so if you are one of the people that does not want sweeps to continue, it's time to speak up and be there. We're out of time. Thanks for being with me tonight, Councillor Pelleter. Always a pleasure. Our next show will be in December on Friday the 8th at 7 p.m. I wanna thank the Portland Media Center and our great tech crew for making this possible. Thank you so much. Our audience listening in from home. We couldn't do it without you. And so please get involved in your city government and try to support your elected officials to do the things that you would like to see them do because they can't do it without you really. You might think they can, but they really need your support. So thanks for being with us this evening.