 Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome. This is the Portland City Council. We're in Council Chambers. We're also on Zoom, so I want to welcome everybody who's with us here this evening in person, as well as people who have joined us remotely this evening. And so I'll call this meeting to order, and I will welcome you all to join me first in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag, the United States of America, to the Republic for the most assistance, one nation, indivisible, liberty, and justice for all. And will the clerk please call the roll. Councillor Fornear, here. Councillor Rodriguez is absent. Councillor Dion. Here. Councillor Ali. Hold on. Councillor. I thought maybe he was with us on Zoom. Councillor Zarro. Here. Councillor Chavarro. Here. Councillor Pelletier. Here. Councillor Phillips. Here. Mayor Snider. Here. Our first order of business this evening is the five o'clock public comment period on items that are not on tonight's agenda. So if you'd like to address this Council this evening on something that will not be heard later on the agenda, please go ahead and raise your hand. And whether you're here in chambers, you can come stand at the podium, raise your hand on Zoom. I'm just going to remind folks of our Council rules. Because I think it's important to do so from time to time. So, anybody who would like to address the Council during these comment periods, whether it's on agenda or in response to an item on the Council's agenda, please give us your first and last name and the city, your city of residents, or your Portland district, or the organization that you represent. I would like to remind people that it is my opportunity to cut off any commentary that's not germane that is abusive or disrespectful. We don't tolerate clapping, cheering, jeering or booing. So, again, we welcome your comment we want to hear what's on your mind. If there's not something on tonight's agenda that's specific to what you're thinking about with regard to your municipal government, happy to hear from you. We have lots on the agenda tonight, happy to hear from you during those times as well. And we will start here in chamber so come on, come ahead, and then I'll head over to zoom and I'll go back and forth as needed. Great. Hello, I'm Matt Walker. I live in district two by Longfellow Square. And. Hey Matt, you, if you're going to speak to the nomination it is on tonight's agenda. I'm not talking about that. Okay, sorry. Thank you though. Hi. So, sometimes I stumbled through what's the right committee or like what's the first reading or second reading so this might be like a finance committee thing but since you're all here now, I think a good time to say it is right now. So do it. I want to offer support for the and give thanks to the city for the budget item that's related to the additional staff for permitting and inspections. I dig into the rental registration stuff a lot. And I have noticed that there is some struggles in permitting inspections and HSO to deal with the volume of new tasks that they have to do in addition to their old tasks. So, I really think that this particular budget line item on the thing is really important. So, I want to give my support for that say thanks that it's on there and then hope that you will all support this as well. And I don't know if I'm allowed to but I hope I am I want to acknowledge the HSO manager. Mr Lenhart who is particularly responsive to my frequent requests for information to the office. He is really good about getting back to me and I'm asking so I think that's great. And if he ends up being the manager of the new staff person I'm sure he'll be a good boss and I think it's going to be very helpful for the efficiency and for the capacity of the office. And one last thing to note. I do think that the rental registration stuff might deserve new software at some point. I don't think it needs to be complicated. It's, I mean nothing is confidential here it's all public records so I even think like a simple some CSV files CSV files and a little and a little Python scripting could probably do it, you could probably ask some students at the computer science programs at USM to put together something as a capstone project and it would be a cool little project for the city and students. So, just put that out there anyway, really I'm here just to say, I support this budget line item for the HSO for the permitting inspections and this extra staff members and I hope you all do too. Thanks. Thanks for your comment Matt. Next we'll head over to zoom where I've got a hand up from George row. George row and over street. The historic preservation board has on its agenda this week, a big project in evergreen cemetery. It's a major expansion for new burial plots, and undergirding that is this idea that the city of Portland wants to be able to allow families and and others who do not already have a burial plot there to have one in the future. And it was a little strange that this is a big project it's going to cost a fair amount of money and it's also going to increase the maintenance of the cemetery over time. That to my knowledge this is not something that our finance committee or any committee of the city council has really dug into and examine closely and giving given its blessing conceptually and financially to this endeavor which is again going to take a lot of time and and it's a great example of how our city council basically is almost irrelevant to so many projects in the city. They get ginned up by staff behind the scenes and they get very very far along. And then the city council finally gets them at some point well down the road and then is completely scared about upsetting the apple cart at that point. And what it does is this is why our tax bills are going up and up and up all the time is there's no control. So I think that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to do it democratically rather at the beginning of these projects that we have some idea of what we're trying to accomplish why we're accomplishing it, whether it's a good idea to accomplish it, and what the guidelines and sort of guard rails are to get what we know, burning a hole through our pockets. So I don't understand why you guys can't see the future when it's all over various agendas of various departments, but it needs to happen because this is exactly where things get out of control. And I don't understand why you're not I mean, as politicians you avoid doing as much work as possible, just because there's only so many hours in the day, but 30 second warning. This is the problem with our city is that projects get really far down the road. And the bill is always coming do without anyone realizing what the implications are until it's too late. I really wish you would dig into these things and ask staff to come to you first, or at least at the same time that they're coming to to round up details about these projects before they're locked and loaded. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Anybody else in chambers who would like to step forward. Okay, I don't see anybody so I'll head back to zoom where we have a hand up from Vivienda a poyo Vivienda a poyo 231 State Street, talking to have the tenant in it. Thank you for the opportunity to address the city council, we would want to start by saying that Portland is simply the best time. In any ways, it's true that main is the way life should be in our little city is a shining example of that. Assistance in the city one of the points of pride is the range of community supporting governance has been enacted by the city, or the examples of these efforts is the verb stabilization ordinance. RSO acts as a defense against success of rent increases across those cities rental housing and health preserve the ability for people who work in Portland to live in Portland. Yeah, RSO does this by limiting the methods and amounts of increases for rents and covered units. In November of 2021 the 25 unit historic apartment building we live in change ownership in the new landlord included a term in the new leases that stated, quote, landlord may charge additional fees for storage and common area maintenance after serving 30 day notice of change of policy. In March the tenants of my building received the notice of the change of policy staying that are included storage was changing to optional and that will be assessed an additional $100 monthly fee if we choose to keep it. We filed a complaint with the housing safety office the HSO as a tenant unit because it's additional $100 is rent being demanded for stores as including our rental units under the definitions of the RSO. Unfortunately has a lot in an email to us from the office of the corporation council the HSO has refused to apply the RSO to our complaint and has demonstrated a dramatic misunderstanding at the RSO in the process. The HSO maintains that the covered unit doesn't include storage currently used by the tenant. However, the RSO explicitly defines a rental unit as including storage held out for use by the tenant. Likewise, the HSO maintains that the rent does not include fees charged for stores by the landlord. However, the RSO explicitly defines rent to include any money is rendered to the landlord for any housing service. Finally, the HSO maintains the changes to the lease fall outside of the scope of the RSO. However, the RSO explicitly rules out any waiver of its rights and rental agreements and calls out the attempt to induce the waiver is being itself a violation of RSO. The definitions of the RSO are clear, but they are not being used by the HSO. Consequently, our rights under the HSO are under the RSO to an investigation of our complaint and appropriate action had been perverted and denied. We are accepting to have the street dressed by the city. However, our concerns have not yet been addressed. We again ask the mayor of the city council and the city manager to look into this matter. We can be reached for comment at Portland main renters rights at gmail.com. Thank you. I'm done. Thank you very much for your comment. Other public comment from chambers or on zoom. I see no additional hands up so I'm going to close public comment on on agenda items and I'd like to move us into the next section of our agenda, which is announcements. I'm keeping an eye out for counselor Ali, but I don't see him. He may be coming. Are there any announcements from my colleagues on the council. I'm going to take an opportunity here to with no script in front of me, acknowledge a week late how difficult last week's public comment period was. Sometimes when I'm up here I do my best to run a meeting, but when these things come at us, it can just hit. And over the past week or so I've been thinking about why didn't I say something. And it's because it's hard to and I'm trying to run this meeting and I want to get through it so that we can take up the business that we have to take up but I feel like I have to say something tonight which is what's been on my mind is how wrong it is to have hate come into this chamber and how upsetting it is for all of us. And for me as I walk through my days I think about. I'm from a big family, my husband's from a big family that means we have, we have big family. We've got nieces and nephews and in laws and. In our family, we've got straight and gay and transgender, we've got depression and anxiety and other issues that people deal with, and I have to imagine everybody else does too. And so, to think about spreading hate, because of who someone is is so wrong, and so upsetting and so I want to apologize that I'm a week late in doing what chair lens did last week which is stand up and say, I can't stand for that I can't stand for hate in this chamber. I can't, I can't stand for bigotry, and I can't stand for anybody. I'm terrorizing someone for who they are. So, I just wanted to put that out there and acknowledge that I should have said something last week in the moment. And the reason that I didn't is because I get stuck sometimes in trying to be the facilitator. But it sits with me and I care, and an attack on an attack generally is an is an attack on people that we all love. I just wanted to say that because to sit through that and to think that people here on this day us and in the chambers are not personally hurt by horrible things that are said is wrong. Because if we look around this table we see people from all backgrounds and people are good people. So I just wanted to say that that it tears me apart that we get public comment that is so hurtful and may fall under the rights of First Amendment, but serve, they seek to dehumanize people. And to me that's just not okay. I'll pull it together for the rest of the meeting. Thanks. Any other announcements. We've got some recognitions tonight. The first recognition actually we're going to delay we have a recognition of a staff, a staff person Ryan Gorno who happens to be on vacation. So we are going to recognize him at our next meeting. I have the opportunity to ask the clerk to please read into the record the recognition that we have for Kevin Farman, Portland's Valentine's Day Bandit recognizing Kevin Farman Portland's Valentine's Day Bandit, sponsored by Keith Snyder mayor. I'm going to stand for this one. I'm going to stand for the recognition that we have members of Kevin's family with us here tonight so I want to thank you for being here. This is a recognition of Kevin Farman Portland's Valentine's Day Bandit. It was revealed last week that Kevin Farman of Falmouth had spent decades as Portland's beloved Valentine's Day Bandit. The meetingly Kevin passed away suddenly a week and a half ago, and his family decided it was time for the community to know that he was the elusive phantom, how bittersweet it was to find out who was the driving force behind this amazing feat. Each February 14 that we all looked forward to the Valentine's Day Bandit has given so much to the Portland community, and his gift of love was anticipated by so many. For decades he put large red hearts on a variety of small and large locations and landmarks from storefronts to Fort Gorges City Hall and construction cranes. And he did it all without wanting attention or recognition. Farman touched countless lives, not only as the Valentine's Day Bandit but also as a photographer chronicling life's events like his daughter's love of sailing with sale main. He also taught at Southern Maine Community College and mentored young photographers trying to get a start in the business. We all hope this tradition continues as it would be a wonderful tribute to someone who brought so much love and so much hope to all of us annually. Considering the outpouring of love and support since learning of his passing. We have no doubt that this tradition will continue. To his wife and three adult children we send our deepest condolences to you, and thank you for sharing Kevin's story with us. We hope you take comfort in the fact that he gave so much of himself to his community and reminded us all that we need more love in our lives. Thank you for being here and I'd love to welcome you to the podium if there's anything that you want to offer or if anybody on your behalf would like to offer. So I don't really know what to say here, but I do think that my mom and I are so grateful. I'm Sierra Farman by the way in case you couldn't tell. I, we're so grateful for the outpouring of support and love that we felt this past week I mean it's made this all a little bit easier on all of us and knowing that we've got our entire city behind us is really incredible and something that he could not have fathomed. As he said he didn't do it for the attention he just did it because he loved Portland and so much so much, and he lived here for 45 ish years and just wanted to make the town a little bit better and he was very genuine person. As much as the bandit touched so many people he wasn't just the bandit. I think that's important also to recognize thank you so much for inviting us here today really we do appreciate it. That's all I got. That was perfect. Thank you so much for being here. Okay, so we will move on with our agenda again thank you all for being here. And we'll move into the approval of the minutes from our previous meeting is there a motion please to approve the minutes from the April 24 meeting. Move passage. Second, counselors are with a second from counselor for near is there any discussion. Okay, we'll go ahead and vote. Councilor for near. Yes, Councilor Rodriguez. Yes, Councilor Dion. Yes. Councilor Zahro. Yes, Councilor Trevorrow. Yes, Councilor Pelletier. Yes, Councilor Phillips. Yes, Mayor Snyder. Yes, the minutes past eight zero, and we'll move on to proclamations. So this one is on me with a clerk please read proclamation 21 proclamation 21 2223 recognizing the 54th anniversary of municipal clerks week sponsored by Kate Snyder mayor. Great. So whereas the office of the municipal clerk, a time honored and vital part of local government exists throughout the world. And whereas the office of the municipal clerk is the oldest among public public servants. Whereas the office of the municipal clerk provides the professional link between citizens, local governing bodies and agencies of government at other levels. And whereas municipal clerks have pledged to be ever mindful of their neutrality and impartiality, rendering equal service to all. And whereas the municipal clerk serves as the information center on functions of local government and community. And whereas municipal clerks continually strive to improve the administration of the affairs of the office of the municipal clerk through participation in education programs seminars workshops and the annual meetings of their state provincial county and international professional organizations. And whereas it is most appropriate that we recognize the accomplishments of the office of the municipal clerk. And it resolved that I Kate Snyder mayor of the city of Portland and members of the city Portland city council do hereby recognize the week of April 30 through May 6 as municipal clerks week, and further extend appreciation to our municipal clerk Ashley Rand, and the city clerk's office staff for the vital services they perform and their exemplary dedication to the communities they represent sign and sealed this first day of May 2023. Thank you. That would be awesome. And next will the clerk please read proclamation 22 proclamation 22 22 23 declaring May 5 2023 missing and murdered indigenous women's day sponsored by April four near counselor. Thanks so much. This week is the national week of action for missing and murdered indigenous peoples and this is expanded from just missing and murdered indigenous women to ensure that our queer two spirit and youth relatives are included. As I read our proclamation you'll notice that the only numbers we have her for women. And these numbers are just best estimates, because for so long these cases have not been tracked data has not been collected and this epidemic has been invisible. We do Portland stands in solidarity with our main tribal regional state and national governments to recognize this epidemic and support a national day of awareness for missing Native American women, and whereas four out of five Native American and Alaska Native women have experienced violence in their lifetime. Whereas as of 2016 there were over 5700 known incidents of missing and murdered indigenous women, and that is estimated to be only half of all cases nationally due to unreported and suicide cases. Whereas in 2017 the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified homicide as the third leading cause of death for Native American women and girls between the ages of one to 44. And whereas just while just 0.2% of the population of the city of Portland and 0.7% of the population of Maine are Native American or Alaska Native Native American women and girls are murdered or go missing at a higher rate than any other ethnic group in the United States. These are the disappearances and murders of Native American women and girls directly correlate to the issues of domestic violence, sexual assault or human trafficking. Now therefore be it resolved that the city council Portland and members and members of the city council do hereby declare May 5 2023 missing and murdered indigenous women's day sign and seal this fifth day of May 2023. Thank you. Thank you counselor for near. Next we'll move into the licenses portion of our agenda we've got several before us this evening so we'll start in on that will the clerk please read order 189 order 189 2223 granting municipal officers approval of Maine ballroom dancing application is for indoor entertainment located at 616 Congress Street sponsored by Daniel West interim city manager. Thank you is there any public comment on order 189. I'm actually the owner of main bottom dance and I hope you all say yes. Thank you for being here dancing there. That's fantastic thank you for being here if we have any questions we know you're right right there for us. So, I'm going to see if there's any other public comment. I just don't see any I'll close public comment on order 189 and look to the council for emotion please. Second, councillor Zahra with a second from councillor Rodriguez. Any questions from the council. Nope we'll go ahead and vote to approve the order. Councilor for near. Yes, Councilor Rodriguez. Yes, Councilor Dionne. Yes, I'll ease absent councillor Zahra. Yes, I'm sorry to borrow. Yes, councillor piloteer. Yes, councillor Phillips. Yes, Mayor Snyder. Yes, order 189 passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you for being here and thank you for doing business in the city of Portland. Maybe we can all do ballroom dancing lessons sometime. That'd be fun. Will the clerk please read order 190 order 190 2223 granting municipal officers approval of the great loss bear application is for class one food service established located at 540 forest app sponsored by Daniel West interim city manager. Thank you is there any public comment on order 190. Thank you for being here. Seeing none I'll close public comment and I'll ask for a motion please. So moved. Second, Councilor Rodriguez with a second from councillor Zahra, any questions from the council. And we'll go ahead and vote. Councilor for near. Yes, that's our Rodriguez. Yes, councillor Dionne. Yes, councillor Zahra. Yes, councillor Tabaro. Yes, councillor piloteer. Yes, councillor Phillips. Yes, Mayor Snyder. Yes, order 190 passes unanimously. Thank you for being here. Thank you for doing business in the city of Portland. Thank you. Order 191 please. Order 191 2223 granting municipal officers approval of cherished pub application is for a class one food service establishment located, or with outdoor dining dining on private property and combined entertainment located at 64 Auburn Street sponsored by Daniel West interim city manager. Any public comment. Thank you. Thank you for being here. I don't see any hands up on zoom so I'll close public comment and I will come back to the council for emotion. So moved. Second. Councilor Rodriguez with a second from councillor for near questions on that order. Council Rodriguez. Thank you, Mayor. I don't have a question as much as I just want to. After that speaks to you. Yeah. Um, I'm a farmer so I live. A few blocks behind. And, um, and I've seen the different iterations that that, um, Building has had from Paris Farmers Union. Um, as a matter of fact, not necessary common, but we still have chickens in our back yard. So I use to photo and buy the feed and got, or actually first chickens came from there, but, you know, since then, you know, the district rep for district five where you're located. And he and I would meet, I live in district five. He and I would meet to grab coffee and talk about things over time and we'd always have to go out of the way. We'd go over, actually, we went and had breakfast ones at the Bayou kitchen over in Stevens. And here they are about to open up a breakfast spot right down the street from us. This is exactly what Allen's corner and our neighborhood has been asking for. I cannot wait to walk over and spend my money in your establishment. He said to help him out. That's what I'm and so I just want to say that. You're going to pick up the tab, counselor. You know what? I'll happily pay for this one. And so as I like to say at least once in these iterations of licenses, I wish you nothing but success and thank you for doing business in the city of Portland. There we go. You've done it. You've done my job. I appreciate it. Any other comment from O counselor Phillips? Just want to say that, you know, the Bayou kitchen is in is in district three. So and that's still an awesome establishment. So I hope that you will continue to maybe go back and forth between three and five. I'll fight you on a mark. Oh boy. Here we go. Counselor Rodriguez just but just to clarify. So Bayou kitchen is going to be running the breakfast spot right here, which is why I named it. So now I can still frequent my favorite breakfast spot to hang out with counselor Diane would be able to walk there from my house. Thank you. Everybody keep track of that. Okay, that's the most fun we're going to have tonight. I've got a motion. I've got a second. Is there any more discussion? We'll go ahead and vote to approve order 191. Counselor Fornier. Yes. Counselor Rodriguez. Yes. Counselor Diane. Yes. Counselor Zaro. Yes. Counselor Travaro. Yes. Counselor Pillitzer. Yes. Counselor Phillips. Yes. Mayor Snider. Yes. That passes unanimously. Thank you for doing business in the city of Portland. I can't imagine he would be disappointed with anything. Okay. Will the clerk please read order 192. Order 192, 22, 23, granting municipal officers approval of hot liquor tank. Application is for class 11 restaurant lounge with outdoor dining on public property located at 43 Warf Street, sponsored by Daniel West interim city manager. Is there any public comment on order 192? Okay. Great. Well, thank you for showing up and being here in person. We always appreciate that. Any other public comment on 192? I don't see any on Zoom, so I will come back to the council for a motion, please. Second. Counselor Rodriguez with a second from Counselor Fornier. Any discussion? I don't see any. We'll go ahead and vote to approve that order. Counselor Fornier. Yes. Counselor Rodriguez. Yes. Counselor Diane. Yes. Counselor Zaro. Yes. Counselor Travaro. Yes. Counselor Pillitzer. Yes. Counselor Phillips. Yes. Mayor Snider. Yes. Order 192 passes and thank you for doing business in the city of Portland. Thanks for being here. Boy, we're almost through our licenses and chambers is really clearing out. Can the clerk please read order 193. Order 193, 22, 23, granting municipal officers approval of taco a go go application is for class one food service establishment with outdoor dining on private property located at zero canal plaza sponsored by Daniel West, interim city manager. Thank you. Any public comment? Just Kevin Doyle represent the ownership group. Thank you so much. Thank you for being here. We appreciate it. If there's any questions, we know where to go. Any other public comment on order 193? I don't see any. So I'll close public comment and I'll come back. Did you have a hand up? Good. Because you can talk during council time. Is there a motion please? So moved. Second. Counselor Rodriguez with a second from Counselor Zaro. Any council discussion? Okey-doke. We'll go ahead and vote. Counselor Pornier. Yes. Counselor Rodriguez. Yes. Counselor Dion. Yes. Counselor Zaro. Yes. Counselor Travaro. Yes. Counselor Pillitzer. Yes. Counselor Phillips. Yes. Mayor Snider. Yes. Order 193 passes unanimously. Thank you for being here and thank you for doing business in the city of Portland. Boy, I got to say this is like a fantastic thing of being back in person. And even though we've been here for a while, like we just didn't get this on zoom. So this is great. Last item under licenses tonight. Will the clerk please read order 194. Order 194, 22, 23 granting municipal officers approval of Novell. Application is for a class A lounge with outdoor dining on private property and indoor entertainment located at 643 Congress Street sponsored by Daniel West Interim City Manager. Thank you. Is there any public comment on order 194? Seeing none. I'll close public comment. Come back to the council for a motion. Move passage. Second. Counselor Zaro with a second from Counselor Rodriguez. Any questions or comments from the council? Counselor Pelletier. Thank you. I'm just going to flex too because everyone was flexing their district. So this is in district two. This is a book bar. I'm really excited. I love to read. You can read and drink wine. So I cannot wait as the district counselor for this amazing new establishment. Thank you. Fantastic. Thank you. Alrighty. We are ready to go ahead and vote to approve that order. Counselor Fornir. Yes. Counselor Rodriguez. Yes. Counselor Dion. Yes. Counselor Zaro. Yes. Counselor Travaro. Yes. Counselor Pelletier. Yes. Counselor Phillips. Yes. Mayor Snyder. Yes. Order 194 passes unanimously of those present and we do thank the owners of, is it novel or novel? Novel. Novel. Makes sense. It's a book bar. Well, thank you for doing business in the city of Portland. You said novel. I read novel. It's a novel idea. All right. Moving on. Okey-dokey. We are now finished with licenses and we will move into budget items. So here's the deal. I'm just going to lay the groundwork here. We have a series of first reads in front of us tonight having to do with the Portland Public Schools FY24 budget. We also have a couple of things within our packet that actually don't require a first read, but we're going to postpone orders 200 and 201 in order to vote on the whole packet at our next meeting on May 15th. So I'll look for that a little bit later when we start moving through this. We're going to have a public hearing on the school budget tonight. We're also going to have a public hearing on the school budget on May 15th. We do ask people to speak at one or the other. So that's pretty standard. We've been getting emails. We're happy to hear from people tonight in Chambers or on Zoom. We're also happy to hear from folks on the 15th of May. So that's where we are tonight. I'm sure most people know this, but the referendum on the school budget will be held on June 13th. So get out and vote. Put that on your calendar. And at this point, what we'll do is we will commence the public hearing. Actually, no. Would you mind reading the orders into the record? And again, I'm just flagging this for my colleagues. Two orders, 200 and 201. We'll actually look to postpone. We can do that after the public hearing. All right. Order 195, 22, 23, approving state, local, EPS funding, allocation for public education from kindergarten to grade 12 for Portland public schools for fiscal year 2024 sponsored by the finance committee. Order 196, 22, 23, approving non-state funded school construction debt service for Portland schools for fiscal year 2024 sponsored by the finance committee. Order 197, 22, 23, order raising and appropriating additional local funds for Portland schools for fiscal year 2024 sponsored by the finance committee. Order 198, 22, 23, approving total school operating budget for Portland schools for fiscal year 2024 sponsored by the finance committee. And order 199, 22, 23, appropriating and raising funds for adult education for fiscal year 2024 as required by the main revised statutes titled 20-A subsection 8603-A1 sponsored by the finance committee. Yes. And order 223 to raise an appropriate local funds for food service in the Portland public schools for fiscal year 2024 sponsored by the finance committee. In order 201, 22, 23, order authorizing the disposition of any additional state subsidy received for Portland schools for fiscal year 2024 sponsored by the finance committee. Great. Thank you. So with that, we will begin the public hearing. If you'd like to address the council here in chambers, just step forward to the podium. And if you'd like to talk to us on Zoom, go ahead and raise your hand, but we'll start here in chambers. Good evening. Brad Hanscom, district five or ward five, Heather Rode in Portland. Over the next two weeks, I know that this body will evaluate the school budget. And I'm grateful that we're here this year because if charter commission question five had passed, then we might not be. Given the fiscal issues that the school district has faced in the last year, it's a relief that this process continues and that I'm here standing here tonight in front of you. Some school board members, some of who are still sitting, spurned overtures from this body for assistance last year with school district finances said that that was political. And I think that any process that has transparency to any budgeting issue, especially on so what is this is a good thing. So thank you for I'm glad to be here tonight. I am concerned about the school budget. Every spring, or just about every spring, the tax rate tends to go up with one exception, and then that would be fiscal year 21. This year, it's roughly a 6% increase. And those have varied between 2.7% and 5% roughly since 2017 with that one year exception. There is a proposed funding cliff. We know that what's coming next year. I'm aware of that. But the continued reliance on property taxes and property tax increases is just not sustainable. So I speak out tonight with concern about the proposed increase. I'm also having spent a decent amount of time reading the materials that the school board proposed and some of the articles in the newspaper concerned or at least want to call attention to some of the language that's been used. I didn't count them, but the number of times that the word investment has been used is striking to me. I would not call them investments. I would call them spending increases. That's really what it is. I've heard the word promise used a number of times is in Portland promise. That's the sort of banner under which the budget is forwarded. Equity, a central tenant in the school district budget and their operations. But I think it's time to get down to some cold hard numbers. So I asked this council take a hard look at the budget in the coming weeks. They're two weeks large. A couple of things to remember are student enrollment has remained flat over the last few years, despite an influx of new manors and folks from out of state. The budget has grown by $30 million over six years. State funding has grown more than it has shrunk since 2018. There are a couple of items that just by way of example, I won't have time to cover them all, but can we get what will happen if free K transportation is not included in the budget? What will happen if, for example, a Wabanaki studies coordinator is not included in the budget? I asked this council to take a hard look at those numbers if they want my support on through 13. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. And then we'll head over to zoom where we have a hand up from Sylvia. Yes, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Okay, great. Yes, I am speaking to express my concerns and recommendations for the proposed Portland school budget. In the midst of recovering from the traumatic effects of the COVID pandemic and stressors of managing the influx of refugee and asylum seekers, Portland city schools need now more than ever more dedicated financial support from the city's finance committee and council. I propose at least a million dollar increase in the school's budget. I am speaking as a board certified psychiatrist, a board certified public health physician, a mother of a second grader at Longfellow Elementary School, I live in Portland, and a community member of Portland. In my professional experience, I've been witnessing the traumatic after effects of the COVID pandemic, especially among our youth that often go under or under not recognize at all, as many of us are trying to find a new normal after the pandemic started data from a PowerPoint presentation by Greg Marley, a social worker and the clinical director of the National Alliance of Mental Illness in Maine shows that since the pandemic depression and anxiety rates have increased, substance use is up across the board. Those already struggling have exacerbated anxiety. For those living in unsupported situations is particularly hard. And in the past decade, there's been a significant increase in suicidal ideation among Maine high school students. And there's been a significant increase in depression among Maine high school students in the last 10 years, mostly driven by female students. The worsening mental health of our youth locally and nationally has been called a crisis. It is not surprising therefore that students behaviors in school have been more problematic. There have been more class disruptions and behavior problems. And teachers are also dealing with worse academic performance of their students. According to the Press Herald, Maine fourth grade mass scores hit their lowest level since 2003. And eighth grade mass scores dropped to their lowest point since 1992. Although no state was spared the academic impact of the pandemic, Maine student test scores took some of the most significant plunges compared with other states. Reading. So on top of this, Portland schools have welcomed many students from families who are refugees and asylum speakers. This year, Portland City has received 756 new people, many families from Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Haiti. Longfellow, we've welcomed at least 10 refugee families this year, yet we are on track to lose two more teachers next year to the budget cuts. We cannot afford to lose more teachers. Now is the time to raise the school budget so that our class sizes do not become larger, so that our teachers have enough support to help children with their academic and social losses from the pandemic and the new refugee and asylum families. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Additional comments here in chambers. Stephen Scharfer, Bracket Street. I'm disappointed that Councillor Dyer and it's not here to hear my comments. The first one to say is that there are no budget cuts in this budget, the school department budget. So her comment at the end, referencing budget cuts is completely incorrect. As a matter of fact, I have identified at least 3.8 million dollars in new spending by the school department in those quote unquote investments. And so the school department can say inflation is the driving factor, but it's not because it is the quote investments that are driving their increase in the budget. I'm not going to go into the four categories. They're in the back of the budget material. I'm concerned about some pieces in the agenda packages. It references a school budget of 136 million dollars when the school budget is really 143 million dollars. That's seven million dollars in budget that is not listed. And it's because the way the state operates and wants us to vote on a budget. We don't even vote on seven million dollars of our school budget. But our agenda package specifies that lower amount to make it seem like it's a lower amount. And that concerns me. I do want to know in order 200, it specifies specifically that the order raises and appropriates zero dollars. What would be the point of an order that raises zero dollars? That's a food service. So I believe that is incorrect. If you look at the order before that for adult education, it references the total amount it's appropriating and the amount that is on the tax rate, which in the case of the food service is zero dollars, but that order is incorrect, I believe, in terms of that it doesn't reference the total amount for the food service. And then lastly, I am completely opposed to, and you should also all be opposed, to order 201, which authorizes the automatic ability for the school department to manage the disposition of any additional state subsidy. That should be in your control and your control only up until you decide what's going to happen there. And so I would recommend, highly recommend that you do not pass that order and allow that to happen when and if there is additional funds. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Any other public comment on the proposed FY24 school budget? Go ahead. Hi, I'm Samuel Rich. I live at 90 Woodford Street in District 3. I just want to let you know that as a homeowner and a taxpayer and a parent of two public school students, I enthusiastically support this budget proposed by our co-interim superintendents. The school system is excellent here and that's why my wife and I moved to Portland. Our children are having an amazing experience as part of the Ocean Earth community. And I feel obliged to support our educators as generously as they have supported us, especially through the pandemic. This budget is exactly what I want my tax dollars spent on. Thank you for your comment. And we have a hand up on Zoom Christian Milneal. Hello, can you hear me all right? Yes, we can. Thank you so much. I would also like to express my support for school spending. I think it's one of the best investments our city can make. And I again will urge the city council to actually invest even more in our schools. I think it's particularly important frontline support for especially for asylum-securing families who are arriving here. And we expect many more of them to arrive here in the year to come. And I want to make sure that the school system is well prepared and well equipped to welcome those families into our city. And generally related, I emailed you some public comments. You know, I know you've gotten some pushback from and concerns about the property taxes going up from the school and for other parts of the school budget. So, you know, related to this, you know, I fully support paying higher taxes for a better school system. But I do think it's a legitimate concern that the tax burden has gone up on, especially on residents and renters in fertility with a revaluation that happened a couple years ago. So as I expressed in my written email, I just would encourage the council to encourage finance staff to look into broad-based tax relief for homeowners and shifting more of the tax burden to commercial property owners who've got huge tax breaks in the last few years, both from the federal government and from the revaluation. So I think there's a way to both increase schools funding and also provide taxpayers, the tax payers who actually live here, some relief. Thanks very much for your service. Thank you for your comment. Any other public comment tonight? Okay. Oh, we do. We've got somebody on Zoom and I'm going to just not pronounce your name correctly, but it's an Irish name and I bet it's beautiful. So maybe you could tell it to us. Your last name is Nugent. Hi. Thank you so much. My name is Ifa Nugent. I live at 56 Moody Street, Portland. I have a second grader at the East End Community School and a four-year-old heading into the pre-K at East End. First of all, I'd like to thank all the council members for all you do for the city and your tireless work within this budget season. I honestly do not envy any of you and appreciate everything you've done for us. But we all know that good, free public education is fundamental to a thriving community. And frankly, it shocks me and saddens me to hear voices complaining about property taxes as a solidly middle-income family. We are property owners, very proud to be living in Portland, and are always happy to have our taxes raised to provide for the community as a whole. And when we talk about investments and promise, we're talking about the future of our children and a better future for all. And specific to the point about no pre-K transportation, that is speaking to specific needs of families who do not have easy access to transportation. That can mean the difference between the ability to get to work and the not the inability to work. And there are so many other things I could say, but I just want to say thank you all for allowing us to be part of this process. And thank you for your help. Thank you for your comment. Other comments. I'm going to close this public hearing on the school budget. We will hear comments again two weeks from now on May 15th. And I want to thank everybody who came out in person or on Zoom to speak to the budget that's before the council for action on May 15th. Before we leave this body of work, I would like to go back to those two orders that I mentioned earlier where I'm going to need a motion to postpone so that we can take up this body of work altogether on May 15th. So I look to my colleagues right now. One will do them one at a time. Can I please have a motion to postpone order 200 to the May 15th meeting? So moved. Second. Councilor Dian with a second from Councilor Zaro. Is there any, I don't think we need public comment on that motion to postpone. Any questions from the council? Okay. So it's again, you'll see it. We'll take it up as a big body of work on the 15th. We'll go ahead to vote to postpone 200. Councilor Fornir? Yes. Councilor Rodriguez? Yes. Councilor Dion? Yes. Councilor Zaro? Yes. Councilor Gervaro? Yes. Councilor Pilatier? Yes. Councilor Phillips? Yes. Mayor Snyder? Yes. Order 200 is postponed. Can I please have a motion to postpone order 201? So moved. Second. Councilor Dian with a second from Councilor Zaro. Any questions on that motion to postpone to May 15th? Seeing none, we'll go ahead and vote. Councilor Fornir? Yes. Councilor Rodriguez? Yes. Councilor Dion? Yes. Councilor Zaro? Yes. Councilor Chabarro? Yes. Councilor Pilatier? Yes. Councilor Phillips? Yes. Mayor Snyder? Yes. Order 201 is also postponed to May 15th. Thank you to members of the school administration who are here with us as well as Chair Lentz who's here with us this evening. We appreciate it and we'll see you soon. Okay. So we are now headed into unfinished business and I want to thank our interim city manager and interim corporation council for helping to think through how to manage this body of work that's coming before us. So here's what I'm going to propose is that we this is an item that was postponed. So we're bringing it forward to be thorough. We're going to take another motion and second in order to get to work on the matter. But what we'll do is tee up amendments. We've already taken public comments. So we're going to tee up amendments. There's additional stuff in the packet tonight. There might be things coming from the floor. Tee it up. And then rather than take the amendments initially, if it's okay with the council and this made sense to me, we'll debate the item. We'll talk about it. We'll have an opportunity to talk about this big body of work, this large body of work that's before us tonight. And once people have their say, then we can take up amendments and take action on amendments in the context of conversation that's been had. Does that make sense to folks? So Councilor Tabarro. Just to clarify. So the commentary before the amendments will be on all of the above. So we'll have the opportunity to tee up any amendments that are kind of out there. So folks are conscious of what may come. And then, but before taking up specific amendments to alter the ordinance before us, we can enter into council debate and get a sense of where folks are so that when amendments are offered and a second is sought, we can make our way through those amendments with a little more efficiency. Okay. Thank you. And I think in order to get into this discussion that we proposed to have, I'm going to ask for a motion, please, to a motion to approve order 171. Move passage. Second, Councilor Trevara with a second from Councilor Fornir. Okay. And now we are in a place where we can start to discuss. And what I'm going to do is start with, I think, Councilor Trevara, you've got some amendments in the packet. Give you the floor to tell us what you've included or anything else you might want to share. And I'll see if anybody else has information that they'd like to share. And then we can get into discussion. Sure. So the item that's listed in the packet under number two, Trevara Amendment 42423 is no longer something that I'm going to offer because it's been incorporated into the Trevara Rodriguez Amendment, which is item number three in the list of attachments and dated today. So that amendment, as I think we understand at this point, the proposal that sort of is on the table as a base point is what came out of work, our last workshop on this. And that was the proposal where we talked about the structure, the June 1st start date for clean elections, the July 15th first potential date to receive clean election funding, the four rounds of funding, and the amounts that were in that original proposal are technically still what's on the table. The Trevara Rodriguez Amendment, and I can let Councilor Rodriguez add anything. But basically, we sought to, we heard from the Council some will to reduce the numbers that were in that proposal, particularly the total disbursement for the mayoral race. So we settled on numbers that were kind of in between the my original proposal and the mayor's amendment that was brought forward at our last meeting. And so the difference with this amendment from what's currently on the table is that the mayoral total potential distribution is 100,000. And the at large council races are 30,000 where before they were 40. And the only other addition I think is that we mimic some language that was in the state law that provides an annual report just to give kind of cumulative data on how the program is going and can prompt kind of revisiting around the parameters as needed over time. I think for those the only Councilor Rodriguez, I'll kind of let you chime in. Thank you, Councilor. Well, I don't have very much to add. I think you covered everything that report, I think was the one kind of big different piece of it. The other things which is adjustments trying to find some sort of compromise between the starting figures that we had and what had been discussed as the amendment from the mayor. So again, we're attempting to find a middle ground, so to speak, in response to what we heard the council were concerns about the spending. I think that's all. And the other thing is that the total cost then is 465,000 for the first year. And then we did look at some projections with the clean elections group did some projections out of our time, which indicated that it's likely that this will be sort of a it'll be funded if we funded at 250,000 every year subsequently, we won't actually need to bump it up in the mayoral years. So previously where I had had a proposal that had it had it funded at a higher level on mayoral years, that's gone away with this proposal. This proposal just has 465 for this initial year and then 250 thereafter. So those are the those are the changes again it was seeking a compromise between sort of the two proposals and we landed kind of right in the middle. Thank you, Councilor Travarro and Councilor Rodriguez. I also have a couple of amendments in the packet so I'll take an opportunity to explain them and then I'll see if anybody else has anything to add. Brendan, did you want to weigh in on that? Just a few points of clarification just so and I this may have been there was a lot of moving parts last last week so I apologize. The subsequent contribution is 290 not 250 just as so it's lowered from the multiple rounds whether it's mayoral or not to just a flat to 290 and then I think the only other thing if I unless I I was trying to skim the qualifying contribution numbers also went down proportionally and then just a we did some math on the dates with the with the city clerk so if there's additional funding under the shortfall provision it quotes 23 days before the election that those funds at no later than for those funds to be distributed we would ask that there be a friendly amendment to make that 22 days because it falls on a Sunday so pushing it to the Monday after once we did the all the days but otherwise I think the summary was was accurate. Thank you for that clarification so I have a couple of amendments in as mentioned earlier my amendment number one that's in the packet is the amendment that was shared last week at our council meeting and what I had done or this the spirit behind that was I was looking at the workshop that we had initially workshop number one and then I looked at workshop number two and I was trying to understand the pathway forward and I I got from some of the discussion on workshop number two that while the structure was supported by the majority of the council there was concern about the overall budget and the FY 24 allocation and so my intent was to seek a compromise between the Charter Commission's final report that and and and what the voters saw with regard to the proposed budget amount which was $260,000 and the $500,000 that was talked about at the second workshop so what I was trying to do with mine was actually compromise between those two numbers between 260 and between 500 so that's why in my amendment number one I decreased some of the funding so for example I decreased the mayor's funding from mayor's the candidates for mayor from 120,000 down to 75,000 for three candidates and made some adjustments to other other races as well so instead of 40,000 for at-large candidates for council I brought that down to 25,000 and essentially where I landed was a $367,000 FY 24 allocation for to fund this program so again I went from 500,000 to 367 and that was that was the compromise that I was thinking the council was looking for after the April 24th meeting so just after our meeting I got some feedback from councillors who were saying we should actually increase the amount of funding to the mayor candidate and and decrease the amount of funding to the at-large city council candidate so that was the spirit behind amendment number two which I had included in the packet because I think I had asked Brandon to draft that on Tuesday or Wednesday after our Monday council meeting again in response to people saying we like your overall budget number but we want to shift how much money goes to a mayor candidate versus a city council candidate and so what you've got in amendment number two there is actually a larger distribution to mayoral candidates up to 85,000 and then a decrease to the at-large council candidates from the original or the first read amount is 40,000 in my original amendment I had decreased that amount to 25,000 and in this amendment number two I decreased that to 15,000 so it was basically a shifting of giving more money to mayoral candidates and a little less money to city council at-large candidates the last thing I will say is when I prepared these two amendments I was looking to fit within the context of the first read so I was just trying to fit within that section under contested races and so I didn't touch other elements of the ordinance that's in front of us I was taking the offset from the qualifying contributions that are in our first read which if my math is right the offset of the qualifying contributions if everybody gathered all of the qualifying contributions that they are eligible to get would be a little over 20,000 dollars and so even though there would be this 367,000 allocation from our municipal annual operating budget there would be an offset of roughly 20,000 dollars maybe a little bit less if not all those qualifying contributions come in so I think I just wanted to mention that that was the context of qualifying contributions that I was thinking about okay are there any other amendments from the floor that anybody would like to offer before we start to discuss the basically the main motion in front of us which is the first read Madam Mayor I have one from the floor I think copies will be distributed by Brandon in a moment Brandon Mazer outside council before I start I want to extend an apology to council Chavarro in our last session on this particular policy question I violated my own line and questioned her motive accusing her of sacrificing good seeking perfect and that wasn't the right thing to say that was directed at you as an individual when really I should have stuck on the topic which was a policy question and not question your motive what your intent was so since I said it publicly I have to give you this apology publicly as well so that said go ahead Councillor thank you Councillor I hadn't even noticed see that's the trouble with me I think about things afterwards and I say I don't think that was appropriate Mark you know so I just want to put that out there because I think we can get passionate about issues but as long as they stay on the issues I think we're successful as a team but if we start to question our individual motives that's where it gets all not good so that's why I just want to put that out there now this particular amendment they put out is a little bit probably seen as radical for the proponents of this underlying motion but I did spend the weekend looking at the charter looking at all the material that's been generated and in my read of the charter I come away with this understanding that the charter contemplates the council has two primary responsibilities one is to pass ordinances that authorize conduct or action by the council or others under its control and the other one is engaged in appropriations and the allocation of monies to further certain goals and outside council had somewhat sent us a message about that issue and whether or not those two functions should be incorporated in one ordinance so I spent the weekend taking a look at that question and as a result I had further discussions with outside council today as well as the mayor trying to determine how to strategize this amendment what it does is simply isolate the bulk of the work around clean elections to an authorizing ordinance it tells us tells the community how we will conduct clean elections with all the categories that have been outlined in its core document what it does remove our references to actual fiscal numbers and would transfer that question to the budget process is where allocations are made and budgets are constructed and I think that's important because it separates or two really distinct questions from each other if you remove the fiscal language from this ordinance it can live on in perpetuity without much modification from any council conversely every council every year will have to engage in a budget process to determine how much money will be allocated to the clean election endeavor moving forward and we kind of know we're going to do that because there's all this talk about mayoral race years non-mayoral race years contested uncontested but how we assign that money and how we distribute it to a pool of candidates are fiscal questions not policy on the question of whether or not we have a clean election mechanism in the city so that's that's what this does it eliminates a lot of the well it eliminates entirety the travaro rodriguez amendment not on its merits but on the fact that it's being it's a question being asked in the wrong forum and therefore that's that's the core premise of this we can pass policy this evening on the question of clean election what we mean by that and then we can have a budget discussion which will end up having every year within the confines and the boundaries of actual budget document as to how much money we allocate here so some of this language that a majority of you might agree to would just be resurfaced in another context and I know someone say it seems like a lot of semantics and I apologize for that because it can seem that way but the reality is there's little support and we got kind of a signal about that for merging what should be a budget decision with a policy and authorization decision the two should remain separate so that's that's the premise of my amendment it's um it's just putting the right questions in their proper spaces as opposed to merging them in one space because we're going to get to visit this in the budget and that's where it should be and I guess in future years its first stop would be at the finance committee to at least draw out the rough boundaries of what that budget would look like and then move it forward to the whole council for their own amendments and interpretations but nonetheless how it processes through as a budget item is what's important that it's a budget item not authorizing language and I'll close with this I know there's some reference in the chart a question that brought clean elections forward around independence I've interpreted that because there are a lot of words in there that are open to interpretation sufficiency viability that as long as it maintains an independent budget line and the clerk's itemized budget it exists and it will exist as long as this council or our successors see to it that it exists and is adequately funded but their their understanding of what sufficiency and viability will change with each council in each cycle of an election as to what constitutes an appropriate budget so that's what this amendment does and I just want you to be able to think about that concept so it's not so much about language but about structure and where things should lie thank you madam mayor thank you counselor dion any other amendments at this time before we get into discussion of the main motion okay I don't think anybody at this moment is is offering additional amendments which doesn't preclude us from having that happen as we make our way through debate so I will open up the conversation to any counselors who would like to just weigh in on where we are at this point in time I'm I'm then I will I'll um I'll be happy to jump in and and just sort of share my thinking I don't I don't um like I said I was I was for me I've been trying to catch up from workshop number one to workshop number two and then our discussion last week and I think I'll just throw out a few things here I actually I think I think it's really interesting counselor dion's separation of the budget decision from the policy decision I'm not at least off the top of my head I can't think of other ordinances where we establish the funds to implement the ordinance within the ordinance itself because of course that's an annual budget decision um and and it will be in this case as well right now we have the city managers recommended um funding in FY 24 for clean elections and if whether that changes in the ordinance or um outside the ordinance it's it's going to be something that we'll have to address through the FY 24 finance committee and council process to establish our annual operating budget I think it's also this the the memo that um Perkins Thompson put together for us after the last meeting I thought was helpful as well um and I think they touched on that in the section five um talking about adopting the charter language with regard to the ordinance and having the funding levels live outside of that so that that makes some sense to me I don't um I regret I I try not to miss too many meetings but I did miss our second workshop and so I I I feel a little bit late to the party but that's my fault um I think that for me I was happy to to offer those two amendments that are in our packet because I I actually really felt like 260 was the number um as the charter commission issued their final report and made that recommendation I thought that's where we were landing and so to to move up to 500 to me felt like too much so but but that again that that sort of budget um and you know we can take that up as we will and and folks will um offer their um their support where they think think things are best um so just generally for me I'll say that um you know I've been in favor of making this as simple as we can for candidates for me that's that's part of the point is to level the playing field and make it easy for candidates so for me I thought a couple of things seed funding without offset makes it easier for candidates so let's not back out seed funding um from the distribution from the city let's let people raise seed money starting on June 1 when they take out their papers to be a clean elections candidate and use that seed funding sorry oh it's June 30th I thought it was June 1st oh but you can declare your you can take your out your declaration intent form on June 1 if you guys pass that if we pass that for this purpose is open anyway so my my thought about seed funding is raise your raise your seed funding spend it we're not going to have account against you I also in our first workshop I liked the conversation we had about the new Mexico model regarding prorating if we establish a certain amount of funding for mayor candidates and there's four instead of three I say prorate the money um without having people go out and do private fundraising because again I think that if you prorate it levels the playing field for candidates and um people maybe are in the mindset that I'm a clean elections candidate shoot I didn't want to go out and have to do private fundraising so I'm I'm more in the camp of let's prorate um and not have candidates who qualify as clean election candidates have to go out and do private fundraising if the funding is depleted on a first come first serve basis um oh I'm also a big fan of clean elections candidates qualifying for the city of Portland ballot before receiving distribution from the municipal clean elections program and I totally acknowledge that this year is difficult because of the timing because we basically say you can't turn in your signature papers until August 14th so that's the earliest you could receive a distribution I could live with that because as many people say and have even said around this this table um the campaign really begins after Labor Day but I understand that the will of the council may be that um candidates need the money before August 14th but I kind of liked that two distribution model that was included in the charter I think the Charter Commission's report contemplated two distributions and for me it made sense to have that initial distribution start as soon as you qualified as a candidate and the second one could be distributed um uh at at that second um date which I think is August 28th um so anyway that that's where I am um I again I I realize I may not be in the majority here um but I thought I would at least weigh in on where I am happy to talk through my amendments and offer those whether or not people uh approve them or or um offer their support up to you um Councillor Diane I'm interested in talking about yours as well because ultimately we're going to take this up at the finance committee anyway um we're going to have to so that's it for me Councillor Travarro. Thank you Mayor um I I kind of feel at this point like we have talked the components of this to to deaf um over the course of several meetings um so I will just restate that they the frame with which I am approaching this is to fulfill what I see as the council's obligation to create a program that is viable and attractive to candidates so that the clean election program can do what clean election programs do which is to prevent private interest from entering into campaigns and to equalize the playing field for candidates who might not otherwise have access to big donors um in order for those things to happen though we have to create a viable program we have to create something that candidates look at and say you know it's beneficial for me to opt into this as opposed to raise private funding and that requires setting the amounts at just the right number if we set the mayoral max distribution for instance at 85 or $75,000 there are going to be plenty of candidates who will look at that and say I can raise that privately and I don't have to deal with all the red tape of clean elections and I don't have to wait until July 15th to get a distribution I can start my campaign right away which has historically been the case in campaigns if we if we were to review the campaign finance reports so to me the numbers that we've come up with in the Travaro Rodriguez amendment are the right numbers and I would ask my my colleagues to go with it and we can see how it works out this year and we can revise it next year with regard to the um to council dion's amendment I I appreciate the rationale behind it um the sort of division between uh policy and procedure and normally I think that um we set policy we don't set procedure however in this case the charter amendment that was adopted by the voters did the policy for us it said that the council shall establish a fund it's it mimics the state law and the state the state has the structure and the funding in in the state statute itself so I think that that is the work that we that is incumbent upon us today it will require a simple budget amendment which we can take up in finance committee to provide the additional funding for this it should equate to less than 0.1 percent on the tax rate to me I think it's worth it to create a viable program this year for candidates and I hope that my colleagues can support that and I'll ask the mayor to let me know when will be the appropriate time to offer that amendment thank you thank you councillor other comments councillor Rodriguez thank you mayor um I don't I don't want to repeat what councillor Travar just said because I think she framed it um very eloquently um I would just say that you know from what I heard um from my colleagues um in terms of the the amounts of distribution um was a bit of like kind of like you know what's it called like sticker shock right like price you know was mind blowing how much money is spent um and I and I sort of sympathize with that but I want to remind us that those numbers weren't arbitrary you know what we're looking at were historical fundraising from campaign so we we actually came down from what had historically been raised in this compromise because we heard that people had like that feeling of it but but we didn't make up these numbers right we were we were basing it on history and I think that if we go really far below what had historically been fundraised we are going to create a system that's not appealing to potential candidates because because they know what others have done and they can expect what their opponents will raise and so again we want to make this an appealing program for candidates um and I think just to to speak a little bit of the the additional language of asking for a report the annual report I think that that was very much I'm trying to acknowledge the fact that we're you know at the beginning we started to talk about this as a pilot program which you know might have not been the right framing because you know it it is what it's going to be it it's just the program that we're setting forward but having that report will allow us to look back and have you know have to have an informed decision based on the information that has taken place after one year um has taken has been used as a one year of usage of the program so I'm I feel like these things have satisfied what the big items that I've heard from the council surface um excuse me that I believe that our compromise amendment has satisfied those concerns that's it thank you thank you councillor councillor Zaro thank you madam mayor uh I think my first question would be for the manager did we buy any chance uh prepare for this evening um for both the Trevara Rodriguez amendment and the Snyder amendment um what the tax rate increase would be depending on no we did not and the reason for that is because we're going to have that discussion in the finance committee this is a separate discussion that we will have there my my budget proposal as the mayor mentioned include in 260 thousand dollars for that um so each each year as I think councillor Diana also express will be happy no matter what the ordinance says we'll be having that discussion constantly and we'll we'll prepare every year obviously for those specific discussions about what the amounts are the council wants to include and then what the tax rate increase would be specifically and so we will be ready for that in the finance committee well lucky me I'll be there um I think but for the context of this year because it is so unusual because we're instituting this for the first time so close to when we'll be voting on the budget that um this year our vote this evening unless we we move towards councillor Diana's from the floor we will be setting it based on one of these amendments we will we will speak that that's what we're looking at this evening it's still going to require an amendment to my proposed budget and the finance committee okay it's actually procedurally a really interesting point um thank you for flagging that um okay so for me I said last week that I was somewhere in between you know what the mayor had brought last week it's since changed a little bit and what the original proposal was and and tried to find something that was in the difference this week as well and it was evident that that wasn't going to happen I do think that uh listen either way whichever amendment we're looking at right now at the exception of councillor Diana's from the floor I think that we are looking at a lot of red tape I think we are looking at a lot of layers that I would be very surprised if this time next year that the council that is working on this next year is not going to be working diligently to kind of fix the you know what we learn over the next you know few months I think we all know that is probably going to be the case um I still have a little sticker shock I'm one of the ones you named councillor although I know that the investment is important I'm I'm trying to figure out though if we should be setting this for what we want to see as the outcome of how much money should be in this versus the reality of what the the market for lack of a better term dictates for candidates in in this in these races so that's that's kind of what I'm stuck between right now but I feel like for me at this point I would have loved to be able to look at tax rate potential increases for this but obviously we won't do that right now um that was my only question at this point I think for for me at this point I'm still having a hard time seeing uh such a jump from what we what voters voted on in November to see such a significant increase although I think the merit of it is you know it's coming from a good place and I know we want it to be competitive I just think it's so subjective that what might be competitive in my opinion is going to be so different from what you think and then looking at you know the last few years of races and how much was actually spent versus what we're looking at potentially spending so that's just a little uh snapshot into what I'm I'm thinking at this point thank you thank you councillor Zaro next was councillor Phillips and after councillor Phillips I saw I end up from councillor Pelletier I um I first want to um um appreciate everybody's extremely hard work on this we've had several conversations about it um and um I do think we want to get it to a place where it's pretty perfect because that's what we need to do for the folks out there that are thinking about running and being clan elections candidate um and so um and we've also done a lot of research we've everybody's done research and from what I hear and what I understand is these numbers didn't didn't just appear on a page these numbers were numbers that were really thought out and they were researched because that is what was that was what was um spent um on previous um elections um and so these weren't just and I know nobody's saying that they just weren't arbitrary um numbers um and so because of that I've I've taken a look at this I've talked to a lot of different different people um I um I I think that I can clearly see at this point in time that I do support the Travaro Rodriguez um amendment um that has been put for us and um and that's how I plan to vote tonight thank you councillor next to you councillor Pelletier thank you I'm going to try and keep it short and sweet too I like that energy um we have talked about this a lot uh and I think for me it comes down to I I really want us to fully fund this program um you know it's really important that we set a precedent for this program because it's the first of its kind here and this was supported by the voters this was so this was enacted by the charter and supported by the voters the language in the charter recommendation was to fully fund the clean elections program and I know we've talked about like playing semantics with words I don't want to play semantics with the words fully and fund and figure out what they mean or how much we should put in it just means to fund it adequately and I think the amendment that was provided by councillors Travaro and Rodriguez um I would have actually liked to stay at a higher amount that we were at at the last meeting but I think that that represents a compromise within that within that amendment and I think as it was stated um several times now these are not numbers that are made up these are numbers that are pulled from data and this policy is being crafted from data and this is the this is like the workflow um and the process that I know people love in here so we are doing the workflow in the process um and I think that this needs to be a competitive program and I'm worried that we're not really investing in this in the way that I think that we should be um and I'm also very aware that we invest significant money in many things without having this much of a conversation so I think we invest in this program um and we move forward with doing what the voters have asked us to do in terms of this clean election program um and and really again take the data that was pulled and and support that and support the compromise because again I think we went significantly lower than what we were at at this last meeting so I'm definitely in support of fully funding this program the way that we were asked to the way it was written in the charter um you know and and I think we owe it to the voters who are asking us to do this and what what was written in the charter is to actually move move forward with that I know we've talked about it a ton um and I know there are a lot of other amendments out there but I I do think that again it is on us to make this program start as successfully as possible and I'm concerned that if we if we backtrack or if we don't start out with funding it that we're never actually going to fund it like I'm worried that if we set this precedent of not funding it or not funding it as much as maybe we would like to that we're really setting ourselves up for failure in the coming years so thank you thank you counselor can I jump in with a quick question to attorney maser and um this is not this is a genuine question because I want to make sure that I'm really understanding things correctly and again I missed that second workshop so you know this this document here um what's the title of top well it was it was it was it was it was handed out at the second workshop and it's it's called the counselor travaro proposal and on the back it has kind of a funding um schedule and when I was trying to understand all this I was talking to you and I said is there and I think I had had a conversation with uh council Rodriguez as well I was trying to understand the the data that fed you know any one of our um of our proposals here and you had said to me I think and this is where my question is you said there's historical data that tells us the number of candidates for whom we are targeting funding so three mayor candidates out large candidates so on and so forth but so am I correct in saying that the number of candidates was based on historical data a 10-year look through the clerk's office the number on yes on the on that one it was my original for the first workshop I gamed it out with just some random not looking back Paul right from the clerk's office provided me the data so other than the very first mayoral year which had I think the team candidates so we kind of threw that out it was uh based on the historical 10-year and we looked at specifically the seats that are up this year so seats uh districts uh four and five at large we just took at large generally and and took the average so what I'm trying to get at here is the we used historical data to kind of define how many candidates do we think we'll see on the ballot and who might need to qualify for clean elections but and again I could be wrong here my sense was that we had wondered about the historical data to inform the amount of funding for a candidate but you had said that we never actually got that is that right or do I have independently analyzed that back in January the council received a memo from the main citizens for clean elections which had put in some some numbers had what looked like reviewed historical data so when we did our first draft for the very first workshop we said we just used those numbers so that's where the $120,000 so it is based on historical data not that we independently verified but came from that January memo for was that a 10-year look back roughly it depended on the seat there were some that I think went slightly further back but average about 10 years okay thank you for the clarification Councillor Fournier you had a hand up thank you I'm trying to remember what I was going to ask I think you know the first thing I I believe in clean elections so much that I signed on to a lawsuit against the city for it and I couldn't be part of our deliberations when we were talking about it and eventually took myself off and so for me you know I think yes and councillor Travar and I had a conversation about it councillor Rodriguez and I had a conversation about it you know the initial numbers are it is a sticker shot because you're like why are we spending $100,000 on a mayoral race for a city with less than 70,000 people however I have to then walk that back a little bit in my brain with what I do for work every day I go around the country talking to people who are everyday citizens who have never had the opportunity to have a voice or be a participant in a race who are competing against people who have significant real estate connections or significant political connections when we look at Alaska you have populations that are 75% native and yet have never held a municipal or county seat that makes the decisions that directly affect their population and so while yes that's a sticker shock to me I think I spent maybe $11,000 on my own last at large campaign I try and remember who this program is designed for and it's really designed I know it's designed to keep you know some of the influence out of elections it's designed to level the playing field and also create opportunity for people who historically have not been able to run and sit in these seats competitively so while I appreciate that it is a little bit more than I would feel comfortable spending on my own campaign I am thinking about who else this program is designed for and so I am in full support of the amendment brought forward by councillor Rodriguez and councillor Trevara this evening I also appreciate the reporting mechanism in which we can look at how did it go and bringing it back next year what do we need to do to adjust it that's that's what we do as we review everything every year how do we need to fix it how do we need to adjust it that's part of continuous improvement and so I do believe we need to make a good investment this first year to make it viable so that people feel comfortable stepping in and doing it knowing that they would have likelihood of having their full campaign funded and so that is where I'm at this evening thank you thank you councillor councillor dion this is a tough one I've spent some time thinking about it but I'm going to vote against this measure okay I I've got to go home and sell it to my constituents that the sticker shock makes sense I can give a worthy speech I think I'm capable of that but I just spent the weekend at a neighborhood meeting of 30 residents and they hit me pretty hard on taxes and they pointed to their kids and they said can we afford to live here anymore and I know that sounds dramatic but that's a real thing for real people I now want to sound like councillor because oftentimes she says exactly what I'm thinking that I don't have to speak but when it comes to this pre-candidate status I can't get there I'm sorry either you're a candidate or you're not I just this pre-candidate and this trust me I'll give you the money back if it all falls apart I'm sorry I can't do that either and we heard that we'd have to have a collection effort that means staff time and it's fruitless in my private life I know how you can get a judgment but can you collect pretty unlikely and that's why I said we need to be honest that if we give somebody money they go gee golly was I'm out that we have to eat that debt and that's not going to look good to the public either and then the other piece I thought about is remember I talked about simplicity I think a system especially for neophytes coming in as candidates who don't understand systems the cleaner it is the more linear it is the easier for them to participate participate but actually by actually campaigning not worrying about forms deadlines where do I show up get my money we've put in so many steps here and I actually worry about the city clerk staff they're overburden and now we have all these reporting dates all these candidates coming in for their cash out to me that's if I'm going to support it it's got to be really simple very clear with few decision points attached to it so and I firmly believe in the proposition I said to you all earlier is the policy of clean elections belongs in an ordinance and the financial questions belong in a budget process no other function of city government that we isolate those two components into one ordinance you know I'm sure other department heads say how come I can't get an ordinance and make life a lot easier that we could just show up to the finance committee with our ticket punched here's our cost not to be questioned I think the finances of this process or any other process has to be questioned against the context of an entire city budget not in isolation so I suspect I might even be a minority of one this evening you know so I'm going to borrow Councillor Phillips comment well my decision doesn't count does it I think it does I think if I am a minority voice it creates a record for others starting to take it some future cycle but it has to be said and I have to say that my constituents as well thank you thank you Councillor I don't I don't think you're going to be a minority of one because I think I'm going to be joining you I I feel like we have spent meaningful work on this and I don't want to I fully respect the outcome of the council you know we that's where we are and and I can live with that but for me I feel like we went from a packet from Perkins Thompson at workshop one to a first read product out of workshop two that was kind of a it's a full ordinance and so when I dove into this after the second workshop I thought how can I fit into this this drafted ordinance that that challenges me in a couple of different ways I I did notice I felt like we're writing a we're we're writing an annual budget decision into ordinance and then I thought well how can I fit in there by offering an amendment that at least lowers the amount because I wasn't comfortable with the 500 000 but but I didn't think there was room for the things I talked about a little bit earlier tonight like do you need to qualify for the ballot before you get taxpayer funded distributions and and and other things so I'm again I'm not suggesting that we that we all need more time to work on this if if I had I again when I held this up last week and I was like I'm trying to fit within this you know this this big ordinance I really thought we could we could spend six months on this um and and and I would because I think it's that important I do think that a municipal clean elections program is a great opportunity for people I think it does offer access which is really important I ran in 2019 I raised a bunch of money but I didn't raise as much as the people I ran against and at that time there was a lot of criticism about how much money we were all raising so I actually don't think you need 100 or 120 000 to run a campaign I did it I don't think you need to do tv I did tv but I don't think you really need to in a city of 68 000 people so for me there's just too much here that that causes me um pause I I think the multiple rounds of distribution is a ton on the clerk I actually think it's a ton on candidates as well I I feel like we don't have a clear handle on what those qualifying contributions will bring into the city because there's some there's some flex there so I you know like I said I mean as with all things I can I can live in the minority but I'm I'm probably not going to get there for 500 000 or 465 000 and I think there's other things here that that need to be addressed and I have I have the time and I'm happy to stay around tonight and and talk about specifics of the ordinance that we've got in front of us like I said I'd I'd love to make sure that people qualify for the ballot before we start to distribute funding I think that as councillor Dion was saying right now we're asking taxpayers in the city of Portland to fund candidates we've never done that before we've never said we're going to collect your taxpayer dollars and ask you to fund campaigns so again in a town of 68 000 people it seems like a lot to to to to dedicate to political campaigns that's where my sensibility is I think we could do it for less I think I could I could support the dollars that I put forward but I don't think the rest of the council is going to be there with me but that's where I am so let's counsel Rodriguez mayor I guess I would want to formally move or make a motion for the amendment that's labeled or that's titled the trouble Rodriguez amendment to 2023 501 so we have a motion to amend order 171 I think I'm on the right number there do I have that right motion to amend order 171 from councillor Rodriguez and we're we're looking at the amendment from the councillor Travarro and councillor Rodriguez second councillor Travarro with a second is their discussion on the amendment Brandon do you have something to add just with the change in the 22 23 days to the 22 days would all it would be all I'd ask if we can amend that from the floor you can do that as friendly yeah thank you point of order this chair council dion a question for the chair should my floor amendment come forward at this juncture because if if it prevails then of course the Travarro Rodriguez amendment would not exist so I think just as a matter of process my amendment should be considered by the body first I I looked at corporation council maybe for a little guidance on this front because conversely one could argue if their amendment prevails yours becomes moot is that true okay okay given the way that given the structure given the way the other one there are structural procedurally the amendments that I have offered I think have become moot I mean I could offer them but I think I'm sort of in a position right now where I'm feeling like after debate I don't know if it's really worth offering them formally we could take them up in order to to address them well they haven't they haven't been moved yet right right it's been sort of generally discussed that's right yeah same with all of them right correct so my question is do we need to take up councillor dion before we take up councillor Travarro and Rodriguez is in order to address it or is it addressed once we take up the Travarro Rodriguez amendment I would I think I would advise taking up the dion amendment first okay is that okay with two of you we'll suspend the Travarro Rodriguez amendment for the moment and take up the dion amendment that's fine with me so I'll I guess I'll withdraw my motion okay and then we'll come back to you okay councillor dion would you like to make a motion I move the adoption of a floor amendment creating a division in the underlying motion sending all fiscal matters contained therein to the finance committee and the remainder of the remainder of that underlying motion to be decided by this body as outlined in the amended document that was distributed to council today uh councillor dion I'll second your amendment is there any discussion on the amendment thank you for offering it and we'll go ahead and vote on it councillor pornier no councillor Rodriguez no councillor dion yes councillor Zorro no councillor Travarro no councillor Pellett here no councillor Phillips no mayor's letter yes that amendment fails six to two and uh so now we're back and I'm going to look to councillor Rodriguez once more as I move to amend order 171 with the amendment that's titled the Travarro Rodriguez amendment on the package thank you um councillor Travarro with the second is there discussion on that amendment councillor Zorro thank you mayor I just have I meant to ask this before and then got distracted for this amendment it would apply to yours as well if you were to be considering it um we vote on these numbers they say they pass that is not binding next year correct it's not binding in the FY 24 budget until we vote on the FY 24 budget and the next sessions council can come in and say nah we're going to change this completely correct by by amending the ordinance right right that the having the having the the the numbers in the ordinance the ordinance the ordinance is being approved by the council and it can be amended by the council through the same process okay I just didn't know I don't feel like that was named tonight and I needed it to be to clarify there's a notion in law that you can't bind future legislatures so regardless even though you can put it in the ordinance and this year you'll put it in you'll have to amend the budget as the city manager mentioned to properly match this number but next year it's going to be a whole new process and you can't require the council to to match the 464,400 for next year's budget same similarly um that's why for the additional funding language you couldn't force the council to appropriate additional funds you can go through your process and vote to appropriate additional funds but you can't sort of predetermine that those funds are going to be issued is that like this this that clarifies so but the number is pretty much irrelevant for for next year's budget process you'll have to go through and sort of redo this and I think getting to the report that helps a little bit but and Brandy can I just ask a follow-up on that and so essentially I think what you're saying just correct me if I'm wrong it's just that we're not bound to it next year and so therefore it's basically unenforceable essentially it's unenforceable it can be used as a guiding post but it's it's unenforceable to on future councils and future councils mean future council so when you see in December or January it's it's a new council and and that direct line item is is unenforceable all right thank you that's helpful and I misspoke I didn't mean to say irrelevant I meant not binding um but you've you've done a good job of painting that picture for me thank you that's all thank you counselor I have a I have a quick question under the short all provisions of the amendment um it a couple things so the first is it says um if if there's additional money needed the city council may by resolution appropriate additional amounts um this is totally semantics but I figured I'd ask wouldn't that be an order or would that be an order rather than a resolution if it was a city council action to appropriate additional funds right it would I think it would I think that's why I'm asking just in case we can decrease confusion in the future so the language um I pulled from this budgetary policies and procedures I didn't want to bug Brendan through this process since you're in the middle of budgetary so in the execution um it states and I just pulled this the city council may by resolution appropriate additional amounts only up to the amount of excess revenues in an unencumbered budget surplus remaining after the purpose of the original appropriation has been satisfied at the end of the fiscal year all in unencumbered appropriations laps unless specifically continued so we just pulled that language from city of Portland budgetary policies and procedures so it references resolution I can certainly try to meet meet the power lands that's accurate but that's where I think the mayor may be correct I think that we would normally um execute that with an order um I think the resolve that you're mentioning is the appropriation result that we approve every year as part of the budget process but it would be a subsequent I think order following that up it's just semantics but I think that could be um that would be resolved just by a change of that word so it would be the city council made by order instead of by resolution so we could do that by a friendly amendment would that be the preference so that's fine um thank you so I leave that up to the authors if you want to offer that up the other quick question that I had under the shortfall provision was and just just to this isn't even part of it just to be clear that if a candidate doesn't receive the full fund and contemplated for their race they could raise money privately right okay yeah so the first thing that would happen is if the fund becomes depleted then it comes to the council the council decides whether or not to replenish the fund in the event that the council decides not to replenish the fund then the candidates can raise private dollars up to what they would have qualified for under the clean election okay thank you thank you for the clarification that's that's it for my questions can I have a question would they get initial this distribution with clean elections funding and then we're saying that they can then raise private funds so it would be the intent at least here um is once it hits the $25,000 in the fund the clerk's office would would come to the council as for additional appropriations um if the council chooses not to appropriate additional funds that candidate would then be able to still they have to go out and collect their qualifying contributions in order to sort of trigger that release and raise the funds sort of as a in essence like a traditional candidate up to $500 contributions from an individual up to the amount that they would have received so as an example if for whatever reason a mayor's candidate a candidate for mayor did not get the fully funded and they let's say they got none for supplemental they would be able to go out and raise the first round of $20,000 for a supplemental distribution because that makes sense i'm hoping i'm not confusing it by using numbers but um they still have to qualify for that round of supplemental funding and can only raise what they would have otherwise received so if they if there was still a little bit in the fund and they got $5,000 out of the fund they would only be able to raise an additional 15 traditional so yes i'm sorry i think i think as long as there are funds available in the election fund then you disperse on a first come first serve basis arguably they're going to bring in some money because of the qual not a time but because of the qualifying contributions that's likely going to go into the fund and come right back out to the candidate um but that if it's depleted likely they're going to be having to go out and traditionally fund so there is going to be and this is contemplated to be truly first come first served so if somebody gets it in at 1101 that that candidate should be certified before somebody that turns in their paperwork at 1102 one other quick question um the the amendment does contemplate fewer qualifying contributions from each level of candidate from the first read ordinance is that right yes i think it was just in the first around and the idea is that they're qualifying for less funds so they should have to raise less qualifying contributions okay so like i'm just looking at the difference so instead of 345 qualifying contributions total total um it would go down to 300 for the mayor i don't have it in front of me so i so yeah so um the subsequent number of qualifying contributions goes down so the increment of a hundred additional qualifying contributions or total you can do it three take three rounds so it's instead of 345 it's 300 so it was lowered from 115 to 100 um similarly for all the way down down the ticket the initial did not change and i'd have to go back to the actual whole amendment to to look at what that's right it's i was i misspoke it's so the initial round stays the same it's the supplemental round is that right thank you i figure we're all going to get asked questions about this so it's it's good to ask the questions while we're here tonight any other questions on the rodriguez travaro amendment councilor travaro i i don't have questions i just um you know i don't want to delay our process here but i just thought i would address a couple of things that have come up and i appreciate where everybody's coming from on this um with regard to the early um disbursement which happens before nomination petitions get fully verified um and we talked about this last time but um my level of comfort comfortability comes from the fact that they're only going to be eligible for the uncontested amount at that point and that they have to sign that affidavit and i agree with councillor dion that you know it may be very challenging to enforce that we can follow somebody around with a money judgment to every place where they go as long as we have that enforcement um but i think that the the challenge of collecting nomination signatures compared to the challenge of collecting qualified contributions um is is so much less significant that it's unlikely that we're going to run into a scenario where somebody who qualifies for clean elections doesn't then go on to qualify as a candidate and this is only for the first year we i think it's incumbent upon this body to i think um our deadline to um put forward a charter amendment would be sometime i think in august to change that nomination petition timeline so that it can be in accordance with the clean election fund for going forward um so that's that's one and and granted i i recognize this proposal is taking a little bit of a leap of faith from some of my colleagues both in terms of numbers and in terms of the structural components but i think it's it's worth it to create a program that candidates are going to use the other point that i just wanted to address um councillor zaro your contemplation of whether the the maximum distribution should be what we have seen historically versus what we would like it to be i think um the the line that we begin to cross when we when we go with what we think it should be is whether candidates are going to actually use it or not and if candidates don't use it if this program doesn't get maximum participation then it doesn't do what it's supposed to do um so you know it's in the spirit of creating a really robust and workable clean elections program that um that i think we've offered this amendment and we hope that you'll support it thank you thank you councillor other discussion on the amendment before us okay we'll go ahead and vote councillor fornier yes councillor bradriguez yes councillor dion no councillor zaro no councillor trabaro yes councillor pelletier yes councillor phillips yes mayor sider no so the amendment passes five to three so we're back at the main motion as amended here we go main motion as amended so discussion on that because our next logical step will be to vote on the ordinance that's been amended before i forget though you said we need to make an amendment tonight from the floor about something kind of clerical and i want to make sure i don't forget to do that can you tell me what it is again i think there are just two minor wording changes within the trabaro bradriguez amendment um and i'll look um the corporation council on the procedure but it would be changing the word resolution by resolution to by order under subsection 966 f under the shortfall provisions and changing the 23 day reference to to 22 days was that i think we did that i think those done by family amendment at the yeah i think both of those were addressed by then i think we're we're good because the trabaro the i think the clerical thing that you may be referencing mayor was um we changed the timing in councillor trabaro and bradriguez amendment for the city clerk those were not included in your amendments and i didn't want to lose sight of those if a different amendment went forward but i think we are as long as those pass with a friendly amendment then i think we're okay and we can work those changes in so so section nine dash 66 had two changes um under subsection now some subsection f so instead of by resolution we say by order and instead of 23 days before the election it's 22 days before the election i believe that both of those issues were corrected earlier in the discussion after the after the motion was made okay but but i and i just want to double check um actually 22 days works because it'll be the monday it'll be the monday yep okay doke we've got it recorded okay doke so we again we're back at the main motion as amended further discussion thanks everybody for for hard work here i'm i'm you know i've i've used my five minutes tonight um i'm not going to vote in favor of this tonight and it's um but i also want to be clear that i'm very appreciative of my colleague in particular councillor trabaro your leadership on this issue and the work that the community has has done and and other councillors as well i i'm i'm uncomfortable with the budget amount i'm uncomfortable with distributing taxpayer dollars to people who haven't yet qualified for the ballot i'm uncomfortable with putting budget allocations in an ordinance so those are the that's my rationale it's not that i don't appreciate and support the implementation of a municipal clean election program and and i know that this will pass tonight but i feel like i have to for the record say that i have some reservations about the decisions that live in here and i do hope that we can work together as a council well before august to get a question that will be on the november ballot to voters to make sure that the dates to qualify for for an upcoming ballot are much more realistic so that we don't run into that problem i know i'm being a little bit strict here with regard to qualifying for the ballot i recognize that's not going to happen until august 14th this year and people would like to get money before that so i appreciate where that where that's coming from and i'd be happy to take the lead and make sure that we've got the work in front of us to put that on the ballot for the voters in november and again we will take this up during budget time so we'll we'll just need to make sure that we have that discussion in the full context of the decisions that we're making but for me i just it doesn't it doesn't feel like we're quite there yet okay i think we're ready to go ahead and vote on order 171 as amended councillor pornier yes councillor bradriguez yes councillor dion no councillor zaro no councillor dravaro yes councillor pilots here yes councillor pilots yes mayor sider no order 171 passes five to three again thank you everybody for your contributions and thoughtful deliberation give me a minute while i find my agenda well the clerk please read order 176 i'll take your time to make pieces of paper all right order 176 appoint 22 23 appointing members to various boards and commission commission sponsored by the legislative and nominating committee mayor kate sider chair thank you is there any public comment on order 176 go ahead hello my name hello my name is matt walker i am one of the nominee one of the four nominees for the one on the nominated for the rent board seat and uh i really don't have any comments i'm just here to say that i noticed that there was some comments made about me so if you have questions about those i'm happy to answer anything you want thanks thank you mr walker seeing no other public comment on order 176 i'm going to close public comment and come back to the council for a motion please move message second councillor zaro with a second from councillor fornir is there any council discussion um councillor fornir thank you um one of the things i just want to bring forward and you know i served on the police citizen review subcommittee um we've all served i think in various capacities and i think in our in our lives outside of our elected role or appointed role we we are humans who have opinions who have beliefs who have biases um and we'll say you know things that are on our mind i will say things on my instagram about what i'm mad about um like when nazis come to portland i get mad about that um and so i don't think that makes me any less qualified to sit here and do the work of the council and be objective to read the ordinance language that's in front of us to listen to the deliberations of my colleagues um and do the job that i was elected to do and so while i appreciate the the public comment that came forward and the concern i also feel that as our um committee members you know take their oath to fulfill that office they're going to do that and we should trust them to do that until they give us cause not to and i think the chair of any of these committees as they have in the past will come to the council and provide feedback if that's not happening or if someone is acting out of character um so i feel comfortable with the slate that we've advanced when we've reviewed these candidates we've interviewed them um as a nominating committee um and i feel comfortable appointing them as we had them on a slate before but um i just wanted to mention that you know i do recognize some people might be controversial because of how outspoken they are in the community um i appreciate those members um but i do feel like as soon as we take that oath to fulfill what we were appointed to do um we're doing it um as best as we can so thank you thank you councillor other comments i will say as the chair of the legislative and nominating committee um how important it is for community members to step forward and raise their hand and be willing to serve in these volunteer roles so we appreciate that from everybody um we continue to have a lot of vacancies on boards and commissions and so we really encourage um people to uh step forward and um and take part in our city's government in this way um we don't you know we we don't always have a lot of people stepping forward so it's our job i think as councillors um and and my job to make sure that we're we're um getting the word out there whenever we have a round of interviews coming up and really encourage people to to engage and councillor fornier as you said once you once you take that oath and you're in that role you're performing a function on behalf of your community and while we all come with our opinions and biases we also kind of sometimes set aside some of our own personal um agenda and and perform the work you're in a role um so there's always a clause for folks if they need to recuse themselves if there's reason to do so there's always corporation council's office to work with to understand that um that process whether it's required or whether it's something that somebody would want to contemplate so um uh i'm happy to support this late tonight and um thanks to all who have applied okay let's go ahead and vote on order 176. Councillor Fornir? Yes. Councillor Rodriguez? Yes. Councillor Dion? Yes. Councillor Zauro? Yes. Councillor Trevorrow? Yes. Councillor Pelleteer? Yes. Councillor Phillips? Yes. Mayor Snyder? Yes. Order 176 passes unanimously of those present will the clerk please read order 202. Order 202, 223. Proving modification one to the agreement between the main department of transportation in Portland regarding the union branch trail connector sponsored by Daniel West Interim City Manager. Thank you. I think uh Bruce Hyman may still be on the meeting uh and we'll speak to the side of them. Bruce is here. Thanks for being with us Bruce. Do you want to walk us through this? Yes we'll be pleased to. I'm gonna I can basically just answer any questions if they are. I had to have some graphics if that would help explain some things that I can bring up on my screen. I might be inclined to do that if that's all right with you. Yes that's fine thank you. So tonight I'm presenting a modification to an agreement that was signed by the city manager last year after the council's adoption of the order basically to extend some trailway planning work that is anticipated to continue for the next year as part of the the land swap that the city council executed last year with the main department of transportation two planning processes were put in motion as a result of that. Basically we got the union branch rail corridor from state streets to park avenue as part of that land swap. We got the money to design that pathway which is an 80-20 percent split for the design piece but we received 100 percent of construction funding that we anticipate to construct next year of approximately 2.8 million. That would leave a gap in our circumferential pathway network between approximately park avenue Hadlock field and the four river parkway. So that second agreement that we signed last year with the department allocated the preliminary planning for the pathway that would connect the dots basically between park avenue and the rail corridor in the four river parkway trail that would complete that base side trail extension the union branch pathway then the Libby town segment of that parkside to Portland transportation center four river parkway trail. Last year's agreement was for $40,500 to get that planning and design process started as part of the just adopted work plan by the main department of transportation. The budget was increased to up to $250,000 from the $40,500 that was allocated previously. That would increase our local match from the $8100 for that $40,500 to up to $50,000 for that $250,000 planning and design process that we complete that design process. We're still in the route decision point will be going to the sustainability and transportation committee and the public in the next couple of months to have put out our ideas in terms of how we're going to connect these red dots with the pathway bikeway connection. The CIP allocation for the local match was allocated for the increase up to that $50,000 was allocated as part of the FY 24 CIP process in anticipation of getting these additional funds to complete the design process for this important gap in the pathway network. Happy to answer any questions or at this point in time if there are any. Thank you, Bruce. The council can come to you with any questions that we've got, but first we will see if there's any public comment. So is there any public comment on order 202? I do not see any in chambers or on Zoom, so I'll close public comment and come back to the council for a motion. Move passage. Second. Councillor Fornear with a second from Councillor Rodriguez. Council discussion. I don't see any. Bruce, thanks for hanging in here with us and for offering that explanation. It's pretty, it's it's explanatory and the materials in the backup are really helpful. Thank you for the work that you do and we appreciate it. We'll go ahead and vote on order 202. Councillor Fornear. Yes. Councillor Rodriguez. Yes. Councillor Dionne. Yes. Councillor Zauro. Yes. Councillor Trevorrow. Yes. Councillor Palatier. Yes. Councillor Phillips. Yes. Mayor Snyder. Yes. Order 202 passes 8-0 and now I look for a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. Councillor Fornear with a second from Councillor Rodriguez. We'll go ahead and vote. Councillor Fornear. Yes. Councillor Rodriguez. Yes. Councillor Dionne. Yes. So there's that arrow. Yes. Councillor Trevorrow. Yes. Councillor Palatier. Yes. Councillor Phillips. Yes. Mayor Snyder. Yes. This meeting is adjourned. Thanks everybody.