 Hi, I'm Lisa Savage and we're here for our seventh episode of Pathways to Progress. I'm speaking with Victoria Pelletier and Roberto Rodriguez. They're just finishing up their first year as city counselors here in Portland. Been quite a wild ride, hasn't it? They've learned a lot and they're here to discuss city business with us tonight. But let's check in with them first. Roberto, I understand you went to the Common Ground Fair today. How was that? It was amazing. I love going to the Common Ground Fair. Have not been there, but they didn't hold it for two years and then came back last year. I didn't go. So we spent the whole day there. Today's the first day, so you figure it's like the less busy one, but it was packed. So there's so many folks out there and there's also the school days, a lot of the school children out there and that's awesome. Got to go with a couple of my coworkers from cultivating community, which is really special. And of course, you know, enjoyed some sessions and great food and whatnot. And I went there with my wife also, which was a lot of fun as well. What have you been up to, Victoria? Just work, work, work or anything fun? I have, I am excited to go to the Common Ground Fair. I was thinking about that today. I didn't realize when it started. So I'm hopefully going to go tomorrow. But yeah, I mean, I wrapped up my summer and I took some time off. I took like 12 days, 12 whole days where I was like, I'm not checking Instagram. I'm not getting in, but I'm done checking emails. And it was not a lot of time. I was hoping I could take the whole month of August off since we have off from committee and from council meetings. But even 12 days of just existing and not feeling like I am so anxious about like what's happening in the council world was really nice. And as you know, I was on some boats over the summer. So yeah, I had a good summer and I'm pretty excited for fall. So yeah, good. Well, you certainly have a lot of work ahead of you, council. As we know, there are just controversies raging about the 13. I don't know if that's a record or not for Portland, but there will be 13 referenda items on the ballot in November. And all of them are on there because the city council put them there. Now some of them came through different paths to get there. But could you talk a little bit about the process? Like why is the city council in charge of putting referenda items on the ballot? How does that work? Yeah, so we're in charge of formally saying what the ballot is going to look like and what's going to end up there. But as you know, there's different avenues for things to end up there. So there are five citizens initiative questions that went through the process of collecting signatures, turning them into the city and then having them reviewed. And that's what we then as a council approved to have on the ballot. And then the other questions are recommendations from the charter commission to make amendments to our charter, which is our city's constitution. Yeah, our job as a council, we had several options when they, at least for the citizen's initiatives, which were to adopt and amend to put on the ballot or I guess repeal. And so what I think was was expected and what ended up happening is that all of them were approved by the council to end up on the ballot. I think the energy and what's happening now is, I think what you're alluding to is the campaign, the campaigns that are forming both to defeat them and then the groups that are coming out in support of them. It's, you know, we've seen the enough is enough campaign. I can't open up my social media piece without that being the first thing that pops up. So you can tell that they're dumping ridiculous amounts of money and energy behind it. You haven't asked me, but I'll offer my opinion about it. I think it's a lazy campaign. It's a lazy campaign because it's literally telling voters to take a blanket strategy for everything, right? Saying no to everything. And as we saw in our council deliberations, there's a lot of information there that I think voters need to dissect, question by question, figure out how they feel about them, how they envision the effects of those policies to have in our city and then individually decide whether they're going to support them or not. So I would encourage anyone out there to not fall for anyone that's saying to take one strategy or one blanket strategy for all the questions. It's lazy, it undermines democracy and it undermines what the voters of the city of Portland's will is eventually going to be. Victoria, you and I were talking before. We started tonight about the whole vote no on everything. Where do you think that's coming from? Well, I think it's coming from a wide number of strategies. But again, I think that what Roberto said is perfectly accurate on voting no on everything is a huge slap in the face to the democratic process that is voting. I think each of us gets a vote and that is the way that we can exercise our own personal democracy is by saying yes or by saying no. And it doesn't sort of like, for example, if somebody reads through each item and there are things that they don't agree with, then they don't have to vote for them. But just to go in and not even read the questions and just vote no, not do any research, you know, I agree is really detrimental to the work, especially the work that the Charter Commission did, like all of them ran for their seats. I think three were appointed, the rest were elected, they ran a campaign, they were rightfully elected into their positions and they spent a lot of time going through the Charter. They spent a lot of time having public hearings. They did all of the work. So to just go in and say vote no on everything based on, I think a lot of outside perspectives is also really insulting to the Charter Commissioners themselves who have put the time and the work into saying, we think that these are the best things that we can do for Portland and for Portland government and for the people of Portland. So I just encourage everybody to do their own research as much as they can. If you like something great, if you don't, fine, but don't go in with that mentality that you need to vote no on every single thing that you're presented. Because again, I do think it's a huge slap in the face to those of us that are in these positions that are doing the work and also to the people of Portland that these, you know, these questions and these recommendations are really going to help and support. The Charter Commission served for free, right? They did all of that work just from civic responsibility with no compensation at all. Not that that's a reason to vote yes, but I think what you're saying is it's a reason to think about it, read, do some research and form some opinions rather than just going, oh, we're just voting no, though, down. Why would the Chamber of Commerce hire an outside Washington, D.C., political consulting firm and pay them big money? Like they're already in five figures, right? To come up with a campaign, just vote no on everything. Well, I mean, though... That confuses me. Yeah. I mean, what is driving them and what's getting them to do it? Who knows? I can tell you that one of the tactics that they're using is to demonize individuals and then associate the whole slate of questions with people. So I know that they're throwing, you know, the former mayor, Ethan Strimling out there and the DSA and saying, these are bad people and everything associated with them is bad. So, and again, a really lazy strategy that undermines the work that commissioners did over the year, that undermines, again, what the voters and the will of the voters of the city of Portland are going to do. So what they're trying to achieve clearly is that, to undermine democracy. It's lazy, we should all actually be angered that, again, an out-of-state firm is being paid thousands and thousands of dollars. Not of city money, not taxpayer money, to be clear. It's still an out-of-state firm from D.C. out here getting paid thousands of dollars to use a really lazy strategy to undermine democracy in this city. We should all be angered at it. Yeah, and I also, I think too with the charter, from the very beginning that the charter was created, there has been a ton of outside hatred towards them. And I think, you know, it's really frustrating because the charter commission is made up of different ethnicities, different backgrounds, and different experiences within the political sphere. And I think from the very beginning, they were very unfairly judged and targeted by a large majority of the public, just based on their own identities and personalities. So again, I think some of that is being driven through this enough is enough campaign. I see things said about them like they have no experience. They don't know what they're doing. They're putting out stuff and they, you know, they have no idea what it means. And that's also really insulting because, again, these individuals ran in campaign the same way we ran in campaigned. I've heard the same things said about me that are said about the charter commissioners. And I wish that people would just understand that we are in a new different way of leadership in Portland. And I really hope that individuals can just look at these perspectives from a different lens and say, well, why would they want a strong mayor model? Why do they think we need a land acknowledgement? Rather than just saying absolutely not, just try and understand, well, what am I not seeing? What perspective do I have that they don't? And how can I make sure that if I am going to go into vote, then I'm voting based on what I think is best for the entirety of Portland. And that means people that like haven't even, don't even exist here yet. And I think too, when we're talking about the work that the charter did clearly, the way that the government structure was working was not working and it was not inclusive and it was disenfranchising individuals. So now we have a great charter commission that has put forth a lot of really important recommendations. And to say absolutely not to all of it, again, undermines the work and also undermines I think what we're trying to do in Portland, which is make this a city for everybody and make this a city that is equitable and inclusive. And within that is a lot of the charter recommendations that we have in front of us. So again, I hope everybody reads it, like take time before you go vote. It's on the city website. The charter has their own website. Take time to dive in and read about it because that's the only way I think that there's gonna be an educated decision that's made. Well, we could also go on Twitter and look at videos. I was amazed to see a video this morning. I'm not gonna name any names, but it was one of the Enough is Enough Portland videos from their press conference. And it was a local business owner. Now I've been a small business owner. It's hard. It is challenging. And this person was saying that they had owned businesses in Portland for 23 years or so. And there had just been challenge after challenge. And the context, they were offering context for the referendum that are coming up in November are as challenging as the AIDS epidemic, 9-11, and COVID. But this was on the level of those in terms of disruption to business unable to plan ahead. And I was kind of amazed. But then when I was trying to show it to my husband on the way here, I noticed it had been taken down. That particular video. But there's still another one up, different person, who was saying that the... I think they were naming DSA as the group that organized the citizen petition referendum. Our science deniers because of this political process of putting things on the ballot through Citizens Initiative. Like, you know, civics is civics and science is science. That confused me too. Like, how is that science denial? Or are they just like throwing around terms that are buzzwords? Or is there a strategy behind this? What do you think? I think it's part of that whole demonizing a group, right? And like, there's no substantive discussion about the policy impacts of these questions. It's again, it's demonizing the DSA as a group. Demonizing, eating, and streaming. And again, no substantive conversation about something that... Even the council was already discussing. That particular video is probably alluding to the wage, the increase in the minimum wage. Something that the city council through committee was already taking a look at. So, I mean, it's again, a lazy campaign strategy. And I hope people see it right through it. And the wage, that's been a hot topic in Portland for at least two or three years here. There was the... What was it called? The extra pay during the... The hazard pay during the pandemic. And then perennially, so much of Portland's economy is based on restaurants and the whole food culture here. And tipped workers are not exactly like other workers in the sense that they... Their employer is supposed to make up if they don't make minimum wage. But of course, most people that work at a high-end restaurant in Portland are making far more than minimum wage. So that one's always controversial, where you kind of have different stakeholders that need different things out of it. Are you recommending a yes vote on the... I believe the way it's going to be on the ballot is minimum wage would be $14. Is that right? I don't know. I'm not sure this... I think it's $14, I think so. And yeah, I mean, I'm certainly in recommendation of that. And that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone given the fact that I was advocating really hard for hazard pay and some of the individuals that are part of the enough is enough campaign are very familiar to me in conversations that we've had about hazard pay. So yeah, I think to dial it back for a second too, I just wanted to say that millions and millions of people died during 9-11, millions of people died during the AIDS pandemic and also during the COVID-19 pandemic. So to compare that what's happening with citizens' referendums or charter recommendations in Portland, which hopefully will help individuals that are severely disenfranchised feel like they can be lifted up in an equitable way. To compare that to horrible, horrible instances where millions of people have died is completely unacceptable and embarrassing. And I just think that that was offensive to me to watch something like that and look at a business owner that lots of people look up to in Portland, making a comparison to instances where millions of people have died to something that's going to potentially happen with her business. Those two things don't equate to me. And so, you know, again, I really encourage people, especially if you're getting wrapped up in anti-campaigns to just do their own research on what they want to vote for, what they don't, and have those conversations with their community members, with their family, and figure out what they truly believe in and what they don't, regardless of what is being said by individuals comparing losing business to 9-11. So it's a very good point. It was the scale of the things where it was not comparable. How do you feel about raising the minimum wage or having an established minimum wage in the city of Portland? Is that something you support, Roberto? Yeah, I think, yeah, I think as an idea, I absolutely support it. I think, however, I want to take a step back and just underscore that the reason that we have a citizens initiative process is precisely so that we can have more democratic and more accessible form of government. And these questions have been brought up because there's been a sense that local government has not been responsive to the concerns of our laborers, of our workers, of our marginalized members of our community. So this is an avenue and is being used exactly in the way that it's intended to. I, however, and again in the interest of having substantive conversations around this, I want us, and I believe the council has energy or wants to put some energy behind looking at that process itself. So one of the challenging things about citizens initiatives is that if they pass through referendum, the council cannot amend them for five years. And if we do start to see either a change in the environment, so for example, the minimum wage one, we two years ago passed one to increase it. And here we are within that five-year window, right? Passing another one. Had that been a council-initiated ordinance or a council-initiated policy, we could have been working on it as it's moving and as the environment changes and increasing the minimum wage, changing the way that hazard pay works. You know, I'm a strong proponent for hazard pay. However, I've seen instances where it's implemented in a way that I believe is more responsible than what we have in place here. You know, that's specifically targeting certain workers. And I think that that's the kind of policy that when it goes through the council, we can pay attention to those details and not be stuck with something for five years. So I would like us to look at number one, the number of signatures that are required to put something on the ballot, the amount of time that has to elapsed before the council can amend something that's passed to referendum, and the entirety of the process to see if number one, we can continue to make it more democratic, more accessible, but also not something that could get us stuck with that policy for a long period of time. Sure. One of the referendum items has huge implications for the council itself, right? Everybody's focused on the mayor part because it would make the mayor be elected directly to that role, and the mayor would be sort of like the manager of the city government, which the mayor is not now. But it also increases the city council from nine to 12 members. It makes the districts that are represented by those that represent a district smaller. How are you guys feeling about those possibilities? Are those good? Is that a good direction to go? Are you going to vote yes on that one? Or anything? I am. I was, I had the pleasure of meeting with two commissioners earlier to kind of get more information on it. And originally, I definitely was a little concerned with the expansion of the council, only because my immediate thought was like, we have nine people, and sometimes we can't decide on anything. We go around and around, and we have very lengthy conversations because we all have different perspectives. But I do like the idea of the potential of increasing. We have five districts right now. We would increase by four. We would have nine districts. Each councilor would have a smaller district, which means that we could get more done. We could be more in community with the people that we represent. We would still have the three at large seats. And I think, again, if we're talking about being representative in the council, being accessible, we want people from all different walks of life to be able to be in that space. So increasing the councilors would do that. And I also think, again, if we had smaller districts, I think we would be able to just be more accessible and more approachable to individuals because I'm thinking about my district, which I think is, I think of all these different pockets of district, too, which I love. But I think if we were able to narrow it down a little bit, I think that would be easier with campaigning and canvassing and having conversations with everybody. And again, people being able to look at the city council and saying, I feel like I'm represented. There are 12 people in there. I feel like I am going to have my voice heard because I'm having someone from different walks of life that are having conversations with me. So, yeah, I think that was something that I was curious about because, again, nine people deciding something is hard. But with that, the mayor would not get a vote anymore and would not be a council member. And I also think with that existing power dynamic, that would be a good thing for us to do as well. It's also going from an odd number of councilors to an even number of councilors and the new mayor position couldn't be the tiebreaker. So that could be interesting. Definitely interesting. Yeah, I am. So that resonates with me, right? The intent behind that proposal. I'm not quite there yet saying that I can support it. I feel a little bit differently about the increasing the number of councilors from 9 to 12. I think that the intent there is, as Tori was saying, to make it more accessible, right? Smaller districts makes it easier to campaign, a lower point of entry for someone that wants to get involved. There's another proposal that's going to move us forward towards clean elections, publicly funded elections. I think that that is the big barrier to participate in a campaign. And I think that that's, I believe, and I will support that one wholeheartedly. I think that that's going to be a more effective way to increase the, or rather to lower the entry point to enter into a campaign and get elected and serve into the city. I hold the concerns that Tori was alluding to, that a big number or the larger the board or larger council is, the more challenging it is to find a consensus. And unfortunately, we are a consensus board, right? We, or majority board. I would, you know, as I'm looking at the way that some organizations, and I maybe not fairly compare the way that boards work with executive directors in organizations, I kind of see that dynamic in the council with the current manager position. And I think that traditionally, we've seen smaller boards being easier than to give guidance to the director and then have your work carry over. What I don't think we do really well in the city, including I'll put myself out there, the current council, we don't do a really good job at holding ourselves accountable to the comprehensive plan. You know, in the school board, the comprehensive plan guided all of our work. We were all committed from day one as having that as our guiding document to any policy proposal, every vote that we would take would always be measured to that comprehensive plan. And that's how we brought an alignment of vision and mission to the group. And I believe that not having that in the council and then growing the number, you're just gonna have, unfortunately, the flavor of the month. So whoever has the mic on that moment is going to frame things. And again, getting 12 people to come along is gonna be really challenging. Even a majority of them is gonna be really challenging. I really thought comprehensive plans were one of those things that everybody works on a lot. And then you have this big ceremony where it's done and then it goes over here and gathers dust because it's so hard to go back to the big picture. I'm kind of a big picture person who can't really understand details until I know how does this fit into the... But I think that the upcoming election is talking about changing a lot of the big picture, whether none of them pass or some of them... There are a lot of substantive changes in there. Isn't there a ranked choice voting element in there also? Clean elections, you mentioned. I mean, you guys are a little different in the sense that you are an at-large counselor. So you already represent everybody. And you, Victoria, represent the West End. It sounds like Maine Med could almost become its own district, really, right? It's such a presence. Yeah, well, I think that's also... Like, there's so many differences between districts and at-large. And I think about how am I gonna be the most effective and when I think about a smaller district and more collaboration with the District One counselor because we would be having an overlap in the District Three counselor, you know, I get excited for those conversations. But until that happens, I'm proudly representing all entities of District Two, and I'm happy to do it, so. There's a little bit of an item in there about the Peaks Island Council becoming part of the charter or being added into the charter in the city of Portland. That's one of the ones that I've heard people say, why is that controversial? Why would you vote no on that? I mean, it already exists. You're just, and a land acknowledgement. Tell me a little bit more about the land acknowledgement one. Yeah, I mean, it's changing the preamble and then it's adding a land acknowledgement, which, again, is something that I think the school board already does and has done for a long time. It's something that is not controversial, I don't think at all at this point. I feel like we're starting to move towards like land acknowledgments being... In every Zoom meeting that I'm in, there's normally a land acknowledgement. In any presentation, there's a land acknowledgement. So I don't think it's as new or as radical as people are making it out to be. And I do think, again, a land acknowledgement is our way of saying that we are recognizing what land that we're on. We're recognizing our positionality within that. So again, when I hear the vote no on everything, I'm like, well, what's wrong with a land acknowledgement? What's wrong with clean elections? And what's wrong with a lot of these things that we're trying to do to just make sure that our government-facing body is as inclusive as possible? Well, there have been numbers being thrown around about how much this would cost the city if all 13 of them passed. The price tag is something like six and a half million dollars. Like the land acknowledgement, is that going to cost anything? I think a lot of it is expanding City Hall, adding more admin, adding more staff, and adding more room, which again, I think is the normal progression of things as we grow as a city. So while we did give that information, yeah, a land acknowledgement is free. So you often say Portland is really a big town. I've heard you say this a few times and that's so true. It's kind of growing toward being a city, but at this point it's still kind of a town in the sense that you couldn't know everybody and there are always growing pains involved in those kind of transitions, right? I think we're in one. Yeah, we're in a large growing. So congratulations on having the courage to see the growing pains process through. That can be a tricky time and difficult for people that are serving in the public eye, yeah. So the council's about to, one counselor resigned and you're about to install the counselor that ran for that open seat, right? Or has that already happened or that's about to happen? What we had, all we know so far is the District 3 counselor has announced that he's not going to run for re-election. So we have, you know, that seat is the only one that's up without a incumbent running. But we've not had any other... So you don't know who you're going to get, but it won't be the current counselor because that person said, I'm done. Exactly, Councilor Johnson has already said he's not running for re-election. And are you guys going to run for re-election? No, I don't, you don't have to answer that. No, it's not going to finish out our first year. Too soon to ask that. Well, believe it or not, the time flies when we're having this discussion. I know that our next show will be right before the election and I'm sure we'll go into more detail in a more kind of orderly way about all these referendum items. I do want to thank our listeners at home and thank the Portland Media Center for making this possible. Thank our city counselors for giving their time to us. Our director, Warren Edgar, we couldn't do it without him, certainly. And our tech crew tonight, Jeffrey Cooper and David Bedell, we couldn't do it without you either. So thank you so much for being with us. This is Pathways to Progress. I'm Lisa Savage, the host. And we talk about the progressive ideas in city government here in Portland and we're glad to have input. You can always get at me. My DMs are open on Twitter if you'd like to suggest some topics or questions that we could address. But we're very interested to hear from the people of Portland as well. So thanks for being with us and thank you guys for taking time to do this. After a long day at the fair, you must be exhausted. Oh, good to go. Now we got to go to the theater and football games. We've got more to go. I hope you're dressed warmly.