 Good evening and welcome to the 2020 Portland at-large candidate debate. I am Tim Wells and I'll be the moderator for Tim for tonight's debate. There are four candidates running for the seat previously occupied by the much like Jill Dueson, who held this seat for almost two decades. Justin Costa, April Fournier, Ron Gann and Laura Kelly are the four candidates. The 37-year-old Justin Costa grew up in Brunswick and earned a BA from Wesleyan University and a law degree from the University of Southern Maine. In 2008 Justin was elected to the Portland School Board where he served two terms including as chair of the Finance Committee. In 2014 he was elected to represent District 4 as their city councilor and in 2017 he was re-elected with 68% of the vote to his second term. He lives in Dearing Center with his wife Zoe. The 40-year-old April Fournier is the mother of four children with her husband Kevin, ages 12 through 19. She describes herself as a strong, resilient, indigenous woman. April feels that her life experiences and education have created opportunities that help her understand issues from many different perspectives. April holds a master's degree in education and currently serves as a special services manager at the local Head Start agency. One of April's favorite hobbies is roller derby. The 70-year-old Ron Gann is the father of two adult children ages 31 and 38. He has been involved in the construction and real estate businesses since 1972. He started working for his family's elevator and repair business and ultimately started his own construction and development company focused on both residential and commercial projects. Hailing from Chicago, Ron visited Portland in 2002 and says that he was hit by a blast of salt air and he instantly fell in love with the city. In 2007, he and his partner started their first project in Portland, the townhomes on Federal Street. In Chicago, Ron was a central player in the redevelopment of Chicago's Bucktown neighborhood that had a growing gang and drug problem. Ron has appeared before the planning board and city council numerous times in regard to land use issues. Ron is an avid hockey player, musician and has appeared on home again with Bob Vila. The 48-year-old Laura Kelly and her husband Michael have three children ages 15 through 22. She has a retired pediatrician and played a role in protecting public safety with the work with the Maine Families for Vaccines Coalition. She is a long-term Portland resident and a graduate of Daring High School, Smith College and UNE College of Osteopathic Medicine. The questions for tonight's debate were formulated by a five-person panel. The members of the panel included Chris Busby of the Mainer, Randy Billings of the Portland Press Herald, Nick Schroeder of the Banger Daily News, Wendy Ciarabini of USM and myself. We have a lot of ground to cover tonight, so the answer times have been kept to a fairly tight timeline. We hope this is a substantive debate and is a valuable piece to our watchers in helping them understand these candidates and the issues facing Portland. The order of answering will rotate so that each candidate will have equal opportunity to be in first, second, third or last position. At the end of the debate, each candidate will have two minutes for closing statements. The answer times will be stated at the end of each question, so let's get started. The first category of questions is the role of the City Councilor and Justin Costa, you will start off answering first. What personal and professional experiences and education makes you feel you are prepared for the role of City Councilor? And how will that make you more effective than the other candidates at crafting and deciding upon policy? You have 60 seconds. Thanks and thanks to everyone that's had a hand in putting this event together tonight. This is a real public service, I think. You know, obviously I'm on the council right now. I'm completing my sixth year there with Jill Weaving. I'm going to be the second most experienced person. And before that I was able to spend six years on the school board as well, including time as you mentioned, chairing the finance committee, which was starting the economic recession roughly a decade ago. So my background and experience is directly relevant to this. I have served on nearly every subcommittee of the school board and the City Council. So I think credibly have a claim to know as much about municipal government, how it operates, what the role of a counselor is as compared to staff or a school board member as anyone that's running. And I think in these challenging times that's going to be incredibly important. Thank you very much, Councillor Costa. April Fornia. Thank you so much. And thanks so much for having us. I think this is a great question. I think my experience living in Portland is I, you know, we bought a house here in 2006 when we only had two kids and very suddenly ended up with four. So we went from a very small family to a very large family. So we've navigated having children go through Portland public schools I've served on PTOs and coach little league teams and serve on boards for athletics, as well as work and education myself and so I think it's really for child development services for five years serving families in Portland as they navigated the difficult task of having their children identified as a child with a disability and engaging with community resources. So I think all of this as a counselor it's so critical that you can communicate that you can listen that you know how to bring in resources and how to make decisions and I very clearly know how to do that. Thank you very much, April. That's one had to unmute. Thank you, Tim. Well, I have been involved with quite a number of different groups. Over the years I, when I lived in Chicago, I was part of my kids school I was on both the finance committee, the building committee, the ways the money committee. I was at every parent meeting for 17 years. In the world of construction and development I have had to interface and collaborate with dozens and dozens of people over many different situations and conditions. You're in the business of problem solving every single day. One of the things I want to say, though, is that I think that we have to think about new roles for counseling, not the old role. And I think that while there are some people who are experienced in governmental affairs and the mechanics of the council, we need to have people who are more connected to the street and can really relate. Thank you very much, Ron. Laura. Thank you. I'll just build on what Ron said a little bit, which is that experience matters only when it has made a difference. I think that, you know, everybody here has relevant experience that could be valuable to Portland at this moment. We are in a global pandemic and I'm a physician, so certainly I bring an important perspective on public health and well-being. In fact, I actually believe that if we used health and well-being as our direction in all policymaking that we would manifest better outcomes. I think in my experience, working with main families for vaccines in the legislature, I observed how important it was to sort of make sure that we're using evidence-based solutions to solve problems. And that's what I had to ask, so that's what I have to offer, and thank you. Thank you. For the second question, April, you'll be starting off. How do you see the council's relationship with the city manager position? Do you favor a more aggressive oversight of the city manager, or is the current relationship balanced properly? That's a good one. Thank you. So, the way that I see the council's relationship with the city manager is I really feel like I've heard in multiple meetings that the city manager has said, well, I really work for you, I report to you, but it definitely feels like there's an imbalance of power there. What I think it should be more like is that the city manager and the city staff, they're the operations, they carry out what we're making for policy decisions on the city council side. The city council side is really that constituent services, really listening to community members, hearing the things that they're frustrated with, hearing the things that they're happy about, and then that helps to influence the policies that should then be carried out by the city staff. So I think it's right now, in my mind, a little bit of a dysfunctional relationship where there's maybe a little more power on one side and not the other, and I'd like to see that balanced out. That's wonderful. Thank you. Ron, 60 seconds. I would like to say that the relationship between the mayor and the city council and the city manager needs to be more aggressive. I think the city council needs to take a much bigger role in making sure that the city manager is doing his or her job. To my point of view, the city manager is in charge of counting the money and making sure that the people who are below that person are operating at the highest level. I think the city council has advocated a lot of that responsibility and has not been paying attention to what is going on downstream. I think that we should have a mayor who has vision and agendas and should be able to be able to do that without having to go hat in hand to the city manager. Thank you very much, Ron. Laura. So, I have said before that in conversations with people, the city manager is a polarizing figure in Portland, and there are a lot of opinions on both sides, some that he does a very good job. And some people feel that there are things that are happening that he's controlling and the counselors are not. And I think the issue that has been opened and considered by the citizenry before, and I think the feeling is that because counselors are elected and they're the ones that choose the city manager, that that the voice of the people is reflected in that choice. So, ultimately, after talking to a lot of people about this, both from City Hall and from outside, I think that we could do a better job in communicating and helping people understand what people's roles are and seek a bit more balance. Thank you. Councillor Costa. Yeah, thanks Tim. Yeah, I mean, I think that this is an interesting question. I think that, you know, it's always an overgeneralization when you try to condense multiple people's opinions into one statement. But I don't think the counselors feel like there's some kind of tension or lack of clarity in the relationship that we have with the manager. The council is responsible for setting policy for the city. The manager is effectively the executive for most, not all, but for most function in the city government. And for the most part, that functions fairly well. I think that there has been confusion over the last several years to be direct because, you know, we had a mayor that didn't accept the charter-defined responsibilities of the role. And I think that certainly caused some confusion. But I think the council is very clear in our relationship with John that he works for us. We all know that and he knows that as well. Thank you. For the third question. The voices you're going to hear most at council meetings, district meetings and through email will be from a small group of activists, many retirees and paid lobbyists. Many of your constituents do not have the time to participate or keep up with city government. How do you balance this out and how will you reach out to your constituents who aren't very active and keep a strong pulse over all of those you represent versus just the loudest voices? Ron Gan, you start. Well, I think that is 45 seconds. Well, I think that first off we have to examine what the role of the at-large councilor is. Up till now, I'm not sure what that role has been. I see the role of an at-large councilor as sort of an adjunct mayor. We represent the entire city and we should be doing things for the greater good of the entire city. I've thought about this. I don't know exactly the best way to keep communication going with all the different constituents out there. But I would encourage people to contact us on a regular basis. Even if they're not going to be able to come to city council meetings, they need to contact us and tell us really what it is that's going on. Thank you very much, Ron. Laura? Thanks. I love this question. I've always felt that paying attention to politics and paying attention to policy is a privilege. Most people are busy in their lives and they don't have time. They're working with integrity and passion in the things that they do and they're expecting others to do the same. It's one of the reasons that has drawn me into participating. And the thing is that, as you say, the loudest voices get the most attention, but we really need to pay attention to the people who care but don't have time. And making that easy and improving communication is essential to building community health and well-being. Thank you very much. Councillor Costa? Yeah, thanks, Tim. You know, I think the way you frame the question sort of has the biggest part to it. You know, as a counselor, it's our job to hear from people, but it's also to have a sense of what the broader community is like. And to exercise our judgment as the elected representative of all of the people, not just the ones that give us phone calls or emails or show up in council meetings. That's a very difficult thing to do that I think takes time and is one of the things that comes with experience. You know, you get a sense of not just the community as it is, but how a community changes over time. And that's one of the things that I've been able to learn in my 12 years in the school board and city government. And it's a very important part of the role. Very much. April. I love this question. I think one of the things that I excel at is inclusion. So when I am in any room whether it's in a school meeting or a work meeting, or even a sports meeting. I'm looking for what voices aren't there because I can see everyone that's in the room with me and that's great that they showed up. Being the parent who was at home with four kids and couldn't get to city hall to be able to give testimony being a parent of a child with a disability who couldn't spend an entire day up at Augusta trying to give testimony. I recognize that not everyone has the same privilege to participate as Laura said so I'm consistently looking for the voices and aren't in the room and that's making connections with community leaders. That's making sure that you're able to get out into the community and bring those voices in. Thank you very much. So I'm transitioning to the next category of questions which is Portland 2050 is gentrification a problem. And if so what can and will you do to stop it from happening. You will have 60 seconds. And Laura, you are up first. So, yes, the answer to that question is, I believe that it is. I don't know if it's been quantified but certainly the expense of living in Portland has has changed. Who is able to come here and live here and stay here. And you said what was the second part of the question. So what can and will you do to stop it from happening if gentrification is a problem. So one of the ways to prevent something from happening or slow it or stop it from getting worse. Again is to understand the reasons that it's happening and to try and mitigate mitigate those reasons. And so, again, without having a specific, you know, idea of how much is happening. I'm, I'm sorry, I think I've run out of time. Okay, that's fine. Thank you very much. Justin you are next. I think gentrification is absolutely problem. I think all of us recognize that I think it's important also to recognize that gentrification isn't just a Portland problem. It's a problem that's occurring all over the place for a lot of reasons. You know, I sort of try to emphasize three different concrete things that, you know, obviously I can only skin the surface of right here. But the reason for most, I think we can't gloss over the fact that part of making housing affordable is having a solid economic foundation and the more quality jobs that you can give people. The more people have access to housing that they're able to pay for, but putting that aside, the city is very unique in having a municipal housing trust. But we need to continue to look at ways that we use that to support the development of new housing. And also, I think get outside of that and say, are there ways that we can use the housing trust to support a variety of other rental supports. And then a whole other topic, of course, is the zoning code, which we are currently in the process of rewriting, which will have a major impact on the development hopefully of housing throughout the city. Thank you very much. Thank you. Yeah, I would, I would definitely echo what's been said. It is absolutely a problem. I think when we have tried to update our city, you know, for the benefit of tourists, we are now also sacrificing the experience and the ability for the residents, which is unfortunate. I think we definitely need to look at how can we look at our zoning and recode to make that more inclusionary. We need to be able to enact a minimum wage that is livable so that the people who do live here and work here can stay living here and working here. We need to be able to better regulate Airbnb as we have already done a little bit. So much more needs to be done. If you are in a neighborhood and I, as I was outfiring saw a number of people going in and out of buildings that definitely didn't live here and we're just staying for the weekend. You know, it's hard when you have so many of those, it takes up so much of the housing. So, yep, not a lot of time. No, thank you very much. Ron. Let me first say that I really do not like that word gentrification because after being in my business for 40 years, I've heard thousands of different definitions, including the one that I was told 30 years ago that the minute somebody mows their front lawn. That's when gentrification starts. I don't see gentrification, since I don't really know what everyone's definition of it is, I don't see it as a problem. What I see as a problem are the policies that restrict our land that make it impossible to create the kind of housing that people who are in our workforce can afford. To jump on, you know, this case of gentrification that that is the root of our problem. It's not the root of our problem goes back maybe 15 years and has been consistently the policy of the city council here is to keep land at a minimum so that the price of it is at a premium. Thank you. For the second question. Today, Portland's population is 10,000 less than in the 1970s growth over the last few years is stagnant, even though the city has added over 2000 new homes over the last decade. The comprehensive plan calls for an increase of 5000 people over the next 10 years or 500 people per year. Is this enough too little or just right. And Justin it's back to you as for as the first person and 30 seconds. In general, I think that's about right. I think it is important whenever we talk about growth in that in this way that we think about it in a regional and statewide context as well. You know, in many ways Portland is an island in the state of Maine, which is struggling to maintain a population. We need to recognize our unique role in the state in terms of the percentage of the economy that we have and also as its biggest population center, but I don't think there's much question that we need some level of growth going forward. Thank you, April. Thank you. You know, I, I definitely agree that we need and that seems like a good rate of growth for population but I, I always am concerned about adding more when we're already struggling taking care of the people that we have. So I think definitely to Justin's point looking at growth from a counting perspective from a state perspective, and making sure that, you know, we have the resources to be able to take care of the people that are here. You know, I think adding, you know, new members to our community is critical at a time. If you, if you were trying to finish a thought go ahead and finish that thought I'll give you another four or five seconds. Let's get up. So it's not too awkward here. Ron, I think that we are clearly not just stagnant, but the current policies that we have here are really choked down creativity. We need at least 5000 new residents 5000 new housing, and we can easily accomplish that without creating any adverse conditions on existing land, or our neighbors land. We have good city land to get this thing going with. And if we don't do that, there's not going to be anybody to take care of me when I get to be 80 years old. Thank you very much. Laura. So, you know, I hear a lot from people about in Portland about being worried about how the city will change and wanting it to stay the same, wanting it to be less expensive and more affordable wanting to have more houses wanting people to stay. And, and all the limits to to how it how it might change so we want it to get better and and and give more opportunity so that people can stay here. We don't want it to change. Those are competing interests. And I think that that what that we need, we need to to find sort of courage and open mindedness to to to figure out how to to build a say there's there there's space and solutions that will keep us healthy and and and support climate change like we can do all of these things with a good with good design and innovation and thank you very much. The next question, what are five goals the city should set to accomplish over the next 10 years. This is 75 seconds in April you are first. Thanks, I think this is a great question. One of the things that is critical for us to do is, you know, we have the climate plan that was just developed between Portland and South Portland and I think one climate future is great but we need to make sure that there are really specific timelines goals measurements so that it's not just a well we'd like to or the sounds really good. One of the goals I think that we can absolutely accomplish is having a municipal herb side composting program, making sure that we are doing a better job at educating our community around recycling, not only in English but using pictures and various languages and going out and educating the community. And then also, you know, we are a tourist destination we allow these giant cruise ships to come into our harbor, making sure that we're leveraging some sort of environmental impact fee because they are bringing them, I think making sure that we also have equity and education the Portland promise is wonderful. So I think we should continue to partner as a city with the school board to enact universal pre K that comes with transportation so it is truly accessible for everyone. We are getting ready to go into the Charter Commission I think we should be able to look at our police citizen review committee and make it a true citizen oversight board rather than just a rubber stamp at the end of the process. And we absolutely have to address housing, making sure that our residents are housed and acting more housing first developments is critical. Ron, you are up next. First and foremost, I believe it has to be housing that most of our efforts in the next two years or so have to be around housing and the generation of revenue. The only way to generate that revenue is by building 1000 housing units as quickly as we can we should be attainable housing units that will meet the needs of people at every different income level starting from the shelter point, and moving to different levels now workforce. We have to have a completely new way that we do economic development, we need to reform at the current Department of Economic Development and create a new new department of real estate vision and plan. We are the biggest player in real estate, and we do not know how to manage our real estate and that is where we derive most of our revenue from. And so once you get the housing going, the housing creates the jobs, the jobs create business opportunities, and the housing starts to handle the transit problem. That's my focus that's what I think we should be doing right from the get go. Thank you very much Ron. Laura. This I let this was this is a great question. I would like to read the following headlines in the newspaper someday. When the world was in the grips of a global pandemic Portland made did something extraordinary. They became the city that put science to work for its citizens. They changed the way they taught people to read and their city grew stronger. They worked together in neighborhoods and town halls to decide to design a smart efficient accessible city with all of its citizens in mind, and the city grew richer. They invested in public health education and awareness and became the city with the highest life expectancy in the United States. They became so well known for the quality of life that they fueled smart sustainable growth throughout the state of Maine, and now Maine has the highest measured happiness of any state in the union. The children in Maine are the happiest children in the world, and most of them remain there for their entire lives. Wonderful. Thank you. Justin. I'll just warn you, there's no way I'm going to get through all five major things in 75 seconds. But I'll try to run through a few topics and just allude to some of the things. I think topic number one, of course, is going to be housing. Affordability of housing is critical to maintaining so much of the fabric of our community. Expanding opportunities for people to live here affordably has to be obviously one of the very top goals that we've got. The environment, I think that obviously this is a pressing issue where a coastal city where uniquely vulnerable to all sorts of impacts of global warming and climate change, and we have a lot going on there. We've built our own solar land farm. We're partnering with a lot of major organizations throughout the state and the power purchase agreement to build and supply even more solar energy. We need to keep moving forward on that and the joint planning with South Portland. Addiction, economic growth, and racial justice, I think we have to deal with all of those issues in a holistic kind of way. But I'm not going to try to rattle off specific goals in five seconds on all of those things. Understood. Okay, so just as a follow up, three of you, well, four of you mentioned housing. Laura Kelly answered this question a little differently than the other three. But all of you mentioned housing is the first priority and the first goal that needs to be addressed. Would any of you quantify in 10 years, how much housing should be built in Portland? Ron, you want to start? Sure. No less than 5,000 housing units. We have so much available land along our transit corridors that we can easily add 5,000 citizens here without even making a dent. The issue is, and I said this just the other night, that we can build all the hotels we want. We have all the zoning and we have all the land, but we don't have the right land use policies to build housing for the people who are working in these hotels. And that is at the council level. And so we will not get anywhere until the log jam on this council is broken with new people who are really, truly pro housing. Okay. Justin, 45 seconds. I would hesitate to give a specific number off the top of my head, but I think somewhere in the vicinity of 5,000 to 10,000 new units should be an aspiration for us. In the long term, and you alluded to this in one of the previous questions, the dynamic that we're facing in Portland, and it's not unique to Portland, is that housing size, household sizes have been going down for decades. That's how it is that we can have more units than we used to have, but still feel that there's a housing crunch. And, you know, that is a very complex issue, especially when you have old housing stock like we do in Portland. So I think I anticipate we're going to keep talking about this issue, but certainly adding to the housing stock is a major component of making it more affordable. Thank you very much. April. This is a great question. So it really doesn't matter how many we build if it's not affordable. Definitely to Justin's point. And if we're talking about our population growth is about 500 per year and 10 years, that means 5,000 people. So I would think at least 2,500, if not 3,000 units of affordable housing need to be built in that 10 year timeframe. The crux to all of it is it has to be affordable. So if people can't afford to have housing, it makes no sense to keep building luxury condos and things that are just going to be converted right into an Airbnb that doesn't add to the housing stock that doesn't fix the crunch that we're in. So I think anywhere from 2,500 to 3,000 affordable units would be great. Thank you. And Laura. So this is the kind of question that I would say is would be purely speculative on my part and it's really not the way that I like to do things. You know, we have someone on this who has sort of deep industry knowledge and so Ron gave, you know, an answer with a lot of experience and insight behind it. And there are people who can help answer these kinds of questions and what we need will depend on the things that occur in the next few years. And I think sort of the degree that you can always be making sure that you're doing things based on, you know, based on evidence rather than speculation. You'll have better outcomes. And I would just underscore trying to use buildings that are already here as well as, as well as new things is something to think about. Okay. Thank you very much. We're not going to transition to the six referendums that are facing the city of this election. I think it has six referendums on the ballot this year is the 1500 signature requirement too easy for citizens to put questions on a citywide ballot. Please explain. And Laura, I think you are up first. And this is 45 seconds. I guess that that's a conversation worth having, you know, with, with, with how this has gone. You know, there, there have been some different comments that I've heard about referendum, you know, this is something that people want. But 1500 signatures out of the voters in Portland is a really extremely low percentage. And I think that, you know, that that's actually a really a good question to answer but I'm not sure I have the great, a great answer to but you know how often does this happen. And, and what, and what, what has come from it is something that should be considered and then do we want to hire bar that should be asked of people. That's a good question to ask people. Thank you. So as a counselor, I would not feel that it's appropriate to change the formal requirements for this for how ballot initiatives qualify for the ballot. But as a personal matter, yes, I feel that the signature requirements are one of several problems that we have with the referendum process right now. I know that we're going to hear a lot about this reflects, you know, a failure to listen and things of that nature. But I think what we're seeing this year really undermines that, you know, there are five questions that have been put forward by one organization, two of which have been voted down by the voters in the last five years, and a third which was largely adopted by the council. And so I think there's a lot of frustration from people in the community that feel like they're being asked to vote on the same things repeatedly. And I think that's legitimate and something that we need to talk about. Thank you, April. Thanks. Um, no, I don't think it's too easy. Having gone out and collected signatures just for our own races, you know, we had to get at least 300 signatures for an outlarge race, accomplishing that in the middle of a pandemic is not an easy feat. And if you compare that to say someone who's running for the state legislature, they have to get 25 signatures. So for a ballot initiative to get 1500 signatures, not only for one but in this case there were five. That's over 11,000 signatures that had to be collected. It requires dozens of volunteers, lots of people to be able to notarize it so it's not just a hey I went and sat at the farmers market and got 1500 signatures it is it does require a coordinated effort so I think it's absolutely. I don't think it's too well. Thank you very much. Ron Gann. Well, after having, you know, a meltdown wondering if I was even going to get my 500. I really gave how many signatures the referendum people need it. But what has always concerned me is that we're like on our sixth referendum X number of years. It's the issues with the issues that keep causing these referendum, and there's going to be more coming down the road. So I think that we really should ramp up the requirements for these referendums because it's starting to be used as blackmail and all you have to do is just flip back to what happened with the working waterfront last year. They threatened the referendum and that brought us to our knees so we need to have many more signatures and a lot more time. If people really want to change our policy. Okay, thank you very much. The next question, the next six questions about are about the referendums. And they're just a quick yes or no answer. I have a question a increasing the minimum wage. And let's see I think that we're, I think I've lost you or April, you're up first thing. Yes, I'm up first and yes I support. Ron. Yes, I support it. Laura. Yeah. No, Justin. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. As the paper laid out today, it's poorly drafted and the hazard pay provision is likely to take effect in a matter of weeks. And I say that as someone who literally sponsored Portland's minimum wage. Okay, thank you. We're just saying yes or no. We're supposed to, we are supposed to say yes or no. Yes. But yes anyway. So we're just saying it's this balance. Ron. I do not support adding more facial recognition. Laura. No. Justin. No. April. Yes. Question C the green new deal. Laura. No. Justin. No. April. Question D on rent control. Who are we at? We're at the Justin or yeah. No. No. Yes. Ron. No. No. Question E, further restrictions on short-term rentals. April. Yes. Ron. Laura. In Justin. No. Question F, repealing limits on the number of marijuana retailers. Ron. Yes. Laura. Yes. Justin. No. April. Yes. Okay. Which referendum is most consequential for the city and why do you urge voters to support or oppose it? You have 60 seconds and Laura, you're up first. Let's see. I haven't thought about them in terms of comparing them. I think they're consequential, all of them. And I am not in favor of policy that has been written by unnamed individuals who are not elected, who are not accountable to what they did or to the policies that where they haven't provided the evidence to support what they're doing because they haven't made the goals clear. And so it's hard to tell without knowing what the goals are and why these policies would meet those goals, how do we measure success or failure and who is responsible? So they're all consequential and I told you that I would vote so that's how I feel. Thank you. Justin, Councilor Costa. Yeah, I agree with much of what Laura just said. I think the most important thing for people to understand is that these are inflexible and in the middle of a pandemic, I think it is highly irresponsible for us to lock ourselves into policy that can't be amended for five years. I'm particularly worried, I would say about question C because although it is certainly well-intentioned and there's much that a lot of us would like to support, it makes changes to environmental regulations, some of which are not actually moving us forward. It has dramatic impacts on affordable housing development and is opposed by the main affordable housing coalition. Again, because there's been no public vetting and a way to get at these things before the language is finalized and something that's near and dear to my heart, I think it severely jeopardizes our ability to complete our elementary school renovation. It's changing the requirements in the middle of a building and planning process. All of those kinds of things happen as a result of a lack of process. Thank you very much. April. Yeah, I think that's a great question to narrow it down. I think, similar to what's been said, this is, it's a lot to consider for sure. And I just want to make sure that it's noted that yes, the ordinances can't be changed for five years but it can be changed by the council. They can be changed by another referendum. So once the new council's in, if something needs to be brought back to the table and discussed, it absolutely could be. I think, again, what we need to consider is why community members felt like they needed to go through a citizen's referendum versus working with our city leaders to accomplish this change. They felt unheard and enough of them felt unheard to create these five questions. And so I think, as we've said, the council and the mayor have let everyone know how they feel the voters get a turn in a few weeks. I think it's all things that we need to focus on. I am specifically focusing and really interested in the minimum wage increase. I think that is critical. Yeah. Thank you very much. Councilor Costa, you were just shaking your head when April Forneo was saying that these can be amended either by referendum or by city council. Could you explain why you were shaking your head for 30, very briefly, 30 seconds? I think that this is a very important point and I think it was a little bit unclear there. The council cannot change anything for five years. It has to go through another referendum. That is a fairly lengthy process to schedule an election. So the press herald noted, for example, this morning that the minimum wage as written in this proposal will go to $18 an hour in a matter of weeks. I hope that doesn't crush the restaurant industry in the middle of a pandemic, but if it does, nothing is going to be able to be modified until months down the road. So I think it's very important you can disagree with everything that I just said about the substance of it, but people need to be aware that the council can't modify anything, even a drafting error. Thank you. April, do you have anything to add to that or do you agree with that? I think definitely what Justin said, the council can't modify, he's right, it does have to go back to referendum, but I think what is misleading is saying that we can't change this, we're locked into this fight for five years, is misleading, it can be changed. Through the same process. Okay, thank you very much. Ron, back to the original question. Which referendum is most consequential for the city? You know, I want to kind of jump in though on this conversation though with Justin and April for a minute because it's kind of interesting. We've just got done talking about adding, potentially adding more signatures to make a referendum. And now we're saying is that, well, if you don't really like this, you can just have another referendum. Well, we can't keep on having referendum. And there is a quirkiness to the way this thing was written. I'm in favor of the minimum wage part, it's a moral thing for me. And I believe that everyone needs to make more money and we should just all pay more for stuff. But you can't ask for more money for wager and also over on this other side, by the way, we're going to make it cost more money to build your house. It doesn't compute. And I get how they got all these signatures. It's easy when you present it in a certain way, but these referendums are going to have a lot of devastating effects that the people who put this out have not contemplated. And on day one, if this thing passes, what I'd like to ask April is, what do you see happening? What will be happening here in Portland on day one if these things pass? Well, that's, I think let's go to the next question because it's going to address some of this. So let's go there and see how that develops. It seems that a certain... Go ahead, I was just going to say the fact that I actually agreed with Justin on something you should mark the date and time on that. Okay, it seems that a certain level of frustration, at least with certain constituents has led to this surge in referendums. Should the council have been more aggressive in responding to these issues? Or going forward, what, if anything, should be done differently? Councilor Costa, you're up first. And this is 90 seconds. Sure. Well, look, I think first and foremost, we have to emphasize that everyone always has a right to be heard. You have a right to express your opinion and you have the right to have views that are diametrically opposed to any elected official at any level, certainly including city council. I think there is a lot of sort of the campaign rhetoric that we're hearing around these is around this idea that it's the city council that isn't listening to people. And I think it's, again, I made the point earlier, it's very important to point out the simple fact that two of these issues have been voted down by the people by sizable margins in the last few years. So it's not that the council isn't addressing it, but rent control was on the ballot in 2017 and it failed by more than 20 points. So I think we do have to acknowledge that that is a part of the dynamic, that this is, as the voters have shown, not a majority point of view. And there's no presumption that something that isn't a majority point of view should become the law of the land. So I think, again, everyone has a right to be heard, but no one has a right to win at any given time and a democracy. And I think we just need to stay grounded in that. And the repeated calling of the same question is really damaging and it's unfortunate. Thank you very much, April. Yeah, I think one thing that Justin just said is really interesting, no one has the right to win. And I definitely agree with that. And so if something to me, and just this is the way that my brain works as an educator working through data and trying to make sense of behaviors that are repeated, a behavior is a form of communication. It's a symptom of something deeper. So if I see something coming up that's coming up over and over and over again, to me it means that whatever the underlying causes, whatever the function of the behavior that's happening, that's not being addressed. And so I think the tricky part about these coming up over and over again, I don't wanna govern by referendum. I think that's a terrible way to govern. But right now it's something that we absolutely have to deal with that our citizens and enough of them didn't feel heard so that they created these questions. So I think again, we need to ask how can we be better communicators as city leaders so that we are hearing them? And yes, you can certainly come to a council meeting and be heard if you can make the time to get to a committee meeting where some of the decisions are made, you can certainly be heard there. But to me, we have all these questions that came up that just make it seem like we weren't really being heard or people weren't getting their needs met and that's why these questions happen. Thank you very much. Ron? Let's drill down a little bit deeper on what April is saying. What are the underlying conditions here? Let's think about this for a minute, that the people who are promoting the historic district on Munjoy Hill are no different in how they're feeling than the people who are in favor of these five referents. It is their anger and their helplessness. And Justin can say that the council hears everybody but clearly there is a dip glitch somewhere in this process and that people are girded. They're even more girded now for these referendums. And a lot of people don't know, but there's a 26-page addendum to the land use code that's just sitting on the desk from the people up on Munjoy Hill and in the West End that they're promoting to shut down all development on the peninsula. So if they don't get their way, they'll do a referendum. And the next time that somebody on the waterfront loses their birth, they're going to do a referendum. And that's how we are governing. We govern by fear. We're so fearful of change that all we do is kick the can down the road and we wait for something to erupt and then we deal with it. And now we've got these five or six referendum that we're dealing with. Thank you very much, Laura Kelly. So I think it's really important always to remember that people who are listening to people who think just like they do sometimes fail to see a bigger picture. And it's why it's very important to always sort of go back and look at the data. I find the fact that we are in the middle of a global pandemic and we are talking about these referenda have dominated our conversations to perhaps not be reflective of the kinds of things that are on the minds of the majority of people. Now, I want to solve wealth inequality. I don't think that the $15 wage increase with the emergency multiplier is the way to do that. And in talking to lots of people that might be a way to cripple small businesses. We also have a wage main past of a statewide minimum wage legislation that will probably get us there in two years. And so while our democratic institutions are slow, they're important to the degree that we can, that elected people create the policy, they're accountable to it, and okay, I'm sorry. Thank you very much. We're on to our fourth segment, which is Portland's Charter. Should Portland have a strong elected mayor with executive powers currently reserved for the city manager, which includes drafting a budget and hiring firing city staff? Or do you support having a professional manager who is overseen by the council or something entirely different? April, you are first and you'll have 60 seconds. Very interesting question. So I think at least from the outside and from what we have observed, when you have a mayor, like our previous mayor who has a strong personality and has some ideas of things that he wants to do, that clashed very much with the city manager is equally strong personality and beliefs for things that he wanted to do. I think if we're going to have someone who, like the mayor, having executive powers and being able to make those decisions, I think again, you're going to have to extricate some of the responsibilities from each side because it just, when there isn't a clear communication of who is responsible for what, it just creates, it creates confusion. And I think when you create confusion, that's when you start to create that conflict. One of the things that I think is frustrating right now is there are opportunities where the city manager's office does override some of the committee work and that makes you wonder, why do you have the committees in the first place? Well, that's interesting. You brought up that there was the clash and that there was confusion about the role, but is that true? Isn't the charter pretty, I mean, it's understood. It was that the mayor didn't like the charter, which is a valid point, I would say, but isn't that really the case? It's not that there was uncertainty about who had what role, 30 seconds to respond, April. Yeah. I really don't know enough about that mayor's understanding of the charter. We never really had a discussion about that. I do know from someone who wasn't deeply involved in the politics, but really just someone who is a citizen of Portland, seeing what's happening, it was the very public back and forth, often butting heads. And so I didn't really know who was responsible for what. It was just, there was a lot of dysfunction and whether that was an understanding of role or personality, I don't really know. But I know as a citizen, that was incredibly frustrating to watch. Thank you very much. Ron? Well, I was thinking about this the other day. And I think that John Jennings has taken a lot of unfair hits because most of the issues that we have, he inherited these issues. And I think that anybody who had a strong personality like him who came in at this situation, seeing that these council has basically abdicated, he or she would take over and do the things that they're doing to it. So we have to have a hybrid situation. Number one, the council has to be more demanding on the city manager and his or her roles with staff below. There is no accountability. You have departments where people are operating as if they're a little fee-filled. The mayor is supposed to be in charge of vision and the mayor needs to have a staff so that she or he can exercise that vision. Thank you very much. I think there's more to it, but you're only gaining 90 seconds like that. Thank you, Laura. Again, this question has gone to voters not that long ago and they essentially kept it the way it is now. And so I think that April articulates something that I hear from people a lot, which is a lack of clarity just in general. And there have been decisions made that have caused hurt and anger in the electorate that for which John Jennings has been the spokesperson. And he's making decisions that are budgetary, but perhaps not thinking about the lives that are impacted, but that's not reflective of dysfunction in the role. Maybe it's reflective of a lack of understanding about what impacts a community's health and wellbeing. So maybe we could be more sensitive to that and do a better job, but I feel differently than they felt repeatedly. Justin. So first and foremost, I think it's always important to emphasize that it's the responsibility of counselors to operate within the bounds of the charter. And ultimately that's gonna be up to the people. So we need to accept however those roles are to find whatever positions we happen to be elected to. I would not support a strong executive mayor. I think that is the type of thing that can potentially be dangerous honestly in the state of Maine. We in Maine, we don't really do that anywhere else. There are a very, very limited number of positions in Maine that are true executives that are elected. And what that means is it's a different skill set and setting policy and doing things like that is a very different skill set than the skill set that you need to interview people hire a chief of police or a fire department or an airport director. And I don't think those things need to be taken out of the hands of a professional manager. Thank you. For the next question, would you support expanding the city council to include an equal amount of district and at large counselors to balance specific district interests versus citywide interests and perhaps drive longer-term thinking in policy formulation? And I believe, are we with Laura on this one to start? And it is 60 seconds. So good question, good idea. I think one of the things that has become really apparent to me is that the job of the city councilor is a big job and it's a really important job. And people are doing this alongside full-time jobs. That limits the kinds of voices that could come to the table. And when we know for certain that diverse groups of people bring more innovative and more creative solutions to the table, then bodies where everybody is from sort of the same mindset, it would be great to find ways to sort of increase the capacity of the council. And so adding more people seems like a good solution. Thank you very much. Councilor Costa. Yeah, that's an interesting one. I guess ultimately that'll be up for the charter commission to discuss, but it's not something I've ever given much thought to. My first reaction is to say a group of nine is a pretty good number to balance the need to have a variety of voices with being able to also have personal relationships with all of your colleagues. And I think that that is sort of a key feature of how municipal government runs at both levels from the council and on the school board. But yes, I would have to give it more serious thought to be able to give you a firmer answer. Thank you, April. Thanks, similar to Justin, I have not ever thought about that question. So it's a really good one. I think when you think of nine people trying to make decisions together and just the communications that go along with that, that's a pretty good size group. And so expanding beyond that I think would be challenging, but I also agree that more voices and more diverse voices is so important. So I think it's definitely something the charter commission could look at, but I think another thing we could ask ourselves is when we're looking at the body of counselors that we have and the voices that are being represented and the ability to, one, run for office and have the finances to do that, but also spend the amount of time that you need to spend as a counselor, it is a part-time, almost more than part-time job. How do we make this office more accessible so that we are getting more people into the room so that those nine voices are truly representative of the people who live in Portland? Thank you very much. Ron Gann? Well, at first blush, I guess like everybody, I never gave it any thought, but I think nine is okay. I think that getting a consensus from nine people is difficult enough. What I think would be interesting though, I was on the food truck task force. And I think that more of that as a way of interfacing with the council might be a better way to do it than adding more counselors to it. I don't need all my time for this one. I'm sorry. Thank you very much. I am going to skip ahead to land use policy. We've got about 30 minutes left and because of the other questions, there's obviously a lot of concern about housing and other land use issues. Portland has a shortage of housing in every economic segment, whether it is for subsidized low income housing, missing middle and even higher end homes. There is unprecedented demand for each. What is the obstacle to building more housing and accelerating getting it built? Councillor Costa, I believe you are first and it is 90 seconds. Thanks Tim. Yeah, the development of housing, I think is obviously the biggest concern and it's one of the most complicated areas. At a high level, I would say this to sort of illustrate the complication with it. If you met someone and were told that they just moved into a new house that had been built for them, I think most people would make certain assumptions if you were asked to guess what that person's income likely was. You would not suggest, oh, that's probably someone that makes less than the average person if they're living in a brand new house. The reason I bring that up is the fundamental issues that we are facing are driven by one, as I alluded to earlier, the decline in household size over time. The other thing is that real affordability of housing is always tied to depreciation. What we really needed, which could be a big help right now, was we needed a lot of housing built 20 years ago. And if we had had that and that housing was already on the market, then there would be a lot more housing that was more affordable to more people at all income levels. What we as Americans do is we are reliant on subsidizing the construction of new housing and to try and provide affordability. And if you can't provide subsidy, then you also don't have affordability. That's the nut that we're trying to crack. That's what the housing trust fund is about and a whole variety of things, but we'll come back. Thank you very much for that answer. April. Great question. I think when we're looking at the recode and we're looking at zoning, we have space that is available to build on, but we need to make sure that as we are doing the recode, we're looking at mixed use development and making space that's able to be used for residential or multi-unit housing. I think, of course, making it affordable is key. So we could build all the housing we want, but if it's all out of the reach of people who are going to live here, it doesn't matter how much housing we build, it's gonna be empty. So I think looking at the area median income and making sure that it reflects the people who actually live here is critical because we can build all we want, but if people can't afford it, it doesn't make any sense to build it. And then I think as we're looking at the neighborhood that we're looking to build in, making sure that what we are building also isn't going to significantly impact the character of the neighborhoods. So if we're going to build things along transit corridors, we wanna also make sure that it does keep the integrity and the character of the neighborhood. So yeah, I think we definitely need more. I just, I think we need to make sure that we're doing it in a smart way. Thank you very much. Just to follow up, you mentioned the area median income and to go back to what Councillor Costa just spoke about, if we are to subsidize more housing, that money has to come from somewhere. So to lower the AMI, that means bigger subsidies, all of that mostly is driven by federal dollars which are set by on a per capita basis. So then where would we get that funding if we were to attempt to do that? And of course, a lot of the AMI is driven by federal government. Sure, I think that's a great question. So one of the things I actually looked at today be just because I was curious as one of my friends had posted online, just how they struggle and how they are at 100% of AMI. And so I was curious for me, for a family of six, what does that mean? And then looking it up, I think the AMI for a family of six here in Portland is 114 or 116,000. I am not even close to that. And that's shocking to me. And I'm a homeowner and I've been a homeowner here in East Deering since 2006. I would have to look into where the funding would come from. I'm not sure, but to me it was shocking that the jobs that we have and the money that we have coming into our home, we're still only at 78% of what is expected for affordable in this area. So I definitely would have to look more into that on where the funding would come from. But I think looking at what we use for those measures is an important piece. Thank you very much. Ron Gann. Well, first off, I do not believe this is a complex problem. It's a simplistic problem. Our land use policies, which are put out by the city council do not allow us to build in the areas where we have the least expensive land. Well, that is a fact. You can't argue with that. And the average income in Portland is 30,000. So who cares what the average median is? That's what the people who are working in the restaurants make. Now we have a lot of land. And we can build a lot of interesting, attainable housing if we have the right land use policies. Look around at the other cities of what they're doing. Rock Row in Westbrook, Brunswick Landing, the Bitterford Mill, the new vertical growing system with housing on top of it, that's in Westbrook. We have none of that because we don't have the zoning to allow for that. And the reason we don't have the zoning is because we are locked down in fear of changes. And so we can build all kinds of housing to meet the needs of our workforce. All kinds. The city has been an impediment to this process. It's time for the city to be a major player. We have really, really good land that they will not unlock. We can build hundreds of these small little workforce cottages very easily and we can create subsidies so that people can afford to live here in Portland. It's not a complex issue. It's just that we don't have the will yet. Thank you, Ron. Laura. So, I hear the things that Ron says from people who want to build that it's too hard. That it's too hard to build, that it all comes down to zoning and this is very important. And so again, I seek expert opinions and things and so you wanna hear that that's the key to solving some of these problems, some of the need for housing and stuff. I believe that the zoning is the way to solve a problem. And I would only sort of underscore that I think one of the things that it seems like it doesn't get done well often and everywhere is making sure that you're building to meet variable needs. Often cities will invest in things like something like invest multimillion dollars to build a large facility that doesn't actually meet the needs of the people. And so housing is no different. The hotel workers and restaurant workers that Ron refers to are part of that need. But also families and thinking about not everybody wants to be in a stacked building. Families wanna be able to look outside and watch their kids play. So doing a good needs assessment, making sure that we're enabling people to come to the table solve. The housing need is really important. And it seems like it's a solvable problem. Thank you very much, Laura. This is the last question before we go into your closing statements. So please keep the time constraints. Under what, if any, circumstances should real estate developers be given tax breaks for property or housing development? 30 seconds and April, you are up first. Oh, that's a really good question. You know, I think when I think about tax breaks for developers, I really, for me, it comes back to the labor that they're using. So making sure that the people that they're hiring are union members that are being paid prevailing wage for what they work as well as making sure that what they are building is giving back to the community. And so making sure that they're allocating enough for workforce housing and that they're building responsibly and sustainably. Thank you. Ron. What was the question again? Under what, if any, circumstances should real estate developers be given tax breaks for property or housing development? So are we speaking of a TIF or are we speaking of some other kind of? It could be anything, whether it's grants, TIFs, low-income closing tax credits, any of that. All right, so I need my 45 seconds because I think this is an important thing. And April, this is for you because I've heard this from so many people. You guys continually talk about developers as if we are bad people. If there's no developers, there will be no housing. Someone has to build it. It's the model of development that is important. And so if you run through, and if your group had actually sat down with either landlords or developers, you might know how much it actually costs to do something. And then you can see what kind of subsidies because we will not be able to build affordable housing for anybody without some kind of subsidy, whether it's tax or less on fees. But also the other part of it is is that we should be giving incentives to developers. We should be giving them reasons to build the affordable housing and be willing to make it a little less money. Thank you very much, Ron. Laura? So I like to think about everything in terms of what lends to a greater health and wellbeing of our community. So, incentives that helped us reach climate goals or incentives that help us meet needs of specific populations that are vulnerable populations. I think we can think of a lot of ways to support people coming to the table to meet the needs of the community that serve dual purposes. That's the perfect kind of solution. Thank you very much. Councillor Acosta. Yeah, thanks, Tim. So I guess I just want to emphasize that what I heard you asking about was tax breaks. So I certainly heard Tiff to Ron's point being in that, which is tax increment financing. It's actually a subset of that called credit enhancement agreements. I think the important point for people to sort of take away from this is everything that April talked about, that's the current policy. That's something that we've already implemented. We implemented several years ago, and I certainly supported. We basically only give tax breaks to developers right now if they're developing affordable housing. That's, there's an annual report that you can access online. There's all sorts of detail around that, but that's what we do. Thank you very much. We are now going to transition to the closing statements. You each get two minutes. And Councillor Costa, you are up first. We did this in alphabetical order. Okay. Well, again, thanks, Tim, for all the work. All this together, we've had to move it around. And I know that a lot of people have been involved in organizing all of this, and it doesn't happen easily. This is, I would say, as I've been saying throughout, an incredibly important time for the city of Portland. The pandemic that we're facing, the accompanying recession, the fact that the federal government support appears to be gone and perhaps not coming again, means that this is the most difficult and serious time that the city has faced in generations, and maybe ever. This is the most important time for us to be able to address all of the myriad issues that we have been talking about tonight. I think our discussion tonight has laid bare that, you know, for the most part, we agree on the direction that we want to go. And the question for all of us is who is going to be best positioned as a Councillor to make progress on all of those issues? And I think our discussion has shown how complex and interrelated all of these issues are. And if we want to make progress right now, and if we want to have someone that can address these issues immediately, given the crisis that we are facing, that's what I bring to the table as a sitting Councillor, as a former school board member, as someone who is versed in how all of this works. And I think that's incredibly important right now for the city. Great, thank you very much. April Farnia. Thank you, I'm just gonna take two seconds before my two minutes just to circle back to something that Ron had mentioned. He mentioned my group talking as if the people for Portland and all the referenda were a group that I'm involved in, and that's not accurate. So it is not my group. I did not write any of the referenda. I didn't have anything to do with organizing them. I just support them. So I just want to make sure that that's really clear. And now I'll start my closing statement. So I'm really just grateful to have this opportunity to be able to share this. Thank you so much for putting it together. It is a lot of work. Running for office is a privilege and being able to have this platform and talk to people is just an incredibly special privilege that I'm grateful for. I think that my lived experience, my work experience, my educational opportunities have really grown and developed the skills that I need to be great at when we engage our community as a counselor. I have lots of experience working with lots of different parties, bringing people to the table together, making sure that as I'm developing, whether it's plans or educational policies or whatever the case is, I am making sure that everyone at the table has a voice and that I'm hearing those voices and the decisions I'm making are based on the data that we collect there. I think a critical component for success in this office is that you do have to be a really great communicator. You have to be an inclusive leader and you need to be a collaborative partner. I know I can do all of these things well. The last thing is just please remember to get out and vote everyone that's watching this, make a plan to vote, make your friends vote, get your family to vote. It's just so critical that we really, truly hear everybody's voices this coming election. So thank you so much for this opportunity and time. Thank you very much, Ron Gan. So we are at the nexus of the pandemic, a housing crisis, higher taxes, social justice issues. And we have to have a variety of new skill sets on the city council. So I bring to this situation my experience in the world of real estate and development. The city of Portland is in fact, the largest player in real estate and we have not managed our real estate well. Even if we were to have built housing 20 years ago, there's still a lot of gaps in the way we manage our real estate. And so we have to start looking at things with a different lens, a much more creative lens. And we have to start dispelling these old narratives where we're held down by ideas that are 30 and 40 years old. If we want to progress, we need to generate revenue and we need to generate new sources of revenue. We can't keep slicing the old pie. We have to put a face out to the world. We have to bring more businesses here with higher paying jobs. And we have to create the kind of housing so that every single person in this city has shelter. There is absolutely no reason why we cannot be the most prosperous city on the East Coast and do something that nobody else has ever done and that is to eliminate our homeless problem. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ron. Laura Kelly. Thank you. What do we do in times of great hardship after we move forward? An American president once said that there are no problems we cannot solve together and very few that we can solve by ourselves. He thought it would take 50 years for every child to find knowledge to enrich his mind and enlarge his talents. He told us that liberty for all meant an end to poverty and racial injustice. He said it would take 50 years for us to be more concerned with the quality of our goals and the quantity of our goods. It's been 55 years and we haven't succeeded, but we have learned what we need to do to succeed. I was taught that our most essential task is to do better for those who come after us. I don't forget that I am one generation removed from a desperate childhood, that my life was built upon sacrifices of others who worked their entire lives, served our country during three wars over the course of an entire century, and who endured untold hardship for the chance of a better life in the future. In my personal and professional life, I have witnessed too often how circumstances far removed from an individual's control and certainly beyond the control of any child, become the determinants of an entire life, sometimes for generations. I'm not a traditional politician. I'm running for office in the middle of a global pandemic during the most heated election cycle in modern history at a time when the electorate is so divided that the cracks in our foundation have become chasms that threaten our ability to withstand. These are the circumstances that set the stage for me to stick my neck out to say that it's time for us to do the work we haven't done, to build a stronger foundation for children, their families, and our communities because we know how and we're capable and because they deserve that from us. Thank you very much to all the candidates for your time. I hope that this debate was very useful to all the viewers and we look forward to the election and to everyone getting out and voting. Thank you very much.