 Hi, I'm Lisa Savage. Welcome back to Pathways to Progress. I'm here again with our new Portless City Councilors, Victoria Pelletier and Roberta Rodriguez. Looking forward to having another conversation. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for being here. Good to be back. Yeah, thanks for having us. You guys have had quite a week, right? Has it only? I know the City Council meeting was very contentious this week and there's been a lot of feedback afterwards and so forth, but one of the things I wanted to ask you about, Victoria, if you don't mind talking about it, is this whole idea that you're not the only woman of color or specifically Black woman even who's in elected office here in Portland, who's like hearing from people like, you're not allowed to talk, we don't want to hear from you, your kind of reaction is, but I got elected and I'm here doing this job. Are you hearing that kind of stuff from people? Yeah, I think it's been an interesting week for Black women in Portland that are in elected positions and I think it ebbs and it flows, but the consistent undertone is definitely a lot of feelings of racism, a lot of feelings of sexism and it definitely ages them for me and it gets wrapped up into the emails and it gets wrapped up into the messages because I think a lot of individuals think like, we got them elected so they should now be doing everything that we want them to do and in some way or another at times productive dialogue gets thrown out the window and then it's just kind of like, why aren't you doing the exact thing that I want you to do? And when it becomes, when it's coming from a white person to a Black person, there's an obvious power dynamic, there's an obvious racial dynamic and you know, there are undertones that I think a lot of people that are white that claim to be allies don't see and don't understand, but when we're on the receiving end of emails and somebody is essentially saying, you are supposed to do this for me, there's a sense of ownership in that, that is traumatic for me and I'm sure for the other Black women that are leaders in the city and so it's really hard to kind of feel like, okay I want to be a counselor and have a dialogue that's effective but I also need to make sure that there's a level of respect there and that you can understand the way that you speak to me is not okay and so you know, that's certainly been my experience in emails and in messages and I think it's tough because of course people want to critique their counselors which I think is fine, like I'm totally, I know I'm going to be critiqued, I know people are not going to like some of the things that I'm doing but I do think that there is a delicate line between making sure that at the end of the day you're recognizing the privilege that exists, you're recognizing white supremacy and white privilege that exists and you're recognizing how you speak to individuals that are people of color that are in leadership positions in government bodies that weren't created for them so like we're already breaking barriers every single day on our own and it's hard enough with that because we're fighting through a lot of these systemic oppression issues that have existed long before us and then at the same time we're trying to be good leaders and good counselors with a majority white body that we're serving and there's some conflict in that and it gets really challenging to feel like we can effectively make progress and have our allies support us in a way that is saying like hey I need to learn more about this vote can you explain it to me rather than being like how dare you this is what you were supposed to do for me and like now I'm going to trash you and so yeah long story short it has been a challenging week as a public official especially being a Black woman. I'm sorry that you're going through that experience but I really admire your courage and perseverance. I noticed in your Instagram stories which are amazing amazing communication vehicle for serving your constituents and letting those of us that are not your constituents but we're interested really in on the process and you you know you're doing it live during the council meeting and keeping us but one of your posts was like you know nobody has time to read a multi paragraph multi page thing just tell me you don't want to hear from me and you don't value my voice but I do not have time to read you know pages of this criticism was that was that directed at one individual or is that kind of like a pattern that you're uh no it's definitely a pattern and it's definitely in ways I see how people talk about me versus how they talk about other counselors it's ways that I see an email towards the council in the entirety and then the same email from that same individual to me um and in that there's a lot of offensive dialogue and there's a lot of things that that that that individual would never say to the entire council body but feels comfortable saying to me and so yeah my my response is always like if you don't like a Black woman in power I just wish you would say that you would save us both time because I really don't want to read you know your your essay on why I am ruining your city because again like even that narrative of like this is my city like it's my city too I live here and I'm an elected official I got elected by a you know a large majority of district two so I think if we're talking about like ownership it goes back to this is a thing I own that like you are now ruining and here's all the ways I'm going to tell you that you're ruining it but then to the entire council it's kind of like hey here's some of my opinions and here's what I think and then I'm getting an entirely separate email and I've seen that on on several occasions so again it just goes back to I am always open to having a dialogue I'm always open to being criticized I get that that's part of the job but there is a difference between criticism and then blatant either racial undertones or just blatant racism of saying like you're a woman you're a young woman and you're a young Black woman in power and I don't like that so I'm going to project all of my stuff on to you because that's something I don't like. You got some pushback this week as well on at least one of your votes on city council and I saw in the paper that the reporter said so they're trash talking you on Twitter what's your response and you said I'm not on Twitter they should call me um you know yeah I think yeah I think like like Tori was saying is this um I think misguided way to quote-unquote hold people accountable um I like Tori I think I can appreciate when someone disagrees with me um and I try to use my time on the council like when I'm talking you know the five minutes that we have to discuss to explain my rationale right to try to use that time as my point of transparency this is what I think this was leading to my vote and I think that that's what I owe people at least an explanation of why I'm voting a Senate way and then when the response comes if it's like I disagree with you because x y and z I'll take that and I think like that's a constructive dialogue but when it comes down to like they're judging how you are acting you know whether you have your camera on we talked about that how you're a new councilor and you need to kind of just sit back and learn before you take the lead on something like those sort of things are that's beyond a disagreement I think that that's part of that controlling that's part of that I paid your salary you should do as I say um and that you know there's tons of problematic issues that come up when you add race to that you know and in Maine I think as someone that's not from Maine and now I'm in an elected position you have that undertone of like this guy's not even from here and he's trying to change our city you know and I think that that's incredibly problematic because it washes away the reason that we stepped up to this work right we do I stepped up to this work because I love this city because I think there's tons of potential and I see a lot of inequities that I believe we need to address and I want to be part of that work I didn't step up here because I think I'm the smartest guy in the room nor that I think that I got all the answers quite the opposite I just want to be part of the solution and in order to get those solutions that dialogue has to happen and it's not going to happen by people which is like attacking you and certainly it's not going to happen by us not calling out when those racial uh like attacks and undertones take place I think that we have to call them out and we kind of have to keep doing our work like we can't let that stuff get to us we can't let that stuff you know like like I've mentioned that I've become shy on social media because of the way that that works and I have to be better at it right because as living a public life you have to be accessible but at the same time and I think that people gotta I think there's gotta be a humanity like a shared humanity that rises above all this and they see the sacrifices that we're making to do this work as a way to kind of normalize the conversation like not attack us understand that it's hard work and we might not always do exactly the way that you want us to do it but we're putting all the effort that you elected us to put into it. It would be impossible for you to vote every single time the way everyone that helped you get elected wants you to vote that just isn't even possible but it sounds like a lot of tone policing going on which is beside the point of policies and so forth um before we started the show you were telling me that there were some complaints about people turning their cameras off not just you two turning your cameras off but counselors turning their camera off uh and that that was unacceptable and you know but like how many hours have you worked by the time of city council meeting as it's at 10 o'clock at night I mean how many hours have you been sitting in front of a zoom screen that day that's a serious question. I mean we've normalized the zoom life so much that we lose track of like that's not healthy to be staring at that screen you know my first zoom meeting on some weeks is like at 9 o'clock in the morning and there might be a little gap in between them but they're back to back all day then at 5 o'clock I jump on a council meeting we're there until like 9 30 10 o'clock at night that's over 12 hours of staring at a screen once in a while I want to shut that camera off and I want to take a deep breath or I want to take a bite of food or drink and not have like a camera five inches from my face and there's you know a lot of people say if you were in person you wouldn't do that and I've I've ran meetings out of city hall when I was on the school board when you're you goof off way more in person than you do when you have a camera five inches from your face so the I think that again that's something that the current reality people are not acknowledging it's not healthy to and and to then have this pressure of like you better have your camera on like I don't know again it's unrealistic it's certainly not part of what people talk to me during the campaign that was a big expectation I might like to have the camera on no right we talked about photo a house and we talked about equity we talked about real issues so this to me seems like just above and beyond and Victoria you've been getting complaints about where you're sitting in your home while you do these long long meetings I think people forgot that like one we're in a pandemic we're doing our absolute best I kind of thought we were turning a quarter around like we're going to see people's cats in the video we're going to see the dog I like seeing that stuff I like I like seeing you know what your partner is behind you cooking food like these things are normal and they happen I can't create what somebody is expecting of like my own personal space but yeah I I get messages like oh it must be nice she's taking the meeting from her bed look at her and it's like I'm taking the meeting from my bed because I don't have a desk I don't have a workspace I'm in a one bedroom apartment I have no room for a desk at a table to be able to sit down and say like okay here I am at the meeting so I'm either from my bed which is the only space with a neutral backdrop or I'm from the couch which are both very uncomfortable and I'm trying to figure it out but it's also again I think it goes back to ownership of saying like if you're a city counselor here's how you're supposed to be and the reality is again we're in a pandemic we're on virtual meetings we are all adapting to new scenarios and what we call I guess the new normal and so for the people that are upset that I'm taking it from my bed like would you do you want to house me I'll come over and I'll do it there you have a more comfortable space but I am again really trying to make ends meet and in a space where I can be present for a five six hour meeting and that happens to be from my bed or my couch and so again I think it goes back to people saying you need to be like this and this and take your meeting from here and wear this and speak this way and it's just not realistic and you know I think it gets over the line of being offensive because again I don't I don't have those things. Birdie was telling us he gets texts during the meeting telling him to tell another counselor to do something so not only are they bossing you but they're telling you to boss Victoria or someone else. I'll tell you a story that I think like explains this in the most graphic way possible right one of my first meetings one of our first meetings on the council I get three text messages from someone that I've not heard from in months like it might have been about six or seven months and the first text message was tell Victoria to look up it looks like she's falling asleep. The second message was hey congratulations on winning your election and then the third text was oh by the way this is so-and-so and I'm like did these come like out of order because the first one should have been hey it's me the second one congratulations and then hey by the way Victoria but they literally started with go tell this black woman what to do yeah and I was like get out of here like you know like that stuff is like so obviously like out of the fact that what you're actually doing is posting those instagram stories to keep the rest of us. Yeah it's again I understand the meetings are long and not everybody has time to sit through a five-hour meeting but wants to make public comments so I've started doing this thing on instagram where I say exactly where we are and what's happening and when it's time for public comments so that people can get ready and when I look down it I guess looks like my eyes are closed but again I'm just updating my phone to make sure that I can help people who can't stay on the meeting for a long time but have something to say and it's like you can't please everybody no matter what but it's like look what she's doing tell her tell her to open her eyes and you know it's it's hard because again we're on a virtual meeting and we're doing the absolute best that we can given the circumstances that we're in. Well we've heard several people say how helpful it is that you do that on instagram stories and it does help people you know stay with the process and all well let's not spend the whole time talking about process let's talk about something substantive and I'm just going to ask you the very open-ended question you guys have a five-minute limit in the council meetings to give your rationale for how you're going to vote or you know say whatever you're going to say if you had more than five minutes this week what would you have liked to say what would you have chosen to say and about what um I definitely had some thoughts about the tobacco ban okay you say I want you to say yeah yours first because I feel like I talked a lot it was only like three minutes and 30 seconds but I felt like I was talking for 10 minutes so yeah to me yeah so we voted to put in place a ban on flavored tobacco in the city of Portland second city in the city in the state of Maine to pass such a measure um the conversation was actually really good Tori kind of kicked it off with a really insightful look at how challenging it is right and she talked about being um I guess frustrated with the different angles and how she was trying to separate herself from how would the impact of this ruling would be right of this vote would be um I personally felt like if I had more opportunities to talk I would have probably elaborated more on what I had experienced in my community growing up and how the targeting of advertising towards black communities so it's like minority communities um and the impact that then that has on our health you know I I have talked a lot about the the work that I've done as an adult to improve my diet to be conscious of like uh you know my cardiovascular risk and all these things that I think I'm prone to have and and when I look at what I had growing up as influences and being a new port smoker since I was in high school and drinking malt liquor and all these things that we did in the hood like all that stuff was purposely put in our environment so that our demographics would be hooked and and I feel like I was I've done so much in my life to work back all of the ill effects of that and I didn't do I still don't feel like I'm doing a good job at expressing how that touched me personally and that I'm just here like crying because I know that other kids are experiencing the same pressures and without without much support they're falling you know for all the really effective uh targeting that that tobacco is doing that alcohol is doing and we're seeing the effects in our community so I I feel like I I wish I would have been more thoughtful about my comments not even like have more than five minutes but just be more organized about it that was an issue that to me I I wish I'd have been more eloquent speaking on for sure so Victoria if you had more than five minutes to talk about something in a council meeting what what would you say um well the flavored tobacco uh note or speech that I made because I was just like ah I was just really overwhelmed and and I I'm glad watching it back that I made sense at least to me because I was a little bit concerned I was like am I making sense am I am I just like having a you know anxiety attack so while I don't know what more I would have added to that I I think the thing that I liked from that and from just getting times to speak is that when I named being anxious and stressed out with the vote a couple of a couple of other counselors and I think the mayor was also like I also feel like thanks for naming that because I also feel this way and I feel like that was a really great moment for people watching to also understand that like these votes are very challenging they're not easy that one definitely kept me up I was back and forth on it for a while I thought I had the vote I was very confident with the way I was voting I had some more conversations and I definitely changed my vote because I went in being like I'm not doing this like this this makes no sense to me I'm not even going to bother and I think I said that two couple times I was like I'm good but I started thinking again is this just for me like am I getting in the way of that vote and I think thinking of again I have Reiki and King in my district and that is really important to me because these are two schools that are very culturally diverse and I was kind of like if I can even help a little bit 1% 10% I think it's it's my responsibility as a Black leader to do that and to really make sure that I'm voting in the best interest of the district and not just my own personal thoughts on a policy that I don't know is going to be effective and I hope that it's going to be but that that was a moment of like having enough time to explain that and really wanting to explain it so that people who aren't listening are are understanding that it's not just what we want personally all the time again it really has to go back to is this going to help the district or not is this going to be an effective thing you know that's going to support the district or not and so I I like that we get time to get to say these things about ourselves that maybe in the past other counselors wouldn't have done because I felt very vulnerable being like I'm stressed and I'm anxious and I've been up at night and blah blah blah and I just think that by naming that we talked about it and I think we had a good dialogue on everybody had stories about their vote and their experiences and and that felt real in a way where I hope we can continue to do that going forward because that felt like these are just a bunch of real people that happen to be counselors but we all have life experiences that lead us to vote a certain way and that was a nice moment I think of like all of us kind of being in sync at one point and saying like we're all stressed this is this is not easy so it was a very tricky one it was very interesting hearing the public call in with the different points of view and yeah cultural practices and so forth I thought it was really interesting that the two big items on the agenda were pitting public health against commerce basically and both very different issues when being the mask mandate for indoors and when being the ban on flavored tobacco it was interesting to hear your talking about it because you were really trying to fulfill your ideal of what did I run for office for what am I here to do and so that was interesting now you two voted differently on the mask mandate and I'm sure you can handle the fact that you didn't both the same on the mask mandate do you have other things to say about that particular issue or did you feel like you were able to cover it in the meeting and so I think I mean I'll take this on I'll I'll uh agree with Tori that there was something different about the conversation around the tobacco and actually the entire meeting it was the first time I shouldn't say this without like prepping at first that I felt like the entire conversation on all the comments that were made by counselors were to explain their vote not to try to convince people to vote their way which in the past we've seen a lot of that with the kind of translates into like like these people don't understand it I get it right agree with me and the conversation that night was was not that way on the mask mandate um yeah we this is actually a really good example right because we said earlier like people are we like the new progressives to vote a certain way and then here we are two progressives voting different ways and issues for different reasons um and viewing it separately I think that I totally respect the way that Tori voted I for me it wasn't an easy vote it wasn't like a slam dunk that I was going to to move away from the mask mandate um I thought I did a good job at explaining my rationale which was based on the hospitalization rates and the trends that were seen um but again you know obviously ended up somewhere different than my colleague I don't I won't claim to have been right I won't have claimed that she was wrong but I thought I did a good job at explaining myself and again that's my goal at the end of the day that to be clear about why I chose a certain vote yeah I think for me um for that mask mandate conversation I maybe would have spoken a little bit more because I definitely shared where I was coming from and I definitely was listening to director Dell when the numbers that she was given but I think something that people also forget is main med is in my district and so I'm getting I'm getting the nurses and the doctors and those are the emails and the calls that I'm getting and it can be vastly different because it's my district I'm their district counselor of where they work versus I think some of the other counselors who maybe aren't hearing or aren't really in the middle of those conversations so I I think I I kind of wish I put that out there for the people that maybe forgot because there was certainly um there was pushback on that there was pushback because I'm sponsoring the hazard pay amendment people were like of course she's gonna vote for her she wants her hazard pay and you know the reality is I wanted a mask mandate since September since before I was even elected like I've been quoted many a time when we were campaigning saying that and you know I was going based on the the numbers that director Dow gave us and I was also going based on the fact that while we were trending well I certainly didn't think it was time to like be like we're good we can remove the mask mandate I thought we were going in the right direction but I think we were going in the right direction because of the mask mandate and so I would have loved I guess to have talked about that a little bit more um but you know I I think looking back differently I put a lot of energy into explaining the flavor tobacco and I certainly explained my piece on the mask mandate but I think because I talked so long about flavor tobacco and I didn't talk as long for the about the mask mandate that some of my reasoning got a little bit missed and so I think looking back that's probably what I would have talked about more. Well it is a complicated issue because the hazard pay is in there which was passed by referendum in Portland but it's dependent on there being a state of emergency which the mask mandate is perceived as being sort of a marker of an emergency it isn't necessarily but that's the way it's seen and then also the comer we heard you've heard from many small business owners going I've got this enforcing this and my employees are being you know abused verbally and they're afraid for their safety and but then other people saying well that's the only reason I'm shopping locally that's why I stopped shopping online and went into stores again because I felt safe because so they're really complex issues they can't really be boiled down to like you know the right side is right on the wrong sides wrong I have a lot of respect for both of you for being able to appreciate those nuances take in information from a lot of different sources and then be able to talk about your reasoning that it's not easy to do yeah I think the thing that's the hardest that I'm learning as a new counselor is that none of my votes are ever 100% but they have to be in that moment or I'm either like yes or no and I sometimes wish I could be like yes but or no not yet and instead of being feeling so concrete like for example the mask mandate I don't want to exist with masks forever but I wish there could have been a way that's like just for a little you know just a little longer and and like let me say yes now but that doesn't mean yes and you know for the next three months and so I think it's that's what I'm learning as a new person is that even though we make our points in the meeting not everybody's watching the meeting so all they see is the headline the next day saying she said no to that or she said yes to that and then that's driving some of the anger too of saying how could you but if people watch the meeting it's kind of like we say my piece that's why I try and cut some of the stuff I say and like share it on social media because I always want to say like here's why I'm voting in this way you're not voting in this way but yeah it's hard because nothing is ever like one or the other we have a lot of gray area that we don't we don't get the luxury of like picking the gray area as a counselor maybe ranked choice voting could help with that you know you could rank things like that'd be so funny it's like okay everybody look at your paper so what's on the horizon what the thorny issues do are you grappling with next I mean the hazard pay is going to be I'm taking it to the end it's going to be a challenging conversation we are going to be voting and discussing that on the 28th I look forward to the conversation regardless because I think again we didn't get enough chance to talk about it it's a really important thing that whether people are voting for it or not that I think is important for us to discuss um and and have on have on the table so I think looking forward to the end of the month which is our next meeting that's probably going to be I would assume the biggest discussion and item and vote on the agenda because it's already kind of bubbling up and people are discussing it but I'm sure between now and then there'll be something else as well that will come up so yeah I mean and and to that point I think that I agree with Tori I think on the hazard pay when we'd have that discussion I think it's an important one and I think that it hopefully we gain something valuable out of it even if it's not like necessarily gets the votes and it passes I think I agree fundamentally on like the most effective way to to to help marginalize people is to increase wages right because it's kind of like that rising tide effect to which I will always say you know some anchors are heavier than others right so the rising tide doesn't lift all ships equitably um but I I personally have had this idea that when wage increases happen you know in bubbles like that like in small communities that they also have a negative impact in those same marginalized communities that we're trying to to impact so I I'm looking forward to diving into that so that I can when I say that say it not in the you know I have a hunch that this could hurt them but like let's dig in let's say is that true um and then with the right information perhaps I become kind of like the atory we got to take this like stronger but absent that come absent that conversation and that knowledge um I think that we're ill equipped to make the right decision at least I find myself so I'm looking forward to doing it to having that conversation even if it seems right now like there's not like a clear path forward for it so you would like more information on the effect of total jobs that are available or whether small businesses have to close or that is that the kind of information that you're thinking yeah would really help you make an informed decision yeah my fear of like having a local um hazard pay increase suddenly is you know people's hours will be cut jobs will be lost and then the cost will be passed on to the consumer at which at the end of the day you and I are no better off particularly those those people that are that are really struggling to make ends meet so if that assertion is accurate I'd be I'd be more cautious to advance it but if what I'm saying is not proven like if there's not like a proven argument behind that then maybe put in a hazard payment in in place is something that that I 100% want to put in um having said all that like I said at the beginning I 100% agree that increasing wages across the board is the most effective way to help people sure but that's not hazard pay that's exactly increasing the minimum wage which I also believe it totally yeah it's very often the case that when voters pass something in a referendum either at the municipal level or the state level here in Maine the legislative body fails to enact it sometimes it's seen as an act of bad faith sometimes it's seen as an inevitable occurrence because conditions have changed or the referendum item wasn't written in a way that is you know can be enacted we've seen it in Maine many times so I think I can see that process playing out here in Portland and it's very easy for people to say hey we elected you to do this but doing that thing involves a lot more than someone marking a ballot in the on election day yeah and I think with that too like I'm bringing it to the finish line regardless of what way it goes because it got left it got left in the conversation and so whether people like it or not I'm bringing it all the way to the end and the beauty of a democracy and a city council is we all get a vote and that's the fairest way to settle whether or not we're actually going to implement it you know there are many other conversations around that that I think we need to have but and I think the other thing is we got elected like we're allowed to bring ideas to the table and it's like if you don't like it then you don't have to vote for it but I think there's this thing of saying like no don't do that thing but it's like if I'm not doing this then I'm fully willing to have conversations around other ideas but I do think that we have huge issues with wage disparities and I think that ties directly into systemic racism and classism I would love to talk about it I would love to implement it in some way whether it's in my council career or or you know in another but I think that we have a lot to talk about and the exciting part about being in a city council and being a new person on the council is you can bring new ideas to the table and you could bring ideas that maybe people think are radical ideas but if someone doesn't like when I'm bringing to the table I would love like bring something else bring something else that to the table that you think would be effective and then let's work together to implement it but I think it's like this is part of being on the council is trying stuff and seeing if it works and seeing if it doesn't and having those conversations about it so again I think with with hazard pay I just look forward to talking about it well bringing it creates the space for people to have the conversation and to find out more than they knew yeah and so that's got to be a positive right yeah well this has been a great conversation our time is up but thank you so much I hope that you'll come back again thank you for joining us Pathways to Progress with Victoria Pelletier and Roberta Rodriguez talking about their city council experiences and we appreciate your listening in thanks a lot