 I'm Lisa Savage. Welcome to Pathways to Progress. I'm here tonight with City Councilor Victoria Pelletier and a special guest City Councilor Regina Phillips is standing in for Roberta Rodriguez tonight. So we're very, very pleased to have you with us. Thank you. Thanks for watching and from home. We have some more person on the street interviews to share with you today and hear what your counselors have to say about the issues that are raised. We're going to do a little check-in first coming to you from the Portland Media Center. Let's find out how your week was. You kind of had a day, I know. Councilor Pelletier, how about your week? Yeah, we had a week. Yeah, and it feels like it was so long ago and it was Monday, but we had our meeting on Monday and everybody knows this by now, I think, but we got Zoom bombed, which has been happening pretty much since February, but this was probably one of the worst it's ever been where, yeah, like, you know, people called in with super racist and homophobic and transphobic and anti-Semitic comments consistently on pretty much every item, not even just like public comment on non-agenda, but on every item using fake names and just really trying to disrupt the meeting. And it was hard for a lot of us who have been dealing with that personally even being, you know, counselors of color. And we suspended the meeting midway, probably midway through, which we've never done before, to go into executive session because we just couldn't proceed. It just wasn't working for us to get anything done. So I think we're now looking at revisiting the remote public participation policy and seeing what we can do so that people can still give public comment, but maybe aren't able to do so on Zoom because on Zoom, you can be very anonymous. And so we're looking at what the requirements would be if we got rid of that option and just asked people to come in if they had a comment. So we're going to look at that. Right. Exactly the way it used to be. So, you know, the Zoom participation part was great because a lot of people can go home, make dinner, listen to the meetings and call in. People that have to work still can call in from work if they step out. And of course, people who are unable, physically unable to get into City Hall, it's great to have to make sure that they can still participate in the meetings. But we just need to figure out that balancing act that keeps us safe and productive, keeps everybody safe and productive and really wards off a lot of the calls that we're getting because it was just not constant on Monday. It is just harassment. Yeah. Yeah. So you experience this for Gina. Was it horrifying or, you know, it's kind of become routine now? Or I mean, how do you feel when it's happening? Oh, well, it's like Tori said, I mean, we've been dealing with this. I've been dealing with this ever since I've been on the council. Okay, right. I got I was one in in December, January was my first council meeting. And so literally, I think we've been dealing with this since January, either January or February. And it's just sad. It's sad that we have to, we have to go, we have to listen to it. We go back and forth. And, you know, we're told, Oh, that's freedom of speech. And then, but the freedom of speech is hate speech. So it's really complicated because we're like, we don't want to listen to it. It's hard to listen to. It's upsetting to listen to our, you know, concentration is not all there because we're listening to, you know, folks call in and being and being racist and sharing things and saying really inappropriate things. And it's hard, you know, it's hard. It's really hard to listen to because again, it messes with our concentration, we're there to do a job. And we want to do that job. And we want to hear public comment. But it's hard when somebody keeps calling in and, you know, using derogatory terms and names and sometimes they call the counselors out by name to. Yeah, they do. Right. I don't know if you would share my interpretation. My interpretation of it is they're trying to harass counselors of color or possibly counselors that are Jewish or possibly counselors that are LGBTQ. They're trying to harass y'all into not serving anymore of just going like, I don't need the high blood pressure. I don't need the headache. I don't need the, you know, public service for serving as a city counselor is a hard task. What little renumeration you get for it would barely, I'm sure you don't ever figure out how much per hour you make for the work that you put in. I think it's like one penny. One penny is the answer. They long nose line. So do you feel that this is an attempt to harass people of color off the city council or is it just very immature, childish behavior that will, you know? I mean, the thing that we have noticed is that this is happening in a lot of cities in towns in Maine. So Portland probably is the one that has it the most significant and at least the longest. But I think recently in the paper, it was saying it was happening in other places as well like how well Bangor and other cities and so like places are getting zoom bombed. And I think it's a combination of the two. I think like there's joy and excitement for people to think that they've disrupted a meeting. And I also think that, you know, I don't know that it's as much of like don't run again. I just think it's more like we see diversity and we see, you know, this body working towards inclusionary practices, especially I think in Portland, because we are, I would say out of the places that have been zoom bombed, probably the most diverse and progressive city out of this. So I think people are just naturally looking at us as a target and saying, let's call it. I mean, a lot of these people don't even live in Portland. They're just calling in because it's something to do to call in anonymously and use a fake name and then try and just like call the counselors out with really racist and derogatory language. Super cowardly, like I'm sure you don't really want them to come right in your face, physically confront you and say those things. But you know, that's it does not take much courage to hide behind and assume right and be on your computer somewhere people can't find you and don't talk trash like that. That is right. Well, a lot of it mean harassment and abuses about power. Right. And so they're trying to gain some power over us, you know, like, like we're going to go away or like, you know, whatever. And so it's like, you know, I don't necessarily know if it's it's, you know, not to let us run again. But it definitely is something that again, you know, I think they're doing it deliberately. I think they're trying to get us off our game. And I think they're trying to instill power, you know, because then they get to have power over our meeting. They get to control the meeting. And we don't. And and so I think it's, you know, it's to me, it's like a white supremacy culture. Right. You have power. There's power and there's white privilege and there's all of those things. And I think that that's what's happening. Yeah. Well, luckily, you guys have the institutional power to say we're not doing Zoom comments anymore. It would be one possibility or a city employee will vet the Zoom comments before they reach the ears of the council and the public listening in. I read in the paper that it made Mayor Snyder cry eventually after hearing so much hateful talk. Yeah, I think it's hard for her because, you know, we're we're not sitting at the days, right? We're sitting we're sitting around and and, you know, we're like, oh, we just don't want to hear this. And for her, she just doesn't know when to cut it off. It's really hard. You don't know what somebody's going to say. You know, she's looking at our corporate council and they're saying it's free speech. And so it's really hard. And she's the one that has to decide when to cut it off. And she also has to figure out who gets to go next and that kind of thing. And people change their name as yes, Troy said they change their name. Right. And so we have folks calling in and saying they're Bill Clinton and they Jesse Ventura and also using inappropriate names. And she has to introduce that. And so that's really, that's really hard. Yeah, we don't see the names. So we so we can't see who's coming next. You often can't tell that until you say it out loud. Yeah, I mean, what's the name they're said out loud? Yeah, we all have an idea once the name is said out loud. And especially because for the meetings, we normally get the same collars every time. So we've gotten familiar with the names. And you can tell because you were supposed to say your name and where you live and you can tell when the address isn't real or when, you know, there's hesitation of like where they live. So immediately when a name is said, we know it's not real, but we can't see the actual list. And I think that was part of the difficulty to was she saw a list of names that were really horrible names. And so I think that that was just tough to be able to have to read those as well. Sure. Yeah. So well, my heart goes out to all of you and thank you for your service. I don't live in Portland, but I have many family members that do and you know, I really appreciate the Portland City Council and you should not have to put up with that. Thank you. Should we move on to some more coherent and intelligent comments from the public? Yes, please. Warren, Edgar and I went out into the street a couple weeks ago. We went to the Eastern prom and we went to Dearing Oaks and we were able to talk to some folks and ask them the very open ended question. We have this TV show with city counselors. What are your issues that you would like them to either think about or questions you have for them or things you'd like them to consider? So let's roll the first one. To me, I think the most important thing right now for Portland is more affordable housing, help more people who are living on the streets right now to have a place. So I think that would mean more housing first sites as well as more low income sites. So he's identifying two, this person seemed to be fairly knowledgeable because he talks about housing first sites and he talks about low income housing sites. Didn't the state just allocate some money to housing first in their last, the last, the legislature's last session, I believe some money was earmarked for housing first programs, which is different from low income housing. Care to comment on either of those or both? Yeah, I'm not sure about the legislature. I know that we need all kinds of housing. We need all kinds of housing. I would say the only housing that we don't need is housing that, you know, that rich people need, right? Because that's a diamond doesn't anybody who can afford, you know, to live, you know, in Portland, we don't need that kind of housing and not to say that they're not important and we don't want them to live in the city, but they can afford to live wherever they want to live. And if they want to live in Portland, great. You know, you can afford again, afford to go out and purchase something. We need affordable housing. We need housing first. We need housing for folks who suffer from substance use disorder. We need more mental health beds. We need affordable housing. We need workforce. We need any kind of housing that we can get because we have such a diverse city. And so we need lots of housing. We have a lot of our refugee and immigrant communities that need, you know, four, five, six bedroom house apartments and also affordable. So we need any kind of housing that we can get and we need any kind of housing from the state that they want to give in order for us to either build it or find it. Yeah. And I think to add, I mean, and I completely agree with low income housing as well. We, there is housing that's in the process of being created. It's just really slow moving. So the planning board just approved housing in Lambert Woods, I think it's called, which is like 160 something units. 25% of that will be affordable housing. It's not as much as we would like, but that is going to be moving forward and was just approved by the planning board in the spring. And then there is the 800 unit development that's being talked about in Bayside. And all of that, I think, will be affordable housing. So that's still in the workshop phase and the planning, planning board. It hasn't been passed yet, but that's housing that would be potentially created. And so I really encourage individuals if they can go to those workshops to attend because a lot of information is happening there. So that's housing that's making a little bit of a movement. And then there is a building near City Hall actually that was a vacant building that's going to be turned into housing. And I think that's 100 units. I'm not sure how many, how much of that will be affordable housing. I do know what studio, it will be studio apartments, one and two bedroom apartments as well. So there is housing that's being created, but it's the supply and the, like the supply is outweighing the demand entirely. And so to the public and even to us on the council, it moves, it feels like it's moving extremely slow. So I very much understand what this person is saying about the lack of affordable housing and the fact that it, we are moving as quickly I think as we can based on the fact that we have I think such a different city than we had even five or ten years ago. And people who really need places to live and the fact that like we're moving as fast as we can, but we just don't have enough supply to meet the necessary demands. And I also think in terms of housing first, I mean the, the Incantment Crisis Response Team is their model, is really housing first as well. So I know he had mentioned getting people off of the streets and into housing. Right now it's more getting people off of the streets and into shelter, which they're trying to do as well. And we, we get updates all of the time from that committee, but it's, we're consistently trying to work in order to get people out of incantments and get them into shelter and then talk about transitional housing option. So it is slow and we're really trying our best and I encourage everyone, I think I said this last time too, to join the committee meetings because even like the AGDC committee meetings, get it, they're not so exciting and even HHS, they can be really boring. But I think that's where the conversations also happen about like what's happening with housing. We probably get updates in terms of like the Bayside Development, the Lambert Woods Development. And then people can start to understand like housing is, is being created. We're looking at vacant buildings that we're hopefully able to turn into housing. It's just going to take some significant time. Right. And it's not happening just in the city of Portland. No. It's happening across the nation. Right. In every city. But it sounds like Portland has more solutions in the pipeline than people may realize. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Should we go on to our next, we've talked about housing so much and then we will continue to talk about housing a lot because it is a crisis. But our next interview was a completely different topic that we haven't brought up yet before. I would love if we could discuss a more collaborative effort towards addressing food security, working with Maine SnapEd. We are definitely taking an approach to talk about like education and we're reaching folks in our community and at least myself working in Portland. I know that there's a ton of other organizations like working towards this cause. I would love to see some collaboration, you know, so we can all kind of have a shared goal and maybe some, some more guidance. So this is a woman who works for SnapEd. She was at the farmers market running their booth. And you may know SnapEd goes into schools and tricks kids into eating Brussels sprouts and things like that. I've been the teacher in the room, they're brilliant, they're so good at it, it really works. But I think that they were concerned about partnering with agencies or city departments that address hunger and a shortage of food. So I don't know a lot about what kind of partnerships exist or really I know what Prebble Street does. I don't really know what else goes on in Portland. I don't think so. Well I know that that the legislation did pass. It was the last year or the year before that everybody's gonna get free breakfast, right? So kids are able to eat at school. I know that there's a lot of schools that also provide some food patries and so, you know, that's at least getting, you know, kids' food and then they can obviously take it home and that kind of thing. I think that there's a, I think there's a good food shepherd. I think there's cultivating community. I think there's a lot of organizations, you know, that are trying to work really hard in order for us to have food security, but it's really hard and it's very difficult. And through the pandemic, we saw that the food cost, you know, is skyrocketing. It's just go try and go try and buy a dozen of eggs. Like I think the price doubled. And so, you know, I think that, you know, we want to work with anybody that's going to help people eat. I mean, that's, you shouldn't, you should not have to go without a meal. That's for sure. Yeah, and I think that a lot of that too really expanded throughout the pandemic. So organizations like you said, cultivating community, Good Shepherd Food Bank, I know like Presente, Maine, Maine Immigrant Rights Coalition, these organizations started to expand in terms of food delivery and just delivering it to individuals who weren't able to leave their house, who couldn't leave their house. So I actually really like what she thought in terms of like partnering and more opportunities for food food and security to have those partnership opportunities because I don't know at the city level if we actually have outside of like our health and human services work. I don't know that we actually have one specific to combating food and security in Portland. I think we have a lot of really great grassroots organizations that I just we both just listed that do that work. But I don't know that we have a dedicated effort towards that at the city level so much. And if we do, I feel like it's not as robust as maybe it could be. So I actually really like that idea and I'm trying to actually, as I was listening, I was trying to figure out like what committee that would lie in. I do think it would be likely in health and human services and public safety. And it brings me back to our goals, which were racial equity as well. And I think like that's a huge piece that oftentimes is missed in terms of talking about how we're going to make sure that we are providing resources as necessary as possible. It actually expands beyond, I think, what we have even thought of for resources and it does expand into food. And I don't know that we've ever actually had that conversation at the city level. So I think that's something to actually look into, especially as we start figuring out what our goals are for the next year of the Health and Human Services Committee, because it's wild that we're at the end of the year. But when we think about our goals, I think that's something that I'll have to keep in mind in terms of saying what are our options to do as a committee to make sure that we are partnering with a lot of these organizations that are working on food insecurity. So that just gave me an idea, but I appreciate it. Well, and the other thing, because you raised a good point, which is just during the pandemic, folks who were receiving food stamps were able to get more food stamps. And now that the pandemic is over, all of those benefits are going to be taken away. And so it's really important for us to take a look at that at this point in time, because somebody who may have been getting an extra hundred dollars a month for food because of the food prices are so high, they are not going to get that now. And so it is really important for us and something that we really need to take a look at. It's tricky when it intersects with housing, too, because you can't snap food stamps if you don't have a place to cook. And if you're living in a tent, I don't think they would consider that an they would not accept that as, yes, I have a place to cook. Right. All right. Well, we are going to go on to our next topic. And I think that this one is just a visual. We this was an underage person that wanted to talk to us. And so I'm going to read their words. And I think that Warren is going to show them on the screen so people at home can follow along. So this was a Portland seventh grader who said to us, I used to go to a school in Portland and we would have to be worried about where we were walking because we would have to be cautious of stepping on needles. I've almost stepped on a needle like 16 times. It's scary from the horse's mouth. Yeah. Thank you to the seventh grader that engaged with us. I really appreciate it. And I also agree that it's it's scary and it's a really big concern. I think right now we have 14 sharps containers throughout the city of Portland. In my district in the Deering Oaks area we have probably Deering Oaks and kind of Parkside area probably two. I think and I think we're always having conversations about expanding that. I think initially 14 seemed like a decent amount. But this past couple years where we've just seen such an increase of substance use. We've seen an increase of needing more resources for unhoused neighbors. That number I think really needs to be doubled. And I'm hoping that we can end up getting there because I agree that you know there are places where you walk and there are you know needles on the ground. And that's obviously not safe for anyone and especially for kids that are walking to and from school. So I you know in the Health and Human Services and Public Safety Committee is very aware of the need for resources like this so that we can have easy access sharps containers everywhere. I know some of them are around the public restrooms. And I think we're just now seeing how much need we have for more resources like this. So I again like I said I'm hopeful that we can put some more out and about throughout the city. And this is just also a plug that we have C-Click Fix and our public works department is extremely fast at going to get sharps and disposing of them properly. I saw a question come up on Reddit about that people saying you C-Click Fix. Yeah. Somebody said but it's in my driveway that's private property. Will the city respond? I don't know what the answer to that is. I think they'll still respond. They still would. Yeah absolutely. Because it's a public health answer. Yeah and you know nobody wants to just have just because it's your private property either happens to me a needle there. I would I think city staff would still come and dispose of it. And like I said they're they're really quick with that of course because it is a hazard and despite being under staff they really make sure that it's a priority to continue to monitor that. So that's a really easy way to take a picture of it send it in don't touch it and hopefully you know within I would say like an hour a half hour someone will be there to pick it up and dispose of it. But I very much agree with that student and I think we're gonna do what we can to really expand the the sharps containers that we have around the city because 14 based on I think the significant amount of unhoused individuals and individuals just dealing with substance use in the city we I think need to double if not triple that just so that there is no option for leaving it on the ground. Yeah this is on all of our minds right I mean this is huge I mean it's something that is on I think each and every city councilor's mind is how that we can work to eliminate this. I think this is one way I think we're always open to other ideas of what we can do to make sure that everybody's safe and that they're not this poor seventh grader is not walking and seeing the needles and so we're open to any suggestions that anybody has on how to figure out how to diminish that but that you know that is definitely on the minds of all of us and how we can make our parks a little bit. Are there any needle exchange programs in Portland? Yeah we have a needle exchange program. Yeah which is great and I think too with something like this it's tough because we like in the short term sharp containers of course but like this I think is such a larger conversation around substance use and around the impacts the lack of resources that we have and so this is a symptom I think of a bigger issue and a bigger conversation that I hope we can have around what does what do safe injection sites look like in the city of Portland that's that was one of our goals in health and human services and public safety because of just such a need and a demand for handling the encampments this summer it's just wasn't something that we could get to but that's that was on all of our minds and we talked to city staff about that who you know in the past I think that that's been considered so what does that look like for the city how would we be able to do something like that so that we can make sure that we are being partners to individuals that are dealing with substance use and making sure that we're not just saying like sharp containers and like that's kind of it like that's just a small I think solution in the interim but I'm hopeful that we can have around what substance use looks like in the city of Portland because it's going to happen it's always going to happen and I just want to make sure that we can expand our options like like Regina said forward yeah I'm glad you said that because really the sharps containers are for the seventh graders or the general public yeah the substance use disorder suffers need many many things sharps container is the least of it but great okay let's roll our next comment here be nice to make things more affordable in Portland it's gotten really expensive over the last 10 years I've been here 20 years and I've seen the price of rent double and triple so that'd be nice but I know that's applying to man so city counselors I mean it's on you to make this city affordable like all the other cities aren't affordable let's make Portland I'm kidding a little bit we've already talked about food costs we've talked about housing costs what are some of the affordability issues that could be addressed is it parking is it public transportation being affordable what are some other areas of affordability well are they sorry are they talking about how because I was just going to say short-term rentals for me as a renter or what's driving up the rent at least for where I live so Airbnb yeah Airbnb is in short-term rentals I think we we have I feel like I feel like I said this every meeting them because I get into I'm like the residents like rent around the council and I'm like it's short-term rentals let's talk about it because they are driving my rent out where I can barely afford to be a counselor in the city so it is a constant thing that we need to chip away at because our city is overrun with short-term rentals where you come like a popular foodie city everybody wants to come see us which is great but we have so many non-owner occupied Airbnb's that are just existing and they're operating like a legal hotels and neighborhoods and so like you can walk a couple of blocks and these are just empty condos or empty apartments that are catering to tourists to come visit us and then it's driving up the property value for the rest of us that actually live in that neighborhood so I think attacking the short-term rentals which I know has been an on and off again conversation with the council go a long way to I think stabilizing some of our rent in Portland and ensuring that again the people that that live here and that do rent here have a fighting chance to continue to live here and to continue to rent here so that is yeah and we have rent control right I mean I was passed right we have renting rent control so we are trying to make sure that the rent doesn't go up astronomically right and so at this point in time you know the rent control ordinance is is you can't raise the rent more than 10% in the city now at the unfortunate thing is when you come into the city you have to find you know one bedroom or two bedroom is going to cost you $1500 to $2000 but we are trying to curve that by by saying that we have rent control and making well making landlords more responsible you know in order to make the rent affordable but again affordable housing we need more affordable housing and you know we don't have a land Portland doesn't have a land to just all of a sudden build and so by looking at some of the properties and that kind of thing but you know we also haven't talked about we haven't talked about vouchers right we have folks staying in an encampment and we need affordable housing but we also need vouchers there's none available and so it's just a vicious cycle of you go down one route and there's a block and you have to turn around and go another road and then there's another block especially while housing is concerned but Victoria has the solution and it is get rid of these short-term rentals that are waiting for us to do it using up housing stock and not housing much of anybody other than tourists who could once upon a time would have stayed in a hotel well believe it or not our time is almost up so it's been the usual housing housing food housing needles housing affordability but as we all know the housing crisis is with us and it's not going away and I really respect the work that both of you do to address the issue you know you're not you can't do magic but you can try your best and use your intelligence and cooperation to solve these problems hey thanks for being with us everybody we're going to say goodbye we're here at Portland Media Center which we thank very much for hosting our show every month next month is Friday the 13th October 13th we will be doing an election pre-election show where we kind of go through the ballot and talk about the initiatives that are on there so help give voters a better idea of what they're going to be looking at when they walk in I'm Lisa Savage saying thanks for being with us and be well