 Hi. Thanks for being with us here in council chambers. I think we are rolling on Zoom. So we've got folks with us tonight on Zoom as well, 41 at this moment. Anybody have their mic on because I can hear myself? We go up there, Peter? Okay. All right. Good evening, everybody. I'm going to call this meeting to order. It's Monday, April 10th. This is the Portland City Council. We're in chambers. We're in a regular meeting. I'd like to welcome everybody here in chambers as well as on Zoom. We've got 42 participants this evening. And as we start the meeting, I'd like to welcome you to join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, another guy, indivisible, with liberty, and justice for all. Thank you. Will the clerk please call the roll? Councillor Fornir. Here. Councillor Rodriguez. Here. Councillor Dyon. Here. Councillor Ali. Yay. Councillor Zauro. Here. Councillor Trevorrow. Here. Councillor Pilletear. Here. Councillor Phillips. And Mayor Snyder. Here. So as you can tell, we've got some councillors with us here in chambers. We've got two councillors with us at the moment on Zoom. I think Councillor Phillips will be joining us if she's able to on Zoom. So we won't see her in chambers, but maybe on Zoom. OK, so we are going to move into our five o'clock period of comments on items that are not on tonight's agenda. Councillor Dyon, would you like to address the council? Yes, I would, Madam Mayor. I'd like to make a motion to allow public comment on an agenda item. Is there a second? Right again. I have a motion to waive council rules in order to take public comment on an item that wouldn't typically get public comment. And that comment would be received during the public comment period at five o'clock. We have a second from Councillor Trevorrow. Are there any questions from the council? Comments. My understanding council, oh, go ahead. Councilor Rodriguez. I guess it's just to clarify, are we opening up to any non-agenda item or, excuse me, to any item on the agenda for the five o'clock period or a specific item that we're going to pick up? Madam Mayor, I apologize. There should have been more specific in my motion. The grant of public comment on an agenda item is specifically to address a communication that we will receive from the police chief this evening. Thank you. Thank you. So clarifying the motion, it would be to allow public comment on communication number 32 from tonight's agenda, which is the police response to April 1st events in the city of Portland. So this period would be five o'clock public comment period on anything that's not on tonight's agenda. And if you're here to address communication 32, that would be allowed if we indeed waive council rules in order to move in that direction. So additional council comment discussion. My intention would be, at this point in time, to, if in the event that this passes, that we would take public comment on any number of matters, including communication 32, I would then take communication 32 out of order so that that could be the first thing on the agenda. I do have a hand up from Councillor Phillips, who's with us on Zoom. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just wanted to let you know I was here. OK, great. Good to see you. Thanks for joining. Yep, thank you. We'll make sure the clerk reflects you're here. So without further discussion on this matter of waiving council rules in order to accept public comment on communication number 32 tonight, we'll go ahead and vote. Councillor Fornir. Yes. Councillor Rodriguez. Yes. Councillor Dionne. Yes. Councillor Ali. Yeah. Councillor Zauro. Yes. Councillor Trebaro. Yes. Councillor Pellett's here. Yes. Councillor Phillips. Yes. Mayor Snider. Yes. So we have waived council rules. So this five o'clock public comment period is open for anybody who would like to speak to the council on items that are not on tonight's agenda and also including communication 32. We'll start on Zoom. Since I've got hands up, if you're here in chambers and you'd like to speak, please make a line right behind the podium so that I know you're here and I can anticipate you. I'm going to toggle back and forth between Zoom and council chambers. First, I'll go to George on Zoom. Thank you. And in keeping with council rules, if you could please give us your first and last name, your address, neighborhood or the organization that you represent and then we'll give you three minutes on the clock. The clerk will give you a warning at 30 seconds. Wonderful. My name is George Folster. I'm in the Riverton neighborhood. George, we can no longer hear you if you're with us. Oh, I'm here. I'm here, yep. And I'm ready to start whenever you guys are. Yep, go right ahead. Wonderful. Thank you all for your time. My comments today are in regards to the upcoming school budget and the consideration surrounding tax increases. I believe that we are seeing in part at least the consequences of cutting essential school budget dollars with the Portland school system unable to reliably pay its employees. I believe that further cuts would be at the expense of offering a great education to the children of Portland. Along with everyone else, I'm not a fan of further tax increases. But I believe it's the lesser of two evils here. And I support a 7% increase opposed to additional cuts to the Portland school budget. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your comment. Next, we'll go to our speaker in chambers. Good evening. My name is Viva. I'm representing the West End. I have on my phone a picture of Portland Police response to Black youths protesting peacefully against the system that continues to oppress and kill them. It is a photo of Portland Police aiming a rifle at Black youths, a sniper rifle from a roof. I also have the Portland Police press release in which they said Portland Police Department said Saturday a small neo-Nazi rally led to disturbances, failing to acknowledge that that was the largest Nazi rally in Portland in decades. Portland Police witnessed the Nazis violently attacking anti-fascist activists and initially ordered them to the ground, which indicates to me that they did see something wrong. However, that was the extent of law enforcement action. Portland Police then provided the Nazis a police escort as they departed, so much for leadership, integrity, and service. For a little background on the group that has been firing the old port and recruiting for two years now, they are known as the Aryan Freedom Network. They are a small but growing neo-Nazi group based in Texas. If this was Al Qaeda or ISIS, I wouldn't have to stand in front of you and tell you how scary it is that a hate group from outside of Portland is organizing to come here. AFN provoked hard line white supremacist views and largely directs its vitriol at Jewish people, Black people, the LGBT community, and these folks started their rally in front of the Immigrant Welcome Center. In a summary of events, on April 1st, members of the neo-Nazi organization NSC 131 marched through Portland and assaulted community members. These Nazi scum specifically targeted Black and queer community members, who are the very people that make up Portland's economy and culture into a place that people want to visit and spend their vacation dollars. Most of the news coverage and the police reports omit the violence enacted by members of NSC 131. By the way, NSC stands for nationalist, socialist, something, and 131 is to represent the letters ACA, which has to do with being anti-communist. This was, which by the way, if you are not versed in this, is code for being against Jewish people. This was not a peaceful event. There were multiple hate crimes. The police did not take statements unless they say let's leave. Neo-Nazis are also building a white ethno state in Maine. We know this from a white news article. We had notice on February 23rd and 24th in the news that this was going to happen. I knew that this was going to happen for the last two years. And I'm an entertainer. I'm a singer. So I don't understand how the police didn't know that we were going to have a violent hate group here. And what are they going to do to protect us? What will this city do to protect us? Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Next on Zoom, we have KRIZ-MN. Hello? Hello. Hi, I'm Chrism. I live in 230 Douglas Street. I'm normally a hermit and don't get involved in this stuff. After seeing the violent assaults online from DSA and NSC against local manors, I felt like I needed to say something. Will city council or Portland police be commenting on the videos regarding DSA organizers who ordered members to punch the guy who held the banner? And then a few days later, it happened. We also saw a group called NSC who committed a similar act. Will either parties be investigated? Pretty much all manors have watched these videos of both DSA and NSC. Both these groups need to be condemned and their violence needs to end. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Next, we have a speaker in chambers. Hi, Sarah Rajiro, West End. Thank you, Mayor Snyder and the city councilors for making the time today to discuss the escalating neo-Nazi presence in our city. Like many others, I'm disgusted by NSC's recent vulgar display of white supremacy and violence upon Portland. And before that, across different communities in New England. I find it deeply disturbing that police across the country have no issue or hesitancy shooting at unarmed black people but not at a group of armed and dangerous neo-Nazis who are actively threatening and assaulting people. I find it peculiar that in the summer of 2020, police came from all across the county to show up in Portland with riot gear, pepper spray in response to a community grieving and protesting the racist murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, but who allowed a group of neo-Nazis to go about their day without questioning or detainment. Perhaps this was due to indifference, but of course we know historically there is often overlap and ties between members of far-right extremist hate groups, military law enforcement from the KKK onward. The members of NSC who paraded through our town chose to hide their identities, but they are people with names, addresses, and jobs. The exception would be Portland's own Richard Ward, who to my knowledge is unemployed and therefore can make fascism his full-time passion project and is allegedly the one to invite NSC to Portland. You may recall that in the summer of 2021, another such hate group, the Proud Boys, was gathering on a monthly basis at Matthew's Pub. This group was not chased out of town by our police force, but by community members who refused to allow racism and bigotry to fester in a place we call home. We're here again to say that if you are not here to help and fight, then stay out of our way. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Back to Zoom and we've got Stephen Scharf next. Stephen Scharf of Brackett Street in Portland. I actually want to speak to two other items, not the ones everybody else has been speaking to. First is I want to actually thank the council staff or whoever manages the video operation for actually turning on the Zoom well before the meeting starts. Most of the meetings you go to, they turn it on like after all the people, participants are in place. And so people on Zoom are just sitting there wondering if they're in the right meeting. So I just appreciate that you do it the quote, the correct way. The other thing I want to speak to is I was under the impression that the city's budget would be released today and was surprised to see it's not on the agenda. And I hear there was no reference to the fact that it wasn't gonna be on the agenda at the last finance committee meeting. So I'm a little confused by that. I would like to get some explanations to why it's on today's agenda and at what city council meeting it will be released so that the process for the city side of the budget can go forward. That's all I have. Thank you. Thanks, Stephen. I think it was brought up at the last finance committee meeting. I'm happy to forward you those materials. I sent it out in an email to my distribution and I believe there was a press release. So I'll shoot that to you directly so that you can see the updated schedule but you can look for the manager's budget on April 24th here in Chambers. Next to anybody who would like to speak in Chambers. Hello, my name is Betsy Whitman. I live in Oakdale and I didn't expect to speak tonight but there are two things I wanted to bring up. The day after the incident occurred the Nazi and fight and incident occurred. I woke up the next day to walk my dog and I went out front and I always have a Black Lives Matter right there at my porch and at 5.30 in the morning, it was gone. It has been there for three years. I didn't know this, what had happened the night before but when I read about it I knew what happened to my sign. I lived in Germany for four years and in Germany, you always heard, we didn't know. I lived in a tiny little town called Oberamstadt, 4,000 people. And the people were friendly enough with me, lovely. And I took to walking around and I walked around one day and I came to a signpost and the signpost said here was where Oberamstadt's synagogue was burned on Kristallnacht and it made me realize nobody didn't know what was happening and it made me realize the increments of violence and terror and terrorist actions and the stealing of signs and the harassment happened everywhere and everyone knew. It's up to us, all of us, to work together to make sure that doesn't happen in our dear country of the United States of America. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Next we'll turn over to Zoom and we have Becca. Yeah, hi. Becca May, I live up on the hill on the East end. I'll have to apologize, I'm actually in route somewhere and I don't have a script but hope I can articulate this as best as possible. But yeah, I'm just calling to express my absolute disgust with how the PD responded to the neo-Nazis in Portland the other week. Although I'm not actually surprised at all by that response and I think it really begs the question why we as a city are spending $15, $17 million on an institution that is historically racist and obviously very complicit to white supremacy. And I don't think we need to go further than some of the emails that these neo-Nazis have sent our counselors that explicitly state the police will not protect you. These groups know that what just happened, the response that we just witnessed has been and will continue to be the norm. So moving forward, I feel like if city leadership is not having conversations, serious conversations about literally defunding the Portland PD and investing that money into community-based solutions to harm reduction, all of your talk about advancing racial justice and making the city safe for all of its constituents is simply performative. So I hope that moving forward, especially when we talk about budget that my other constituents continue to show up and honestly just ask you to put your money where your mouth is. So that's all I got, thank you. Thank you for your comment, next in chambers. Thank you, mayor, counselors and particularly to my city councilor, councilor Palatier, my name's Leo Hilton. I live in the West end. You all know I come and talk to you fairly frequently and normally I share my home address but tonight I'm not sharing it because I'm worried about retaliation. I'm queer and Jewish and I've lived in Portland since I was a kid and I'm a communist organizer with the main democratic socialists of America. Last weekend, my friends and I held up a pride flag in front of city hall and we got jumped by a bunch of neo-Nazi thugs. I'm not going to belabor all the details but I got beat up, I didn't get beat up that bad but I got thrown on the ground and I sure got really, really scared and I'm not scared anymore, now I'm just angry and I'm angry that guys like that want me dead. I'm angry that guys like that want my friends dead and I'm angry that they want anyone who's not like them dead. I love this town and I'm angry that they were allowed to come to Portland and hurt people, do a hate crime and then walk away free with their identities intact and their liberty secure. So I'm here tonight because I have a couple of requests for the police department and for the city council. I did end up making a statement. I know that in the original video I'm not making a statement and that's because in that moment to be totally honest as the neo-Nazis were walking away that's when Sergeant Ross came up to me and asked me if I'd like to make a comment and in that moment it was my priority to follow those guys back to where their vehicles were to see if I could figure out who they were because I'm interested even if the police weren't in that moment. I also wasn't comfortable sharing my story because in that moment I was thinking about watching those same police two years ago take a knee and alleged solidarity with people protesting the murder of George Floyd and then turn around and shoot pepper balls and spray tear gas at a crowd of unarmed protesters. I didn't feel like I was comfortable sharing my story with those people at that moment but I've made my statement to the police now and I want truth and accountability. I'd like the police to comply with any freedom of access act requests. I'd like them to publicly release any body cam footage any surveillance camera footage from the event to try to corroborate our story. I'm calling on the city council to hold the police responsible for the police inaction and I think you should consider reprimanding and firing whoever was responsible for letting 20 or more violent neo-Nazis walk away back into the city where they could have harmed another person. I think it's worth taking time to realize an unfulfilled demand from 2020. May I have another moment? Thank you. Yeah, you can just go ahead and finish up. Thank you. Yeah, we'll finish up here. We have to realize an unfulfilled demand from the 2020 George Floyd uprising in Portland and that's to create a police citizen review board that is actually capable of holding police responsible and responsive to the demands of the community. And finally, I'd ask the council that you please not use my experience and the experience of my friends as an excuse to increase police funding. That is absolutely counter to anything that I would want done. Thank you very much. Thank you for your comment. Thank you. Next, we'll go to Zoom and we have Ariel. Hello, sorry, can you hear me? We can. Great, thank you so much. My name is Ariel Lynette. I live in North Deering and I wanted to speak briefly. I'll apologize in advance. You'll probably hear my toddler in the background. But I wanted to speak about the two topics that folks have brought up so far. One is that I support the school budget. I support increase of 7% in the tax, property tax rate. I know that I have a particular stake because I have a child who doesn't go to school in Portland yet but we can't wait for her opportunity to do that. But I believe that it matters to all of us to live in a community where education is one of our top priorities. And I think it's actually linked to the other topic that folks have been talking about, about neo-Nazis parading through Portland and police having an inadequate response to it because I think that the rise of more publicly tolerated fascism and fascist ideology can be countered in part by education. And so I think we as a city have an opportunity to move towards the values that we want and to stand together against the values that we don't. And I think honestly it goes beyond the city council. I think that there are actions that you all can take and I appreciate Leo for sharing some suggestions. And I'm calling on all of us who are here to stand together against fascism in Maine and in support of people like me who are Jewish and people who are LGBTQ plus and people who are Muslim and immigrants and disabled and a lot of other groups that I'm not thinking of right now who neo-Nazis want to stamp out of our society. It would be a really grim place if they had their way. So thank you for all the work that you all are doing the council members and activists and citizens and everybody involved in the morning. I think that's all I have. Thank you so much. Thank you for your comment. And next speaker in chambers. Thank you mayor. Councilors just working. Great. Thank you mayor. Thank you councilors. I'm CJ from district two as I have the best district rep. I'm here to talk about my experience on April 1st. I was engaged in First Amendment protected free speech holding a rainbow flag out front of city hall when I was physically assaulted as part of a hate crime by a neo-Nazi group called NSC 131. These guys were trying to get a flag for me which they were unsuccessful in doing and they physically assaulted me in an attempt to make me stop holding the flag which they couldn't do. I then separated myself from them and I spoke with an officer from the Portland police department. The officer from PPED who I talked to did not ask me to make a statement. When I asked that officer if I had any legal reports he told me I didn't and I felt in the moment coaxed or persuaded away from trying to make a statement. I'm not someone who has a ton of faith or confidence in law enforcement but I tried to approach any interaction I might have with the law enforcement and with PPED with an open mind and to be as respectful as I can. But here's a situation in which I tried to approach this with an open mind and my lack of confidence in law enforcement was only reinforced because the officer who didn't let me make a statement upheld the guys who prevented me from expressing myself holding my flag. And I don't really feel like the police in general are equipped or there to protect us from like neo-nazi or fascist threats like the guys who were in Portland a little more than a week ago. I think what is equipped to protect us is a strong community-based response and understanding of solidarity in our communities. I think that's what truly keeps us safe. To that end, I think things that we can do to keep ourselves and our community safe we can educate ourselves on the violent fascist threats that we face. We can counter people who are doing target setting by spreading the same messages as these groups and encouraging these groups to visit Portland either implicitly or explicitly and share their messages of hate. To that end, former city council candidate and school board candidate, Richard Ward has been doing an excellent job at these second warning for these groups. Also in the wake of this assault against me this guy has encouraged people to release my identity and as far as I can tell has only unsuccessfully succeeded in encouraging people to harass some other random person in Portland. I think it's really despicable that someone involved in the city's political sphere would encourage that kind of harassment for someone who is guilty only of being the victim of a hate crime. I'll wrap it up here. I think building a strong community response and understanding of solidarity with our neighbors and organizing either with organizations or just with people we know, love and trust is what stands to actually protect our communities from allowing the kind of radicalization that leads guys into joining these groups to happen. Thank you. I would also like the PPB to comply with any FOAA requests regarding body cam to back up my claim that nobody took my statement. I would also encourage a significant review of the police citizen complaint board because right now it can only prove whether or not complaints filed about police misconduct Thank you, CJ. Appreciate it, thank you. Okay, next we'll move on to Cassie who's on Zoom. Hi, my name is, can you hear me? I'm sorry. Yes, we can. Hi, my name's Cassie. I apologize, I'm actually at work right now working and participating in this Zoom. I don't have a script or anything to follow. I really just wanted to second the things that Viva and the previous seven people who've spoken about the uprising in the Neo-Nazi movement in Portland. I also will not be sharing my address because I fear for my partner and myself for both of us being part of the LGBT community, my partner being a POC and also us living by police and firefighters. I just really thank you guys for taking a moment to really listen to what we're saying and how scared we actually are. Thank you. Thank you for your comment and we'll next go to our next speaker in chambers. My name is Charlie, I'm a queer Portlander and I'm here to share my thoughts and experiences outside of this very city hall on the 1st of April. A violent hate crime was carried out against me and several other Portlanders by Neo-Nazis in the Portland Police Department standing here, let them walk. I sustained a brain injury over $1,000 of out-of-pocket medical expenses and lost a week's worth of work due to my injuries. I want to provide clarification on two specific falsehoods from the Portland Police Department's press release. Firstly, Portland Police Department states that there was a fight. The four people who counter-processed an SC-131 did so entirely peacefully by holding a pride flag in front of them. We did not say a word to the Nazis, yet within a minute of our arrival, we were there. They were there calling us homophobic slurs and surrounding us with all two dozen of them. We were then violently assaulted. There was no fight, it was an unprovoked hate crime that happened directly in front of the police. Secondly, Portland Police Department stated that they did not make arrests because those who were assaulted did not make statements. By the time that I was asked to give a statement by an officer, the PPD had already released all members of NSC and let them walk down the block. This is documented in video I took of the incident that PPD has certainly seen. Because of their release, any statement I or others would have made in that moment would not have resulted in any of us that day. Portland Police witnessed a hate crime and instead of doing the absolute bare minimum of ideating and unmasking the literal neo-Nazis, they let them go. Portland Police Department failed our community that it ostensibly serves and the officers present last Saturday and here today should be absolutely ashamed with themselves. Their inaction has directly encouraged NSC one through one to escalate, to commit more acts of violence. The hate group said, let's try to accelerate things to brutally attack people just for their identity. Portland Police Department's actions say, go ahead, we won't stop you. These events did not happen in a vacuum. This type of fascist rhetoric has been normalized by Portland locals for years, namely by Richard Ward. In fact, I was in this room just a few months ago to talk about how dangerous it is for our community to allow his public hate speech and dog whistling to go unopposed. 30 second warning. Last weekend was the result of that normalization. In conclusion, I would like to implore my neighbors to no longer let fascism go unopposed and to take this seriously. Richard might be the laughing stock of Portland, but he's directly responsible for the most vulnerable members of our community feeling unsafe. Lastly, I would like to address Richard and the members of NSC one through one that are tuning into this meeting right now. You are on the wrong side of history. There are more of us than there are of you and you will only be remembered as a filthy stain on New England's story. The police will not keep us safe and fascism is not going to go away on its own. It's only through the strength of our community, our ability to stand up for one another on the ground that can stop these things. Thank you, Charlie. It's up to everyday Portlanders and Mainers to keep each other safe. Thank you for your comment. Next, we go to Lilly on Zoom. Go ahead, Lilly. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Okay. Yeah, my name's Lilly. I'm in the West End. I just wanna say that this situation calls for clear action and no ambiguity about where any of us stand. And I'm referring to the neo-Nazi March on April 1st. I think that both the Portland police statement and a lot of other language that people in positions of power and people who don't directly feel the terror of the effect of a march like this. The language that a lot of people use implies two sides. Like there are two different equally valid stances on this issue. And that's just not the case. We have a side that actually represents a wish for an ethno-nationalist state, which means a white Christian nationalist state. We are already seeing the effects of hundreds of years of that desire playing out. But I will just say that this is a two-sided issue is to stand on the side of oppression and violence. And that is exactly how genocide happens. And I'm not trying to use scary language to, I think sometimes that can alienate people who are not clear on how dangerous this is, but I'm just trying to use it to just be clear about actually how dangerous, how dangerous it is to not have an extremely clear stance on what neo-Nazis represent. I also just wanna name that they are making themselves out to be oppressed. There's like literature being put out around Portland about anti-white oppression, which is not a real thing. The only hardship that we as white people face for being white is because of our own destruction of our identity through the creation of whiteness. And I just wanna be clear that like we have an opportunity Thanks, we have an opportunity here to be really clear as a city and as a community about the true nature of our history on this land, on Turtle Island and to take a hard stand against fascism and genocide. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Next, we have a speaker in chambers. My name is Samson Spadafore. I live on Wabanaki land known as District One. My public comment tonight is about the heinous acts of violence committed by NSC 131 and the response. First thing I want to say is that police are useless. They let these neo-Nazi terrorists walk away after people holding a pride flag were physically and verbally assaulted. What kind of a city is Portland that we can have evidence of neo-Nazis giving the Hitler salute and physically assaulting queer and Jewish people while shouting slurs on video and no one does anything about it. I'm calling for the police who let the neo-Nazis go without being identified to be fired. I am calling for accountability. Mayor Snyder, I read your email, the bullet pointed list of value statements regarding how hate has no home here does not make me feel any safer in this community. It does not erase what has happened. It changes nothing. The truth of the matter is hate does not live here. Hate does live here and we are not safe. We need to be openly discussing safety in our city. What does safety actually mean for citizens that you are accountable to? I don't want to be constantly worried that I'm going to be assaulted by Nazis on the street or shot up in the Equality Community Center or cocktail marries. And furthermore, we need community healing. This space is not a space of healing. This has actually been the space of further harm, especially towards counselors of marginalized identity. Fascism is alive and well in the city. We have to have a safety plan. We have to support one another. And this is for everyone, community members and counselors alike. I am begging you to connect with each other. Fascism thrives on fear and isolation. It thrives when we put each other against one another and we cannot let that be our fate. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Next, we go to Levi on Zoom. Yes, hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can. All right. This is Richard Ward, Parkside neighborhood. I wanted to say it's funny that you guys wear masks to hide your face, but you're saying the nationals are wearing masks. I find that kind of funny. And then I also find it disgusting that the democratic socialists literally called for violence against activists and political candidates. We had sitting city counselors called for violence against activists. I was attacked out in front of city hall a couple of months ago for just holding a sign saying it's okay to be white. Thankfully, the second amendment defends our first amendment and I can protect myself and protect my first amendment, right? I also wanted to say it's disgusting for that woman to claim that her BLM sign was stolen was the equivalence of the Holocaust which was a disgusting act of terrorism. The Holocaust was disgusting and theft is nothing in the horrors of Nazism. So I found that kind of idiotic and it's wild that everyone is having a hissy fit about the NSC March, but has no problem with democratic socialists committing violence. The summer of 2020 when BLM burned, lit things on fire, attacked police officers with urine, bricks and everyone thought that was wonderful, but how dare? Some white guys peacefully hold the sign in a park. I don't agree with their message entirely, but for those four men to go there looking for a fight and then getting one and then playing victim is kind of moronic and they put it on their own hands going there. And I wanted to say, what is anti-whiteism? Dispossession, the social, political and economic disenfranchisement of ethnic Europeans in their homeland to the policy such as mass immigration, diversity quotas and multiculturalism that undermines ethnic European identity. Defamation, the use of libel, slurs and slander meant to discredit the legitimate concerns of ethnic Europeans or do humanize them as a group including conspiracy theories and concepts such as white privilege, white fragility and critical race there, which normalizes anti-white tropes. Denial, preventing and delegitimizing the attacks of the rights and ethnic Europeans, form or maintain countries, institutions that represent their unique ethic interests. The denial of national rights afforded to the other groups which are not recognized for indigenous Europeans and their ancestral lands or countries historically founded and populated by ethnic Europeans and then replacement. Any action or policy that seeks to limit, remove or erase ethnic Europeans from positions and education policies in a society substituting foreign people in their place. This includes democratic replacement via immigration as well as revisionist historical and cultural interpretations that facilitate white erasure. 30 second warning. I'd like to say that I think the city should focus on taking care of main homeless first before welcoming an influx of asylum seekers that Portland cannot house an endless supply of asylum seekers. Poor people can't afford to move out of nice to these nice neighborhoods and we don't wanna make our communities third well hell holes. Thank you. And we'll go to our next speaker in chambers please. Hi there, my name is Alexis. I live on, I live in Parkside. My public comment is about the Nazi attack that took place here last week and also about the public statement that the Portland police department put out. It's pretty frustrating to know that their statement was false. And I want the council members to kind of take into consideration historically the ties between the police, the state and fascism and how it works. We've seen a rise in fascism across the country in terms of LGBTQ and human rights. The police unfortunately are there to enforce these fascist policies. So it is not, it's not correct to ask the public to stand by and trust these folks who are going to aid the state in our demise. And yeah, I think there just needs to be more discussion amongst you all about ways to move forward. I think community guidance and leadership is more important than leaning on the police in these circumstances because, you know, also not to, it's just weird that they didn't get the identification of anyone that was part of the NSC 131. And yeah, I'm really nervous. So I'm like not doing so well, but yeah, there needs to be some accountability but we also need to move away from relying on the police to protect us, to work with us because historically that has not happened and I don't think it's going to happen ever. Thank you for your comment. And next we'll go back to Zoom. I have a Tee. Hi, can you hear me okay? Yes, we can. Hi, my name is Tee Lane. I live in Portland proper. I will not be announcing my address, but I do just want to say that this has been documented. This has been here for quite some time. This rally just happened on April 1st, but this has been a building national throne. If anyone else reads the national news or the main news for that matter, this has been publicly covered by everybody that white supremacists are attempting to take a foothold in the state of Maine for a number of reasons because white supremacy has been here forever but also because we have lax gun laws and you could look this up if you don't believe me, but I just want to point out these flyers have been going up, these recruiting flyers for these terrible white supremacist groups have been going up all over town. We've been ripping these down for years now. There have been activists online who have been documenting all of this activity, all of these plans to make a point to come to Portland and to act like this, to be violent. This is a direct threat to all of the communities that live here. And inaction is violence. It is frankly disgusting. And I just needed to call it to say that this has been going on for some time. I think it's just crazy to me that we need to garner everyone's attention with a rally and this comment here, but this has been going on for months and months and months. Many, many folks in this community have been pointing that out for quite some time and it is beyond time that we act to outroot neo-Nazism, anti-Semitism, white supremacy from our communities altogether. Thank you. And next we'll go to a speaker in chambers. Hi, my name is Brett. I live on the West End. I just want to be perfectly clear and say that there is no separation between Richard Ward and Nazism at all. And the fact that he wants to pretend like there is is really embarrassing. There is direct ties from him to NSC via tweets that you can find going back months of him organizing and getting them to get out here. So his whole shtick is just embarrassing and the optics on what happened the other day with the police officers and how they interacted with the group of NSC is like embarrassing at the very best and there should have been arrests made or IDs or literally anything, anything. But instead nothing was done post just peacefully escorting them away after they openly assaulted someone completely unprovoked. And of course they use the element of surprise because that's all they have. You're all cowards, thank you. Okay, we'll go to Cyrus on Zoom next. Hi, my name is Cyrus Shehan. I live in the East End of Portland. And I think two important things need to be said here. One is complicity. And if city council doesn't take decisive action and by decisive action, I mean, take money away from the cops, take money away from the cops that they can't point sniper rifles at people so that they can't armor themselves to look like ninja turtles, take money away from the cops so that they cannot pay for their armored assault vehicles to go cruising around Portland and racially profile in my community. If city council does not take that money away from them then they are complicit in this as well. City council is just as complicit in what the police do because city council is giving police permission to act this way. The police officers are also going to use the excuse that they were just following orders. Well, having just recently taught about the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem and talking about Hannah Arendt, we all know what the excuse I was just following orders means. It's cover for any kind of fascist, racist or generally marginalizing authoritative behavior. And so if city council wants to create healing, then take the money away from the cops decisively now forbid the city police from having any surplus military equipment for if cops want to racially profile people then they can do it on foot and with a pencil and paper instead of an armored up in the back of a tank. Take the money away from the cops and fund the community organizations like the East End Public School and that is going to be receiving an influx of all of our new citizen, new community members here who are now living in the expo. All of those kids are gonna be going to the East End School. Fund the school, fund the teachers. Right now the city is taking away two teaching positions from the East End School even though there's already an anticipated influx of students into that school. Fund community, stop funding fascist cops. Thank you. Thank you. And next we go to a speaker in chambers. Richard Ward invited NSR to listen to him about his nonsense. What's disappointing are supposed to investigate. Can you please go to the mic? I can't hear you. Can you go right to the mic? Yeah, is this better? Much, much better. Thank you, ma'am. Okay. The actions are lackthorough thereof from the Portland Police Department and bold in these neo-Nazis. You confirmed their entitlement, their privilege and their belief that the good old place and it did. Just to let you know, one of our council rules is that you direct your public comment at me. So thank you. Yes ma'am, yep, and it did. It worked for them. They were allowed to leave without having their IDs taken. I spoke with the lovely officer right outside of the door here. We had a good conversation. I've had to show my ID for something not as serious as assault or something like this. So the whole, oh, they were walking off and they didn't wanna talk. I've personally experienced not being able to walk off and having to provide my IDs. So it just, it doesn't feel right. And it adds to the mistrust. Like why are we treated like this? We're just yelling for equality. But these people are literally racist. They're using homophobic slurs and assaulting people and they're allowed to get away with it. They assaulted your constituents. They called them terribly offensive derogatory and outright racist names. They were allowed to walk out of here without so much as showing their identification. Again, some of the pages I follow on Instagram could let you know exactly who these men are and how dangerous they are and the things that they are saying. These things, assaulting people, calling them, using racial slurs, this is illegal. This is illegal, correct? That's my belief. And they're allowed to walk out of here. You failed us. You again lost our trust in our faiths and you to do the bare minimum, which is your job. I'm wondering if the police are scared. Like we're scared too. We're scared too, but we show up and we don't have vests. We don't have guns. We don't have pepper spray. We don't have tasers. Like it's gonna take all of us. And the more that people don't listen and you just stay ignorant to what we all know, it's just- 30 second warning. Thank you. We'll go to our next speaker on Zoom, Vivienda. Hello, can you hear me? We can. Hi, my name's Vivienda. Thanks for the opportunity to speak. I have a short brief thing. I'm a tenant at Northgate Apartments, so which is a historic apartment building in the Arch District at 231 State Street. We have 25 units and the building has been passed down for multiple generations. We've always had numbered storage in our basement and our building is under the rent stabilization ordinance. And we got our annual increase in our rent on January 1st. And on March 21st, we received an additional notice by email saying they wanted to charge us $100 for our storage units that have always been with the apartments. And this is an obvious violation of the rent stabilization ordinance because the base rent has gone up and the definition for rental unit covers storage explicitly and the definition of rent is also explicitly any monies rendered for rental unit or housing services of any kind. And so I went to the Housing Safety Office. We did as a tenant union anonymously in order to file a complaint. And we were told that we needed a signed lease in order to pursue our rights under the rent stabilization ordinance. But under the ordinance, we are allowed to form a anonymous tenant unit. We don't have to register with the city and the city's prohibited from requesting our identities. And so instead of having our rights to an investigation and proper action under the ordinance by the Housing Safety Office, they refused to investigate. And I've filed a complaint with the city manager's office and some of the good people on the council here have been CC'd on some of these emails going back and forth, but this is frankly outrageous. The person there, Jessica, I don't know her last name, but she's the director of the permitting and inspections department. She said that changing the terms of the lease to alter rights privileges or services connected with the use or occupancy of a rental unit is not a violation of the rent control ordinance. She said that on March 29th in an email and she also said that the section 6239 refers to tenant protections and not a signed lease, but bear with me a second. Yep, bear with me a second. I'm gonna read you that section. It says section 239 non-waver rights, no provision or right conferred by this article may be waived by a tenant by agreement or otherwise in any such waiver shall be void. Any attempt to require, encourage or induce a tenant to waive any provision hereof or right thereby shall be a violation of this article. And here's the important part. Nothing herein shall be construed to void any term of a rental agreement that offers greater rights by those converted hereby. This is, and I'm one second. I'm gonna ask you to wrap it up there, but thank you. Yep, this is explicitly the opposite of what has been maintained by the Housing Safety Office. And I would like the city council to look into this for me, please. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you for your comment and we'll next go to our speaker in chambers. Hello. My name is Audrey and I live in Parkside. And I'm here to talk about the disgusting actions of the Portland Police Department most recently. I come from Richmond, Virginia. Just before the Charlottesville incident happened. And I've seen what racist organizations can do influencing police forces. I moved here to Portland hoping as a queer Hispanic person that I would feel safe here. And for the most part, I've found a really good community here. I've found a good home here. And I am proud to live here up until recently. It makes me feel disgusted that this was allowed to happen without proper protocol, without proper follow through. And I'm gonna keep it short and sweet. I want you guys to just reconsider in the future how you're going to go through and follow through with these behaviors, how you're going to go through and investigate and how you're gonna protect this community, this community that keeps you all in your seats. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Next we'll go to Malvina on Zoom. Hi there, thank you. Can you hear me okay? Yes, we can. Okay. I just wanted to share some experience. I've had talking with friends and loved ones and co-workers of all of whom are people of color. And I think it's really important when we talk and many of them are survivors of various forms of trauma or in some cases, genocide. And so I think it's really important when we talk about racial violence and genocide to remember that it's not abetted by people who come step forward and say, I will help you. I will help coordinate this. It grows and it festers when we have people who one way or another say, I will look the other way. So I want you to please note that the members of our communities of color are watching your response right now. They've been watching for the past week very closely. I've heard them talk about it. I've heard them express how scared they are and in some cases so very, very triggered and rattled and really just hunkered down trying to find a place mentally that they can feel safe again. And as somebody that cares very deeply about these folks it's very distressing to see them go through that. So I think that I just wanted to share how disappointed I've been by the city's response over the past week. It's felt very weak and very watered down and very dismissive of what can be a very dangerous thing to start growing within our community. It's been applied that this group was harmless and that no one was injured. And we've heard people today testify that that was not the case. In essence, our response said we will look the other way. And it said that we'll wait for a week for public comment and that we will let this die in committee and investigation. And I think I would echo the previous speaker's comments that we need to think very carefully about how we respond and how we show a strength of response not only for the people who think that it might be easy to set up camp here but also to the people who are very carefully watching whether or not this is a safe place to be their home. Thank you. Thank you. And we have a speaker now in chambers. Hi, my name is Clara Porter. I'm a resident deering next neighborhood of Portland. And I'm also here as the Director of Prevention Action Change and as a member of Greater Portland Surge which is showing up for racial justice. To prevent this neo-Nazi movement from growing further and growing in power really need to work at both ends of this problem. Yes, the PD needs to be more responsive and effective in this moment when the neo-Nazis are marching down our streets and more proactive and committed to building relationships with those most likely to be targeted. I co-led the peacekeeping for the Trans Day of Visibility at Monument Square on Friday the 31st. And we were a team of experienced peacekeepers. We were clearly visible thanks to the loan of the Planned Parenthood hot pink vests. And despite knowing that there were threats experienced by the trans community, no Portland Police Department officers stopped by to check in to see if there were people of concern in the crowd and there were. On Saturday, it was the ACLU who called the local LGBTQIA plus agencies to warn them of the presence of neo-Nazis in that downtown area. And why was it not the PD who reached out to them? So yes, there's clearly more that the PD and the city needs to do to prepare and respond to these groups. And there are things that each one of us can do right now in our families, community groups and workplaces online and in person. The attitude stereotypes and misinformation that fuel and provide the environment for these types of groups to grow and flourish are all around us all the time. If you're white or benefit from white supremacy, raise your hand. If someone in your family workplace or community holds opinions and beliefs that are racially biased. Now, everyone here raise your hand. If someone in your family workplace or community holds biased views on gender, religion or sexual orientation. We should all have our hands up because we all know someone and in fact likely have our own work to do on these issues as well. So to prevent this movement from growing we need to work at both ends. We need to know how to intervene at the micro level when comments and actions make people feel unwelcome and unsafe as well as at the micro level. 30 second warning. We need to be able to call in people to whom we're connected to challenge their views and help them to gain awareness and to shift. And we need to know how to effectively and safely intervene when we witness others being targeted for identity-based harassment. So surge and prevention action change are holding two active bystander intervention workshops on April 27th and on May 17th. They're both free, they're online and they're open to every Portland person. And our goal really is to help us all gain awareness and intervention skills, so thank you. Thank you for your comment. And next we go to Teresa on Zoom. Hi, good evening and I appreciate you all taking the time. Teresa Kim and I am the Vice President and Director of Legal Resources at Unified Asian Communities. A few things I am going to say is that I do not agree that the Portland police handled anything that happened with the neo-nazi group appropriately. If anyone was able to see the video of what had happened not only was their derogatory terms used but the people were also assaulted to a point that an officer pulled his gun. At that point, there is a threat. So following that threat, that officer should have started ideating people of everyone who was there. Also on the other hand of things, the victim refused to give a statement for what simple fact. The officer pinpointed him out of the crowd instead of pulling him aside and letting him know that he could file an assault charge on top of a civil rights violation. Not only is the police uneducated on what the civil rights laws are, they do take people and make targets our Asian community just suffer burglaries and there's been no updates as far as if we're still in threat mode or if these individuals have even been apprehended. I know that parts beyond the city council. However, this neo-nazi group is not beyond your reach. The police department works for city halls. They all work for everyone that lives in the city of Portland. So at this point, there should have been charges brought against that group, not only for assault but also for every violation there was for the civil rights. I call upon you today to push this forward, make this happen and also put a ban for the neo-nazi group. It's unacceptable and things need to change. Thank you. Thank you. And we'll turn to our next speaker in chambers. Good evening. My name is Don Marietta. I live in Lubbittown. First off, I'd like to apologize if anything I say is redundant because I know there are a lot of speakers. I'd like to suggest that in future when you have people waiting in the hall to participate, that you aid them in participating by putting a simple audio device out there so we know what's going on. We have the technology. This is gonna sound harsh, but this council, the chief of police and all of the officers involved in the incident on April 1st have created the impression that you can come to Portland, Maine, commit a violent hate crime and suffer no consequences. None of us should find that in any way acceptable. I hope you all understand your responsibility in this. The response has been very slow, very unrevealing of any sense of how critically important it is that we not tolerate Nazis and violent hate speech and violent actions. I strongly urge you to proceed very rapidly, very openly with the process to determine what happened on April 1st and that if there are persons found to have been negligent or derailed in their duties, that they be dismissed from the police department because we cannot accept hate crime in our community. If we have a police force that does accept those hate crimes when it happens right in front of their faces, we are sending a very, very dangerous message. I hope you all take that. Finally, I would like to see a renewed sense of urgency in the process that began after the BLM protests of assessing the role of the police department and how the police department. 30 second warning. That's all I have. Thank you. Next, we'll go to Gigi on Zoom. Hello. My name is Gigi. Hello. Go ahead. My name is Gigi. I live in the Rosemont neighborhood. I am a trans person and I am a drag queen. I am regularly featured on our resident neo-Nazis social media presence as well as national social media for my presence in the community. And I'm here like everyone else to say that you need to do more to fight this immediately because when neo-Nazi groups like this make a foothold, they are incredibly hard to get rid of and we cannot have this in our Portland community. You know this, you need to do more. Through all of the internet posting and everything that they do and say they are here and they are trying to make themselves seem like they're okay and then they do violent attacks in our community. And it is only going to get worse after this incident and the response from Portland police and the lack of response from city hall immediately. They have only grown bolder and they will continue if you do not enact policies immediately. Portland needs a zero tolerance policy for neo-Nazi groups and to hold our Portland police accountable to that zero tolerance policy. Thank you. Thank you. And we'll turn to our next speaker in chambers. Hi, my name is Matt. If you could speak right up to the mic, I know folks are having a hard time listening in 209. My name is Matt. So five years ago, I was serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa. That's where I bet my current husband. We struggled through the immigration process to get him here as it's not an easy process, especially coming from where he is. And we had to have tough conversations about what the state of affairs in America is when it comes to race and being gay or trans in this country. Luckily, he got here in September and we were able to get married in October. But as we all should know, in the six months following September, our country has descended into a state of fascism that we have not seen before. And every single day we are having conversations about how can we be going back? We saw America as a country where he could be free. We saw America as a country where we could live together as a queer couple without fear. And growing up in Maine, I felt that Portland was an area where I could live without fear of violence. But now we're here and I know if fascists come to try to attack me or my husband, that the police will do nothing and they will not be accountable for doing nothing because all of you have sat here for a week and you have done nothing to hold the police or the fascists that marched through this town accountable. And now I have to live in fear and my husband has to live in fear because we do not have accountability in this country and we do not protect gay people. We do not protect trans people. We do not protect black people. It's not okay and everyone should be ashamed of yourselves for not doing something when fascism is at our doorsteps. They will start killing people and then you'll look back and you'll see you did nothing and we'll remember because the people that protected us were the hero anti-fascists who came to those steps and told them to get out of this town. I'm done. Thank you. Next we'll go to Ron on Zoom. Hi, hello, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Yes, hello, my name is Ron. I'm from a way that I've been in Maine since 2007. I've worked all over Portland. I'm actively boastful about why it's one of the best cities I've ever set foot in. I take the by local ethos seriously. I've made it my duty for years to make sure that I contribute to the health and well-being of the city as many ways as I can to try to help Portland to thrive. I'm here today to beg you to take action when you see violent hate. There's surely a lot of complexity to city financial planning but it can't be so complicated that it's in our best interests to ignore people who are frightened and trying to believe in the system. Vacation land is for everyone. The way life should be is that we protect those in our community who are systematically targeted and facing threats of violence becoming actualized. This isn't a matter of free speech. This is a matter of safety, a matter of life and death. It is a matter of whose humanity truly matters. For those who have scoffed at Black Lives Matter and retaliated with Don't All Lives Matter, this is your chance to show that you truly hold every life as beautiful and important. Queer folks, Jewish folks and POCs living in the city in peace and as stated earlier, help make the city an attractive vacation spot. Neo-Nazis are not here to gently express difference in opinion or to live and let live. They're here to eradicate those are historically marginalized and they're escalating actions in the city over the past few years proveless. Your community is here telling you they need help so now is the time to protect and serve. We must kaput that which makes us kaput. And in the person who talked about white people being marginalized in their homeland, white people took over this land from the native folks living here. What's happening right now is people saying, hey, we're tired of being hurt and treated differently. No one is here to try to criminalize whiteness. People are here to ask that folks are given a fair chance to thrive. Thank you. Thank you. Next we'll go to our speaker in chambers. Hello, I've lived in the state of Maine. If you could give us your name and the neighborhood you live in or the organization you represent, please. Like in Parkside. I've lived in Maine almost all of my life and the time I've been here, I have suffered innumerable incidences of transphobic homophobic terror. I have been physically attacked. I have been harassed. I have been treated terribly. And I can tell you that fascism is not something that is a new thing that's emerging here. It's been here. It's in the rotten seed of this country. And in where I live now, where I see what I see in my neighborhood, the biggest manifestation of it right now is in the police and how they harass and house people, undocumented people, people who are experiencing addiction. It's a nightmare. It's a nightmare. How can you allow this to happen to people? I know how it's allowed to happen. I know how it's funded. I know how much it's funded, but we need to stop doing this. We need to rely on ourselves as a community and each other. As we can see, what happens when like announced fascists come into our community to attack people and commit hate crimes is that the police will allow them to go without asking for their identification in the slightest. Well, they will like aim sniper rifles at people who are peacefully protesting against police murder and police brutality downtown. So just consider these things. Thank you. Thank you. Next on Zoom, somebody named Elle, could you please give us your name and either your address or the organization that you represent? Hi there. Yes, Elizabeth McCormack. And I am just gonna make a brief comment that is mainly, you know, it's directed at the mayor and the city council. I've just heard a couple, actually several people mentioned tonight that this, you know, you've had a week to address people's issues of police accountability. And after this attack, but it really has been much longer than a week. Councillor Pelletier was targeted online by members of this very same hate group and others over nine weeks ago, I believe. We know that this has been an ongoing issue. There's amazing organizers in this community that have been tracking the movements of NSC 131 throughout New England. So I guess I am just trying to say this is not new. There has been much more than a week to think about, to prioritize goals, to strategize ways to address community safety and I just think that hammers home the point that so many people tonight have made that not nearly enough is happening to protect the most marginalized members of our community. And that's my comment. Thank you. Thank you. Next we'll go to a speaker in chambers. Hello, my name is Kit and I'm choosing not to share my neighborhood because I'm trans and it's clear based on current and historical events that I cannot rely on the police or the city to protect me. I am here to stand with my community to speak out against fascism in the literal Nazis that we're here and what a goddamn shame it is that our elected officials are not standing with us. Richard Ward and his blatant hate speech is harmful and frankly appalling. He does not speak for our community. He is what our community is here to stand against. And unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, the Portland Police Department has chosen to stand with Richard Ward and to stand with neo-Nazis. To that I say what many others here tonight have said. There are two sides in this. The side that stands here against fascism, against oppression and against white supremacy and the side that allows it to flourish. Do you as council members stand with your community, who bravely came here to say that hate has no place in our city and our community or do you stand with those who would see us killed for existing, who would commit violence against us for being who we are? That's what this comes down to. Do you want Portland to be a place of hate? If not, then we need you to act. We need a police citizen review board. We need to see that officers are held responsible for their actions. We need to see the police force defunded. We need to see funding going towards building our community instead. We need to see you as our officials standing with us because that's what we've elected you to do. And as many others have said, we haven't seen that. We haven't seen that this week. We haven't seen that longer than this week. We do not feel safe or supported by the people who are supposed to make us feel safe and supported. And that's a shame. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Next, we go to Terry on Zoom. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Hi, this is Terry T with the Florida District. Everyone knows who I am. I just want to say we need to end whiteness and main is, and I've always been a hateful racist state and fuck the police. Goodbye. We'll go to our speaker in chambers, please. It's a little bit hard to follow that. My name is Alex and I live in downtown Portland. I just like to say that I'm proud of everybody who came to speak and I'm here for trans and LGBT community members who don't feel safe speaking. When it happened, they also happened to be a block away. So that was really fun to realize. The day before NSC 131 gathered, there was a very publicized trans rights rally in downtown Portland. The timing of the fascist display is not coincidental. They are trying to intimidate and the fact that they feel safe doing so is dangerous. I would like to echo my fellow constituents in asking the police department to comply with any and all freedom of information at the request for body cam footage of the incident. Police citizen review board was also discussed in 2020 and I would like to bring that back up and suggest that that be revisited or upheld. Neo Nazis were on our street and in their own social circles, they censored their own clothing when they share photos of their attacks. They protect their privacy and the police helps them do that. They have names and faces and their privacy should not be protected after they violated other rights by committing physical assault upon them. Earlier, Richard Ward claimed that counter protesters were looking for a fight, which is the last thing that minorities are looking for from a Nazi group. Once after he saw me tear down transphobic propaganda, he yelled, are you triggered at me? And if that isn't looking for a fight, I don't know what is. I ignored him, but implying second amendment to protect your first amendment right is literally a threat of violence. This fascist is armed and should be avoided. I urged my fellow citizens to stay safe around him. I encourage my fellow citizens, especially downtown, to keep an eye out for anti-whitism literature as this is racist rhetoric and should be torn down after being photographed and sent to local anti-fascist groups to stay updated on local fascist movements. I personally became well acquainted with trying to keep updated with local fascist movements back when I lived in the neighborhood of Deering High School and a couple of years ago, I believe 2021, there was after Halloween a sudden spread of proud boy stickers all over the neighborhood. So these displays of hate have been going on for a while. They've been trying to make their mark known for a while. And this is kind of the result of that. And I would like to also thank Councillor Powell here for regularly speaking up against racism. We have asked the city council to make statements as they should, but she has- 30-second warning. made statements against racism in our community. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we go to Brody on Zoom. Hi, can you hear me? We can. Thank you. My name is Brody. I live in Portland. Sorry, having a technical issue. Thank you. My name is Brody. I live in Portland. I also work at the Portland Public Library. And yeah, I think I'll maybe keep a short in-suite or short. I think I just want to ask. I think in particular, white leaders in the city. So like, white, straight, cis leaders in the city. So like, ask yourselves, like, who you're hearing speaking right now about who is scared and who is in danger as a result of Nazis in the city and like think about the humanity of all of the people who are targeted and be really honest about. Folks, humanity and like what people deserve in terms of feeling safe and like truly being safe and what is required of city leaders to ensure that. And yeah, that's my ask. And I, you know, I think I'm echoing a lot of what other folks are asking as well, and I support those. And yeah, that's all. Thanks. Thank you. Next, we'll go to a speaker in chambers. Hi, my name is Karen. I live in town Portland. I've lived in Portland since 1995. I'd like to thank everybody for taking the time to listen to me and others today and thank you for your service. I'm just going to share my experience with this particular neo-Nazi group on Saturday and then my experience with the police department same day. I had finished my breakfast, wandered up to Monument Square, getting ready to walk around beautiful downtown Portland when I ran into a neo-Nazi group. They were flashing the white power sign. They were doing Nazi salutes. They were asking to take back the streets. They were their streets. And me, I get to exercise my rights, my free speech as well. I confronted the group. I simply said, these are not your streets. These are my streets. Get out of this effing town now. Then they thought I was filming. They took my phone. I wasn't filming because I was so rabble that I couldn't get my phone to film. One of them took my phone and threw it across Monument Square. It was raining that morning. I had an umbrella. Somebody broke my umbrella, scratched my hand and caused it to bleed very minor. This really upset me. So I went back and started yelling some more, asking them to get out of our town. Our town. And he, I was being filmed by this group, which irritated me. So now I'm on their website, for God only knows what, what. Really upset, somebody came, said you need to get away from these guys because they're dangerous. Went across the street, continued to yell at them. There was no police presence there at that time. I got them when they were setting up. No police presence. I very shaken, walked down to the police department and asked to file a report. There was a very young woman working the front desk that day. She was like, did you ask the police? Did you speak to the police in Monument Square? She said, we're aware of it. I'm like, no, because there was no police presence there at that time. That's why I'm here. She gets up, she goes back. 30 second warning. She gets up, goes back, speaks to somebody in the back. They don't bother to send any officer out to speak to me. She said, I was like, she said, I'm like, what about this? My bloody hand and what about my phone throwing that across the, isn't that incident worthy? And she said, well, they said, because you put yourself in harm's way. That was the response I got from the Portland police department when I tried to file a complaint against this group. I do not feel safe in this city. My friend asked me if I wanted to go back the next day and file a report and I said, no, because I don't want to be the woman that goes into the police department. She says, you didn't file this yesterday. And I'm here to complain about your job that you didn't do yesterday. And then I'm walking around town and I don't feel safe. I don't feel protected by the cops. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we got a mic on Zoom. My name is Mike Benz. I just want to say it's time we start taking care of these problems ourselves. White people organizing, hell no. Does anyone really care when a Nazi gets punched? Fuck no. Okay, we'll take our next speaker in chambers, please. Hello, thank you for your time. I appreciate it. My name is Christopher Jakes. I'm a musician and an artist in this city. And I'd like to speak, there's been a lot of speakers speaking very passionately about their experience that day. I unfortunately didn't get to be there that day to help any of the people who had so many problems. But I will speak today about something very common. Commonly referred to as the paradox of tolerance. I'd like to respond to the idea that we must be tolerant of hateful views to preserve the free speech of all. This is something that's discussed in any high level philosophical, moral or ethical debate. Paradox of tolerance is an elementary philosophical concept suggesting that being tolerant of everyone and everything means you must be tolerant of hateful ideology. There are a series of implications from this, but regardless, the paradox of tolerance disappears if you look at tolerance, not just as a moral standard, but as a social contract, one that we all participate in. If someone does not abide by the terms of the contract, they are not covered by it. In other words, the intolerant groups such as NSC 131 and their ilk are not following the rules of the social contract we all have living in this city, living in this world. It is a social contract of mutual tolerance. We all live together. Since they have broken the terms of that contract, they are no longer covered by that contract and their intolerance should not be tolerated. These domestic terrorists will not be tolerated. I'd like to end really quickly by just saying to the officers here and watching, I'd like to ask you how you feel hearing firsthand that so many of your citizens feel like you've abandoned them. Thank you. And we'll go to our next speaker in chambers. Hi, Madison Raymond. I live here in Portland. I moved here seven years ago because I grew up in rural Maine, central Maine, just outside of Augusta. And I moved here as a queer person and openly LGBT identifying persons since I was 18 or 19 to watch one of my fellow community members be violently assaulted and have their civil rights violated in front of police officers in front of city hall. There are plenty of cameras and there were plenty of police. And those individuals who violated that person's civil rights were not identified, they were not detained, they were not arrested. You know, it's shocking certainly, but also over the past few years, especially since the George Floyd BLM protests that we had in 2020, I'm not that surprised that the Portland Police Department isn't doing everything they can certainly to protect marginalized people in this community. I've certainly had plenty of people yell, faggot and tranny at me as an openly queer identifying person. We deserve the right to live in this city and to feel safe and to feel like our elected representatives will do the right thing and hold the police department accountable for their lack of action that evening. And I honestly believe that nothing will come of this but thoughts and prayers from our city counselors and the mayor. I think that it will be a lot of hand wringing and oh, we don't stand for hate in this city and nothing, no actual reform of the police department will be done. I would like the Freedom of Information Access request to be granted. I wanna see the body camera footage of the police officers who claimed in the newspapers not to see the altercation and how it started and who started what? Because that was their protective defenses that they didn't see who started the fight so they couldn't take action. I don't know, I just, I've lived in the city for seven years and I want my loved ones, my friends, my community to feel safe. And it's clear to me over the past few hours that we certainly don't feel safe. Thank you. Thank you and we'll continue with speakers in chamber. Hello, my name is Sanchita McCurgy. I'm an attorney living, working and existing in district one of Portland, Maine. I'm also the racial justice co-chair for the Maine Trial Lawyers Association. I would like to speak regarding the law enforcement interaction or frankly lack of interaction on April 1st, 2023. Let me be extremely clear. The fact that people with white skin covered faces, no identification, all black clothing who were hailing Hitler, calling people walking by the n-word, physically assaulting them and walking away from a physical altercation on government property with not only their lives but also no identification requested from police officers at the scene is a racial justice issue. I would like to juxtapose this reaction by Portland PD with their reaction during the Black Lives Matter protest in 2020. While in no way are the tenants and the values of the people charged for protesting in 2020, similar to this past weeks, this comparison serves to show the extraordinarily clear bias and frankly racism that is apparent, clear and evident in the chosen action and inaction of Portland PD. I represented one of the 23 people charged and arrested in June of 2020 during the Black Lives Matter protest. By August of that same year, all charges were cleared and were dropped by the Cumberland County DA's office citing insufficient evidence that they took part in violence. The exact opposite thing happened on April 1st. Police officers took no information and Cumberland County DA Jackie Sartoris said on April 6th that they could have been charged, had police questioned and the group and taken statements. I believe Portland PD will say that the alleged victim in the matter did not wanna press charges. Portland PD certainly knows that a victim does not have the right to press charges, press criminal charges, the district attorney does, but the district attorney cannot press charges if information is not collected at the scene of the violence. Let me reiterate the fact that Portland PD took no steps except to understand who was part of the violence is racist, whether they feel so or not. Citizens of Portland are watching who PPD is listening to and who they are not listening to. I hope that they are listening today. I wish I could say that I was appalled by their lack of inaction. Many say that we need law enforcement on the streets to keep us safe and make us feel safe. All I can say is that the fact that after expressing that white communities need to be preserved and safe and literally punching someone in front of law enforcement, I as a woman, an immigrant and a person of color do not feel safe. And how could I? 30 second warning. I work in the old port. I go to the Nickelodeon Cinema where they first station every Tuesday. I'm your neighbor. The Aryan Freedom Network has been growing in the city for years. Portland PD knows that they are here. They should have known that the Aryan Network was going to be there. I knew that they were going to be there and I am not a police officer. If Portland PD have $15 million plus in their budget, perhaps they can dedicate literally $0 to making an Instagram account and following the Aryan Network's freedom page. Councilor Palatier has a fantastic Instagram account so she can help them as well. Thank you so much. I hope you have a great day. And next we'll go to George Rowe on Zoom. George Rowe, Hanover Street. I just wanted to highlight a couple of things. The city council has been playing pretty fast and loose with a lot of your legal requirements. For instance, at your last full meeting on March 20th, you approved the capital improvement plan for this upcoming fiscal year. And as part of that, the city charter required a five year plan to be presented as part of that process. And that did not happen. That requirement was completely omitted from both the finance committee level and from the full city council meeting. Despite the fact that Mark Rees in 2011, when he was city manager, helped bring that requirement into accordance with the city charter and that was carried through for many years. And now in the last year that has been completely set aside. And the city charter doesn't give the city council discretion or the city manager discretion to do that. The word is very clear. It's a shall requirement. So you had no discretion, but yet you ignored that very clear city charter requirement because it was inconvenient. You didn't wanna do the work. The city manager had better things to do apparently. And that is the tone at the top that we are setting in the city, which is if it's inconvenient, if it's too much work, if we don't have the staff, if it just is politically, trouble, we're just gonna set it aside. And that is exactly the kind of attitude that President Trump brought to the White House, that he's brought to his time after the White House. And a lot of people in this country believe is they're right when they get control of the government, which is if the rule is inconvenient, if it's too much trouble, if it doesn't help my friends, we can set it aside, it's no big deal, just let's move on to the next thing. And that level of set aside, that use of your discretion, if you can't force me to do it, and basically it's a lawsuit, to force you to do anything around here, if no one's forcing me to, I don't need to do it. And so if that's the tone at the top, it's no surprise that our police department is also sometimes taking advantage of that same level of discretion, that, hey, life is short, we got a lot of things to do, we're just gonna look the other way. It's you set the tone for that kind of governance in our city. Thank you. Thank you, George. And we'll make sure that you get that five year plan that was shared in the finance committee's work, this couple of months ago. Next, we'll go to a speaker in chambers. Hi, I'm Catherine. I live here on the East End. And I actually grew up in Northern Maine. And after turning 18, I kind of be lined here to Portland, growing up knowing it as a progressive place to be. And I've been here ever since, about over 30 years now. And I kind of feel like in the last few years, it feels more like we're cosplaying as a progressive city rather than truly putting ourselves out there and taking action to be a progressive city. Recently, my nephew, who's 23 years old, he's gay. And his friends, he has a couple of friends who are trans. They've moved down here to Portland. And I don't know what to tell them. I encouraged him to come here. I've been wanting him to come move down here ever since he was 18, and he's finally here. And this is what he's come to. And I'm saddened and just really asking for you guys to think about who comes to Portland, why do they come to Portland, why do people live here? We really are counting on it being a progressive city. And we elected a very progressive city council for a reason and we're counting on you for that. And this is an opportunity I feel for this city council to do something bold. I don't know what that is. You're the experts. We need bold action. We need you to not ignore fascism creeping into our city like this. So I'm asking you please to just listen to everyone who's spoken today. I can't believe the numbers of people I've seen here. This is incredible and we need to be heard. So thank you for your time. Thank you. And next, M on Zoom. M, we please give us your name because I don't have a name here on Zoom. You'll have to unmute from your end, please. Hi. I'm not ready to speak. Sorry, I'll speak later. Okay. So we will go to the next speaker on Zoom who is identified only by a phone number. So if you could unmute yourself, please and give us your name and the neighborhood you live in or the organization that you represent, please. Phone number ending in 9310. I think we're having some technical issues. So come on ahead in chambers. We'll come to go to our next speaker in chambers. Parkside, I'm a resident of Portland. I am here as just a citizen, although I do work on teaching about the Holocaust as an educator around the state. And so I can't help but notice such correlations between the things we are trying to teach to our students and adults constantly. When we look at history in the past, we look at it so that we don't repeat those mistakes. And when we look at things that led up to the Holocaust, things happen incrementally. When we look at the pyramid of hate, we start with biased attitudes, acts of bias and prejudice, discrimination, acts of violent, bias-motivated violence. That's one step below genocide, right? And what we see is that when an action is taken, it's perceived as acceptance, as normalizing that behavior. If we say and do nothing, it changes nothing. It essentially says that those actions are accepted, leading way to more and more on that account, we see escalations grow. And then we've seen that time and time again, not just through the Holocaust, but other incidents of violent and hate around the world. And so when we look at this, we know this is, we can't just stand by. And when clear violence is being taken out on, all right, when we see racism intolerance, our marginalized communities being attacked, something needs to be done. Standing by and doing nothing isn't remaining neutral, isn't just supporting the peace. It is essentially making the statement that what is happening is okay, that it is supported. And I want to believe that people who are there, whether representing us police force does not actually believe that. And so I ask that action be taken to demonstrate. We ask our students to do this in schools. And we say, don't be a bystander. That's something as simple as, you know, that's not okay. Because saying nothing is saying it's okay. So take an action, whatever that is, looks like moving forward, that needs to be done because our community does not feel safe. And we want to collectively obviously induce, we can do so much better than we know it should. Thank you. Next speaker in chambers, please. Good evening. My name is Michael, I live in Portland. Been here for many years and I enjoy the community, involve myself in local causes and frequent local businesses because I have much love and appreciation for the people and what this beautiful city offers. If anyone in the chamber or anyone listening online thinks that any of the previous speakers have exaggerated when speaking about the fascist invasion of our city or that fascism isn't alive, that Nazis don't exist or that we don't need to take this seriously, I invite them to read one book at least. It's Ordinary Men, Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. It's a book about what happens when people don't speak up, don't take threats of fascism seriously or trust that their elected force is going to solve the situation for them. Please do not disregard or minimize this event. It's not a singular event, it will happen again. If the authority fails to act, the council fails to act, the establishment arm, Portland fails to act, the citizens will decide the proper actions next time. You're silent on this issue, you have chosen to enable fascism and you will invite anarchy instead, thank you. Thank you and we'll go to our next speaker in chambers. My name is Olivia and I live in West Bayside. So according to the mayor, Portland is an accepting and peaceful community that values diversity and humanity. I think when you say stuff like that, you have to specify for who. Who is Portland for? When this is simply a communication item on the agenda. I know you're able to come up with actions on the fly because of the way you literally sprinted to city hall to defend the city manager because black power dared to speak on the connection between the city manager and the KKK. Who is Portland for when you issue joint statements with the cops after one of their own kills an unarmed black person? Who is Portland for when you push the shelter to the outskirts of town when you raise encampments in the park? Who is Portland for when you roll out the red carpet for developers and landlords and fail to protect tenants? Who is Portland for when we have to give public comments surrounded by cops in uniform with their guns? Are they getting paid to be here? Portland is for you, but not for me and many of my friends here tonight because of the way you push and you push and you push to make sure that marginalized people cannot thrive here. You need to understand that you are allowing fascism to fester and actually to thrive when you equate Nazis and not Nazis, landlords and tenants, bosses and workers, cops and community. You cannot both sides your way out of this. I don't care if it's in the council rules that you need to let people like Richard Ward speak. You cut the mic when Nazis are speaking and that's a pretty simple step one. Thank you. We'll go to our next speaker in chambers. Hi there. My name is Milena. I live in Portland. I've lived here my whole life. I love it to bits. I'm scared of it right now. I'm a member of the independent socialist group. My contribution is very brief, but we have to wonder why far right is growing in Portland, right? What will it take for us to be heard? What circumstances brought us here? And what I'm seeing is violence. What I'm seeing is racism. What I'm seeing is people feeling scarcity, low wages, poor jobs, bad conditions, prioritization of profit, attacks on education, attacks on trans children, impossible rents, appeals on main care, gutting social services where I work, et cetera. The answer is not and never will be inflating the police budget. It will be investing in workers, in worker power, and undermining far right recruitment. These far right racist advocating for violence and extermination will not go away as everyone has so clearly illustrated, which is why we must advocate for longstanding change now, speak now, and act now. Thank you. We'll go to our next speaker in chambers. Hi, my name is Bree. And I just want to touch on something real quick. So I've heard a lot of bigots and even our friend Richard, even people I know, talk about homeless people and weaponize it against the immigrant community and say that they're supposedly taking up resources of the city isn't giving to the increasing homeless population. Honestly, this is idiotic and stupid and also dumb. There are enough resources for everyone. This rhetoric is being used to defy people and prevent them from seeing the real problem. Homelessness is not the fault of increasing racial diversity. It's the fault of capitalism. As a matter of fact, a great deal of our homeless population are not white. Many are people who immigrated here only to realize that the American dream is a lie. I care a great deal about the homeless and I've seen the city police them, push them out of sight and out of mind, build a shelter miles away from the city center job and just generally treat them less than human. All while our neighborhoods are being gentrified and tourists and rich hipsters are being prioritized and the streets are filled with working hands and empty buildings and our infrastructure is crumbling while hosting prices skyrocket. People of Portland, I implore you, please help the homeless in any way you can because I don't think the city is going to. I'll also free Palestine. Okay, thank you. And we will go to our next speaker in chambers. Hello, my name is Wes. I live on the West End. A counselor last meeting said that people only seem to turn out when they're a referenda. I think the connecting thread is that we only turn out when city council addresses things that are existential threats to our community, which is like very rare and almost never the city council prerogative. I've stood on the corner for hours just standing in front of like propaganda signs. I have taken down, like mobilized to take down like transphobic fliers. I've given up like every weeknight and weekend over the summer to knock doors to try to make a referendum happen, which is apparently extremely easy. And all of it's like part of the fight, a fight that city council have been fighting tooth and nail against. And it's, this is what happens, right? It allows fascism to fester. What white supremacy tries to do is it tries to undermine our communities and tries to rip them apart and make them not feel safe in their homes. And what city council has done has basically been in line with that agenda, right? Every single vote kind of goes the way of like making apartments more affordable, making it harder to get onto the ballot because you all want to like take out your ink pen and like make sure that the landowners are properly represented. And that's white supremacy, right? Like you may not be white supremacists, but you are furthering that agenda. So I think you all like really need to start thinking about what, I know a lot of you are about to like run from air, start thinking about like, what have I done that a Nazi would not have done or he in my position? Because like, it's pretty hard to tell, right? I don't see, I look at these, these agendas. I have, there's so few motions put forward. There's so few policy ideas coming forward. All of us like, oh, well, we need to like respect the process, which is a process that was created by white supremacists. And there's so much credence paid to that. And I think you all might have like a better time running for mayor or whatever. If you all started like listening to the community and stopped, you know, supporting a process that is riding these communities. 30 second warning. Thank you. Stopped fighting the community that is trying to live in the city that you all run. And we didn't elect you to be blank slate that compute the process. You're in, we elected you to do things that you said you would do. And we've seen very little of it. So I don't know, like do something, like anything. Thank you. Okay. And next we'll go to our speaker on Zoom. Again, we go back to M. M, you've got the floor. If you could give us your name, please. There must be technical difficulties. So we'll go to our speaker in chambers. Thank you. My name's Jeremy. I live in West Portland. I'm white, I'm straight. And I'm here to speak to other people who are white and straight. Especially those who are in power here on this council and our police force, well represented here in this room. I'm not saying that we're living in 1930s Germany or 1960s America. But if you've ever studied those times and you've imagined what you might have done during those times, you can do it now. You have an opportunity. My fellow white and straight people, the Nazis who visited here might not hate you based on your skin or your identity. But this is still your fight. You can't be neutral on Nazis. Be on the right side of history when they come next. To our council members, have a plan for when they come next. It is not neutral on Nazis. That goes doubly for all of you. Our mayor, Kate Snyder, interim city manager, Daniel West and interim police chief, Keith Gorham, who all govern us only by our consent and through our support. And that consent and that support wanes with each failure that you present to us, such as last weekend. Commit to us, protect this community from violent Nazis or we'll take your power away to our democratic processes. To all the fence sitters listening on the phone, please do not be tricked into tolerating intolerance to paradox. Frans rights or human rights and all lives cannot matter until black lives matter. They carry each other. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, we'll continue with speakers in chambers, please. You can pull the mic down closer and we've heard that it's hard to hear. So if you could speak up, that would be great. Yes, okay. My name is Sam and I've lived in the West End for probably about five years now. And I can't say anything that other people haven't already covered. So I just wanna thank people who have come forward and shared their stories about how they personally have been victimized by hateful people in our city. And I just want to say to you all, my city council who I rely upon that their blood and there was literal blood is on your hands. And for every person that freezes to death on the street, their blood's on your hands. Our quality of life is dependent on how you act. Like that is your job. And I just want to say that we are disappointed. I'm disappointed and I really hope you can prove to us that you can do better. Love you all, bye. Okay, and next we'll go to M, back to M on Zoom if you can unmute yourself, please. Hi, can you hear me? We can. Hi, my name is Melissa. I live over near USM. I just wanna say everyone here is fucking brainwashed. Okay, thank you. Next we'll go to Jay on Zoom. Jay, you'll have to unmute yourself. Okay, and we'll head over to Peter McLaughlin on Zoom. Hi, Peter McLaughlin. I live in district one. I wanna first echo the demands of the Nile Island organizers who showed up at City Hall on April 1st to stand in opposition to hate and who were subsequently assaulted in plain view of Portland police officers. You've heard from many folks tonight who are not okay with the status quo of policing in this city or in this country. I think the police response, lack of response and subsequent statement to this incident of neo-Nazi hate are fine examples of why that is the case. That being said, the public safety system we have today is the Portland Police Department. We know this. And as long as we have such a system, we need checks on it and we need transparency and accountability. The people of Portland made it clear that this is the majority belief in the streets in 2020. And again, at the polls in 2022, when a stronger police review citizen board was voted in as an integral part of our city charter. I know city staff and this council are beginning to implement these charter changes, but I hope you see this incident as an example of why this needs to be implemented correctly and carefully with stark improvements from the current inadequate review board and process. In a democracy, power cannot be allowed to police itself. Police cannot be allowed to police themselves. It's in that spirit that I asked the council and manager to do the absolute least here. And that's to make sure there is a full and thorough investigation of police response in April 1st, that all relevant in video documentation is made public and that this investigation takes place in the public eye with full transparency and accountability. We have a steep scene of statement from the police that does not align with eyewitness statements with available video. And we've now seen a statement from our district attorney affirming the inadequacy of our police response. It is clear that the city needs to act. I have lived here for 13 years. I believe in this community and tonight's rally and show during this council meeting during public comment, it reminds me of why I believe in this community so much. And I know that this community will protect each other. I look to you, those in the halls of power of city hall to do the least here and make sure that we have checks on police response so that we can be better protected should this happen again. We'll do the rest. Thank you. Thank you. Is there a speaker in chambers? Hi, my name is Jenny Ferrari. I am a business owner. I own Arcana on Market Street downtown. I'm also a parent to two small children and a queer person. I came out in Maine at 16 years old. I'm from Northern Maine and at 16 I visited Portland and was assaulted on the street physically and called a slur while holding my girlfriend's hand. I thought that was nearly 20 years ago and I would like to think that walking through Portland today in 2023 I would be safer and I do not feel like that is the case. On Saturday when NSC 131 was marching through Portland I got a message that they were near my shop and I called our staff that day which is all queer and trans people and I told them to lock the door and to stay inside. That's not something that I ever knew that I would need to do but I'm also not surprised. We've seen the seeds of fascism planted in Portland for a long time and I will echo what other folks have said. There are people who have run for school board like Richard Ward that are connected to NSC 131 that I would say likely invited them here that the city should be monitoring. There have been many incidents that the police do not care about. Learning about that woman earlier who was assaulted who tried to file a report. I am disgusted with the Portland PD. There was also a report that came out regarding the Portland PD's racial bias earlier this year and if you went past the headline that made it seem like it wasn't a big deal you could see that the data did show clear racial bias with the Portland PD and I just wanna say as a citizen, as a parent, as a queer person and as a business owner I do not feel safe in Portland, Maine which is supposed to be one of the most progressive cities in New England. This is not a safe place anymore for BIPOC folks, for LGBTQ folks, for Jewish folks and you all need to do something about it now. And we'll go to Jay on Zoom. Okay. Hey, yep. My name is Jay. I live over by St. John. Can you guys hear me? Yes, we can. Okay. I just wanted to mention, for the most part I've lived here my whole life and the police have really been very good compared to other cities in the United States here in Portland. I've probably called on them about 25 times in the past three years and they've always been there to sort of like help and diffuse whatever situation has been happening. That said, I have in sort of recent history had a few potential reports where it looked like there should have been some criminal charges that happened but there wasn't really a filing that ended up going through. So I'd encourage more sort of accountability for people who are bad actors for the police to continue to enforce that. I still think they're doing a really great job for the most part with the numbers they've gotten and everything. And then I worked on the marriage campaign in 2012 and we worked really hard to get the rights and stated for everybody here. And I think that was a really great time. I just encourage all my LGBTQ allies to continue to hold the torch there and continue to just maintain the responsibility of the power you guys have now to enforce all this stuff and continue just to try to make sure to keep strong about it. And then another thing I'd like to mention also is like, it's definitely not just the police force that's showing this sort of kind of one-sided like attitude towards everything. Many of our park benches have been taken out downtown everywhere. The general city, the municipalities, particularly the construction people, all that stuff, it's like, it's very difficult to navigate this city compared to how it was when we were younger regarding just basic amenities. Like I get that like a lot of like people will sort of like make a set a bad example and they can't, we'll lose some of our privileges if things happen, but some of the basic municipality, general like amenities that we're getting through a lot of the people who are doing things regarding just the city's general layout concrete-wise. I mean, you see this stuff in big business everywhere, the type of sort of, I wouldn't call it fascism or Nazism, but whatever this is, this type of sort of hand shaking, secret hand shake type stuff. Thanks guys, good job everybody. Thank you for your comment. Okay, I wanna thank everybody who's joined us this evening in City Hall and on Zoom. Oh, we've got one more hand up on Zoom. If you're intending to speak and you're on Zoom, please raise your hand now. I'll close public comment after this last speaker. Will T. Hey, thank you. Hopefully you can hear me all right. Thank you. My name is Will. I do not live in Portland yet, but I have worked in Portland for quite a while and I am gonna move there soon. I put a deposit down on a housing co-op that's being built. And I just wanted to add a little bit of context to the history of white supremacy in Portland. In the 1923, thousands of Klansmen marched in Portland to enact the city charter which dramatically reduced democracy in Portland. And there have been a lot of obvious negatives associated with operating under this system of city governance. It's a little bit too late to address that now. I think we'll have to wait a while before we can reopen the charter and consider something better. But after the passing of that last charter, there was an incredibly offensive letter sent to the Catholic Bishop of Portland. Hereafter, no n-words Catholics nor Jews will ever hold office in Portland. I don't doubt that if that same note and likely the same notes are still being written but maybe they're texts now, if that were being written today, it probably would be talking about clear people and trans people as well. Probably more so than some of, or one of those other groups. But since then we have actually seen people of color and we have seen Jewish people hold office in Portland. And regardless of this incredible setback that we're forced to contend with in the form of our city governance, we've managed to have better outcomes in Portland. And I think that we need to continue that much more strongly here. We need to realize that when there are literally Nazis marching in the streets and assaulting people and the police department is not appropriately responding to that, not very surprisingly, we can do better. Y'all are on the city council. You have the power to do something here and I just would really urge you to do that. This is not an isolated incident. There have been ongoing issues. Thank you. There have been ongoing issues in Portland. And each time it's like, oh, this is awful. It's really sad that this is happening. And yeah, it is, but they're not one-offs. This is pattern and something needs to be done about it. Thank you. Thank you. And again, thank you to everybody who spoke in chambers and on Zoom. I'm gonna close public comment on unagended items. And what I'd like to do is to take Communication 32 out of order, but before I do, Councilor Trovaro, do you have a comment? I was just wondering if we might take a five minute break in between. Oh, sure, we certainly can. We'll take a five minute break and let's say we're back here at 7.15. Hopefully a couple more counselors back in chambers. I'm looking to make sure we've got everybody with us on Zoom. I think we do. Okay, we're just returning from a five minute break. Thanks everybody for sticking with us. And so as mentioned earlier in the meeting, what I'd like to do is take communication 32 out of order. So will the clerk please read into the record, communication 32. Communication 32, 22, 23, regarding police response on April 1st, 2023 by Interim Chief Eth Gorham, Police Department. Chief Gorham, I'd like to welcome you to the podium and thank you for addressing the Council and offering your communication. Madam Mayor, Manager West, counselors, thank you for having me tonight. I wanna start by affirming that the views expressed by NSC 131 are in no way in keeping with values of the Portland Police Department. I provided you with a memo that details the decisions that were made by officers and supervisors on scene on Saturday. And I will tell you that I support those decisions in that particular incident. As we dive through, I'm sure you will have several questions, but I wanna get into a little bit about our philosophy when it comes to facilitating the First Amendment rights of our community members. Portland has a very robust First Amendment community and takes a great deal of pride in expressing their First Amendment rights. We as a police department have taken the role of facilitating the expression of those rights. We do that by reacting to spontaneous or organic protests that pop up. We immediately provide lead and tail cars to ensure the safety. We shut down intersections and we attempt to communicate with the organizers of the protest so that we can facilitate a safe rally. In this case, we didn't know it was coming and we reacted to have officers monitor it. They were not in the streets. They were on sidewalks so there was no need for a lead and tail car. And officers set up a distance away to monitor the rally. After the protests of 2020, the city contracted a very in-depth investigation into the way that the Portland Police Department handled the protests in 2020, particularly on June 1st. What we found from that investigation was the Portland Police Department and our partners did a better job than most other agencies across the country. And the reason given for that was that we took a facilitative stance as opposed to taking a management stance and trying to control the protests. It was noted in the report that we could have made several more arrests than we actually did, but we're much more diplomatic in the way we made our arrests and that helped with the relationships in our community. These are the most tricky situations for our officers, for our supervisors, is we try to facilitate these. We try to be the person in the middle, not taking sides, whether our views are completely apart from them. We cannot express our views. Our job is to facilitate their First Amendment rights. That is all I have right now. I'm happy to take any questions. I'm sure there will be some. I'm sorry to die on, I apologize. I'm happy to give you the cliff notes, if you would like. Thank you, Chief Gorham. And before we go to council questions or comments, I just want to ask if the city manager has anything to add on this communication. Yes, thanks. Thank you, Chief, for being here tonight. We, I just wanted, I know there was a lot of mention during public comment about the DA's comments over the weekend. We had a statement that was issued recently. I've given it to everyone here, I'm around the dais. And we will also make sure that that gets uploaded to the backup materials so that everybody has it. But it basically addresses her comments specifically in the press herald on Saturday the 8th. And I won't read it to everyone. I think you can all read that in the backup specifically. But I just wanted to highlight that she was troubled by the events, but she also articulates that the headline of the article was neither what she believes or wanted to convey as her reactions to what was happening. She wanted to note that she thought that law enforcement personnel acted on April 1st to keep the peace in a very fluid and very difficult and fast-paced situation. That she was grateful for their presence and mindful of how constantly dangerous and tough their work is. And that she also noted that interim chief Gorham immediately sought her guidance and to discuss this further and clarify what was the best way that each could support each other's work. And that she really appreciated that and that she looked forward to continue to move forward and recognize the chief's lengthy service with the department and continued hard work in this area. She's given some specific recommendations that she would see. So the chief and I would just got this. So we're gonna be diving into that and really looking at that and looking at ways in which we can work with the district attorney's office moving forward. But I just thought that was important since it was specifically discussed during public comment this evening. Thank you for that. And just to note, it came in through email at 2.15 this afternoon. I didn't see it right away, but if it's possible to get it uploaded tonight even, I think that would be helpful for folks in the community to have access to this statement. So now I will go to counsel questions and comments. Counselor Dionne. Thank you, Madam Mayor. My apologies chief for not being in my seat during your presentation. I did take the liberty of reading your comments in advance of your presentation. I did so because I was trying to gather feedback and commentary regarding the testimony of residents this evening. I wanna suggest that I recognize the challenge the officers face in this context. I do not diminish or discount some of the emotional consequences of psychological trauma that many of our residents this evening have expressed to us. I think it's valid and legitimate. However, I took heart in some commentary that suggested that education was gonna be a necessary part of the strategy moving forward. And I hope that's the case so that citizens can acquire a working knowledge and appreciation of the restraints that are placed on not just the police but the justice system as a whole in trying to navigate which is a very difficult legal platform, the First Amendment. The expression is one thing, acts of violence are another, but I have to tell you navigating that to successfully avoid civil litigation directed at the police in the city and secure prosecution and a successful prosecution. It would be easy enough to see the arrest of individuals but if it's not ratified by an actual conviction what have we gained? So I hope that in the weeks ahead, Chief, you've declared a willingness to engage in a partnership with the district attorney. I think that's important. And I think there's a third leg on that stool that should be considered as the primacy of the victim. The victim is really at a place, Madam Mayor, that helps determine how a case will flow forward if a victim is willing to participate, fully engage with investigators and prosecutors. We can hold these people not only accountable in criminal court but likely accountable in a civil arena with an appropriate injunction from the attorney general's office. Those are the outcomes of this counselor and I hope others around this horseshoe share. That's what we wanna see accomplished in your work with the district attorney and with community leaders as a whole. And I will say this, moving forward, I hope whatever process is adopted by the administration in your department will hold central to this idea that there's a significant trauma of being an individual that has experienced a bias event directed at them and or a hate crime. Those are legal distinctions but that a person on the receiving end of that conduct there is no such distinction. So it's gonna be a tough challenge to develop a policing and accountability strategy for that, but thank you for taking those first steps with the district attorney. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, Councilor Dion. Other comments, questions from my colleagues as this is a communication, we as you know, we don't typically take public comment we did tonight, but we certainly do take questions or comments from counselors. I'm looking on Zoom. Okay, oh, counselors are on Zoom. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Can you hear me? We can. Okay, so sorry, everyone, I'm currently traveling. I just wanna say thank you to everyone who gave comment. That was a lot. I understand that it was a lot to hear. It was evident and visible that the community is really shaken up. I have a bunch of questions, I'm gonna be honest. I have a lot of questions. I appreciate the chief and the manager bringing a communication to us this afternoon. I asked for it from the city manager that Monday after the meeting. And I think if there's one thing after the two hours of public comment, we just heard, you know, there's a lot of confusion, a lot of anxiety, fear, and a lot of questions. So I don't think we're gonna get to all of that this evening, especially just because this is a communication item. I think my overall question instead of getting into the details is what did the next steps look like? What's the path forward? Because we can't just say, okay, we took two hours of public comment, we got this communication, we're done. That's insufficient. I wanna know how we can better understand what happened in a more detailed way. I know we've seen videos going around from the other, you know, the incident and they're troubling. And I'm just trying to connect the dots here. I think all of us are really looking at the data point. So I guess I'm looking at my job here is how can we help residents feel rest assured that this is something that is going to continue to be worked on and understood? How can we make sure relevant documentation is accessible? Because I feel like I have more questions ending this evening's public comment than I did even going into it. So I might not be very articulate right now. I'm processing in lifetime, but I guess if I had to tie all that together, what is the next step? How are we gonna show the community what the path forward is on this collectively? Because that's what I think we have to do. Thank you. Well, councilor, I think that's probably a question for me and maybe also for the chief as well, but I think from my perspective, as I mentioned, I'll be working with the chief to talk about those recommendations that we specifically saw in the district attorney's letter and to understand them better. There were a lot of things in there. I think that specifically get to some of the issues that were discussed this evening. And so I really need to get my feet under me, so to speak, so that I can understand what she's talking about and really discuss that with the chief. Another thing that I have done and happy that he's here this evening, although he just started work with us, we have recently hired a justice, equity, diversity and inclusion director, Umar Ubaldi. He's here and he's gonna help me. He's gonna help me try to figure this out and try to navigate this. And I'm going to be using his skills and resources to try to understand ways in which we could continue to move forward. And then I don't know if the chief has anything other specific coming from this, from his department. No, I think it's, you know, for us, it's continuing to look at national trends and best practices. We have stayed ahead of that thus far and continued and plan on continuing to do that. Thank you both. Counselor Zaro, I wanna, you've got the floor, so I wanna go back to you. Thank you. I appreciate it and I look forward to the next steps and understanding more the DA's involvement as well. You know, I'm one of the ones who left her a voicemail, you know, as soon as this was, you know, evident or as soon as I was made aware of it. The last thing I'll say because there is more of a sense of urgency and humanity is I'm having a hard time articulating and understanding the physical harm that happened. And we heard from a couple of people tonight and I'm trying to imagine if that were me, how I would feel and what I would want and folks shared some of that. And I'm just having a, I believe our role is to protect people specifically marginalized folks if they're harmed, right? If they're physically harmed and that happened. And so again, might not be the most articulate I've been before, but I wanna better understand how we can let people know that that is not tolerated, right? Yes, people can say things, even if we don't like them, even if they hurt to hear, if you say something and then you act on it with violence or harm, that is a line that cannot be crossed. And so that's the part I'm still struggling with how we can understand what happened, not only to prevent it from ever happening again because clearly that we need to do a better job of that but how do we make it right? I don't know if we can, how do we look at the folks who were on the receiving end of that and say that we're sorry and that we're never gonna let that happen again? Anyway, thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Counselor Zorro. Chief, would you like to respond in any way? That is, that's a really challenging question and it's something that we deal with all the time. And I think, you know, as law enforcement officers as we are trying to put cases together and we're working with victims, we very much take a victim-centered approach and we go into an understanding that although we're gonna do whatever we can to secure that conviction or those consequences for the perpetrator that it just may not happen. And so with that, we have victim advocacy, folks who are trained to work with our victims and we work through that process together to try and hopefully limit that post-traumatic stress that can come along with some of those critical incidents. Thank you, Chief. We've got a hand up from Counselor Phillips who's with us on Zoom. I'm so sorry that I'm not there with folks in person. Unfortunately, it just couldn't be helped the way that this worked out. I really and truly appreciate all of the folks coming forward and giving us their comments. And I also appreciate Counselor Zaro for speaking just now because I just, I really wanna put on the record that I totally agree with him that this is a time for action. This is just such a time for action. Our community wants it, we want it. And I think we just need to literally make sure at every step that we are doing something actionable in order for us to diminish racism and oppression across the board. As I was looking at the material before we were getting started on this, I did have several questions for the police department, but those questions to me at this point don't matter because we could go back and forth and I could ask questions and then I could get an answer and then I could ask other questions and get another answer. And so instead of asking questions, I decided I was just gonna make this kind of statement. And just say that in certain circumstances, black people and people of color don't get this kind of a response. And I think that that's where my frustration is we just don't get this response. We get something totally different from police across the country. And so I do think there needs to be a plan. I wanna thank Interim City Manager Daniel West and the chief for putting this plan together. And also that this is just gonna take more than just more than just that. It's gonna take all of us. It's gonna take the folks around the chamber, around the council chamber. It's gonna take the community. It's gonna take all of us to figure out how to do this. And if we think, and I'm so glad that we have our justice, equity, diversity and inclusion person. And I'm so grateful that he's also gonna be working with us to try to kind of figure this out. This is gonna take bold steps that some people are not gonna like. It's, sorry, that's my granddaughter. But it is gonna take some bold steps. And all I ask for is, is that we are ready to make those bold steps that we're able to literally, sorry, that we're literally able to say, this is, we're gonna go forward with this because we have to. Sorry. A little baby on the Zoom screen. Sorry. I just want us to all be prepared that we have to take bold actionable steps. And I know that's the thing that I'm gonna be looking for as we try to go down this road to diminish harm and trauma to the citizens of Portland. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Phillips. Next I'll go to Councillor Rodriguez. Oh, Councillor Pelletier and then Councillor Rodriguez. I'll take it. Thank you, Mayor. I'm gonna sit down for this. In my limited time as a public servant in the city of Portland, I've been in way too many meetings that have been packed with police officers. Just wanted to say that because it was mentioned that on certain occasions we do manage to get the entire department in here. I wonder who's doing construction, detail right now. It's a joke for you guys. Yeah, I can smile. I have to be so serious. I wanna address Councillor Zarrou's question about what do we do as a council. We have on our plate a few opportunities to have an impact into the culture of the police department. We're about to hire a new chief. Councilors had a great opportunity. I hope all nine of us check the box to speak to the hiring firm so that we can give feedback into what we're looking for in the next leader of the police department. I took full advantage of that opportunity and I spent over an hour speaking with that gentleman and I believe that he enjoyed my feedback. I gave a unique perspective from someone who's been involved in conversations with this community about policing at a really in depth way for years. Many years for which I've never gotten credit for. I just wanna put that out there. So that's one immediate action step that the council can have is deciding who the next chief of this department will be. That chief when they come in, I believe, is due to have some sort of strategic comprehensive plan into the department that addresses a lot of the things that have happened over the last several years. We've had two chiefs come in. We've had a lot of instability at the leadership position. That's detrimental to any organization. So having a chief is gonna be here long term and having a good strategic plan for the department that addresses a lot of the issues that we've highlighted on top of the issues that the department has brought up themselves. One of which the most blatant one is the inability to hire, right? You've got a staffing issue. What I heard tonight tells me that you have a PR issue. The whole country's police department alone for it and has a PR issue. And one action that this council can take in response to what we heard today is to not fall under the standard operation that the only way to improve retention and recruitment is by increasing wages. Because that falls into what we heard today we shouldn't do, which is dump more money into the problem. We need to think strategically about who are we attracting into law enforcement? What are we trying to accomplish as this department? What are we doing with our other municipalities to work in hand and to a comprehensive idea into what goals we're trying to advance? And so then the last thing that I'll say is we, you know, the council always has an opportunity to overstunt. I would actually caution us to do that when I've been when I had the opportunity to take bold action as has been referenced here. I did so after about a three year course of community engagement and talking to people throughout the city, talking to people that are involved in law enforcement reform, juvenile justice reform. And I did so in what I believe was a really well informed and educated position. And I believe that that's the work this council has to do. So it ain't about throwing a motion out, they're getting a second and five votes. It really is about doing the work, right? Digging into your community, listening to them, listening to y'all, y'all are part of this community too. I need to listen to what y'all are saying. And then coming out with a solution that addresses all these problems. But there isn't a silver bullet out there. It's a horrible analogy to use right now. There is not one solution that's gonna fix all of these problems. But there are big issues here that we need to acknowledge. I think I'll leave it at that. I'm kind of starting to repeat myself wasting all times. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you, councilor. Next to you, councilor Pelletier. Thank you, mayor. Oh, I'm sorry, councilor Travarro. Sorry, she wanted me to go first. Okay. Thank you for being here. This has been a rather intense evening. I feel like we should start our meetings with like breathing exercises or something to remind us that we're all here together as a community and that we're all doing our best towards a similar goal, although we may be in different places in our understanding of the issue of equity, which is really what we're talking about tonight. I don't wanna come at this from a perspective of reprimand or, you know, I believe that there are tools in the toolbox of the police force that can be used and that must be refrained from of which I am no expert. So I appreciate that the police force was there for this rally and put their best effort forward with the tools that they had. So my comments will just be my personal thoughts as one councilor, as you delve into this work on how to go forward. The comments from the community tonight really did speak to me. I am someone who has studied history, studied Holocaust and looked at that in comparison to what's going on in our country today and how politics have changed and how systems of power have creeped up in a way that is eroding of democracy and is in violence toward marginalized community members. And I don't think that our community is different from the rest of the country. I would be very proud if we had the one police force in the country that really worked to figure out what is that line between free speech and hate speech and acted to prosecute hate speech on that is equity. And it's something that needs to be ingrained in our system, I think. So I appreciate you, I appreciate your work. And those are my thoughts for moving forward. I appreciate what the DA has put forward. And I look forward to hearing more about your work. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Travarro. And next we'll go to Councillor Pelletier. Thank you. I'm trying to figure out where I am with this. And I hope that I don't get point of ordered. And my other colleagues just let me share. Cause I think like this is ridiculous like that we are here again. Like this entire exchange is not working for me at all. And I'm just listening to the conversation. I'm reading the statement. I'm reading the press release and we're just kind of like best practices against like Nazis coming to Portland. Like we're gonna just like best practice for Nazis coming here. And you said you have to be the person in the middle and not take sides. And you can't express your views, but in your statement, you expressed your view saying that this rhetoric from this hate group is not keeping in the values of Portland. So where is the line between free speech and between hate speech? And where is like the protect and serve and like the integrity that people are asking you to have? And I'm just, I really, I tried. I said I wasn't, I was just gonna let everybody else share because I have been through a lot and I was just gonna not share my piece but I'm actually pretty disappointed and disgusted with this entire display. And even this display, like do you realize how many people had to walk past you today to give a comment and how hard that was for so many people who had to walk up here to give a comment who are terrified, who don't feel safe? And we receive press release emails consistently from what's happening with the Portland PD. Like we receive that information to our council email. So I know that arrests have been made. Like I know that y'all know how to arrest people and I know that you know how to ID people. And I was one of the people that you first sprayed in 2020. So I know that you know how to do that. So, you know, I'm just trying to figure out that the entirety of the Portland community that was here today knew what was going on and knew that this was going to happen. And I'm hearing that you did not. And this just happened in Kittery when there was a banner on the overpass saying keep New England white and there was an immediate civil rights charge because there was an ID. Then again, I was just here. We were just here in February because of racist social media attacks on me. So you were like, you're surprised to see them here. And I know it's like, well, let's acknowledge how hard the job is. Let's acknowledge that. But like let's also acknowledge we have a serious problem. Like we have a serious problem. People do not feel safe here. And then we have to now figure out a plan. And the plan is like best practices and like love and light. And that doesn't work for me. People don't feel safe in this community. I am a black woman on this council and I have never felt more unsafe being in this position. So what does that say for everybody else? And again, we were just here. It's been, we were here eight weeks ago, nine weeks ago, same packed council. Everybody gave a statement. We all went around, we said our piece and it was kind of like we're gonna do something about it. And there has been nothing, nothing that has been done since then. And then like we have the audacity to propose racial equity as our top goal. And I'm sitting here trying not to like have a panic attack and an anxiety attack being re-triggered by hearing how horrible people in my community feel about living here. Like people don't feel safe to leave their homes. Like kids are scared to walk to school. Elderly adults are living in fear that they're gonna be targeted next. And that's coming to me. Like I'm hearing that from individuals. And yes, we hired Umaru and I can't wait to get to know him, but I've worked in racial equity for a long time. And what we're not about to do is put the history of white supremacy on Umaru's back and ask him to fix it. This is one individual that we have just hired. So I'm not expecting Umaru to just suddenly come in and like make everything work. And it's just like the, we're looking at the trends and we're looking at best practices and like trends and best practices for combating Nazis that came into our community that are scaring people. Somebody was assaulted in front of City Hall and that's just the video that we saw. Multiple other people came in here and said that they had an issue. Somebody went to the police department to make a statement and nobody was there for her. So like what are we doing? I just feel like we're like reliving February again. And I'm trying to figure out like, okay, now we've done the communication. All the counselors have spoke. We had two hours of public comment and now we're gonna go into the meeting. And it's until the next thing happens, like until they come back. Like I'm terrified. So I can't even imagine how individuals feel who are not in here. So, you know, I really like, I tried to feel like I could find like a positive outlook on this but I'm so upset that like with this entire thing and the fact that like we're just kind of going through these motions, talking about racial equity and then we're just gonna go forward with the meeting. After two hours of public comment of people saying, I'm scared to live in Portland. Like that's a problem for me. Like I'm not comfortable leaving now going home and being like, that was a great meeting. And then I'll wake up tomorrow and go to work and then we'll have our committee meetings. Like it never happened. Like it'll be in the paper for a week and then we'll talk about something else. So I'm not actually satisfied with this entire conversation. I don't feel like we've gotten anywhere. And yeah, I look forward to what we can do as counselors which outside of supporting our community members and being on the ground with them, I think is very little. So yeah, as much as I again wanna feel like we can do this together and like we're all here together, this is not working. People are scared to live here and people are looking to you to say like, what are you gonna do? And then like we have like two whole rows of officers here as well. Like I would love to hear from because we're only hearing from you as the chief but like what about everyone else who's here? What about the officers that responded? Are they gonna share too? Like what are you on board? Like I just want us to have some kind of like accountability and I just feel like I'm so frustrated that we are still here and nothing is really being done. And I don't feel like I can safely tell my community members that we're working on it. And I hate that for me. I hate not being able to tell the community that I represent, specifically the black community of Portland that you are safe here. Like I hate that I can't say that to them. So I'm just gonna leave it there. Thank you, counselor. Counselor Ali. Thank you, Mayor. I'm gonna sit down. Chief, sorry I left when you were doing your presentation. I'm fasting. So I have to sneak out and go and do something before I faint or else I'm sitting here. Thank you, Mr. Hilton and many others who were assaulted. I am sorry you'll have to go through that. And this is coming from the bottom of my heart. I have a few questions because I think I'm hearing individuals saying that we will have to take a bold decision or bold step to do things. My question is maybe some specifics. Mayor, do we know if the interim corporation council is on the meeting? He is not on the meeting, but we have Nicole Albert from the corporation council's office with us this evening. So if we have questions for that office, Nicole is here with us. Okay, thank you. And Mr. Baldi, this is how we welcome people in Portland. So welcome to Portland. Yeah. Chief, you know, last week, I received like all my colleagues, I received the email that came from your communications department. And based on that, I, actually I was, it came out by downtown, not knowing what was going on. I didn't notice anything, but someone said, hey, did you have you noticed what was going on? I said, no. And they told me. And then I received the email. And based on that email, I did have conversation with people that have reached out to me. And I said to them that I don't want to ask me, am I gonna make a statement? And I said, well, I don't wanna uplift the voices of these individuals. I'm going to just let them go home. Not knowing exactly, right? What happened until I started seeing videos online of some of the terrible things that they did for to our neighbors. And I think there was a TV video that I said that they reached out to your office. And you, that you were, some of your offices were there when this was happening. I'm not going to play blame games here. I'm just gonna ask you a few questions. And the reason why I asked, if the Interim Corporation Council is here is maybe some of my questions, maybe around law or something, and I'm not a lawyer. I know that from after I've seen that video, I wanna line and did some reading. There is a thin line between what is a free speech that is protected and what is not. And apparently, because I was not there, if you yell at someone with a hate word, you call some other N word or the F word, then you cross that line. On that day, it was a video that shows that somebody was beating up and the F word was used on them. And then somebody was also passing by or he was driving by and the N word was yell at him, asking him to go back where he comes from or something. Is there any tool in your toolbox that the officers that were there should have used that day? Not a First Amendment expert, but I can say that unfortunately, the use of a racial slur alone is not a crime. And it is in fact protected. Even if it is directed at someone like that. If it's accompanied by a threat or an assault, then that becomes a different story. But the question also has to be whether police were aware of those videos. A lot of times people will post things on social media and not report them to the police or provide a video to the police. Right, I mentioned two incidents, the use of the N word and then the use of the F word and it follow up with individuals being physically assaulted. That is not protected, is it? No, it's not. But the question remains of what the police who were on the scene actually saw. And I can't speak to that. And then whether there were witnesses who were willing to provide statements at the time. So basically a witness have to produce. So if there was a protest by Nazis or whoever it is in front of City Hall or somewhere in Portland and I'm passing by and then they started using the N word calling me immigrant, calling me a Muslim. And then I responded and then they physically assault me. If there were, and I'm not saying that there was if there were police officers there and they noticed that what is available to them in their toolbox to use. It's at the, it's very likely a misdemeanor. So a summons would be possibly an arrest. And that would depend on a lot of factors including whether the jail would take that arrest. Okay, so it's unfortunate that interim corporation council was not here but my question is, is there anything we can do as a city government to put something in the books so that if a situation like that happens our officers can use what we have in the books? I think that's probably a question for Michael, the corporation council and he can respond to that. I think in a follow up memo for you but I think the tools may be limited in what we could do but I'll have him look into that. Thank you. The reason why I'm asking this is somewhere last year there was a rally to in commemoration of the coup attempt that happened in DC on January 6th of a few years ago but that event was at Monument Square and there were two groups. One group was the one that way and then an individual was able to find his way all the way to stand behind speakers from the other group, right? And when I was told, a lot of people reach out to me and I asked myself, what if these gentlemen or this individual who was able to cross and go although we've seen what is happening in different parts of the country awhile ago people were being shot or protest. What if he shot someone? What if he did something to harm one of the people that were speaking at that time? And I did ask, is there anything that we can do to make sure that if there are two parties protesting one person from that group does not cross because we may have a situation at hand that will be detrimental to our community. Even what happened last Saturday of people being assaulted should not have happened. Let alone something worse than that. I'll add a piece for Michael to look at some specifics with regard to that but I would just add that this council two different times when I was Corporation Council attempted to regulate speech in different ways. One time was with regard to the medians requiring and indicating that we didn't want certain speech in the medians and then one time was in front of Planned Parenthood specifically and that we were trying to keep people away from the front door of Planned Parenthood. I will tell you we lost both of those cases and that shows you that the First Amendment it's tough, it's really hard and the case law is really difficult. So I'll have Michael look at that specifically but I just wanted to remind everybody of that because those cases we took them all the way up to the first circuit and we lost in both instances. Thank you and then my next question is I think Chancellor Palatier detached on that when she said that, where do we go next? People, the two hours of public comment that we had are people saying that we are afraid we don't feel protected. We pride ourselves of being a welcoming city for everyone. I know I have used that several times. Will I be able to use that in front of a certain group that were here today if I should be standing in front of them tomorrow in front of City Hall? Probably not based on what I've heard from them. How do we as a council, what do we have? What are we going to do to reassure people that we are welcoming and thriving City Hall? That is a question to all of us. I'm not expecting any answer, it's a rhetoric of question. So, and Mayor, I will wanna know what we can do. Thank you, Councillor. Omar, welcome to Portland. Thank you, Councillor. Okay, well, thank you everybody for comments. I'd like to offer just brief comment. First, I wanna thank the community who came out tonight to speak to the council. That's a lot of feedback. And I think I know that we all take that very seriously and listen attentively and care when members of our community feel unsafe and feel harmed. First and foremost, we wanna make sure that we're representing in our roles as elected officials in order to make sure that people feel welcome in Portland and make sure that people feel safe and steward this place that we live and that we love. When the events of April 1st happened, I think we all learned different things at different times. And there was a lot of direct feedback to city management with questions. And the response back was, let's respond to this openly and transparently with a communication, which I think is that's the right thing to do. That's what we're here to do is to offer this conversation and the information that we've got from the chief, from the manager. And again, I do wanna draw attention to the fact that we got a memo from the district attorney this afternoon that I think shed's really important and meaningful light on the conversation that we're having here. So I urge people to check it out online and to read it. I also wanna thank the police officers for being here tonight. We routinely sit and listen to public comment and the fact that you're here listening to it with us, I think is important and I wanna say thank you. The questions before us tonight, I think the critical questions are what are we gonna do? And I think that we all agree that one person, our new JDEI director can't do it all but we're glad that he's here. I think my colleague, Councillor Rodriguez said that Portland's not alone in having a PR challenge when it comes to policing and this is something that we can all work on together. I think the recognition that we're not alone is important because we need to look around and see what's working and what we can, not only what we can do as an example but what can we look to as examples? I think we all need to continue to work together and to do this work openly and in discussion with one another. And I wanna acknowledge Councillor Pelleteer's frustration with how do we move on tonight? How do we move on tomorrow? We're gonna move through our agenda tonight. We're gonna wake up at eight o'clock and have a legislative committee meeting. And then there's gonna be an HHS meeting tomorrow night. And then on Wednesday, I'm gonna go to Augusta because it's the midst of the legislative session and we are working hard with our delegation and others in Augusta to make sure that important legislation is, or legislation that's really important to Portland is something that we're up there talking about consistently. We're gonna have a two days worth of city manager interviews at the end of the week. And I say this just to acknowledge how difficult it is sometimes to move from thing to thing. And I know that we all do it, whether it's council work or your jobs or families or all the things that come to us, but that's part of the challenge is to continue to move our way through the work that we have to do, but do it mindfully so that we're not forgetting this work tonight and that we're carrying the thread through our committee work and our council work. I don't think it's easy and I know that it's frustrating. And I know that after some really tough years in the city of Portland and well beyond a lot of there's a wearing thin that I think is very real. And so I'll continue to work alongside my colleagues and city staff to invest in Portland and to respond responsibly and work together. I think we need to bridge the gaps because I can say that as somebody who ran for this office I did it because I love Portland and because I live here and because I raised my kids here and I invested in the school system and I wanted to offer something back in terms of public service. And when I did that, I became part of this team up here on the council. And the council is part of the team that is the city of Portland, which is so many employees who execute municipal government every day for our residents and the people who visit Portland and who work here. So we will continue this work as frustrating and challenging as it can be, but I hope that we can make bridges to one another in our community and acknowledge the difficulties and continue to talk. So thank you everybody for your attention tonight. And I acknowledge that it's hard to move on through the rest of the agenda. Thank you mayor. Okay, I think we're good. Thank you very much chief. Thank you for being here. Mayor, can I reply? Yes, go ahead councilor Phillips. That's okay. Thank you. I certainly hear how difficult it is for us to move forward, but we're still not answering councilor Pelletier's question. And I understand that we have business that we have to take care of. So technically right now we do have to move forward. I would like to propose that we set up a workshop as soon as possible. This just cannot wait. And I understand we all have very, very, very busy lives, very busy lives, but we need something. This needs to be a top priority for us, right? It needs to be a top priority. We need to have a workshop as soon as possible so that we can outline a plan and put people's names next to it as to what's gonna happen, right? I mean, again, I know we all have to move on with our lives, but just, I mean, I have to get back to councilor Pelletier's thoughts, which is at some point in time, this has to be our top priority. I understand the budget is important. I understand the school budget's important. I understand all of those things are important, but this needs to take priority so that the citizens of Portland feel safe, so that the police department is accountable. So there's education regarding white supremacy culture, not only within the police department, but across the city. We have, we put together a race and equity task force. We had recommendations out of that. I don't know where those recommendations are. I don't know what we're doing with those recommendations, but it would be good to hear from somebody who was supposed to be responsible for some of those recommendations as to what they're doing. So although I hear everybody, I do have to get back to councilor Pelletier's emotional sentiment that something, we need to do something. So I would like to propose that we put together a workshop as soon as possible. We can ask the council when they're free, but this to me is top priority. It's just, it's top priority. And we need to do something as soon as possible. So I don't know what that looks like. I don't know if that's a phone call with all of us tomorrow to say what's the next step, but we've got to read this. This is number one for me. It's number one. Thank you, councilor. Did you wanna reply? I just wanted to reply specifically about the racial equity steering committee report as I told the council, I think previously hiring the justice equity and diversity and inclusion director was the first step in that. So we've created as a staff, and I've talked with him about this, a plan that looks at all of those various pieces of the puzzle. He has to learn the city and understand that. So we have a 30, 60, 90 plan. What we're looking to accomplish in 30 days, 60 days and 90 days. And then include, it's pretty robust, potentially maybe more robust than we can handle all up front. And we'll include the development of the department and also addressing those racial equity steering committee recommendations among other things. But as I said, he's learning the city, understanding what we do already, meeting staff, meeting community groups, meeting counselors, meeting anybody out there, I think at this point and trying to get that information. So it is front of mind and the work is underway. And I would also just add that later this evening, we also have a charter implementation memo that's on for communication, which talks about another piece of the puzzle that was discussed during public comment, the police citizen review board and the establishment of that, as was required by the voters approval of that in November 22 is something that's underway. It has to have a couple of steps done by the council. So that's another action step that's happening. And additionally, as I said, the chief and I will sit down immediately and look through what the district attorney has put forward and talk that through and be able to report back. Obviously happy to talk about that further in any sort of session that the council would like, but that's sort of what's on the horizon. Thank you. Councillor Ali. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to, I don't know if that will be helpful in terms of the workshop that Councillor Phillips is asking. I think some of the, or I can speak for just myself, some of the struggle when I'm having conversation with individuals around how do we call it the freedom of speech and how it is protected. Maybe in the workshop setting that might be able to give us a clear accent questions like, do we have the flexibility of denying a, let's say I want to have a Ghanaian dance at Monument Square or somewhere in Portland. And I apply for a pass or a permit and I'm denied, right? And then I go to court. So if we can have a conversation around that, maybe that will, through that workshop, we might have a clarity on what is in the minds of some of our colleagues when they say that, what is the next step forward? Maybe I'm just throwing that out there for consideration of from all my colleagues. And I think it would have to be general, but I will talk about that with Attorney Goldman and see specifically what he could do in terms of responding to those specific types of questions and sort of maybe like, I'm just thinking of frequently asked question format or something along those lines. I'll speak with him about that. He, it might take him some time. And so that may, because those are complicated questions, but there's a lot of pieces here and we'll try to wrap our arms around it and see when we could get it all together and ready for the council. Thank you. Thank you for the suggestion, Councillor Ali. Okay. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Chief. We're gonna move on through our agenda and the next item on the agenda is announcements. And I look to my colleagues to see if anybody would like to offer an announcement this evening. I would. I wanna share, first of all, I wanna thank the council for working hard to build the process to get to the point of finalist interviews for a new city manager. I wanna thank my colleagues on the search committee who have been working really very hard daily and weekly for a couple of months now, actually since just a day or two after the November election to make sure that we could do this work swiftly because we understand the urgency associated with filling positions at City Hall starting with the city manager position. So this Friday, I wanna invite everybody in the community to a community reception in the state of Maine room in City Hall from 6 p.m. to 7 30. That'll be an opportunity for folks to meet and hear from the city council, sorry, the city manager finalist candidates. Earlier that day, the city council will be doing one-on-one interviews with the candidates. The candidates will be given driving tours of the city of Portland. And then on Saturday after that community reception, we'll have the opportunity to work as a full council in support of the interview process. We've also engaged city staff at various points along the way, strategically to engage those folks in the decision-making process and give people a chance to meet candidates and have their say, both at the after the community reception on Friday evening, there will be a feedback survey. So it won't be lost between Friday night and Saturday morning. We'll be able to actually hear from our community feedback and perceptions. So again, this Friday night, the 14th starting at 6 p.m., please come to City Hall and join us as we welcome our finalist candidates and hear from them and make our way into this two-day interview process. So the city's website has all the information about the search committee's work and the finalists. So check it out if you're inclined and we wanna appreciate everybody who's been engaged so far. We had a really successful community survey and other outreach efforts, including two listening sessions. So I've gone on long enough on that front, but we welcome the community to join us on Friday and thank you. Councillor Ali. Mayor, about two weeks ago, someone asked me a question and I promised them that I will ask you and maybe this is the perfect time for me to ask. When we started this process, there was a time that we publicly asked each other on the committee to find information, like contact information for different groups. Some of them told me that nobody did go in touch with them. They're gonna be contacted down the line or the time. Yeah, all those stakeholders that we identified were contacted directly to engage in the community survey and have been, I think, part of the outreach to get folks to the listening sessions and the community reception this Friday. Okay, so if someone's information have been given and they are not contacted, it may be that the email is not covered or something. It's possible, but I followed up on that exact same question recently just to confirm that the stakeholders that we identified where we had given names and email addresses had been included in that outreach. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Councillor. And I know that it's hard to reach everybody. The city does a good job with social media. I know we all use outreach in different ways. I use email, other people use social media. We've done press releases, we've had articles in the paper. We really try to reach everybody and then the announcements tonight is just another way to sort of shout it out and say, this Friday. So if you can join us, please do. Any other announcements? Okay, I don't see any. So we're gonna move through the approval of the minutes. So I'm looking for a motion to approve the minutes from our March 7th meeting. It's almost, second. Councillor Dyon with a second from Councillor Rodriguez. Is there any council comment on the draft minutes? Okay, we can go ahead and vote to approve those. Councillor Pornier. Oh, she had to leave the meeting. Okay, Councillor Rodriguez. Yes. Councillor Dyon. Yes. Councillor Ali. Yes. Councillor Zauro. Yes. Councillor Trevorrow. Yes. Councillor Pelletier. Yes. Councillor Phillips. Yes. Mayor Snyder. Yes. Those minutes passed unanimously of those present and next we'll move into proclamations. So will the clerk please read proclamation 19. Proclamation 19, 22, 23, recognizing April 9th through the 15th, 2023 as community development week sponsored by Kate Snyder, mayor. Okay, and it's my pleasure to read this into the record. Whereas the week of April 9th through 15th, 2023 has been designated as national community development week to celebrate the community development block grant program. And whereas CDBG provides annual funding and flexibility to local communities to provide decent, safe and affordable housing, a suitable living environment and economic opportunities to low and moderate income people. And whereas over the past three years, this community has received a total of 5,637,920, $22 in CDBG funds and has funded numerous projects that have directly benefited Portland citizens and neighborhoods. And whereas home HOME is the largest federal block grant to state and local governments designed exclusively to create affordable housing for low income households and its flexibility empowers people and communities to design and implement strategies tailored to their own needs and priorities. And whereas over the past three years, Portland has received a total of 3,099,593 in HOME funds and has funded a variety of housing development projects that have directly benefited citizens and neighborhoods in Portland and throughout Cumberland County. Now there for be it resolved that I Kate Snyder, mayor of the city of Portland, Maine and members of the city council do hereby recognize the week of April 9th through 15th, 2023 as national community development week in support of these valuable programs that have made tremendous contributions to the viability of housing stock, infrastructure, public services and the economic wellbeing of our community. Be it further resolved that our community urges Congress and the Biden administration to recognize the outstanding work being done locally and nationally with CDBG by supporting increased funding for the program in the federal fiscal year 2024. Sign and sealed this 10th day of April 2023. Thank you. As proclamation 2022-23, recognizing April 9th through 15th, 2023 is telecommuter appreciation week sponsored by Daniel West Interim City Manager. Okay, I am happy to read this one into the record. Thank you to the city clerk for reading that into the record, whereas emergencies that require police fire or emergency medical services can occur any time and whereas an emergency, whereas when an emergency occurs the prompt response of police officers, firefighters and paramedics is critical to the protection of life and preservation of property and whereas the safety and responsiveness of Portland's police officers and firefighters is dependent upon the quality and accuracy of information obtained from residents who telephone the emergency communications center that serves the Portland, South Portland and Cape Elizabeth main communities and whereas public safety telecommunicators are the first and most critical contact our residents have with emergency services and whereas public safety telecommunicators are critical and vital link for our police officers and firefighters by monitoring their activities by radio providing them with timely information and ensuring they're safely and whereas public safety telecommunicators of the Portland Regional Communications Center have contributed substantially to protecting the public health, safety and welfare of our community by facilitating the report of crimes, concerns about community members welfare, treatment of medical emergencies, apprehension of criminals and suppression of fires all while exhibiting compassion and professionalism. Now therefore be it resolved that I Kate Snyder Mayor of the city of Portland, Maine and members of the city council do hereby recognize the week of April 9th through 15th as national public safety telecommunicators week in the city of Portland in honor of those whose diligence and professionalism keep our city and citizens safe. Thank you very much to our telecommunicators who do that first response work. Next we'll move into appointments. Will the clerk please read order 158. Order 158, 22, 23, appointing Patrick Ferreriolo, a constable for 2023 sponsored by Daniel West interim city manager. Thank you and I'll look to the city manager for any comment here. Nothing really additional to add. Just Patrick will be enforcing various ordinances throughout the park and we look forward to his work. Thank you. Is there any public comment on order 158? Going over to zoom. Any public comment in chambers? I don't see any any on zoom. I don't see any. So I'll close public comment and look for a motion and a second please. So moved. I don't know who to pick there. Councillor Ali with a second from Councillor Rodriguez. And are there any questions or comments from the council? Sorry, Councillor Dionne. Next time there's a tie it's you. Okay, we're ready to go ahead and vote on order 158. Councillor Rodriguez. Yes. Councillor Dionne. Yes. Councillor Ali. Yes. Councillor Zauro. Yes. Councillor Trevorrow. Yes. Councillor Pellettier. Yes. Councillor Phillips. Yes. Mayor Stader. Yes. So those present, will the clerk please read order 159. Order 159, 22, 23, appointing Alisa Marr, tax assessor, sponsored by Daniel West syndrome city manager. Thank you. And we'll look to the city manager for this one. Very excited to put forward this appointment tonight after an extensive interview process. We were lucky enough to have Alisa apply and make it through. She comes from us from Wyndham, has a lot of experience obviously doing tax assessment work throughout or in Maine specifically, which is another added bonus. And she is here this evening, I believe on the hearing tonight if you have any questions for her, but her resumes in the backup and also into our gross, I believe is present as well. If you have any questions specifically about the process that we use along the way, had a lot of directors involved as well as staff members. And so we're excited to put forward this nomination to you tonight. Wonderful, thank you. Is there any public comment on order 159? Okay, I don't see anybody standing up in chambers. I do have a hand up from George Rowe on Zoom. George Rowe, Hanover Street. There was in the materials or maybe it was in one of the media accounts, the implication was that the tax assessor, despite being the department head for the whole assessing department, reports to the assistant city manager. And I was a little bit confused by that because I thought that being a department head, they would be reporting directly to the city manager. I don't know if you guys need to review your org chart, but I don't think there's anything in the city charter that gives an assistant city manager the authority to supervise department heads directly. So I don't know exactly what that reporting structure looks like and it'd be great to clarify it. I really welcome this appointment. Certainly seems like a very, very well qualified experienced candidate. The thing that really makes me excited is Ms. Maher's experience in Wyndham, she indicated on a resume that she had done a city or a town-wide revaluation in 2018, 2019, and then two subsequent years after that. I can't remember if it's 2022 or 2021, I would assume 2020 maybe got skipped, but that was four out of the last five tax years. And the fact that the town of Wyndham, which has been growing substantially over the last few decades, was able to conduct those market updates over such a short period of time means that it's quite possible, just like the town of Freeport does similarly, for these market updates to be very frequent, almost every year. That is not what Portland does. Portland dragged its feet for over 15 years and we've only done one revaluation in that time period of I think 17 years now. And this is a direct equity issue. The modest homes in this city are constantly subsidizing the most affluent taxpayers in the city. Just on Kenwood Street, there's a house that was sold for $750,000 in July of 2021, that's only assessed today at $507,000. That's an enormous subsidy that that homeowner and the seller of that property received. While the rest of us who have much more modest homes are subsidizing property taxes that sustain our city. And this is the authority that you need to give this new hire is the ability to do frequent market updates every year if possible, if not at least every two years. Thank you for your comment. Additional public comment on order 159. Okay, seeing none, I'm gonna close public comment and come back to the council for a motion, please. I'll happily second that. So this is a motion to appoint Councillor Ali. I'm the second and I look for any discussion from the council. I just wanted to address the question. We have 13 departments as you're well aware within the city and only myself and Anne Maguire, who is my assistant. And so we do divide departments among the two of us. Obviously, Anne reports to me and so she keeps me up to date on everything that's going on within those departments, but it's almost impossible to handle all of that just coming directly at me. So she helps me to do that. And that's the way that this department will be reporting directly to her and then Anne to me. So the structure works and we'll be working and excited to work with Alisa as she starts. So thank you. Thank you for that clarification. Councilor Rodriguez. Thank you, Mayor. Perhaps a conversation better have another time not when we're pointing a text assessor position, but on the backs of Mr. Rose questions, can we, you know, the evaluation process and we know that we don't want there to be a big gap of time so that we don't have that huge shift on people, but does this help to facilitate a shorter period of time between valuations? Is this part of the plan with this particular person? And I, yeah, I'll just leave it at that. I think, well, I know that the mayor, I believe in the council, was it a year or two ago, put forward a resolution to look at a shorter time period, I believe it was five years that the council was looking at at that time. At most. At most. So they were looking at a much, much narrower time gap and that would be what we would do. I would just caution us because we had to delay the most recent one due to the pandemic and then we've had, you have appeals and we're, you know, we're still, we were still handling those up until about two months ago. So it's just a lengthy process. And obviously Portland has a significant tax base that we would be looking at. But guess that that is something that we would be, you know, thinking about and making sure that we could do moving forward. Great, thank you. And I guess I'll just take the opportunity while I'm speaking that that's certainly something that's important to us. And, you know, the negative impact that we're in such a long time and evaluation certainly it's not something we want to see. So I appreciate that we're building the capacity to get that going. Thank you. Thank you, counselor. And yeah, I'll jump in. First of all, to say I'll happily support this and I think it's great news to get a permanent hire in this position. So thank you very much to the city manager and staff who has moved that along. Back in 2021, the council unanimously approved a resolution acknowledging just that that we had gone way too long in between assessments and that the work is significant. And there are so many issues that come into why it's important to do those assessments much more frequently. So I'd be happy to pull that up. And maybe we can even get a communication of some sort once our new assessor has her legs under her to understand how we can approach a more frequent assessment situation in Portland because I do think that's important especially as the market is changing so rapidly. Okay, I think we're ready to go ahead and vote on order 159. Councilor Rodriguez? Yes. Councilor Dion? Yes. Councilor Ali? Yeah. Councilor Zaro? Yes. Councilor Chavarro? Yes. Councilor Palatier? Yes. Councilor Phillips? Yes. Mayor Snider? Yes. Order 159 passes unanimously of those present. Will the clerk please read order. Oh, and congratulations to Alisa who I do know is with us on Zoom. So welcome, congratulations and thanks for being with us tonight. Consent items, will you please read order 160? Order 160, 22, 23 declaring April 29th through October 31st, 2023 in the Square Festival sponsored by Daniel West and Trim City Manager. Thank you very much. And would you like to address this? I think it's pretty straightforward. Okay, the consent items, sometimes we have more than one, sometimes we have one, tonight it's one, intended to be a relatively straightforward issue for the council to consider. But of course, if there are questions or concerns, we can address those. Before I look for a motion from the council, I'll see if there's any public comment on order 160. Yep, we do have a hand up on Zoom and CJ Opporthoser? Yes, thank you. Can you hear me okay? Yes, we can. All right, thank you. First of all, you pronounced my last name correctly. Appreciate that. I did. Thank you. Yeah, I'm with Friends of Congress Fair Park. No comment, just wanted to offer myself for any questions that might come up. Thanks a lot. Okay, thanks for being here. Any other public comment on order 160? Okay, seeing none. Can I get a motion from the council? Move passage. Second. Councilor Travaro with a second from councilor Rodriguez. Is there any council discussion on this matter? Okay, seeing none. We'll go ahead and vote. Councilor Rodriguez. Yes. Councilor Ali. Yes. Councilor Zaro. Yes. Councilor Travaro. Yes. Councilor Pelletier. Yes. Councilor Phillips. Yes. Mayor Snider. Yes. 160 passes unanimously of those present. Now we're going to head into the licenses portion of our agenda. Will the clerk please read order 161. Order 161, 22, 23, granting municipal officers a group of Quanto Vasta. Application is for a class one food service establishment with outdoor dining and private property located at 249 Congress Street sponsored by Daniel West, interim city manager. Thank you. Is there public comment on order 161? I see a hand up from Elizabeth English. Hi. Hi, this is Elizabeth. I'm the owner of Quanto Vasta. Thank you very much for being here with us this evening. Thanks for having me. We have questions. We know we can direct them to you. Yes. Okay. Any other public comment on order 161? Okay. Seeing none. I'm going to see if I can get a motion from the council. Motion to approve. Councilor Ali. Oh, I thought you gave me the motion. Was it councilor Rodriguez? Councilor, how about we do councilor Ali with a second from councilor Rodriguez? And is there is, I didn't hear you, councilor Diane. Any council discussion on order 161, councilor Rodriguez? Mayor, is it, would it be okay if I ask a question? Of course. I'm so sorry, I missed the name. Was it? Oh, Elizabeth English. Elizabeth English, yeah. First of all, congratulations on going from food truck to brick and mortar. I think that's a big positive step forward for a business. I guess I'm just wondering will you still have the food truck or is it just going to be a brick and mortar now? Yeah, so I'm going to be putting a pause on it for 2023 as I focus on the brick and mortar. And then 2024, I will have the food truck back up and running again. Not ready to give it up yet. That's great to hear. I'll obviously be supporting this and I'm ahead of the mayor. I want to thank you for doing business in the city of Portland and I wish you nothing but success. Thank you so much. There you go. Thank you. Okay, we have a motion before us. Any other council discussion? Bokidok, let's go ahead and vote to approve order 161. Councillor Rodriguez? Yes. Councillor Dion? Yes. Councillor Ali? Yes. Councillor Zauro? Yes. Councillor Chavarro? Yes. Councillor Pelletier? Yes. Councillor Phillips? Yes. Mayor Sider? Yes. And as the good councillor said, thank you for doing business in the city of Portland and thank you for being here tonight. Will the clerk please read order 162. Order 162, 22, 23 granting municipal officers approval of Freedom Edge Sider. Application is for BWD on-premise consumption with outdoor dining on private property located at 31 Diamond Street, sponsored by Daniel West and from City Manager. Thank you. Is there a public comment on order 162? I am Andy Catholic. I'm one of the owners of Freedom's Edge. I'm available to answer any questions. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Any other public comment on order 162? Seeing none, we'll close public comment. Come back to the council for a motion. So moved. Second. Councillor Ali with a second from Councillor Rodriguez. I've lost Councillor Dion. Any discussion or questions from the council? Seeing none, we'll go ahead and vote to approve order 162. Councillor Rodriguez. Yes. Councillor Dion. Yes. Councillor Ali. Yes. Councillor Zauro. Yes. Councillor Treborrow. Yes. Councillor Pellettier. Yes. Councillor Phillips. Yes. Mayor Snider. Yes. Order 162 passes unanimously of those present. Andy, thanks for being here tonight and thanks for doing business in the city of Portland. Will the clerk please read order 163. Order 163, 22, 23 granting municipal officers approval of urban farm fermentary application is for class A lounge with outdoor dining on private property located at 200 Anderson street sponsored by Daniel West interim city manager. Thank you. Is there public comment on order 163? Yes. Go ahead and step forward. Great. Okay. So for the record, for anybody who couldn't hear that we have an employee of the urban farm fermentary with us in council chambers. Thanks for being here. Okay. Thank you both for being here. So we've got representation from the business that is seeking a license tonight with us in council chambers. Is there any public comment on order 163? I see none. I will look to my colleagues for a motion to approve. Move passage. Second. Councillor Treborrow with a second from Councillor Rodriguez. Any discussion from the council? Questions? We'll go ahead and vote to approve. Councillor Rodriguez. Yes. Councillor Dion. Yes. Councillor Ali. Yes. Councillor Zauro. Yes. Councillor Treborrow. Yes. Councillor Pelletier. Yes. Councillor Phillips. Yes. Mayor Snyder. Yes. Order 163 passes unanimously. Thanks again for being with us in chambers tonight. And thanks for doing business in the city of Portland. Will the clerk please read order 164. Order 164, 22, 23, granting municipal officers approval of Tai Yi Sun. Application is for a class three and four food service establishment located at 65 Portland Street sponsored by Daniel West interim city manager. Thank you. Public comment on order 164. We have all sorts of folks with us here tonight and I love it. Thank you. Hi. My name is Ben Boonsang. I own Tai Yi Sun. We've been in business since 2016 but we had a fortunate fire happen. 17 months later I opened the restaurant. Former military and current baseball and golf coach at Wing Fleet. I just welcome a new daughter today. So maybe four hours. So I'm going to put this approval. Wow. Any questions? Congratulations. Thank you for being with us. All right, we're gonna do this really quickly so you can get home. Is there any? Any additional? Any public comment? Quick, quick. Nope, don't see any. Councillor Dyon moves passage. Do I have a second? Second. Councillor Rodriguez. Any questions? Discussion from the council? Okay, seeing none, we're gonna do this. Let's vote to approve order 164. Councillor Rodriguez. Yes, congratulations. Councillor Dyon. Congratulations, yes. Councillor Ali. Yes, what he said. Councillor Zaro. Yes, and a big congratulations. Councillor Trevorrow. Yes, congratulations. Councillor Pellettier. Yes. What everyone knows. Councillor Phillips. Congratulations, but can we get a little bit more detail before you go home? Baby girl, baby boy, name. It's a girl. I couldn't hear very well. So it's a girl. You gotta come back up to the mic. Sorry, Councillor Phillips is demanding answers. Yeah, I need to know about this new baby in Portland. Healthy girl, baby in Carol, that's her name. She's born on 12, 24 this afternoon. 410, 23 equals 37. My wife and I are 37, so. Congratulations, that's awesome. Yeah. Well, that's wonderful. Mayor Snyder. Yes, congratulations. Thank you so much for being here with us and go home and enjoy that baby. Order 164 passes unanimously. Will the clerk please read order 165. Order 165, 22, 23 granting municipal officers approval of the end application is for Class A lounge located at 229 Conquer Street sponsored by Daniel West Interim City Manager. Thank you. Is there any public comment on order 165? Hi, Celeste Park. I'm the Treasurer of YAMTAML and LLC who's applying for this license. We recently started doing business as Blue. That was the council approved us in October. So we're just keep it on, keep it on. Hope you approve us tonight. Thanks. Wonderful. Thank you for being here with us tonight. Any additional public comment on order 165? I see none. I look to the council for a motion to approve. So moved. Second. Councilor Ali with a second from Councilor Rodriguez. Any council discussion? Seeing none, we'll go ahead and vote to approve. Councilor Rodriguez. Yes. Councilor Dion. Yes. Councilor Ali. Yes. Councilor Zauro. Yes. Councilor Chavarro. Yes. Councilor Palatier. Yes. Councilor Phillips. Yes. Mayor Snyder. Yes. And thanks for doing business in the city of Portland. Okay. That is it for licenses. We are moving through. We're now at communications. We have taken one of our four communications out of order, but we still have three left important items to discuss tonight. So I look to the clerk to please read into the record communication 29. Communication 29, 22, 23 regarding a Portland board of Harbor commissioners rulemaking notice by Daniel West, interim city manager. Thank you, Ashley. So this is basically for the Harbor commissioners issued a rule that changes the per pilot unit rate. It's increased from $13 to $13.39. And then the capital construction fee is increased from 175 to $250 per vessel each way. And so under their rules and the rules that are applicable to the council, you have to in 45 days be notified of the rule change what you have been. And then unless you take an official action this evening to deny or decline what's been put forward, this will just go into effect. So it's more just notice right now for you. Thank you for that explanation. Are there any questions from my colleagues on the council or any discussion at this time? Okay. I don't see any. So we will move on. Thank you for that. Will the clerk please read communication 30. Communication 30, 22, 23 update regarding implementation of the November 22, 2022 referenda by Danielle West interim city manager. Back to you. Thanks again. So we just wanted to provide the council at the mayor's request with an update about the specifics of where we were with regard to each of the proposals that we've been working on. And so you'll see we just updated the what we have right now in terms of costs where we're at with each of the proposals including the act protect tenants rights and then the preamble, the clean elections recommendation which I know everybody's been working on as well as the ranked choice voting. And then as we mentioned tonight the civilian police review board recommendation. So you'll see all of the, I won't walk through each headline but they're all in there included as to where the council will be required to do work and we will be continuing to track that and put in workshops so that you have those in front of you and you can work on the specifics. And then I would just draw to your attention since we're getting close to the budget the total annual increase so far unless there's changes at the clean elections level. This doesn't include, this includes the 290 it doesn't include anything above that but it's a $590,000 expected recommended increase that will be included in the budget in the city manager's recommendation for these changes so far. So if you have any questions, happy to answer those. Thank you very much. And I'll just jump in here. And as the city manager said, I requested this we've gotten updates along the way. And for me, I wanted to make sure that we were respecting the folks who served on the charter commission and their body of work is before us now and acknowledge the will of the voters and the work that we have to do to implement their expression in November. And so there's a lot here that is layered. And so I just wanted everybody to have a good sense of what the council's work is how it's being built to respond to the deadlines that we have and the various elements that we'll need to keep our eye on some things are simpler than others but I really appreciate staff laying this out for us so that there's no mystery involved in terms of the council's work to continue with implementation and of course support through budget. Is there any council discussion or questions on this communication? Okay, I don't see any. I will move on. Can the clerk please read the order of communication 32 please? Oh, wait, 31. Communication 31, 22, 23 updated numbers regarding asylum seekers, seeker arrivals by Daniel West and from city manager. Okay, thank you. Back to you council city manager. I had Kristen Dow or she luckily sat here for this communication item tonight. So I may drag her up to the podium just to follow up. So this is just an update on our current numbers. We wanted to make sure everybody was aware of what we are currently facing. We opened the expo today and so I think Kristen can speak to some of those specifics but I just wanted to highlight for you where we're at capacity as you can see across the board at every single location that we have even. I'm not sure the exact numbers at the expo. I'm sure Kristen will update us but I think we're gonna be very close if not there at capacity very soon. So I want it to be as open and transparent as possible. You know, we've definitely reached our limit. We have no ability at this point to be on the spaces that we've opened to be able to continue to open other locations. So we will, as you'll see at the end of the memo, we won't be able to guarantee shelter once the capacity has been met at the expo. So I just wanted to be abundantly clear and open about that. Of course, take any questions from you but I just also wanted Kristen to jump in and talk a little bit about what has been going on today. So the fortunate thing about the length of the meeting so far is that I have the updated numbers from everyone that's been moved in. So we have 275 people at the expo tonight with a 300 capacity and just a huge shout out to city shelter staff who were able to move 275 people from 1.30 this afternoon to 7.30 tonight and get them all moved in, checked in and in beds. And I was even able to get some pictures of children playing in the corner because they have a space to do that now. But the city manager is correct. And I just want to point out too that pulling together a 300 bed temporary emergency shelter is no small feat. And the difference I've been asked countless times over the past couple of days around the difference between 2019 because I was here for 2019 and was able to be part of that and then what we're opening now. And the difference is that was the one shelter at that point in time. Everyone was able to focus all the resources on that one shelter. And what we have seen the difference with setting up this emergency shelter is that, and I've said this to the state and I'll say it to you all is what I am very concerned about is the systems. The systems that we have in place. I'm not talking just about the shelter systems but the medical systems, the food systems and the school systems, our social service providers. Everybody is stretched so thin just pulling together food was very, very challenging for this one site. Either doing the vetting of volunteers all the things that we had in place in 2019 has taken weeks for us to pull together to meet. So when the city manager says we don't have the ability to open up, we don't have, there's just no capacity either with our city physical space or I really question the available resources and systems that we have in place in our community. And is definitely something that is concerning to me. Thank you, Kristen. And I'll just follow that up. I know the mayor mentioned this earlier but we continue to go up to Augusta to advocate to help to find solutions to this issue. Cause it's one, as you'll see, we mentioned title 42 will lift in May. We've seen significant numbers of people over the last few weeks. We just, I don't see an end in sight essentially. And so we are very concerned so to work on those solutions in Augusta and then also at the federal level is front of mind for me because we do need to try to figure out a way in which we as a community but also as a state can continue to welcome people. And it's not, it's with a heavy heart. I have to say that we are unable to, you know, guarantee shelter once we reach that capacity. I mean, it's not, it's not a place where we want to be but we want to make sure that you were abundantly aware of that. And it was very clear. And so happy to answer any questions you might have. Thank you very much, Director Dow and to the city manager for this communication and update questions or comments. Councilor Rodriguez. Thank you, mayor. Thank you, Director Dow and city manager West. Can you remind us how long we have the expo available for this use? And then I have a follow-up question about the meals. Sure, councilor. It's through the summer. So pretty much the end of the summer is it for us. And you mentioned, Director Dow, the food. So can you just remind me how many meals are we serving and where are we getting the food from? Sure. We're serving three meals a day for 300 individuals and Preble Street was able to, I believe, do dinner and breakfast and wayside and Maine immigrants rights of coalition will be helping with lunches. Most of these are packed meals or... Yes, yep. So it's not okay. And they'll be able to continue to provide food through the rest of the summer or is this kind of like... Yes, that was fun. Okay, excellent. Yeah, I think that was just my very immediate questions but I certainly understand the huge lift that it was to get this open. It's heartbreaking that it is a temporary fix and that so much energy and planning goes into that. And we don't have that many options for a really long-term solution right now. So it's just really disheartening but I'm just super proud of all the work that everyone is doing to get this going and the efforts that we have to look at that long-term solution as well. Thank you. Thank you, councilor. Councilor Ali, did I see you had a hand up? Yes, I was gonna ask because I had Ms. Dao said that we don't have staffing. If someone is watching and they want to volunteer, what are we looking for? Yes, so we were able to fortunately hire some per diem staff. So it's just for staffing but the volunteer part is another part as well. So for staffing, we were able to hire 14 per diem staff almost all speak English, Portuguese and Langala and they were primarily hired from Abbott. There was a layoff at Abbott. So we were able to onboard about 14 per diem staff and we're still interviewing. So that's fantastic. But yes, for volunteers, we definitely have volunteer shifts and the link is live on our city website. Everyone for safety and security purposes, everyone has to go be vetted. Even social service providers, we're requesting that they be vetted before they come into the building and the link is live on the city website. I know that some community partners have already done that. And I just wanted to add that the link is live but also our donations have been live and we've been very excited about the response already. I believe just in two days, it was close to $20,000 that we received to help us be able to meet this need. But I know that we've just, we've received an outpouring of support and help. There's also a link for specific needs connected to amazon.com. So you can find the things that are needed like diapers and other things. So the specifics are out there. If you need that, we're happy to pass that along to anybody who needs more information. Thank you very much. I've got two hands up. First, counselor Diane and then we'll go to counselor Phillips on Zoom. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, Director Doe and an extended thanks to your staff. I guess this question maybe it involves you but I'm gonna direct it to the city manager and the mayor as well because they might be more informed than I. Everything I'm hearing suggests to me that we're running out of pavement, okay? And it's nice to talk about your systems of being stretched. I think we're gonna get to a place where we have to consider, I'll choose my words as carefully as possible but there has to be some intentional coordinated transfer of individuals that are coming to the city. They, I don't fault them. They're coming here because they've been given an expectation that we have the capacity to receive them, their children and provide them with their basic needs and education but I guess it maybe can't be answered this evening but I believe the runway is ending really quick in real time and I just will wait to see what our plan is moving forward. I mean, I've seen some media that some communities are trying to build capacity in their own city or town to accept refugees but I don't escape the idea that they've already had what they think is their fair share of the challenge and they were fortunate to build the capacity but it doesn't look like it's a capacity that has a lot of elasticity. So I just wanna put it out there. I know you're thinking about it, manager West and I know the mayor thinks about it but at some point, for me that'll be the real conversation when we have to make a public declaration there is no more runway and what steps will we take to help coordinate the meeting of their needs in other communities? So it's an awkward question but it's gonna become a real problem I think probably before the summer's over. I actually think it may be sooner than that. I just wanna be clear. I think Kristen just said that we're stretched and we have 25 spots left essentially is what I'm telling you and we're gonna meet that and no time flat. And so I think we're there and that's why I'm trying to be as clear as possible to say that we have reached the end of that runway and that's why the things that we're doing in Augusta and at the federal level are extremely important. We do need our community neighbors to step up and to look at maybe trying to figure out ways on which they could develop or find developers that they can put forward solutions within their communities. I'm hopeful that the solution that developers collaborative has put forward with regard to Blueberry Road is successful and gets going and it can be a transition for us but I think that other communities are gonna have to look at that as well. As well as that state level coordination that we keep talking about and seeking that includes potentially providing other housing options throughout the state, I think. I think it has to be a broader approach across the board. So I don't wanna be too blunt, but we're there. We're already at the end of the runway. Major West, you don't have to be blunt. I looked out the window and I can see the end of the runway. I just don't know if the capacity question has become tangible among many people in the community. I mean, Portland has a great reputation of always making it happen. No matter what problem they thrown on us, we've had the solution. This might not be that case. And I admire all the work that's been done in Augusta to try to secure more funds. But for me, this is a fundamental question of sufficient staff and sufficient space. That's the other challenge. We're running out of runway and that's a real thing. It's not abstract. We just don't have the place for more beds. The only thing I would caution about is that we are still gonna be housing 1,200 people. Even when that runway, we reach the end of it and have no additional capacity. So the funding need is gonna be there no matter what. And so I think that's one piece. The other piece that I think Kristen's trying to drive home and I'm echoing it as well is just that our systems within the community, within the city right now are stretched to the maximum staffing-wise, as well as just service-wise across the board. One final comment, Mayor, then I'll shut down my mic. I didn't say it well, but when I've talked with other leaders in other communities, they think we have a cash problem. And they're very supportive of facilitating an environment where we can receive more funding. But I've tried to push back and say it's much greater than a cash problem. And that's why I appreciate your efforts and that of staff and the mayor's office. As promised, I'll shut off my mic. I'd love to take just a second to reply, Councilor Dionne. I think as we face FY24, resources are an issue. So we keep our eye on the continuation of funding from Augusta and other sources that help us meet the need. And like you said, it's not just a cash problem. And so we've got a systems problem. As was mentioned by Director Dow and the city manager, the resources problem, when we have such amazing community organizations that do so much for so many. And what I'm learning is that those organizations are at capacity. So the manager mentioned the schools, but there's also the organizations that help youth in our community, that do public health outreach, that do meals. I mean, we're hearing from those folks that they're doing all they can do. And so when we look to those community partners and say, what can you do to help while we do this thing, shelter, the response is we're at capacity. So I think this communication is really important tonight. May 8th pops out for me as a date that I will I think maybe always remember. May 8th, 2022, when the city of Portland said, we may need to start administering general assistance differently. And when I look at the number of beds in this memo between the homeless services center, the family shelter and the expo, that's 654 beds that the city of Portland is managing directly. And that wasn't our plan at the beginning of FY23, but that's what we're doing. Because like you said, we've always tried to stretch to meet the needs of the community, especially during the winter time, I know with the warming center and other places used the use of a school gym, which is now offline because the expo has opened. But I think that in the spirit of, we need to be talking about this, the end of the memo does talk to us about how we meet our general assistance obligation. And we as a city have done that through the provision of beds and emergency shelter. And now we're being told that that's full. And so our administration of general assistance is going to look different and in some cases. And so I think that we all need to be thinking about that and concerned about that. And that's a lot of the conversations that we're having in Augusta too, is how we make sure that we're compliant and meeting those general assistance obligations as a city, which again, may look different next week than it did last week. So I appreciate this communication. And I wanna go to Councillor Phillips, who's on Zoom with a hand up. Thanks, Mayor. I also want to thank Ms. Dow and her team and also the city manager for all the work that they've done on this and just a ton of people. It's just a ton of work. My question is though, I know that we're not running it, but main housing had approved four grants for folks to do some shelter. And so at those four places, I know Mark was one of our main immigrant rights coalition. I know they were one of them. So are they, those four still operating? And if you know, cause I know we're not operating them, but if you know the answer to that, when do those grants end? Councillor, yes. So the main immigrants rights coalition has received an extension from main housing. They did not receive funding for ongoing sheltering at the Salvation Army. But they did receive extensions from main housing basically up until this blueberry road proposal that the developers collaboratively together opens. And then I did have a communication with another provider who did not receive additional funding. They have, I think, seven families for about 36 people. Their funding was supposed to end at the end of May and they were told by the state that it was recommended that they go to the expo when the funding ended the end of May. And I wrote back to that provider as well as to the state themselves and said, the expo I can guarantee you will be full by the end of May. And we should not be relying on the expo to continue shelter for any kind of state funds that are ending. So I have had that communication with the state and that provider. Thank you. So the numbers that we have in the memo do not include, obviously do not include the folks that are staying in these temporary shelter places or is the 1200 interim city manager that you were talking is that the full extent or is it more because of the? It's definitely more, Councillor. So there's 77, I think, at Salvation Army. So that would be an additional 77. And also that doesn't take into account, I don't think specifically the ones that rely on different parish services or that are provided pastors that provide assistance as well as obviously what's in the surrounding communities. So the number is most likely much higher than that. That's just what the city of Portland is caring for right now. And so when we talk about, I always want to call it as you know, blueberry lane. What does it called again? I can never remember. Is it? It's, it's blueberry road. Yep. I don't know. Just really sorry. So basically though, what you're saying is is a blueberry road, blueberries road. If we go down, well, we were already down the path of blueberry road. I think you had said that we could house 400. And so are you also, sorry, go ahead. I was going to say, I would rely on Kevin bunker a lot for the specifics out there, but my understanding from the application is I'm not sure of the total number, but I think it's somewhere in the three to 400 range and that they were looking at, you know, using that funding for main housing to specifically get the construction done at the site as well as get an operator in there to provide the services. And then that would be, we'd be looking to do our limited timeframe at the expo to transition and people out to that site. And so my nervousness and correct me if I'm wrong is by the time the blueberry road is done, that's also going to be a capacity. That's correct. Most likely. I can't speak specifically to it, but based on the capacity that I'm aware of, I think that is probably an accurate assumption. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, counselor. Other discussion on this communication from the council. I suspect this will be an ongoing discussion with management. So thank you very much for bringing this to our attention tonight and we will look forward to hearing from you again soon. Okay. Since we took communication 32 up earlier, we'll move right into resolutions. Will the clerk please read resolution seven. Resolution seven, 22, 23, accepting the fiscal year 2023, 2024, housing and community development annual action plan, including appropriations for the community development block grant home and emergency solutions grant programs and certifications pertaining there too, sponsored by Daniel West interim city manager. City manager, I know we have Mary Davis with us. Should we go right to Mary? Mary's here. I know she can jump in. I think that we talked a lot about what my recommendations were specifically at the last meeting as well as heard from the allocation committee. All of those materials are included in the backup. Happy to walk through that again, as the mayor said, Mary's here as well for any questions specifically about the process. I know this evening we're conducting our second public hearing on the item and then looking for action with regard to the proposal that's in front of you. Thank you very much. So before we go to the public hearing, counselor Ali, would you like to make any comments from the committee perspective? Thank you, mayor. I thought Mary was going to speak to you, but yeah, this came to the community. I think it's an annual thing that we always do. So we voted on it and we hope the council will vote to support it tonight. Thank you, counselor Ali. And Mary, I want to go to you also before we head into a public hearing if you have anything to add. I don't have any additional information to add, but I'm happy to answer any questions that the council may have. Okay, thank you. So we will commence the second public hearing associated with this resolution seven. And so we're happy to hear from you. There will be council action this evening after the public hearing. So just aware of that and we'll go right in. I don't see anybody stepping forward in chambers, but there is a hand up on Zoom. Thomas Doherty. Hi, Tom Doherty, I'm the executive director at Milestone. I wanted to thank the committee for their recommendation for funding and for Daniel West. We sit at the nexus of homelessness and substance abuse and the funding proposed in this will allow our home team to continue serving all across the city and reduce the impact on the police department and provide an alternative response. So I wanted to thank everyone for that support. That's all I have. Thank you very much for being with us tonight. And next we'll go to peace is next. Oh, I think we just lost that speaker. Hold on, let me see. You unmuted me. I don't know if that was the intention. Huh, okay. I think your name is Elias. Correct. Okay, you go ahead and then we'll, I think our other speaker may have dropped off, but we've got them back. So you go ahead and then we'll go next to peace. Great, thank you so much. My name is Elias Khan. I'm an immigration legal representative with Catholic Charities Maine immigration legal services. Thank you for your time and effort reviewing proposals and for the opportunity to address you. We deeply appreciate your recommendation of CDBG funding for our joint program with ILAP. CCM and ILAP provide free and low-cost qualified legal advice and representation to support family reunification, citizenship applications, green card applications, work authorization, consultations and representation before USCIS and the immigration court in Boston. With expanding immigrant populations in Portland, including Afghans, Ukrainians, Cubans, Haitians and asylum seekers from many nations, immigration legal services has increased our range of services. At Catholic Charities, we've expanded our team to 10, including two additional part-time staff and six volunteers, two of whom are former attorneys. We provide direct multilingual legal services covering 11 different languages. We continue to collaborate with Maine immigrant assistance providers to address emerging trends, gaps in service and access to intakes. In response to the crisis in Afghanistan, Ukraine and Haiti, CCM and ILAP were able to quickly address the community legal needs by offering in-person legal workshops. We also support HOPEAC's work permit program and host monthly immigration legal orientations and workshops. These new initiatives to respond to the needs of the moment matter. At present, there are only three agencies in Maine, including CCM and ILAP that are nationally recognized by the US Department of Justice to provide immigration legal services. Together, we more efficiently serve clients through close and regular coordination, information sharing and consultation. DOJ recognized organizations deliver accurate, trustworthy and affordable immigrant legal services at a time when immigrants can be compelled to attempt these legal applications without proper legal support. We provide crucial trauma-informed services and immigration law to the local immigrant population. Mistakes during the immigration law process can be catastrophic for families, leading to lack of status, inability to work and at worst, deportation. A recent success story highlights the importance of this work for our community. Early this year, our client G successfully received permanent resident status. A victim of torture whose family was murdered, G overcame many barriers. During the long journey to the US through South and Central America, G witnessed many atrocities and was detained in multiple countries before arriving in Mexico. 30-second wait. He waited at the border for months, avoiding human traffickers, drug cartels and violent crime. Once in the US, they were detained for eight months before receiving asylum. As a result of these traumatic experiences, G who is in their mid-20s suffers from severe PTSD and I'll ask for just an additional moment, I'm almost done. At ILS, we worked with G using a trauma-informed approach to prepare for their application for adjustment. We helped them procure evidence and gave them resources to help treat their PTSD. At every step of the process, ILS was there providing multilingual representation and advocacy on their behalf and ensuring that they understood the process every step of the way. I'm proud to say that they received their green card, are fully employed and maintain a stable home close to their community. ILAP and Catholic Charities continue to provide our immigration legal services, both remotely and in person, in the face of growing need in the community. We are grateful for your time and consideration. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. And next we go to Peace Mutezi. Hi, my name is Peace Mutezi and I work with Quality Housing Coalition. I'm the Project Home Trust Coordinator. Project Home Trust is a means first directs cash assistance program. And the purpose of this program is to stabilize homes by investing in the families. And we all know that when families are stably housed and financially secure, they and their children will be able to thrive in and out of school and they'll be able to thrive professionally. And there is less, there is likely to ever experience homelessness. So I want to thank you all for supporting this recommendation. Thank you very much for your comment and for being here this evening. Is there any other public comment on resolution seven? Okay, I see none. So I'm gonna close public comment and I would like to come back to the council please for a motion. Move passage. Second. Councillor Trevara with a second from Councillor Rodriguez. I'd like to ask if there are any questions from the council or discussion on this? Councillor Rodriguez. Thank you, Mayor. I'm actually gonna stand for this one because I've been sitting for way too long. Mayor, I just wanted to take, first of all, I wanna thank the folks who spoke who are representing the organizations that are being awarded amounts and to highlight and to give us a brief summary of the work that they're doing. I think this is a great example of how the council has opportunities to tie in a lot of the comments that we heard earlier today of the folks in our community who have historically been disenfranchised that continue to have gaps in services and not have their needs met. And here is a system that's in place that the council gets to use and give guidance to the manager and how do I allocate money, resources, actual like boots on the ground. And here we are about to approve it. I'm going to enthusiastically approve this and wish all of these organizations that have partnered with us. Again, nothing but success and growth and their goals to be advanced. And I hope that this little bit of funding helps to advance those goals. And again, these are shared overarching goals that we have to serve the folks in our community. So again, just wanted to tie in that as part of the work that we do every day as counselors, here's a great opportunity to advance equitable outcomes in our community. Thank you. Thank you for offering that councilor Rodriguez. I appreciate that councilor Travarro. Thank you, mayor. I just wanted to also thank the organizations for doing the good work in the community. And I wanted to thank the city manager as well. I know this is a really challenging and deliberate deliberative process each year to work through this. And I think that you've delivered us a really good list. So thank you for your work. Thank you, counselor, both to both counselors. I just wanted to add Mary's on there. Mary, Mary's been in her staff who helped with this process and the CDBG allocation committee itself have been so helpful really listening to them and hearing what their recommendations were and they recommended and they've had recommended for the last two years to move the community policing over to the general fund. I thought that was a good idea. So that did free up some money to be able to fund additional programs and then really working with Mary to try to find additional resources which I'm sure she just loves spending that time with me and trying to figure that out but being able to really be creative because I have more creativity or ability to be creative than the allocation committee does. So I think that's been helpful. So I appreciate those comments but all the shout outs go out to Mary. Thank you. Counselor Ali. Thank you, Mayor. I also want to thank all the community organizations or partners who do some of the work that we may not be able to do to support residents of the city. I think CBDG is almost always one of the difficult decisions that we have to make because we have this amount of money and then we have a twice more request from what we have. So thanks to everybody who work on this to bring it forward and congratulations to those that got the request funded. Thank you, counselor. So in addition to all those things and special recognition for Mary Davis who has been serving in an interim capacity and really doing double duty. Thank you, Mary. Is to the folks who make up the CBDG annual allocation committee. I know that those are volunteers in our community who helped to do that work and sift through all the applications. So always appreciative of people who are willing to step forward and volunteer to help our city keep moving things forward. Mary, you have your hand up. Yes, I feel uncomfortable taking all the accolades tonight because as you mentioned, I've been in the interim position which meant that the housing and community development staff have taken on a lot of extra duties the last few years and really this whole process couldn't have happened last year or this year without Heidi McCarthy who's our compliance officer. She stepped in in the interim when we did not have a program manager for CBDG and just the rest of the staff in the housing and community development division. They've been rock stars and I really wouldn't look half as good without them doing all the work behind me. So I appreciate their work. You stole my line, Mary. I wouldn't look half as good without you and all the department heads, so thank you. That's great. Thank you, Mary for letting us share in your appreciation for those employees. Any other additional council discussion before we go ahead and vote? I don't see any, so we can take action on resolution seven. Councilor Rodriguez? Yes. Councilor Dion? Yes. Councilor Ali? Yes. Councilor Zauro? Yes. Councilor Chavarro? Yes. Councilor Pelleteer? Yes. Councilor Phillips? Yes. Mayor Sider? Yes. Resolution seven and all that it contains is passed unanimously of those present. Thank you, everybody. Again, thank you, Mary. I know you're going to stick around. Just a few more things to go through here. We move into our orders section. Will the clerk please read order 166. Order 166, 22, 23, approving the administrative fee increase for parking in the Ocean Gateway parking lot sponsored by Daniel West Interim City Manager. Thank you. This has been the fee for the last few years, but we had adjusted the timeframe that it was applicable to. So we wanted to make sure that we thought about that and looked at it specifically for this year. So I know John Peverata is here to answer any questions, but this would give us, I believe, an additional $64,000 this year for our budget, as well as looking into the next fiscal year, $120,000 as it indicates, and staff is requesting that this be passed as an emergency so we can implement it right away. Thank you very much. Is there any public comment on order 166? George Rowe, you have a hand up? George Rowe, West Bayside. So I was a little confused about the difference in numbers. There was the $64,000 question of revenue, but then it was also another reference to $120,000 in revenue. I don't know if that's just some kind of fiscal, as the city manager just said, maybe it's like doubling of two fiscal years, I'm not exactly sure, but I was aware that there is supposed to be a reinstitution of the previous marginal way pilot shuttle program. Apparently this year, we're gonna try and bark up that tree again, trying to get all these Islanders who want super convenience and be able to park very close within a couple of steps from the ferry terminal. We're gonna try and encourage them not to do that, but to park on marginal way and then get shuttled over to the ferry terminal. So I don't know if that program, because it's probably not cheap to run is going to be subsidized in part by this fee increase. But the larger question here is, when this parking lot was first made available, when it was no longer in use for the Nova Scotia ferry, it was supposed to be temporary because the idea was, we weren't supposed to be encouraging more congestion and more parking by Islanders in the worst possible place. And now it's basically, partly because of the pandemic, it's become very institutionalized. It's basically an entitlement now. I'm glad we're getting more revenue. You don't have to do the math, but I think that's a 33% increase in one year of the parking fee, which is a lot. And if we're raising fees at the golf course fees over at Riverside, 33% in a year, then in all our other fees, 33% in a year, then that's a lot of revenue. So maybe that's what we should be doing. Every where we have a fee, we should be doing a 33% increase this year. And we won't have to worry too much about the hit to property taxpayers, but I do wanna understand why this is such a huge increase and what we're doing with that money, if not just directly depositing it into the general fund. So I appreciate some clarity. Thanks. Thanks for your comment. Is there any additional public comment on order 166? Okay, I don't see any. So I'll close public comment and come back to the council for a motion, please. Second. Councillor Ali with a second from Councillor Rodriguez. And questions, discussion from the council. I see Danielle ready to respond to those couple of questions that came to us from the public. So why don't we go there? Yeah, I was gonna actually call on John. John Pevereta, our parking director. He is here. I think he can talk and speak to this fee increase and talk about past history. But I also just wanted to remind everyone that this parking lot does have a very limited timeframe. We are just continuing to use this because as you all know, the Portland Harbor Common Project, another park, would be potentially in this space. And so that would be coming soon, which is part of the reason why, as we look into this next fiscal year, we will be considering and looking at the shuttle that Mr. Rowe just mentioned, accessing that again, because we do have to find the ability to provide some alternative ways for people to park. But John, why don't you jump in on the increase specifically? Sure, when we put our budget together this year, we were looking at any opportunity could raise fees, looking at everything, being competitive. And we felt that going up $5 a day in this lot would be reasonable. We wouldn't put it at a price for the islanders. Majority of people parking this lot are going to the islands. Like Mr. Rowe said, it is a 33% increase, but it's relatively reasonable. The other lot across the street from us is getting $15, but they're getting ready to go to $20 a day as well. As the city manager mentioned, this rate will give us a $64,000 increase this year in fiscal year 23, ending June 30th. And if we go next year, it'll be another 120,000. Thank you, John. I appreciate the clarity. Questions, discussion from the council on this item before you? No, okay. I think we're ready to go ahead and vote. Oh, sorry. Oh, I'm so sorry, Councillor Phillips. Thank you. I guess I certainly understand the reason why we're increasing the fees. For me, I just don't understand why we have to do it immediately. And maybe I even do understand that. I just, somebody went and parked in that garage today and paid $15. Tomorrow they're going to go and they're going to park in that garage and it's an additional $5. So have we notified anybody that this amount is going to go up? And is there any way that we could? I know $64,000 is a lot, but again, I'm just concerned about the regular old person who wants to park in that lot tomorrow. And it's going to be shocked at the fact that it's now gone up $20. I mean, $5. So with this stress level and everything happened in Portland, I'm just wondering why this has to be an emergency. I can address that. This lot basically has been closed for the winter months as we've been using the majority of the lot for a snow impoundment lot for the snow bands. We've only had about 35 spaces available during the winter months at $15 a day. We're looking to open the lot up for the season this week. And that's why we thought it'd be appropriate to do the rate increase before we open the whole lot up to the general public for the season rather than have a rate increase midway through. Plus it gives us $64,000 between now and July 1st. Right now there are a limited number of vehicles in the parking in this area. So have those 35 people been notified that the fee is going to go up? We have not. Okay. I certainly understood. Thank you, John. I really, I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you for your question, counselor. Okay. I'm looking around to see if there's additional discussion. I don't think there is. So we will proceed to a vote on order 166. But before we do, I just want to acknowledge that we have been asked to pass this as an emergency. So counselors Ali and Rodriguez, are you okay with your motion? And second being that to pass as an emergency, which would require seven affirmative votes of the council. Yes. Thank you. We're ready to vote. Councilor Rodriguez. Yes. Councilor Dion. Yes. Yes. Councilor Zauro. Yes. Councilor Trevorrow. Yes. Councilor Pelletier. Yes. Councilor Phillips. No. Mayor Seder. Yes. Order 166 does pass as an emergency. And we will move on. Will the clerk please read order 167. Order 167, 22, 23, accepting and adopting the 2023 Jill C. Duzan Housing Trust Fund, annual plan sponsored by the Housing and Economic Development Committee, councilor Pius Ali chair. Councilor Ali. Thank you for the work that you and your committee have done on this item and I'll pass it over to you. Thank you, Mayor. I think it is an annual allocation of funds that we do. I will hand it over to Mary Davis for her to speak to the details about who is getting what. Okay. Thank you. Mary, do you want to add to that at this time? Yeah. Just briefly, the Jill C. Duzan Housing Trust Fund annual plan is a requirement that's embedded in Portland city code that established the original housing trust fund. So the plan is essentially the requirement is that the city council adopt an annual plan that outlines how the funds will be used for that upcoming year. This year, there's a lot of components of the plan that are the same from last year, but this year upon review by the Housing and Economic Development Committee, there are a few changes to the goals and priorities. One is there's a preference that projects funded through the housing trust fund serve households with incomes at or below 50% of the area median income. There's also a priority that projects that are funded be for rental housing. The budget that's included in the plan includes funding that comes from normal sources that usually go into the housing trust fund. Currently, those are primarily around inclusionary zoning fee and lieu payments. Last year, there were several reasons why allocations were not made from the trust fund. So that means this year, we have a considerable amount of money available over $3.7 million. In addition, we have money that was allocated by the city council through the ARPA funding. That's an additional $5.1 million. So we have funding available of over $8.8 million. I just wanna make the connection with the next item on the agenda, which is the affordable housing development and tax increment financing application, which is the tool and mechanism we use to allocate funding from both the Jill C. Deuce on housing trust fund as well as our home program funds. And so that tool reflects the goals and priorities that are in the housing trust fund plan as well. And I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you, that's very helpful. Thank you, Mary. Before we come back to the council for a motion on this item, I'd like to ask if there's any public comment on order 167. And we will go to George Rowe. George Rowe on the West Bay side. You know, the old cliche is the definition of insanity is keep doing the same thing over and over again, expecting results. And the cycling of the housing trust fund and the application, which Ms. Davis was referencing is exactly the problem. Is you guys have a wish list in this annual plan and application stapled to that wish list that does not, that almost guarantees you that you are not infeasible projects. And of course, that was made even worse by the, quote unquote, Green New Deal in 2020. What we, you literally have a point system that says don't vote. It literally, if you translate it, you get point doing projects that will not disturb the neighbors. Things like neighborhood character. Projects have to be only on transit nodes and corridors, which really when you get down to it, and I'm not gonna even mince words here, you literally are going to tonight, a plan that basically says, don't bother the people with nice houses. And then you wonder why you have hundreds of families living in a gymnasium and hundreds more people living in 10 Joe's. It's because you refuse to be courageous and fight the people in this town that refuse to let the neighbors change. Developers can't actually use, or they do use, it's absurdly expensive. But you won't let market rate developers do anything except build a shelter. Just like Kevin Bunker's running around, making huge amounts of money, building homeless shelters for us because you won't let him or anybody else build large quantities of those things up. And say that you're meeting your equity slash progress goals because they won't work. We had a little bit of difficulty. It sounded like your internet connection was a little bit in and out, but I think we got the gist of it. It just slowed down from time to time. But thank you for your comment. And I'm looking to see if there's any other public comment on order 167. Okay, I don't see any. So I'll close public comment and come back to the council for a motion, please. So move. Second. Councilor Rodriguez with a second from councilor Dion. Do we have any questions or discussion from the council? Councilor Rodriguez. Thank you, mayor. Mary, thank you for the summary that you presented here to the council. In our committee discussion, we spent quite a bit of time talking about the type of projects that we'd like to see advance. And I do agree with you that renting or rental units was something that we highlighted, but we also had a pretty substantive discussion about what we can do to encourage the co-op or in the equity building types of developments. The discussion kind of centered around the fact that rental opportunities are, by the way that things are working right now, the rental market is very predatory where ultimately your options are your rent goes up or you have to move out of town versus if you're in an equity acquisition, call model, at the end of the day, you have advanced forward with an opportunity to then facilitate your own purchase of a house or some other means of housing. So I guess I'm trying to find where that landed in the memo and obviously in the way that the application will facilitate those sorts of preferences that we stated. In the affordable housing development application, which is the next item, alternative housing models such as the cooperative housing or land trust models were encouraged to apply. In the housing trust fund, doing a quick search, housing trust fund annual plan under, hold on a second. Well, the housing trust fund plan doesn't specifically call out those models itself, but the affordable housing development application, which is the tools that we allocate the funds do, it does include a preference for those types of alternative housing models, as well as encourages projects that are, as I mentioned before, for households earning below 50% of the area median income. And it also is encouraging or requiring and giving higher priority to projects that are more shovel-ready so that they're under construction sooner rather than later. Thank you, Mary, for that. For explaining where the preferences are going to be indicated in the home fund. I guess I'm going to certainly vote in favor of this and pass it forward. As Mr. Rowe mentioned, the fact that we've not seen these funds be heavily tapped into and we've not seen the production that we're trying to see, there's a lot for me yet to understand about what other leverages we can pull on to really facilitate the type of development that we're all discussing here. And yeah, I guess I just wanted to acknowledge that this is a little bit more complicated than just the council committee stating preferences and I'll just leave it at that, thank you. Thank you, councilor. Other discussion from the council at this time. Okay, seeing none, we'll go ahead and take action on order 167. Councilor Rodriguez? Councilor Dion? Yes. Councilor Ali? Yes. Councilor Zahro? Yes. Councilor Pelletier? Yes. Councilor Phillips? Yes. Mayor Snyder? Yes, order 167 passes unanimously of those present. Will the clerk please read the next order 168. Order 168, 22, 23, approving the 2023 affordable housing development and tax increment financing application sponsored by the Housing and Economic Development Committee councilor Pius Ali chair. And we'll head right back to you, councilor Ali. Thank you, mayor. Once again, I'm going to refer it to Mayor Rodriguez. Thank you, councilor. I don't really have that much more to add. As I mentioned previously, the goals and priorities that we include in the application, essentially mayor of the goals and priorities that was in the Jill C. Deuce on Housing Trust Fund annual plan. The application does also is the application is also the mechanism by which we make decisions about how the home affordable housing development funds are invested as well as the tool that projects seeking affordable housing, tax increment finance, credit enhancement agreements, they use the same application to apply for those funds. Happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Mary. I appreciate that. And at this point in time, we will see if there's any public comment on order 168. I do not see any. So I'll close public comment and come back to the council for a motion, please. So moving. And I'm happy to second that. Councilor Rodriguez and I have seconded the motion to approve order 168 questions, discussion from the council on this item. Okay, seeing none, we'll go ahead and vote to approve order 168. Councilor Rodriguez. Yes. Councilor Dion. Yes. Councilor Ali. Yay. Councilor Zauro. Yes. Councilor Trevorrow. Yes. Councilor Pelletier. Yes. Councilor Phillips. Yes. Mayor Snider. Yes. Order 168 passes unanimously of those present. For a series of first reads that will be read into the record will the clerk, please read order 169. Order 169 22 23 granting an easement to central main power at Portland ocean terminal for Casco Bay lines expansion sponsored by Daniel West interim city manager. Thank you. And we'll go to the city manager. Not much to add. This is just required easement to Casco Bay lines so that they can upgrade their electrical utilities to provide for their hybrid electric ferry. And also there was some movement of buildings down there so it does this was needed. And we ask that this be passed as an emergency as well. Thank you. Public comment on order 169. Okay. Seeing none. We'll close public comment and come back to the council for a motion. Second. Councilor Ali with a second from councilor Rodriguez. Any, and that was an emergency passage as an emergency. Thank you both. Any council discussion on order 169. I think this is straightforward. Thank you. We're ready to vote. Councilor Rodriguez. Yes. Councilor Dion. Yes. Councilor Ali. Yes. Councilor Zaro. Yes. Councilor Travaro. Yes. Councilor Pelletier. Yes. Councilor Phillips. Yes. Mayor Snider. Yes. Order 169 passes unanimously of those present. And lastly, will the clerk, please read into the record. We have several first readings tonight starting with order 170. And we go through 174. Order 170, 22, 23, accepting and appropriating federal aviation administration administered airport improvement program and airport infrastructure federal fiscal year 2023 grants sponsored by Daniel West interim city manager. Order 171, 22, 23, amendment to the Portland city code chapter nine regarding clean elections sponsored by Kate Snider, mayor. Order 172, 22, 23, amendment to the zoning map regarding our six residential to B3 downtown business at 211 Cumberland abs sponsored by the planning board, Maggie Stanley chair. Order 173, 22, 23, amendment to downtown height overlay and Bayside height overlay map regarding 211 Cumberland ab sponsored by planning board Maggie Stanley chair. Order 174, 22, 23, amendment to zoning map regarding repealing the C5 conditional zone agreement at 22 Park Ave sponsored by planning board Maggie Stanley chair. And that is it. Okay. Thank you so much. Is there a motion to adjourn? Councillor Ali. Second. Second from Councillor Trevara. Thank goodness. And we will go ahead and vote to adjourn. Councilor Rodriguez. Yes. Councilor Dionne. Yes. Councilor Ali. Yay. Council Zorro. Yes. Councilor Trevara. Yes. Councilor Pelletier. Yes. Councilor Phillips. Yes. We are adjourned. Thank you everybody and good night.