Oh, you know what, I got a login. I was going to make a sarcastic comment, but. Oh, I was going to go to the bathroom. Should I tell everybody. Okay. Okay. I think we're good to go. Peter, we're good from your perspective. Hello, everybody. Sorry to start the meeting a couple of minutes late. We were in a, an executive session that we moved into on the heels of a workshop that started at four o'clock. So I want to welcome everybody to chambers. We've got 46 people with us on zoom this evening. So we've got a full house. Welcome. This is the Portland city council. We're in a regular meeting this evening and I'll call our meeting to turn it all over once we get back to the table. Thank you. And congratulations to the Buddha legions. Pledge allegiance to the flag. The United States of America and to the Republic. One nation. Under God. Individual Liberty. And justice for all. Thank you very much. Will the clerk, please call the rule. Councillor for near here. Council. Councilor Zauro. Here. Councilor Travarro. Here. Well, I'm Zoom. Councilor Chauro is with us on Zoom. Hey, Councilor Palatier. Here. Councilor Phillips. Here. Mayor Snyder. Here. Okay. Everybody is present. And as noted, we do have Councilor Travarro with us this evening on Zoom. We can see her. So, Councilor, please raise your hand, and I'll do my best to keep an eye on my Zoom screen to make sure I'm calling you at the appropriate time. So, at this time, we're going to open it up for public comment on items that are not on tonight's agenda. So, if there's anybody with us in chambers or on Zoom who would like to speak to the Council on a matter that is not being covered on tonight's agenda, now is the time. Right to you, Stephen Sharf. That work is in the wrong position. And it didn't work to fix it. Stephen Sharf of Brackett Street. I'm assuming you are referencing your previous meeting as not being part of this meeting being your executive session. I intended to speak to the executive session, but there was no audio on the Zoom at four o'clock. So, I couldn't, I wasn't even aware that you were, you just looked like you were chatting all of a sudden, you left the room. I quite frankly don't understand your motive for an executive session. They're really, you know, the public should be informed if you're looking at locations for siting facilities. That should be a public conversation, not something you do behind closed doors. And I wanted to object to that. And I came for the rest of the meeting because I was concerned that I wouldn't have audio for the rest of the meeting. So, thank you for your comment. And next we'll go to Zoom. I've got Don Marietta. Don, if you're with us, you need to unmute yourself and just go ahead and give us your first and last name and the organization you represent or the neighborhood that you live in. And you've got three minutes on the clock. Okay, we're having some AV issues it seems. If there's anybody else in chambers who would like to step forward, I'm happy to go back and forth. Okay, I don't see anybody else in chambers. So, I'll go to George Rowe on Zoom. George Rowe, Hanover Street. So, the Parks Director recently informed the Parks Commission that the Batcove West Storage Project that has been digging up Preble Athletic Field next to Hanifords has been delayed like 10 months, something like that. And that they've really apparently encountered some very difficult subsurface conditions that they had, I guess, anticipated but didn't realize just quite how tricky they would be. And I believe that that project is at least a $50 million project. And I am just sort of always gobsmacked at the fact that there is almost no public visibility on what is going on with the enormous amount of money being spent on the stormwater compliance. We occasionally have little presentations and whatnot, but considering that the much more modest elementary school renovations, which were capped, by the way, they literally could not spend more than a dime than they were allocated, those projects have been under enormous scrutiny. There's been commissions and committees. I think Mark Dion, Belinda Ray, Nick Mabadonis, they all got to sit on a special oversight committee. There's been absolutely no citizen oversight of all of this money. And we have no good idea about cost overruns and about what's actually been going on with these projects. John Jennings had moved the site of that storage facility from marginal way over to the Preble fields for his own reasons, without any council approval of that, other than just letting him do it. And so I don't understand how literally hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent over the course of at least the last decade and still very much in progress that we haven't had any real public scrutiny of this. And it's just unbelievably disappointing when some projects get all kinds of scrutiny and other projects just completely skate in terms of the public understanding what's going on on a quarterly basis, at least if not an annual basis and having some sense of cost overruns and... 30-second warning. The impact to our bond capacity and things like that. It's a huge glaring error in what the city council's been doing for years. And it really needs to stop because it's hurting the credibility of a lot of the hardworking people who are trying to get us to a better place on this stormwater compliance. But it has this dark cloud over it of no transparency of any meaningful kind. Thank you for your comment. And is there additional public comment either on Zoom or in chambers? Seeing none, I'm going to close the public comment period on items that are not on tonight's agenda. And I'll ask my colleagues on the council if anybody has an announcement this evening. Okay, looking for Councilor Trevorrow. Nope. Okay, I don't see any. So we'll move on from the announcements. And next on our agenda are recognitions. Will the clerk please read our first recognition? Recognizing peace into chorus bronze award at the Anthem Awards. This is sponsored by Pius Ali, councillor. Councillor Ali. Thank you, Mayor. I am going to postpone that to a future date because I think I'll be seen to have a rehearsal today. So they are not able to join us. Okay. Thank you. So we'll postpone that recognition. Thank you very much for that explanation. And the next recognition is... Does the clerk want to read that one into the record? Sure. Recognizing Teresa Valiere, founder of Friends of Woodford's Corner as main development foundations 2022 Downtown Hero sponsored by Kate Snyder, Mayor. Thank you. And I'll just take this moment to share a little bit about Teresa. So congratulations to Teresa Valiere, Friends of Woodford's Corner, who will receive, as the clerk said, the Downtown Hero Award this April from the main development foundation. So Friends of Woodford's Corner has grown quickly, and Teresa has been behind the scenes, has helped to accomplish nearly everything that they have done. When... What started as a Facebook group in 2015 became a community volunteer organization because Teresa had organized a railroad cleanup. She drew in dedicated people who helped the group file as a 501C3 just two years later and put together a board of directors with skills that mapped onto the main street model so the organization could become a main street affiliate. And at this point, I'm going to turn to Councillor Zaro because I know that you had some suggestions on that front and were helpful in getting that community organization to actually become a main street affiliate, which is a pretty big deal and a great asset for the city of Portland. So thank you, Councillor Zaro. Though Teresa has no background in economic development, historic preservation, or community organizing, nor is she trained as an urban planner, she's used her background in the food and hospitality industry and her training and experience as a clinical social worker to build relationships and organize events that helped set in motion the rebuilding of Woodford's Corner. In 2022, Friends of Woodford's Corner has reached a particularly, or had reached a particularly noteworthy milestone leasing an office in a newly revitalized landmark building on the corner right there. I'm sure you're all familiar with that. And raising enough money to hire a paid staff person who will finally relieve Teresa of some of the burdens of managing and performing the myriad administrative tasks that keep the organization moving forward. I don't see Teresa here with us in chambers. I'm going to look glasses on, glasses off to see if she's with us on Zoom. But in any event, what we all wanted to do tonight was offer our congratulations and recognition of a great community member. So thank you for your work, Teresa Valiere. Okay, and next we will move to the approval of the minutes from our previous meeting. Is there a motion to approve the minutes from the March 6th City Council meeting? So moved. Second. Councilor Phillips with a second from Councilor Zaro. Are there any questions or comments from the Council about those draft minutes? Seeing none, we'll go ahead and vote to approve those minutes. Councilor Fornir. Yes. Councilor Rodriguez. Yes. Councilor Dionne. Yes. Councilor Ali. Yes. Councilor Zaro. Yes. Councilor... Yes. Petrovaro. Thank you. Councilor Palatier. Yes. Councilor Phillips. Yes. Mayor Senator. I'm a yes, and so that passes unanimously. And now we move into proclamations. So we've got several this evening. Will the clerk please read Proclamation 15. Proclamation 15, 22, 23. Recognizing April 2023 as Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month. Answered by Kate Sider, Mayor. Thank you. And I'm actually going to hand this one over to my colleague, Councilor Ali. Mayor, my computer is being slow, and I only have one of the two proclamations printed. So you may have to read that. Okay. I will be happy to read this, but I do want to thank Councilor Ali for his close attention to proclamations and working with staff to make sure that proclamations that we see each year are brought forward with appropriate edits and updates. So thank you, Councilor Ali. I'll go ahead and read this one into the record. Again, this is the proclamation recognizing April 2023 as Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month. Whereas genocide is a human tragedy inspired by the most repugnant elements of hatred, intolerance, and inhumanity. And whereas Article 2 of the United Nations Genocide Convention contains a narrow definition of the crime of genocide, which includes a mental element, intent to destroy in whole or in part a national ethical, sorry, ethnic, racial, or religious group as such, and a physical element killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. And whereas for decades, campaigns of dislocation and murder have been used with a clear and ultimate purpose to annihilate an other race, religion or ethnic minority through coordinated massacre. And whereas as a result of genocide, millions of people, adults and children alike, have been murdered, had their cultural identities stolen or experienced forced relocation. And whereas by recognizing, remembering, and educating ourselves on past and ongoing instances of genocide, we help protect historic memory, ensure that similar atrocities did not occur again, and remain vigilant against hatred, persecution, and tyranny. And whereas residents are becoming informed as to the causes and effects of genocide, as well as the ramifications of these tragedies in our shared human history, on the generations of people descended from survivors of genocide and those impacted by genocide today. And whereas the month of April is designated as Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month, in recognition of the many genocides which have occurred or begun in the month of April, so that all members of the human family may preserve the memory of victims, honor survivors, and stand together in opposition to the possibility of future genocide by fostering peaceful coexistence between diverse communities. 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 April 2023 as Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month in the City of Portland, Maine, and invite the residents of Portland to commemorate the solemn observance and recognize how much more we must do in the struggle against these unthinkable crimes against humanity, signed and sealed this 20th day of March 2023. Thank you. Will the clerk please read Proclamation 16. Proclamation 16, 22, 23, recognizing April 2020, 2023 as Arab American Heritage Month, and this one's also sponsored by Kate Snyder, Mayor. And I hand it over to my councillor, my colleague, councillor Ali. Thank you, Mayor. I think I'm your councillor, I'm not large. You are. Proclamation, recognizing April 2023 as Arab American Heritage Month, whereas for over a century Arab Americans have been making valuable contribution to virtually every aspect of American society, including in medicine, law, business, education, technology, government, military, and culture, and whereas since migrating to America, men and women of Arab descent have shared their rich culture and tradition with neighbors and friends, while also setting fine example of model citizens and public servants. And whereas they brought with them to America their resilient family values, strong work ethic, dedication to education and diversity in faith and creed, which have added strength to our great democracy. And whereas Arab Americans have also enriched our society by sharing in the entrepreneurial American spirit that makes our nation free and prosperous. And whereas the history of Arab Americans in the United States remain neglected and defaced by misconceptions, bigotry, and anti-Arab hate in the forms of crimes and speech. And whereas they join all Americans in the desire to see a peaceful and diverse society where every individual is treated equally and feel safe. And whereas the incredible contribution and heritage of Arab Americans have helped us build a better nation. And now, therefore, be it resolved that Kate Snyder, mayor of the city of Portland, Maine, and members of the city council do hereby recognize April 2023 as Arab American Heritage Month. In the city of Portland. And invite citizens of Portland to celebrate the many accomplishments and rich history of our Arab American neighbors that are to the diversity, strength, and vibrancy of Portland. Sign and seal this 20th day of March 2023 by Kate Snyder, mayor of the city of Portland. Thank you, mayor. Thank you, Councillor Ali. Will the clerk please read our proclamation 17. Proclamation 17, 22, 23, recognizing April 1st through the 7th 2023 as the week of the young child sponsored by Kate Snyder, mayor. Thank you. And I'd be happy to read this into the record. Whereas the first years of a child's life are the period of the most rapid brain development laying the foundation for all future learning and whereas high quality early childhood programs provide important benefits to children, families, and the city by saving taxpayer dollars, making working families more economically secure in preparing children to succeed in school, earn higher wages, and live healthier lives. And whereas there are fewer available slots in both home-based and center-based early childhood education programs than the number of children from birth to age five, limiting access for working families that need an affordable mixed delivery early childhood education system that offers a range of high quality options that meet their needs. And whereas young children need skilled, educated, competent, consistent, and compensated early childhood educators to ensure that children supported by families in our community have the early experiences they need for a strong foundation. And whereas in celebration of the National Association for the Education of Young Children's Week, Young Children's Week of the Young Child, the city of Portland expresses its support for continuing to advance the early childhood education system for children, families, and educators. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that I, Kate Snyder, Mayor of the City of Portland and members of the Portland City Council, recognize the efforts of the main association for the education of young children and Portland Works for Kids to promote early learning and healthy development and recognize April 1st through 7th as the Week of the Young Child, signed and sealed this 20th day of March, Kate Snyder. Thank you. And lastly, we'll go to, I'm going to say lastly, but I know we've got a lot tonight, our last proclamation this evening, will the clerk please read 18? Proclamation 18, 22, 23, recognizing April 3rd through the 9th, 2023 as National Public Health Week, sponsored by Kate Snyder, Mayor. Thank you very much. And I will read this one into the record as well. Okey-doke. Okay, recognizing April 3rd through 9th as National Public Health Week, whereas the Week of April 3rd through 9th is National Public Health Week, and the theme is centering and celebrating cultures and health. And whereas between the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and August 2022, life expectancy in the U.S. decreased by one and a half years, with the most significant decreases observed in Black and Hispanic populations. And whereas racial and ethnic minority populations in the United States continue to experience disparities in illness and death rates. In Portland, 16.6% of people identifying as Hispanic, and 7.4% of those identifying as Black, have no health insurance compared to 7% of the entire population of Portland. And whereas the United States has the highest maternal mortality rate of any developed country and is the only developed country to see those rates rising. And whereas according to a February 2023 report by the main Attorney General's Office, 10,110 drug overdoses were reported in 2022, including 716 suspected or confirmed deaths. And whereas in urban environments like Portland, health status can differ by neighborhood due to differences in the built environment, environmental quality, community context, and access to healthy food, education, and health care. And whereas public health professionals help communities prevent, prepare for, withstand, and recover from the impact of a full range of health threats. And public health action has played a major role in reducing and in some cases eliminating the spread of infectious disease. Now therefore be it proclaimed that I, Kate Snyder, Mayor of the City of Portland, Maine, and members of the City Council do hereby recognize the week of April 3rd through 9th 2023 as National Public Health Week and call upon the people of Portland to celebrate the impact of public health as well as to encourage family and friends to adopt preventive lifestyle habits. Signed and sealed this 20th day of March 2023. And for anybody who's checking out the agenda online, we do have a plain language version that I'd like to hand off to my colleague, Councillor Fornir, to read into the record. Thank you so much, Mayor. I think it's really important as the Chair of Health and Human Services in public safety. One of the things we've been talking about is making sure that the language of these proclamations is plain language. So it's easily understandable for the public. And sometimes with the whereas language, the message can get a little bit lost. And so when we met this past week for Health and Human Services, we talked about just taking this opportunity to read the alternate text so that it's available for everyone in that plain language. So thank you so much for allowing me to read this. So Portland National Public Health Week proclamation, so the week of April 3rd through the 9th, 2023, is National Public Health Week and the theme is centering and celebrating cultures and health. So until three years ago, life expectancy or how long people live on average has slowly increased over time because of advances in medicine and technology. So from 2020 to 2022, life expectancy in the U.S. decreased by 1.5 years with Black and Hispanic populations impacted the most. So some highlights of public health work inequities, minority populations in the U.S. continue to have higher illness and death rates. In Portland, 16.6% of Hispanic and 7.4% of Black populations have no health insurance. This is compared to 7% of the overall population of Portland.  In Maine, there were 10,110 drug overdoses reported in 2022, 716 of those overdoses ended in death. In larger cities like Portland, how healthy you are can depend on where you live. Access to parks and sidewalks, air quality, community connectedness, and access to healthy food, education, and healthcare all impact your health. Public health professionals help communities. Public health helps to prevent, prepare for, resist, and recover from health threats. This includes disease outbreaks such as COVID-19 pandemic, measles, natural disasters, and disasters caused by human activity. Public health action has played a major role in reducing and in some cases, eliminating the spread of infectious disease. For these reasons, our Mayor Kate Snyder and the City of Portland, Maine members of the City Council, recognize the week April 3rd through the 9th, 2023 as National Public Health Week. We thank those working in the field of public health and we call upon the people of Portland to celebrate the impact of public health and encourage family and friends to adopt healthy lifestyle habits. Thank you. That is helpful. Thank you, Councillor Fornir. I appreciate that. Okay. Moving on from proclamations this evening and into our consent items. So we've got a couple of items tonight under our consent calendar. Will the clerk please read orders 150 and 151. Order 150, 22, 23, declaring August 6th through the 9th, 2023. The Circus Mercus at Payson Park Festival sponsored by Daniel West Interim City Manager and order 151, 22, 23, declaring June 11th, 2023. It's recircum music festival sponsored by Daniel West Interim City Manager. Thank you very much. And just so folks in the audience understand, we'll take public comment on these two items at the same time after we hear from the city manager who will provide context for us. Thank you, Mayor. I see Andy Downs out there, my good friend who'd handle these events. I don't think there's anything specific that we have to update you on. These are pretty regular events. Andy, if you could maybe just give a little bit on the timing of the Circus one. I think it's August 6th and 9th, is that correct or through the 9th? Just to make sure that everybody understands that will be at Payson Park. And then the main Academy of Modern Music will be at the Ocean Gate Parking Lot for Sunday, June 11th. And that will be a music festival that will be during the day, but will have the stopping at 10 o'clock. And most of the music will be just during the day period. But Andy's here if we have any specific questions. Great, I appreciate that. Thank you. If there's any public comment on either of these items, please come step forward in chambers. Don't hesitate, come right up to the mic. I'll start on Zoom, I think. There we go. First commenter is Devin Green. Thank you, Madam Mayor, council members and city staff. Thank you so much for all that you do for the city. I want to start by saying that I'm a huge fan of Circus Mercus, but I have a couple of things that I just want to call attention to about this specific event. You just mentioned that this is a regular event. This is, to my knowledge, never been held in Payson Park. I believe that they're usually at Fort Allen and it's not like a big top event. And most of the larger events that happen in Payson Park happen in the triangle, which is in a different location. Obviously, we have gone through the process with the larger music festival with C3 Presents. And I appreciate that with this, there's a lot more info. There's a map included. It's 3,000 people over the two days instead of 40,000. But the parking is just going to be on city streets. And my main issue actually is that in the process of learning about the festival, I found out that there's some infrastructure underneath the part of the park where they are suggesting that this event be held. So I actually didn't get any of this information until this morning. So I scrambled to get in touch with Brad Rowland, the engineer for the city. And he let me know that there's a variety of infrastructure under the park in that specific area, including a 60-inch pipe, three rows of 14-foot wide box culverts, which are 450 feet long each, and electrical conduit running and to end of the conduits that are only 36 inches below the ground surface. And so he had some concerns, also about four-foot poles being dug into the ground. So I guess I would just say that's something for you all to look into. I did just send that to you, but because I've been scrambling to get this information, I did not get it to your emails earlier, but it is in your inboxes. And mostly what I want to say is that this is just another example, I think, of where it would really benefit you all to do the work, to really figure out policies, procedures, and permitting application processes around what events to hold and how to use public space for profit and what that looks like. Obviously, this is a much smaller event, but it's still an instance of a public park being used for profit. It's a smaller space, so it's much easier, but I just hope that you'll do that work. And I'm not sure how this became... You're in second warning. Yeah, I'm not sure how this became a consent item lumped in with another event, but nobody in the neighborhood knew about this. I don't even know if the council knew about it. We just found out about it. And I think it's really important for there to be transparency and for people to be included in the process and just to give the information that's needed and make sure that the due diligence is done. Thank you so much. Devin, thank you for your comment. I lost Zoom there for a little bit, but I think I'm back. So if you would like to speak on Zoom, go ahead and raise your hand. I don't have any hands raised there right now, but it could be because I just got reconnected, but we do have a speaker with us here in chambers. So we'll hand it over to you, Steven. Steven Schafer, Brackett Street. Good time. Make a plug that, since you're going to be digging in the ground with mechanical means, you should be calling DigSafe. And DigSafe will come out and mark out where a significant infrastructure is for you so that they don't hit it. So I would and I would hope that the city would not require the event organizer to do it, but the city would do it itself. Even on your own property, you need to call DigSafe. DigSafe is as simple as calling 811. Thank you. Thank you, Steven. Any other public comment on the consent calendar before the council this evening? Orders 150 and 151. Okay, I do not see anybody. So I'm going to close public comment and come back to the council, please for a motion. So moved. Councilor Rodriguez with a second from Councilor Ali. And I'm looking to the council for any discussion on these two items. Councilor Rodriguez. Thank you, mayor. Just a brief question about the information which is found out about the under, is there anything that the council has to do to avoid? I totally want to heed the 811 call, but in terms of, I believe that the venue that they can just needs to be moved based on the infrastructure that was that we're now aware of. Is there anything that council needs to do with our motion today in that regard? I was just trying to pull up the order. That may be more of a question for Michael, but I think that the order doesn't specify, does it specify the location of the, of the event itself? I was going to have Andy come up. I know that we have a, I just wanted him to talk a little bit about the process that we have to. Since there was a question about that, we do have a pretty extensive process that we go through for each of these events and looking at these types of issues. And maybe you could talk about that specifically, Andy, and with regard to this event as well. Sure. Thank you. So regarding the dig safe, so with the staking and what's proposed for Dyer's flat, it is subject to dig safe. So we've been working with the organizers about making sure they go through that process, and we're working with them currently about the staking. So that's something that we do manage internally. For all the events that come through, and we have roughly 800 or so events that come through our facilities and our parks, we have an internal process of working with the organizers, this particular organizer, Portland Ovations, we work with very closely at Merrill Auditorium. They're one of our prime tenants. But when an application comes forward, we meet once a month with different city departments, parking, business licensing, police, fire, and others to go through and evaluate whether this is going to be done safely, whether what the impact will be. So from everything from a small scale event to a large scale, like that's brought forward. So there is a pretty thorough process that we go through to analyze and determine whether this is something that we want to bring forward to council. So we go through that process prior. Thanks, Andy. And I would say that these are usually consent items that are before the council. And I do think I'm just looking at the order. I don't want to speak for Michael, but it looks like we've identified specifically in the order that the area where the festival would be would be that Dyer's flat area, which I think is the area that's being referenced. Is that correct? So it would mean, are you comfortable with the materials you've presented that that's the location that will work best for this? And you've talked with staff. And yeah, we've discussed with staff and with the organizers on the best location. If there is a problem with the dig safe, we would have to reevaluate. Is this required to do tonight? Can we look at that and have that done and bring it back to the council? For the city, I think absolutely. I would ask the organizer if that's doable. Thank you for stepping forward. Council, hi. I'm Eric Hager from Portland Ovations. I'm the production manager there. We have a window closing for announcement and public relations and ticket sales, but obviously we don't want to drive a stake into an electrical conduit. So we will defer to council's decision and advice. Thank you.  I don't have a follow up question, but I want to hear. Okay. Thank you, Councilor Fornir. Thank you so much. I'm just curious about process because I know we obviously had a very big decision about the concert that was brought forward to Payson Park and it seemed like there was a lot of public engagement in that process. And I'm wondering how this particular incident differs because it feels like for, I don't know if it's on the promoter. It's their responsibility to engage with the neighborhood organizations or the abutters in this case, where it seems like this is another pretty big event. And as we heard from the public, feels like there's a lack of engagement from their perspective. So I wonder if you could just talk a little bit about who's responsibility is it to engage with the people that are around where this is going to be happening so that they feel like they're a part of that decision making process. Typically, we ask the organizer to reach out and provide outreach to the neighborhood and to the areas that will be impacted. This compared to the last festival declaration we brought forward is very different. The reason this is coming in front of council is because of the duration, not because of the size. So the size of it itself with a number of attendees, that's typically handled internally. And we can inform different groups in the area and of these events that are happening. But again, there are close to 800 events that we're managing. So the outreach is challenging. So for the larger, more impactful ones, we certainly do our best to engage, but we do ask organizers. So considering this one is closer to maybe 3,000 people, I wonder if you could talk a little bit, how many other events do we have at Payson Park that are about the same size that are happening this year? Well, it's 750 people per performance. So it won't be 3,000 people at one time. So in scale, it is a little bit smaller. But I don't think we've brought anything I don't think we've brought anything to Payson Park outside of a road race that needed council approval. So I think there's a new interest in Payson Park, which is great. And we're very supportive of that. So we're starting to see more inquiries come in, but nothing to the scale. Last question. I certainly also hear the concern about parking. I live near Payson Park and parking is challenging when we were back in little league days. And that's 50 people. So thinking about multiplying that multiple times, is there something within their packet that talks about parking impact or how parking mitigation would happen? There is not space for that many cars in that area, especially considering the construction that's down there. So I wonder if we could talk a little bit about that. So I know organizers are reaching out to local churches and Chevron High School and trying to mitigate the parking challenges. Also in the advertising and in the marketing, it is encouraging people to walk, use the trail, park pool, doing everything they can to mitigate the parking challenges that could arise. But we work very closely on what's available and makes strong recommendations on parking plans that are presented. Thank you. Other questions or a discussion from the council on either item? Councilor Dionne? I don't remember who made the public comment, but the other person brought up the correct topic. When we were discussing the major, well, the initiative that would have brought a significant concert to Payson Park, one of the final conversations centered on this notion that the licensing scheme should be revisited. I looked at it at that time, and really the language and the intent was for something a little bit greater than a significant family gathering and everything that goes along with that. And it's nothing against parks, but I mean, they're kind of stuck trying to approve things with language and standards that probably are not as current as we would like them to do. So I guess this is a comment and a question of the chair. I don't know if this is an item for consideration by the executive reporting back to us or whether it should be a question that goes, and I could be wrong on jurisdiction to public safety as a licensing question to determine that I take the advice of the interim manager at this point, but I think before we're presented with other questions or proposals, we ought to take a look, see that particular ordinance as a possible candidate for revision. Thank you very much, Mayor. Thank you, Councilor. And I'll look to the city manager for discussion of where that licensing language review could live. Yeah, so that's chapter 19 is my recollection and it's about festivals. It is rather old. We have tweaked it a couple of times. I know we had language that specifically probably 15, 20 years ago that addressed First Amendment events and so on. So it's been a little while since we've looked at it. There are specific triggers. We do have processes in place, which Andy just described, but we're happy to look at that again and talk about that a little bit more. When I think about where it would live, I guess public safety makes sense, I think, but I'm not sure if that was the first committee that jumped to my mind, but we can make sure. I'll just say that we'll put a pin in it. In fact, as we're talking right now, I'm emailing staff and we'll have that on our radar screen and hope to bring that back to some council committee to review very shortly. Thank you, Madam Manager. Thank you for that comment. I appreciate it. Other discussion from the council? Okay. Seeing none. So we've got this consent calendar before us. I think we're ready to vote, but we do have a flag on the issue of licensing language so that as we make our way through these decisions, we're comfortable that that's as up to date as can be. So we'll keep our eye on that, but we'll move on this that's before us this evening and we'll go ahead and vote. Councilor Fornir. Yes. Councilor Rodriguez. Yes. Councilor Dion. Yes. Councilor Ali. Yay. Councilor Zahro. Yes. Councilor Chavarro. Yes. Councilor Pelletier. Yes. Councilor Phillips. Yes. Mayor Snider. Yes. Orders 150 and 151 both pass unanimously and now we head into licenses. Will the clerk please read order 152. Order 152, 22, 23, granting municipal officers approval of citrus. Application is for Class A lounge with indoor entertainment and outdoor dining on private property located at one city center sponsored by Daniel West Interim City Manager. Thank you. Is there any public comment on order 152? Okay, we do have a hand up on Zoom and I'm probably not going to get this name right because it's all one word in lower case, but Blaine Tully. Yeah, I think they can. Yep. Yeah, I am Mark Olson, the owner of One City Wine Academy in Citrus and I just wanted to point out one thing. That is that this is not a new business license. We actually have been in this space for 10 years and this is our third year as Citrus. We did change our DBA and we're actually just switching away from a Class A restaurant to a Class A lounge because while we wanted to sell food, the people just wanted to dance. So we've had to change the style of license but this is actually not a new license but just a change of class. And with that in mind, I spoke with Tom Williams, the health inspector, and he said he did not need to do a health inspection. However, because it is technically a new style of license, we have been contacted by the Greece Trap people and so I would love to ask City Hall. First point is to clarify that this is not a new license but that we've been here for a while and then secondly to ask City Hall to do as Tom Williams with health has suggested and not allow us to go through the Greece Trap inspection process. Again, we did less than $1,000 in food sales last year and that's why we're changing our license. Thank you. Okay, thank you for being here and thank you for that comment. Before we move into it, is there any other public comment on Order 152? Neither on Zoom or in Chamber so I'll close public comment and come back to the Council for a motion please. Second. Councilor Ali with a second from Councilor Rodriguez and we move into Council discussion. I think I just want to turn to the City Manager and ask when new is a characterization of different I think in this circumstance. So I just wanted to clarify and sort of mark what the owner talked about. Yeah, I think that's correct. I'm not sure if Zach or Jessica Hanscom are on the Zoom link or either one of you. Got Zach with us. Zach, could you weigh in on that? Sorry for the glare. That's all right. Go ahead. Yeah, a change of classification is a new license and it says in the description that the establishment currently holds a Class 1 FSE and it is so it's a change. Thanks, Zach. So yes, it is. It's just due to the fact that it is a change. Great. Thank you for the clarification. Any other Council discussion on this license before we vote? Nope. We're good to go ahead and vote on Order 152. Councilor Forner just stepped out. Councilor Rodriguez? Yes. Councilor Dionne? Yes. Councilor Ali? Councilor Zahro? Yes. Councilor Chavarro? Yes. Councilor Pelleteer? Yes. Councilor Phillips? Yes. Mayor Snider? Yes. Order 152 passes 8-0. And Mr. Olsen, thanks so much for being here with us this evening, helping to clarify and also for doing business in the city of Portland. Will the clerk please read Order 153. Order 153-22-23 granting municipal officers approval of SARA application is for a Class III and IV food service establishment with outdoor dining on public property located at one monument square, Suite 103. This is sponsored by Daniel West, Interim City Manager. Thank you. Is there public comment on Order 153? No public comment. I'm Steve. I'm the owner of SARA. I'm just here in case there's questions. Thanks, Steve. Good to have you here. We'll come back to you if there are. I don't see any hands up on Zoom. So we'll close public comment and I'll come back to the Council for a motion. So moved. Second. Councilor Rodriguez with a second from Councilor Zorro. And is there any Council discussion? Any questions for Steve? I don't think so, but thanks for being here. We'll go ahead and vote on Order 153. Councilor Rodriguez? Yes. Councilor Dionne? Yes. Councilor Ali? Yes. Councilor Zorro? Yes. Councilor Chavarro? Yes. Councilor Pellett here? Yes. Councilor Phillips? Yes. Mayor Snyder? Yes. Order 153 passes 8-0. Steve, thanks for being here. Thanks for doing business in the City of Portland. Thanks for coming tonight. Okay, moving on. We've got one communication in our packet this evening. Will the clerk please read Communication 27. Communication 27, 22, 23. Regarding staff implementation of LD 2003, an act to implement the recommendations of commission to increase housing opportunities in Maine by studying zoning and land use restrictions. This is sponsored by Christine Grimondo, Director of Planning and Urban Development. Great. And I look first to you, City Manager. Christine is here. She has a brief presentation. Her memo was lengthy, and she wants to boil it down very quickly for you. I believe she may have one slide to show you, but if not, it's just going to be a brief summary of what her memo says. Hi, Christine. Hi, thank you. City Manager West and Mayor Snyder, members of the council. That's a great intro. There's a memo in the council's packet, communication regarding LD 2003, and it provides a summary in a few different ways. And I'm going to just provide, I'm going to try and boil that down what the sort of key points are of that. And I can throw up a slide up of those as well, but I'm going to just talk for a moment. So LD 2003, it was signed by the governor in April 2020-22, and it is aimed at creating housing requirements for municipalities on the topics of residential density, zoning, ADUs, and affordability, among some other things. And Portland has analogous regulations for all of the elements of LD 2003. We meet or exceed these requirements in most cases, and we have many other housing tools and policies beyond the scope of what LD 2003 contemplates. But we word them differently, we structure them differently because they've been implemented here over years. And so for us and for this analysis, it wasn't as simple as just checking a box, do we do it, do we not? It required a little interpretation and sort of combing through some of the detail of our respective wordings of those requirements. So I would say it's not a matter of the city adopting LD 2003 whole cloth for staff. The exercise is really doing that analysis to see where are there gaps and where do we need to do some reconciliation with our land use code to new state requirements. So the communication in your packet goes at this a few different ways. There's some sort of lengthier commentary on each item, but there's also a table that kind of gives a snapshot by section of where there's just no issue or where we have maybe partial consistency, not complete consistency. And then there's four bullet points at the end that summarizes those. And I'm just going to go over those real quick. So LD 2003, it has density bonus requirements for zones where multifamily is allowed. We do this in addition to height and other dimensional bonuses, but there is one zone where that's not the case. That's the R6. So we would need to look at adding bonuses to the R6 as well. There's a requirement that up to four dwelling units be permitted on residential lots, unbuilt residential lots. A subset of our low density residential zones do not currently meet this requirements. This has implications for them. Most of our zones do and in some cases far exceed four dwelling units per lot. LD 2003 has a requirement that zones not have different dimensional requirements. For single family as for multifamily development, two of our zones have different dimensional requirements. R4 and R5 have some different standards for whether your single family or multifamily, things like setbacks and minimum lot sizes. And lastly, ADUs are to have the same dimensional standards as single family dwellings in LD 2003. This is true citywide, except two island zones have different minimum lot sizes for ADUs. So we in future revisions will look to those standards for bringing those R code and LD 2003 closer together. There's a couple of substantive points here, but by and large, we're in a good place with it. And as part of our recode process, we're looking at all these points about how we're going to implement changes that are keeping LD 2003 in mind. And with that, I don't think a slide of those four points is necessary, but if it helps anyone, I can throw it up, but I talked through all of it. So I'll just wrap it there and happy to answer questions if there are any. Thank you. Thank you so much, Director Grimondo, for this communication and for being here this evening. This is a communication, so there's no public comment. It's not a debatable item. There's no action that the council is taking tonight. But if there's any comments or questions from the council, happy to put those forward at this time. Councillor Ali. Thank you, Mayor. I read through the materials that are shared by us. I also know that the legislative committee did support this, I think, last year. But I wonder if, I know our calendars are full and staff's plate is full. Is that a possibility of a workshop down the line? On LD 2003 specifically? Yes. I'll look to the manager for that one. I think, I mean, I will say that my recollection of the calendar in March, April, and May is pretty packed. We could do a circle back with you on an update and I'll flag that for sometime in May. We will have, Councillor Javaro has requested a workshop on affordable housing. That will be coming April 3rd or 3rd. And so we may have some discussion about some of these concepts at that time. But I will try to flag that, Councillor, for sometime in May. Because last night, when I was going through, I asked myself if the everyday person who owns a property in Portland, who may want to do something like this, will they understand all the legislative jargon in it? So thank you. Yeah, thank you for the suggestion. Christine, I've got a quick question for you. So my understanding is that the legislation compliance is required by July 1. And your memo is really helpful and very thorough. And there are places in it that explain that in some cases, not most, but in some, Portland does have some work to be fully consistent or compliant. So I wanted to ask you about that July 1 deadline and how we're looking at that as a city, knowing how important it is to be in compliance. Sure, thank you for that question. It is July 1. However, I will point out, there's still rulemaking underway for LD 2003. There's still a lot of discussion at the state level about exactly how to interpret many of these standards. And so no one has adopted it yet. And it's going to be a fairly tight window. And I expect maybe too tight in some ways because there's still clarification underway what some of these standards mean. And that process is not even wrapped up yet. I expect it to be wrapped up fairly soon. I would expect April potentially May. It would be a really short window for communities for many, if any, to adopt by July 1. So we know that dates out there. But I'm not overly concerned. One, I think we're in very good company. We're also in a very good place. And as I've said, we have basically policies implemented that are analogous to LD 2003, except for a few areas. And so we buy the July 1 deadline. I think those items will not be on the books yet, but we will be diligently pursuing them. So there will be amendments out by then. We are approached to some of that interpretation discussion underway is to make safe interpretations of where we think they're going to land in some cases and to actively have regulations as part of some of the amendments we'll be rolling out by June for Recode Phase 2. We're going to be rolling out groups of chapters at a time. And we're going to pick those up in those first that was first rollouts early summer. And so they'll be actively in review. I do not think they'll be adopted by July 1, but I don't think there'll be negative consequences. There's not going to be enforcement arm around those pieces. And I think the fact that we're actively pursuing implementation to bring us in alignment will be okay. And I'm actively talking to folks with the state about this. And I'll certainly keep the council posted on progress and any other sort of direction or news coming out from the state on this matter as well. And again, as was mentioned, we'll be speaking about affordable housing in April. And if we have any new news, we're happy to bring that forward to. Thank you very much. Spring's going to be busy for planning, I think. Thanks for bringing up the context of Recode Phase 2. And the fact that that's around the corner as well. So any other questions or comments from the council on this communication? Okay. I don't see any. So we'll move on, but with our thanks to Director Grimondo for filling us in this evening and sharing information. Okay. So we're going to move on to resolutions. And I'll ask the clerk to please read Resolution 7. Resolution 7, 22, 23. Adopting the fiscal year 2023, 2024, Housing and Community Development Annual Action Plan, According to Appropriations for the Community Development and Block Grant Home and Emergency Solutions. Grant programs and certifications pertaining there too, sponsored by Daniel West, Interim City Manager. Thank you. And I understand that we will have Lawson Condry, who is the chair of the Community Development Block Grant Allocation Committee with us this evening to offer some context. Oh, there you are. Okay. I'm looking for you on Zoom. You're here in person. Great. Thanks so much for being here. Yeah. I have some notes. Hi, everyone. Thanks for serving everyone. I'm Lawson Condry, 213 Auburn Street, Northeering, chair of the Community Development Block Grant Allocation Committee. So first, we, the committee, I'll speak on behalf of everyone. We want to thank all the many organizations who applied this year and are grateful for all the work they do for and with the city and people of Portland. There were nine applications for development and six were able to get funding. There were 14 applications for social services and nine were able to get funding. I just have a couple of key points to know everyone has the letter from us and the city manager. One, we support and agree with how the city manager was able to allocate reallocate the funds based on how we originally scored and score the applications. It's largely based on our recommendations and given her wide discretion, more organizations can now receive funding. The second key point is for community policing. This is something the committee has recommended before and are glad the city manager was able to make this change or at least recommending this change. We've highlighted this in the report, but I want to vocalize here that the committee supports community policing and the mission. However, given the need in the city for an array of diverse support services and the fact that those services will only become more in demand, then we need to find more creative solutions to address those problems and issues. We believe it's imperative to provide as much funding as possible to those organizations, so by reallocating the community policing funds away from the CBBG overall fund, just makes it for more organizations to get money. We hope the council agrees. Thank you so much, and I know we're going to hear from our interim city manager, Daniel West, but I just want to remind people who are following along with the agenda that tonight we have the opportunity to hear public comment, but we will not be taking action tonight, so just a reminder to the community that that's what we're doing tonight, so I'll hand it over to the city manager and then we'll head right into a public hearing. Thank you, mayor, and I want to thank the CBBL Cation Committee as well for all their hard work as well as city staff. Mary Davis and her team really works extremely closely with the committee and with me to make sure that all of these recommendations get made in a timely manner, so thank you to everybody for all of your hard work. As Lawson just said, I do have more discretion than the committee does, and so I was able to take a lot of their recommendations and then also work with staff to try to find some additional funds, specifically CARES Act funding to help address the significant needs that we see in the social services area. I just would note, I know the council's well aware of this, we talk a lot about all these social service programs pretty regularly. They serve a major issue, one of the council's goals to address homelessness and the housing crisis, so really try to focus in on that and try to find ways in which to provide funding to a variety of organizations that the committee just couldn't reach within their limited discretion. As Lawson noted, the administration and planning, that basically evens out, so there was no changes there with regard to development activities. I took all of the Allocation Committee's recommendations and just made a switch to fund the Hope House. They had specifically some waterproofing needs, and the Hope House serves our asylum seeking population, and so I thought that was, first of all, the amount of money that was available lined right up with what we had, and thought that was directly connected to all of the different things that we're trying to do with the asylum seeking population in Portland. And then lastly, with regard to the social services section, you'll see as Lawson described as well, that I made some tweaks to the recommendations mostly to be able to serve more people. So recommending the move of the $150,000 for community policing to the general fund, that is something obviously I'm very connected to and I know that the community takes well advantage of and is a great program, but I think it's better served in the general fund. And so that opened up additional monies as well as some additional CARES Act funding in the amount of $106,000 in change, and then some cotton street proceeds from a sale of that were $20,000. So ultimately, that allowed me to provide additional funding to fully fund Catholic Charities IELAP program to be able to assist asylum seekers, and also the Catherine Morrill Day Nursery Child Care Voucher program, which is heavily used. And as I think we've heard in the past, that program serves people and helps them a lot of times stay just outside or be able to continue to stay just outside of the homeless situation and crisis situation, because they do get that assistance through that voucher program. So saw that as a significant need. Additionally, I took some of the Cotton Street money and put it towards the Preble Street food program. So all of that allowed us to fund those additional programs. As I mentioned, happy to answer any questions. And as the mayor said, we won't be voting on this until our next meeting on April 10th, but we'll be taking public comment both evenings and either night I'd be happy to answer any questions you have. Thank you so much for that. So like I said, we will head into the public comment. If you'd like to comment tonight, that's great. You can hold your comment until next week. We ask that you don't comment on both nights. So either tonight or on April 10th, and I know the clerk is going to be keeping track of folks who have the opportunity to speak tonight, something we do during the budget process to ensure that people have as much opportunity to comment as possible, but not two times. So anybody in chambers want to come forward to talk about resolution seven. I have a hand up on zoom. So I'll head right over there. Victoria Morales, you've got the you've got the floor. Thank you very much, Mayor Schneider, city manager West, city counselors and staff. My name is Victoria Morales. I'm the executive director at Quality Housing Coalition, and QHC is extremely grateful for the recommendations made by the CDBG allocation committee, city manager West and staff to support Project Home Trust, which is a guaranteed income pilot program, the first in Maine to provide direct cash assistance to low income mother led households to prevent to prevent the financial crisis and extreme stress that results when mothers lose benefits such as general assistance, TANF and SNAP. Project Home Trust is based on a five year successful guaranteed income program that has demonstrated significant improvements in the participants ability to pay bills on time by 56% to have enough money for food by 17% to have an emergency savings by 48% and to have health insurance by 25%. Project Home Trust was designed by Project Home Mothers based on their experience with homelessness and housing insecurity and essential needs programs, and it will be led by Peace Mutesi, a former Project Home mother. I ask you all for your support for this innovative program, and I thank you for your service. Thank you very much for your comment and for being with us this evening. Is there any other public comment this evening? Okay, I've got a couple people on Zoom, but nobody in chambers, so we'll focus on Zoom until I see somebody step forward.  Good evening, Mayor Smider and members of the council. My name is Andrew Bove and I'm a social worker at Preble Street. I'm here tonight asking you to support the city manager's recommendations for allocation of the Community Development Block grant funds. We are pleased to see her recommendation for our emergency food programs as well as many of our trusted partners in homeless services. Preble Street values our long-standing partnership with the city of Portland to help food insecure portlanders and people experiencing homelessness, and this funding is critical to our ability to continue these efforts in our community. Everyone deserves access to healthy, nutritious food, and these funds ensure this for people in shelters, sleeping outside, or those staying in hotels. We look forward to continuing our collaborative partnership with the city of Portland and many of the other organizations represented here tonight to ensure that everyone in our community is safe, fed, and well cared for. Thank you. Thanks for being here with us tonight, and next we go to Jenny Stasio. Good evening. My name is Jenny Stasio and I'm the Director of Operations at Through These Doors, which is the Domestic Violence Resource Center in Cumberland County. I want to thank the City Council for funding our project, the CDBG grant last year, to bring domestic violence services to the Bayside neighborhood, and to the Committee and the City Manager this year for recommending continuation funding. Our project to date has served 109 survivors of abuse. These survivors were provided with behavioral health services, emergency services to prevent homelessness, food assistance, housing startup services, and emergency shelter services. We found that the survivors of domestic violence accessing our community-based services in the Bayside neighborhood are among the most vulnerable that we serve. These survivors are experiencing a culmination of extreme poverty, homelessness, violence, mental health concerns, and substance use disorders. The services provided through this program are reaching survivors of abuse that we otherwise may not reach due to barriers to accessing services. By bringing our services and supports to the people most in need, we are helping to eliminate barriers to safety. We've seen many successes in the first year of our project and a resounding need for continued advocacy and support. We thank the Committee and the City Manager for recognizing this and for advocating for the continuation of our work. Thanks so much. Thank you too and thank you for your comment. Anybody else want to step forward in chambers with regard to Resolution 7 or on Zoom? Okay, I am going to close the public comment period on Resolution 7. I want to thank everybody who did step forward this evening and just remind others that you have another opportunity to weigh in on this issue that will be before the Council on April 10th for consideration. Well, the clerk, so we're heading into unfinished business. We're going to take three orders together. Will the clerk please read Order 147, 148, and I ask that we take 156, which is relevant to these two other orders. I'm suggesting we take that out of order and consider it together. So orders 147, 148, and 156 please. Order 147, 22, 23, authorizing general obligation bonds to finance a portion of the City's fiscal year 2024 capital improvement program in the amount not to exceed $17,455,000 sponsored by the Finance Committee, Mark Dion Chair. Order 148, 22, 23 appropriating bond proceeds and other funds in the amount not to exceed $24,530,000 for the City's fiscal year 2024 capital improvement program and 156 accepting and appropriating a $39,270 donation from the Reconstruction of the Baseball Court on Great Diamond Island sponsored by Daniel West Interim City Manager. Thank you. I think that's for basketball. Right. Yep. Great. Okay. Thank you so much. So what we'll do here is we've read all three orders. I'm going to look to Councillor Dyon to talk about all three orders. We'll act on them separately. So when we take your public comment, it'll be on any of the three or all, but we'll take our votes separately. So just spelling that out for folks, Councillor Dyon, I look to you as the chair of the Finance Committee to offer some comments here. Thank you. I'll try to be brief, Madam Mayor. But it's a little bit challenging to be brief with the significance in terms of the issues that a budget addresses. And this is the CIP budget. So I want to begin with just that simple observation. These particular orders deal with allocations that respond to the infrastructure of the city, whether it's equipment, vehicles, tools necessary for our city staff to accomplish the service expectations placed upon them by our residents and those who come to Portland for other reasons as well. So I'd like to bear in mind or at least suggest to you that a CIP budget is how we get the job done. It's not necessarily a programming budget where we're looking to move forward a particular social policy initiative. This is the hardware of government. This is what makes sure as the sidewalks are walkable and streets are plowed. In that light, I'd like to take a moment to publicly appreciate the efforts of Councilors Travaro and Zaro as members of the committee. Their insight commentary and their own diligence is reflected in these documents and will also be reflected in the overall operating budget as well. I'd like to thank the interim city manager, Daniel West, and our finance director, Brandon O'Connell. This is a voluminous body of data and request almost $50 million was submitted by departments looking to enhance their capacity to serve the citizens of Portland. We were only able to meet about $10.6 million of those requests, all of them legitimate for the committee working with senior staff, department directors, and the executive. We had to call that list down to something that's manageable in this budget cycle. Another point to make about a CIP budget for those who are here today and those watching from another locale is you want to consider infrastructure investments of this nature as a never-ending cycle. We review and get comfortable with what we call year one requests and the allocations that flow from that. But frankly, we also look out almost five years as to see where these investments will be realized. I mean, the investment though minor, probably in the grand scale of expenditures, but significant island residents has to do with recreational facilities. That's an important piece of how they define community and that was identified a couple of cycles ago and finally we've gotten to a place where their position in the prioritization schedule has succeeded in their funding. We're making significant investments in Congress Square, both in terms of the park as well as intersection redesign. We've met 100% of the requests in the school department having to address their capital needs as well. We're meeting challenges confronting the public library in terms of managing their HVAC issues. None of those are particularly great news stories, but it's actually what keeps the machine of government functioning. I think the CIP reflects a narrative that isn't always appreciated that there has been a lot of cooperation between the Board of Education, the COSU Pretendence Office, the executive and this council in trying to meet their financial needs so they can meet the mission of serving our children. Consistent with that as we've made appropriation recommendations in this body of requests to address parks, the resources they present for recreation and mental health for our citizens and their families. We're committed to long-term investment in the playgrounds that support schools. I don't know, that was the best part of me going to school was rec time, so I'm committed to that strategy for the long haul for children who may think as I do. I'm looking at my notes here and I have sometimes a tendency of speaking too long, so I'm going to try to limit that. I want you to also appreciate as tax payers that we spend meetings in the finance committee, the finance committee has private conversations among ourselves as to what those priorities are. The interim city managers made herself available throughout the process for conversations on specific items and where it fits in her fiscal landscape. Our finance director, I don't believe has any interest in sleeping because he has provided all the background material that we have needed in order to make an informed decision. This isn't a happenstance agreement to what the city managers propose. I think this has been well informed and well intentioned action by the committee and I hope it's ratified this evening by the council and I'll close with that madam mayors. I sincerely appreciate and I'm sure I'm speaking on behalf of my committee members. The voluntary participation by many members of the council as a whole. It's not incumbent on them to attend our meetings, but many have showed participated vigorously made their opinions known both in terms of what they thought was important for the city as a whole and specifically for their districts. So I want you to understand that what's presented here this evening, this 10.6 million is not the work of three of us, but three of us who receive and engage support and advice for many members of the city organization and among our peers here on the council. Thank you, madam mayor. Thank you very much, councillor Diane for that thorough summary of where we are this evening and the work that the finance committee has done and I also want to thank you very much for your leadership as chair of that committee. So again we have I was so enrapt in what you were saying that I lost my lost my spot on the agenda but I'm back. We are again at orders 147, 48 and 156. We've heard from our finance committee chair and at this point I'm going to be looking for public comment on all three items. So feel free to step forward in chambers, raise your hand on zoom, we'll toggle back and forth. Again, you can offer comment on the totality of the CIP budget or something specific. We'll start here in chambers with you Steven. Steven Scharf of Brackett Street in Portland. I'm a bit confused by the councillor's comment that this is a $10 million plan because it's actually $10 million in borrowing. The entire plan is $24 million. So his description of the $10 million plan is actually incorrect but the entire plan is $24 million. Some of it comes from other sources and that's why you know I have spoken for the last 20 years to the city needing to have a comprehensive committee to to review and create a capital improvement plan. It should not be on two staff members and three members of finance committee to review a plan and and present it to the entire body here. There should be a larger committee reviewing this stuff and coming up with a plan for what the city really needs to be doing and figuring out is this project really makes sense? Does this project not make sense? You know is it somebody's wish list who has a little power over here versus here? And so I would recommend the council really adopt that concept which I believe is in the city ordinance and embedded in the city ordinance. Some specific things on the plan that detail Congress Square redesign is listed $700,000 but there's some other couple hundred thousand dollars thrown in there where it says oh the rest of the money is somewhere else. Sort of weird how it was all worded there they're very complicated difficult to understand where the money's flowing. I would like to get a very specific before you prove this tonight I would like to get a very specific outline of what we are spending to rebuild the entire intersection of Congress Square and the park so this references Congress Square but is this 700 for the park or is it for the entire intersection and I think it's very important considering the problems the city went through last summer with the contractor who is absolutely incompetent and this city should never hire that contractor again. 30 second warning. The other issue things I just wanted to point out is there are two items for $200,000 for pickle ball courts. That's pretty expensive for pickle ball courts and they're just rebuilding other 140,000 of it is converting tennis courts in the pickle ball courts. Makes no sense we're spending that much money to do that. Longfellow and Lycea playgrounds are getting $450,000 and $80,000. That's time Stephen. Can I just have one minute? Go ahead. Those are in we we just put out a bond to rebuild those schools and part of that bond was supposed to be for the rebuilding of those playgrounds so I'm not sure why we're bonding you know why we're putting them into a separate plan to this additional stuff when it was already in the bond that we did for those schools. Thank you. And the last thing I want to speak to is the restroom pump truck. We spent we spent I'm going to have to ask you to wrap it up Stephen. We spent a ton of money building these restaurant restrooms around the city and no one figured out that we'd have to actually pump them out on a regular basis and now we're spending $140,000 for a pump truck which has no clue it provides no information as to how much it's going to cost to run that pump truck. Thank you so much. Next we'll hop over to zoom Ann Weber and you'll have to unmute yourself. My name is Ann Weber. I'm a year-round resident on Great Diamond Island and I am a member of the city island liaison committee and I would like to thank our district representative Anna Traverro as well as the finance committee for bringing the two projects we have in the in the CIP to this stage of funding and I ask on behalf of the committee that the full council approve this funding. Thank you. Thank you for your comment anybody else in chambers and if you would like to speak just go ahead and step forward. Hi thank you Mayor Snyder city manager full council and the finance committee. I'm C. J. Opethos I'm the executive director of the Friends of Congress Square Park like to obviously encourage the council to support the CIP funding for the Congress Square redesign. We get well over 30,000 park visits a year of all sorts of people it's truly a public space where we build community not just the space itself but through our programming we have hundreds of free events every season a lot of them you know actually encouraging people to get to know each other so it's very active community building space and really valuable to the city but as built it's not at its best it's pretty inaccessible as a space there's quite a lot of walls it's not as green as it could be there's not as much greener as it could be and this redesign would really alleviate a lot of those problems and help us do our work a lot better and build the community much better. I also brought some cards from some folks that use the park with their comments I'd like to share so the prompt is they support the Congress for redesign because it's a great space to be with the community and it's provided us with a space to connect and support local artists and makers it is all about community sharing and joy. We need a space that's for us the design helps build community expresses the art community and will make the space that much more welcoming and finally it's a great space to be with the community and it has provided us with a space to connect and support already read that one apologies. So on behalf of those folks who use the park and the organization again like to encourage the council to support the CIP funding for the Congress where we design thank you. Thank you very much for your comment I appreciate that and we do have another hand up on Zoom George Rowe. George Rowe Hanover Street the Great Diamond Island it's not appropriate to bundle that there was no notice in the agenda to do that as a combined item so I'm going to withhold any comments on that. You have gotten a couple of emails from me on this topic I just want to say that it's been probably the worst process I have ever seen the city charter specifically requires a five-year plan to be before the city council when they're deliberating on this and there has been no five-year assessment of anything either at the finance committee level or at this council level tonight that's a violation of the city charter mandate and that is actually one of the big things that the Charter Commission did in 2010 was to try and force this council to confront the fact that we have these enormous hundreds of millions of dollars of backlogs of projects and to try and think multi-year over five years at least and make those tough decisions and also realize the in your face the opportunity cost of handing your friends candy which is basically most of what happens in the CIP each year and I also want to point out that the audit that caused so much attention on the school side was very clear that there is no transparency about the project balances in the CIP funds there's dozens and dozens of accounts for all these projects that have been building up for years and you're basically right in this budget robbing paul to pay peter to the tune of over three million dollars but you're not telling us what projects were reduced cancelled or reallocated to allow us to be able to steal money from prior CIPs to do that there's no transparency there's a lot of things that you guys are happy with I mean our city manager and our district five councilor they they like to golf well we're spending money on the golf course so of course they're happy with that but in terms of actually moving policy forward in our city there's been virtually no justification and because somebody else got an extra minute I'm going to ask for an extra minute just to conclude my remarks but what happened here is on January 31st there was a meeting of the finance committee there was no public comment Andrew Zara wasn't even present for that meeting that the information for that meeting was published the day before and then literally a week later they voted on it with virtually no time for the public to even digest what was going on thank you that's not a process that is that is a snow job okay and I know that we're now in spring as of like two hours ago but that's a snow job and you ought to be ashamed that this is how you're conducting this business thank you for your comment anybody else in chambers who would like to offer comment this evening and if you if you're here and you're just go ahead and stand forward and I know that you're in line that would be great go ahead good evening I'm David LeCase I live at 80 high street I've been involved with the congress square redesign since 2013 when we first met with Jeff Levine who was the planning director at the time and Caitlyn Cameron the urban designer Jeff stated that projects such as this take at least 10 years those of us newbies to public projects were shocked and said how could something so simple take 10 years Caitlyn stated that we should not forget that this was a very unique project as the private sector rarely works jointly with the city on a city-owned project well here we are 10 years later the design and construction drawings actually took over seven years to complete with input from multiple organizations and individuals including wrt the parks department the department of public works the public arts committee Portland downtown the pma the friends of congress square park with your planning department leading at all i'm sure they will tell you that organizing and focusing this group was a bit like herding cats however last year the intersection rebuild was started and should be completed this year with the park and pma plaza scheduled for summer 2024 the congress square capital campaign committee has raised over a million dollars in private money and continues to fundraise for the project and sarah z sculpture this kind of private support for a public project is unprecedented in the city of Portland i expectually would like to thank this thank the city planning department and city staff who have invested hundreds of hours working on this project over the last 10 years i would also like to thank the city council and the city manager for their past and continued support for this amazing project it is incredibly exciting to see the completed project in sight thank you and as we say hope to see you in the square thank you very much for your comment others in chambers who would like to step forward to speak to any of these three items on the agenda i don't see any and no more hands up on zoom so i'm going to close public comment and come back to the agenda and like i said we'll be handling these um one at a time so i'm going to look for a motion from my colleagues to take up order 147 first so most second counselors are a counselor dion with a second from counselors aro and now we will open it up for council discussion council rodriguez i meant to look around and see if anyone wanted to go first but i am just in an early one of that's all right i'll i'll kick it off um i guess i'm gonna kind of pick up where some of the public comment um left us off um is there a five-year strategic plan for a cmp process is that a global five-year plan or does each department have their own strategic five-year plan there is a five-year plan bernand is bernand are you on the yes i see him he's ready to to speak to this issue earlier today i just wanted um with regard to the comments we had received some of these comments over the weekend so we did as staff walk through them uh have prepared responses and i did send the link to the council um for that five-year plan um we did discuss it with the finance committee as we always do and what's in front of you tonight is just that one year which we're asking you to allocate and authorize which is required so i think bernand can speak to that in a little bit more detail um and i would just add for the record that i'm a golfer but it's pretty terrible and i don't do it regularly but thank you mr roll for identifying that over here bernad i have answers to a couple of different questions that were raised but i'll start with uh just the cip charter requirements so we do bring the one-year cip and also the five-year list of requests and available funding to the finance committee each year i will say of the focus both from the public uh and from committees typically on that one-year cip because those are the actions that come in front of the city council the city council cannot bind future councils in regards to specific spending but we do try and bring the full picture of all the five-year requests some of our departments actually do maintain longer term plans and a parks and rec does attend the school department had a 20-year facility study done but we do try and keep the five-year plan updated and that does get presented to finance committee i'm posted on the city website i will say the five-year plan is typically brought directly to the committee and then we do some updates after 6 30 when they audited financials and audited financial information comes out does get posted around june on the formal report but that represents the final city council approved cip which may include amendments to the city manager's recommendations which are brought forward to the finance committee in the winter so you can find those reports not only on the finance committee page but there's a capital improvement plan page as well and the five-year cip is posted to the backup of the committee pages that's the other the other question i haven't answered for prepared i don't know if anyone else wanted to bring it up was the congress square total dollars i want to get that well i'm talking about ahead yep and then we'll head back to you so uh the total uh square park project is 3.3 million dollars the city has provided 1.65 million dollars of funding to date and the friends of congress square park have come up with 950 000 to date and there's a remaining delta of 700 000 in next year's cip and this year's cip is proposing 700 000 for the park there's also an intersection project and that is a 2.6 million dollar contract slightly higher than the original estimate due in part to some of the delays on the project and that's why there's an additional 200 000 dollars in this year's capital improvement plan for that intersection to get us to the 2.6 million dollar total with 1 million funded via the state department of transportation so only 1.6 local thank you very much brennan for that and we're back to you councillor rodriguez thank you men and always very hopeful i i was aware of the school's long term i'm in cip plan because i was involved oh i was serving when the enrollment facility studies came out and you know as it was mentioned earlier today that big um uh you know improvements to the four elementary schools um was part of a whole bunch of you know delayed maintenance and lack of so i know that there was a lot of effort on their part and i i knew that the other departments had a similar long term strategy but it's good to bring it out here and discuss it um i didn't have anything other specific but i did want to just express gratitude to brennan he helped me um by sharing a whole bunch of information about riverside golf course um particularly looking at literally the pnl to see exactly how money flows through that um operation and you know and taking into account both benefit expenses and the uh debt service from the cip investments that have happened there over time and with all that into account it is still a significant revenue producing or operation for the city where it's putting back into the operating uh operation budget um almost half a million dollars every year um and again it's it's the improvements that we're putting into the facility are actually going to help facilitate even more of that revenue producing because it's going to help operations um as well so i i totally see how that um you know could be perceived by the community as you know us spending money on a golf course i think that nothing looks nothing sounds more privileged than that but when i look at how it returns money to our operating budget that is you know deeply in need of more revenue sources um i see as that's a you know an investment worth making and it has been over the years um for the record i only go out into the year riverside golf course to go sledding with my kid and my kid's 14 so that doesn't even happen anymore so i don't even use the facility um i think that's all i have for now thank you thank you counselor other questions discussion from the counselor council dion thank you i i'm overjoyed of the thought that somebody would put the words golf and my name in the same sentence i labor with a fantasy that one day when i get to the course they'll ask me not to leave they have a job for me specifically trying to prove to the rest of the world that i'm as great as i think i am in my mind so it's likely that'll never happen but it's a wonderful dream i only wanted the microphone for a moment madame because i do want to respond to mr scharf i want to thank him for correcting the record um maybe he'll agree with me or not but in my mind throughout the cip i focus on how much we have to borrow because in my mind it's how much do we get to pay back so the number i referred to as the cip budget was incorrectly stated by myself and i just want to put that out there another piece of evidence that i'm human but thank you steven for correcting the record for those that were watching because i i have confidence in the conversations i've had through the process with the manager's office as well as our finance director that there was adequate funds from other sources that would underwrite the expenses that are outlined in the cip budget but to me the cip bonding process is akin to using a government's equivalent of a credit card so that's something i try to pay attention to because most credit cards that i've met demand payment at some time so thank you madam mayor thank you mr scharf thank you councillor dion other discussion from the council um i i'm going to be happy to support these orders this this evening and i did want to just circle back and say that um the five-year plan is something that's required in our charter and i think it's something that we're all very mindful of and so we get that opportunity to look at with the five-year plan and then recognize that each year is calibrated based on how needs get prioritized over the course of any given year and that can happen because an hvac system goes down or a any number of systems fail or we've made a decision to you know increase investments in sidewalk plowing capacity so i think the five-year plan is really important it's the place where we can flag things and being nimble in the annual review of the cip of course is um critical as well and um so uh so just wanted to say that i have i have every confidence that we're all very aware of that and kind of bugging the manager all year long about what's coming up is this going to be able to be realized this coming year if not why so you know the more discussion the better throughout the year it's not the needs in in a city like portland um don't get looked at once and then we turn our attention away for the next 11 months or 10 months we we contemplate them all the time and um try to try to balance it as well um because it is kind of the workforce investments some of them are just we have to make them and others of them may be investments in park facilities and um recreation and and um and those are important too to a community so um i did also i just wanted to follow up um on the congress square um question i know it's something that is um valued by our community and um we've made significant investment in this um this both the park and the intersection and so as folks in the community have asked me about that um and the city's commitment um it's true that we um you know we've made as as was mentioned um before by our finance director we've made significant investments both as a city but also as a um a friends group which is such a an incredible value that we've got in the city of portland when people come um to our parks and fundraise and do work to support those spaces that are used for so many things so thank you to uh those of you who are here tonight who i know work really hard to bring assets to bear um brendan just a clarifying question for me there's seven hundred thousand in the order that we're looking at tonight uh for the congress square redesign in your explanation a little bit earlier were you saying that we would see that number again next year or when you said next year did you mean f y 24 uh so there's another seven hundred thousand dollars in our five-year cip in next year's cip budget okay thanks for the clarification we don't guarantee future funding but no because we've committed so much to data that's likely going to be in the list of recommendations okay thank you i just wanted clarification there for future councils and um and that recognition that the the long term planning that's been done as was mentioned before the 10 year um plan and working together is um you know it does stretch over time and over years so that's all for my questions other discussion or questions from councillors councillor Phillips i was really trying not to bring this up tonight because um it just well once you hear it um i'm really concerned about the clock at congress grill park isn't that the park that we're talking about and i mean i it seems silly but for me being from portland um and having the um um the what is it called the railroad you know the building on st john street having that be demolished and not having that in our history um it's something seriously i don't struggle with it every day um but i do think about it because it could have been a serious monument um and we we tore that down and so now i'm in total support of the congress square park and what we need to do to revitalize it but i don't want us to just take this clock and put it somewhere because we don't know where else to put it um because that to me is also part of congress grill park um and i just wasn't going to bring it up because it doesn't seem like it's that big of a deal because it's just a clock um but for me being from portland it really does have some significance for me in the city so i don't know what we can do with the clock i know that i trust the friends of congress grill park to work with the developer to figure out where it goes or whatever um and i just i just don't want us to put it somewhere and leave it because it does hold some significance and history some serious history in the city thank you for your comment i was just going to speak to that council phillips that's very much on staff's mind i know kathy alva as our facilities director is very focused on that and so we've been talking about ways in which to make sure that that's preserved and where to put that so it it's very much on our radar screen so i appreciate that comment okay any other discussion on order 147 which is before the council for a vote councillor fornir thank you just a quick question uh for brendan and also a lot of gratitude to my colleagues um i'm no longer on the finance committee i've moved over health and human services and public safety but it is a ton of work so thank you so much for showing up and doing that um just relative to the congress square park i i would be remiss if i didn't say something because i just keep hearing these numbers and number one i'm wondering have we spent this much on any of the other parks in our city this is a very specific square in the middle of the city and i'm thinking we've had so many different discussions about equity in parks and now we're spending millions of dollars on one park when we've been fighting about getting parks in other spaces and so my question and i don't know if brendan has this for this evening but have we spent this much on any other park and knowing that there's still another $700,000 to go and when we just had our our budget meeting last week and we're talking about struggling in so many other areas it just for me it's very hard to just not say anything when we are saying we're committed to equity we're committed to housing we're committed to health um and public health for our community this just does not feel like an equitable investment to me so um i appreciate that there has been a ton of engagement with the community to try and get these funds um to make this happen that doesn't to me mean that we we should be on the hook for the rest of it um and so i'll i'll leave it with that but that's my question thank you thank you for the question brendan can you offer any insights there so in recent history we have not funded parks any specific park at that level i think you know when you look at some of the larger parks where there's multiple things like ball fields a playground tennis courts uh we might be approaching that over a much longer period of time but certainly uh nowhere close to that level of investment at one park uh in a single or even over a few cip years thank you councillor ali um thank you mayor uh i want to thank uh staff and my everybody's comments uh i just want to uh say a few things i wasn't going to say anything but i don't know if that will be helpful to some of the comments my colleague made about uh equitable i think uh um uh on to recently i walk everywhere and sometimes i take the bus or councillor rodriguez gives me a ride but i i think in all the parks that we have in portland i think uh with the exception of the a the east and waterfront the congress square park is a place that i've seen uh many different people from different parts of the city of portland i've gone to uh even though i don't know how to dance i've gone to uh latinx dance uh there i've been there with uh immigrant groups i've been there on uh juneteenth i've been there for several things i one of the young people that i work with who have moved on uh he went to college to learn how to make movies his first uh movie festival was at the park i think he called it a movie at the park so i think it's a very valuable uh part of our city where people from different backgrounds gather so i appreciate those who put the work in and councillor councillor thank you for your comment thank you councillor ali any other discussion before we act councillor dion i i totally respect uh councillor forenears assertions and descriptions of her concern i smile meekly at councillor philips notion that of course she's from portland which must make me from away um i arrived here in 1972 and for those of us here or watching congress square was the center of all the disarray and disorder of the city so i for one have sat back and watched a decades evolution of that space to where i think one day it'll be known as an anchor point for portland as a hub for how we define ourselves as a community and then on a more practical level i just want to get it done i want to get money allocated so that we see it done and the critique that we receive from the public today about the contractor and otherwise i'm not going to dispute that i think that's more factual than i'd like to embrace but the bottom line is sometimes we just need to get it done and that's why i endorsed it in my role on this committee and i hope to see it through with the appropriate votes this evening and in the future thank you madam mayor thank you councillor dion and i think that um you know as my i i asked my question because i wanted to just be clear what are we doing tonight what may come before a future council so we do have one um one action on that well we have we have the whole body of work before us tonight so um councillor travaro i'm sorry if i've left you hanging um sometimes i i'm not as focused on zoom as i as i should be but there you are oh you haven't i just raised my hand so thank you i just wanted to briefly weigh in i think councillor dion gave a thorough introduction to this item in the beginning and so i just wanted to kind of echo those sentiments and that i will be supporting it in whole this evening i think that staff as they always do has done a fantastic job this year in going through all the needs and being able to um put together a list of what we can meet this year and um what will best serve our community oh my um he's doing that funky thing again it was doing that the other night so i'm just going to stop my video um but uh i also wanted to say with regard to congress square i i said this during the finance committee discussions i lived up there for a period of time i think i moved there in late 2007 and so i kind of followed this um from you know many you know that long ago and there were early designs for the park even before um the design that we currently have there was a contest at one point and you know the idea was that at the time it was an underutilized public space and the thought was that it was underutilized because of its recessed design and so there was a need to kind of um bring it back to life and have it be a space for people in that area to come and um people were very excited about it and um it was one of those many things that um got put out there to the public and just never really materialized um so i am excited that after all this time it finally is coming to fruition and i i do see it as um as value added to a diverse socioeconomically diverse community that lives up there there are several dense um low-income housing buildings in that area and um this offers a public space just steps outside of their door so um i am excited i do understand the concerns raised just about the kind of large sum of money um all allocated in one place but um at the same time for this i i am really excited to see it go forward so i'll be supporting that as well as the entire package tonight thank you thank you councillor other discussion before we move to a vote on order 147 i think we're ready to go ahead and do that councillor fornier yes councillor pratt-riguez yes councillor dion yes councillor ali yay councillor zaro yes councillor travaro yes councillor pelatier yes councillor phillips yes mayor snitter yes order 147 passes unanimously and next i'm looking for a motion to approve order 148 so moved councillor dion with a second from councillor ratriguez is there any council discussion on order 148 okay i don't see any we'll go ahead and vote councillor fornier yes councillor ratriguez yes councillor dion yes councillor ali yes councillor zaro yes councillor travaro yes councillor pelatier yes councillor phillips yes mayor snitter yes order 148 also passes unanimously and lastly in this um package of three i'm looking for a motion to um approve order 156 council ratriguez with a second from councillor fornier any discussion on order 156 okay we'll go ahead and vote councillor fornier yes councillor ratriguez yes councillor dion yes councillor ali councillor zaro yes councillor travaro yes councillor pelatier yes councillor phillips yes mayor snitter yes order 156 passes unanimously thank you everybody and so many thanks to city staff our interim city manager and director of finance in particular but i know all levels of staff and across all departments are working on this so many many thanks to city of portland staff to help get us here tonight will the clerk please read order 149 order 149 22 23 amendment to zoning map regarding imb dash b industrial moderate impact on industrial way sponsored by the planning board maggie stanley chair great and i think we've got the chair of the planning board here with us maggie stanley do you want to offer some comments heading into this order this evening hi yes thank you um good evening i'm pleased to present that on january 24 2023 the planning board voted six to one silk was opposed to recommend the city council adoption of 50 industrial way llcs proposed zoning map amendment that would change 50 industrial way and eight adjacent parcels from an im industrial moderate impact zone to an imb industrial moderate impact zone yep in its review of the application the planning board found that the zoning map amendment to the imb to be consistent with many of the shared goals and objectives expressed in the comprehensive plan including promoting an economic climate that increases job opportunities and economic well-being valuing and nurturing portland-based businesses and supporting industries with high growth slash high value potential creating an economic prosperity by growing portland's tax and employment base and supporting economic vitality by ensuring the efficient movement of goods services and people the board felt that the imb is an appropriate zone for the subject area and would add appropriate density and bulk to lots that are currently built out with industrial buildings allowing for future expansions or enlargements of existing businesses over the course of the review the board requested the planning staff consider expanding the imb zone to encompass more lots than originally proposed however after staff analysis and further board deliberation concerning the existing built contacts impervious surface ratios and geography of the dolebrook urban impaired stream watershed the board ultimately agreed that the imb zone should be expanded to encompass adjacent smaller more intensely develop lots and to exclude the larger lot which could still be which could still expand on the existing imb zone in conclusion the planning board voted six one to recommend the city council adoption of 15 industrial way llc's proposed zoning map amendment thank you and i think um christine dramano and kevin crafter also here excellent thank you so much so all three of you are here uh for questions that may arise but um at this moment with that um summary presentation offered from the chair of the planning board i'd like to see if there's any public comment on order 149 okay i don't see anybody stepping forward in chambers but i do have a few hands up on zoom so we'll first go to kylie mason uh good evening thank you madam mayor city council members and city staff my name's kylie mason from spago techniques i represent the alligash application uh that that began this process i just wanted to state that we've been very appreciative working with the city staff they've been uh phenomenal to work with and advancing the application additionally our time with the planning board was um very productive uh and we really appreciate their support this approval for the amendment will enable alligash and other landowners to improve their developments uh for the next decade at least and it's a very important expansion potential for alligash uh and strengthens their ties with community importance so thank you for the opportunity thank you for your comment anyone in chambers want to step forward to offer comment on this order 149 seeing none i'll head back to zoom shawn difley good evening mayor schneider city council and members of city staff my name is shawn difley i'm the engineer and director at alligash prune company i'd like to back up kylie's comments and just offer a quick word of appreciation to the planning board and city planning staff for helping us get it at this amendment put forward here today as kylie mentioned the passing of this amendment will allow us at alligash to continue to grow here in the city of portland thank you again thank you for your comment anybody in chambers we'll head over to zoom again where we've got george roe george roe uh west base side just wanted to highlight as along with my public comment that i submitted this is exactly why uh zoning is such a terrible thing in our american society you'll all remember that alligash played a key role in helping the city purchase some land next to the riverton trolley park and one of the big reasons that that was never considered for housing in any serious way by our city and our council and our planning department is that it would have required a probably would have required a rezoning to build enough housing on that site to be feasible for especially for like an avesta uh you know affordable housing developer and you know oh my god rezoning that's like so hard to do like how can we even consider that like that's like not something that you know we're ready to do but alligash just a few months later knocks on your door and is like hey i need to rezone this you know this factory where we make our beer even though we're moving to scarborough and our flagships going to be over there we still definitely don't want to move our manufacturing right away so you're like okay let's do it and so you do it and that's it that's it and the problem is you have to like cover your tracks so instead of it being a spot zoning you have to throw in a few other neighboring properties so it doesn't look like you're just doing a special favor for alligash so but then you get called on that and so you're embarrassed so you add a couple of extra ones but then you realize that this is supposed to be like a special area of like wetlands you know protection because of the brisum scott river and dole brook so then you make sure that a lot of small industrial properties literally just like a few doors down don't get the same benefit that alligash does because you're supposedly worried about wetlands well long story short this is exactly how zoning especially exclusionary zoning in america works and you guys do it you're the ones who make you grease the wheels you're the ones who actually make this happen and the powerful get what they need even if it's kind of expensive and annoying and it takes longer than it should but 30 second warning everybody else who doesn't have the money doesn't have the power doesn't have the connections they get shut out they sleep on a tent on a sidewalk or in a public park before the police come and kick them out they move to windham they move to florida um if they don't get a lottery ticket through the subsidized housing waitlist they just go somewhere else some of them even go to canada that's america and you guys are the ones guarding the system thank you for your comment any other public comment on order 149 okay i don't see any so i'll close public comment i'm going to come back to the council for a motion please move passage second councillor fornier with a second from councillor zaro and i would like to remind folks that we do have resources we have people here from both the planning committee and the planning board so uh if there's any questions during council discussion we definitely have the opportunity to have questions answered any discussion i don't see any i think we're ready to go ahead and vote on order 149 councillor fornier yes councillor bradbergas yes councillor dion yes councillor ali yes councillor zaro yes councillor travaro yes councillor pilateer yes councillor phillips yes mayor snider yes order 149 passes unanimously and we will move on in our agenda to the orders section will the clerk please read order 154 order 154 22 23 proving the home american rescue plan allocation plan sponsored by the housing and economic development committee councillor payas ali chair and i'll head over to councillor ali who is the chair of that committee for uh some context here thank you mayor um i think this is something that the housing committee does once every year and uh mary might be somewhere out there on virtually to speak to it she's actually right oh she's here and oh mary over to you mary thanks for being here mary thank you good evening councillors and mary davis the interim director of the city's housing and economic development department um councillor ali made reference to a program that you're probably familiar with our home program which we receive funding from the u.s department of urban development every year um this is slightly different from that um through the american rescue plan act um funding was allocated to the u.s department of housing and urban development for this particular program called home arp um entitlement jurisdictions like the city of portland where we're given an allocation um of this funding and there are very specific um rules qualifying populations eligible activities that were associated with this funding um very different from our usual home program i would also note that because we are part of the cumberland county home consortium this funding is um available for projects throughout cumberland county and we worked very closely with the cumberland county community development staff to um create this plan um as i said uh the home arp funding is very different from the regular home program and there were a lot of different requirements as far as um outreach and collaboration in order to create the plan that's in front of you so we had meetings very specifically um with social service providers um other interested community members we participated in um outreach meetings that main housing held with um the coc statewide social service providers housing developers um so there was a very robust outreach program for creating this plan um the city received uh just under 3.6 million i should stop saying city the cumberland county home consortium received just under 3.6 million um in collaboration with the county um we um are recommending that the funding um not use the allocation formula that was within our um home program but that we make this funding available countywide um so that we can hopefully facilitate greater impacts um very specific populations are eligible for this funding the funding is to be used to address the need for homelessness assistance and supportive services um it can be used in a variety of different ways um to develop in support of affordable housing tenant based rental assistance provision of supportive services and acquisition and development of non congregate shelter units the qualifying individuals or families that are eligible for this assistance are homeless um as is defined under the mckinney vento homeless assistance act um families or individuals at risk of homelessness um fleeing or attempting to flee domestic violence um and parts uh and or are part of other populations we're providing supportive services or assistance would prevent a family's homelessness or would serve those with the greatest risk of housing instability in addition um the last qualifying population is veterans and families that include a veteran um so in our plan we took those four eligible areas or types of activities um and we made some recommendations about what we thought based on the community input that we received what would be the best use of those funds um so the plan before you um is recommending uh funding in the supportive service supportive services category um of 763,755 um acquisition and development of non congregate shelters for 250,000 and development of affordable rental housing at just over two million dollars again um the plan isn't recommending specific projects it's recommending funding in these categories and um the cumberland county commissioners have approved the plan once um it's approved here at the city it'll be submitted to HUD once HUD approves the plan we intend to release um request for proposals um for the use of the funding happy to answer any questions thank you very much for that um that summary Mary it's really thorough we appreciate you being here before I go to the council for discussion and questions I'd like to take public comment on order 154 anybody in chambers who would like to step forward um and I think George I see George Rowe on zoom it might be his third great okay just just wanted to make sure that you knew uh George but go ahead uh George Rowe west base side um just wanted to highlight um you know two-thirds of this money is uh likely to go towards uh potential housing development opportunities and uh just wanted to make it clear that um you know there's very few actual places where this kind of development can occur in cumberland county um you know community after community have really shut down uh either through uh a short-term oratorium or you know some some version of of basically zoning out poor people um they have made it virtually impossible for this money to really be put to much good use in in the short term and that is you know that's the reality so you know it's a shame that I mean if you actually scroll through this and if somebody actually took the time to actually open the the uh the backup material there's just an enormously long you know bureaucratic uh slug of of paper uh exhaustively talking about all of the work uh and it was busy work that went into creating this quote-unquote plan and it really comes down to at the end of the day uh whether middle class and mostly upper middle class people in cumberland county are going to allow more neighbors near them and the answer is no uh you've shown this council has shown it I mean supposedly the most diverse most progressive city council um in uh in the city's history um and you're deathly afraid of making uh any move that upsets the neighbors whether it's a music festival or a shelter or affordable housing uh you know complex um we literally are scheduling a quote-unquote celebration for the opening of a 208 bed homeless shelter on the outskirts of our city next to a suburban propane distribution tank farm next to a scrap metal yard next to a waste management dumpster facility next to a tree cutting uh uh shipping yard that's not a celebration that's a complete and total failure 30 second warning of everything that people in this city claim to be champions of it's exclusion it's I don't care who you are just don't get close to me and you're not allowed to live near me if I think you're going to bother me and the solution is right now to hand over most of Bayside to poor properties which is fine well Bayside's always been welcoming to your comment George but that's where we're at any other public comment on order 154 okay oops not on zoom either okay I'm going to close public comment come back to the council for a motion please so moved second councillor Rodriguez with a second from I believe it was councillor Zorro I hope I got that right okay okay and now we have the opportunity to have some council discussion if there are any questions director Davis is here any questions comments discussion I will happily be supporting this this evening I think that the it is a long memo in the in the backup um I think it's 40 some pages but lots of times that's what's required when there's government that not only city government but working together with county government in response to a federal program so thank you for that that work and making our way through there is really informative and I would say that the home the home American rescue plan out allocation plan aligns perfectly with the council's goals and it's not just as Mary said it's not just focused on the city of Portland it's focused on Cumberland County and I think that's that's good and meaningful work when we think about making investments in and housing in response to homelessness so happy to support this tonight I see no hands up for my colleague so we'll go ahead and vote councilor fornier yes council Rodriguez yes councilor Dion yes councilor Ali yes council Zorro yes councilor Trevorrow yes councilor Palatier yes councilor Phillips yes mayor Snyder yes order 154 passes unanimously we're going to take um order 155 but I did want to just note that um we're going to take a little bit of a break uh after 155 and before we head into the public hearing uh period associated with order 157 and the work that that will entail I just want to give we didn't have any turnaround time between executive session and the council meeting so I want to give people a chance to stretch their legs um after this and then we'll come back so will the clerk please read order 155 order 155 22 23 approving the rules of the rent board sponsored by daniel west interim city manager thank you and I'll go to you daniel I'm not sure if the chair ali at simpson is he available oh there he is I didn't know if you had uh some comments you wanted to provide on these rules specifically prior to uh public comment yeah so we prepared rules uh the new ordinance that was passed in November 2022 required city council approval of some of our rules procedures and forms that are used so that's what is before the council this evening the rules of the rent board which is how we the board operates the new maintenance and net operating income uh worksheet which is the basis of the new ordinance for evaluating rent increases and I'm happy to answer any questions then thank you and I would just note also that um we're requesting that this be passed as an emergency um that's due to the fact that uh these need to be passed immediately so that they can go into effect prior to I think it's um the deadline's coming right up what is it michael you march quoted me at martin so we need to get that in place as soon as possible great um thank you so much um chair simpson for being here with us this evening we appreciate you being available for questions um and so before I look to the council for a motion and some discussion here we'll see if there's any public comment on order 155 in front of the council this evening hello uh my name is buddy more I live uh at 95 welch street I just want to speak in favor of the maintenance of net operating income methodology that the rent board is proposing it is the gold standard for determining a fair return for landlords under almost every rent stabilization ordinance in the country um and the board has worked really hard on this um and I just want to offer my support for it thank you thank you for your comment we'll go to matt walker who's on zoom uh hello I'm matt walker I live at 655 congress street um I also just want to say that I think the mny is a good thing for the rent board to be doing so I'm really glad that this is getting done and I want to thank the city manager for getting this through as an emergency order on time uh and just the last thing I want to say is thanks to the rent board it's a ton of work and I see all the effort you all put into it and I recognize they don't appreciate you so thank you thank you for your comment anybody else who would like to speak to order 155 okay seeing none I'll close public comment on order 155 and come back to the council for a motion please move to pass it's an emergency second well done counselor Rodriguez I appreciate the inclusive language with the emergency passage and counselors are with the second is there any discussion before I say oh oh sorry sorry sorry hold on let's go back um thank you thank you well done any discussion from the council on order 155 counselor dion thank you um I appreciate the work the rent board did thank you I actually read the rules I read the ordinance more than once over the weekend and then I took a look at the uh MNOI I guess this is a future for accounts and lawyers okay it's pretty detailed and I think it may be an appropriate instrument for assessing what some would refer to as corporate landlords I think they should be subjected to that kind of scrutiny I don't have a problem with that but my only comment to the board is consideration much like the IRS did you know there was the old 1040 then they developed the 1040 easy that people could understand I mean I read this over a couple of times because I wasn't really clear what was being asked of me so I think for landlords won't a couple of buildings they're not really big business they've made investments over a couple of decades this could be pretty challenging all right so I I'm going to vote for it so we can move the process along so that you can exercise your responsibilities as a rent board but sincerely trust me there are folks that are going to be intimidated by that instrument and they might it might not be so for those who are landlords actually have legal counsel on retainer that'll just be a billable experience for them but for a loss of a lot of land persons that I know especially if they're getting on in their years this is going to be really tough so I just want to put that on the record it's it's real important to me thank you thank you counsel Diane I think Chair Simpson if you wouldn't mind stepping forward I was you know I'm looking at what's in our packet and it's a significant amount of information that you're asking for from landlord so what degree of help do you have to offer people who might have you know a few units and would need help filling out this form I think the council is concerned is one that I have expressed and I think other members of the board have expressed with the way that the ordinance was written the maintenance and operating income refers to a pretty specific methodology and you know based on conversations we've had with the corporation council's office this seems to be you look at a lot of other cities there are no simplified versions that don't take into consideration so many factors based on the research I've done there are cities that their ordinances are written that allow for certain simplifications for small landlords or for increases under a certain percentage unfortunately with the way that this new ordinance is written we don't believe that we have that uh flexibility to alter that maintenance and that operating income methodology that is called for in the ordinance if so I mean I personally would support having a simplified but I think just giving given the way that the ordinance is written our hands are somewhat tied there in regard to help the housing safety office is doing the best that they can to support the rent board and reviewing these applications I'm hoping that after we get a few that maybe we can revise the application to still be in compliance with the ordinance but simplify as much as possible one of the well-known downsides of the maintenance and operating income methodology is the complexity and time-consuming nature of it and to say that it is a you know necessitates accountants and lawyers is very much the case in a lot of uh localities that have these sorts of uh methodologies in place so yeah it's not a simple methodology thank you I appreciate that council dion thank you mr chair I appreciate your candor in assessing that instrument and I would like to pose a question to corporation council are we to understand that the chair's analysis of our inability to modify that form is correct the uh the language in the new um uh the the recent changes to the to the rent control ordinance um do have pretty specific requirements about this particular form of analysis the mnoi analysis um and they also state that the board has to adopt rules that are as as the chair said um that are essentially I'm just looking at the language similar to the to what other towns have done that have similar ordinances um they haven't tried to reinvent the wheel here um but that that form was reviewed and approved by the by the board it's consistent with the language in the new ordinance which was approved at the by referendum last fall um and it unfortunately says what it says uh whether or not there's some flexibility down the road to create a simpler form I don't know that that it I don't know that it's going to simplify the methodology the form is complicated because the methodology is complicated and I think that the I think that the form um and correct me if I'm wrong chair but I don't you guys didn't create this from scratch it was a form borrowed from another jurisdiction which is what the which is what the language in the new ordinance uh advises the board to do it Michael you this is subject to the five-year rule right so the council couldn't amend that ordinance provision to change the requirement correct it's subject to the five-year rule and yeah won't can't be changed unless um unless it was to go back out uh for a vote well thank you I appreciate that and the reason I asked and his his explanation is very clear when I first started reading this I said I'm going to go to council and move for division I was going to tear off the form rule and see if we could modify it because I think there's a whole class of landlords that are ill served by this or at least could be intimidated by doing it correctly that I thought it was worth exploring but the more that I read it I came to the conclusion I have to live with it that's why I was posing it to the chair as to whether or not he could take action with his body to at least provide an alternative form that would arrive at somewhat similar outcomes in terms of reliability to assess what I guess the base rent would be and other such factors I mean I I guess I would say at you know at some point down the road I know that the you know the board is under uh significant time constraints to get these rules done there wasn't a lot of time between the effective date of the the new ordinance and when these rules had to be in place whether or not there's some ability to come back and get approval for you know another form in the future as long as it's consistent with the language in the in the ordinance that would be fine but changing the ordinance itself as the city manager said is would require not only action by by the council but also a vote of the or an election of the voters thank you corporation council thank you mr chair thank you madam mayor thank you councillor councillor Rodriguez thank you mayor um I want to I want to just kind of speak a little bit of what councillor Dunn just said um you know from 10 from the 1040 to 1040 you see and then if I could add another layer then there's turbo tax right which completely changes the way that questions are framed and it's supposed to be helpful but it's really not turbo especially if you're running a business and you have difficulty in figuring out your expenses so I do believe that efforts to simplify complex applications such as tax preparation documents is not necessarily um as effective as as as we think it is um and I'm saying that just from my experience of when I've had to file my taxes and as I include my my overhead expenses and costs of good souls for my business I've you know I've I prefer to go straight to my schedule c form instead of going to turbo tax it's just the government has actually made that simpler um so to speak to the application itself I agree that it it seems to be asking for a significant amount of information however as with any business having a solid understanding of how you're operating expenses um are breaking down is ultimately how you're going to stay in business so businesses that tend to not do well um when we look at their numbers often we see a poor calculation of operating expenses which makes them then have to artificially or you know inflate their overall prices because they're trying to chase this li