know that there are several other bullet points on that memo and and lots that I think we should consider. So that's just me kind of jumping in and and moving away from the signature conversation itself. That's just where I'm at. But happy to to follow the majority of the council at this point, if we want to just say enough of this conversation. Thanks. OK, thanks, councillor Zaro. Councilor Rodriguez. I thought there was somebody ahead of me. Maybe not.  I guess similar to what Andrew just said, I I'm not necessarily seeing our work here as disenfranchising. I actually have been looking at this as from the perspective of what is good policymaking process because and later on when we get into the the allotted time that needs to take place before the council can amend the policy, I think we'll get more into the substance of that discussion because ultimately what we're seeing is the impact of policies that have not had a thorough process that then we can not like change having, you know, a much more undemocratic impact because then it locks the elected body into inaction.  And you're like, well, we literally cannot. So as I look at it from a policymaking perspective, I think that that is the way to have this conversation be constructive. When we start to talk about who we're disenfranchising, I think that inevitably I'm going to keep up like 100, which we're going to have to talk about who's been putting the referendums up and how disenfranchised they truly are when, you know, when we accumulate the number of signatures that they've had to collect in one election cycle and it's upwards of like 7000 plus. So clearly the the the ability exists out there for constituents to put things in about it and collect signatures. So again, my my interest in in doing this work is because of the what I want to have established is sound policymaking processes that ultimately achieve the outcomes that everyone in this community is looking to achieve, which is equitable outcomes for all of our citizens and being locked in into policy that no one had input for five years. It just puts us so far away from that goal. Thank you, Councilor Rodriguez.  I just want to check in with you before we. Well, I want to say something, but God, Councilor Zahro and Councilor Rodriguez covered it so well that I'm just in the echo chamber now. So I agree with both their observations. You know, we need to look at this and we should go through the memo and give feedback accordingly. Thank you. No kidding. Councilor Palatier. Thank you. Yeah, it's interesting in these workshops because I feel like I've heard like we can't debate, but it feels like that's what we're doing. But I mean, there was a there was a call for feedback. So I gave my feedback on what we're talking about. I'm more than happy to go through the rest of the bullet points. I'm not saying we're shutting down the conversation. My feedback was pretty clear on I think that 1500 signatures is a significant amount. And I also think if we are going to do this, which I'll repeat myself, if we are going to do this, then we need to move forward with having conversations with stakeholders. We need to move forward with having conversations with community members who have put this on the ballot. And I stand by what I had mentioned in terms of people feeling disenfranchised by local government as somebody that felt disenfranchised by local government, who is now here in this environment. So again, I'm not shutting down the conversation. I'm very happy for us to go through it and go through the bullet points. I think it's very helpful. But I do think I don't want us to be rushing through this process if we are going to do it. I don't think that it's necessary for us to immediately go into a first read into a second read and then perhaps put it forward with the June election or the November election. So I just wanted to clarify my point on that as everyone is kind of sharing their feedback and that was my feedback. Thank you. OK, thank you. OK, so it sounds like there is is an interest in continuing to go through the memo. I haven't heard from everybody about the change that is before us with regard to the signature collection. Honestly, it based on my note taking it sounds a little split. So I'm not sure exactly what to do with that, but we can continue to make our way down through the memo. Counselor Ali. Thank you, Mayor.  Yeah, leave it there, please. I will say that. I hear just a second. Let's someone go, please. Give him a minute. Sorry about that. Yeah, I'm going to say that I got into here with the idea of. Increasing the signatures that we need to collect. But I have heard my colleagues saying that 1500 is enough. I'm not saying I'm agreeing, but I said I've heard them. What I would love to see us do is one way or the other. Balance what we hear from the community, from the people that we represent. Like many of you, I have had people, I've had phone calls, we've had emails like you guys are tying your hands and you making things difficult because I think at last council meeting we had a conversation about competing measures. And why did we have that? Why did the long laws brought forward collector signatures and want to amend something that was put in place? We had the same infotainment protection, I think, in 2020 or so. And then there was something wrong with it. And the council was not able to do anything about it. So there need to be another collection of signatures. And then it's going to be a cycle. So even if I'm not changing the numbers, I want to make sure that the council is able to work on something if voters pass something and unintended consequences happens because we all know whether it is a citizen's initiative or we on the council pass a policy or something. Sometimes you pass a policy and then you realize that, oops, maybe I was fasting like pious. So when I was proposing this, I didn't see what is going to happen ahead of time. Let me amend it and we can amend it. However, what we are right now what we have in the books, it's not going to be easy to amend anything also after five years when the citizens of the city have voted on it. So if we don't do anything at all, for me, I would love to have a conversation on how do we make it easy? Let's let people, let's give the citizens, I don't want to take anybody's, I don't want to disenfranchise anyone, but I want to make sure that the process is also equitable to all so that if something is passed by citizens, the council, because we are the body of an elected body, a body that have been elected by the members of this community, who have given us the authority to make policies. And if policies are not good, be able to amend those policies. So I don't want to take that away from us by keeping that five years. I would love to have that conversation. I don't know where I'm going to land on whether it is one year, six months, two years, but I want to have that conversation either through this workshop or moving forward. Thank you, councillor. No, I'm going to go eat. OK. Go for it. Councilor Dionne. And the rest of us don't get to eat pies. Is that the rule? You're not fasting. No, I'm God. No, that's the next year. Listen, I'm a little confused because Councilor Pellett here, I think made a good point in so far as so what's this all about tonight? You know, we can't give feedback how does the workshop actually proceed? I don't know. I mean, I think it's a combination of many things. I'll say that the idea of more signatures, I think if we really candid about it, it's a defense against the fact that we can't fix something that isn't right. If we had the capacity by process to amend a piece of legislation passed in direct democracy that just doesn't work. This conflict of law ordinances don't line up accordingly or we need to refine the focus of that particular initiative, then I would be less concerned about how many people it took to get it out to the voters anyways. And that happens a lot in the legislature. They pass a referendum and legislators go, that's nice. But we're going to fix it now. So it really works well. And they try to be loyal to the substantive policy that was behind the initiative. I think that's a it's a balancing act, but it could be accomplished. So I wouldn't be so animated about increasing the number of signatures if we designed a process where we could amend and or correct either a deficiency or an unintended consequence in the body of the referendum itself. Because we have to put that in public and the people that proposed that to begin with would engage us, I'm sure, with their opinion as to what they thought they were writing. And I'll just close with this to give you an example. I spearheaded a piece of legislation. I actually wrote it with the revisors. I represented a client predicated on that statute in front of a judge. And I said, judge, I know what this means. And he looked at me and says, no, you don't. I get to decide what it is you wrote and what it means. But no, I lost that hearing in front of the judge because he saw my language as meaning something other than what I thought it was. And that's why having the capacity as a body to correct what the well intentioned authors thought they were presenting is very important. So if they bring multiple referendums forward over the course of a number of years, that's not so important as our ability to edit, modify, or shape it. So it does work, as intended, and is at peace with all other ordinances that are affected by it. And we don't have that right. I think Councilor Rodriguez is absolutely right. People feel like we've handcuffed ourselves and we can't adjust policy to the realities of all the other ordinances that are impacted by that initiative. So and I'll close with this to Councilor Phillips. Yes, if we did 10%, I could be open to the idea that we would extend the signature collecting time because it is hard. Collecting signatures is hard. It's the unsung heroes of any effort. I get that. Or heroines. Sorry. So those are my thoughts right now. So really, if we could talk a little bit about our capacity and our ability currently and what could look like in the future, Michael, around amending a referendum that was ratified by the voters, that would be helpful. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Dion. We have a hand up from our Interim City Manager. I just wanted to bring forward that from a staff perspective that has been really difficult putting forward in dealing with these citizen initiatives, mostly because the five-year rule really restricts us and does not allow us to deal, as Councilor Dion just said, with those specific changes that need to happen, potentially to make something work better from staff perspective or to address an issue that arises in the normal course of dealing. And so having that ability is invaluable from my perspective. I will say that lining up with the state law in terms of numbers of signatures makes a lot of sense to me just from a clear perspective, obviously, that's a policy decision for you all to make. But this ordinance, when I did a lot of research on it prior to coming into this role, it was enacted in the 1950s. It has only been amended a couple of times and it has not really been changed. So these signature requirements are old and they are based on a 1950s thinking about things. And so looking at this now and lining this up with state law and lining this up with requirements that are more in tune with what we have right now make a lot of sense to me because they do look at the bigger picture and they do address issues in terms of how we deal with this and how we deal with this as a city as also as a council, as a staff as well. So I just wanted to add that to your thinking. I mean, this ordinance has been around since I think 1954 was my recollection that was the year it was passed. And so it is something that has been in place for a while. It needs to be, it needs to be brought it back into the century we're in now I think and all of these discussions I think are very appropriate to be having and I would encourage the council to sort of look at it because we have received a lot of feedback not only from the outside but also from staff on the inside so that we can be able to address and deal with the needs of the council on a more, you know sort of nimble flexible basis which we don't have currently right now. Okay, thank you for that input from the staff perspective. Councilor Rodriguez. Thank you, mayor. Let me try the camera and see how it goes. I just, since it's getting late I didn't want to miss the opportunity to give feedback on the amount of time that has to take place before we can amend it in case we don't get there. One of the suggestions that came through email was really appealing to me which is to protect that any citizen of a friend of them that's passed in the ballot for two years and then to have a period where a super majority from the council could amend something that has been passed. So that's where I am at the moment feeling that I would like us to have a discussion about that timeframe. So two years protected and then super majority after that from the council to amend it. Thank you, councilor. So I think it's 7.30, it's not too late. We've only been at this for about 45 minutes. So if we could, I'd love to be able to go through the staff memo that was prepared and get some feedback and we can see where we land in response to the work that's been put before the council tonight. So a lot of good feedback on the signatures. I appreciate everybody's input. And I wonder if we can now move on to the next part of the memo, Michael. Sorry about that, mayor. Thank you. And actually, no, I had one quick question just while it's fresh on my mind for councilor Rodriguez about the super majority issue. Were you saying that was your suggestion there that an approved initiative could be amended by the council immediately by a super majority, but go ahead, sorry, I don't wanna speak for you if I'm getting it wrong. No, I think that the two years of not being able to amend it after it's been passed. And then after that, if we were to still look at the five year total that we were currently inactive the next three years of super majority. And then after that, it's a regular majority. Both could amend an ordinance. So three years, super majority. And then after that, that total of five years then it becomes an ordinance that we can vote with a simple majority. I gotcha, thank you. I just wanted to make sure I understood that. Okay. All right, so the next item on the memo was a review of the proposed ordinance summary and title of the initiative prior to placing it on a petition. And I think as the council knows, it was a fair bit of discussion about the summary and the title of a recent initiative. And so there's been a suggestion of including a review by the clerk's office. Councillor Fornir, Mike is on. Thank you. Yeah, but anyway, I had a suggestion for a review process upon the submission of an application prior to the petitions being circulated for signatures that would give the opportunity to the clerk and my office to review the ordinance summary and the title to make sure that they are consistent with the requirements of chapter nine prior to being circulated. So I don't know, I think, and I haven't carefully thought out what that process might look like. I know there is a process in the state law governing this issue. But I think right now the ordinance, I think as we discussed last week's meeting, the ordinance has a requirement for sort of neutral language to be used in the summary and in the title. There's also requirements. There's particular requirements in chapter nine itself that state what it can and cannot apply to, namely appropriations, the citizen initiative process itself and employee salaries and wages. And so reviewing that to make sure that it's complies would be, I think it would be the helpful step in making sure that what does end up on a petition. Complies and what eventually ends up on the ballot complies as well. So I'll leave it to you for thoughts on that. Great, thank you, Michael. Any thoughts or input from the council on that, that issue of staff review before signatures are collected? Councillor Dianne. I guess I'll jump, I was waiting. I think it makes sense. That way there are no narratives that come out of the petition process where people were confused or didn't understand what they were saying. At least we did our very best to provide clear notice language for the signatories to what they were signing on for. I mean, I guess not as good as what we write for the ballot measure, but at least it gives them some notice of what the petition actually is about as opposed to, you know, whatever the gatherers giving them as a story. Thank you, Councillor. And Michael, just to be clear, this application review lives in section E. That's where that language would live under. Sorry, yes, yeah, it would go under in that first, you know, section 936 of chapter nine. Yeah, most likely under subsection E where it would happen in between the time that a petitioner's committee submits an application for the clerk to prepare petitions. And when the petitions are actually put in final form and ready to be delivered to the committee and circulated for signatures. Okay, thank you. Any other feedback at this time? Sounds good to me, Councillor Tavaro. Thank you. I am so with the, trying to like, so right now the process, if somebody comes and wants to take out petitions, we like engage them in a conversation wanting to look at it. Is that true? But we just, we don't have like an official capacity that determines that. We have, there is, there can be, there are opportunities for the clerk's office and our office to review the summary, the title, the ordinance that's on there. But there's no, you know, but we are very limited in what we can do. I've had conversations before with petitioners groups where I've felt that a petition plainly violated the requirements of chapter nine. And I've suggested that to them. I've requested that they change it. I can't direct them to do that. There isn't language in the code right now that allows our office or the clerk's office to do that. And it's been, and the suggestion's been refused. And so you end up with, you know, with the possibility of an initiative that violates the, you know, the language that's already in chapter nine. And so that can be a problem. But the review can also be for sort of form so that a proposed ordinance follows the form of our existing code and avoids internal inconsistencies, things like that. So there are times where there can be a cooperative process between the clerk and me and the petitioner, but there's also times when it's not cooperative. Okay. And then the title, the council ultimately sets that. Is that correct? I feel like you did that. There is, in chapter nine, there is language in there that, you know, that directs the petitioners to include the title and summary on their application form. And there's also language in there that states, and I'm trying to find it as I look through, but it's essentially, and I think it's language that we discussed the other evening that requires it to be, bear with me, I'm trying to. It requires it, Michael, I think to be neutral. And yeah, that's the language, yeah. It just gets into, in my experience, it gets into this debate and it puts the council in a very strange position. As a lawyer and as the city manager, you have this provision that requires neutral language that you can't really amend because there's another provision that says that you're supposed to put the exact language that the petitioners put forward onto the ballot. So you have to try to balance that. So councilor, I would say that that has become extremely difficult. It has been a perennial issue. It has continually popped up as a problem, which is why having staff step in and really weigh in on, first of all, the fiscal impacts of whatever the change would be. Also the language itself saying, you know, the language is not neutral and here's ways in which you have to change it. Having staff be more of a gatekeeper, I think would be extremely helpful in this process. It's been a problem every single time there's been a citizen initiative that's been proposed, at least in my experience. We have not been able to change that. We have not been able to directly impact that because we do not have that ability right now. So that makes the process very, very difficult from a staff perspective because we have to go with the language that's presented to us from the petitioners and that becomes an issue. So giving staff more of a role in that and being able to present something that's a little more neutral or being able to look at things more broadly would be really beneficial in addition to that change to the five-year rule that would be extremely beneficial from a staff perspective. Okay, and so this language as it's proposed, it would it be like the corporation council ultimately has to approve it before the petitions come out. So it gives that final. So I guess I understand a staff perspective on this and I don't have strong feelings except that I do want to retain the substance of what the petitioners are trying to do. So if there's some way that we can kind of write that and that it's strictly for legal purposes or that we're retaining the substance of the issue. I don't know. Okay, thank you, Councillor Chavarro. We've got a hand up from our city clerk. I just wanted to piggyback off the convict that Michael and Danielle just made in. Right now, we asked the groups when they're submitting these affidavits to send the draft ordinance language to corporation council's office and have them look at it. And what we get back is yes, I already did that or whatever. Sometimes it is true and sometimes it isn't. So we have that sort of now. It's just we haven't had it enough where it's like a requirement that corporation council's office has to sign off on it. And the hope is that we would try to eliminate what happened last meeting where you guys are amending titles and or summary language because there's guidance already given to them about the neutral language and the title to not be misleading. That way when they are collecting signatures, everything is, it goes as smooth as it can be instead of groups coming or these individuals coming back complaining that what they were told is not what the ordinance language was. So that's all we're trying to do with this section. Thanks Ashley. And next to you Michael. Yeah, thanks. I was just gonna just explain some of the things that are in the state statute that govern the review process. And I'm just looking at it. This is in chapter 11 of title 21A governing petitions at the state level. But the types of things that the secretary of state office reviews are whether or not they whether or not the proposed ordinance conforms with sort of the general drafting conventions for the main revised statutes. And so, we would be looking for similar sort of conformity with the city code. Whether the numbers and as the allocation sort of whether the new proposed ordinance sort of integrates into the ordinance that it's supposed to be added to whether or not the things that we were discussing earlier whether or not statute sections, summaries, head notes in the proposed ordinance whether they objectively reflect the content of the proposal conformity with numbering sections things like that. So that's what the state law provides and it provides sort of a back and forth exchange between the secretary of state's office and the reviser of statutes which helps with the drafting and then the applicant sort of a back and forth until you get to the point where the parties have agreed that or that the clerk has made a decision anyway that the submission is consistent with those rules. Thank you both for that clarification. Councillor Tavaro, are you all set for the moment? Yes. Thank you. Okay, any other feedback on that second portion of the memo? Councillor Phillips. So, Michael, if I heard you correctly at the state there let me step back. I guess my in kind of piggybacking on what Councillor Tavaro said is the integrity of what somebody brought forward to you. And so they're bringing it forward to you and then I certainly understand the requirement they should go to corporation council to make to you to make sure the language is what it is and obviously go to the city clerk but then have it not go back to the person who initially brought it forward. I'm just worried that the language is not going to be the same. It's just to clarify that that I mean to the extent that we adopted something similar to what the state does you would go back to the petitioners before printing it on a petition and having them circulate it. So, in the end there is a requirement for not approval of the substance of the proposed ordinance but the format and compliance with the rest of chapter nine and once that's done the revisions would be approved by the petitioner group before anything is published and ready for circulation. I would be supportive of that because right now that's not in there, right? As one of the changes. That's right, that's right. Right now they're, we are, I mean- I'm just talking, yeah. Yeah, the clerk's office sort of handed this and a petitioner who is unwilling to make revisions can essentially force the publication of the petition. Thank you. Great, thank you. Any other feedback on that element of the staff memo? Okay, thank you for that, Michael. And it strikes me that there's support generally for that inclusion to see language that would be consistent with that recommendation. The next thing to talk about would be the fiscal impact statement. Do you want to tee that up for us? Sure, and I think this would be a fairly simple. This would not create an extra burden on the petitioner. This provision would present an additional burden on staff but for the city manager or the city manager's designee in consultation with staff that might be affected or the director of finance prepare a fiscal impact statement describing the financial impact that the proposed ordinance would have. And then including that potentially, including that on the petitions and also including it on the ballot as well. So that's the topic for discussion. Thank you. Danielle, you've got your hand up. Yeah, I just would add that I think this is really appropriate from staff's perspective because it's something that we've struggled with. We, a lot of these happen mid-budget cycle. And so it's difficult to mid-budget cycle be able to accommodate and address the needs of these various proposals. And so we've been talking a lot about ways in which to do that. Having the fiscal impact on the ballot so that people understand what is at stake here I think is very important that happens across the board whether it's a state or school or any other proposal. I think it helps the voters make a decision. And then I think it's passed. I will just add that something we've thought a lot about is maybe having this go into impact or go into effect for the next fiscal year because it is something that we haven't budgeted for and something we're not prepared for right now currently under the ordinance and the state or excuse me, the charter, we have to implement this within 30 days. And that is very difficult. It's something that taxes staff and it's something we haven't, like I mentioned, budgeted for. So looking at the fiscal impact is very important but also looking at implementation dates of when this would be effective. I think it's something that's very important for us as well because we wanna ensure whatever gets passed at the polls is definitely reflected and addressed by our various staff needs and our staff capacity, quite honestly. And it's not something we obviously are thinking about every at the beginning of the fiscal year because a lot of these things come into play about six months into the fiscal year. So that's the only thing I would address. This is something that I feel pretty strongly about. It's something we did for the last proposal. We were requested to have a fiscal impact statement by the mayor for the various proposals that were out there. And I think it was helpful to see what that would be in terms of when you're making a decision. So from a staff perspective, we would be very supportive of this type of a proposal and inclusion in the chapter nine. Thank you for that, Danielle. And next we'll go to Councilor Rodriguez. Thank you, mayor. Yeah, I just wanted to really quickly chime in that this is another one of the suggestions that I think makes a lot of sense for a lot of the reasons that interim city manager West just mentioned. And as I tried earlier to frame my approach to this work, it's aligned with good policy making process where we would look at both the implementation plan and the fiscal impact as part of the deep discussion that we would have into any policy. So this makes sense. And I would support it as it's been suggested. I will say, however, that I would just wanna make sure that the process by which we come up with that fiscal impact that it's as transparent as we all expected to be so that is not viewed as a tactic by the city to weigh in on a referendum, right? To set it up for success or fail. And not to say that that's either happened or will happen but as constituencies are interested in transparency, this fiscal impact could weigh heavily as with any other policy making process could weigh heavily on whether or not a proposal is supported or not by constituents. So as long as that process is transparent I see this to be a valuable addition to the process. Thank you, Councilor Rodriguez. Councilor Trobaro, and then I'd love to dump in. Thank you. I hate being in disagreement. And I do, I understand the value of this from the staff perspective. I just feel as though it is a mode of influencing the, I want to see if referendums make it to the ballot, I want to see the voters decide them based on the merits of the issue. And I feel like a fiscal impact statement plays into influencing the vote outside of the merits of the issue. So I guess I would not be inclined to support this measure. I would not be inclined to support this measure. I hear the concerns about having to, it's not budgeted and perhaps that's something that we can think about in terms of the implementation piece. Maybe that would help with it, but that's just not where I am right now. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor. I have, I am in support of a fiscal impact statement, I think because I think that's a very important point and I think because if we were to be developing policy at the council level, we would need to know how to pay for what we want to do, what we want to accomplish. And I see the value of that for any kind of policy making that happens because ultimately it will become an element of the budget. And I shared with the council earlier today a couple of things that I wanted to bring up tonight. And one of them had to do with this fiscal impact statement and the implementation piece. And again, some of this goes back to 2020 when a lot of things were approved by voters in November, there was a 30 day period to implement a number of amendments to city ordinances. And a lot of the implementation would have benefited from additional staff being hired in different city departments. And so I think what I was watching was the frustration on both sides. People wanted the implementation to be more thorough from the community perspective. They wanted to see more staff capacity to support the things that the voters had approved in November, but because we were mid budget, we didn't have the ability to hire new staff and to build up the staff in the offices that were asked to do more work as a result of policy amendment. And so I think that just from a really practical perspective that implementation piece of if there's an implication of the need for additional staff capacity to support the implementation of policy change, we've got to be able to build that in financially. And so I welcome the discussion and the thoughts here but that's where I have been on this is I appreciate knowing what the price tag is gonna be. Sometimes there are things that I wish we could take up at the council level in terms of policy making, but there's such a budget implication that it's not always an easy thing to do. And we know that we will know that more and more as we head into the next weeks in our budget. But anyway, that was part of the context for why it feels important to me and how it can be helpful in making our decisions about what we're able to do. And again, being responsive, if the council makes a decision and we wanna implement policy, we wanna see it implemented well. And I think the same thing is true from a community perspective. They want, if the voters are voting to approve something we wanna see it implemented really faithfully. So that's my input. Councilor Dian. I support the proposal for the fiscal statement. Listen, some people just thought on a social question inside a ballot, I get it, that's okay. And some people do look at the sticker. They wanna know how much this is gonna cost because they know either we're gonna cut services which we were facing that right now in the budget. And I don't know what our willingness will be to cut what we need to cut or we're gonna add in this proposal and they're gonna pay for it. I just think transparency is about telling people that there's a cost to their decision to expand services or shape new policy. Nothing is free and they just need to know what that is. So I think, yes, some they'll say this is why we can't do it because it costs too much money. Well, that's a legitimate political conversation. It's as valid as the social policy conversation that the proponents or the opponents might have. It's all part of the mix. And I think it's good policy in our part to incorporate that into a ballot initiative. Thank you. Thank you. Other input on the potential for a fiscal impact statement. Okay, we'll move on. The next in the staff memo, the next issue has to do with publication costs. So we talked about that a little bit earlier. Michael, do you wanna tee that up for us or maybe it's Ashley who would wanna speak to that?  Yeah, I can talk on it. So right now it's required in chapter nine that we publish the full text of any ordinance or petition ordinance in the paper once before public hearing. So the entire text gets published. And then again, just before the election, it gets published again. So it's really costly to do that. This one that we just had for public hearing was $3,500. And we'll have to do it again just before the election. November, when we had five of them on the ballot, it was $16,000 each time. So it's a very costly thing. So I'm proposing that we instead of doing it twice, we just did it once and that the full text gets published just before the public hearing or the notice of the public hearing. So that individuals can see it. But then when we post our specimen ballots that is required, so sample ballots in the paper, that it's just what goes on the ballot. So we wouldn't have to post that notice of full text again plus our sample ballots. So there's just a lot of duplicate hosting that is very costly. Okay, thank you for that. Any comments or feedback on the issue of publication costs? Okay, nope, there she is, Councillor Phillips. I'm so quick on the draw. You can leave it up the whole time you're talking if you want. That's all right. I certainly understand the cost and I certainly don't want to cause us to spend any more money. But I know for me, I don't see things the first time. I just don't, you know? And so I know that there's a lot, right? We're publishing it twice, it's, you know, going here and there, I totally understand and I get it, it's expensive. But I'm just not that quick to see things the first time. So I'm not, I guess I'm not, I guess I'm 50% of the way there with you Ashley because I just, I certainly understand the cost but things go by me so like this. I could see myself seeing it the second time but definitely not the first. Yeah, and I get that. And the full text is also on our website at all times as soon as it's available. So individuals can click on it, download it, whatever. And then the full text is also available at each polling location as well as when individuals come in person and absentee vote too. So there's multiple places that the full text is available. You know, the biggest is that it lives right on our website under the elections and voting page leading right up to the election the entire time. So we do point people there when they call it asked. It's just the notice in the paper. And I get that some people don't see it the first time that they see it the second time but it is in more places than just the paper, just the twice. No, and I hear you. And I guess my other thing is is, dare I say, there's a lot of people that don't have the internet and make, you know, they just don't, they don't get it or they don't understand it. And I totally get it. I'm not, I'm certainly not trying to be argumentative or defensive. I totally get it and I understand. Thank you, Councillor Phillips. Quick question for Ashley. When we say publication in the newspaper, is that just the print version or does it also go online? Well, so it's both, it goes print version but then the newspaper obviously has an online publication of everything. Thank you. Councillor Zarro. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I think that I can see both sides of this argument. This is one of the ones where I don't know how I would fall on it. I'm thinking about my, a lot of my constituents in district four, I know more people are, they love their newspaper and I know, and I agree with Councillor Phillips. I think that it's, that's easy to lose. Even though I know, to the clerk's point, it's posted online. There are other ways to do it. I'm sure, I'm sure that that is there. So I think my only input on this would be, if in the event this moves forward to the council, if there's a general will to do that, I would wanna know like, all right, what are those other ways of mitigating that cost? Because that one for me, I just, I wanna make sure people are as aware of what's going on in anything, right? Whether we're talking about this or we're talking about something that's coming out of committee or anything. So this, yeah, this one's definitely one of the ones that I'm not sure where I fall on, but if there's any way we could get some, some guidance or a memo, Ashley, if this were to go to the council and just like maybe other ways that we are ensuring that this is getting out there to justify removal of one of the published, published components, then that might make me feel a little bit better. Thanks. Thank you, Councillor Ali. Thank you, Ashley. I think Councillor Ziru did touch on some of the questions that I'm gonna ask. Do we only publish it in press her out? Yeah, just part of the scope. Yeah, I know that there are a few, and I don't know if it's caused the same. There are a few free newspapers that I know that the older people folks in the city who may not have internet always rely on for news. So we may wanna look into that. And we may also wanna look at, is there any other way we can get it to people? I don't even know if printing it and sharing it is more expensive than publishing it in the newspaper. And also in the newspaper, since there are also other people that rely on online to see things, can we, does it cause the same thing to do an online only publication? No, it's, if we did online only, it is significantly cheaper. I don't know the price difference of, I have to get that, but it's the physical print that costs more than the online one. Yeah, maybe we might wanna explore the free newspapers, I know some of them are here. The free newspapers and see how many of them can we put in because they have like a very big circulation and then do the online on press herald. And then together, as I said, thank you. Thank you, councillor. Back to you, councillor Tarvaro. I'm totally open to not publishing it twice in the paper. I think that's a fairly antiquated method of publicizing. And I think when we do our press releases and it gets covered in an article in the paper, that's really when it's most likely to be seen and noticed. I understand requirements that we have to notice, but I'd be open to having maybe only doing it once and maybe only doing it online. Thank you, councillor Ali. Sorry, Mayor, I will drop my... Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you had... I had... No problem. Okay, so it sounds like there's reception to reviewing options. That's what I'm gonna say about that. It sounds like people are receiving this feedback from staff and receptive to considering some options here. Moving on, the last part of the staff memo has to do with the amendment element, which I know has been addressed a little bit, but Michael, I wanted to hand it back to you and then see if we can get some council feedback on the five year rule. Sure, thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I know council Rodriguez had commented on this issue earlier and Danielle addressed it a bit from sort of concerns from the staff perspective. But yeah, I think section 946 has the provision in there that states that the council cannot amend an ordinance and act it through the citizen initiative process for a period of five years after the effective date. And I think it's, well, it's a long time. And I think the question is, do we wanna leave it as is? Do we wanna shorten it, eliminate it altogether or attach some conditions as council Rodriguez had suggested, but it does limit, obviously, the council's ability to amend an ordinance in a way that the council is not limited with respect to other ordinances that go through the ordinary legislative process that the council follows. So I'll leave that in your hands, Mayor. Okido, well, thank you. We'll look for council feedback on that, that particular issue. Councilor Dionne, you can go first. I would do away with the five years. That's my druthers. But I wanna flip councilor Rodriguez proposition, Michael, so you can consider it is that in the first two years, subsequent to passage, modification amendment, whatever we wanna call it could only occur by supermajority. Because I think on the one hand, we wanna be faithful to the reality that it was passed by the public, but at the same time, the public feels it's incumbent on us to recognize if there are any inconsistencies, deficiencies or conflicts that weren't apparent during the voting process, for lack of a better term. So if we're gonna trespass into that space, maybe we need to do so with a supermajority. I just can't, and a lot of what Roberto says, I can agree with it, but I just can't abide by the idea that we know something's bad, but now rather than five years, we're just gonna sit back for two and just see what chaos comes from that. I think if we see there's something wrong, at least our constituents who voted in favor of the initiative would say they're only going in there with seven. It's not just a simple majority. And it's not easy to get seven of us to agree to anything, much less a simple majority. So I would like to see at least some process that would allow that to do, to happen, I should say. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Dyon. Councilor Tavaro. Thank you. So this to me is the part of this that's really the problem. And I think that I would also be fine with doing away with the five years. My similar to my feedback about the review process in the beginning is just that if there's a way to kind of phrase it in legal terms that our authority to change it is specific to sort of non-substantive. So we're retaining the intent of the ordinance, but that we can make it workable for circumstances that might come up with staff. Okay, thank you. Councilor Zaro. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yeah, I think Councilor Tavaro, I think I agree and we do this now to the point where we're not gonna be able to go in and change something significantly like when we're doing like summary language or title. I forget what the language is, but the, I don't know, the ethos needs to be there. But I do think that if there's like an administrative or a staff issue like fine-tuning and tweaking because it's just not working, then I think that makes sense. I think if I'm looking at it correctly, if you look at the last two rounds of referenda that we had, there were three citizen referenda in 2022 that were amendments or changes of previous referenda in 2020, but we couldn't change it. It's the only referenda could. So I think that is a good rationale to say, okay, well, instead of having, you know, referenda can only change referenda. I think that's a good scenario. I'm not exactly how we would phrase it where we get to go in and say, well, we actually do need to change this. And here's our rationale for administrative staff purposes. I mean, clearly the public is acknowledging that that needs to be fixed by virtue of the fact that they're going in and trying to fix it themselves with the only tool that they have available to them. And even I remember last year in committee, we were trying to do some of that, but it just wasn't fast enough and it ended up going out by referenda anyway. I'm supportive of some version of this as well. I think that five years is a lot too much. I think whether we're talking, you know, three years, two years, one year, I think I feel like a lot of people are in that area of agreement. And I think that, I mean, that's a big part of the conversation from what I think we talk about amongst ourselves and city staff and with the public of like, you know, hey, we want to act, we want to do something, we want to be responsive, oh wait, we cannot do that. So this I think is our path forward to getting there. And so I'm supportive of it. I don't have a specific number right now, but this is one I would be really interested in seeing where this council collaboratively and collectively gets to, whether it's the super majority in the first two years or upon year three or whatever. And Councillor Dianna, I agree, it is hard for all, you know, to get a super majority to agree on anything. So I think that is like, that's a nice extra layer to potentially add to this process, to know that, you know, it would have to be serious, it would have to be something that's really gonna require the full council's attention. So generally very supportive of this and would like to see something come of it. Thank you, Councillor. Next to Councillor Rodriguez. Thank you, Mayor. When I brought this up earlier, I honestly didn't think we were gonna make it to this point in the meeting. So I was like, just throw it out there. And I might have stated my position prematurely. I think that as has been acknowledged already, this is probably the most problematic aspect of the process right now. And so eliminating that time period where the council cannot act on a referendum that has been passed at the ballot is key. I said earlier that I would wanna protect it for two years, but hearing that either having a way to figure out how we're not impacting the substantive nature of the referendum, if we can figure that out, I'm 100% behind the idea of right from the beginning with a super majority being able to amend it. I find it challenging, however, to identify what a substantive change is, but perhaps in case by case we can figure that out, but that doesn't serve us well today when we're trying to set up the process. I will say that, and this is probably not necessarily important to our conversation, but politically speaking, a council is probably not going to, without much thought, discussion and transparency right from the jump, want to amend something that passed in the ballot recently. So I do think that there has to be a good case established for it being a bad policy, it having unintended consequences, or it being just poor policymaking from the beginning. So I'm open to us being able to work on it right from the beginning without any period of inaction that has to be stated. Thank you, councillor. Next to councillor Ali. Thank you, Mayor. I am going to repeat what councillor Dion said, you cannot get half of us to do something sometimes, let alone a super majority. So I would suggest that in terms of how long it will take for the council to amend anything that having passed by residents that we should come up with a number, make it straight. Forget about whether it is super majority or the first year, let's have a conversation and I agree to say that either two years, I'm open to two years or three years, three years so that we are fair to whoever it is that put the issue on the ballot so that it doesn't look like that. Even though we cannot decide for a future council, there is a tendency of a council that extremely don't agree with something and then residents pass it, even if there's no unintended consequences. If we say two years or a super majority, we all know how this council changes. Sometimes it goes all the way to this way and then another time it goes all the way to that way. And then a super majority can just take something that residents have just passed, right? And then throw it out because all of them or most of them don't agree with it. So let's work with a number of years instead of super majority vote or anything. We say three years, three years. If it is six to three, it passes, four to five, it passes. So that is what I would suggest. And if we can all talk about this and learn somewhere that we can all agree with. Thank you, even though Mark said that we cannot agree. Let's agree on something tonight. Okay, thanks, councillor. Over to you, councillor Phillips. I agree with councillor Ali. I mean, he said everything that I wanted to say. To have somebody go through all that work, you know, and then they have to get it, we're thinking about putting it in there for approval and the language has changed and all of that stuff. And then for us to just turn around and say we're gonna change it because of whatever reason, I agree, I think we should come up with a year as opposed to a super majority. And I also think that maybe this is where when interim city manager West was talking about it is, is some implementation plan. I do like that idea with that as well. And so maybe that fits in here as well or not, but I just think after all of that work for us to sit down and try to get a super majority, what, a month or two months or even three months after somebody or a citizen had gone through that, I think we need to give them their due time. This is a great conversation. Thank you, everybody, I'm enjoying it. I think that one of the things that I'm thinking about with regard to the amendment situation is sometimes there is an unintended consequence even from the drafters. And let's say something gets, it's written in such a way that's legitimate, but it maybe isn't exactly what the writer's intended. And then you get into a situation where you're litigating and trying to figure out what the intent was versus the plain language. And it could be, I'm just doing this for argument's sake, it could be that if you're required to wait a year or two years as a council to act, you could be tying your hands on work that actually the drafters of a citizen initiative would be in support of because sometimes these things are very complicated and they can have unintended consequences. So I guess I'm just acknowledging that there could be a situation where if we didn't have a wait period, but we did have a two thirds, for example, requirement of the council to take action that there's a possibility that you jump in and you fix something that should have been written, was incorrectly written. So anyway, I guess all I'm saying is that a wait period, I understand the spirit of it, but it could work to prevent the council from helping to address an issue that was perhaps unintended. So I'm flexible on this. I feel like it's the kind of work that we would want to, you know, as councilor Ali said, come to an agreement together on. I think five years is too long and that has been feedback that's been pretty consistent that I've gotten is that five years is too long. And as others have said, the amendment process happens out there at the ballot box rather than allowing the council to get in and make amendments. So I think five years is definitely too long. Whether or not we move through the path that requires a two thirds or a super majority or a wait period, I'm open to that conversation with all of you. Other feedback in this area. Okay. Like I mentioned, I reached out to the council earlier today and in the interest of just sharing information heading into tonight, I actually had an eight o'clock Zoom meeting this morning, a mayor Zoom meeting where constituents come in and talk with me about anything that's on their mind. And somebody brought forward this idea, which I shared with you all, which is the approval threshold. Should something be a simple majority or should a citizen initiative require a higher threshold of support within the community, greater than 50% plus one. So I promised that I would bring that forward as a talking point and ask whether or not there's any council interest in exploring the idea of having the approval of a citizen initiative needing to be greater than 50% plus one or not. So I open that up if anybody wants to weigh in on that councilor Ali. I have a clarifying question. 50% of those who went out and vote on that day or 50% of people who are registered voters. Yeah, the person asking was simply saying rather than have it be a simple majority to basically make its way into an ordinance change, should there be a greater threshold for approval? Oh, okay. I don't think I will support that because I don't want to make it more complicated for, and I also don't want to take that ability for people to bring in issues that they believe that the council is not doing or is going slow or maybe they don't think the council will move it forward and then they bring it to the citizen. I do want to keep that. I agree that we can increase the numbers. I also agree that we can change the how long it will take for the council to amend it. Adding another hurdle, I think will seem as if we're trying to stifle people from bringing this forward. I want to change it, but I also want to change it in a way that is equitable for our residents to be able to bring things forward. Thank you. You're welcome. Like I said, I'm not sure it's something I'm advocating for. I just wanted to be able to give it a conversation because it came to my door this morning. Councillor Trivaro. Thank you. I guess I'm leaning kind of where Councillor Ali was on that, I just am generally not wanting to kind of increase thresholds. But I do, I have a sort of a counter thought that might be in the same direction, which is that perhaps we could always have them be on November ballots so that the voter turnout was always going to be a spring ballot is a low turnout usually, especially on an odd year. So perhaps always requiring it to be on a November ballot might be a good alternative. Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Rodriguez. Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, not dissimilar to Councillor Ali and Councillor Trivaro. I don't know that this one appeals to me, particularly when I look at it from the same framing that I've used tonight, the good policymaking process that we're trying to clean up, that benchmark at the ballot wouldn't normally be part of the policymaking process. That's already kind of, so I don't necessarily see that as a problematic area to the citizens initiative process. I don't know that that appeals to me. I wanna sit a little bit with what Councillor Trivaro just threw out there because that did kind of resonate initially, but I wanna think it through more. Councillor Zirro. Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I think my initial reaction for the 50 plus one would be, I think my initial reaction would be to just keep it as a simple majority, keep it a little cleaner and in line with what I think folks would expect. And then just per what Councillor Trivaro said, that was gonna be one thing that I brought up to the November ballot because I know that's a higher turnout, but I do think that sort of does get to it to make sure that you're having a substantial number of Portlanders show up for a vote, which kind of reaffirms, I think, some of the sentiment behind that threshold concern. Thanks. Yeah. Thank you, Councillor Dionne. I agree with what's been said. Elections are tough. Sometimes you do win by a percentage point. That's the way the system works. So simple majorities make sense. And I would be open to a discussion about moving certain questions in November election. That's worth having a conversation about just because of the voter turnout history tends to favor that cycle as opposed to a June cycle. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. And thanks everybody for that conversation. I agree, I'm not pushing for anything different than the simple majority. And I think that thinking about voter turnout is a good way to ensure as many people have their say as possible, which of course is tricky because we do have a springtime election. And sometimes the timing is such that somebody or a group of people might wanna not have to wait. But yeah, I appreciate the conversation. And it sounds like there's interest in talking about the November election as a possible kind of pathway for citizen initiative. Other issues. So we've gone through the staff memo. I wanna open it up to people who have other issues they'd like to put before the council. Councillor Rodriguez. Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to talk about the limiting citizens initiatives to a November ballot. That appeals to me because as we talked about, it has a much greater voter turnout. But when I look at the June ballot with the school budget always being there, they always want an advocate for, every couple of options of whether or not it is on the ballot or not. And to me, I kind of always liked that's in the ballot. What I don't like is that it is such a low turnout voting day. So the way that I viewed correcting that problem, it wasn't always to think of, oh, we should move it to a different day. But rather, how do we get, how do we educate our constituency into understanding that June elections are incredibly important, right? Your primaries are important. Your school budget vote is important. And anything that ends up. So to move it to only put citizens initiatives in November makes sense because of the current turnout, but it also kind of like, it goes along with this narrative of like, oh, June elections are just kind of not as important. And your in essence are promoting that low turnout because you've not raised the bar on it. So I guess what I'm trying to say is like, I'm really interested in promoting voter turnout, even for those June elections because they do have a great impact into who is being the representative body of our constituents. So I'd be more interested in figuring out how we can be good advocates for voter turnout instead of circumvent of a date that doesn't happen. Did that make sense? I felt like I'm really... I think it did, counselor. And I think it was really compelling information that you shared. Yeah, thank you, counselor Zaro. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I think the one thing that I would love for us to just talk about and Corporation Council and I touched base last week and this might be something that we talk about in the event this moves forward for Council action is the conversation around the paid signatures, people getting paid to collect signatures. That was something that came up a lot last week. It's something that there was a lot of concern about. There was folks really showed up and shared their experiences just in general. And there was a lot. I understand that there are some limitations potentially with case law and state statute that might prevent us from regulating this. But I would like us to have the conversation, discuss it, figure out what's possible if anything around prohibiting the allowance for paying for signatures on referendum because if it is in fact not allowed to prohibit that, then we are looking at a very different situation here where you could pay someone to get signatures whether it's 1500, 3500, whatever. That just changes the game completely, right? Because you monetized something. And I think that's very much a part of this conversation. So Michael, I'm not sure if that's something you were prepared to have a conversation about tonight. If not, that's totally okay. But I think we need to touch base on that at some point. And I think that it kind of makes sense that we're even talking about this in this workshop tonight because we were just having a conversation about clean elections and keeping money out of politics. And this feels like a good place to start. So that's, I just wanted to name that. Thank you, counselor. Michael, do you have your hand up to respond to that? Just briefly, I think as Councilor Zarrow mentioned that I do have some concerns about that. And if I know there is some case law that prohibits those types of restrictions, if it is something that the council wants to continue to explore, we can do a little bit of deeper research. A lot of just given the time constraints so far, there are a lot of moving parts, as you all know, from this discussion, a lot of complicated issues that we're talking about. And we've done sort of, you know, some initial research on a lot of these issues. We haven't really done a deep dive on some of them, but we can continue to research them if the council is interested in us doing that. Thank you. Councilor Ali. Yeah, I should have written the first in the reason why I raised my hand, I didn't. Now I've forgotten that but I wanna comment on the issue of paying how do you get people to collect signatures? I mean, I don't know what to say to that. I think every aspect of our democracy have some money connected to it. Whether it is a canvassing, you buy Plum Card, that is money, you do yard science, that is money. If there's an issue, we are trying now, how do we call it to regulate or to amend this issue? I think we should try to balance it because there might be an issue that a few people, some people in the community do wanna change because the way it is done doesn't work for them. And let's say they all have, they're all working so they will not be able to go out and collect signatures. I think it will be fair if they can afford to hire someone to go and collect their signatures for them. I don't see that as any different from action volunteers to go, the only thing that I will not, or I would love to see change is if the people who are collecting the signatures local or they are from somewhere. Because in addition to paying them, there need to be some sort of like a distant impact to me. So I'm gonna collect these signatures even though I'm being compensated to collect that signatures. And then once if I am given, even though it's something that I'm doing and I'm just saying it from my perspective, there was an issue with the recent, how do we call it? The recent referendum that we just discussed at the last council meeting that some of the people that were collecting the signatures did share information that is not accurate. Okay, is it because they were hired or is it because they were trying to get the signatures so that they can get money? So we can put something in the books that says that if you misrepresent, I don't know if we're allowed to do that. You misrepresent what is on the ballot to people so that you can get signatures that signatures can be removed when it gets to where they are counting. If Mr. A or Ms. B comes forward and say that this thing is about watermelon but the individual told me it's about oranges because they know I don't like oranges so that I can sign it. If the person comes forward and can prove that that is what was said to them, they will remove that from the, they can request for their names to remove. I rather do that than say that people cannot hire. I mean, that is creating a job during election. You get some people to go around and collect signatures and then you pay them for the work that they put in. I think because it's not any different from somebody doing a website for you or somebody designing your palm card or somebody doing some campaigning for you and then they got paid. So I will not be supporting anything that will remove that. Thank you, counselor. Michael, quick question for you. Is there any prohibition at the state level with regard to paid signature collectors that you know of? I don't, no, and I'm just looking in the state statute right now. There is a provision, bear with me, I'm sort of skimming through it, but the short answer to your question is no, there's no prohibition on paying. And there is, as I mentioned earlier, there is some case law that prohibits governments from enacting legislation that restricts a petitioner group's ability to pay circulators. So there are provisions that we can put in place and maybe strengthen them a little bit with respect to certifications that we get from circulators and from petitioners groups. And maybe that's another approach for the council to consider. Thank you. Okay, any other issues from the council that we wanna talk about? I actually wanna go back to page one of the memo and there is an element under the petition signature requirement that talks about a possible amount of signatures that would need to be gathered within districts. And I wanted to come back around to that just to get a little bit of clarity on what that might look like. So I think I understand the intent would be to make sure that we spread the signature collecting around the city so that we have good representation from all parts of the city when it comes to citizen support for getting something on the ballot. But I thought I'd ask the question or get a little deeper in there, Counselor Zarrow. Thank you, Madam Mayor. That somehow slipped by me after all of our agenda items for the evening. That was something that I know I had discussed with Corporation Council as an off-peninsula counselor. I know oftentimes it can feel like our districts are not always included in conversation. So for me, when I had that conversation, it was in the context of, well, maybe we can have this, explore this. What would it look like if we were to take, and this would be in the context of, if we took a percentage, if we were to align with the state and we were a percentage of that percentage, a certain percentage would come from each district. And so that's pretty much as far as it came in. The concept was to look at the districts through a lens of equity so that those who live in D5 and four feel like they have the same seat at the table that one and two have. And that it's much easier to go and stand at an intersection that's very busy downtown and collect a signature, whereas district counselors have to go door-to-door to get signatures when they run for office, right? So it was in the vein of equity and making sure that we're seeing each district the same. So hope that was helpful. That is helpful. And I'm sure you didn't mean to leave out district three. So I'll just add that. And the good people of district three, my apologies. I'm just teasing you. Thanks, Kate. Councilor Rodriguez. Thank you, Mayor. This one, it's interesting because at first my initial reaction was that it made sense to have this geographic kind of benchmark, particularly in an aim to try to achieve equitable distribution of who you're interacting with to get things in the ballot. However, geography doesn't, particularly in this town, doesn't necessarily advance equitable representation. So you could still be very much, I mean, I would be really intrigued to find more information on who are the signatures, the people that are assigning and see exactly who is being represented in these initiatives getting on the ballot and what really, how can we measure equity in terms of the signature collection? I don't know that the process lends itself for us to do it the way that I would want it to. When we're looking at equity through both a race lens of an identity lens, a gender lens and all the other different ways that equity could be measured in terms of identity. But geography seems to not necessarily get us there. However, I do see some issues being very district specific and when those come up, perhaps it would be disadvantageous to the process itself and certainly to the folks that would be most impacted by the issue to have to go across town to get signatures for something that might not impact them. And I'm having a hard time actually thinking of an issue that might be very narrow in its impact in terms of geography, but in case it does occur, it would seem overly, it would seem too much to ask for folks to cover all five districts and their signatures. So I'm not necessarily all in on that proposal as it stands. Thank you, Councilor Dionne. Deja Vu all over again. Councilor Zahraud is such a great recap of the Republican position in this battle about petitions where us folks in the second district just can't get a fair shake. We live in rural areas and neighbors are so spread apart and the first district is controlled by everybody flooding the city of Portland to get their petitions, right? They won't even go to Bangor, it's too far north. So there was this idea that if there was a state initiative, I think this one was about bear hunting. So something that's at the forefront of our thinking here in the city, they thought petitions should be gathered on a ratio across both districts or it wasn't a valid petition. It was beaten back. I would say the same thing here. We are all residents of Portland, you know? You get your signatures where you can. The equity issue for me is resolved in the ballot box, you know, our votes in district five count as much as the votes in district two. But I'm not concerned. As long as the signatures are gathered in a fair manner, you know, they're certified and sent on for election fine. As far as being candidates in these far flung rural outposts we call district five and four and three, I don't know. Yes, it's a little bit more work, but you learn to go where the crowd is. It's just a little easier downtown to do that. But I couldn't support a proportional requirement that a percentage has to come from each individual district. We have enough parochialism. I don't want to encourage anymore. And I'll be looking in the budget this season that we do get more of a fair share this time on daring than you all get downtown. You see how it gets all divisive so quickly. So that's my comment on that. Thank you, Councillor Travaro. Thank you. I'm similar to Councillor Dianne. I think policies of geographic requirement in terms of democratic participation generally tend to favor minority perspectives. And I don't mean racial minority. I mean minority as opposed to majority in a democracy. I mean, the electoral college is a good example of that. How many presidents have we had that didn't get the majority vote of the public because we give favor to rural districts? And so I think that it could play out similarly here. You could have four districts that you get the required signatures and then you get one where you don't. And so that one kind of has an outsized advantage in terms of deciding policy. So that's just where I am on that. Okay, everybody, thanks for feedback on that front. Any other? I'm gonna say that I'm not hearing great support for that but I appreciate the conversation as with all things. So we've made it through the memo. We've made it through other things that people have brought forward. I think we're at the position now in this workshop to talk about process. So I, along with you all, want our process to be thoughtful and transparent and inclusive on all things. I think we all need to work to bring things forward in a way that feels accessible and transparent. And so I think we need to have a discussion at this point about where we go from here. So it's March 27th. We could move to a first read on amendments to chapter nine and contemplate council action in a month. I heard at the beginning of this conversation that that was worrisome for some folks. So what I wanna do is ask you all to give me feedback on where we go from here. Thank you again for thoughtful input on the workshop content as proposed this evening and as presented this evening. I think that after initial discussion, we got into the substance, which has been a good thing. But now we need to talk about process and earlier in the discussion this evening, somebody mentioned committee work. And I will say that back in December, when I was talking to you all at our goals setting workshop about chapter nine and possible revisions, I really thought of this as work that could be done by the council as a committee of the whole, which essentially is what we do when we're in a workshop because it's such a big body of work. And it would be something that we would be putting on the ballot, not deciding ourselves. So I do have a preference for working this subject together as a committee of the whole. But I look to you all for your feedback. Again, what I put out in terms of a possible timeline is a possible timeline, but anything can change. Any number of things can get changed by us as we determine them to, we can speed them up, we can slow them down. So councilor Travaro. So I'm thinking that a timeline with the goal of having something on the November ballot feels a little more transparent to me at this point. I just feel like there may be a perception out there that this is kind of rushed through to a spring ballot, which doesn't have the turnout that a November ballot would. And I just think for the sake of that and for the sake of us being able to kind of come together to something that we can all support November feels better. Okay, thank you. Councilor Ali. Thank you, mayor. I'm not gonna speak to that, Easton. I just have a question for Mr. Goldman. Aye. Yeah, and I can do email if that is much easier because with past what I'm gonna say, I was gonna ask if we are allowed to say that signature circulators should be residents of Portland. You don't have to answer that. Now, if it's gonna be something that you need to do research, I wouldn't mind an email saying yes or no. If it is yes, I want it to be part of the conversation. If, I'm sorry, if signature circulators should be Portland residents. We can do a little bit more research on that. I think my thought right now is that they would need to be, and I think this is consistent with what the ordinance currently says, is registered main voters. I think what we have right now is that the petitioners have to be registered Portland voters and circulators, which I think is consistent with main law right now, would have to be registered main voters. I think that's a good point. What we would say right now would have to be registered main voters. And we can do a little bit more digging into that before, as we go through the process. Okay thank you very much. Thanks counselor. Counselor Pallett here. Thank you. Just really quick in terms of process and timeline, which I said in the beginning, but yeah, I think a June ballot is way too soon. even a November ballot. So it only gives us six months. That's not a lot of time. And I think when we were talking in health and human services and public safety about potential revisions to chapter 35, which would also have to be a change within the charter, we cited that work as taking potentially a year to talk about and to really work through. And I think if we're going to do the appropriate amount of community input for something like this in terms of changing chapter nine or potentially changing it, that we need to look further down the road. And I'm inclined like I had said in the beginning to a November of 2024 election, which I believe will also be a presidential election. Because I think this is like a great starting point for us to have a conversation about, but I still think there's a significant amount of conversations and work that needs to happen before I feel like we could just immediately move forward. Um, move forward on this. So yeah, I'm in the party of taking it really slow. And then also just recognizing that we didn't actually cite this as a council goal. I know that was already said, but we listed our goals out and we didn't prioritize this as a goal. So with all of the things that we have coming up over the next several months over the next year, I don't know that this is an immediate priority because the rest of the council didn't list it as an immediate priority. So because of that, I think we have some time. And I think it was it's important for us to to remember that as we move forward and say like even if we do push it out to 2024, I don't think that that's a disservice. That's in a year, a year and a half. So I think we have time, but that would be my preference. Yeah, and hopefully I didn't mischaracterize. I certainly wasn't implying that it was decided on as a goal. It was brought up during the goal setting workshop, but we didn't really pick it up from there. So I was getting the sense that it was a priority, not a goal, just like other things that we bring forward into workshop or into the council's work, maybe priorities, but not listed as goals. But yeah, I appreciate that feedback. And I wanted to bring this up, get it in front of the council, see where where people want to land. So again, looking for people's feedback on where we go from here. Counselor Zahra. Thank you, Madam Mayor. All right, so I guess first I just want to say thank you to everyone and all of our colleagues here. We really did dive into it. And I just appreciate it because it feels good to get to the end of something this substantial and see things from a slightly different light and understand where everyone's coming from. So I just, I do genuinely appreciate it. Going into this, I was more inclined to want to address this in June. I feel like there's a lot of conversation going on around that. I think that city staff has given us a lot of their perspective. We have lived experience, we hear from our constituents. And that's, for me, I can obviously only speak for myself, I feel like we could do that. And we could do it in a way that involves the community. I'm happy, happy to be proven wrong though. I mean, if that is not the case, then I'm certainly not, you know, immovable there. I'm hearing our colleagues say that they do have concerns about that though, and the timeline is fast. And I do hear that. So I think I would be okay with this November. That would also be in line with if we were to say that we want to include in it that referendum would only be able to come in November. That would be true to what we would be recommending. But I mean, I will defer to the majority. But yes, coming into this, I was certainly more inclined for this June. But after listening to colleagues, I think, you know, to take my own advice, I want to be movable and flexible as well if that makes people more comfortable on the council. And if it gives us more time to work through it, because it is serious. And I know we do take it seriously. So that's where I'm at right now. I don't know how helpful that is, Mayor. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Ali. Thank you, Mayor. I think I will be leading more towards June. And my reason is that how do we call it? Once this goes on the ballot, it will generate a conversation that is needed between now and when we agree, we have like about a month. When we vote on it, we have about a month. We can have a public comment. We can get people to show up and give us their feedback. And we also do amendments on the floor. If someone tonight, I had people sharing some, some ideas that was shared by constituents. So I'm sure that a lot of constituents are watching. The reason why I'm saying we should do it this June is I can't wait for November or for next year. Because the issue of putting things on referendums have become so, I cannot count how we got the number of constituents who have reached out to me or who have made me run into me in town and say that can you guys do something about this? I believe that this is, we should have done this since yesterday. Last year, we're talking about it. I've forgotten what I think Mayor, you and I have had a conversation. And I said that because of all the referendum questions, I don't want to put something that would look like we are trying to use the same ballots to influence the way people will vote. So I think we've been talking about it for almost a year. And our constituents, whether those who agree with us on this or not, have been talking to us about this, whether to say to us that no, you cannot do that or you can do that. And I think a lot of people know that we are going to have this conversation today. Last, last, how do we call it, last Monday when we're having the council meeting, this came up. I don't remember if we said we're going to have this conversation today, but a lot of us mentioned that we're going to look into putting this on the June ballot. So people are away. I hope that more people will engage us on this in the next few weeks before we have our final vote on it. So I will lean more on putting it on the June ballot so that I'm done with it and move on. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Councillor Ali. Councillor Dion. Thank you. I think the process committee as a whole makes sense. I'm going to join Councillor Ali with June. I mean, we just, we have to do the work. We have to make some decisions. Public engagement will occur if we post these meetings and they come. I mean, I think the public elects us to make decisions. It's that simple. These are pretty straightforward. Either you're going to agree with the proposition or you're not. I'm okay with that part of it. But I think we can move along and get to June. You know, thank you. Thank you, Councillor Dion. Councillor Phillips. Yeah, without due respect to my fellow councillors, I think June is way too fast.  We have to process it and we have to give people time and we can't rush things. And here we are trying to rush something as important as Chapter 9 out there because we're tired of talking about referendums or because people have come to us and said that we need to have, we need to do something about this. So I think June is way too soon. I mean, to put it on, to put it on, you know, to have a first read in two weeks. I think it's, I think it's just too soon.  And yet here we are and we want to rush this through in June. So I don't think we should put it on the ballot in June. I tend to kind of agree with Councillor Pelletier. Let's take the time that we need to really take a look at this. It was not necessarily a priority or a goal. I don't know what the rush is. There probably have been umpteen thousand conversations that I'm just coming into it. But I don't know if you probably did have conversations about Chapter 9 before I got here, but this is my first conversation about it, which again, I totally agree with councillors. I always been extremely helpful to go through this process and really take a look at it. There's umpteen thousand things that we talked about tonight regarding this chapter, and that was just a little bit. I mean, there was just a lot of different things. This is a huge issue. And we talked about four or five different things that we would possibly change in this. And so I think that putting on a due ballot is way too soon. I could possibly be convinced to put it on a November ballot, but that does not get back to Councillor Pelletier's issue about why we continually have a referendum. So I'm not sure when we're going to talk about that regarding the community engagement piece of it. So again, I mean, I agree with Councillor Pelletier. Let's let's let's put it out there. Let's really go through it. And again, I could be convinced to put it on a November ballot, but there's a lot here. Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Fornir. Thank you so much. And first, just thank you to everyone for their engagement. You know, it's been a long one. And I appreciate it. I would be inclined for my fellow councillors to vote more towards November. I think what we've been talking about is being able to have good public engagement. So we're making good policies so that it doesn't have to be revised. And so I think being able to take the time to really think this through, there are, as Councillor Phillips just mentioned, a lot of different areas of this law that we just talked about that we may be changing. And that's a lot of changes. For me, it just feels like June was really too fast to do that to have the right amount of public engagement. And I definitely agree with Councillor Dianne that, yes, everyone elected us to be in these offices, but what we've heard through public comment for the emails we get is that people still feel sometimes left out of the process. And so I really want to honour that and make sure that if we're going to make some substantive changes to this rule that we're taking the time to really walk it through. So I would be more inclined for that later this event. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Rodriguez. Thank you, Mayor. So I guess I want to, before I say what my preference is on the timeline, I want to say in regards to our goal setting, I feel like I'll speak for myself. I would say that I dropped the ball, so to speak, because it was framed and I certainly had the interest, but I didn't act on it. And my sense is that there are some of the other Councillors that have expressed interest in taking this on now might feel similarly about, you know, the missed opportunity to tackle it as a goal setting exercise. And if we had done that, June, to me, would have seemed like a reasonable timeline to put this out there. Now, owning that I dropped the ball in what I now look at the right place to have brought this up initially. And what I think is a more friendly timeline to a diligent process, I'm leaning more towards a November ballot. But if the Council, I wouldn't be completely opposed to a June ballot. I don't think that two months from now is a very short period of time. It's not ideal. But, you know, I won't go too deep into this, but when I think about public engagement and the barriers that folks have, the real barriers that folks have to be in engaging government, you know, timing one of them, right? Folks that are disenfranchised are disenfranchised. We're not going to hear from them. There are systemic barriers to them being involved and it don't have to do with whether June or November ballot. It literally to them, that would be relevant. So I just think that the folks that will be involved will appreciate us moving into November. And so for that, and again, as a way to own my own shortfall of not raising this up in a timely manner, I will feel comfortable waiting until November. Great. Thank you, Councillor. I hear my colleagues. I think a majority of, well, I know a majority of people are saying, let's look to the November ballot as a goal. I think with all things, we do our best to set out a process and achieve the outcome that we're looking to achieve together. We could get to the point in time where we need to settle on something in order for it to be on the November ballot and say, for whatever reason, it's not going to work. So I think, but what I'm hearing from people is from a process development perspective, we're going to slow this down and endeavor to get council action so that the voters would be able to react to some council work on the November ballot. Seems clear to me that that's the will of the majority of the council. And that's totally fine with me. I'll just offer some comments. I do think that hearing from some folks on the council who have been here the longest, maybe what that illustrates is that there has been a lot of talk. And I have felt the pressure to do this work for a while now. But again, that's just my perspective. And I'm in my fourth year. So it's different, maybe depending on the time that we've been here and the feedback that we've gotten from the community. But that's the way council work happens. And so that's fine. I find myself making notes because what I'm realizing is I sometimes say I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't. On the one hand, we're elected to work and act. And if we don't act fast enough, sometimes we're told that that's the reason people want to put things on the ballot because the council's not acting fast enough. But if we act too fast, people will say you guys are leaving us out and that's not enough process and that wasn't well done.  But I think the thing that's encouraging about tonight is that we're talking about it. We're trying to get a sense of the will of the majority of the council so that we can build process that feels right to people and that we can move it at a pace that allows us to do good work together. I think that we could build a process that's a month long and in certain circumstances people could say that's plenty of time.  We could be in a situation where something comes forward, an amendment, or some other issue to consider and we're acting in real time practically, right? I mean there could be no first read, no workshop, it's an amendment on the floor and we act on it. So I mean this is the nature of things is that we can't be 100% consistent when we talk about building process but I think that what all this talk that we've done about process over the last week or so has really been focused on are we building the right process for what's before us tonight? Again, whether it's an amendment or a council action, are we doing our best given what we know about where we are and what we're doing? And so what I hear from my colleagues tonight is when it comes to issues associated with Chapter 9 and the changes to initiation and referendum provisions in that portion of the code, this timeline isn't right. But again, it could be the right timeline for another matter. So I guess I'm pointing that out only because from where I stand sometimes it would be great if we could say this is the standard by which we always manage process. But we don't and we can't and that's just the nature of the work. But talking to one another and sharing why the process and the timing works in any given situation I think is helpful to me and I think it's helpful to the community too as we figure this stuff out together. So anyway, I think what I'll my sort of next steps are at this point to work with city staff to figure out when we come back again with a hard look at a revised ordinance so that we can begin to discuss the specifics as ordinance amendments with one another in a workshop that hopefully, you know, gains community input and and attention. Councillor Ali. I will let the next person go. Okie doke, Councillor Zarro. Thank you Madam Mayor. I appreciate you trimming in and kind of, you know, wrapping all of that together. That was quite a bit that we've discussed and you sort of sparked in me, you know, I guess one thing that I would want to throw out to colleagues for, you know, the argument for November would be like what what exactly is that engagement going to look like? What is it we're going to what is it we're going to we what we want to do? We want to make sure we're going to do what boxes are we going to check that, you know, November will accomplish that June will not. And yeah, whatever those are, I just I want us Mayor to to kind of make sure that those are a part of it so that we can hold ourselves accountable because I wouldn't want us to because this this evening is, you know, while it's late and I'm hungry and I really want to be done. We've actually done a lot. We've really engaged. This is one of the healthier conversations. I think I can recall that we've had together and that's why I'm so appreciative. But I guess what's the next step? What's the next conversation? Is it going to be the hard line ordinance that you've that you've written that we're now going to look at? We're going to say what works? What doesn't? Are we going to walk it out to everyone and say what do you think? And I guess the last thing again is just what's the difference between, you know, that in June versus that in November and that there doesn't need to actually be an answer to that. That's just kind of like for for me. I also would want to know like what I'm going to say to constituents who are saying, Oh, what happened? What happened from the workshop? What what's next? Thank you, Counselor Zaro, actually that I really appreciate you bringing that up. I'm a little tired too. So I I'll use all the help I can get. I do think it's important for people to be very concrete in terms of what is the community engagement process that you'd like to see so that we can achieve that together. If you leave it up to me, I might just schedule another workshop. So or I might do something different, but I welcome your engagement and I want it. You're making me think of the the DUSON rule. When I was first the first year I was on the Council and overlapped with then Councilor DUSON, the the rule that was sort of named in her honor was if we're going to postpone something, what are we going to learn between now and then that's going to change your action? So I think in a way that's what you're saying, Counselor Zaro, is if we don't feel that we can act on this for the first read on April 10th and a second read on April 24th, what is it that we that we need to do or that we need to learn between now and when we have to act to put something on the November ballot, which is typically in the summertime? What do we need to do? So I think that's a great prompt and I welcome it and if it doesn't happen in real time tonight, I really encourage people to reach out to me or to the City Manager or to Corporation Council to voice what it is that you want to see concretely so that we can make sure that we're not that we don't miss out on good process that people feel they want to inform. Counselor Ali. Thank you Mayor. I still don't remember but I will use this opportunity to chime in about how do we call it my call for an office of civic engagement or community engagement. This conversation have proven that we really need that. So I don't know if the City Manager is here. I know that it is not going to be able to make it to this year's budget but we shall consider that next year. Thank you. Next we go to Counselor Rodriguez. Thank you. I know everyone's dying to get to get done with this and I almost hesitated to raise my hand but I didn't want to lose the opportunity to address on Counselor Zarros prompt what we gain from what we would be gaining from the additional time. You know I honestly I don't think that there'd be a lot to gain. I think it'd be more of a aesthetic thing where it just looks better. I was just telling Counselor Travorro you know to truly you know we will always until we break down the barriers that are keeping people from participating in government we'll always be engaging with the same group of people. It will just be at a different day and a different time but what keeps people from being engaged in our work the systemic pressures that keep people this like I said this enfranchise you know we're not going to fix that neither in two months or in six months so I don't believe that we'll be gaining a ton but it looks better and I hate to be blunt I hate to keep like I said earlier I'm going to keep 100 and keep a buck with y'all and it just looks better but we I doubt that we'll be gaining much more in the process and that's just where I'm at. Okay thank you Counselor. Well at a minimum I think that we will reconvene to review chapter nine in workshop there's no reason that we can't build in a workshop that contains public comment the way we did with clean elections which doesn't mean that the community shouldn't reach out to us anytime you know one-on-one with emails and input in that in that way but I'll summarize by saying I think we're we're taking up this body of work we're doing it as a committee of the whole that this is council work that we can do alongside the work that we do coming out of committee in response to our council goals with the budget with the hiring processes that we've got on our radar it's work that we will schedule and that we will do alongside all the other priorities so I'll work with staff to get something scheduled but again I look to my colleagues on the council to please reach out if you have creative ideas for how to engage people differently and meaningfully and we will do our best to to make sure that an action coming from this council on chapter nine is transparent and informed and the result of good work so I think we can end tonight's workshop there I can hardly speak it's been a very long day I'm not feeling well I put on my down jacket mid-meeting because I'm freezing so I apologize if I'm a little loopy here at 9 18 p.m but I do really want to thank everybody for your input and your thoughtful contributions to tonight's workshops and in the earlier council meeting and we don't need a motion to adjourn so I will just say this workshop is adjourned and I hope you all get some sleep tonight and I'll see you soon and safe travels to anybody who's on the road. Bye. Thanks everybody. Good night.