Hi. Thanks for being with us here in council chambers. I think we are rolling on Zoom. So we've got folks with us tonight on Zoom as well, 41 at this moment. Anybody have their mic on because I can hear myself? We go up there, Peter? Okay. All right. Good evening, everybody. I'm going to call this meeting to order. It's Monday, April 10th. This is the Portland City Council. We're in chambers. We're in a regular meeting. I'd like to welcome everybody here in chambers as well as on Zoom. We've got 42 participants this evening. And as we start the meeting, I'd like to welcome you to join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, another guy, indivisible, with liberty, and justice for all. Thank you. Will the clerk please call the roll? Councillor Fornir. Here. Councillor Rodriguez. Here. Councillor Dyon. Here. Councillor Ali. Yay. Councillor Zauro. Here. Councillor Trevorrow. Here. Councillor Pilletear. Here. Councillor Phillips.  Here. So as you can tell, we've got some councillors with us here in chambers. We've got two councillors with us at the moment on Zoom. I think Councillor Phillips will be joining us if she's able to on Zoom. So we won't see her in chambers, but maybe on Zoom. OK, so we are going to move into our five o'clock period of comments on items that are not on tonight's agenda. Councillor Dyon, would you like to address the council? Yes, I would, Madam Mayor. I'd like to make a motion to allow public comment on an agenda item. Is there a second? Right again. I have a motion to waive council rules in order to take public comment on an item that wouldn't typically get public comment. And that comment would be received during the public comment period at five o'clock. We have a second from Councillor Trevorrow. Are there any questions from the council? Comments.  Councilor Rodriguez. I guess it's just to clarify, are we opening up to any non-agenda item or, excuse me, to any item on the agenda for the five o'clock period or a specific item that we're going to pick up? Madam Mayor, I apologize. There should have been more specific in my motion. The grant of public comment on an agenda item is specifically to address a communication that we will receive from the police chief this evening. Thank you. Thank you. So clarifying the motion, it would be to allow public comment on communication number 32 from tonight's agenda, which is the police response to April 1st events in the city of Portland. So this period would be five o'clock public comment period on anything that's not on tonight's agenda. And if you're here to address communication 32, that would be allowed if we indeed waive council rules in order to move in that direction. So additional council comment discussion. My intention would be, at this point in time, to, if in the event that this passes, that we would take public comment on any number of matters, including communication 32, I would then take communication 32 out of order so that that could be the first thing on the agenda. I do have a hand up from Councillor Phillips, who's with us on Zoom. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just wanted to let you know I was here. OK, great. Good to see you. Thanks for joining. Yep, thank you. We'll make sure the clerk reflects you're here. So without further discussion on this matter of waiving council rules in order to accept public comment on communication number 32 tonight, we'll go ahead and vote. Councillor Fornir. Yes. Councillor Rodriguez. Yes. Councillor Dionne. Yes. Councillor Ali. Yeah. Councillor Zauro. Yes. Councillor Trebaro. Yes. Councillor Pellett's here. Yes. Councillor Phillips. Yes. Mayor Snider. Yes. So we have waived council rules. So this five o'clock public comment period is open for anybody who would like to speak to the council on items that are not on tonight's agenda and also including communication 32. We'll start on Zoom. Since I've got hands up, if you're here in chambers and you'd like to speak, please make a line right behind the podium so that I know you're here and I can anticipate you. I'm going to toggle back and forth between Zoom and council chambers. First, I'll go to George on Zoom. Thank you. And in keeping with council rules, if you could please give us your first and last name, your address, neighborhood or the organization that you represent and then we'll give you three minutes on the clock. The clerk will give you a warning at 30 seconds. Wonderful. My name is George Folster. I'm in the Riverton neighborhood. George, we can no longer hear you if you're with us. Oh, I'm here. I'm here, yep. And I'm ready to start whenever you guys are. Yep, go right ahead. Wonderful. Thank you all for your time. My comments today are in regards to the upcoming school budget and the consideration surrounding tax increases. I believe that we are seeing in part at least the consequences of cutting essential school budget dollars with the Portland school system unable to reliably pay its employees. I believe that further cuts would be at the expense of offering a great education to the children of Portland. Along with everyone else, I'm not a fan of further tax increases. But I believe it's the lesser of two evils here. And I support a 7% increase opposed to additional cuts to the Portland school budget. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your comment. Next, we'll go to our speaker in chambers. Good evening. My name is Viva. I'm representing the West End. I have on my phone a picture of Portland Police response to Black youths protesting peacefully against the system that continues to oppress and kill them. It is a photo of Portland Police aiming a rifle at Black youths, a sniper rifle from a roof. I also have the Portland Police press release in which they said Portland Police Department said Saturday a small neo-Nazi rally led to disturbances, failing to acknowledge that that was the largest Nazi rally in Portland in decades. Portland Police witnessed the Nazis violently attacking anti-fascist activists and initially ordered them to the ground, which indicates to me that they did see something wrong. However, that was the extent of law enforcement action. Portland Police then provided the Nazis a police escort as they departed, so much for leadership, integrity, and service. For a little background on the group that has been firing the old port and recruiting for two years now, they are known as the Aryan Freedom Network. They are a small but growing neo-Nazi group based in Texas. If this was Al Qaeda or ISIS, I wouldn't have to stand in front of you and tell you how scary it is that a hate group from outside of Portland is organizing to come here. AFN provoked hard line white supremacist views and largely directs its vitriol at Jewish people, Black people, the LGBT community, and these folks started their rally in front of the Immigrant Welcome Center. In a summary of events, on April 1st, members of the neo-Nazi organization NSC 131 marched through Portland and assaulted community members.  Most of the news coverage and the police reports omit the violence enacted by members of NSC 131. By the way, NSC stands for nationalist, socialist, something, and 131 is to represent the letters ACA, which has to do with being anti-communist. This was, which by the way, if you are not versed in this, is code for being against Jewish people. This was not a peaceful event. There were multiple hate crimes. The police did not take statements unless they say let's leave. Neo-Nazis are also building a white ethno state in Maine. We know this from a white news article. We had notice on February 23rd and 24th in the news that this was going to happen. I knew that this was going to happen for the last two years. And I'm an entertainer. I'm a singer. So I don't understand how the police didn't know that we were going to have a violent hate group here. And what are they going to do to protect us? What will this city do to protect us? Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Next on Zoom, we have KRIZ-MN. Hello? Hello. Hi, I'm Chrism. I live in 230 Douglas Street. I'm normally a hermit and don't get involved in this stuff. After seeing the violent assaults online from DSA and NSC against local manors, I felt like I needed to say something. Will city council or Portland police be commenting on the videos regarding DSA organizers who ordered members to punch the guy who held the banner? And then a few days later, it happened. We also saw a group called NSC who committed a similar act. Will either parties be investigated? Pretty much all manors have watched these videos of both DSA and NSC. Both these groups need to be condemned and their violence needs to end. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Next, we have a speaker in chambers. Hi, Sarah Rajiro, West End. Thank you, Mayor Snyder and the city councilors for making the time today to discuss the escalating neo-Nazi presence in our city. Like many others, I'm disgusted by NSC's recent vulgar display of white supremacy and violence upon Portland. And before that, across different communities in New England. I find it deeply disturbing that police across the country have no issue or hesitancy shooting at unarmed black people but not at a group of armed and dangerous neo-Nazis who are actively threatening and assaulting people. I find it peculiar that in the summer of 2020, police came from all across the county to show up in Portland with riot gear, pepper spray in response to a community grieving and protesting the racist murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, but who allowed a group of neo-Nazis to go about their day without questioning or detainment. Perhaps this was due to indifference, but of course we know historically there is often overlap and ties between members of far-right extremist hate groups, military law enforcement from the KKK onward. The members of NSC who paraded through our town chose to hide their identities, but they are people with names, addresses, and jobs. The exception would be Portland's own Richard Ward, who to my knowledge is unemployed and therefore can make fascism his full-time passion project and is allegedly the one to invite NSC to Portland. You may recall that in the summer of 2021, another such hate group, the Proud Boys, was gathering on a monthly basis at Matthew's Pub. This group was not chased out of town by our police force, but by community members who refused to allow racism and bigotry to fester in a place we call home. We're here again to say that if you are not here to help and fight, then stay out of our way. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Back to Zoom and we've got Stephen Scharf next. Stephen Scharf of Brackett Street in Portland. I actually want to speak to two other items, not the ones everybody else has been speaking to. First is I want to actually thank the council staff or whoever manages the video operation for actually turning on the Zoom well before the meeting starts. Most of the meetings you go to, they turn it on like after all the people, participants are in place. And so people on Zoom are just sitting there wondering if they're in the right meeting. So I just appreciate that you do it the quote, the correct way. The other thing I want to speak to is I was under the impression that the city's budget would be released today and was surprised to see it's not on the agenda. And I hear there was no reference to the fact that it wasn't gonna be on the agenda at the last finance committee meeting. So I'm a little confused by that. I would like to get some explanations to why it's on today's agenda and at what city council meeting it will be released so that the process for the city side of the budget can go forward. That's all I have. Thank you. Thanks, Stephen. I think it was brought up at the last finance committee meeting. I'm happy to forward you those materials. I sent it out in an email to my distribution and I believe there was a press release. So I'll shoot that to you directly so that you can see the updated schedule but you can look for the manager's budget on April 24th here in Chambers. Next to anybody who would like to speak in Chambers. Hello, my name is Betsy Whitman. I live in Oakdale and I didn't expect to speak tonight but there are two things I wanted to bring up. The day after the incident occurred the Nazi and fight and incident occurred. I woke up the next day to walk my dog and I went out front and I always have a Black Lives Matter right there at my porch and at 5.30 in the morning, it was gone. It has been there for three years. I didn't know this, what had happened the night before but when I read about it I knew what happened to my sign. I lived in Germany for four years and in Germany, you always heard, we didn't know. I lived in a tiny little town called Oberamstadt, 4,000 people. And the people were friendly enough with me, lovely. And I took to walking around and I walked around one day and I came to a signpost and the signpost said here was where Oberamstadt's synagogue was burned on Kristallnacht and it made me realize nobody didn't know what was happening and it made me realize the increments of violence and terror and terrorist actions and the stealing of signs and the harassment happened everywhere and everyone knew. It's up to us, all of us, to work together to make sure that doesn't happen in our dear country of the United States of America. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Next we'll turn over to Zoom and we have Becca. Yeah, hi. Becca May, I live up on the hill on the East end. I'll have to apologize, I'm actually in route somewhere and I don't have a script but hope I can articulate this as best as possible. But yeah, I'm just calling to express my absolute disgust with how the PD responded to the neo-Nazis in Portland the other week. Although I'm not actually surprised at all by that response and I think it really begs the question why we as a city are spending $15, $17 million on an institution that is historically racist and obviously very complicit to white supremacy. And I don't think we need to go further than some of the emails that these neo-Nazis have sent our counselors that explicitly state the police will not protect you. These groups know that what just happened, the response that we just witnessed has been and will continue to be the norm. So moving forward, I feel like if city leadership is not having conversations, serious conversations about literally defunding the Portland PD and investing that money into community-based solutions to harm reduction, all of your talk about advancing racial justice and making the city safe for all of its constituents is simply performative. So I hope that moving forward, especially when we talk about budget that my other constituents continue to show up and honestly just ask you to put your money where your mouth is. So that's all I got, thank you. Thank you for your comment, next in chambers. Thank you, mayor, counselors and particularly to my city councilor, councilor Palatier, my name's Leo Hilton. I live in the West end. You all know I come and talk to you fairly frequently and normally I share my home address but tonight I'm not sharing it because I'm worried about retaliation. I'm queer and Jewish and I've lived in Portland since I was a kid and I'm a communist organizer with the main democratic socialists of America.  I'm not going to belabor all the details but I got beat up, I didn't get beat up that bad but I got thrown on the ground and I sure got really, really scared and I'm not scared anymore, now I'm just angry and I'm angry that guys like that want me dead.   So I'm here tonight because I have a couple of requests for the police department and for the city council. I did end up making a statement. I know that in the original video I'm not making a statement and that's because in that moment to be totally honest as the neo-Nazis were walking away that's when Sergeant Ross came up to me and asked me if I'd like to make a comment and in that moment it was my priority to follow those guys back to where their vehicles were to see if I could figure out who they were because I'm interested even if the police weren't in that moment. I also wasn't comfortable sharing my story because in that moment I was thinking about watching those same police two years ago take a knee and alleged solidarity with people protesting the murder of George Floyd and then turn around and shoot pepper balls and spray tear gas at a crowd of unarmed protesters. I didn't feel like I was comfortable sharing my story with those people at that moment but I've made my statement to the police now and I want truth and accountability. I'd like the police to comply with any freedom of access act requests. I'd like them to publicly release any body cam footage any surveillance camera footage from the event to try to corroborate our story. I'm calling on the city council to hold the police responsible for the police inaction and I think you should consider reprimanding and firing whoever was responsible for letting 20 or more violent neo-Nazis walk away back into the city where they could have harmed another person. I think it's worth taking time to realize an unfulfilled demand from 2020. May I have another moment? Thank you. Yeah, you can just go ahead and finish up. Thank you. Yeah, we'll finish up here. We have to realize an unfulfilled demand from the 2020 George Floyd uprising in Portland and that's to create a police citizen review board that is actually capable of holding police responsible and responsive to the demands of the community. And finally, I'd ask the council that you please not use my experience and the experience of my friends as an excuse to increase police funding. That is absolutely counter to anything that I would want done. Thank you very much. Thank you for your comment. Thank you. Next, we'll go to Zoom and we have Ariel. Hello, sorry, can you hear me? We can. Great, thank you so much. My name is Ariel Lynette. I live in North Deering and I wanted to speak briefly. I'll apologize in advance. You'll probably hear my toddler in the background. But I wanted to speak about the two topics that folks have brought up so far. One is that I support the school budget. I support increase of 7% in the tax, property tax rate. I know that I have a particular stake because I have a child who doesn't go to school in Portland yet but we can't wait for her opportunity to do that. But I believe that it matters to all of us to live in a community where education is one of our top priorities. And I think it's actually linked to the other topic that folks have been talking about, about neo-Nazis parading through Portland and police having an inadequate response to it because I think that the rise of more publicly tolerated fascism and fascist ideology can be countered in part by education. And so I think we as a city have an opportunity to move towards the values that we want and to stand together against the values that we don't. And I think honestly it goes beyond the city council. I think that there are actions that you all can take and I appreciate Leo for sharing some suggestions. And I'm calling on all of us who are here to stand together against fascism in Maine and in support of people like me who are Jewish and people who are LGBTQ plus and people who are Muslim and immigrants and disabled and a lot of other groups that I'm not thinking of right now who neo-Nazis want to stamp out of our society. It would be a really grim place if they had their way. So thank you for all the work that you all are doing the council members and activists and citizens and everybody involved in the morning. I think that's all I have. Thank you so much. Thank you for your comment. And next speaker in chambers. Thank you mayor. Councilors just working. Great. Thank you mayor. Thank you councilors. I'm CJ from district two as I have the best district rep. I'm here to talk about my experience on April 1st. I was engaged in First Amendment protected free speech holding a rainbow flag out front of city hall when I was physically assaulted as part of a hate crime by a neo-Nazi group called NSC 131. These guys were trying to get a flag for me which they were unsuccessful in doing and they physically assaulted me in an attempt to make me stop holding the flag which they couldn't do. I then separated myself from them and I spoke with an officer from the Portland police department. The officer from PPED who I talked to did not ask me to make a statement. When I asked that officer if I had any legal reports he told me I didn't and I felt in the moment coaxed or persuaded away from trying to make a statement. I'm not someone who has a ton of faith or confidence in law enforcement but I tried to approach any interaction I might have with the law enforcement and with PPED with an open mind and to be as respectful as I can. But here's a situation in which I tried to approach this with an open mind and my lack of confidence in law enforcement was only reinforced because the officer who didn't let me make a statement upheld the guys who prevented me from expressing myself holding my flag. And I don't really feel like the police in general are equipped or there to protect us from like neo-nazi or fascist threats like the guys who were in Portland a little more than a week ago. I think what is equipped to protect us is a strong community-based response and understanding of solidarity in our communities. I think that's what truly keeps us safe. To that end, I think things that we can do to keep ourselves and our community safe we can educate ourselves on the violent fascist threats that we face. We can counter people who are doing target setting by spreading the same messages as these groups and encouraging these groups to visit Portland either implicitly or explicitly and share their messages of hate. To that end, former city council candidate and school board candidate, Richard Ward has been doing an excellent job at these second warning for these groups. Also in the wake of this assault against me this guy has encouraged people to release my identity and as far as I can tell has only unsuccessfully succeeded in encouraging people to harass some other random person in Portland. I think it's really despicable that someone involved in the city's political sphere would encourage that kind of harassment for someone who is guilty only of being the victim of a hate crime. I'll wrap it up here. I think building a strong community response and understanding of solidarity with our neighbors and organizing either with organizations or just with people we know, love and trust is what stands to actually protect our communities from allowing the kind of radicalization that leads guys into joining these groups to happen. Thank you. I would also like the PPB to comply with any FOAA requests regarding body cam to back up my claim that nobody took my statement. I would also encourage a significant review of the police citizen complaint board because right now it can only prove whether or not complaints filed about police misconduct Thank you, CJ. Appreciate it, thank you. Okay, next we'll move on to Cassie who's on Zoom. Hi, my name is, can you hear me? I'm sorry. Yes, we can. Hi, my name's Cassie. I apologize, I'm actually at work right now working and participating in this Zoom. I don't have a script or anything to follow. I really just wanted to second the things that Viva and the previous seven people who've spoken about the uprising in the Neo-Nazi movement in Portland. I also will not be sharing my address because I fear for my partner and myself for both of us being part of the LGBT community, my partner being a POC and also us living by police and firefighters. I just really thank you guys for taking a moment to really listen to what we're saying and how scared we actually are. Thank you. Thank you for your comment and we'll next go to our next speaker in chambers. My name is Charlie, I'm a queer Portlander and I'm here to share my thoughts and experiences outside of this very city hall on the 1st of April. A violent hate crime was carried out against me and several other Portlanders by Neo-Nazis in the Portland Police Department standing here, let them walk. I sustained a brain injury over $1,000 of out-of-pocket medical expenses and lost a week's worth of work due to my injuries. I want to provide clarification on two specific falsehoods from the Portland Police Department's press release. Firstly, Portland Police Department states that there was a fight. The four people who counter-processed an SC-131 did so entirely peacefully by holding a pride flag in front of them. We did not say a word to the Nazis, yet within a minute of our arrival, we were there. They were there calling us homophobic slurs and surrounding us with all two dozen of them. We were then violently assaulted. There was no fight, it was an unprovoked hate crime that happened directly in front of the police. Secondly, Portland Police Department stated that they did not make arrests because those who were assaulted did not make statements. By the time that I was asked to give a statement by an officer, the PPD had already released all members of NSC and let them walk down the block. This is documented in video I took of the incident that PPD has certainly seen. Because of their release, any statement I or others would have made in that moment would not have resulted in any of us that day. Portland Police witnessed a hate crime and instead of doing the absolute bare minimum of ideating and unmasking the literal neo-Nazis, they let them go. Portland Police Department failed our community that it ostensibly serves and the officers present last Saturday and here today should be absolutely ashamed with themselves. Their inaction has directly encouraged NSC one through one to escalate, to commit more acts of violence. The hate group said, let's try to accelerate things to brutally attack people just for their identity. Portland Police Department's actions say, go ahead, we won't stop you. These events did not happen in a vacuum. This type of fascist rhetoric has been normalized by Portland locals for years, namely by Richard Ward.  Last weekend was the result of that normalization. In conclusion, I would like to implore my neighbors to no longer let fascism go unopposed and to take this seriously. Richard might be the laughing stock of Portland, but he's directly responsible for the most vulnerable members of our community feeling unsafe. Lastly, I would like to address Richard and the members of NSC one through one that are tuning into this meeting right now. You are on the wrong side of history. There are more of us than there are of you and you will only be remembered as a filthy stain on New England's story. The police will not keep us safe and fascism is not going to go away on its own. It's only through the strength of our community, our ability to stand up for one another on the ground that can stop these things. Thank you, Charlie. It's up to everyday Portlanders and Mainers to keep each other safe. Thank you for your comment. Next, we go to Lilly on Zoom.  Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Okay. Yeah, my name's Lilly. I'm in the West End. I just wanna say that this situation calls for clear action and no ambiguity about where any of us stand. And I'm referring to the neo-Nazi March on April 1st. I think that both the Portland police statement and a lot of other language that people in positions of power and people who don't directly feel the terror of the effect of a march like this. The language that a lot of people use implies two sides. Like there are two different equally valid stances on this issue. And that's just not the case. We have a side that actually represents a wish for an ethno-nationalist state, which means a white Christian nationalist state. We are already seeing the effects of hundreds of years of that desire playing out. But I will just say that this is a two-sided issue is to stand on the side of oppression and violence. And that is exactly how genocide happens. And I'm not trying to use scary language to, I think sometimes that can alienate people who are not clear on how dangerous this is, but I'm just trying to use it to just be clear about actually how dangerous, how dangerous it is to not have an extremely clear stance on what neo-Nazis represent. I also just wanna name that they are making themselves out to be oppressed. There's like literature being put out around Portland about anti-white oppression, which is not a real thing. The only hardship that we as white people face for being white is because of our own destruction of our identity through the creation of whiteness. And I just wanna be clear that like we have an opportunity Thanks, we have an opportunity here to be really clear as a city and as a community about the true nature of our history on this land, on Turtle Island and to take a hard stand against fascism and genocide. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Next, we have a speaker in chambers. My name is Samson Spadafore. I live on Wabanaki land known as District One. My public comment tonight is about the heinous acts of violence committed by NSC 131 and the response. First thing I want to say is that police are useless. They let these neo-Nazi terrorists walk away after people holding a pride flag were physically and verbally assaulted. What kind of a city is Portland that we can have evidence of neo-Nazis giving the Hitler salute and physically assaulting queer and Jewish people while shouting slurs on video and no one does anything about it. I'm calling for the police who let the neo-Nazis go without being identified to be fired. I am calling for accountability. Mayor Snyder, I read your email, the bullet pointed list of value statements regarding how hate has no home here does not make me feel any safer in this community. It does not erase what has happened. It changes nothing. The truth of the matter is hate does not live here. Hate does live here and we are not safe. We need to be openly discussing safety in our city. What does safety actually mean for citizens that you are accountable to? I don't want to be constantly worried that I'm going to be assaulted by Nazis on the street or shot up in the Equality Community Center or cocktail marries. And furthermore, we need community healing. This space is not a space of healing. This has actually been the space of further harm, especially towards counselors of marginalized identity. Fascism is alive and well in the city. We have to have a safety plan. We have to support one another. And this is for everyone, community members and counselors alike. I am begging you to connect with each other. Fascism thrives on fear and isolation. It thrives when we put each other against one another and we cannot let that be our fate. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Next, we go to Levi on Zoom. Yes, hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can. All right. This is Richard Ward, Parkside neighborhood. I wanted to say it's funny that you guys wear masks to hide your face, but you're saying the nationals are wearing masks. I find that kind of funny. And then I also find it disgusting that the democratic socialists literally called for violence against activists and political candidates. We had sitting city counselors called for violence against activists. I was attacked out in front of city hall a couple of months ago for just holding a sign saying it's okay to be white. Thankfully, the second amendment defends our first amendment and I can protect myself and protect my first amendment, right?  The Holocaust was disgusting and theft is nothing in the horrors of Nazism. So I found that kind of idiotic and it's wild that everyone is having a hissy fit about the NSC March, but has no problem with democratic socialists committing violence. The summer of 2020 when BLM burned, lit things on fire, attacked police officers with urine, bricks and everyone thought that was wonderful, but how dare? Some white guys peacefully hold the sign in a park. I don't agree with their message entirely, but for those four men to go there looking for a fight and then getting one and then playing victim is kind of moronic and they put it on their own hands going there. And I wanted to say, what is anti-whiteism? Dispossession, the social, political and economic disenfranchisement of ethnic Europeans in their homeland to the policy such as mass immigration, diversity quotas and multiculturalism that undermines ethnic European identity. Defamation, the use of libel, slurs and slander meant to discredit the legitimate concerns of ethnic Europeans or do humanize them as a group including conspiracy theories and concepts such as white privilege, white fragility and critical race there, which normalizes anti-white tropes. Denial, preventing and delegitimizing the attacks of the rights and ethnic Europeans, form or maintain countries, institutions that represent their unique ethic interests. The denial of national rights afforded to the other groups which are not recognized for indigenous Europeans and their ancestral lands or countries historically founded and populated by ethnic Europeans and then replacement. Any action or policy that seeks to limit, remove or erase ethnic Europeans from positions and education policies in a society substituting foreign people in their place. This includes democratic replacement via immigration as well as revisionist historical and cultural interpretations that facilitate white erasure. 30 second warning. I'd like to say that I think the city should focus on taking care of main homeless first before welcoming an influx of asylum seekers that Portland cannot house an endless supply of asylum seekers. Poor people can't afford to move out of nice to these nice neighborhoods and we don't wanna make our communities third well hell holes. Thank you. And we'll go to our next speaker in chambers please. Hi there, my name is Alexis. I live on, I live in Parkside. My public comment is about the Nazi attack that took place here last week and also about the public statement that the Portland police department put out. It's pretty frustrating to know that their statement was false. And I want the council members to kind of take into consideration historically the ties between the police, the state and fascism and how it works. We've seen a rise in fascism across the country in terms of LGBTQ and human rights. The police unfortunately are there to enforce these fascist policies. So it is not, it's not correct to ask the public to stand by and trust these folks who are going to aid the state in our demise. And yeah, I think there just needs to be more discussion amongst you all about ways to move forward. I think community guidance and leadership is more important than leaning on the police in these circumstances because, you know, also not to, it's just weird that they didn't get the identification of anyone that was part of the NSC 131. And yeah, I'm really nervous. So I'm like not doing so well, but yeah, there needs to be some accountability but we also need to move away from relying on the police to protect us, to work with us because historically that has not happened and I don't think it's going to happen ever. Thank you for your comment. And next we'll go back to Zoom. I have a Tee. Hi, can you hear me okay? Yes, we can. Hi, my name is Tee Lane. I live in Portland proper. I will not be announcing my address, but I do just want to say that this has been documented. This has been here for quite some time. This rally just happened on April 1st, but this has been a building national throne. If anyone else reads the national news or the main news for that matter, this has been publicly covered by everybody that white supremacists are attempting to take a foothold in the state of Maine for a number of reasons because white supremacy has been here forever but also because we have lax gun laws and you could look this up if you don't believe me, but I just want to point out these flyers have been going up, these recruiting flyers for these terrible white supremacist groups have been going up all over town. We've been ripping these down for years now.  This is a direct threat to all of the communities that live here. And inaction is violence.  And I just needed to call it to say that this has been going on for some time. I think it's just crazy to me that we need to garner everyone's attention with a rally and this comment here, but this has been going on for months and months and months. Many, many folks in this community have been pointing that out for quite some time and it is beyond time that we act to outroot neo-Nazism, anti-Semitism, white supremacy from our communities altogether. Thank you. And next we'll go to a speaker in chambers. Hi, my name is Brett. I live on the West End. I just want to be perfectly clear and say that there is no separation between Richard Ward and Nazism at all. And the fact that he wants to pretend like there is is really embarrassing. There is direct ties from him to NSC via tweets that you can find going back months of him organizing and getting them to get out here. So his whole shtick is just embarrassing and the optics on what happened the other day with the police officers and how they interacted with the group of NSC is like embarrassing at the very best and there should have been arrests made or IDs or literally anything, anything. But instead nothing was done post just peacefully escorting them away after they openly assaulted someone completely unprovoked. And of course they use the element of surprise because that's all they have. You're all cowards, thank you. Okay, we'll go to Cyrus on Zoom next. Hi, my name is Cyrus Shehan. I live in the East End of Portland. And I think two important things need to be said here. One is complicity. And if city council doesn't take decisive action and by decisive action, I mean, take money away from the cops, take money away from the cops that they can't point sniper rifles at people so that they can't armor themselves to look like ninja turtles, take money away from the cops so that they cannot pay for their armored assault vehicles to go cruising around Portland and racially profile in my community. If city council does not take that money away from them then they are complicit in this as well. City council is just as complicit in what the police do because city council is giving police permission to act this way. The police officers are also going to use the excuse that they were just following orders. Well, having just recently taught about the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem and talking about Hannah Arendt, we all know what the excuse I was just following orders means. It's cover for any kind of fascist, racist or generally marginalizing authoritative behavior. And so if city council wants to create healing, then take the money away from the cops decisively now forbid the city police from having any surplus military equipment for if cops want to racially profile people then they can do it on foot and with a pencil and paper instead of an armored up in the back of a tank. Take the money away from the cops and fund the community organizations like the East End Public School and that is going to be receiving an influx of all of our new citizen, new community members here who are now living in the expo. All of those kids are gonna be going to the East End School. Fund the school, fund the teachers. Right now the city is taking away two teaching positions from the East End School even though there's already an anticipated influx of students into that school.  Thank you. Thank you. And next we go to a speaker in chambers. Richard Ward invited NSR to listen to him about his nonsense. What's disappointing are supposed to investigate. Can you please go to the mic? I can't hear you. Can you go right to the mic? Yeah, is this better? Much, much better. Thank you, ma'am. Okay. The actions are lackthorough thereof from the Portland Police Department and bold in these neo-Nazis. You confirmed their entitlement, their privilege and their belief that the good old place and it did. Just to let you know, one of our council rules is that you direct your public comment at me. So thank you. Yes ma'am, yep, and it did. It worked for them. They were allowed to leave without having their IDs taken. I spoke with the lovely officer right outside of the door here. We had a good conversation. I've had to show my ID for something not as serious as assault or something like this. So the whole, oh, they were walking off and they didn't wanna talk. I've personally experienced not being able to walk off and having to provide my IDs. So it just, it doesn't feel right. And it adds to the mistrust. Like why are we treated like this? We're just yelling for equality. But these people are literally racist. They're using homophobic slurs and assaulting people and they're allowed to get away with it. They assaulted your constituents.  They were allowed to walk out of here without so much as showing their identification. Again, some of the pages I follow on Instagram could let you know exactly who these men are and how dangerous they are and the things that they are saying. These things, assaulting people, calling them, using racial slurs, this is illegal. This is illegal, correct? That's my belief. And they're allowed to walk out of here. You failed us. You again lost our trust in our faiths and you to do the bare minimum, which is your job. I'm wondering if the police are scared. Like we're scared too. We're scared too, but we show up and we don't have vests. We don't have guns. We don't have pepper spray. We don't have tasers. Like it's gonna take all of us.  Thank you. We'll go to our next speaker on Zoom, Vivienda. Hello, can you hear me? We can. Hi, my name's Vivienda. Thanks for the opportunity to speak. I have a short brief thing. I'm a tenant at Northgate Apartments, so which is a historic apartment building in the Arch District at 231 State Street. We have 25 units and the building has been passed down for multiple generations. We've always had numbered storage in our basement and our building is under the rent stabilization ordinance. And we got our annual increase in our rent on January 1st. And on March 21st, we received an additional notice by email saying they wanted to charge us $100 for our storage units that have always been with the apartments. And this is an obvious violation of the rent stabilization ordinance because the base rent has gone up and the definition for rental unit covers storage explicitly and the definition of rent is also explicitly any monies rendered for rental unit or housing services of any kind. And so I went to the Housing Safety Office. We did as a tenant union anonymously in order to file a complaint. And we were told that we needed a signed lease in order to pursue our rights under the rent stabilization ordinance. But under the ordinance, we are allowed to form a anonymous tenant unit. We don't have to register with the city and the city's prohibited from requesting our identities. And so instead of having our rights to an investigation and proper action under the ordinance by the Housing Safety Office, they refused to investigate. And I've filed a complaint with the city manager's office and some of the good people on the council here have been CC'd on some of these emails going back and forth, but this is frankly outrageous. The person there, Jessica, I don't know her last name, but she's the director of the permitting and inspections department. She said that changing the terms of the lease to alter rights privileges or services connected with the use or occupancy of a rental unit is not a violation of the rent control ordinance. She said that on March 29th in an email and she also said that the section 6239 refers to tenant protections and not a signed lease, but bear with me a second. Yep, bear with me a second. I'm gonna read you that section. It says section 239 non-waver rights, no provision or right conferred by this article may be waived by a tenant by agreement or otherwise in any such waiver shall be void. Any attempt to require, encourage or induce a tenant to waive any provision hereof or right thereby shall be a violation of this article. And here's the important part. Nothing herein shall be construed to void any term of a rental agreement that offers greater rights by those converted hereby. This is, and I'm one second. I'm gonna ask you to wrap it up there, but thank you. Yep, this is explicitly the opposite of what has been maintained by the Housing Safety Office. And I would like the city council to look into this for me, please. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you for your comment and we'll next go to our speaker in chambers. Hello. My name is Audrey and I live in Parkside. And I'm here to talk about the disgusting actions of the Portland Police Department most recently. I come from Richmond, Virginia. Just before the Charlottesville incident happened. And I've seen what racist organizations can do influencing police forces. I moved here to Portland hoping as a queer Hispanic person that I would feel safe here. And for the most part, I've found a really good community here. I've found a good home here. And I am proud to live here up until recently. It makes me feel disgusted that this was allowed to happen without proper protocol, without proper follow through. And I'm gonna keep it short and sweet. I want you guys to just reconsider in the future how you're going to go through and follow through with these behaviors, how you're going to go through and investigate and how you're gonna protect this community, this community that keeps you all in your seats. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Next we'll go to Malvina on Zoom. Hi there, thank you. Can you hear me okay? Yes, we can. Okay. I just wanted to share some experience. I've had talking with friends and loved ones and co-workers of all of whom are people of color. And I think it's really important when we talk and many of them are survivors of various forms of trauma or in some cases, genocide. And so I think it's really important when we talk about racial violence and genocide to remember that it's not abetted by people who come step forward and say, I will help you. I will help coordinate this. It grows and it festers when we have people who one way or another say, I will look the other way. So I want you to please note that the members of our communities of color are watching your response right now. They've been watching for the past week very closely. I've heard them talk about it. I've heard them express how scared they are and in some cases so very, very triggered and rattled and really just hunkered down trying to find a place mentally that they can feel safe again. And as somebody that cares very deeply about these folks it's very distressing to see them go through that. So I think that I just wanted to share how disappointed I've been by the city's response over the past week. It's felt very weak and very watered down and very dismissive of what can be a very dangerous thing to start growing within our community. It's been applied that this group was harmless and that no one was injured. And we've heard people today testify that that was not the case. In essence, our response said we will look the other way. And it said that we'll wait for a week for public comment and that we will let this die in committee and investigation. And I think I would echo the previous speaker's comments that we need to think very carefully about how we respond and how we show a strength of response not only for the people who think that it might be easy to set up camp here but also to the people who are very carefully watching whether or not this is a safe place to be their home. Thank you. Thank you. And we have a speaker now in chambers. Hi, my name is Clara Porter. I'm a resident deering next neighborhood of Portland. And I'm also here as the Director of Prevention Action Change and as a member of Greater Portland Surge which is showing up for racial justice. To prevent this neo-Nazi movement from growing further and growing in power really need to work at both ends of this problem. Yes, the PD needs to be more responsive and effective in this moment when the neo-Nazis are marching down our streets and more proactive and committed to building relationships with those most likely to be targeted. I co-led the peacekeeping for the Trans Day of Visibility at Monument Square on Friday the 31st. And we were a team of experienced peacekeepers. We were clearly visible thanks to the loan of the Planned Parenthood hot pink vests. And despite knowing that there were threats experienced by the trans community, no Portland Police Department officers stopped by to check in to see if there were people of concern in the crowd and there were. On Saturday, it was the ACLU who called the local LGBTQIA plus agencies to warn them of the presence of neo-Nazis in that downtown area. And why was it not the PD who reached out to them? So yes, there's clearly more that the PD and the city needs to do to prepare and respond to these groups. And there are things that each one of us can do right now in our families, community groups and workplaces online and in person. The attitude stereotypes and misinformation that fuel and provide the environment for these types of groups to grow and flourish are all around us all the time.  If someone in your family workplace or community holds opinions and beliefs that are racially biased.  If someone in your family workplace or community holds biased views on gender, religion or sexual orientation. We should all have our hands up because we all know someone and in fact likely have our own work to do on these issues as well. So to prevent this movement from growing we need to work at both ends. We need to know how to intervene at the micro level when comments and actions make people feel unwelcome and unsafe as well as at the micro level. 30 second warning. We need to be able to call in people to whom we're connected to challenge their views and help them to gain awareness and to shift. And we need to know how to effectively and safely intervene when we witness others being targeted for identity-based harassment. So surge and prevention action change are holding two active bystander intervention workshops on April 27th and on May 17th. They're both free, they're online and they're open to every Portland person. And our goal really is to help us all gain awareness and intervention skills, so thank you. Thank you for your comment. And next we go to Teresa on Zoom. Hi, good evening and I appreciate you all taking the time. Teresa Kim and I am the Vice President and Director of Legal Resources at Unified Asian Communities. A few things I am going to say is that I do not agree that the Portland police handled anything that happened with the neo-nazi group appropriately. If anyone was able to see the video of what had happened not only was their derogatory terms used but the people were also assaulted to a point that an officer pulled his gun. At that point, there is a threat. So following that threat, that officer should have started ideating people of everyone who was there. Also on the other hand of things, the victim refused to give a statement for what simple fact. The officer pinpointed him out of the crowd instead of pulling him aside and letting him know that he could file an assault charge on top of a civil rights violation. Not only is the police uneducated on what the civil rights laws are, they do take people and make targets our Asian community just suffer burglaries and there's been no updates as far as if we're still in threat mode or if these individuals have even been apprehended. I know that parts beyond the city council. However, this neo-nazi group is not beyond your reach. The police department works for city halls. They all work for everyone that lives in the city of Portland. So at this point, there should have been charges brought against that group, not only for assault but also for every violation there was for the civil rights. I call upon you today to push this forward, make this happen and also put a ban for the neo-nazi group. It's unacceptable and things need to change. Thank you. Thank you. And we'll turn to our next speaker in chambers. Good evening. My name is Don Marietta. I live in Lubbittown. First off, I'd like to apologize if anything I say is redundant because I know there are a lot of speakers. I'd like to suggest that in future when you have people waiting in the hall to participate, that you aid them in participating by putting a simple audio device out there so we know what's going on. We have the technology. This is gonna sound harsh, but this council, the chief of police and all of the officers involved in the incident on April 1st have created the impression that you can come to Portland, Maine, commit a violent hate crime and suffer no consequences. None of us should find that in any way acceptable. I hope you all understand your responsibility in this. The response has been very slow, very unrevealing of any sense of how critically important it is that we not tolerate Nazis and violent hate speech and violent actions. I strongly urge you to proceed very rapidly, very openly with the process to determine what happened on April 1st and that if there are persons found to have been negligent or derailed in their duties, that they be dismissed from the police department because we cannot accept hate crime in our community. If we have a police force that does accept those hate crimes when it happens right in front of their faces, we are sending a very, very dangerous message. I hope you all take that. Finally, I would like to see a renewed sense of urgency in the process that began after the BLM protests of assessing the role of the police department and how the police department. 30 second warning. That's all I have. Thank you. Next, we'll go to Gigi on Zoom. Hello. My name is Gigi. Hello. Go ahead. My name is Gigi. I live in the Rosemont neighborhood. I am a trans person and I am a drag queen. I am regularly featured on our resident neo-Nazis social media presence as well as national social media for my presence in the community. And I'm here like everyone else to say that you need to do more to fight this immediately because when neo-Nazi groups like this make a foothold, they are incredibly hard to get rid of and we cannot have this in our Portland community. You know this, you need to do more. Through all of the internet posting and everything that they do and say they are here and they are trying to make themselves seem like they're okay and then they do violent attacks in our community. And it is only going to get worse after this incident and the response from Portland police and the lack of response from city hall immediately. They have only grown bolder and they will continue if you do not enact policies immediately. Portland needs a zero tolerance policy for neo-Nazi groups and to hold our Portland police accountable to that zero tolerance policy. Thank you. Thank you. And we'll turn to our next speaker in chambers. Hi, my name is Matt. If you could speak right up to the mic, I know folks are having a hard time listening in 209. My name is Matt. So five years ago, I was serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa. That's where I bet my current husband. We struggled through the immigration process to get him here as it's not an easy process, especially coming from where he is. And we had to have tough conversations about what the state of affairs in America is when it comes to race and being gay or trans in this country. Luckily, he got here in September and we were able to get married in October. But as we all should know, in the six months following September, our country has descended into a state of fascism that we have not seen before. And every single day we are having conversations about how can we be going back? We saw America as a country where he could be free. We saw America as a country where we could live together as a queer couple without fear. And growing up in Maine, I felt that Portland was an area where I could live without fear of violence. But now we're here and I know if fascists come to try to attack me or my husband, that the police will do nothing and they will not be accountable for doing nothing because all of you have sat here for a week and you have done nothing to hold the police or the fascists that marched through this town accountable. And now I have to live in fear and my husband has to live in fear because we do not have accountability in this country and we do not protect gay people. We do not protect trans people. We do not protect black people. It's not okay and everyone should be ashamed of yourselves for not doing something when fascism is at our doorsteps. They will start killing people and then you'll look back and you'll see you did nothing and we'll remember because the people that protected us were the hero anti-fascists who came to those steps and told them to get out of this town. I'm done. Thank you. Next we'll go to Ron on Zoom. Hi, hello, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Yes, hello, my name is Ron. I'm from a way that I've been in Maine since 2007. I've worked all over Portland. I'm actively boastful about why it's one of the best cities I've ever set foot in. I take the by local ethos seriously. I've made it my duty for years to make sure that I contribute to the health and well-being of the city as many ways as I can to try to help Portland to thrive. I'm here today to beg you to take action when you see violent hate. There's surely a lot of complexity to city financial planning but it can't be so complicated that it's in our best interests to ignore people who are frightened and trying to believe in the system. Vacation land is for everyone. The way life should be is that we protect those in our community who are systematically targeted and facing threats of violence becoming actualized. This isn't a matter of free speech. This is a matter of safety, a matter of life and death. It is a matter of whose humanity truly matters. For those who have scoffed at Black Lives Matter and retaliated with Don't All Lives Matter, this is your chance to show that you truly hold every life as beautiful and important. Queer folks, Jewish folks and POCs living in the city in peace and as stated earlier, help make the city an attractive vacation spot. Neo-Nazis are not here to gently express difference in opinion or to live and let live. They're here to eradicate those are historically marginalized and they're escalating actions in the city over the past few years proveless. Your community is here telling you they need help so now is the time to protect and serve. We must kaput that which makes us kaput. And in the person who talked about white people being marginalized in their homeland, white people took over this land from the native folks living here. What's happening right now is people saying, hey, we're tired of being hurt and treated differently. No one is here to try to criminalize whiteness. People are here to ask that folks are given a fair chance to thrive. Thank you. Thank you. Next we'll go to our speaker in chambers. Hello, I've lived in the state of Maine. If you could give us your name and the neighborhood you live in or the organization you represent, please. Like in Parkside. I've lived in Maine almost all of my life and the time I've been here, I have suffered innumerable incidences of transphobic homophobic terror. I have been physically attacked. I have been harassed. I have been treated terribly. And I can tell you that fascism is not something that is a new thing that's emerging here. It's been here. It's in the rotten seed of this country. And in where I live now, where I see what I see in my neighborhood, the biggest manifestation of it right now is in the police and how they harass and house people, undocumented people, people who are experiencing addiction. It's a nightmare. It's a nightmare. How can you allow this to happen to people? I know how it's allowed to happen. I know how it's funded. I know how much it's funded, but we need to stop doing this. We need to rely on ourselves as a community and each other. As we can see, what happens when like announced fascists come into our community to attack people and commit hate crimes is that the police will allow them to go without asking for their identification in the slightest. Well, they will like aim sniper rifles at people who are peacefully protesting against police murder and police brutality downtown. So just consider these things. Thank you. Thank you. Next on Zoom, somebody named Elle, could you please give us your name and either your address or the organization that you represent? Hi there. Yes, Elizabeth McCormack. And I am just gonna make a brief comment that is mainly, you know, it's directed at the mayor and the city council. I've just heard a couple, actually several people mentioned tonight that this, you know, you've had a week to address people's issues of police accountability. And after this attack, but it really has been much longer than a week. Councillor Pelletier was targeted online by members of this very same hate group and others over nine weeks ago, I believe. We know that this has been an ongoing issue. There's amazing organizers in this community that have been tracking the movements of NSC 131 throughout New England. So I guess I am just trying to say this is not new. There has been much more than a week to think about, to prioritize goals, to strategize ways to address community safety and I just think that hammers home the point that so many people tonight have made that not nearly enough is happening to protect the most marginalized members of our community. And that's my comment. Thank you. Thank you. Next we'll go to a speaker in chambers. Hello, my name is Kit and I'm choosing not to share my neighborhood because I'm trans and it's clear based on current and historical events that I cannot rely on the police or the city to protect me.   He does not speak for our community. He is what our community is here to stand against. And unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, the Portland Police Department has chosen to stand with Richard Ward and to stand with neo-Nazis. To that I say what many others here tonight have said. There are two sides in this. The side that stands here against fascism, against oppression and against white supremacy and the side that allows it to flourish.  That's what this comes down to.  If not, then we need you to act. We need a police citizen review board. We need to see that officers are held responsible for their actions. We need to see the police force defunded. We need to see funding going towards building our community instead. We need to see you as our officials standing with us because that's what we've elected you to do. And as many others have said, we haven't seen that. We haven't seen that this week. We haven't seen that longer than this week. We do not feel safe or supported by the people who are supposed to make us feel safe and supported. And that's a shame. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Next, we go to Terry on Zoom. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Hi, this is Terry T with the Florida District. Everyone knows who I am.  Goodbye. We'll go to our speaker in chambers, please. It's a little bit hard to follow that. My name is Alex and I live in downtown Portland. I just like to say that I'm proud of everybody who came to speak and I'm here for trans and LGBT community members who don't feel safe speaking. When it happened, they also happened to be a block away. So that was really fun to realize. The day before NSC 131 gathered, there was a very publicized trans rights rally in downtown Portland. The timing of the fascist display is not coincidental. They are trying to intimidate and the fact that they feel safe doing so is dangerous. I would like to echo my fellow constituents in asking the police department to comply with any and all freedom of information at the request for body cam footage of the incident. Police citizen review board was also discussed in 2020 and I would like to bring that back up and suggest that that be revisited or upheld. Neo Nazis were on our street and in their own social circles, they censored their own clothing when they share photos of their attacks. They protect their privacy and the police helps them do that. They have names and faces and their privacy should not be protected after they violated other rights by committing physical assault upon them. Earlier, Richard Ward claimed that counter protesters were looking for a fight, which is the last thing that minorities are looking for from a Nazi group. Once after he saw me tear down transphobic propaganda, he yelled, are you triggered at me? And if that isn't looking for a fight, I don't know what is. I ignored him, but implying second amendment to protect your first amendment right is literally a threat of violence. This fascist is armed and should be avoided. I urged my fellow citizens to stay safe around him. I encourage my fellow citizens, especially downtown, to keep an eye out for anti-whitism literature as this is racist rhetoric and should be torn down after being photographed and sent to local anti-fascist groups to stay updated on local fascist movements. I personally became well acquainted with trying to keep updated with local fascist movements back when I lived in the neighborhood of Deering High School and a couple of years ago, I believe 2021, there was after Halloween a sudden spread of proud boy stickers all over the neighborhood. So these displays of hate have been going on for a while. They've been trying to make their mark known for a while. And this is kind of the result of that. And I would like to also thank Councillor Powell here for regularly speaking up against racism. We have asked the city council to make statements as they should, but she has- 30-second warning. made statements against racism in our community. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we go to Brody on Zoom. Hi, can you hear me? We can. Thank you. My name is Brody. I live in Portland. Sorry, having a technical issue. Thank you. My name is Brody. I live in Portland. I also work at the Portland Public Library. And yeah, I think I'll maybe keep a short in-suite or short. I think I just want to ask. I think in particular, white leaders in the city. So like, white, straight, cis leaders in the city. So like, ask yourselves, like, who you're hearing speaking right now about who is scared and who is in danger as a result of Nazis in the city and like think about the humanity of all of the people who are targeted and be really honest about. Folks, humanity and like what people deserve in terms of feeling safe and like truly being safe and what is required of city leaders to ensure that. And yeah, that's my ask. And I, you know, I think I'm echoing a lot of what other folks are asking as well, and I support those. And yeah, that's all. Thanks. Thank you. Next, we'll go to a speaker in chambers. Hi, my name is Karen. I live in town Portland. I've lived in Portland since 1995. I'd like to thank everybody for taking the time to listen to me and others today and thank you for your service. I'm just going to share my experience with this particular neo-Nazi group on Saturday and then my experience with the police department same day. I had finished my breakfast, wandered up to Monument Square, getting ready to walk around beautiful downtown Portland when I ran into a neo-Nazi group. They were flashing the white power sign.  They were asking to take back the streets. They were their streets. And me, I get to exercise my rights, my free speech as well. I confronted the group. I simply said, these are not your streets. These are my streets. Get out of this effing town now. Then they thought I was filming. They took my phone. I wasn't filming because I was so rabble that I couldn't get my phone to film. One of them took my phone and threw it across Monument Square. It was raining that morning. I had an umbrella. Somebody broke my umbrella, scratched my hand and caused it to bleed very minor. This really upset me. So I went back and started yelling some more, asking them to get out of our town. Our town. And he, I was being filmed by this group, which irritated me. So now I'm on their website, for God only knows what, what. Really upset, somebody came, said you need to get away from these guys because they're dangerous. Went across the street, continued to yell at them. There was no police presence there at that time. I got them when they were setting up. No police presence. I very shaken, walked down to the police department and asked to file a report. There was a very young woman working the front desk that day. She was like, did you ask the police? Did you speak to the police in Monument Square? She said, we're aware of it. I'm like, no, because there was no police presence there at that time. That's why I'm here. She gets up, she goes back. 30 second warning. She gets up, goes back, speaks to somebody in the back. They don't bother to send any officer out to speak to me. She said, I was like, she said, I'm like, what about this? My bloody hand and what about my phone throwing that across the, isn't that incident worthy? And she said, well, they said, because you put yourself in harm's way. That was the response I got from the Portland police department when I tried to file a complaint against this group. I do not feel safe in this city. My friend asked me if I wanted to go back the next day and file a report and I said, no, because I don't want to be the woman that goes into the police department. She says, you didn't file this yesterday. And I'm here to complain about your job that you didn't do yesterday. And then I'm walking around town and I don't feel safe. I don't feel protected by the cops. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we got a mic on Zoom. My name is Mike Benz. I just want to say it's time we start taking care of these problems ourselves.    Hello, thank you for your time. I appreciate it. My name is Christopher Jakes. I'm a musician and an artist in this city. And I'd like to speak, there's been a lot of speakers speaking very passionately about their experience that day. I unfortunately didn't get to be there that day to help any of the people who had so many problems. But I will speak today about something very common. Commonly referred to as the paradox of tolerance. I'd like to respond to the idea that we must be tolerant of hateful views to preserve the free speech of all. This is something that's discussed in any high level philosophical, moral or ethical debate. Paradox of tolerance is an elementary philosophical concept suggesting that being tolerant of everyone and everything means you must be tolerant of hateful ideology. There are a series of implications from this, but regardless, the paradox of tolerance disappears if you look at tolerance, not just as a moral standard, but as a social contract, one that we all participate in. If someone does not abide by the terms of the contract, they are not covered by it. In other words, the intolerant groups such as NSC 131 and their ilk are not following the rules of the social contract we all have living in this city, living in this world. It is a social contract of mutual tolerance. We all live together. Since they have broken the terms of that contract, they are no longer covered by that contract and their intolerance should not be tolerated. These domestic terrorists will not be tolerated. I'd like to end really quickly by just saying to the officers here and watching, I'd like to ask you how you feel hearing firsthand that so many of your citizens feel like you've abandoned them. Thank you. And we'll go to our next speaker in chambers. Hi, Madison Raymond. I live here in Portland. I moved here seven years ago because I grew up in rural Maine, central Maine, just outside of Augusta.  There are plenty of cameras and there were plenty of police. And those individuals who violated that person's civil rights were not identified, they were not detained, they were not arrested. You know, it's shocking certainly, but also over the past few years, especially since the George Floyd BLM protests that we had in 2020, I'm not that surprised that the Portland Police Department isn't doing everything they can certainly to protect marginalized people in this community.  We deserve the right to live in this city and to feel safe and to feel like our elected representatives will do the right thing and hold the police department accountable for their lack of action that evening. And I honestly believe that nothing will come of this but thoughts and prayers from our city counselors and the mayor. I think that it will be a lot of hand wringing and oh, we don't stand for hate in this city and nothing, no actual reform of the police department will be done. I would like the Freedom of Information Access request to be granted. I wanna see the body camera footage of the police officers who claimed in the newspapers not to see the altercation and how it started and who started what? Because that was their protective defenses that they didn't see who started the fight so they couldn't take action. I don't know, I just, I've lived in the city for seven years and I want my loved ones, my friends, my community to feel safe. And it's clear to me over the past few hours that we certainly don't feel safe. Thank you. Thank you and we'll continue with speakers in chamber. Hello, my name is Sanchita McCurgy. I'm an attorney living, working and existing in district one of Portland, Maine. I'm also the racial justice co-chair for the Maine Trial Lawyers Association. I would like to speak regarding the law enforcement interaction or frankly lack of interaction on April 1st, 2023. Let me be extremely clear.  I would like to juxtapose this reaction by Portland PD with their reaction during the Black Lives Matter protest in 2020. While in no way are the tenants and the values of the people charged for protesting in 2020, similar to this past weeks, this comparison serves to show the extraordinarily clear bias and frankly racism that is apparent, clear and evident in the chosen action and inaction of Portland PD. I represented one of the 23 people charged and arrested in June of 2020 during the Black Lives Matter protest. By August of that same year, all charges were cleared and were dropped by the Cumberland County DA's office citing insufficient evidence that they took part in violence. The exact opposite thing happened on April 1st. Police officers took no information and Cumberland County DA Jackie Sartoris said on April 6th that they could have been charged, had police questioned and the group and taken statements. I believe Portland PD will say that the alleged victim in the matter did not wanna press charges. Portland PD certainly knows that a victim does not have the right to press charges, press criminal charges, the district attorney does, but the district attorney cannot press charges if information is not collected at the scene of the violence. Let me reiterate the fact that Portland PD took no steps except to understand who was part of the violence is racist, whether they feel so or not. Citizens of Portland are watching who PPD is listening to and who they are not listening to. I hope that they are listening today. I wish I could say that I was appalled by their lack of inaction. Many say that we need law enforcement on the streets to keep us safe and make us feel safe. All I can say is that the fact that after expressing that white communities need to be preserved and safe and literally punching someone in front of law enforcement, I as a woman, an immigrant and a person of color do not feel safe. And how could I? 30 second warning. I work in the old port. I go to the Nickelodeon Cinema where they first station every Tuesday. I'm your neighbor. The Aryan Freedom Network has been growing in the city for years. Portland PD knows that they are here. They should have known that the Aryan Network was going to be there. I knew that they were going to be there and I am not a police officer. If Portland PD have $15 million plus in their budget, perhaps they can dedicate literally $0 to making an Instagram account and following the Aryan Network's freedom page. Councilor Palatier has a fantastic Instagram account so she can help them as well. Thank you so much. I hope you have a great day. And next we'll go to George Rowe on Zoom. George Rowe, Hanover Street. I just wanted to highlight a couple of things. The city council has been playing pretty fast and loose with a lot of your legal requirements. For instance, at your last full meeting on March 20th, you approved the capital improvement plan for this upcoming fiscal year. And as part of that, the city charter required a five year plan to be presented as part of that process. And that did not happen. That requirement was completely omitted from both the finance committee level and from the full city council meeting. Despite the fact that Mark Rees in 2011, when he was city manager, helped bring that requirement into accordance with the city charter and that was carried through for many years. And now in the last year that has been completely set aside. And the city charter doesn't give the city council discretion or the city manager discretion to do that. The word is very clear. It's a shall requirement. So you had no discretion, but yet you ignored that very clear city charter requirement because it was inconvenient. You didn't wanna do the work. The city manager had better things to do apparently. And that is the tone at the top that we are setting in the city, which is if it's inconvenient, if it's too much work, if we don't have the staff, if it just is politically, trouble, we're just gonna set it aside. And that is exactly the kind of attitude that President Trump brought to the White House, that he's brought to his time after the White House. And a lot of people in this country believe is they're right when they get control of the government, which is if the rule is inconvenient, if it's too much trouble, if it doesn't help my friends, we can set it aside, it's no big deal, just let's move on to the next thing. And that level of set aside, that use of your discretion, if you can't force me to do it, and basically it's a lawsuit, to force you to do anything around here, if no one's forcing me to, I don't need to do it. And so if that's the tone at the top, it's no surprise that our police department is also sometimes taking advantage of that same level of discretion, that, hey, life is short, we got a lot of things to do, we're just gonna look the other way. It's you set the tone for that kind of governance in our city. Thank you. Thank you, George. And we'll make sure that you get that five year plan that was shared in the finance committee's work, this couple of months ago. Next, we'll go to a speaker in chambers. Hi, I'm Catherine. I live here on the East End. And I actually grew up in Northern Maine. And after turning 18, I kind of be lined here to Portland, growing up knowing it as a progressive place to be. And I've been here ever since, about over 30 years now. And I kind of feel like in the last few years, it feels more like we're cosplaying as a progressive city rather than truly putting ourselves out there and taking action to be a progressive city.  And his friends, he has a couple of friends who are trans. They've moved down here to Portland. And I don't know what to tell them. I encouraged him to come here. I've been wanting him to come move down here ever since he was 18, and he's finally here. And this is what he's come to. And I'm saddened and just really asking for you guys to think about who comes to Portland, why do they come to Portland, why do people live here? We really are counting on it being a progressive city. And we elected a very progressive city council for a reason and we're counting on you for that. And this is an opportunity I feel for this city council to do something bold. I don't know what that is. You're the experts. We need bold action. We need you to not ignore fascism creeping into our city like this. So I'm asking you please to just listen to everyone who's spoken today. I can't believe the numbers of people I've seen here. This is incredible and we need to be heard. So thank you for your time. Thank you. And next, M on Zoom. M, we please give us your name because I don't have a name here on Zoom. You'll have to unmute from your end, please. Hi. I'm not ready to speak. Sorry, I'll speak later. Okay. So we will go to the next speaker on Zoom who is identified only by a phone number. So if you could unmute yourself, please and give us your name and the neighborhood you live in or the organization that you represent, please. Phone number ending in 9310. I think we're having some technical issues. So come on ahead in chambers. We'll come to go to our next speaker in chambers. Parkside, I'm a resident of Portland. I am here as just a citizen, although I do work on teaching about the Holocaust as an educator around the state. And so I can't help but notice such correlations between the things we are trying to teach to our students and adults constantly. When we look at history in the past, we look at it so that we don't repeat those mistakes. And when we look at things that led up to the Holocaust, things happen incrementally. When we look at the pyramid of hate, we start with biased attitudes, acts of bias and prejudice, discrimination, acts of violent, bias-motivated violence. That's one step below genocide, right? And what we see is that when an action is taken, it's perceived as acceptance, as normalizing that behavior. If we say and do nothing, it changes nothing. It essentially says that those actions are accepted, leading way to more and more on that account, we see escalations grow. And then we've seen that time and time again, not just through the Holocaust, but other incidents of violent and hate around the world. And so when we look at this, we know this is, we can't just stand by. And when clear violence is being taken out on, all right, when we see racism intolerance, our marginalized communities being attacked, something needs to be done. Standing by and doing nothing isn't remaining neutral, isn't just supporting the peace. It is essentially making the statement that what is happening is okay, that it is supported. And I want to believe that people who are there, whether representing us police force does not actually believe that. And so I ask that action be taken to demonstrate. We ask our students to do this in schools.  That's something as simple as, you know, that's not okay. Because saying nothing is saying it's okay. So take an action, whatever that is, looks like moving forward, that needs to be done because our community does not feel safe. And we want to collectively obviously induce, we can do so much better than we know it should. Thank you. Next speaker in chambers, please. Good evening. My name is Michael, I live in Portland. Been here for many years and I enjoy the community, involve myself in local causes and frequent local businesses because I have much love and appreciation for the people and what this beautiful city offers. If anyone in the chamber or anyone listening online thinks that any of the previous speakers have exaggerated when speaking about the fascist invasion of our city or that fascism isn't alive, that Nazis don't exist or that we don't need to take this seriously, I invite them to read one book at least. It's Ordinary Men, Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. It's a book about what happens when people don't speak up, don't take threats of fascism seriously or trust that their elected force is going to solve the situation for them. Please do not disregard or minimize this event. It's not a singular event, it will happen again. If the authority fails to act, the council fails to act, the establishment arm, Portland fails to act, the citizens will decide the proper actions next time. You're silent on this issue, you have chosen to enable fascism and you will invite anarchy instead, thank you. Thank you and we'll go to our next speaker in chambers. My name is Olivia and I live in West Bayside. So according to the mayor, Portland is an accepting and peaceful community that values diversity and humanity. I think when you say stuff like that, you have to specify for who. Who is Portland for? When this is simply a communication item on the agenda. I know you're able to come up with actions on the fly because of the way you literally sprinted to city hall to defend the city manager because black power dared to speak on the connection between the city manager and the KKK. Who is Portland for when you issue joint statements with the cops after one of their own kills an unarmed black person? Who is Portland for when you push the shelter to the outskirts of town when you raise encampments in the park? Who is Portland for when you roll out the red carpet for developers and landlords and fail to protect tenants? Who is Portland for when we have to give public comments surrounded by cops in uniform with their guns? Are they getting paid to be here? Portland is for you, but not for me and many of my friends here tonight because of the way you push and you push and you push to make sure that marginalized people cannot thrive here. You need to understand that you are allowing fascism to fester and actually to thrive when you equate Nazis and not Nazis, landlords and tenants, bosses and workers, cops and community. You cannot both sides your way out of this. I don't care if it's in the council rules that you need to let people like Richard Ward speak. You cut the mic when Nazis are speaking and that's a pretty simple step one. Thank you. We'll go to our next speaker in chambers. Hi there. My name is Milena. I live in Portland. I've lived here my whole life. I love it to bits. I'm scared of it right now. I'm a member of the independent socialist group. My contribution is very brief, but we have to wonder why far right is growing in Portland, right? What will it take for us to be heard? What circumstances brought us here? And what I'm seeing is violence. What I'm seeing is racism. What I'm seeing is people feeling scarcity, low wages, poor jobs, bad conditions, prioritization of profit, attacks on education, attacks on trans children, impossible rents, appeals on main care, gutting social services where I work, et cetera. The answer is not and never will be inflating the police budget. It will be investing in workers, in worker power, and undermining far right recruitment. These far right racist advocating for violence and extermination will not go away as everyone has so clearly illustrated, which is why we must advocate for longstanding change now, speak now, and act now. Thank you. We'll go to our next speaker in chambers. Hi, my name is Bree. And I just want to touch on something real quick. So I've heard a lot of bigots and even our friend Richard, even people I know, talk about homeless people and weaponize it against the immigrant community and say that they're supposedly taking up resources of the city isn't giving to the increasing homeless population.  There are enough resources for everyone. This rhetoric is being used to defy people and prevent them from seeing the real problem. Homelessness is not the fault of increasing racial diversity. It's the fault of capitalism. As a matter of fact, a great deal of our homeless population are not white. Many are people who immigrated here only to realize that the American dream is a lie. I care a great deal about the homeless and I've seen the city police them, push them out of sight and out of mind, build a shelter miles away from the city center job and just generally treat them less than human. All while our neighborhoods are being gentrified and tourists and rich hipsters are being prioritized and the streets are filled with working hands and empty buildings and our infrastructure is crumbling while hosting prices skyrocket. People of Portland, I implore you, please help the homeless in any way you can because I don't think the city is going to. I'll also free Palestine. Okay, thank you. And we will go to our next speaker in chambers. Hello, my name is Wes. I live on the West End. A counselor last meeting said that people only seem to turn out when they're a referenda. I think the connecting thread is that we only turn out when city council addresses things that are existential threats to our community, which is like very rare and almost never the city council prerogative. I've stood on the corner for hours just standing in front of like propaganda signs. I have taken down, like mobilized to take down like transphobic fliers. I've given up like every weeknight and weekend over the summer to knock doors to try to make a referendum happen, which is apparently extremely easy. And all of it's like part of the fight, a fight that city council have been fighting tooth and nail against. And it's, this is what happens, right? It allows fascism to fester. What white supremacy tries to do is it tries to undermine our communities and tries to rip them apart and make them not feel safe in their homes. And what city council has done has basically been in line with that agenda, right?  And that's white supremacy, right? Like you may not be white supremacists, but you are furthering that agenda. So I think you all like really need to start thinking about what, I know a lot of you are about to like run from air, start thinking about like, what have I done that a Nazi would not have done or he in my position? Because like, it's pretty hard to tell, right? I don't see, I look at these, these agendas. I have, there's so few motions put forward. There's so few policy ideas coming forward. All of us like, oh, well, we need to like respect the process, which is a process that was created by white supremacists. And there's so much credence paid to that. And I think you all might have like a better time running for mayor or whatever. If you all started like listening to the community and stopped, you know, supporting a process that is riding these communities. 30 second warning. Thank you. Stopped fighting the community that is trying to live in the city that you all run. And we didn't elect you to be blank slate that compute the process. You're in, we elected you to do things that you said you would do. And we've seen very little of it. So I don't know, like do something, like anything. Thank you. Okay. And next we'll go to our speaker on Zoom. Again, we go back to M. M, you've got the floor. If you could give us your name, please. There must be technical difficulties. So we'll go to our speaker in chambers. Thank you. My name's Jeremy. I live in West Portland. I'm white, I'm straight. And I'm here to speak to other people who are white and straight. Especially those who are in power here on this council and our police force, well represented here in this room. I'm not saying that we're living in 1930s Germany or 1960s America. But if you've ever studied those times and you've imagined what you might have done during those times, you can do it now. You have an opportunity.  But this is still your fight. You can't be neutral on Nazis. Be on the right side of history when they come next. To our council members, have a plan for when they come next. It is not neutral on Nazis. That goes doubly for all of you. Our mayor, Kate Snyder, interim city manager, Daniel West and interim police chief, Keith Gorham, who all govern us only by our consent and through our support. And that consent and that support wanes with each failure that you present to us, such as last weekend.  To all the fence sitters listening on the phone, please do not be tricked into tolerating intolerance to paradox. Frans rights or human rights and all lives cannot matter until black lives matter. They carry each other. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, we'll continue with speakers in chambers, please. You can pull the mic down closer and we've heard that it's hard to hear. So if you could speak up, that would be great. Yes, okay. My name is Sam and I've lived in the West End for probably about five years now. And I can't say anything that other people haven't already covered. So I just wanna thank people who have come forward and shared their stories about how they personally have been victimized by hateful people in our city. And I just want to say to you all, my city council who I rely upon that their blood and there was literal blood is on your hands. And for every person that freezes to death on the street, their blood's on your hands. Our quality of life is dependent on how you act. Like that is your job. And I just want to say that we are disappointed. I'm disappointed and I really hope you can prove to us that you can do better. Love you all, bye. Okay, and next we'll go to M, back to M on Zoom if you can unmute yourself, please. Hi, can you hear me? We can. Hi, my name is Melissa. I live over near USM.  Okay, thank you. Next we'll go to Jay on Zoom. Jay, you'll have to unmute yourself. Okay, and we'll head over to Peter McLaughlin on Zoom. Hi, Peter McLaughlin. I live in district one. I wanna first echo the demands of the Nile Island organizers who showed up at City Hall on April 1st to stand in opposition to hate and who were subsequently assaulted in plain view of Portland police officers. You've heard from many folks tonight who are not okay with the status quo of policing in this city or in this country. I think the police response, lack of response and subsequent statement to this incident of neo-Nazi hate are fine examples of why that is the case. That being said, the public safety system we have today is the Portland Police Department. We know this. And as long as we have such a system, we need checks on it and we need transparency and accountability. The people of Portland made it clear that this is the majority belief in the streets in 2020. And again, at the polls in 2022, when a stronger police review citizen board was voted in as an integral part of our city charter. I know city staff and this council are beginning to implement these charter changes, but I hope you see this incident as an example of why this needs to be implemented correctly and carefully with stark improvements from the current inadequate review board and process. In a democracy, power cannot be allowed to police itself. Police cannot be allowed to police themselves. It's in that spirit that I asked the council and manager to do the absolute least here. And that's to make sure there is a full and thorough investigation of police response in April 1st, that all relevant in video documentation is made public and that this investigation takes place in the public eye with full transparency and accountability. We have a steep scene of statement from the police that does not align with eyewitness statements with available video. And we've now seen a statement from our district attorney affirming the inadequacy of our police response. It is clear that the city needs to act. I have lived here for 13 years. I believe in this community and tonight's rally and show during this council meeting during public comment, it reminds me of why I believe in this community so much. And I know that this community will protect each other. I look to you, those in the halls of power of city hall to do the least here and make sure that we have checks on police response so that we can be better protected should this happen again. We'll do the rest. Thank you. Thank you. Is there a speaker in chambers? Hi, my name is Jenny Ferrari. I am a business owner. I own Arcana on Market Street downtown.  I came out in Maine at 16 years old. I'm from Northern Maine and at 16 I visited Portland and was assaulted on the street physically and called a slur while holding my girlfriend's hand. I thought that was nearly 20 years ago and I would like to think that walking through Portland today in 2023 I would be safer and I do not feel like that is the case. On Saturday when NSC 131 was marching through Portland I got a message that they were near my shop and I called our staff that day which is all queer and trans people and I told them to lock the door and to stay inside. That's not something that I ever knew that I would need to do but I'm also not surprised. We've seen the seeds of fascism planted in Portland for a long time and I will echo what other folks have said. There are people who have run for school board like Richard Ward that are connected to NSC 131 that I would say likely invited them here that the city should be monitoring. There have been many incidents that the police do not care about. Learning about that woman earlier who was assaulted who tried to file a report. I am disgusted with the Portland PD. There was also a report that came out regarding the Portland PD's racial bias earlier this year and if you went past the headline that made it seem like it wasn't a big deal you could see that the data did show clear racial bias with the Portland PD and I just wanna say as a citizen, as a parent, as a queer person and as a business owner I do not feel safe in Portland, Maine which is supposed to be one of the most progressive cities in New England. This is not a safe place anymore for BIPOC folks, for LGBTQ folks, for Jewish folks and you all need to do something about it now. And we'll go to Jay on Zoom. Okay. Hey, yep. My name is Jay. I live over by St. John. Can you guys hear me? Yes, we can. Okay. I just wanted to mention, for the most part I've lived here my whole life and the police have really been very good compared to other cities in the United States here in Portland. I've probably called on them about 25 times in the past three years and they've always been there to sort of like help and diffuse whatever situation has been happening. That said, I have in sort of recent history had a few potential reports where it looked like there should have been some criminal charges that happened but there wasn't really a filing that ended up going through. So I'd encourage more sort of accountability for people who are bad actors for the police to continue to enforce that. I still think they're doing a really great job for the most part with the numbers they've gotten and everything. And then I worked on the marriage campaign in 2012 and we worked really hard to get the rights and stated for everybody here. And I think that was a really great time. I just encourage all my LGBTQ allies to continue to hold the torch there and continue to just maintain the responsibility of the power you guys have now to enforce all this stuff and continue just to try to make sure to keep strong about it. And then another thing I'd like to mention also is like, it's definitely not just the police force that's showing this sort of kind of one-sided like attitude towards everything. Many of our park benches have been taken out downtown everywhere. The general city, the municipalities, particularly the construction people, all that stuff, it's like, it's very difficult to navigate this city compared to how it was when we were younger regarding just basic amenities. Like I get that like a lot of like people will sort of like make a set a bad example and they can't, we'll lose some of our privileges if things happen, but some of the basic municipality, general like amenities that we're getting through a lot of the people who are doing things regarding just the city's general layout concrete-wise. I mean, you see this stuff in big business everywhere, the type of sort of, I wouldn't call it fascism or Nazism, but whatever this is, this type of sort of hand shaking, secret hand shake type stuff. Thanks guys, good job everybody. Thank you for your comment. Okay, I wanna thank everybody who's joined us this evening in City Hall and on Zoom. Oh, we've got one more hand up on Zoom. If you're intending to speak and you're on Zoom, please raise your hand now. I'll close public comment after this last speaker. Will T. Hey, thank you. Hopefully you can hear me all right. Thank you. My name is Will. I do not live in Portland yet, but I have worked in Portland for quite a while and I am gonna move there soon. I put a deposit down on a housing co-op that's being built. And I just wanted to add a little bit of context to the history of white supremacy in Portland. In the 1923, thousands of Klansmen marched in Portland to enact the city charter which dramatically reduced democracy in Portland. And there have been a lot of obvious negatives associated with operating under this system of city governance. It's a little bit too late to address that now. I think we'll have to wait a while before we can reopen the charter and consider something better. But after the passing of that last charter, there was an incredibly offensive letter sent to the Catholic Bishop of Portland. Hereafter, no n-words Catholics nor Jews will ever hold office in Portland. I don't doubt that if that same note and likely the same notes are still being written but maybe they're texts now, if that were being written today, it probably would be talking about clear people and trans people as well. Probably more so than some of, or one of those other groups. But since then we have actually seen people of color and we have seen Jewish people hold office in Portland. And regardless of this incredible setback that we're forced to contend with in the form of our city governance, we've managed to have better outcomes in Portland. And I think that we need to continue that much more strongly here. We need to realize that when there are literally Nazis marching in the streets and assaulting people and the police department is not appropriately responding to that, not very surprisingly, we can do better. Y'all are on the city council. You have the power to do something here and I just would really urge you to do that. This is not an isolated incident. There have been ongoing issues. Thank you. There have been ongoing issues in Portland.  It's really sad that this is happening. And yeah, it is, but they're not one-offs. This is pattern and something needs to be done about it. Thank you. Thank you. And again, thank you to everybody who spoke in chambers and on Zoom. I'm gonna close public comment on unagended items. And what I'd like to do is to take Communication 32 out of order, but before I do, Councilor Trovaro, do you have a comment? I was just wondering if we might take a five minute break in between. Oh, sure, we certainly can. We'll take a five minute break and let's say we're back here at 7.15. Hopefully a couple more counselors back in chambers. I'm looking to make sure we've got everybody with us on Zoom. I think we do. Okay, we're just returning from a five minute break. Thanks everybody for sticking with us. And so as mentioned earlier in the meeting, what I'd like to do is take communication 32 out of order. So will the clerk please read into the record, communication 32. Communication 32, 22, 23, regarding police response on April 1st, 2023 by Interim Chief Eth Gorham, Police Department. Chief Gorham, I'd like to welcome you to the podium and thank you for addressing the Council and offering your communication. Madam Mayor, Manager West, counselors, thank you for having me tonight. I wanna start by affirming that the views expressed by NSC 131 are in no way in keeping with values of the Portland Police Department. I provided you with a memo that details the decisions that were made by officers and supervisors on scene on Saturday. And I will tell you that I support those decisions in that particular incident. As we dive through, I'm sure you will have several questions, but I wanna get into a little bit about our philosophy when it comes to facilitating the First Amendment rights of our community members. Portland has a very robust First Amendment community and takes a great deal of pride in expressing their First Amendment rights. We as a police department have taken the role of facilitating the expression of those rights. We do that by reacting to spontaneous or organic protests that pop up. We immediately provide lead and tail cars to ensure the safety. We shut down intersections and we attempt to communicate with the organizers of the protest so that we can facilitate a safe rally. In this case, we didn't know it was coming and we reacted to have officers monitor it. They were not in the streets. They were on sidewalks so there was no need for a lead and tail car. And officers set up a distance away to monitor the rally. After the protests of 2020, the city contracted a very in-depth investigation into the way that the Portland Police Department handled the protests in 2020, particularly on June 1st. What we found from that investigation was the Portland Police Department and our partners did a better job than most other agencies across the country. And the reason given for that was that we took a facilitative stance as opposed to taking a management stance and trying to control the protests. It was noted in the report that we could have made several more arrests than we actually did, but we're much more diplomatic in the way we made our arrests and that helped with the relationships in our community. These are the most tricky situations for our officers, for our supervisors, is we try to facilitate these. We try to be the person in the middle, not taking sides, whether our views are completely apart from them. We cannot express our views. Our job is to facilitate their First Amendment rights. That is all I have right now. I'm happy to take any questions. I'm sure there will be some. I'm sorry to die on, I apologize. I'm happy to give you the cliff notes, if you would like. Thank you, Chief Gorham. And before we go to council questions or comments, I just want to ask if the city manager has anything to add on this communication. Yes, thanks. Thank you, Chief, for being here tonight. We, I just wanted, I know there was a lot of mention during public comment about the DA's comments over the weekend. We had a statement that was issued recently. I've given it to everyone here, I'm around the dais. And we will also make sure that that gets uploaded to the backup materials so that everybody has it. But it basically addresses her comments specifically in the press herald on Saturday the 8th. And I won't read it to everyone. I think you can all read that in the backup specifically. But I just wanted to highlight that she was troubled by the events, but she also articulates that the headline of the article was neither what she believes or wanted to convey as her reactions to what was happening. She wanted to note that she thought that law enforcement personnel acted on April 1st to keep the peace in a very fluid and very difficult and fast-paced situation. That she was grateful for their presence and mindful of how constantly dangerous and tough their work is. And that she also noted that interim chief Gorham immediately sought her guidance and to discuss this further and clarify what was the best way that each could support each other's work. And that she really appreciated that and that she looked forward to continue to move forward and recognize the chief's lengthy service with the department and continued hard work in this area. She's given some specific recommendations that she would see. So the chief and I would just got this. So we're gonna be diving into that and really looking at that and looking at ways in which we can work with the district attorney's office moving forward. But I just thought that was important since it was specifically discussed during public comment this evening. Thank you for that. And just to note, it came in through email at 2.15 this afternoon. I didn't see it right away, but if it's possible to get it uploaded tonight even, I think that would be helpful for folks in the community to have access to this statement. So now I will go to counsel questions and comments. Counselor Dionne. Thank you, Madam Mayor. My apologies chief for not being in my seat during your presentation. I did take the liberty of reading your comments in advance of your presentation. I did so because I was trying to gather feedback and commentary regarding the testimony of residents this evening. I wanna suggest that I recognize the challenge the officers face in this context. I do not diminish or discount some of the emotional consequences of psychological trauma that many of our residents this evening have expressed to us. I think it's valid and legitimate. However, I took heart in some commentary that suggested that education was gonna be a necessary part of the strategy moving forward. And I hope that's the case so that citizens can acquire a working knowledge and appreciation of the restraints that are placed on not just the police but the justice system as a whole in trying to navigate which is a very difficult legal platform, the First Amendment. The expression is one thing, acts of violence are another, but I have to tell you navigating that to successfully avoid civil litigation directed at the police in the city and secure prosecution and a successful prosecution. It would be easy enough to see the arrest of individuals but if it's not ratified by an actual conviction what have we gained? So I hope that in the weeks ahead, Chief, you've declared a willingness to engage in a partnership with the district attorney. I think that's important. And I think there's a third leg on that stool that should be considered as the primacy of the victim. The victim is really at a place, Madam Mayor, that helps determine how a case will flow forward if a victim is willing to participate, fully engage with investigators and prosecutors. We can hold these people not only accountable in criminal court but likely accountable in a civil arena with an appropriate injunction from the attorney general's office. Those are the outcomes of this counselor and I hope others around this horseshoe share. That's what we wanna see accomplished in your work with the district attorney and with community leaders as a whole. And I will say this, moving forward, I hope whatever process is adopted by the administration in your department will hold central to this idea that there's a significant trauma of being an individual that has experienced a bias event directed at them and or a hate crime. Those are legal distinctions but that a person on the receiving end of that conduct there is no such distinction. So it's gonna be a tough challenge to develop a policing and accountability strategy for that, but thank you for taking those first steps with the district attorney. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, Councilor Dion. Other comments, questions from my colleagues as this is a communication, we as you know, we don't typically take public comment we did tonight, but we certainly do take questions or comments from counselors. I'm looking on Zoom. Okay, oh, counselors are on Zoom. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Can you hear me? We can. Okay, so sorry, everyone, I'm currently traveling. I just wanna say thank you to everyone who gave comment. That was a lot. I understand that it was a lot to hear. It was evident and visible that the community is really shaken up.  I have a lot of questions. I appreciate the chief and the manager bringing a communication to us this afternoon. I asked for it from the city manager that Monday after the meeting. And I think if there's one thing after the two hours of public comment, we just heard, you know, there's a lot of confusion, a lot of anxiety, fear, and a lot of questions. So I don't think we're gonna get to all of that this evening, especially just because this is a communication item. I think my overall question instead of getting into the details is what did the next steps look like? What's the path forward? Because we can't just say, okay, we took two hours of public comment, we got this communication, we're done. That's insufficient. I wanna know how we can better understand what happened in a more detailed way. I know we've seen videos going around from the other, you know, the incident and they're troubling. And I'm just trying to connect the dots here. I think all of us are really looking at the data point. So I guess I'm looking at my job here is how can we help residents feel rest assured that this is something that is going to continue to be worked on and understood? How can we make sure relevant documentation is accessible? Because I feel like I have more questions ending this evening's public comment than I did even going into it. So I might not be very articulate right now. I'm processing in lifetime, but I guess if I had to tie all that together, what is the next step? How are we gonna show the community what the path forward is on this collectively? Because that's what I think we have to do. Thank you. Well, councilor, I think that's probably a question for me and maybe also for the chief as well, but I think from my perspective, as I mentioned, I'll be working with the chief to talk about those recommendations that we specifically saw in the district attorney's letter and to understand them better. There were a lot of things in there. I think that specifically get to some of the issues that were discussed this evening. And so I really need to get my feet under me, so to speak, so that I can understand what she's talking about and really discuss that with the chief. Another thing that I have done and happy that he's here this evening, although he just started work with us, we have recently hired a justice, equity, diversity and inclusion director, Umar Ubaldi. He's here and he's gonna help me. He's gonna help me try to figure this out and try to navigate this. And I'm going to be using his skills and resources to try to understand ways in which we could continue to move forward. And then I don't know if the chief has anything other specific coming from this, from his department. No, I think it's, you know, for us, it's continuing to look at national trends and best practices. We have stayed ahead of that thus far and continued and plan on continuing to do that. Thank you both.  Thank you. I appreciate it and I look forward to the next steps and understanding more the DA's involvement as well. You know, I'm one of the ones who left her a voicemail, you know, as soon as this was, you know, evident or as soon as I was made aware of it. The last thing I'll say because there is more of a sense of urgency and humanity is I'm having a hard time articulating and understanding the physical harm that happened. And we heard from a couple of people tonight and I'm trying to imagine if that were me, how I would feel and what I would want and folks shared some of that. And I'm just having a, I believe our role is to protect people specifically marginalized folks if they're harmed, right? If they're physically harmed and that happened. And so again, might not be the most articulate I've been before, but I wanna better understand how we can let people know that that is not tolerated, right? Yes, people can say things, even if we don't like them, even if they hurt to hear, if you say something and then you act on it with violence or harm, that is a line that cannot be crossed. And so that's the part I'm still struggling with how we can understand what happened, not only to prevent it from ever happening again because clearly that we need to do a better job of that but how do we make it right? I don't know if we can, how do we look at the folks who were on the receiving end of that and say that we're sorry and that we're never gonna let that happen again? Anyway, thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Counselor Zorro. Chief, would you like to respond in any way? That is, that's a really challenging question and it's something that we deal with all the time. And I think, you know, as law enforcement officers as we are trying to put cases together and we're working with victims, we very much take a victim-centered approach and we go into an understanding that although we're gonna do whatever we can to secure that conviction or those consequences for the perpetrator that it just may not happen. And so with that, we have victim advocacy, folks who are trained to work with our victims and we work through that process together to try and hopefully limit that post-traumatic stress that can come along with some of those critical incidents. Thank you, Chief. We've got a hand up from Counselor Phillips who's with us on Zoom. I'm so sorry that I'm not there with folks in person. Unfortunately, it just couldn't be helped the way that this worked out. I really and truly appreciate all of the folks coming forward and giving us their comments. And I also appreciate Counselor Zaro for speaking just now because I just, I really wanna put on the record that I totally agree with him that this is a time for action. This is just such a time for action. Our community wants it, we want it. And I think we just need to literally make sure at every step that we are doing something actionable in order for us to diminish racism and oppression across the board. As I was looking at the material before we were getting started on this, I did have several questions for the police department, but those questions to me at this point don't matter because we could go back and forth and I could ask questions and then I could get an answer and then I could ask other questions and get another answer. And so instead of asking questions, I decided I was just gonna make this kind of statement. And just say that in certain circumstances, black people and people of color don't get this kind of a response. And I think that that's where my frustration is we just don't get this response. We get something totally different from police across the country. And so I do think there needs to be a plan. I wanna thank Interim City Manager Daniel West and the chief for putting this plan together. And also that this is just gonna take more than just more than just that. It's gonna take all of us. It's gonna take the folks around the chamber, around the council chamber. It's gonna take the community. It's gonna take all of us to figure out how to do this. And if we think, and I'm so glad that we have our justice, equity, diversity and inclusion person. And I'm so grateful that he's also gonna be working with us to try to kind of figure this out. This is gonna take bold steps that some people are not gonna like. It's, sorry, that's my granddaughter. But it is gonna take some bold steps. And all I ask for is, is that we are ready to make those bold steps that we're able to literally, sorry, that we're literally able to say, this is, we're gonna go forward with this because we have to. Sorry. A little baby on the Zoom screen. Sorry. I just want us to all be prepared that we have to take bold actionable steps. And I know that's the thing that I'm gonna be looking for as we try to go down this road to diminish harm and trauma to the citizens of Portland. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Phillips. Next I'll go to Councillor Rodriguez. Oh, Councillor Pelletier and then Councillor Rodriguez. I'll take it. Thank you, Mayor. I'm gonna sit down for this. In my limited time as a public servant in the city of Portland, I've been in way too many meetings that have been packed with police officers. Just wanted to say that because it was mentioned that on certain occasions we do manage to get the entire department in here. I wonder who's doing construction, detail right now.  Yeah, I can smile. I have to be so serious. I wanna address Councillor Zarrou's question about what do we do as a council. We have on our plate a few opportunities to have an impact into the culture of the police department. We're about to hire a new chief. Councilors had a great opportunity. I hope all nine of us check the box to speak to the hiring firm so that we can give feedback into what we're looking for in the next leader of the police department. I took full advantage of that opportunity and I spent over an hour speaking with that gentleman and I believe that he enjoyed my feedback. I gave a unique perspective from someone who's been involved in conversations with this community about policing at a really in depth way for years. Many years for which I've never gotten credit for. I just wanna put that out there. So that's one immediate action step that the council can have is deciding who the next chief of this department will be. That chief when they come in, I believe, is due to have some sort of strategic comprehensive plan into the department that addresses a lot of the things that have happened over the last several years. We've had two chiefs come in. We've had a lot of instability at the leadership position. That's detrimental to any organization. So having a chief is gonna be here long term and having a good strategic plan for the department that addresses a lot of the issues that we've highlighted on top of the issues that the department has brought up themselves. One of which the most blatant one is the inability to hire, right? You've got a staffing issue. What I heard tonight tells me that you have a PR issue. The whole country's police department alone for it and has a PR issue. And one action that this council can take in response to what we heard today is to not fall under the standard operation that the only way to improve retention and recruitment is by increasing wages. Because that falls into what we heard today we shouldn't do, which is dump more money into the problem. We need to think strategically about who are we attracting into law enforcement? What are we trying to accomplish as this department? What are we doing with our other municipalities to work in hand and to a comprehensive idea into what goals we're trying to advance? And so then the last thing that I'll say is we, you know, the council always has an opportunity to overstunt. I would actually caution us to do that when I've been when I had the opportunity to take bold action as has been referenced here. I did so after about a three year course of community engagement and talking to people throughout the city, talking to people that are involved in law enforcement reform, juvenile justice reform. And I did so in what I believe was a really well informed and educated position. And I believe that that's the work this council has to do. So it ain't about throwing a motion out, they're getting a second and five votes. It really is about doing the work, right? Digging into your community, listening to them, listening to y'all, y'all are part of this community too. I need to listen to what y'all are saying. And then coming out with a solution that addresses all these problems. But there isn't a silver bullet out there. It's a horrible analogy to use right now. There is not one solution that's gonna fix all of these problems. But there are big issues here that we need to acknowledge. I think I'll leave it at that. I'm kind of starting to repeat myself wasting all times. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you, councilor. Next to you, councilor Pelletier. Thank you, mayor. Oh, I'm sorry, councilor Travarro. Sorry, she wanted me to go first. Okay. Thank you for being here. This has been a rather intense evening. I feel like we should start our meetings with like breathing exercises or something to remind us that we're all here together as a community and that we're all doing our best towards a similar goal, although we may be in different places in our understanding of the issue of equity, which is really what we're talking about tonight. I don't wanna come at this from a perspective of reprimand or, you know, I believe that there are tools in the toolbox of the police force that can be used and that must be refrained from of which I am no expert. So I appreciate that the police force was there for this rally and put their best effort forward with the tools that they had. So my comments will just be my personal thoughts as one councilor, as you delve into this work on how to go forward. The comments from the community tonight really did speak to me. I am someone who has studied history, studied Holocaust and looked at that in comparison to what's going on in our country today and how politics have changed and how systems of power have creeped up in a way that is eroding of democracy and is in violence toward marginalized community members. And I don't think that our community is different from the rest of the country. I would be very proud if we had the one police force in the country that really worked to figure out what is that line between free speech and hate speech and acted to prosecute hate speech on that is equity. And it's something that needs to be ingrained in our system, I think. So I appreciate you, I appreciate your work. And those are my thoughts for moving forward. I appreciate what the DA has put forward. And I look forward to hearing more about your work. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Travarro. And next we'll go to Councillor Pelletier. Thank you. I'm trying to figure out where I am with this. And I hope that I don't get point of ordered. And my other colleagues just let me share. Cause I think like this is ridiculous like that we are here again. Like this entire exchange is not working for me at all. And I'm just listening to the conversation. I'm reading the statement. I'm reading the press release and we're just kind of like best practices against like Nazis coming to Portland. Like we're gonna just like best practice for Nazis coming here. And you said you have to be the person in the middle and not take sides. And you can't express your views, but in your statement, you expressed your view saying that this rhetoric from this hate group is not keeping in the values of Portland.  And where is like the protect and serve and like the integrity that people are asking you to have? And I'm just, I really, I tried. I said I wasn't, I was just gonna let everybody else share because I have been through a lot and I was just gonna not share my piece but I'm actually pretty disappointed and disgusted with this entire display.  And we receive press release emails consistently from what's happening with the Portland PD. Like we receive that information to our council email. So I know that arrests have been made. Like I know that y'all know how to arrest people and I know that you know how to ID people. And I was one of the people that you first sprayed in 2020. So I know that you know how to do that. So, you know, I'm just trying to figure out that the entirety of the Portland community that was here today knew what was going on and knew that this was going to happen. And I'm hearing that you did not. And this just happened in Kittery when there was a banner on the overpass s