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It has been a BIG week at City Hall, so this is a bit of a long one!
Portland Bike & Walk to School & Work Week and Vision Zero Resolution
Things kicked off beautifully early Monday morning as we celebrated the proclamation that the week of May 19 be Portland Bike & Walk to School & Work Week. We worked with our Bike Bus friends to write the proclamation that was enthusiastically approved by Mayor Keith Wilson!
Starting the day holding space for joy with friends from Bike Bus, Oregon Walks, AARP, my colleagues Mayor Wilson and Councilors Clark, Smith and Morillo and many more was a delight. We made buttons, shared “pot hole” donuts from Voodoo Doughnuts, danced with mascots from Public Works … we set the tone heading into a big week.
Right after the celebration, I brought forward my resolution to reaffirm our city’s commitment to Vision Zero to the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee– where it passed with unanimous support from all committee members!
 Public Works Appreciation
On Tuesday I joined Deputy City Administrator Dhanapal to celebrate Public Works Appreciation Week! I want to share my sincere gratitude for the incredible, and often invisible, work of our Public Works teams. One of my biggest priorities as a councilmember is to lead with community voice and values, and Public Works is arguably the place where our work in the city MOST connects us with our community. These teams do the work that builds, sustains, and nurtures our communities; cultivating beautiful spaces … moving us through our City … creating accessible and inclusive infrastructure that brings us all together.
Budget, Budget, Budget!
Then on Wednesday came our BIG budget day.
We kicked off our City Council meeting at 9 a.m. with a pre-gavel celebration of Older Americans Month with my friend Bandana Shrestha, State Director of AARP Oregon, and Portland’s very own Poison Waters. As a Councilor, my leadership is informed by my values of community service and social justice, and a commitment to making Portland a place where neighbors of all ages can thrive, upholding Portland both as an Age-Friendly City AND a great place to raise a family. I was honored to co-sponsor this with my colleague Councilor Dunphy.
 As the day progressed, we dug deeper and deeper into the Mayor’s proposed budget, and this Council’s amendments and goals. As you’ve heard me say time and time again, a budget is a moral document. My focus for this budget, where we juggle intense priorities in a tight funding cycle, is ensuring it aligns with the community’s values.
In preparation for this work my District 3 colleagues and I have been having budget town halls with our constituents AND my office has been canvassing / door knocking in order to hear directly from the community on their budget priorities.
What I’ve been hearing is that public safety is a priority, but that public safety doesn’t fall exclusively in the hands of armed police officers. Public safety is access to healthy and protected parks and green spaces. Public safety is safe multi-modal transportation. Public safety is unarmed first responders and effective emergency response.
These community values are why I fought for the restoration of funding for our Vision Zero Action Plan, and voted in support to hold funding for the Portland Police Bureau at current levels, which allows us to close some of the gap in parks maintenance investment.
Wednesday’s meeting closed out just before midnight, after a 15-hour long (!) meeting day. And we’re not done yet, we reconvene on June 11 for final action on the budget.
Lastly, as I reflect on this experience and continue to process it, I want to share more with you. Please stay tuned for next week’s newsletter!
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Homelessness Response (Joint Session w/ City and County)
This week wrapped up with one more critically important meeting: on Friday afternoon the City Council met with our Multnomah County counterparts to discuss our Homelessness Response System, and our collaborative work to address our local housing crisis. I appreciate the collaboration and believe this is what the community expects of us – to work together regardless of jurisdiction to find solutions and take action!
The work to shelter everyone is critical, and would like to underline that it is late-stage intervention, not prevention or elimination of homelessness. While we can acknowledge the work we’re doing to keep moving shelter forward — and to be clear, I am in support of the Mayor’s commitment — we also need to acknowledge that to actually end homelessness we must be constantly working to understand the true nature and causes of homelessness.
We got to look at a lot of data and I invited everyone in the meeting to come up a level above the data and think about how homelessness is a function of poverty and economic injustice. I look forward to taking all we’re learned from our current investments, data, and actions and bringing that together with an approach that responds to the true causes of homelessness.
Ok, here’s to a packed and productive week serving as one of your District 3 City Councilors. What a privilege and joy! Thank you!
City-State Electeds Joint Town Hall
I will be joining the other District 3 Councilors as well as Representative Chotzen and Senator Pham at APANO for a town hall. The town hall will start at 6:30 pm on Wednesday, May 28. RSVP at the link below:
Joint Town Hall with Local Elected Officials
DaVinci and Creston Bike Buses
I joined different Bike Buses in District 3 all week long! I plan to ride with DaVinci Middle School on Wednesday 5/28 and Creston 5/30. Come and join me!
Budget:
Portland City Council diverts new police dollars to parks during marathon budget meeting - oregonlive.com
Portland City Council to Face 126 Budget Amendments in Wednesday Session
I went through the 100 proposed budget amendments so you don’t have to – BikePortland
Vision Zero:
Vision Zero traffic safety resolution moves forward in Portland | kgw.com
Bike bus and road safety advocates take over Portland City Hall – BikePortland
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