Decisions/2025-117
Resolution2025-117

Should Portland adopt a procedure for the appointment and confirmation of Portlanders to City boards, commissions, and committees?

On November 8, 2022, voters approved Portland Measure 26-228. The Measure significantly amended Portland’s City Charter. The Measure generally established a mayor-council form of government with a City Administrator, created four new geographic districts with three councilors represented in each district, and called for a new system of electing City officials using Ranked Choice Voting. On September 27, 2023, the City Council approved Ordinance 191461, “Amend Council Organization and Procedures Code to align with Measure 26-228 (replace Code Chapter 3.02), established operating rules for the new City Council which took effect on January 1, 2025, and on November 20, 2024, the City Commission approved Ordinance 191973, “Amend Code to align with the amended City Charter approved by voters in Portland Measure 26-228 (amend Code Titles 2, 4, 9, 22, 23 and 30, replace Code Titles 3 and 17, and repeal Code Title 8)”, affirming these changes to Title 3.Charter Section 2-111 provides that Council shall determine its own rules of procedure. This resolution adopts the Council rule of procedure on appointments and confirmations.

Official impact statement
See the official legal title

Adopt a procedure for the appointment and confirmation of Portlanders to City boards, commissions, and committees

Next appearanceFinal action is posted; watch for implementation updates.
Follow this matter
01 · Understand it

What this proposal would actually do.

Plain-language orientation first. Every substantive statement below links to its official basis.

What would change

On November 8, 2022, voters approved Portland Measure 26-228. The Measure significantly amended Portland’s City Charter. The Measure generally established a mayor-council form of government with a City Administrator, created four new geographic districts with three councilors represented in each district, and called for a new system of electing City officials using Ranked Choice Voting. On September 27, 2023, the City Council approved Ordinance 191461, “Amend Council Organization and Procedures Code to align with Measure 26-228 (replace Code Chapter 3.02), established operating rules for the new City Council which took effect on January 1, 2025, and on November 20, 2024, the City Commission approved Ordinance 191973, “Amend Code to align with the amended City Charter approved by voters in Portland Measure 26-228 (amend Code Titles 2, 4, 9, 22, 23 and 30, replace Code Titles 3 and 17, and repeal Code Title 8)”, affirming these changes to Title 3.Charter Section 2-111 provides that Council shall determine its own rules of procedure. This resolution adopts the Council rule of procedure on appointments and confirmations.

Official proposal and impact statement
What would stay the same

The reviewed sources do not clearly identify every existing policy, service, contract, or obligation that would remain unchanged.

Official matter record
Who may be affected

Portlanders donate their time and talent as members of City boards, commissions, and committees. With district representation and policy committees instituted in our new form of government, reviewing appointments in committee allows the Council to provide focused attention to each appointment to monitor trends in background and experience. Asking appointees to appear before the policy committee that most directly aligns with the advisory body’s subject matter is a more transparent process for Portlanders and aligns with the appointment process of other jurisdictions.

Official community impact statement
What happens next

Placed on file as amended by council

Latest official agenda appearance
02 · Evaluate it

What the record establishes and what it does not.

Votes show choices. They do not, by themselves, prove why a member made that choice.

Meeting-level motion or recommendation

Passed · 0–0

Yes
No
Read the exact motion or vote question

Motion to table the item: Moved by Koyama Lane and seconded by Kanal. Approved by unanimous consent.

Rationale review not yet published

We will not turn the roll call into invented arguments.

The vote above establishes who supported or opposed that exact motion. A source-validated account of the competing reasons will appear only after human review of the meeting transcript and documents.

Open questions
  • The source-linked record has not yet received a human review of competing arguments. A yes or no vote alone does not establish a Councilor’s rationale.
  • What implementation evidence will show whether the intended result occurred?
Can residents still participate?

Official testimony on this decision has closed. Residents can still contact their district Councilors about implementation and follow-up.

Official Council agenda
03 · Verify it

Inspect the complete research record.

Official text, source files, exact motions, roll calls, provenance, and the technical completeness check remain available without crowding the explanation above.

Official documents6 sources
Final legal actionResolution 2025-117

The operative official record after Council action.

Open at Portland.gov
Read the full official text

WHEREAS, Sec. 2-111 of the Charter of the City of Portland (Charter) provides that Council shall determine its own rules of procedure; andWHEREAS, Resolution 37696 established City Council committees; the Governance Committee reviews executive appointments; andWHEREAS, the Governance Committee discussed executive appointments during its February 10, 2025 and February 24, 2025 meetings and received public testimony. The Committee reviewed the referral of appointments to committee, committee action on appointments, and Council consideration of appointments. NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Council rules of procedure on appointments and confirmations is adopted as provided in the attached Exhibit A.

Meetings, motions, amendments, and votes2 meetings · 3 votes

Recorded amendments

Mar 31, 2025 · Recorded

Motion to amend Exhibit A, Section (1) in Council Consideration of Appointments, to replace the second sentence with “Appointments that have been removed from the initial report and placed on separate reports may be included on the consent agenda or on the regular agenda for Council discussion.” Moved by Clark and seconded by Ryan. (Aye (5): Dunphy, Pirtle-Guiney, Ryan, Clark, Koyama Lane)

Read all 3 exact motions
Jun 4, 2025 · Main · Passed

Motion to table the item: Moved by Koyama Lane and seconded by Kanal. Approved by unanimous consent.

Mar 31, 2025 · Amendment · Recorded

Motion to amend Exhibit A, Section (1) in Council Consideration of Appointments, to replace the second sentence with “Appointments that have been removed from the initial report and placed on separate reports may be included on the consent agenda or on the regular agenda for Council discussion.” Moved by Clark and seconded by Ryan. (Aye (5): Dunphy, Pirtle-Guiney, Ryan, Clark, Koyama Lane)

Mar 31, 2025 · Main · Passed

Motion to send the Resolution, Document Number 2025-117, to be sent to the full Council with the recommendation that it be adopted: Moved by Ryan and seconded by Clark. (Aye (5): Dunphy, Pirtle-Guiney, Ryan, Clark, Koyama Lane)

Meeting-level motion or recommendation · Jun 4, 2025

Motion to table the item: Moved by Koyama Lane and seconded by Kanal. Approved by unanimous consent.

Meeting-level motion or recommendation · Mar 31, 20255 yes

Motion to amend Exhibit A, Section (1) in Council Consideration of Appointments, to replace the second sentence with “Appointments that have been removed from the initial report and placed on separate reports may be included on the consent agenda or on the regular agenda for Council discussion.” Moved by Clark and seconded by Ryan. (Aye (5): Dunphy, Pirtle-Guiney, Ryan, Clark, Koyama Lane)

Meeting-level motion or recommendation · Mar 31, 20255 yes

Motion to send the Resolution, Document Number 2025-117, to be sent to the full Council with the recommendation that it be adopted: Moved by Ryan and seconded by Clark. (Aye (5): Dunphy, Pirtle-Guiney, Ryan, Clark, Koyama Lane)

Data quality, timeline, and provenanceRules v2
Why technical findings are hidden above

Unreviewed keyword matches and machine-extracted fragments are not presented as authoritative findings. Only 0 human-reviewed findings are available for this matter.

Technical information-completeness check · Ready With Caveats

This checks whether decision-relevant categories appear in the published packet. It does not recommend approval or opposition.

Decision definition

The official title and operative text identify the requested action.

Complete
Official legal text

Official text was found. This check does not certify that every referenced exhibit is complete.

Complete
Financial impact

The official impact statement includes financial information.

Complete
Funding source

The impact statement identifies funding information without an explicit unresolved-source qualifier.

Complete
Supporting documents

5 linked supporting documents found; presence alone does not verify their internal completeness.

Complete
Referenced exhibit integrity

The text references exhibits. This guide has not yet automatically verified that each referenced exhibit is present, populated, and internally consistent.

Unknown
Counterparty acceptance

The reviewed action is not expressly identified as a non-binding agreement.

Not Applicable
Implementation

An implementation owner or milestone was not found deterministically.

Unknown
Document stability

Stability requires at least two observed snapshots; the system will update this after another ingestion.

Unknown
Source record
First discovered
Aug 13, 2026, 1:04 PM PDT
Last checked
Sep 13, 2026, 2:22 AM PDT
Evidence hash
3ce69a0a10ed7503
Guide status
Deterministic baseline
Append-only timeline
  1. SOURCE UPDATED

    Placed on file as amended by council

  2. DOCUMENT PUBLISHED

    Observed in the official source.

  3. Council Action

    Tabled

  4. Council Action

    Referred to City Council as amended