Sameer Kanal

“Thank you, Council President. So a note on the amendments we just passed. I want to be clear, I don't think the mayor's negotiating team needed to vet these. I think we should have done this the way the charter intends and that voters approved, where we exercise our independent judgment as 12 elected officials and make decisions. That didn't happen last week, but given that it mattered to colleagues who evidently didn't know that at least 2 of us who proposed amendments, Councilor Novick and I, did in fact follow the process as outlined in one of the several emails we got with recommendations on how to do this. We got to where we are today, and I'm grateful that for the first time in this process, I personally felt listened to in part with the content of these amendments by the negotiating team and by 3 colleagues who had voted no on all this last week. Um, and I appreciate that. I al…”

“Okay. I, I guess it implies that the defense won, meaning us, but also we have a cost. So I'm just trying to make sure I understand that piece, if that was just our legal interpretation. Legal cost or if that— if I'm misinterpreting. And similarly, we asked a couple months ago about information on the claims denied piece. So for example, a few lines lower down, also on page 36, there's an allegation of PPB officers damaging property with chemical agents when entering to arrest subject. That's marked, among many others, as claim denied with zero. And I just want to understand, like, what's what's the— what's the next— can't— does that just mean that a person can sue after that but they haven't yet, or what exactly happens in those scenarios?”

“We'll follow you up. Thank you. Councilor Green. Thank you. I just want to say briefly, and it's not a question to you, Dana, but it's just while we're on this topic, we have to stop this practice of practice of just abandoning the plans that we have because one block or one, two blocks of neighbors called and got really cranky about it. Like, we cannot, we cannot do that anymore. We adopt plans as, as a council that then are directives for the city. We have to see that through. I'm, I'm happy to stand by the policy, um, and you can't— we cannot move as the bureaus because one councilor got your ear. That's and so we have to sort of hold the line. We have to do our safety improvements. We have to put forward and stay with our Northwest in Motion plans and all the like. And so I'm just going to keep reiterating that because that's a pattern I see in the City of Portland in this new for…”

“And thank you from the other panelists for your testimony. And thank you, Committee Chair Kanal and Vice Chairs Koyama Lane and Ryan and members of the committee for the opportunity to provide public comment on Vision Zero. I'm Mike Dennis with Oregon Walks. Last September, each one of you voted to approve Resolution 37716, a resolution that was forwarded by Councilor Koyama Lane and co-sponsored by Councilors Clark and Green and, and Murillo and Smith to recommit the city to Vision Zero. Thank you. Thank you for your leadership standing up For our most vulnerable road users. As you may recall, the resolution reestablished the goal that, quote, no person should die or be incapacitated from simply going about their day, unquote. As the 1-year anniversary approaches, it's time to reassess— or I'm sorry, to assess and test how serious are we about this goal. Thank you. In the past year, …”

“Thank you, Council President. I will explain Kanal 1 at this time. It makes changes only to the resolution, not to the term sheet. It adds to the— it adds to what has been the 3rd and 2nd to last be it further resolved, a clause, and then it adds a new thank you. The text that it adds to existing clauses, there's one that says that the mayor is authorized to sign the Moda Center Arena renovation and post-renovation operations term sheet in a form substantially similar to the one that is the attachment. And the other authorizes the city administration to develop formal definitive documents. And in both cases, it adds that they are not authorized by council to commit to any specific funding source. And then the new clause says that the city and the city council specifically will evaluate the use of restricted funds for potential financial obligations only following receiving sufficient …”

“Mike Dennis with Oregon Walks. Thank you, Councilor Dunphy and Vice President Council Clerk and all members here. I'll be very brief. With Oregon Walks, we wanna support the no right on red and want to lend our support as well to the amendment. And that's amendment number 2. Just had a chance to look at that thank you. Really pleased to see this going forward. We'll be back later. I'm happy to answer questions if any of you have questions, can talk individually. We can share some of the data we have. We know that No Red on Red is a proven tool. Very pleased that this is going to be in a pilot situation like we talked about. And finally, I just wanna acknowledge and thank Councilors Koyama Lane and Councilor Smith for working together. The teamwork, the collaboration really makes a difference. Thank you.”

“Good afternoon. My name is Ben Harper, and I'm head of sustainability here at I Squared Capital, and I want to thank you for your time today. I'd like to start by reiterating the change in ownership of this terminal is an opportunity to make a positive break from the past and for our team to operate a best-in-class facility in supporting the city of Portland and the state of Oregon in achieving its climate and sustainable fuel goals today and in the future. What should be most important to the council and to the community is knowing that we will be operating this terminal under the strictest regulatory framework, requiring the utmost operational diligence. The regulation under which this terminal is operated does not allow us to simply promise a cleaner future. It requires us to deliver one and to prove it every year to the regulators. The commitment to convert this site to 100% renew…”

“Virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the clerk calls your name. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate everybody being here today. So today we have a couple items on our agenda that are continuations of our meeting from 2 weeks ago. After the committee chair updates, we'll have a continuation of the discussion of the potential transfer of the franchise from Zenith Energy Terminals Holding LLC to ISQ Springer Holdings LLC. We had the presentation, we'll hear the testimony now. We do have 50 people signed up for testimony last I checked. And then we have Vision Zero, which we'll call the presentation item and public hearing together and do the public hearing portion first. That's, I think, 4 people have signed up for that. And then if time is remaining, we'll have some of the responses from staff to the questions councilors raised 2 weeks ago. I'll note for the record that this is…”

“Means that us with our limited tax— taxing authority would be asked to take on a job that would be better done at another jurisdiction, in my opinion. I do see a merit in the idea that, I can't remember who brought it up a couple weeks ago, about seeing if we could work together like a Multnomah Youth Commission type of thing. But that's not something we can do unilaterally through an exhibit here. The Exhibit B is not in my amendment because my amendment just removes it. So for reference, it's not in there, but you can see the file if you go to the page for just this proposed ordinance. And, you know, first thing is harm reduction, research and recommend evidence-based harm reduction approaches. Second thing is study the use of natural psychedelics in alleviating alcohol or opioid dependency and other addictions. Third thing is a strategic plan for Benchmarks for city consideration a…”

“Okay, I, I appreciate that. That's, that, that's a little concerning to me in the context of, um, expansion, uh, and I want to just be clear, I'm citing my sources here. This is from PPB's own stops data reports. Specifically, the annual reports available at portland.gov/police/open-data/stops-data. You know that I'm going to give a couple lists of numbers here. This is the year, the percentage of drivers that Traffic Division stopped who are Black, and the percentage of the population. So 2012, 8.0% stops for Black Portlanders. Population not noted in the report, but census data shows it's just shy of 6%. 2013, 7.8% Stops of Black Portlanders. Population not noted in this report yet, but was just shy of 6% from census data. Starting in 2014, that is noted. It's 8.2% to 5.7%. 2015, 8.9% To 5.7%. 2016, 8.8% To 6.1%. 2017, 10.9% To 6.1%. 2018, 10.7% To 6.1%. It continues just inching up…”

“Okay, and then I guess the question that you might be able to answer or might be theirs is you mentioned prevent. You said break up existing and prevent potential street racing takeover events. And I know that there are restrictions on drone usage that, have been approved by council. I think there's an open question as to how they're being used, but I wanted to ask about how prevention is gonna occur in the context of that, the technology usage.”

“Okay, okay. Yeah, you know, I think my, my interest in this is around we don't really do We do a lot for crime victims. We meaning American society, government broadly, not speaking here. And I think that's a problem that both exists that we haven't solved, but also sometimes we talk around it. A lot of what we do on both the city and county side on what we call restorative practices— restorative justice generally involves restoration to the victim, and a lot of the time it is a way of describing something that maybe another place would describe as deferment or diversion. So I think that there are— I have an interest there and I'd like to follow up with you on that, but I'll leave it at that for now.”