Mitch Green

“If the state legislature does not somehow come up with a miraculous funding package for TriMet in the next legislative session, we're going to lock those cuts into place for years to come, and we will have decimated our transit system. And so for me, this vote is about the broader stakes that we're in. We're in a situation where our state legislature asked zero questions. None. Over the course of 5 weeks, basically said, what do you need, $600 million? We got you, we're good for $365 million. Didn't tell us about a study that they commissioned from Echo Northwest that made the case. If they would— I mean, if they would have shared that, it would have been— it undermined my position. So that tells you something. But they never even asked a question. I talked to Mike Wilkerson at Echo Northwest yesterday. I said, hey, why didn't you share that study from last bring with us. And he said …”

“For each fiscal year '27 through '28, you get the sum of Blazer— Moda Center user fees, Blazers parking, and VMC NOP. And that is what we currently allocate to the Moda Center contribution. And it starts at $8.8 million in FY '27, and it escalates at 3% cumulatively through 2046 over 20 years. And if we were to issue a bond for the $120 million that I have had a heartache around, Okay. I don't want to spend PCF money on that. I don't want to spend general funding on that. And I've been asking, how else can we finance this? And I've been told there's nothing in the Spectators Facility Fund. And the reason why there's nothing in the Spectators Utilities Fund is because we're pre-committing it to some future $275 million expense. But if we didn't and we said, let's issue a bond against our revenue there, not only could we fund the $120 million, which would get me over the line and get me…”

“I just want to say thanks to the sponsors for identifying this policy as an urgent item. I think this is a matter of public safety, and I really appreciate your willingness to continue to say let's make forward progress on this issue even Even if we can't solve it all at once, I see it across the sort of policies that y'all are taking in this view. Councilor Smith, this is related to SIP in my mind. And so I'm connecting that piece together. So I just want to say thanks, and I'm really happy to support it. Thanks.”

“Yeah, I just wanted to address some of Councilor Pirtle-Guiney's comments and concerns. I think just to level set here, the invitation to have the presentation was to— I don't have any immediate policy goals here, nor does the chair, aside from my just general interest in upzoning, which I think has been abundantly clear across a range of issues, but was a desire to see opportunities to pull into this committee some of the interesting conversations that are relevant I think it's really important to have conversations that are relevant to the committee that are informal and then happen outside of it. 'Cause I had the opportunity to be part of a conversation with a bunch of design students and some practitioners, some architects, some developers. And being able to share that with members of the committee who have a vote and a voice here felt like a really good use of time. But then also…”

“Thank you, Chair Avalos. Uh, thank you so much for securing the grant. Um, couldn't come at a better possible time. And so I just want to uplift the work that folks in the Bureau are always doing to look for ways to secure external resources, even if they are loans. They are liquidity tools that come from the federal government that are important parts of the mix. I guess, I mean, this is a slam dunk for me, but I will take the opportunity to ask, do you see this as maybe an opportunity to braid with some of the other Debt buydown funds that council's already secured? Because this seems like if we're targeting the act, the sort of whole portfolio of properties out there that are months away, a year away from basically going into receivership if we don't take action, do you see this really targeting that and then maybe using an opportunity to take this grant and braid together some of …”

“Thank you, Council President. Um, thanks again for, uh, helping us out with this, Kristen, and, uh, for, you know, the opportunity to talk about this publicly for our constituents ahead of the first consideration of a term sheet. Um, been waiting to get here. I understand y'all have been working hardest to get, to get us here, so kudos to everyone involved. Uh, because this is my only chance Councilor Smith. I'm going to take a few minutes to sort of react to the term sheet publicly before we have to then consider votes. I'm just going to lay out a few, like 3 things that I hope I see in the term sheet before it's filed that will get me in a position where I can support this. The first is I need to see— well, because we're in a situation where we don't have plans, we don't have documents, we don't have a clear estimation of what this transformational job really is. It's just still a v…”

“Thank you, Council President. Thank you, Duane and team, for being here. I think, again, this is for the body to start to think about and have this conversation about what a term sheet looks like, which then provides the parameters for the negotiating team to move forward. We're having this conversation in public, and a lot of what you've seen publicly from my end has been I'm a trained economist. I wanted more information all along about the underlying economic and financial assumptions. So I appreciate, Dr. Wilkerson, you bringing in some kind of new modeling. I think you must be reading my posts or my newsletters. I appreciate that. This is the first I'm seeing of it, so I'll need more detail on your approach after the fact. But I think, you know, the city has been seeking key economic and financial data from the Blazers to update our own. Yeah. Economic impact analysis to better i…”

“I just had to say this might be the fastest ordinance that's moved through the body. I think we had about 6 minutes of discussion last time we passed the second reading. Uh, I didn't want to let us go to vote without just noting that historic moment. Thanks. I'm going to support it. Looking forward to voting. Thanks.”

“Thank you. I encourage— I'm actually— I welcome the standalone legislation that Councilor Pirtle-Guiney is hinting towards when we come— that will come before this body. I think we should have a conversation about how we prioritize eminent domain. Yes. You know, down payment assistance and other tools to make homeownership a possibility. To Councilor Smith's point, credit access is oftentimes the largest barrier. And I think if this body is serious about facilitating pathways to homeownership for the populations that we would like to serve, we need to think about stepping in as the underwriter of that credit the way the VA steps in to guarantee mortgages for veterans, the way that other bodies step in to guarantee credit risk as well. That's something we can do and stretch our dollars in a big way. We haven't had that conversation yet. I'll note that I'm supporting the ordinance becau…”

“I— Councilor Koyama Lane and I have been kind of working on sort of a little bit of a one small element of a theme that's in here, which is really the Vision Zero compliance piece. We were worried about missing the moment and not having any regulatory authority to say, I don't want to start issuing permits for these things before we have a handle on this. I don't really buy their claims to safety. They're not really grounded in evidence. And So it's good to see that in here. And so we were wanting to kind of move kind of quickly on a very sort of tight code change in this TNC code, understanding that that's not nearly sufficient enough. And it was about really making sure you have a Vision Zero compliance piece. But I'm seeing that language kind of already on the slide, which tells me that you're incorporating some of the things that we've already been talking to you guys about behind…”

“That's great to hear. And I just kind of want to offer this, um, you know, council has a recess in the last 2 weeks of August. I will personally be on hand to dive deeply with, with you guys on that. So please consider my office a resource. Me personally, I, I'm actually kind of looking forward to literally rolling my sleeves up and maybe cracking open some spreadsheets and kind of working with folks to try to make it clear, like, what it is I'm looking for and raise any concerns that I might to have or present some opportunities. Because I think if we can do that together in that timeline and have that first look in September be something with some real meat around it, I think that's going to go a long way towards communicating to the public to say, don't worry, we're not pushing this off. We're being very proactive in understanding that there's going to be this sort of differential …”

“Yeah, I appreciate you bringing this forward, Councilor Zimmerman. I drive an EV. I routinely see EVs parked in the city streets. I routinely try to charge my EV at multiple commercial places and it's always out of order. And my instinct is that maybe there was someone who didn't— maybe that firm, that bank or institution didn't pony up and get the right level of labor to do that. Do you think that this sort of gets us to a place that makes sure we have the highest quality workers who are trained to do this work, are actually putting those in so we have a better end-use experience for the public? I think that's a great question.”