Circuses First

The DSA Definition of "Compromise"

For an update on the rate hikes mentioned last time, you can read “Portland fee hikes could cost residents $1,500 more a year,” (Axios) or “Portland utility rate hike pushes average water, sewer bill above $2K per year” (Oregonian). So cool...

Budget Week is over, but the process trudges on. You can read Budgetmania II! Parts I (here) and II (here) to get the full story on that exhausting week of meetings. Starting tomorrow we’ll see final amendments and budget notes. You should watch Councilor Eric Zimmerman on KATU being more diplomatic than I can manage at this point. He discusses next steps and how he thinks things have gone.

Remember those damn Public Safety cuts I discussed on NW Fresh or in the first part of this series? There are still two options to save them. One is finding a way to bring back Clark-Pirtle Guiney-Novick-Ryan-Smith 1 (CPGNRS1) to secure a 7th vote. The other is the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) option:

The “Services First Budget Amendment”

Green-Avalos-Morillo 1. You can read the official press release from Green’s Chief of Staff Maria Sipin — formerly of the PCEF grant committee and the DSA’s infamous “abolish the family” panel. Sipin also had the task of announcing Green’s Israeli Complicity Investigation.¹ Here’s the pitch (emphasis mine):

This package will fund 103 Positions using $16.5M in [PCEF] interest already accrued in FY 2025-26, and $4.8M of other fund contingencies (appropriate to their funds) in the following ways:

1. Realignment Pause – Using $8 million for a realignment pause for 46.0 FTE ($3.2 million from PCEF Interest and $4.8 million of other fund contingencies)

2. Advanced Life Support (ALS) Teams – $1.65 million

3. Public Safety Support Specialists (PS3) – $3.45 million (26 FTE)

4. Victims Services Unit – $302,000 (2 FTE)

5. Parks and Recreation – $6.12 million (22 FTE and maintenance and programming)

6. Relay Janitorial Services – $261,000

7. Immigration – $429,000 (1 FTE – Establish Office of Immigration Affairs)

8. 311 Service Restoration – $888,000 (6 FTE)

In 2024 and 2025, Council approved a one-time transfer of PCEF interest for programmatic areas due to budget constraints. Historically, the Mayor and City Administrator have directed where PCEF interest should be applied before council has taken action. The Services First amendment defines that PCEF interest should be used for public safety, parks, and other unacceptable budget gaps that will reduce basic services for Portlanders.

It’s a realignment pause masquerading as saving cut services. Did you really think the DSA would ever let this city streamline? They want more public employees, cost and redundancy be damned! It’s also another power grab by council and a bit of hypocrisy over PCEF dollars.

The DSA got together with organizers from Laborers Local 483, AFSCME Local 189, CPPW, SEIU Local 49², and Protec17 to concoct this risky fix to “save jobs across City bureaus,” some of which could’ve been saved any number of ways before now, including through CPGNRS1, which the sponsors of this amendment blocked.

Full disclosure: I know a few PS3s and want them to keep their jobs. Those 26 FTE are important to me, but I’m a bit short on appreciation for Green, Morillo, and Avalos showing up in the 11th hour to use them as leverage to fuck with the Mayor. You might actually describe my mood as more… wrathful?

The “Realignment Pause” is council attempting to shut down Mayor Wilson’s Core Realignment Plan so labor can drag this process out a few more years. You can watch the Zimmerman interview above to get a better idea of why this is foolish. Jobs must be cut. We changed the entire shape of our government and redundancies must be eliminated. Mitch Green, Angelita Morillo, and Candace Avalos want to make a risky move to buy another year where we don’t have to lay anyone off… in a process we always knew would lead to layoffs! Consolidation, realignment — this is what we voted for.

The Final Work Session

You can watch the Council Work Session where they first discussed Green-Avalos-Morillo 1 here. Olivia Clark kicked things off at 9min when she, as the kids say, chose violence. After President Dunphy asked if she had any budget notes or amendments, Clark replied:

I don’t, but I’m anxiously awaiting reviewing everybody else’s and crushing them.

Green introduced the amendment at 10min. Morillo added her bit at 13min.

To me this is sort of a last Hail Mary attempt to save some of these services.

This after she and her fellow Peacocks stopped the best option to save most of those services. Green tried to sell it as similar to CPGNRS1, but “us[ing] a different funding source.”

No one is buying that.

At 17min Novick began his questioning. Green is out of his depth in this debate. Go listen to the whole exchange. There is a reason people voted for Steve Novick other than name recognition and this is it. Green even tried a potshot over the Moda Center money, forgetting that Novick is opposed to that spending. It’s almost like Green let the DSA’s ‘everyone who isn’t us is moderate or conservative’ nonsense get to his head. He forgot who he was speaking to. Steve Novick is an OG eye-roll-inducing Portland Progressive™. He’s supposedly banned from Uber for life after his little task-force debacle.

The core of Novick’s worry is that “$4.8M of other fund contingencies” bit of the amendment. It’s far too risky and takes contingencies down to levels that will begin to affect our credit rating.

Morillo tried to hit back at 26min. She did alright, but Elana Pirtle-Guiney (EPG) was better at 28min. The Adults in the Room proved they deserve that descriptor. At 33min, Novick came back for seconds and Dan Ryan was also pretty damn good at 37min. He asked the right questions and pointed out this is a hard process that the Mayor’s office have been working on for a while. When pressed, Mitch Green refused to identify funding that will make this work. He foretold “tail winds on our [Business License Tax]” but would not explain further. There was an “idea” and Green was “working with a colleague” on it but he wouldn’t share details. Ryan wasn’t impressed.

Loretta Smith was pure chaos at 40min.³ She went after the administration with her familiar accusations of hiding money. She wanted to go after the Grants Fund and when Chief Budget Officer (CBO) Ruth Levine explained it wasn’t a viable plan, Smith didn’t seem to believe her. Chief Financial Office (CFO) Jonas Berry tried his version of an explanation but Smith wanted that money. She seemed interested in raiding any emergency fund that doesn’t have an armed guard.

Reader, I am very worried Loretta Smith is the 7th vote on this disaster.

Smith was spot on with her criticism of ARPA money programs but I simply cannot get all the way to supporting her in this crusade against the Budget Office. Zimmerman brought things back to earth at 52min but this triggered another investigation by Smith. The total number of FTEs being phased out with realignment is 91. Only 46 were filled, thus the numbers in the amendment. Deputy City Administrator Tracy Warren tried to explain how “problematic” pausing realignment might be. Smith didn’t seem to believe her either.

Portlanders voted for strong bureaus led by experts and I can’t shake the feeling that our councilors are acting like the old commissioners instead of the jobs we wanted them to have. Mayor Keith Wilson finally made his case at 1hr 7min. This has been going on for 12 months and it hasn’t been rushed. The pause would be a mistake.

At 1hr 10min Tiffany Koyama Lane proposed an amendment against outside contractors. It’s not shocking a woman who only has a job because of public sector unions is trying to create more public sector union positions. Fair ball. What wasn’t fair is that she also wanted to take money from all Council Office budgets except for District 1 (because East Portland virtue signaling) to pay for stuff. They have to stop doing this weird Progressive™ Reparations Happy Hour stuff.

Zimmerman gave a solid speech against this sort of thing at 1hr 38min but the rest of the debate on this amendment will continue on June 10th (tomorrow).

Steve Novick At War?

Novick is up for reelection and clearly thinks this amendment is fiscally irresponsible. The Peacock and the DSA have given up on him as an ally, even after his ridiculous “yes” vote to ban foie gras. The honeymoon phase is over.

What did Steve do? He went to the media:

KGW’s Blair Best does some work to position Novick as the “swing vote” between the Peacock and “more moderate” councilors. I wonder what Aaron Mesh would think.⁴

I am happy with Steve for coming out and saying what I, and others, have been shouting from the rooftops for almost two years. The problem on council is that half of them are opposed to most things the mayor and city management are trying to do. They are fiscally irresponsible, ideologically motivated, and obstructive.

Angelita Morillo was pissed.

Six of our councilors are not “moderates” but this woman is going to continue lying as long as voters, and Aaron Mesh, let her get away with it.

The good news is that Steve Novick is finally awake. He is realizing they want to replace him with Brandon Mullen and are willing to take serious fiscal risks once they’ve got that “strong 7th.” He was never a progressive in their eyes. They used him like they used the rest of Portland.

Tomorrow!

Will the Clark, et all (CPGNRS1) amendment come back? Will Loretta Smith vote yes on this DSA gamble and risk putting Portland into even further budget trouble next year? What’s going on with the Moda Center Funding?

We’ll get answers to some of that tomorrow, starting at 9:30am. Fingers crossed.

1. Sipin seems productive and hardworking. Unfortunately, she mostly producing Communist drivel so I think her position is still a waste of $150k a year give or take.

2. The most destructive union in Oregon.

3. Not in a good way.

4. Mesh chided me for paying too much attention to this branding fight but his paper seems to participate in it almost daily.

Two Washington County legislative races that are bellwethers for the direction of Oregon Democrats remained too close to call as of Wednesday, but an afternoon batch of returns showed leftist candidates overtaking their moderate opponents.

One of those opponents was the extremely progressive Ashley Hartmeir-Prigg as WW continues carrying water for the DSA. Who wrote that piece? Oh, Aaron.