Portland city councilors this week are meeting to discuss amendments to Mayor Keith Wilson’s proposed budget. The city is working to address a $160 million budget gap, and the proposed amendments seek to hold onto union jobs and instead cut management jobs, stop Wilson’s proposal to divert Portland Clean Energy Fund (PCEF) dollars to other city programs, and move $10 million from a fledgling police oversight board to the Portland Police Bureau and Portland Fire and Rescue. On Monday, the City Council convened as the budget committee and as the Prosper Portland budget committee for six hours of hearings and testimony. Tuesday’s meeting kicks off with public safety amendments.
Check back here periodically, for highlights from Tuesday’s meeting.
9:30 a.m. Public Safety
Morillo Amendment 1: Community Health and Safety
Up first is an amendment proposed by District 3 Councilor Angelita Morillo. It would take dollars from Wilson’s proposal to add over $2.5 million in councilors’ security services, and move $1.5 million to the Office of Violence Prevention and the Ceasefire program, $211,000 to parks events, and restore jobs to CHAT and Portland Street Response, the city’s unarmed crisis response teams. This amendment passed at 10:36 a.m. with an 8-4 vote.
At City Administrator Raymond Lee’s request, the security team testified saying last year’s budget was used up by an increase in security threat, saying it needed the additional dollars to continue the same level of security it provided last year.
Morillo said the security team was being overutilized and said security may not need to expand from four agents to ten.
“People are using it for anything and everything,” Morillo said.
The discussion led to councilors outlining various security incidents they had experienced over the past year.
District 2 Councilor Dan Ryan said he appreciated the security staff’s quick response during incidents at his home during his time in office, saying he multiple people trespassed at his home, and damaged his home in 2020 and 2021.
District 4 Councilor Eric Zimmerman said he is motivated to vote for higher security staff due to a handful of incidents over the past year, including protests at City Hall during which a demonstrator crossed a barrier and approached the Council dais.
“If this body can’t work, if this body is under threat, then the security of this new body is under threat,” Zimmerman said.
Morillo and District 2 Councilor Sameer Kanal used public security more frequently than other councilors, Zimmerman noted.
District 3 Councilor Tiffany Koyama-Lane expressed gratitude for the security team, saying her family and community have been threatened by right-wing streamers, including at an event she participated in for Portland’s Japanese American community.
“I don’t want anyone to think that if there’s an emergency then we would not respond to that emergency,” Lee said. He added that if there is later a need, the city would need to assess how else it might respond if the security office budget is not funded.
District 1 Councilor Candace Avalos said she had received a threat from someone saying they hoped her house would burn down, one week prior to a fire at her home the morning of October 26, 2025. The fire caused significant damage to her home, and a suspect was later arrested. The fire turned out to be an accident by a man trying to use an electrical outlet to plug in a heater.
After the amendment passed, Council moved to discuss an amendment proposed by Council Vice President Olivia Clark.
Clark-Pirtle Guiney-Novick-Ryan-Smith Amendment 1: Public Safety Programs Restoration
This amendment would divert $10 million from a police oversight board Office of Community Police Accountability (OCPA), and move it—through a city facilities fund—to other public safety programs, including those under the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) and Portland Fire and Rescue. By law, the voter-enacted program is to receive funding proportional to 5 percent of the PPB’s annual budget. Clark said it was a “common sense approach.” It would move those dollars to these programs:
• CHAT Program ($500,000)
• Station 22 Engine ($2.5 million)
• Fire Rescue vehicles ($1.65 million)
• PPB Precinct Administration ($1.59 million restore plus $150,000 for an additional Police Administrative Support Specialist)
• Victims’ services Unit ($300,000)
• PS3 program ($1.7 million)
• EM&S including training for PPB ($1.7 million)
Chief Financial Officer Jonas Biery said the funding would be used as a bridge fund and would be paid back over the course of the year. That’s because an original version of the amendment could have violated the city charter by moving money directly from the accountability office. The OCPA is expected to underspend its funding this year, and any underspent amount would go back to the facilities fund in a fall budget adjustment. Avalos said it was a nonstarter.
“I think this is a slap in the face of the voters, I think it’s a slap in the face of police accountability,” Avalos said.
She added that she felt then-Commissioner Dan Ryan—now a District 2 councilor—delayed the implementation of the office voters approved in 2020. Ryan took issue with that assertion.
“Most voters and taxpayers would not support us sitting on funds while we cut police and fire—two systems that show up and handle the most complex criminal and tragic rescue efforts,” Ryan said.
Kanal said he and other colleagues opposed to the amendment continue to remind their colleagues that 82 percent of voters passed the measure to create the accountability office, “because some of you keep forgetting.”
He added that the current version could set up the city to violate the charter in the future, because the OCPA is supposed to have independent judgement authority, including for its budget.
The following amendments are expected to be discussed in this block.
Green Amendment 1: Portland Fire & Rescue First
Councilor Mitch Green proposed an amendment that he calls “chop from the top”—an old time union worker adage—which would restore Fire Station 22 in the St. Johns neighborhood. It would also fund $825K to restore one Advanced Life Support Team. Green said the money would be paid back in the fall budget adjustment.
“This is a sustainable ongoing replacement to trim the overextention of management ranks at the top,” Green said Tuesday.
Novick Amendment 2: Restore Public Safety Frontline Staff
Councilor Steve Novick proposed an amendment to add $2.5 million to public safety programs, victims services and Ceasefire program grants. It would move $1.8 million from the city administrator’s office budget, $1.8 million from councilors’ office with the exception of District 1, and pull nearly $1 million from the council security budget under Wilson’s proposal.
