It’s been one year since Portland welcomed its new 12-member city council, which was a part of a major voter-approved overhaul of the city’s government. Since January 2, 2025, the city has seen 48 council meetings, more than 190 pieces of legislation passed and nearly 40 resolutions. The new council has seen some wins, such as broader representation on the council and bureaucracy for bureaus moving more quickly. But has also brought challenges, such as ethical questions around state public meeting laws and lengthy meetings. Alex Zielinski covers Portland city government for OPB. She joins us to share more about the first year of the new council.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. Three years ago, Portland voters approved a complete overhaul of the way city government is structured. Those changes took effect last January, meaning we have just finished the first year of what you could call Portland Government 2.0. So how has it gone? Alex Zielinski joins us to answer that question and more. She covers Portland politics for OPB. Alex, good to see you and happy New Year.
Alex Zielinski: Great to be here.
Miller: I want to start with the basics. Can you just remind us how voters changed the charter?
Zielinski: Let’s see how quickly I can boil it down. In the charter reform that voters passed in 2022, Portland City Council grew from five to 12 members, with the mayor no longer having a vote on council. Those councillors are now elected to represent geographic districts instead of the entire city. Portland has always elected councillors citywide. So we have four districts with three councillors per each. City councilors also no longer oversee city bureaus. That’s a job for the new city administrator’s office. And we changed our form of voting to ranked choice. I think that’s it.
Miller: A ton of changes. How did the expanded council change, in terms of demographics and representation? I mean, there’s a big change in the number, from four or five members of city council to 12. But what did that mean in terms of who’s actually representing Portlanders?
Zielinski: In Portland’s history, most of its elected officials lived in the same general neighborhoods: wealthier, whiter, closer to downtown. With this change, areas of the city that have never felt like they had a voice in city hall now have guaranteed representation. I think the biggest example here is in East Portland – that’s District 1. In the city’s history, only two councillors have lived in this area. Those neighbors will tell you that they felt the impact of neglect, in the quality of their streets, a shortage of parks, food deserts. Now we have a guarantee that three people will always be living in this district. They’ll be seeing these issues in their own backyard and taking them to the city council.
You mentioned demographics. Take East Portland again. That’s the city’s most racially and culturally diverse district. It’s also home to the most families in the city and the lowest earning residents. This change in district representation gives a more equitable voice to those populations. And it’s worth noting that two of the three councillors elected to represent that area are Women of Color. That’s the same number of Women of Color who have sat on city council in the city’s entire history. So it’s a big deal.
Miller: You’ve written that the cliche heard weekly in city hall last year was that Portland’s new elected officials were “building the plane as they were flying it.” I’m pretty sure that I heard members of the council say that on this show last year as well. So I guess people said that a lot. What prompted that line?
Zielinski: Well, just think about it. We have this brand new slate of elected officials entering office all at the same time last January, who are entering a brand new system of government. It’s all new. There’s no one to show them how to navigate it because no one in Portland has. So every day in city hall, you’d see councillors figuring out how to pass policies in a system that they’re just figuring out on the fly. It’s a great analogy, but I’ve also heard it so many times that it’s starting to lose its power.
Miller: Back in the spring, I remember talking with you about council meetings that would go all afternoon and then into the night, that the length of meetings themselves became something that city council members talked about. Is that still happening?
Zielinski: Yes and no. Meetings are still running long during the day, and that’s due to a number of reasons. A lot of the “building the plane while flying” stuff. But councillors thankfully adopted a new rule later in the year that keeps council meetings from going past 9 or 10 p.m. Basically, councillors can’t introduce any new agenda items after 9 p.m., so they just have to finish discussing the previous item, wrap it up, end there. That means for the once-a-month evening council meetings, they shouldn’t linger much longer than maybe 10. But those daytime meetings, which are both full council meetings and subcommittee meetings, are still struggling with timing.
Miller: All of these meetings are a chance for debate, for public comment. But as I see it, in terms of the ultimate work of the council, which is a legislative body, they’re a means to an end. They are, in the end, being ordinances or resolutions, the result of votes. What do you see as the most significant policies that this council has actually passed?
Zielinski: I’ll cushion it by saying, first, that there haven’t been many. And that’s not entirely surprising due to the circumstances with the new government to figure out and the federal government using Portland as a punching bag for a few months. It’s been hard to move fast.
So just a handful of resolutions or policies were passed last year. That includes one which waives fees for housing developers, a new fee for landlords who lease the detention centers, some changes to the city’s noise code, a lot of chipping around the edges of issues. Probably the most monumental vote was to adopt the city budget, which stirred up some policy disagreements that could have left the budget unbalanced. But they were able to get over the finish line in one piece, which was probably the biggest win.
Miller: So to go back to that line that you’re done with and would like to see retired, is the plane built now? Or does it seem like it’s still under construction?
Zielinski: Very much still under construction. There’s a lot that wasn’t worked out last year, in terms of the purpose of meetings, the role of different city departments and legislative powers. I sense ironing out those wrinkles will be a big focus of this year.
Miller: There have been a lot of questions, some very pointed ones, about quorum – the number of people who need to be present for it to be an official meeting – and then the broader issue of public meetings law, with a big focus on a group of six more progressive council members. What is the issue here?
Zielinski: The state’s public meetings law prohibits a quorum, which you mentioned, of a governing body from discussing public business privately. On the city council, seven people make up a quorum. It also applies to these council committees where a quorum is just four people. So there have been a number of ethics complaints made against these six more politically progressive counselors you mentioned for potentially violating that law, whether that’s within group chats or meetings. Some of these complaints have been dismissed. But the latest is advancing, and this one accuses the six counsellors of holding a private meeting where they may have discussed committee issues.
To be clear, these six councillors may not be the quorum for the full council, but they represent a quorum of four different council committees. Last month, the state ethics commission said they were going to investigate this complaint. And we should get an answer in a few months. I don’t think this necessarily shows nefariousness of the new councillors. I think it’s an example of what happens when new elected officials must navigate a new system with little guidance and a lot of pressure to deliver.
Miller: For most of the last year, Elana Pirtle-Guiney has been the council president, selected by her peers. What has she said about her desire to remain in that position or to let go of it?
Zielinski: To be clear, she wants to be reelected, which says a lot because it has been a really tough job. Just as a refresher, what this job means [is that] she oversees council meetings, she sets council agendas, meaning she chooses whether other councillors’ policy priorities come up for a vote and when. She also chooses which councillors chair all these different committees and she works really closely with the mayor to ensure that their interests are reflected in council chambers. She’s expected to lead in a way that represents all councilors’ views fairly in a way, which can be really hard when they don’t all get along.
Because I know everyone wants us to keep dragging out this analogy, I’ll say that she’s kind of the head mechanic, the pilot or whatever, building and flying this plane at the council level. And people really count on her to be fair and transparent, and work efficiently to move the council forward. She’s had really a crash course in this work over the past 12 months and wants to keep going. She said openly that this is very hard and difficult, “but I think that I have the know-how to keep this going” and also that regime change, as it were, isn’t great for a brand new government going forward. And so there’s some stability there. But all signs point to the fact that she’s going to have a challenger in the council president’s race tomorrow, which is decided by a council vote. So it’s not a given that she’ll stick around.
Miller: You mentioned the mayor. Let’s turn to Mayor Keith Wilson. How would you sum up Keith Wilson’s first year?
Zielinski: I noted earlier how so few big policies came from city council this year. I think the biggest policy that came from city hall really came from the mayor’s office, which was his plan to end homelessness. And that kind of defined this entire year, which was set into motion day one on the campaign trail for him. This has always been his goal to end unsheltered homelessness by the end of last year, 2025, and to do so by opening up 1,500 new shelter beds.
He got funding for those beds. He did not end unsheltered homelessness, as you can tell by just walking around our city. But in his view and a lot of his supporter’s eyes, he met his goal. He also directed police to begin enforcing the city’s camping ban, which asks people living outside to either accept shelter or accept a criminal citation. This whole package is divisive. Of course, Wilson has earned a lot of support from some Portlanders who are growing frustrated with sidewalk camping and wanted a change. But he’s also gotten pushback from folks who don’t support criminalizing homelessness and say these shelters aren’t enough to permanently end someone’s homelessness.
Either way though, he’s advanced the conversation and strategy around homelessness in Portland in a way that I don’t think we’ve seen for a few years.
Miller: Is it fair to say that the mayor now, over the last year, has had more power than some charter change proponents thought they were giving to the office?
Zielinski: The charter reforms really left the question of whether the mayor would have more or less power than counsel, up to the person in that role, and that’s largely been borne out, mostly due to the mayor’s office’s close control of the city administrator’s office. The administrator, who is hired and kind of appointed by the mayor, they’re meant to carry out directions given both by city councillors and the mayor under the city charter.
But what we’ve seen in this past year is that the administrator has really worked largely to help the mayor carry out his vision. For example, Wilson’s homelessness plan; it was up to the city administrator’s office to carry out the duties of that plan, despite many councillors raising concerns with it. Same with the city budget, which the administrator was tasked with lobbying for, even though councillors had issues. This has resulted in a really strong mayor’s office, and also some frustration between city councilors and just the structure of this new government.
Miller: How would you describe the relationship between Portland’s first and now former city administrator, Michael Jordan, and the rest of Portland government?
Zielinski: Jordan was a lifelong bureaucrat. He worked in local governments his entire career and had really earned a lot of respect from councillors for that background and the knowledge that came with it. There wasn’t too much conflict between counselors and him as a person. I think more that the structure was an issue. And by the end of last year, the real tension was between Jordan’s office and the mayor. Despite the way things have been going, Jordan was opposed to doing the mayor’s bidding. And he didn’t think it was a fair reading of the new charter.
Miller: Does it seem to you that these are growing pains or signs of some kind of deeper structural issue with the charter as written, the city constitution?
Zielinski: Sure, it feels a little of both. Change is hard and messy. We’re going to see some conflict in this first year under a new government. But there could have been clear job descriptions and responsibilities laid out for the different pieces of this new government from the jump. I don’t know if it’s as big a structural issue, but one that needs closer analysis and defining. I think it’ll be interesting to see how the city’s brand new city administrator, Raymond Lee navigates this challenge, with a fresh set of eyes.
Miller: OK, speaking of that, looking forward, what are the big questions that you have about Portland government as we enter year two?
Zielinski: There’s one new, yet to be tested, power this council has with its new government. That’s the ability for councillors to investigate any city bureau or office and compel the testimony and attendance of any city employee at these investigatory hearings. This has come up a few times recently, floated as an idea around some decisions around firing city bureau heads and also budget decisions. But we have yet to see this new tool at work. So I’m wondering when and if we’re going to see this be flexed and kind of what precedent it will set for councillors being able to actually hold the mayor and other departments accountable.
Lastly, I’d be remiss to not mention that we’re again in an election year. Half of the council seats are up for grabs, representing two districts. And every incumbent is hoping for reelection. Since these folks have only been around for a year, we can expect some campaigning in city hall, big policies and some speeches on the dais from those wanting to stick around. And it’s all the makings for another action-packed year in Portland City Hall.
Miller: Alex, we will talk again about all that. Thank you.
Zielinski: Thank you.
Miller: Alex Zielinski covers Portland city government for OPB.
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