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Close to a hundred people, including staff and media, were in the temporary Council Chambers at the start of Wednesday morning’s 9:30 meeting.
The City Council has been meeting at the city’s Development Services Center near the PSU campus while City Hall is being renovated to accommodate the much larger new council.
Commissioner Carmen Rubio was the only absence, though even she attended virtually for the first item on the agenda, which was also why the majority of the crowd had showed up — to celebrate and memorialize the life of longtime Portland conservation and wildlife advocate Bob Sallinger.
Sallinger passed away suddenly on October 30th at the age of 57.
He was currently the executive director of Willamette Riverkeeper and conservation director at the Bird Alliance of Oregon, and frequently met, collaborated, and argued with city staff, several of whom offered remembrances of Sallinger today.
"I had the great pleasure to know Bob for several decades and I could always count on him to tell me what he really thought. And I also always knew where his tender heart was," said Dawn Uchiyama, the Director of the Bureau of Environmental Services. "His ideas, input and partnership with Environmental Services didn't just lead to projects, it helped build a culture of conservation and a broader understanding of why conservation is important. A cornerstone of his legacy was his ability to connect with people. Well, we've lost a part of ourselves with his passing. Please know that his spirit and legacy will live on in our work, and he will always a part of our community and the environment he worked so tirelessly to protect."
Mayor Ted Wheeler read an official Remembrance of Bob Sallinger and a short recess followed.
Hear KBOO's Locus Focus episode 'Remembering Bob Sallinger,' which came out this week.
The meeting continued with a significantly smaller crowd.
The “Communications” segment at the beginning, when members of the public can read prepared statements on any topic, was dominated by a group of neighbors from the Northwest Stadium neighborhood who talked about open drug use and drug dealing they have observed in their neighborhood, as well as harm reduction group that distributes supplies in the area and other mutual aid initiatives.
This was met with unanimous sympathy from the city council members, including Mayor Wheeler who outlined recent changes in city policy in that area including increased police presence and response to open use and increased cleanup services.
Commissioner Rene Gonzalez also made of point of saying that the city has a “entrenched enablement culture,” which was met with nods from other councilors.
The longest item on the agenda was the approval of the North Portland in Motion Plan, a non-binding but well-supported plan to bolster pedestrian, bicycle, and transit needs in North Portland.
The plan is based on three years of city outreach and planning with residents and organizations, and includes designating new greenways and bike routes, including a revamp of the crossing over I-5 at North Ainsworth.
Nick Coda with the Overlook Neighborhood Association described some of the issues with the overpass.
"Ainsworth's wide, hot pavement and wide overpass over I-5 is abused everyday by dangerous drivers who'd rather drive quickly and dangerously through North Portland, even past Ockley Green Middle School students and Beach students who have no other street to cross I-5," Coda said.
"The project now proposes new crosswalks for students, improved lighting for long winter nights, bike lanes, to separate folks on bikes where needed. It also extends North Portland's all-too-small tree canopy. Without any investment, Ainsworth acts as a barrier for our communities, instead of a connector."
The plan passed with a four-to-zero council vote.
The meeting proceeded with some more technical agenda items, including approval of some amendments to the Montgomery Park Area Plan, which could see expanded streetcar service into deeper Northwest Portland— the main vote on that plan will be held next week.
The meeting’s most dramatic moment was a vote on whether to allow the City Attorney to file and Unfair Labor Practice complaint against AFSCME Local 189, which represents many city workers. This would be for holding two of what it called “practice pickets,” despite its contract with the city forbidding strikes or pickets by the union, and lockouts by management.
AFSCME held these events on October 9th outside the Portland Water Bureau, and November 4th outside the Justice Center. It's not clear if they were on city property, but AFSCME maintains they did not block any entrances, or discourage anyone from entering the building.
After each instance, the city filed a grievance with AFSCME alleging that the pickets breached their contract.
Grievances are lesser complaints compared to unfair labor practice complaints, or ULPs, which involve the state’s Labor Relations Board.
The city and AFSCME have been in negotiations over their labor contract for six months with little progress made — the current contract expires at the end of the year, including its prohibitions on strikes and lockouts.
The city and the union have a meeting scheduled for Thursday in order to hash out the grievances, and Deputy City Attorney Heidi Brown made clear she was only asking for permission to file a ULP if an understanding cannot be reached behind closed doors. The city would have 180 days from the first incident in October, to file the ULP.
Brown said the contract does not reference a 'practice picket.'
"They've agreed not to picket, whether you call it a practice or not a practice, you're picketing, just like a strike is a strike whether you're calling it a practice or not," Brown said.
Wheeler said the city sent a the warning letter once they heard about the union's intention to 'practice picket, saying they believed it would violate the contract.
"It was the desire of this council to find an amicable way to resolve this," Wheeler said.
AFSCME chapter president Rob Martineau said he disagreed with the city's reading of the contract, and said the union tries to let the official processes work through at the lowest level possible.
"An authorizationlike this could interfere with the resolution through a grievance process," Martineau said.
As the council prepared to vote on the authorization, around 25 AFSCME members in the crowd stood up in silence, accounting for a majority of the crowd.
The authorization passed, with only Commissioner Dan Ryan voting no — notably, he is the only member of the current commission who will be a member of the new commission after January 2nd.
- KBOO