Portland has been operating with a 12-member city council and district representation for more than 100 days now.

Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney is responsible for setting council meeting agendas and referring items proposed by the mayor or city auditor to votes. Among other things, the council has wrestled with the city’s noise code, the permit for Zenith Energy, rent pricing software and when exactly public testimony should be heard.

Pirtle-Guiney joined OPB’s “Think Out Loud” to talk about the challenges and successes of the new city council so far, and the tough decisions it will soon have to make to address the city’s massive budget deficit.

On how Mayor Keith Wilson’s proposal for cutting outdoor homelessness impacts the current budget deficit

“What I’ve said to the mayor is that I would like to make sure that we fund existing shelter before we add anything new because we have people who are in shelter, who are working on moving toward being stabilized, moving toward housing and we should not disrupt that path for them to get into housing.

“So from my perspective, first priority when it comes to shelter — which is actually a very small part of our total general fund budget — let’s make sure we can take care of folks who are already in shelter and moving towards stability before we add different [programs]. And then if there’s money available to add different [programs], great. Council will have to weigh shelter programs against a lot of other programs that are in the general fund, as we figure out what matters most to Portlanders and what we consider core services.

“When you have budget cuts this large, you’re not just trimming away the extra; you are laying people off, you are cutting into programs that are really important. You are cutting into things that people love, and we will have to balance the gravity of what we are being asked to cut in other program areas with those asks on shelter services.”

On City Administrator Michael Jordan’s first draft of the budget

“The city administrator’s job is to put out the first take at what are some of the cuts that we should be looking at: what are some of the things that bureaus have put forward and said we can make these cuts to get to a balanced budget? And I had hoped we would see some of the harder decisions reflected there …

“Now, I think some of what he did was really important because it aired issues that allowed Portlanders to respond and tell us what their values are and what they care about. And we’ve heard a lot of that. It gave people the opportunity to talk about park services and our recreational services. Those are all really important things too …

“The city administrator can’t put out a balanced recommendation, but I was hoping that he would get a little bit closer and I was hoping that there would be some more clear direction there on how we might close the budget gap.”

On where and when Portlanders should make public comments

“In part, I think there’s confusion because we have a new structure. And we probably did not do enough work saying to Portlanders, ‘Committees are the place where the bulk of the work will be done’.

“So let me say right now to Portlanders, ‘Committees are the place where we should be doing the bulk of our work.’ … It’s a place where a smaller group of counselors can really become the experts on something. They can do all of the background research, dig in on the details, because there’s not time for all of us to be experts on everything.

“And frankly, when you have 12 people debating an issue, that’s a lot of voices in the room. So it allows us to work more effectively and to hear from more Portlanders on really important issues. That’s where we should be doing the bulk of amending issues. That’s where we should be doing the bulk of our work reaching out to Portlanders and hearing through public testimony what matters to people.

“By the time something gets to council, my hope personally is that amendments that are coming are because there were late-breaking concerns raised that we didn’t know about earlier, or because there’s an issue that is particular to one neighborhood or one person on council where there was no way for that to have been properly represented in the committee, or we heard from constituents about a new piece that wasn’t raised in committee. …

“But council should really be about making sure there’s nothing we missed and getting the buy-in from all 12 of us and having that opportunity to catch things we might have missed. Committee is where we should be digging into the bulk of the work and where I really hope Portlanders can spend a lot of time with our committee chairs helping us work out important issues.”

Portland City Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney spoke to “Think Out Loud” host Dave Miller. Click play to listen to the full conversation:

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/04/20/portland-city-council-president-elana-pirtle-guiney-reflects-on-100-days-of-the-new-form-of-government/