PORTLAND, Ore. — This week, The Story went over the new roles of the mayor and city administrator after the November election. The next in the chain of hierarchy will be the newly expanded city council.
Starting in January, the council members will be councilors rather than commissioners, which means they will not run any departments or bureaus — widely considered to be a big part of the city's dysfunction under the old system. The hope with this new council structure is to make that dysfunction a thing of the past.
Under Portland’s new charter, approved by voters, the new city council will be more hands-off than before and focused on helping people in their districts and setting city policy. They will act sort of like a legislative body.
Tate White, a strategic projects manager with the city of Portland, explained, “The council will be focused on being a legislative body, making high-level policy and laws, and then, they'll have a lot more time to connect with the community and they'll be representing districts across the city. So, we'll have east Portland, for example, better represented than they've ever been on council. So, they're going to be really busy.”
Besides helping people in their home districts, the councilors will pick a president who will run city council meetings and decide which topics or bills will be discussed and when they will be brought up.
Council meetings will be held on the first Wednesday of the month at 9:30 a.m. and the third Wednesday starting at 6 p.m. The council can change those days and times.
During council meetings, they will hear from members of the public, as they do now, from five people at each meeting. The public will get three minutes each and will have to send a written request to the auditor, stating their name and what they want to talk about to get on the agenda, and each person can only speak at a council meeting once a month.
The council can also set up committees to learn about topics and craft policy and laws that they think are important.
Those city council meetings will be held at the current Portland City Hall. There are extra workspaces being built for the eight additional councilors who will be at city hall. It’s unclear whether they will also get additional offices in their geographic districts; the city council itself will decide that once they are elected.
Those who are helping prepare the city for the new form of government expect the new city councilors will spend a big part of their time out in the city with the people they represent.
Shoshana Oppenheim, leading the city's transition to the new form of government, explained, “The role of the new council that's coming in and joining us in January is to represent their districts and the constituents in their districts, so we expect them to be elevating community priorities through the committee structure and policy development work that they'll be leading but also constituent services that they'll be managing on the day to day.”