Speakers labeled via automated voice-based diarization + AI name-matching against the city's official roster. Automated transcription can still mis-hear a name during fast speech (e.g. a rapid roll-call vote) -- clear near-misses are auto-corrected, but this is not manually verified line-by-line. Treat names as a strong best guess, not an official record.
[0:00] Pious Ali: My name is Pyrus Ali. I am a city councillor at large and the chair of this committee. We have all committee members here. I'm going to pass it on for them to introduce themselves, and then staff will take over from there. Thank you.
[0:17] Kate Sykes: Hi, I'm Kate Sykes. I'm the District 5 City Councillor.
[0:23] Sarah Michniewicz: Sarah Michniewicz, District 1 City Councillor.
[0:26] Regina Phillips: Gina Phillips, I'm District 3 City Councillor, and I have to say how wonderful it is to see Pat Finnegan again.
[0:39] Unidentified speaker (Staff): I'll say Pat Finnegan, Interim Director of the Housing and Economic Development Department and I'm so thrilled to see all of you
[0:48] Sarah Michniewicz: and be with you today. Thank you.
[0:52] Dina Libner: I'm Dina Libner, Assistant City Manager. Oh, jinx Michael.
[0:57] Unidentified speaker (Staff): Michael Goldman, Corporation Counsel.
[0:59] Dina Libner: Dina Libner, Assistant City Manager.
[1:03] Mary Davis: Mary Davis, Housing and Community Development Division Director. I'll pass it to Lori.
[1:10] Sarah Michniewicz: Lori Paulette with the Housing and Economic Development Department. On to Laken.
[1:15] Mary Davis: Hi, I'm Laken. I'm the CDBG Program Manager. I'll pass it to Cameron.
[1:21] Unidentified speaker (Staff): Hi, everyone. My name is Cameron. I am the Compliance Officer with the Housing and Community Development Division. Heidi, you're up.
[1:29] Mary Davis: Heidi McCarthy, Housing Program Manager. I'll pass it to Nancy. Nancy.
[1:36] Unidentified speaker (Staff): Good evening. Nancy Martin, Business Programs Manager. I'm on my phone. I can't see who else. Who's next? Am I the last person? Yeah, that's it. Okay.
[1:52] Pious Ali: Okay. It seems like we have a very short agenda, hopefully. But I know not to say that with this committee, because a one-line item could become a paragraph. May I have a motion to review and approve meeting minutes from July 21st? [Regina Phillips: So moved. Second.] Moved by Councillor Phillips, seconded by Councillor McNeill. Is there any comment, feedback from committee members? Or I'm going to call the roll. Councillor Sykes? Yes. Councillor Phillips? Yes. Councillor Mick Norris? Yes. The second item on the agenda, and we will be taking a public comment on this. We are going to review and vote to recommend to the full council to approve for an additional funding request from the Jilducin Housing Trust Fund. Regarding Lambert Woods North, Mary Davis will be taking the lead in this discussion. Is Mary here?
[3:18] Mary Davis: Yeah. I'm here, Councillor. Sorry, I got lost in the shuffle there a little bit. Now I lost my meeting minutes. Okay. Okay. I'm Mary Davidson, the Housing and Community Development Division Director. Preservation of Affordable Housing has submitted an application and requested additional assistance from the Jilsey-Duzon Housing Trust Fund. Their request was for $1,328,316. dollars. This would be for the project called Lambert Woods North, which is a project that's currently under construction on former city-owned land at 622 Auburn Street. The project will, once completed, will have an address of 2274 Washington Avenue. Construction on Lambert Woods North began in November 2025, and when completed it will include 72 units in a mix of townhomes and three-story walk-up apartments. All of the units in the development are affordable at 60 percent of area median income, and just as a point of reference for a two-person household, that income limit would be $66,800. In the memo, it outlines the income limits for one, two, three, and four-person households. The initial purchase and sale agreement for this property was between the City and Maine Cooperative Development Partners, who are Our Preservation of Affordable Housing's development partner, the agreement was altered and the property was transferred to Lambert Woods North LLC prior to the beginning of their construction of the project. The financial structure of the project includes low-income housing tax credits, as well as affordable housing tax increment financing through a credit enhancement agreement, which was approved by the City Council in December 2023. 2023, the credit enhancement agreement will return to the developer 75% of the increased assessed value realized as a result of the development and will be used to offset project operating costs. In October 2025, the city council approved $360,000 in funding for the project from the Jill C. Doosan Housing Trust Fund. The funding was awarded to address a gap caused by the loss of some energy tax credits that were eliminated by the federal government and also due to some design changes requested by Maine Housing. The design changes, which again, were requested by Maine Housing, led to the delay in the start of construction and created significant cost increases, which are detailed in the memo from preservation of affordable housing, which was included in your backup. When the construction loan closing occurred, the increased costs were covered by loans provided by the developer preservation of affordable housing in an amount totaling just a little under $1.6 million. When we released the 2026 affordable housing development application, preservation of affordable preservation of affordable housing, or POA as they're sometimes called, filed an application requesting $1,328,316. Staff did an internal evaluation of the budget, which is mentioned in more detail in that memo that's included in your backup. We had several discussions with the developer, exchanged some emails with Maine Housing, and we had a review and consultation by the city's underwriter. Based on all of that information, staff is recommending partial support of the funding request. The staff recommendation is funding in the amount of three hundred and sixty thousand to address the increased costs associated with the construction. In addition, POA submitted or requested additional funding to cover legal expenses. The city has an outside attorney who's helping us with the closing for these for this transaction, and POA will have legal costs and their current legal but legal line item budget it has been depleted for this project, so we are recommending a total of 375,000 for this project. Again, the project's already received 360,000 allocation from the trust fund. So the total subsidy for the project would be $735,000. The 2026 JLC Doosan annual plan, which was approved by the council, appropriated the balance in the trust fund as of December 10, 2025. When you subtract the minimum balance that is maintained in the trust fund, that made available 1,989,361 for projects during the 2026 allocation process. Of that amount, just a little over 1.6 million remains available. If the Lambert Woods North request was fully funded at the 1.3 million request, that would leave an appropriated balance of 275,000. If it's funded at the staff recommendation of 375, the appropriated balance would be 1,228,324. Any balance remaining in the 2026 appropriated JLC Doosan Housing Trust Fund annual plan will be added to the funding deposited into the account during 2026, and the total will be incorporated into the 2027 JLC Doosan Housing Trust Fund annual plan. As of the end of August, $431,805.93 has been deposited into the account in 2026 from condo conversion fees and short-term rental registration funding. So staff is seeking the HCD approval of the staff recommended funding amount of $375,000, along with the recommendation of approval to the City Council. Happy to answer any questions that you might have.
[11:45] Pious Ali: Thank you, Mary. Do committee members have questions for Mary? All right. Councilor Michniewicz and then Councilor Phillips.
[11:57] Sarah Michniewicz: Great. Thanks, Mary. Thanks for that. That's pretty thorough. I think, as we all know, this has been a long and winding road. What is the minimum balance that we try to maintain in the Chelsea-Ducon Housing Trust Fund? Isn't that $500,000? [Mary Davis: $500,000, yeah.] Yeah. Okay. I'll let Councillor Phillips go.
[12:19] Pious Ali: All right, Councillor Phillips. Councillor Phillips, we can't hear you.
[12:36] Regina Phillips: Sorry about that. Thanks, Councilman Michniewicz. Thanks, Chair. Mary, I just want to make sure I have everything accurate. So Lambert Woods is asking us for an additional 1.3. We've already given them 365. And you guys are recommending that we give them 375, which includes 15K for legal cost, correct? So my question, oops, sorry, go ahead, Mary. You're muted. I cannot tell you how glad I am that you were muted.
[13:11] Mary Davis: I'm having some technical difficulties, so I apologize. We've already, the council's already approved $360,000. So this additional request would be $375,000 for a total of $735,000.
[13:27] Regina Phillips: Right, but they, so we've already given them $365,000, right? Right. They came back to us and said they wanted one point three where you guys have recommended that we give them three seventy five. Right. My question is, where are they getting the additional funds? If we only give them if we only approve three seventy five, where are they getting the it's probably under a million dollars.
[13:54] Mary Davis: Yep. The developer, Preservation of Affordable Housing, provided or loaned the project the additional money at the construction loan closing in November 2025. So they've already committed their funding to that project. They were asking the city to absorb the funding they had committed, plus some additional costs that have been incurred since construction started. And our evaluation and conversations with the underwriter, we came to the conclusion that it would be more appropriate for the city to provide the funding that's noted tonight, the $375,000.
[14:44] Regina Phillips: So I guess my follow-up question to that is, so they have all the money they need and the project can move forward if we give them the three cents, but yes, I see you shaking your okay. My other question is, you said they transferred this to the Lambert Woods north.
[15:01] Mary Davis: LLC. Who is that? This is a typical structure in low-income housing tax credit projects. Lambert Woods North is the ownership entity. Preservation of Affordable Housing is the general partner in that limited liability company. So is there, is there a person's name behind this, or they just set up an LLC with this name? Yeah, they set up the LLC with that name. Typically, like I said, this is very common. So typically the developer, whether it's Preservation of Affordable Housing, Community Housing of Maine, Avesta Housing, they would set up a development entity that organization, again, POA, CHOM, Avesta, would be the general partner. And so they're the owner and general partner of the limited liability company.
[16:04] Regina Phillips: Thank you, Mary. Sorry about all these questions. I'm just trying to get some more information. And there's 72 units, they're affordable, and they're one, two, three, and four bedrooms? Correct. Correct. And if so, sorry, this is my last question. If somebody, you said for two people in a household, 66,000 is a limit. Do you happen to know what their rent would be? If I'm assuming
[16:28] Mary Davis: it's a one bedroom or two bedroom or maybe a one bedroom? I don't know right off the top of my head what the rent would be. And I want to just clarify the project's going to have one, two and three-bedroom units. And in the memo, we included income limits for one, two, three,
[16:48] Regina Phillips: and four-person households. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry, Mary. Thank you.
[16:58] Pious Ali: Thank you very much. Councillor Sykes, do you have a question? Move passage. Well, I have a question. So let me ask the question first. I was actually, if you have a question. Mary, this project, not the businesses that are within this specific project, how much have we given them so far?
[17:25] Mary Davis: So far, $360,000 plus the affordable housing tax increment financing credit enhancement agreement. That's the financial obligation that the city has so far.
[17:40] Pious Ali: Yep. And how much is that, both combined?
[17:43] Mary Davis: Well, I don't have the TIF numbers right in front of me, Councillor Ali, but as you know, the project gets a portion of the increased tax revenue each year. So that probably translates to somewhere between $20,000 and $30,000 in each fiscal year. I don't have the numbers in front of me.
[18:14] Pious Ali: And then we also gave them the land. Did we sell the land to them or is it part of what we gave them so that we can have some housing?
[18:22] Mary Davis: Yes, I do not believe that there was a cost associated with the purchase of that land. It was provided to develop the housing.
[18:34] Pious Ali: And you said that if tonight we approve the amount that staff is suggesting, they will be fine?
[18:48] Mary Davis: Yes, they in order to close in November they had to prove to Main Housing that they had all the funding that was needed. The developer provided loans to the project and essentially their request was to have the city kind of pay those loans for them.
[19:08] Pious Ali: Take the responsibility for those costs so meaning that they want the city to pay the loans that they have given to the project. Correct. Which is the 1.something million, correct? Correct. But you, staff, not you, Mary, but staff is recommending that we should do another figure, which you read earlier. Yes.
[19:31] Mary Davis: Our recommendation is $375,000. Okay.
[19:38] Pious Ali: So I think we have two pathways. ways, we can go ahead and vote on what is in front of us or there is a provision given to us if committee members want to go into executive session. What do we want to do, committee members? Move passage. Move passage. Is there a second? Yeah, second. Okay. I am going to take public comment and then we'll go from there. If there's anybody here from the public that wants to give a comment, please raise your hand and you will be giving permits to speak you're muted yeah I'm not seeing any hands so I'm going to call the role Counselor Sykes yes Counselor Phillips yes Counselor McNunes yes and I am yes thank you the next item on the agenda we may also take public comments on this we are reviewing and to make a recommendation for the council to approve a proposed amendment to the Portland Housing Authority, Kumalan Housing Affordable Housing Tax Agreement Finance District. Public comment will be taken and Heidi Mukati will do the presentation and then we will respond to it thank
[21:32] Mary Davis: you chair so this is an amendment to an existing affordable housing tiff district it's called the cumberland housing and boyd housing affordable tiff district it was approved in 2025 this is a portland housing development corporation project it's going to be located in east bayside and bring 91 mixed income units to the area originally this project had a bit of a complicated structure it was one building but structured as a twin with two projects separate within that one building so that it Would combine nine percent, nine percent credits for one part of the building and then four percent for the other, so it was one building, two separate financial deals. And to support that, we created one TIF district called the Cumberland Housing and Boyd Housing Affordable Housing TIF District, and each project has its own credit enhancement agreement, a Cumberland Housing Credit Enhancement Agreement and a Boyd Housing Credit Enhancement Agreement. PHDC originally did that, Portland Housing Development Corporation, PHDC originally did that because they wanted to, they were hoping that Main Housing would convert that to a 4% LIHTC plus state LIHTC model. But in order to access that, they needed to apply for 9% credits. And I know Jay Waterman is here too, if you have more questions about that part of it, because that is about the limit of my knowledge of how that works. This Main Housing chose to do that. And so the project, instead of being two separate projects, can now be combined into a single project called Cumberland Housing. So what we're doing is we're removing the Boyd Housing portion of the TIF district, and it's going to be one TIF district for the still the 91 units, but just called Cumberland Housing without the two separate deals. Most everything else about the project stays the same, except for one thing, which is that the 80% AMI units are now 60% AMI units to help with LIHTC investor compliance. So the final mix will feature 26 units at 60% AMI. There are still, I think, 11 market rate units in it, and then some 50 and 40% AMI units as well. So we are recommending approving the amendments to the district to create one credit enhancement agreement for all 91 units instead of two credit enhancement agreements for the project. I'm happy to take any questions, and we can also bring in Jay Waterman if there are additional questions.
[24:29] Pious Ali: Do committee members have any questions for Heidi? Say none? Unless there's a hand that I'm not seeing. Sometimes that happens. Move passage? I think we have to take the public comment, correct? So I am going to take public comment on this item. If you are here to speak to this, please raise your hand and you will be given the permission to speak. Let's go. I'm not seeing any hand. Or is there a hand that I cannot see? Raise your hand. Let's allow whoever's hand is there. It's Mr. Waterman. Mr. Waterman.
[25:27] Unidentified speaker (Staff): Hi there, everybody. Can you hear me? Yeah, we're getting at you. And making it simpler from our tax credit investor standpoint, not doing those 80% units, but doing the 60% units there. We are having some market rate in here as well, as Heidi mentioned. And so it's, yes, simplifying it. And we appreciate your support for this amendment and happy to answer any questions.
[26:29] Pious Ali: Thank you. Is there any question for Mr. Waterman? Say none. May I have a motion and a second to move these to the full council? With passage. Second. Motion by Councillor Sykes, second by Councillor Phillips. Is there any committee member comments? Say none. I'm going to call the roll. Councillor McInnes. Yes. Councillor Sides. Yes. Councillor Phillips. Yes. And I am A.S. This is going faster than I thought. The fourth item on the agenda is for us to review and vote to recommend to the council approver of the CBDG priority setting tax force final report public comment will be taken Mary Davis will introduce this and we will take it from there Mary Davis and Lakin Charpin the CDBG program manager will speak to it and we'll take it from there
[27:45] Mary Davis: Thank you, Councillor Ali. I just wanted to take a minute to set the stage for how we're going to do this tonight. We are going to bring over into as panelists the two co-chairs of the CDBG Priority Setting Task Force, task force, Tay Chung and Kristen Dunphy. They're going to present to you the task force report and their recommendations. I want to just commend and thank Tay and Kristen for all their work and the rest of the task force, which did incredible work over a series of, I think, I can't even remember how many meetings, but several months. Of meetings and I also want to thank Cameron George who took the lead in the administrative work for the task force he worked closely with Lake and Chapin who's our CDBG program manager they both did really excellent work and I'm very thankful for their assistance and they'll be available to help you answer any questions that you might have. But for the presentation of the report, I'm going to pass it off to Tay and Kristen. Thank
[29:17] Unidentified speaker (Staff): You, Mary. So this was an amazing process for us. It was almost, I believe it was six months, Mary, it was like 10 meetings. And, you know, this is a priority task force recommendation, which only comes around once every five years. So we're very mindful that it's a democratic process. And so what we did was we made sure that we listened to as many different constituents as possible. So we looked at things like the survey that the city of Portland put out, almost 1,100 people responded to that. We also looked at the report from the Rue Institute, and we also invited the director of HHS to kind of look at what are the big priority goals that we need to kind of achieve based on the limited funds that we have. As you know, that CDBG funds get smaller every year. We wanted to make sure that we have the most impact as possible. And throughout this whole process, we also wanted to kind of, you know, make sure that we're not excluding smaller nonprofits or new nonprofits, even with a shrinking budget, but we also wanted to make sure that it has the most amount of impact as possible as well. And so you'll see in the recommendations, we made some significant changes. And so, you know, we have an amazing group of people that was on the task force. And, you know, thanks to, you know, Mary and Cameron for finding amazing partners. We had about 14 people on our committee. Five had experience working on either on the allocation committee in the past. We've had about 10 people who've worked in the nonprofit sector before. So we also had several people who do evaluations and data analysis as for a living. So it's pretty remarkable group of people that came up with really good recommendations. recommendations. And, you know, the other thing that we wanted to talk about was basically how we made it more accountable so that, you know, nonprofits who do get award, they wanted to, we want to make sure that they can carry through. And, Kristen, do you want to just jump in and talk about the accountability piece and how we change some of our scoring based on that? that. Sure. Thanks, Tay. So one of the priority goals for the team was to reduce the burden of applying funding while simultaneously also improving the accountability by streamlining application process and design. So as Tay mentioned, we first worked to review all of the various data points throughout the various reports and meet with various folks within the city to understand what the goals and the priorities are of the city and the staff and of the council. We also then from there went in and to re-rank all of the priority activities to help ensure that the funding projects, the projects that we will also that the, sorry, the allocation committee will ultimately recommend that we approve, that our approved kind of align more closely with the goals that the city has set. And then we also, as Tay mentioned, reviewed and redefined scoring categories and criteria. I'll go into kind of the, a little bit deeper on that, and then we also went through the application itself to make sure that the application questions that we were and prompts that we were asking kind of tied back to the rubric, the scoring criteria, and also the city goals as a whole. Cameron, can you go to the next slide, or whoever's controlling the slides? So here I won't read through all of this, but these are kind of the big summary of the recommendations that we have and kind of bringing us back to making sure there's one of the, like, underlying themes was strengthening program integrity, accountability, and alignment with city goals and priorities. We did this through a number of ways as we were kind of going through this process, and we clarified and standardized data collection, ultimately to highlight federal reporting requirements, and also updated the priority activities and scoring values and application questions to improve and achieve more clarity for both the reviewers and the applicants themselves, which kind of leads me to the next point of strengthening the process for both applicants and reviewers to ultimately have clarity in our scoring criteria and bring consistency and objectivity for reviewers. Reviewers review so many applications that promoting a process on the outset that promotes consistency and objectivity is really critical to the process. And we also updated the application questions to make sure they were intentional and direct and that the prompts kind of tied back, like I said, to the goals and the priorities of the city and this program itself. And then we also really wanted to center the applicant in this process and reduce the burden and the constraints. So throughout this process, we also centered addressing the structural constraints both to drive meaningful and lasting impact. So that kind of looked like we were balancing navigating funding constraints with the limited financial resources of this program to make sure that there's lasting impact and meaningful impact. And then we also leveraged, wanted to make sure that leveraging collaboration also led to maximizing impact. So, Tay, do you want me to take scoring a little bit
New Business
[35:50] Unidentified speaker (Staff): or do you want to take it? Yeah, if you want, but basically it's, this is the big change for us really. Our goal was to make sure that we change our goals and priorities so that it has more impact and as you can see that we changed the scoring so that it reflects more about impact and capacity to deliver and the partnership and collaboration piece is kind of folded into everything else so we wanted to make sure that non-profits didn't have to go around and try to get letters of support at the last minute what we really wanted them to talk about was their narrative what is it you're going to do and how are you going to do it and who are you going to partner with and so that's what's really what this is about but the other piece that we also did was we kind of put more of an emphasis on things that align with what the city's looking for which is trying to help the vulnerable populations around whether it's housing navigation or whether it's more about safety for vulnerable populations trying to get around the city so if you look at the neighborhood improvement stuff it's really targeting things like the elderly and disabled people making sure that they have better access to sidewalks and transportation. So a lot of the things that we did, we tried to be mindful about what the city's priority goals are. So even around economic development, we tried to make sure it's more around, you know, job navigation and those kinds of things, as opposed to investing in kind of microenterprise and creating new jobs, because, you know, you get a bigger bang for the buck if you can help somebody find a job, as opposed to investing, you know, micro businesses are great and i was a business counselor but it's a lot easier to help people who might be at the homeless services center find a job as opposed to Starting a brand new business and investing those the kind of resources into that. So a lot of the priorities that we did was we elevated things that we believe that the city kind of you know took on as priority a party high priority like housing transportation public safety those kind of things. And so and then what we did was we changed the scoring mechanism so that how are you going to deliver on those priorities and make it meaningful and easier for nonprofits to be able to apply. But at the same time, make sure that the narratives and the impacts that you actually say you're going to do is better explained and it's more concise. And overall, the summary of all this is that the bones of CDBG was great. You know, what we discovered is that our recommendations were kind of in line. At the very end, we kind of, after all this discussion, we realized like we were pretty close to what Roo Institute kind of recommended. So I think all of us should get honorary degrees from Roo Institute for doing what we did. But it shows the amount of intelligence that we had and the amount of experience that we had that we were able to get there on our own. And so it was a really good process and I think you know this is kind of transformative in a way where we actually listened to what staff and the community and experts said and we kind of landed in the same place where we align with city counselors goals which is housing safety job creation and also trying to come up with new ways to make sure that people who are experiencing homelessness, get the services that they need, and also trying to support services that they need without it being, you know, expensive so that we can help as many people as possible. So that's kind of my 10,000-foot view of how we did it. But Kristen, do you want to go further into that? I don't really have anything to add. I think the only thing that you'll see on the screen here is kind of the differences in scoring and that was kind of one of the biggest outcomes of this process when you get down to the nuts and bolts of it that one of our goals was to further emphasize investment in community impact and so kind of what that happened was how that happened was redistributing some of the points. So you'll see here that priority impact and core priorities has a higher point value than it did previously, and also capacity to deliver. And one of the things that we as a team kind of identified was that partnership and collaboration really is a key component to capacity to deliver, and that some of the previous requirements for applicants were overly burdensome. And so kind of lowered the barrier in that sense to kind of open up the process and the opportunity to perhaps smaller nonprofits with less experience or less capacity to gather things like MOUs and letters of support. And from the evaluator's perspective, it was harder to bring kind of objectivity to some of those components. components. So I think we all feel really good about where we landed and think that it really reinforced the key components of transformative lasting impact and aligning with city goals. Cameron, I think we're done, right? Do we pass? Do we get graded on this? I think I'd give myself an A. I don't know. Maybe an A minus. Whatever. I'd give you a certificate. Oh, that's fantastic. Could it say Rue Institute on it? You can write it in crayon, so it's not official. But anyways. So we have completed the presentation. If there's any discussion or questions that you all have, we welcome them.
[41:55] Pious Ali: Is there any questions from committee members? Oh, I have two hands up. I don't know who went up first, but I'm going to call Councilor Sykes and then Councilor Phillips.
[42:05] Kate Sykes: Thank you, Chair Ali. Just my gratitude to the committee for taking this on. This is a really important work and I really appreciate the attention that you've given to some of the things that have been kind of circulating in conversation in this committee and elsewhere about some of the changes that we'd like to see. I think specifically, I'm really appreciating the fact that we're putting more emphasis on what I think is measurable community impact. For me, looking back, I did a very comprehensive survey of the last 10 years of the CAPER reports, and I noted that we're not that great in delivering on sort of measurable targets. We hit service targets, but those outcomes are a little bit more elusive, understandable, but something that we should keep an eye on. And I think you fixed that on the front end. So I think this is going to give a much cleaner expectation around what we're looking for in terms of community impact and outcomes. But one of the questions I have still is, how do we measure cumulative performance? So for instance, if an organization has received funds for the last five years and the activity, they're like repeatedly hitting their service volume targets, but the outcome that the city is trying to achieve is not being met. So where does that show up in the score? Would that be folded into capacity to deliver? deliver? And can we do that formally? For instance, you know, if we just haven't seen results from particular money that's been spent for years in a row, you know, how do we reflect that? I think we could do that in the rubric. We could do that in other places. But I'm just curious if the committee thought about that or if they have any suggestions.
[44:03] Unidentified speaker (Staff): I'm just glad Mary raised her hand because I have an idea. But the way I would understand it is it's year by year. So if we were to talk about cumulative, then we have to make the assumption that one organization is going to get a grant every year, and that may not always be the case, but Mary could answer that question.
[44:23] Mary Davis: A really good question, Counselor Sykes, and that's one of the reasons that my office asked Health and Human Services Director McLaughlin to participate, because as we've talked about before, our reporting requirements from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development are very numbers driven, right? And measuring the impact of a specific program as it pertains to a bigger social housing or social issue is really beyond the scope of what CDBG does. So we are working through my office to have a better connection with health and human services and working with their key performance indicators and just trying to communicate better so that we can do that measurement. You know, in HUD's eyes, the numbers show this success, But locally, that impact could be different. And so we're trying to work with the, I would say, subject matter experts in health and human services to help us do that evaluation. Year to year, we share with the allocation committee the number success that a previous applicant has. But we will be working again, like I said, with Health and Human Services to pull in their perspective on how we measuring the impact on the greater social good.
[46:14] Regina Phillips: And
[46:19] Unidentified speaker (Staff): From an application and scoring perspective, this was absolutely something that the task force wrestled with and talked a lot about, recognizing that the program is year to year, but that hopefully the work kind of endures beyond, the outcomes endure beyond that initial year of funding or that year of funding. And so it is wrapped into both the application and the scoring to ask the applicants to help demonstrate what those outcomes are and progress towards that. So as you said, I think we do our best within the confines of the program and the scoring to get that on the front end. And as a member of the review committee, that was also something that the review committee wrestled with a lot as well. So we also took that into account as we were kind of updating the criteria and those definitions. And the Allocation Committee, as well as, you know, Housing Economic Development staff are always reading reports and looking at trends. So these recommendations is not, it's also a living document. So if it needs to be changed down the road, if you see data saying that, you know, we invested in X, that could also change. change. But I think that's why we try to make sure that we give more points to outcomes and capacity to deliver, because that's the best way to figure out, okay, you know, what is it you're really going to do and really describe your impact and really describe what your services are going to be, as opposed to just getting an MOU or a letter that's 15 points. You know, that kind of shows that if you have a larger agency you can afford to do that because you have staff as opposed to spending more time on what is it you really do and how are you really going to make change in
[48:19] Kate Sykes: our community great thank you all so much for your work
[48:29] Pious Ali: thank you counselor phillips thanks
[48:33] Regina Phillips: a lot chair yeah i also want to echo what counselor said this was seems like it was a ton of work and so kudos for all of you tay if i could sign your certificate i would so there you go i don't it probably wouldn't mean much but so but i do believe that you and everybody else definitely deserve some kind of a certificate because this was a lot to take on i just have a couple questions one i know that and i hope i'm not repeating some of the things that council sykes had mentioned i was Distracted by somebody at my door, but one of, I don't know if it's a frustration or it's a concern or whatever it is, that you can have one, or I wonder if you guys have talked about, you can have one organization apply for several different rounds of funding for different things. So if you have one organization who provides five different things, they can submit five applications. Have you guys talked, did you guys talk at all about maybe only accepting one from one? Because when you have a big organization like that, has development directors and has different programs that they offer, they can submit five organizations. And Tay, I liked what you said was because you said that this gives those smaller organizations a chance to submit an application. So can, how is that going to play out and how would that be equitable? I
[50:07] Unidentified speaker (Staff): I'm a recovering politician so I always have opinions, but I'm gonna let Kristin, I do you want me to say something or Kristin you want to say something or Mary, if not I can give you my opinion. So you know the goal of the, you know, the task force is, you know, we also live in a service town right, so there are also some organizations that are so big that they actually do a lot of good work. And so it's just what it is, right? So it could be, I'm not picking on anybody, could Maine Meds, the largest hospital in the state of Maine, they're going to have lots of programs and they're going to be very competent. So what we try to do is that whole push and pull play between large and small. How do we make it equitable for small organizations? So what we wanted was, in the narrative, in your impact statement, if you can talk about a niche population that you're providing that is so different from a large organization, that elevates you. So, for example, you could be a small organization that provides culture-appropriate food for a specific population that no one else is doing, even though food banks is on a lower priority because that is a niche and has a larger impact and has a larger outcome for that particular population. That's going to have you be a higher score. The other thing we also did was we wanted to be mindful about what are some other things that we could provide, given the limited amount of funds that we have. How do we spread out the allocations so that it goes to everyday causes that nobody really thinks about? So, for example, Health and Human Services Director talked about how kind of incidental funding that they can't get. So, for example, it could be personal hygiene care, stuff like that, grants can't really find. So, like, how do we support those kind of things that has a bigger impact versus other things that are more traditional? Institutional, we also, you know, we couldn't really discriminate on the size of budget of non-profits, but we tried to, you know, make it as equitable possible, because at the end of the day, we also want to make sure that the federal government likes what we're doing based on the number of people we serve. So we can't penalize large organizations just because they're providing stuff, because it could also affect our overall, you know, but and it just wouldn't be fair just to penalize large organizations simply because they do what they do. But we just, I believe that what we tried to do was describe your niche or your specific program that no one else can do. If you could answer that question, I think that gives you a better chance of being funded, and if a large organization is able to do five niche, you know, positive high impact programs, then I, they should be funded. But so I think I touched the nerve, because Mary and Kristen have something else to say. I
[53:16] Mary Davis: just wanted to add that we have, we did not make any changes to the new applicant set aside, so there still is a set aside of 20 % of the funding available to applicants who have never received CDBG funding. That's does, I want to be clear in saying never received funding. So if they've applied before, but we're not successfully awarded funding, they would still be considered a new applicant. Applicant, it doesn't mean new programs, it means new agencies or new applicants.
[53:56] Unidentified speaker (Staff): Hey, you see Kristen wants to say something, and I would just add that from the application perspective, I mean, I've sat on both the priority task force and the allocation committee, and the question you raised, Counselor Phillips, is a very real thing. And so one of the, we did talk a lot about that in our conversations. And one of the components that we felt was helpful, and we clarified this in the application itself, is asking for the, not just the organizational financial health, but also understanding the programmatic financial health. So for example, if a larger organization submits a couple proposals for several different programs that they have, giving the review committee the opportunity to kind of see and understand how all of those things fit together, both for the organization and for the programs. And then I think it also ties back a little bit to our earlier comments around partnership and collaboration of that organization, the applicant's understanding of like the provider ecosystem and understanding how they're collaborating with others to help meet the need that they're addressing, kind of getting to Tay's point around like a specific community or demographic or region of the city. And so I think it's kind of maybe not handled explicitly in one section, but handled in various components throughout the application and scoring process to kind of help reviewers get a better understanding to make the recommendation that fits kind of will provide the most lasting impact with the limited number of dollars that we
[56:02] Regina Phillips: have. So I will, I'll tell you what my concern is. You have three organizations, Purple Street, and I'm not trying to pick, pinpoint anybody either, your three organizations, Through These Doors, who provide domestic violence for the homeless, your Purple Street, who provides it for the homeless, and then you have In Her Presence. There's three organizations in there, right? One smaller, who is In Her Presence, one a little bit bigger, which is Through These Doors. Again, these are just my interpretation. And then a bigger one, that's Pebble Street, right? My concern, if there is no limit, is that Pebble Street's always going to get the money. And so, and the other thing is, that we don't, I mean, I don't know who the reviewers are at this point in time. The reviewers, like many things, right? The reviewers see what they want to see and they score the way they want to score. So you guys could have one thing that you meant to do. And again, please believe me, you guys did an incredible amount of work. I'm not trying to be critical. I'm just trying to figure out how we can be fair across the board. Because my other concern is for vulnerable communities and populations, the elderly, those folks suffering from domestic violence. The folks suffering from domestic violence don't want to be homeless. They don't mean to be homeless, they have to be homeless, because they're leaving an abusive situation. Also, with the elderly, there's not a lot of elderly housing out there. So I'm just also worried about how we can be fair in this process, to include some of those smaller organizations that don't have a development, umpteen thousand different development directors, and we're not giving all of the money out to one organization. And we're looking across the board at a lot of vulnerable populations, because the other thing is black people don't have access to housing. So it's not a criticism at all, it really isn't, I hope you won't take it that way, that those are my concerns when it comes to CDBG funds and social services money. So, my last question is just regarding, can I just answer that? I mean, that's why we
[58:06] Unidentified speaker (Staff): We allocated more points to impact, and so the better, you know, story or narrative you can tell. So let's say you work with a specific population, you can talk about the impact of that population, as opposed to kind of a larger organization that just says it's all about numbers. And the impact is not as deep because you don't have the interpersonal connections or communication. Communication, that's why we wanted that, you know, impact scoring to be higher. So that's where you kind of level the playing field. So, you know, it was all about volume versus outcomes. And so we're looking for, that's why we want a more narrative rich application as opposed to, it's just about, it's still about numbers, but it's about the impact of the numbers that kind of levels of playing field with the smaller organization versus the large organizations.
[59:02] Regina Phillips: Thank you very much for that. Oopsie.
[59:05] Unidentified speaker (Staff): Sorry, just the last thing I would add there is that the through line throughout this entire process is bringing clarity and objectivity. So really making sure that when we're defining the criteria that we are being very clear with what is high, medium, and low scoring in the application questions, making sure that the application questions are really clear and direct to get to the point of what information do we need to answer to score adequately. And so totally hear and understand the, concern there, and we looked at everything with an eye of like, how do we bring objectivity and take as much of the like reviewers personal lens Out of it and not to make it overly prescriptive, but to take some of those biases out as much as possible.
[1:00:03] Regina Phillips: Thank you. Again, I really do appreciate the work and the response. I just have one really quick question. I'm so sorry. It looks to me like the scoring is whether you're doing construction or whether you're doing social services. Was there any conversation about having two completely different scoring rubrics because construction is completely different than social services.
[1:00:29] Mary Davis: Mary can talk to that. In actuality, there is. So the rubric they're showing in the report is just sort of a condensed version, but there are different categories that get scored differently, whether you're a public service or social service application, or a construction or economic development application.
[1:00:56] Regina Phillips: Thanks a lot, Mary. Thank you all very much for your work. Appreciate it.
[1:00:59] Unidentified speaker (Staff): Thank you, Chair. We're getting diplomas, Kristin.
[1:01:05] Sarah Michniewicz: Councilor McNeil. Great, thank you, Chair. Yes, get your motor boards ready. You're going to be marching soon. soon. And I can appreciate firsthand how much of a challenge this is and how much effort you all put in. My husband sat on the previous committee and it was just a lot of work and a lot of what you've described, just really trying to consider how to balance needs, how to balance outcomes, how to measure outcomes, and to make sure that the funding is distributed fairly and that it's meeting Portland's goals. So I really applaud you all for that work. And I, 'm, I really appreciate also the,, the combination of the two categories. And I think the community support part is, it's, it's, it is, it's harder to quantify. You know, it, 's, I was used to receive those, requests all the time, you know, with the neighborhood association, just, you know, asking for support letters. And it sometimes is kind of formulaic and it wasn't entirely clear whether that was useful or not. And so just definitely appreciating that. I think we're getting closer to the right metric and that Mary working on it on your end is also really helpful to know. I don't think I have a whole lot to add to what my colleagues said. But I did actually, this did kind of make me think about how over time when Jim, my husband, sometimes would watch the CDBG process and he'd be like, oh, that's not exactly what we meant or what we were going for when we were revising some of the standards. So how do you ensure year-to-year continuity from, you know, the allocation committee, since it's, you know, a different set of folks every year who step up? You know, what's the, how do you kind of convey the understanding about what the goals are and what's been set out here, this, you know, what's being put forth tonight? night?
[1:03:20] Mary Davis: So one of the things as a result of this task force is the application is really being updated and revised. So the allocation committee will have an orientation where Lakin will walk them through the task force recommendations and the changes to the application. Just like any other city committee, there's several allocation committee members that carry over year to year. So they have, I think we have like nine to 14 members and there's three year terms for each member and they don't switch out, you know, at the same time. So there's some continuity like Kristen will be on the allocation committee she was there last year she worked on the task force and she'll be on the allocation committee for the next year so there'll be some consistency there and then really you know that's that's the staff responsibility to make sure that consistency happens if the prior task force chair feels we didn't consistently implement the last recommendations I'd love to have a conversation to understand that and it could be just you know and as a result of turnover of staff it could be a result of clarification of a process that once we implemented found didn't quite work the way we thought it was going to work yeah and to be clear I don't think it was
[1:05:09] Sarah Michniewicz: was anything you know that he felt was you know truly problematic it was just kind of just to comment on wanting to make sure that there is that kind of continuity so thank you that answers my question yeah I mean I think I think that's it and the new application set aside I think that is that's also extremely important trying to make sure that it's not locked down to just set sort of the usual suspects. And so I think that's all I have. Thanks again for the work on this, everybody, including staff.
[1:05:47] Pious Ali: Thank you, councillor. Is there any other council committee members question or comment? Councillor Chong, thank you very much for the work that you put into this. I think you have streamlined the process. It is gonna be easy. One of the most difficult process that I've ever been through when I first got on the council was to look at the recommendations that came from the CBDG committee and then went to the city manager and then came to the council and then you have as you said earlier Portland is a service city and then you have a line and line of service providers each one asking you to give them what they're requested, and there's not much to give everybody. So what you put together is going to help us, the committee, I'm sure city manager, and the rest of us on the council who do the final vote to make sure that whoever will give the money there's a metric of seeing what they use the money for and how impactful it is. So thank you. If you have any additional information, we are here to listen. Other than that, I'm going to take public comment and then vote on item. So if you are in the public side and you want to comment on this please raise your hand and then you will be asked to speak. Oh Councillor Phillips do you want to say something? Sorry I did that by accident sorry. Okay I was gonna say you can go to the public side. Alright say none. May I a motion and a second so moved second i had two voices so counselor size and counselor mcneil is correct all right is there any additional committee questions say none i'm going to call the role counselor phillips Yes. Councillor McInnes? Yes. Councillor Sykes? Yes. And I am also a yes. Thank you both and the committee members that you did this work for us. Thank you. Okay. The next item on the agenda is to discuss and provide guidance to staff regarding the Entertainment Venue Licensing and Entertainment Sector Benefit Agreement Ordinance. Councilor Goldman will take the lead on this. Chair? Did I miss something?
[1:08:37] Kate Sykes: Well, I just have a question. I just wonder if we can take this out of order. Because it feels to me like we should talk about the next item before we talk about this item.
[1:08:50] Pious Ali: Okay, let me see. Workshops regarding policies. All right. Let me ask other committee members. I don't have no problem, but I don't know if others do.
[1:09:01] Sarah Michniewicz: I do not have a problem. Oh, sorry. No, go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah, I don't have a problem with that. I think when this fund was initially discussed, the intention was to have the Portland Development Corporation administer it. However, if we're looking at making changes to Creative Portland or making, you know, a different pathway, you know, that might be the better path for it to, or the better place for it to be administered. But we kind of don't know that yet. yet. So I don't know that we will know that after discussing the creative culture item that's coming up, but I think it might be worth it to discuss that afterward. I think this is also just going to be a bit of a light touch because there's a few things that haven't really been ironed out yet. So I'm fine with taking it out of order.
[1:09:59] Pious Ali: Okay. Councillor Phillips. I'm a yay. Okay. So we are going to discuss this. We're going to have a second workshop regarding policies to improve public support for the arts. We are not going to be taking any formal decision on this. And Dina, you will be taking the lead on this.
[1:10:22] Dina Libner: Thank you, Chair. This, to refresh everyone's memory this was last discussed in july and it came to the committee's attention that's my cat in the background it came to the committee's attention because as part of its annual common goals the council included strengthening the economic vitality and supporting local businesses in the list of things i would like to accomplish and one of the specific policy actions that was highlighted as part of that conversation was considering policy to enhance public support for the arts. In our last meeting, it was kind of a very open-ended, broad, brainstorming discussion, and the committee requested that staff produce a memo of ways that the city currently supports the creative economy and look kind of at a very high level at some of our peer municipalities and communities do to support that work so this memo goes through both of those things and as you'll see there are a lot of ways the city currently supports the creative economy whether or not that level of support is where the council would want it to be as a question but we actually employ many of the best practices found in peer municipalities So, at a very high level, some of those include an annual support for Creative Portland through the city's annual operating budget, a public art program administered primarily by the planning department and the public art commission. mission we also operate merrill auditorium which is one that at a staff level initially when we were discussing this was overlooked and then we realized we spend almost we spend over three quarters of a million dollars every year operating this venue that provides a space for artists performers musicians to perform for the community and for the community to benefit from that. A vacant commercial storefront art program was enacted by the council I believe this year. Nancy Martin is on this call and she played a lead role in developing that ordinance and she's almost solely responsible for implementing it and has done a great job and that's activated the storefronts on our commercial corridors downtown town but more importantly it's provided a space for artists to display their work and be compensated for it. The entertainment license community benefits agreement is a policy that is on the committee's agenda tonight, and there's also been some concert and festival support. Most recently, the city provided some financial support through, I believe, TIF funding for Resurgo downtown, and that helped to expand that festival from two to three locations, broadening its reach, attracting more visitors, but also celebrating our creative community more fully as part of that event. So happy to answer any questions or just be here for support if the council or if this committee wants to discuss other ways it would like to increase or enhance the city support of
[1:14:00] Pious Ali: the sector oh thank you dina counselor size your hand is up thank you dina that was hilarious
[1:14:09] Kate Sykes: watching you fight your cat for the last few minutes. It's a daily struggle we all have. We all have a struggle. So the one question I'm, there's my dog, so the one question that I have, or just observation, is that cultural report from the late 90s was really incredible, just reading through that document and seeing the thought process that went into that and the number of people that contributed to it from different sectors, and it just made me feel like, wow, we haven't done that in a really long time. The 2018 report seemed a little bit more kind of nuts and bolts and sort of action oriented. And I guess that I come away from this just feeling that it's time to have one of those conversations again, like we did in the late 90s, to see if what we're doing is really meeting the needs of artists. You know, it's great that we have Merrill Auditorium. It's an arts performing space, but is that really meeting the needs of, you know, an up and coming artist who wants to do pottery or, you know, whatever, right? It's like, it's kind of a higher end arts venue. And is there room for folks that are kind of just getting into this? And, also, just understanding what an incredible economic sector the arts is and making sure that we're tying that into our, economic vitality as well. So I guess my, takeaway from reading this is that it's great if we talk about it, but we really need to have artists at the table talking about it. And so I'm just curious, I know actually, I think it's this week that, we're having there's the Creative Portland Arts Summit. I will admit that I've never been to that, but I don't know if that's the place that we get that information and can produce a report like this and can actually talk about what is the future of the arts in Portland, what's our identity, what are we working towards, what are our goals, that kind of thing. So I don't, those are just my
[1:16:15] Pious Ali: thoughts. Thank you. Counselor, any other council comments? Yeah, I agree with Counselor Sites. I think, so I think if we are going to have a broader or a wider conversation on this, we need to invite people from the art district, both performing and how do you call the other type of art, creative? All the people in the creative industry are representative of them to be part of the conversation, just like the way they did in the late 90s. So what are we doing with this? Are we just going to shelve it until we decide to have this conversation or what? Go ahead, Dina.
[1:16:59] Dina Libner: The committee might want to consider, I believe, I think annually Mary would correct me if I'm wrong, does Creative Portland present to this committee as part of its annual report or do they go straight to the council?
[1:17:17] Mary Davis: I believe that because they're receiving TIFF funding, if they do any type of report not directly to the council, it would be through the finance committee. That would be outside of their annual report that they provide the council.
[1:17:35] Sarah Michniewicz: Okay.
[1:17:38] Dina Libner: I think because this cultural report has happened, has been led by and organized by Creative Portland, which has a strong relationship with the various creative communities, it could be appropriate for the committee to perhaps provide guidance to staff to work with Creative Portland or perhaps to Creative Portland directly that in some way that this is a focus and a priority of this committee, perhaps send that to the council for consideration, but have the indicate in some way that the creation of a robust culture, cultural report similar to what was produced in the 90s, as a priority of this council. And that could happen as part of the budget process when I think the $200,000 allocated to Creative Portland is approved by the council. But something to consider is that I'd be cautious about duplicating the work that Creative Portland typically does, although we're happy and likely would work very closely with them in making it reflect the interest of this committee and the councils.
[1:18:56] Pious Ali: So, just a second. Oh, God. Thank you. So, Dina, are you suggesting that we should table this? Oh, Councillor Phillips, go ahead.
[1:19:18] Regina Phillips: It thank you chair Mary correct me if I'm wrong I do think or somebody else I do think Creative Portland does do a report to the council I thought we had one in July or August I think is Sarah sorry is Council McDonough shaking her hands because I think that we did have them come and do a report to us I think oh that wasn't your question sorry
[1:19:48] Dina Libner: We did have a workshop.
[1:19:51] Regina Phillips: Okay, great. Sorry. Just wanted to make sure I was on the same page as everybody else. Thank you. I'm fine with what Dina recommended. Okay.
[1:20:05] Sarah Michniewicz: All right. Just, yes, I'm also in agreement.
[1:20:14] Kate Sykes: Yes, I am in agreement. Thank you for asking.
[1:20:18] Pious Ali: Okay. Thank you all. So now we're going to go back to item number five, correct? All right. So we are going to have a discussion and provide guidance to staff regarding an entertainment venue licensing and entertainment set up benefit agreement ordinance. Mr. Goldman will take the lead on this.
[1:20:46] Unidentified speaker (Staff): Thank you, Chancellor. I, let's see here. I'll give you, I'll just go, I'll start with a little history and then talk a little bit about the type of guidance that we're looking for from you all. And we'll go from there. I don't expect this to be a real deep dive into the ordinance. We don't have a draft yet. We're looking for initial guidance from you all tonight so that we can go back and draft something up and bring it forward at a future meeting. meeting. So just by way of background, a few months back, well, maybe it's a little bit more than a few months now, maybe it was December, it was Order 107-2526. The council created a new, well, approved an amendment to Chapter 4 of the City Code that created a new entertainment license for large capacity venues that had a capacity of 2,000 people or more, and the ordinance also required businesses that were applying for those venues or that have those licenses to enter into an entertainment sector benefit agreement with the city. The purpose of those entertainment sector benefit agreements was to promote the city's creative economy and spaces for the arts, preserve the character and vitality of the arts and entertainment community, and enhance accessibility for local artists, entertainers, and residents. Part of the ordinance of the new large-capacity entertainment license ordinance also required the Council to, prior to entering into any of these entertainment sector benefit agreements, to adopt a separate ordinance establishing an entertainment sector trust fund. And the idea being that the revenues that are created by the entertainment sector benefit agreements would be placed into the trust fund for the benefit of individuals and businesses in the entertainment sector. And so the, bear with me one minute, sorry, I'm following my notes here. So there are a couple of things that have to happen. The council has to adopt an ordinance establishing the trust fund that's going to hold the funds paid through these benefit agreements. The ordinance has to create procedural rules for the disbursement of the funds to the individuals and businesses in the entertainment sector. And then contributions to those funds have to be used to provide benefits to entertainers and entertainment businesses in Portland. And there's a few, and again, sorry, I should orient you, and there's a copy of the ordinance in the backup. Up, but if you look in its section 4-52 F is where most of the details are laid out here, but the contributions have, well, it's not an exclusive list, suggested uses include use or improvement of spaces used for entertainment or rehearsals or community events. We can use funds for materials, equipment, or services that are reasonably necessary for artists or entertainment businesses. Funds can be used for education and training of artists and entertainment business staff and similar expenses to those. So it's a non-exclusive list. And so with that, I, you know, we're looking for some initial thoughts and I, and I'll, what I will say is this, right, I mean, right now it's, it's a bit open-ended. We have a couple existing fund ordinances already that we can use sort of as a model that have some, you know, some structural components that we can, that we can use. We don't have to reinvent the wheel there, and those are like, we've got the housing trust fund ordinance in chapter 14, and then in chapter two we have a climate action fund. Ordinance, so there are a couple, a couple ordinances that we have already that create funds and provide for a system for managing the funds. But I think the things that we're looking for today are sort of general thoughts on identifying a potential manager for the fund. And I know Counselor McDevitt mentioned a minute ago perhaps the PDC. I know the PDC was mentioned earlier in the process, I think back when the, when the ordinance was adopted. And do we want to include, you know, provisions in the fund that are going to require annual appropriations that go of revenue from the benefit agreements for placement of those funds into the fund. One other thing to consider is, I guess, also is how much, if you're to use the PDC or another other organization, or maybe it's, you know, maybe it's a city department. Do you want to authorize that department or entity to develop grant and loan programs, to develop their own procedural rules for accepting applications and awarding grants? Do you want them to provide an annual report to the city council as we do with other funds, including those two that I just mentioned, the Climate Action Fund and the Housing Trust Fund both require an annual report to the council. So those are some of the initial thoughts that I have, and I'm sort of, I guess, interested in your questions and suggestions tonight. That's all I've got right now. I see Councillor Michniewicz has a hand up. And Councilor Sykes. Councilor Ali, do you want me to call on folks or do you want to do that?
[1:28:09] Pious Ali: I was waiting for you to land in there because I've seen a lot of
[1:28:13] Unidentified speaker (Staff): hands up there. Yeah, I'm done with my initial
[1:28:18] Pious Ali: talk. All right. I don't know whose hand went up first, so I will go with Councilor Sykes and then Councilor McNeish. Thanks. I think
[1:28:29] Kate Sykes: I think Councillor Michniewicz was first but mine's just really brief. The reason I just wanted to change the order of these is that it's pretty clear that we are in the, in the beginning of a new arts funding system that we've created, and we're dealing with a cultural plan which is as important as the comprehensive plan or the transportation plan or whatever the plant you know we do these plans every so often. That's almost 10 years old, so I think it, you know, it makes no mention of this funding source. It doesn't really speak to the very specific issues that we're having in the arts district right now and the needs of the arts community in this time and the also the social issues that are that the arts really should be speaking to. So my suggestion is that we get kind of a legal outline of what this could be, but we wait and have the cultural plan talk about this and what we might want to use this funding for before we actually kind of nail that down. That would be my suggestion.
[1:29:39] Pious Ali: Thank you. Council Member Nunes.
[1:29:48] Sarah Michniewicz: Okay, there we go. Sorry. Thank you, Chair. So per the ordinance, there actually is a timeline on which we were that made it into the ordinance, correct, Michael, on when it would be implemented, which is the first renewal?
[1:30:08] Unidentified speaker (Staff): Yeah, it's tied to the renewals of the existing licenses to give, to allow a little time, you know, for this ordinance to be developed. And also just,, I think, to, you know, to provide a little bit of a grace period for the entities that already are, you know, considered large capacity venues, but yeah.
[1:30:39] Sarah Michniewicz: Yeah,, and I just mentioned that, and that there's a little bit of a, it's not a, it doesn't have to be on schedule, we obviously have to design this first. In terms of what we're looking to do here, I guess the decision is, you know, well, the framework is, you know, who pays in, who can access the funds and who decides who can access the funds. So this was sort of the three steps. And the piece on who pays in is it's pretty clear, except that Councilor Grant and I, you know, the intention was not to sweep like local sports you know kids sports or high teams that would play at the arena into this so that needs to be discussed and we would want to figure out a way to you know with the language to create that exception i know there were there were concerns from the cumberland county civic center and some of the users of that space that council grant and i wanted to be responsive to and it was not you know that was that was not what we were envisioning from the outset so that would be you know piece one how do we figure out that so for the for the who pays in part otherwise it's i think that was all pretty clear. You know, and in terms of the who accesses the funds, that's, again, the, it's not entirely clear. I think when I was contemplating how this ordinance would take shape, it did include maybe some feedback, some back and forth, maybe some collaboration with the PDC, which, you know, given our previous discussion, that to me actually does remain the right great path right now you know i 'm i'm not opposed to you know folding this into the conversation about the arts in general but clearly we have we want to have some amount of work done on that and get going so that piece i don't know what that would look like for collaborating potentially, but you know, knowing what the, what the PDC's capacity is and how they would potentially approach that would be, would be helpful. And so I guess that's something I would like to hear from staff on, and then, and then that of course is also the coast of the third point of who decides who gets the funding. And one of the really important parts of this is getting feedback from the performing arts, from the entertainment sector, from the people and venues and groups that would be potentially accessing the funds. We do have that list of what it could potentially be used for, but I don't want to skip that piece of getting that feedback and really understanding where the value lies for people who would be accessing the funds. And I'll leave it there. Does that kind of help give you some guidance?
[1:34:03] Unidentified speaker (Staff): Yeah, it does. You know, I mean, what I'm hearing so far is it sounds like, you know, it might be helpful for me to come back with a, you know, a rough draft sort of outline of the ordinance subordinates and leaving some room to fill in the details on these questions about who's going to be the fund manager. I think when you say who gets the funding, I think that's what you mean, whether it's the PDC or somebody else, and then who can be the beneficiary, who can access the funding,, whether it's through grants or, loans, I think, so we can, we can draft it in such a way to, you know, leave flexibility and room for further input on, those things, for sure. I don't, yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't think the overall structure of the, of the, ordinance needs to be, you know, terribly complicated. I think the devil's going to be in the details and, I guess, that's another question to think about is whether we want details to be in the ordinance or do we want the details to be in, you know, sort of, you know, a program, a grant program that, you know, that staff might put together with input from the PDC that then gets, you know, subject to, you know, reviewed and approved by the city council before those things happen. Funds are dispersed, which I think is sort of consistent with the way, and Nancy's on the call here, so Nancy and Nancy Martin's on the call. Maybe she can weigh in if I'm going astray here, but I know that, you know, that's the way that, you know, certain PBC programs are developed as you know staff with PDC input and then council approval right so I think if there's if there's a you know a pot of money I'm sure that those three groups the you know the economic development staff and the PDC and the council will figure out a way to don't let out okay.
[1:36:38] Sarah Michniewicz: If he has enough time does he have anything to say I can jump in I have much
[1:36:45] Unidentified speaker (Staff): To say and I confess I wasn't aware of sort of these deliberations so I don't feel completely prepared to but yes in a in a very basic sense the way PDC loans and grants work is If and when we're able to access funds like CDBG funds, for example, then, yeah, staff with PDC feedback create guidelines, program guidelines that the PDC then forwards to the city council for approval to provide structure as to how the funds would be managed.
[1:37:29] Sarah Michniewicz: Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah. I appreciate the idea of having it align with the mechanisms of other funds, or I should say other funds that work well, you know, to make sure that there's some consistency across, you know, city processes. Processes and having the CDBG discussion tonight was also sort of fortuitous because it did put me in mind of having a framework for you know a scoring rubric and you know I don't know if we need to get how detailed it would need to be but you know making sure that it is fair it's obviously there's the subjectivity piece you know that we discussed with CDBG you know the more I don't know structured and fair it can be the better but yeah that's that's kind of that's what my thinking is on this I Don't know if anybody else has any thoughts is
[1:38:35] Pious Ali: There any other committee members input before we move on to wrap up I agree. Counselor Sykes, are you going to say something? Go ahead.
[1:38:48] Kate Sykes: Yeah, I just, I do want to say this because I know what the criticism is going to be after this meeting. It's that we cannot send this to the Portland Development Corporation and without having artists weigh in, right? So it just, it's really important that we're not creating a scoring matrix and figuring out, you know, how the money is going to be dispersed and for what purpose without first taking a comprehensive look at what artists in this city need. And so I just want to caution us to, I mean, I recognize we're under a deadline, but maybe that's the answer then is that we need to move a little faster on getting our cultural plan up and running because I don't think the PDC is the correct venue for this and especially not until we've had Creative Portland and the whole arts community really weigh in on what we want to see. So I just want to tap the brakes a little bit on that. Okay. Is Dina still here?
[1:39:55] Pious Ali: Yes, I'm here. If we ask for staff to take a lead in the culture planning that Councilor Sykes is speaking to, how long, I know that you guys are overloaded with many other things, but how long do you think
[1:40:11] Dina Libner: it would take if you're asked if you're asking staff to develop essentially a culture plan or cultural culture economy needs assessment kind of. I could not begin to throw out a number now because it's it's going to be wrong and I don't know that we have the capacity to do it. I hate to respond with we're going to need to hire a consultant to help us with that, but it's possible that it does come to that. So just for the sake of managing expectations, I don't have a good time frame for what it would take for staff to accomplish that. Okay, because let me know is what
[1:40:51] Pious Ali: is the timeline for this for the ordinance to be out of the door? Actually, Michael, the
[1:41:00] Sarah Michniewicz: Michael, yeah, okay, the first renewal, I mean, but it's the first renewal after the ordinance is set, so I don't, it's not that we have to get it done in time for, I don't think, for the first
[1:41:13] Unidentified speaker (Staff): contributors renewal. Yeah, I think it's actually, let's, well, the easiest question is to maybe ask Dina if she remembers. Dina, I know that at one point we asked just Quattropani when that time frame was going to be triggered. Do you recall? I know it's coming up sometime in the spring, I think.
[1:41:38] Dina Libner: Do you recall the month? You mean when it would first take effect with the first licensee? Yeah. I'll do a quick search. I don't know off the top of my head.
[1:41:52] Unidentified speaker (Staff): Yeah, I'm looking back in the ordinance right now because it isn't tied to a specific date. It's tied to the issuance
[1:42:00] Sarah Michniewicz: of, let's see. Entertainment licenses. Licenses?
[1:42:04] Unidentified speaker (Staff): Yeah, bear with me one sec. It's actually the second, so holders, so current holders of large capacity entertainment licenses must enter into an entertainment sector benefit agreement with the city prior to the second license termination date after the effective date of the ordinance.
[1:42:34] Dina Libner: So it's, yeah, it's, it's May, 20, 27, the first.
[1:42:39] Unidentified speaker (Staff): May of 2027. Okay. So, there's some time and with this ordinance, but we all know that these things take lots of time anyway. So I think May is certainly doable, but if there are, if there are additional projects that need to be done before this, then obviously that changes the schedule.
[1:43:04] Pious Ali: Do we have to take a vote to recommend that? Or we can just chill chat and say that, yeah, we want a culture study to be done so that based on the report that comes out of that, we can do something.
[1:43:20] Unidentified speaker (Staff): I don't think I don't think any I've gotten the initial guidance that I'm looking for draft, you know, starting to draft the ordinance. You know just you know as long as you all understand that what comes back to you is going to be a very preliminary draft and it'll be sort of a skeleton for you all to flesh out and but whether or not Dina needs any further guidance on that other issue I'll defer to Dina
[1:43:46] Pious Ali: Yeah Dina in terms of the culture work plan a do you think you need any guidance or do you think barely you'll have your guidance from the discussion that we just had?
[1:44:03] Dina Libner: My understanding is that the committee would like Creative Portland to make it, to make the development of a culture plan that's similarly as robust as the one produced in the 90s to make that a priority. It would probably carry more weight. We can certainly communicate that to Creative Portland. It might carry more weight if it came in the form of some sort of action from this committee or maybe the council. I'll defer to Michael on what would be appropriate if something, if that were to take place. But we can certainly communicate that to Creative Portland and encourage them to take that up sooner rather than later. And if it doesn't happen before the next budget cycle, it could certainly be discussed by the finance committee and the council at large. While the operating budget is being discussed.
[1:45:01] Pious Ali: Okay. And Michael, do you think you can draft something that we can, if that will carry weight, for us to vote on and recommend that Creative Portland does that?
[1:45:17] Unidentified speaker (Staff): Not tonight. Okay. Yeah, I was going to say, it's not on your agenda for tonight. And I mean, if that's and again, I think I know Dina mentioned before may require additional funding. So, you know, I think that's something that's going to require some discussion and, you know, a potential sort of fiscal impact on that if we have to hire a consultant in order to do that work.
[1:45:47] Dina Libner: So Michael, if they were, if they wanted to consider some sort of action encouraging Creative Portland to undergo a culture, a culture plan, that the development of a culture plan, is that action that they would be able to take at some point in the future?
[1:46:10] Unidentified speaker (Staff): Sure, I mean, it's kind of resolution-y, right, if it's, yeah, I mean, it would certainly be something either the council, you know, this committee can make a recommendation to that effect or recommend that the council, you know, do that. So, it's a more sort of formal
[1:46:31] Dina Libner: request from the council. It might also help this process to have a sense of how, do we have a sense of how much in funding we expect to generate from this licensing mechanism?
[1:46:44] Unidentified speaker (Staff): I don't think we've done any. I mean, we've got sort of per ticket amounts, you know, set forth in the ordinance, but we would need more data, I think, in terms of the number of tickets being sold in order to, and what, excuse me, what types of events are going to be excluded. included so i think i don't think we have any numbers like that but i see counselor Michniewicz has her hands up and maybe she's done some number crunching i don't know
[1:47:21] Sarah Michniewicz: Yeah, oh, thank you, sorry, no, go ahead. Yeah, so the initial discussion in the context of a 3,300-seat venue with just averaging, say, a $75 ticket at maximum capacity every night for every event, 125 events a year. Just as sort of a back-of-the-napkin math was about $400,000 a year. So you'd have to extrapolate that to the capacities and show counts for Thompson's Point and the State Theater. I'm sorry, Thompson's Point and the Civic Center. And I don't have a solid number on that, but the capacity for the Civic Center is probably 7,000 or 8,000, depending on the seating. And it's a fairly full event roster, But there again, there would be some local things that would be taken out. So I don't really have a sense. I mean, I'm guessing that it would be in the, I don't know, the million dollar ballpark, but it's, you know, hard to say at this point. But I do want to clarify that I don't think that like Creative Portland that's not the right place for this right now, you know, if we were if we were moving forward on something now it would be my preference would be the PDC as intended with the goal of having it be administered by a or potentially be administered by Creative Portland should that be you know configured in a way that would have the capacity to carry it out and so at this point that's not clear so that's that's not what I was Suggesting it should go right now but that's I think it seems like we're all kind of in agreement that 's a piece of what would
[1:49:28] Dina Libner: Move forward with the cultural planning. Can I ask for a little clarification is the goal that it go directly to benefit individual performers and artists and organizations, or is it that it goes to support the commissioning and maintenance of public art installations or can it be?
[1:49:51] Sarah Michniewicz: No,, this is an entertainment sector. So entertainment only entertainment venues, artists. Yep. And then the, but, to the point of, you know, What it can be used for, that's where the feedback from that sector is, as I had mentioned, as Councillor Sykes mentioned, is just incredibly important to make sure we're getting it right. Right. There's also the fact that in the ordinance there is an in-kind piece, so that's an option. So that's another layer of figuring out what in-kind would consist of and how its equivalency would be measured.
[1:50:34] Dina Libner: So would it be helpful if we discussed with Creative Portland the committee's interest and got some feedback on the timing on the organization's interest in pursuing another culture plan and what the timing of that might be like and then report back to the committee
[1:50:48] Sarah Michniewicz: So you can decide next steps I think that makes sense if my fellow committee members agree
[1:50:55] Pious Ali: Dina, are you able to bring that back by our next meeting or just via email?
[1:51:01] Dina Libner: Yes, we can bring it back. I think the next meeting is not too far away. It's on October 6th. So we'll come back with a brief memo for that.
[1:51:08] Pious Ali: Okay. Thank you. Councillor Sykes.
[1:51:13] Kate Sykes: Thank you. I think every time I hear the word, what is the goal? That's what hangs me up here because I don't think, I think we've put the kind of the funds before the goal. and so I just want to return to the idea that in order to draft goals for what we want money to help our arts community do we absolutely have to have that input from them sorry I sound like a broken record but I keep feel like we're circling back to this like what are the goals and we don't know because we haven't talked to any artists about it so yeah okay
[1:51:49] Pious Ali: Because let me know what you're going to say something, go ahead. Yeah, just to be clear, counselor's like,
[1:51:54] Sarah Michniewicz: So are you saying that like drafting anything at this point is premature or what is your
[1:52:02] Kate Sykes: Something one, be sure I'm clear, I'm what you're, I mean, I think Michael has enough to get the bare bones of this, but as, but we have to leave the sort of purpose and goals out because we don't know what that is yet. That's not something that this committee or even the council can answer without going out to the arts community and doing a really thorough information gathering process
[1:52:23] Sarah Michniewicz: Around that, yep, so yeah, we're in agreement on that. That did just remind me of something that I was going to say though. Oh well, essentially that was out of what we were hearing right from, you know, artists and venues and their challenges and the reasons that they were, you know, concerns about, you know, other venues and larger venues and larger acts. So I think there's a pretty good framework for what they were asking for or would be looking to. But yes, as I said, I think the details, it's just incredibly important to get that feedback because you're right, we're not the experts on what they need. Okay.
[1:53:13] Pious Ali: Michael and Dina, do you have enough information to work on something for us? I
[1:53:26] Unidentified speaker (Staff): Think I feel like I do on the on the legal side of things. Okay. Yeah, I do as well. Okay.
[1:53:35] Pious Ali: All right, thank you all. In the absence of any other discussion, may I have a motion and the second to adjourn. Don't move. Moved by Councillor Sykes and second by Councillor Michniewicz or is it Councillor Phillips?
[1:53:53] Sarah Michniewicz: Councillor Phillips and I were, I think, tied. All right.
[1:53:57] Pious Ali: So I will give it to Councillor Michniewicz and then the second was by Councillor Phillips. How do we say it? I'm going to call the roll. Councillor Sykes? Yes. Councillor Phillips? Yes. And Councilor McNeil. Yes. I'm also a yes. We'll see you on October 6th, I believe. All right. Thank you all. Goodbye. Goodbye.