(PORTLAND, OR.)—“The Portland City Council meeting on April 1st, 2026, was marked by procedural wrangling, particularly over reordering the agenda for a controversial item on council procedures, and extended debates on funding transparency, city administration oversight, and small business tax relief,” OpGov.news reports.
Photo Credit: YouTube
Councilor Elana Pirtle-Guiney moves for a reordering of Agenda Item 11 (Amend Council Organization and Procedure Code), due to her absence on Thursday, Apr. 2 to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Passover.
This was contentious, with some councilors expressing concern about rushing a significant policy change that could limit amendment timelines.
Photo Credit: YouTube
Councilor Dan Ryan points out the importance of Councilor Pirtle-Guiney’s presence on this first reading.
“We’ll have plenty of time for discussion today. It probably could be delayed anyway, based on some of our past behaviors, but I think airing it out today would be good governance. And I think having you here when you’ve been working on this so hard for so many months makes a lot of sense,” Ryan said.
Photo Credit: YouTube
Ultimately, Agenda Item 11 was reordered, moving from Thursday to Wednesday between items 6 and 7.
Following this, public communications began with Marshall McFarland, speaking as a homeless individual in District 4, offering the council a powerful testimony.
McFarland identified 'hopelessness' as the root cause of homelessness, rather than simply homelessness or drugs.
Photo Credit: YouTube
“Change is going to happen. It’s going to come. It can go for the better or for the worse. When you look at downtown, you see change for the worse, and some spots look like they’ve just been relegated to condemnation,” McFarland said.
He criticized the city's approach of providing Narcan, tents, and syringes as treating symptoms, proposing instead solutions like distributing hand tools, offering trade classes, and providing housing that fosters a sense of ownership.
Karen Shirai returned to the council detailing ongoing issues with unenforced trespass orders, where individuals she has documented trespassing continue to return to her property to panhandle, threaten, or shoplift, without police intervention leading to arrests. Shirai also gave testimony during the Mar. 18 meeting.
Photo Credit: YouTube
“I am having issues with the trespass orders not being enforced, and I have had multiple people that we have documented trespassing on my property in our incident logbooks, and they keep coming back and either panhandling, threatening to kill me, and/or shoplifting,” Shirai said.
City Administrator Raymond Lee gives his report to the council.
“The City Administrator's update prompted critical questions on the rising costs and oversight of the Bull Run Filtration Project, the Portland Police Bureau's use of invasive surveillance technology (Cellebrite), and the implications of deploying AI tools (Microsoft Copilot) on privacy, labor, and climate,” OpGov.news said.
Notably City Administrator Lee’s report includes an update on the Macadam ICE facility.
Media: YouTube / eGov PDX
Previous City Administrator updates can be found here.
Councilor Eric Zimmerman opens the discussion on Agenda item 6 (Amend Business License Law Code to increase the business license tax gross receipts exemption).
Media: YouTube / eGov PDX
Public testimony opened with Jose Cienfuegos, President of the Revitalize Portland Coalition, expressing strong support for increasing the Business License Tax (BLT) gross receipts exemption, but highlighted it is a small step in the work that needs to be done.
“It’s a very small step of something that needs to be done. Job one, and I do not want to preach to you all, because you all have a very hard job, I would not want to do it, needs to be, increase revenue, shrink that budget gap, period. End of sentence. We need to make Portland a place that we want to work in so businesses can come here and stay here and pay taxes,” Cienfuegos said.
Photo Credit: YouTube
The Business License Tax (BLT) gross receipts exemption was passed to a second reading on April 8, to increase from $50,000 to $75,000 for 2026 and $100,000 for 2027. This change, seen as a modest first step, aims to provide relief and simplify compliance for approximately 10,000 small businesses, aligning with Multnomah County's threshold.
If you would like to comment or add to this report, please email me at rory.h@lead4earth.org.
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