After a long march, the city budget was teed up for debate and passage at the June 3rd City Council Meeting. With just Pious Ali absent, a spirited last-minute debate was held on allocating additional money to the library for managing marketing and teenagers, and two key authorities for Portland’s waterfront were merged into one. A state of emergency covering just one single lot of property was extended another several months in order to avert another homelessness crisis, and a new batch of constables was appointed by the city.
Announcements
Prior to even the general public comment period, traditionally the first item up to bat, Councilor Rodriguez first motioned to make an announcement sharing his “pride, gratitude, and immense joy” following a recent community effort. Recently, the city’s Parks and Recreation department had announced that the soil underneath the Libbytown Community Garden had become contaminated; in response, city staff and community gardeners both leapt into action to remove contaminated plants and set up new, raised beds for garden use. Rodriguez thanked the more than 50 community gardeners who showed up, Parks Director Alex Marshall, (who “picked up a weed whacker and got his hands dirty,”) and Cultivating Community employees Silvan Shawe and Janel Knightly, among others. “These gardens, these green spaces, they mean so much to our community.”
General Public Comment
The first and only general commenter of the night, meeting regular Steven Scharf, also had something to say about the garden episode. “It’s been common knowledge for the last 20-30 years that the West School was built on top of a city dump,” he said, saying that soil contamination should have been a foreseen problem. Scharf also commented that Congress Street, on which he rides his bicycle regularly, has become a “third-world street” in terms of maintenance; he urged the council to consider a large-scale utility overhaul and re-paving for the street, which he also called “an abomination.” After criticizing sloppiness with the council’s budget disclosures, Scharf also reiterated his long-standing complaint that Monument Square is being abused by drivers, insisting it should be a “no parking zone.” He concluded with “Monument Square is a park. People should not be driving on it for any reason.”
Special Meeting of the Corporator of the Portland Fish Pier Authority and the Portland Fish Exchange
After no one else stepped forward to offer public comment, Mayor Dion officially suspended the City Council meeting in order to hold a (technically separate) “Special Meeting of the Corporator of the Portland Fish Pier Authority and the Portland Fish Exchange.”
These two semi-public bodies charged with managing aspects of the working waterfront, after much planning, were set to merge into a single authority. As Councilor Bullett explained, the merge was a natural consideration, given the “lots of crossover” between the areas of operation of the two bodies. She also, (falling into something of a ramble,) noted that another reason for the merge is the “decrease overall in fishing – not to poo-poo on the amount of fish that comes in, because we’re still talking about 100,000 pounds sometimes on auction days, which I think is phenomenal, mostly monkfish, I could go on and on but I won’t – this will bring these two boards into one.”
Bullett emphasized the new opportunities which the merger opens up, such as the streamlining of bureaucracy, the reduction of duplicate costs, as well as hinting at an “exciting new ice machine.” Bill Needelman, administrative chief of the Fish Pier Authority and “institutional knowledge encyclopedia” of the fishing industry per Councilor Bullett, too weighed in. He explained that Portland has remained “a significant participant in the Maine seafood economy since the 1980s,” and that the COVID-19 pandemic had exposed the difficulties which having two separate but overlapping authorities presented to making “strategic decisions.” The joint subcommittee of both had worked out the details, the governing boards of both had approved, and now the Fish Pier Authority was prepared to administratively consume the Fish Exchange, which would become a still-largely-autonomous interior organ of the FPA.
With the rest of the council and the Mayor having nothing but trust in the testimony of Councilor Bullett and Mr. Needelman, the merger received City Council unanimous approval without any further discussion of note. Mayor Dion called the Special Meeting of the Corporator of the Portland Fish Pier Authority and the Portland Fish Exchange to a close and fictively re-assembled the City Council to resume its meeting.
Proclamations and Appointments
Only one proclamation was made that evening, as the usually-quiet Councilor Pelletier read out loud the text of the city’s annual recognition of Juneteenth on June 19th. After this brief recital, Mayor Dion announced that a number of city employees would be deputized as constables. This routine procedure grants workers the authority to enforce city ordinances on violators, freeing up police officers to do other work. Constables do not carry weapons, may not make arrests, and are generally restricted to issuing fines and similar procedural acts. These appointments passed unanimously and without further discussion.
Licenses and Consent Items
Next came the city council’s “consent calendar,” which thanks to a recent change, now includes both en bloc business licensing as well as festivals and public events. No public comment was made, no discussion among the councilors was held, and no opposing votes were cast regarding any of the following items, which all passed unanimously.
Most notably, the city officially approved its annual July 4th Festival to be held, which is primarily a vehicle for a large fireworks show put on by Central Maine Pyrotechnics. The display will be visible along the Eastern Promenade, and will begin at 9:15 PM on the night of July 4th, (unless it rains, in which case all festivities are moved to the next day.) In addition to the fireworks, there will be food vendors operating all day in the area, and the Casco Bay Wind Symphony will perform in the middle parking lot of Cutter Street at 7:00 PM.
Several business licenses were also approved. Notably, Camp Pennant received a restaurant and lounge license, with outdoor dining, for its taking over of the now-defunct Liquid Riot site at 250 Commercial Street. Rosies Restaurant and Pub, at 330 Fore Street, is also changing owners, and received an updated license for its own restaurant and lounge, which features indoor entertainment and outdoor dining on public property.
Bread and Olive on 937 Congress Street and Highroller Lobster Company on 106 Exchange Street were approved for outdoor dining on public property, as was Allagash Brewing at 50 Industrial Way on its own private property. Otto, at 250 Read Street, was also approved for indoor entertainment. With these approvals wrapped up, the council moved on to the main event of the evening – the municipal budget.
Municipal Budget
After initial hearings in the Finance Committee and first reads at the previous City Council meeting, the time had come for the councilors to give a final review and vote to the FY2025 city budget. The school budget was passed some weeks earlier, and was approved in the recent June election, and the Municipal Budget is the other half of what Portland’s residents pay for. Finance Committee Chair Trevorrow very briefly recounted the procedural history of this budget, and noted that its proposed property tax increase was 3% over FY2024, which in addition to the school budget’s 1.9% increase would result in a total 4.9% increase for Portland’s property owners.
City Manager West also briefly spoke, thanking staff department heads and especially Finance Director Brendan O’Connell with his team. She said the administration had done the best job they could do, and the Mayor agreed, saying that “no budget is perfect, that’s what I tell citizens who approach me during this process, but I also want to say this evening that this budget reflects the best effort of the city’s administration, their staff, and concurrently, those of this council.”
“This is the best product which we could deliver,” Mayor Dion continued, “There will be critics, but that’s indicative that we did something. If there were no critics, I’d be nervous.” He again emphasized his optimism for the year under this budget, and thanked the public for their crucial feedback. Before moving into public comment, however, the City Manager spurred Councilor Sykes to explain her proposed amendment, which the councilor had submitted to the agenda earlier.
The Sykes Amendment
This amendment was the only council-level amendment which the body would debate that evening, and as Councilor Sykes would elaborate, it was all about assigning additional employees to the Portland Public Library. Sykes introduced herself as a trustee of the PPL, and explained that the library “is a very different department from any other in our city.” Instead of being solely funded by taxpayer dollars, the PPL also does a significant amount of independent fundraising and possesses a private endowment unique to the library system. Sykes stressed how “unusual” this setup is, and how it contributes to budgetary complexity for the library’s team.
Going into her amendment, Sykes explained that she wanted to add three new employee positions at the PPL at taxpayer expense. The first was a Marketing Director, who would take on the “overloaded” marketing duties currently being heaped on the library’s “Director of Advancement,” which is a role mostly associated with donor relations. The Marketing Director would be a full-time post earning $70,000 per year. Second was a new part-time library assistant at the PPL’s Burbank branch, which Sykes described as the “busiest branch that we have right now.”
And third was a teenager-focused library associate for the downtown branch, a full-time position which, Sykes explained, was desperately needed due to the influx of recent immigrants to Portland. Not only did many teenagers come to the library to read and use computers, she said, but that “the recent-immigrant community is a big user,” and teenagers from migrant families access NGO services and other resources via the library. “We don’t have enough supervision of teens at that library,” Sykes concluded, saying that paying for this new post would “speak to our values as a city.”
Budget Comment
Once the Sykes Amendment had been explained, two public commenters would speak on municipal budget. First, naturally, was Steven Scharf.
“What has not been said is that this is a half-billion-dollar budget. One half a billion dollars is what the city is now spending on services,” Scharf opened, “$227 million will be property tax dollars.” Beyond drawing attention to the ballooning scale of Portland’s local government expenditures, he also had more specific critiques. “$154 million has been [appropriated] for the schools, but the schools are planning to spend $161 million, so there’s $7 million, approximately, which seems to be up in the air.” This ‘missing $7 million’ would be discussed later.
Scharf also criticized the drawing of $4 million from the city’s fund balance, saying “our fund balance should be used for emergencies only, and this is not an emergency, this is the fact that the state decided to not give as much money as you were hoping.” Capping off his comments, Scharf objected to the disorganized and arbitrary-seeming nature of the city’s fee increases, and implored the City Council to consider consolidating and rationalizing the schedules of fees so that normal residents can understand what’s changing every year. On a humorous note, he also pointed out that there’s a little-known fee to install merry-go-rounds in the city. “You could raise that fee to $10,000, it wouldn’t matter, because no one’s ever going to bring a merry-go-round to Portland.”
After Scharf’s characteristic criticisms, Will Hayward stepped forward representing Fair Elections Portland. A minor decrease in the Clean Elections Fund budget was included among the proposed orders, and while he said his organization did not consider this an “immediate danger,” he warned the City Council that the only way for the program to succeed in its purpose of warding off “big money” corruption was for it to be “robustly” funded. Hayward especially criticized the practice of “raiding the fund” during non-Mayoral or non-Presidential election years, when election interest is low, as the administration might be tempted to do.
Council Deliberations
Picking up one of Scharf’s concerns, Councilor Sykes asked the City Manager to explain the ‘missing $7 million’ of the school budget. Trying her hand, Manager West explained that “the schools use a variety of grant funds and Title I funds and other funds which don’t need to be appropriated,” and made sure that Finance Director O’Connell was available to clarify further. The $154 million being appropriated is “just what we need from the taxpayers.” West also asserted that Scharf’s claims about erroneous zeroes in the appropriation ordinances are due to a similar circumstance, where the city is spending no taxpayer dollars on those particular line items. Sykes thanked the manager, and said “thank you Mr. Scharf, it takes a village, so I appreciate your insight and your making sure that we’re keeping an eye on everything.”
Sykes then moved for her amendment, and Councilor Bullett opened up the discussion on it, asking about the status of the “strategic plan” which the library was establishing in response to their being denied additional funds by the finance committee. Saying the plan was “still in process,” Sykes said that the immediate future of the library required additional manpower, and also pointed out that the Marketing Director would be essential in forming the strategic plan to begin with. The plan for future strategy could only be completed if this initial hiring was done, so the hiring couldn’t wait until after the plan.
Trevorrow briefly signaled her approval, and noted that the Sykes Amendment would result in the property tax rising an additional ~0.2 percentage points, for an approximate 5.0% property tax increase over the previously proposed 4.9% increase.
Fournier struck a different note, saying that Sykes had her argument backwards vis-à-vis hiring and the library’s strategic plan. When “you’re in the middle of a strategic plan,” as the library is, this amendment would be putting “the cart before the horse” and “hiring before you know what you need.” While grateful for the library’s work, Fournier said she was “hesitant” and believed that the “plan needs to be created first to identify what the needs are.” She especially seemed concerned about the priority being given to a marketing director.
Councilor Bullett, chiming in again, agreed. She said that the most pressing concerns for the library had to do with the physical buildings, reminding the council that the “ceiling fell in on the children’s section” and noting other building problems. Bullett suggested that, instead of passing the Sykes amendment, that the City Council do a “deep dive on the library” next year, because she wanted to fund the library “in a way that’s thoughtful.” Councilor Rodriguez, himself apparently uncertain as to his position, asked Sykes whether the library had made any statements in response to concerns like Fournier’s and Bullett’s.
Councilor Sykes responded to Rodriguez by emphasizing the time-sensitive nature of the issues. “Glimmers of these needs are emerging,” Sykes explained, as the library works on the plan. PPL needs to be “anticipating” the needs of the near future, in which “huge… real and immediate issues need to be addressed,” like “teenagers in the library which are not being supervised.” She admitted that she had considered leaving out the marketing position, which she acknowledged as potentially unpopular, but thought that a marketer’s ability to fundraise might make them a net benefit to the PPL’s bottom line.
In response, Rodriguez said that while he shares many of Councilor Fournier’s concerns, that he recognizes the “dire needs” which the library has “right in front of you.” He signaled his support.
“It’s interesting that they’re not here,” Councilor Bullet said, after realizing that no representatives from the PPL were actually present that night. She had wanted to ask some clarifying questions about the library’s ability to recruit and retain staff, but considered their absence at the meeting a significant demerit against the library’s leadership. Sykes tried to answer her questions for her, saying that the library’s personnel vacancies were “pretty low” compared to other departments, and that the library is usually quick to recruit.
“I’m not going to support this amendment,” said the Mayor. “It feels like it’s late to the program, the questions which are being asked should’ve been asked in some other context… there was not conversation about the staff issue, per se,” he explained, and said that outside influence was a substantial factor. Dion also objected to the characterization of the library as just another “department” of the city, (it “triggered me,” he said specifically,) and briefly pontificated on the odd duck nature of the library. “It’s not a department, it’s never been a department, it [was] created by special law a long time ago” to be “immunized against the influence of any other government organization.” Mayor Dion suggested that the council consider “legislative action to convert the library into an actual city department.”
Not taking the Mayor’s criticisms lightly, Sykes pushed back against the “process” objection. “In terms of this being ‘late to the table,’ when should it have been prepared?” She asserted that since she is not a member of the Finance Committee, that here, at the council level, is “the only place and time that this amendment could be brought forward, respectfully.”
“I’m always worried when people end with ‘respectfully,’” Dion joked, highlighting Sykes’ dour tone.
Councilor Bullett stepped in, recounting that she had been present at the Finance Committee meeting when the PPL had requested these positions. “I would have expected some communication from the library leadership,” she said, “but there was no follow-up communication afterwards.” Bullett disagreed that this was a process issue, and rather said that it was a simple lack of proactive advocacy from the PPL.
Taking on an apologetic note, Sykes admitted that she may have “short-circuited” the usual political cycle of communication by taking on their case directly, thus contributing to the PPL’s apparent lack of action. “I was working with the library director as their trustee.”
While Dion, Bullett, and Fournier remained unsatisfied, none of the other Councilors seemed to show much concern for the objections. They voted against the amendment, but Councilors Sykes, Rodriguez, Trevorrow, Pelletier, and Phillips all voted in favor, causing it to pass 5-3.
With the municipal budget now slightly higher, the way was open for the suite of associated orders to be passed. This was a long, bureaucratic process of reading out and voting on a total of fourteen items, but the Sykes Amendment had been the only real bone of contention. All else passed unanimously and with little council comment.
Unfinished Business and New Orders
With the main event out of the way, the City Council turned to the few remaining votes of the evening. First, the City Council unanimously accepted and appropriated a $10,000 anonymous donation to the Portland Fire Department. Fire Chief Gautreau thanked the councilors, and noted the morale importance of this donation, which will be spent on meals and rewards for firefighters, as well as miscellaneous fire station updates.
Chief Gautreau stuck around for the next order as well, which was the approval of the collective bargaining agreement between the city and the firefighters’ Local 740 union. Without comment or discussion, the council unanimously approved this agreement.
Homeless Services Center State of Emergency
The only non-budget vote which proved somewhat controversial followed next, as the last item which would be voted on that evening. Since November 13th, 2023, there has been a limited state of emergency covering just one piece of property – the Homeless Services Center. This large homeless shelter has been accommodating a greater number of nightly residents than it was originally designed or zoned for, and it’s been able to do this because the technical existence of this unusually space-limited and time-extended emergency overrides several city ordinances.
City Manager West explained that while the legal and physical arrangements for a permanent expansion are being actively worked out, the city’s attorneys had advised that the City Council extend this state of emergency one more time, to ensure there’s no violation. The state of emergency was due to expire at the end of that very day, but if the City Council agreed, this order would extend it until August 19th.
Two public comments were offered on this order, first by a “Julie” who claimed to be an advocacy supervisor for Preble Street. She supported the order, calling the state of emergency a “crucial component” of the city’s response to the “increase in unsheltered individuals.” She insisted that the city have “as many shelter beds as possible,” and that this need “cannot be overstated.”
Steven Scharf offered his two cents as well, not necessarily opposing the order, but requesting “information as to the number of shelter beds per night being utilized.” He wanted to know whether the shelter has been consistently over the cap, and whether “we actually need this year-round? Is the extra capacity really necessary?” Scharf also asked what the financial cost would be.
Responding to Mr. Scharf’s comments, the City Manager explained that the per-night average was about 222 residents, about 86% of the expanded occupancy, but that many nights have that number reach 240 or higher. She called 250 beds a “sweet spot” enabled by the state of emergency, and also added that the “most significant cost is staffing,” which is already being paid for. While some other costs, like buying new beds, would be incurred, these were one-time and minor by comparison.
Councilor Sykes opened council deliberations, and stated that “the permanent decision was made last week at the Planning Board.” Because it was a revision to a site plan, she explained, that Planning Board ruling didn’t even need the confirmation of City Council. “The Planning Board has actually made a decision to increase permanently the number of beds at this city facility, adding over half a million dollars to the budget,” and while she didn’t necessarily disagree with the outcome of this case, “the real issue for me is that we had an unelected board spend half a million dollars of the city budget.”
“[This] feels like the wrong process to me.” Sykes argued that the City Council needed to wrest back control over the city’s shelter policies, that the many decisions being made by staff and boards instead of councilors was unacceptable. Mayor Dion concurred. “I kind of agree with your analysis. I know, I’m saying it out loud, I’m waiting for the roof to part and the thunderbolt to arrive,” he joked, recognizing how rarely he and Councilor Sykes are in accord, “but who should have oversight over the plans of care, management of the facility, external relations, and dispersal of funds in the community so no one district feels burdened by a collective decision?” He also argued that the City Council should reassert its control.
These concerns aside, the order passed unanimously as an emergency.
The City Clerk then read in a number of orders as first reads, which will be voted on at the next meeting. These include establishing the FY2025 budget for Downtown Portland, agreeing to another collective bargaining agreement with Labor and Trades, and new amendments to the City Code regarding stormwater regulation. Once complete, the council adjourned a relatively efficient meeting by 6:27 PM.
Ashley D. Keenan – Ashley is an editor of the Portland Townsman, with work focusing on the mechanics of local government and housing policy, and also a member of Portland’s Historic Preservation Board. You can reach Ashley personally at ashley@donnellykeenan.com
How ironic for Kate Sykes to cite a process objection in the discussion of extending the state of emergency for the Homeless Services Center when she – once again – introduced a last-minute amendment (this time to the budget), which short-circuits the deliberative process by springing an issue on her colleagues without warning; leaving staff unable to analyze it impact; and foreclosing an opportunity for the public to comment. This is so clearly a deliberate tactic to prevent a fully informed vote, and it’s inexplicable that more Councillors don’t push back against Sykes’ repeated use of it.