City Budget Amendment Drama, Trump’s Impact on the Governor’s Race, and Opera Meets Women's Soccer

I'm Today on CityCast Portland, we're talking about Portland City Council battling it out over the budget and what's to come in November now that the primary election is over. Plus, Portland's growing pre-professional sports empire and what's in store this season. Joining me are Willamette Week Arts and Culture reporter, Rachel Saslow, and our very own senior producer, Rachel Monaghan. Thanks for being here, you two. Thank you for having us. Good to be here. Two Rachel's in one episode. For full transparency, I voted against it but was outnumbered in the final count. Two to one. Two to one. It was basically two to one. I'm joking. But should we constitute a Rachel one, Rachel two point of order? Or is Rachel M and Rachel S a better way forward? I feel like Rachel M and Rachel S would go better for me. Okay, great. Also, I was going to let you guys duke it out for the one or the two. Yeah, I was going to say I won't remember those. Awesome. So normally I do ask an opening question at the top, but this week was city council's budget amendment hearing. And I watched a good chunk of Tuesday and Wednesday's meetings. So basically it's like three days. On Monday, they got public testimony. Tuesdays, they looked over anything that had to do with public safety, that kind of thing. And then on Wednesday, they looked at pretty much everything else. Parks, how the city's running. all that stuff. So it was chalk full. And The Portland Mercury, I think, covered the sessions most thoroughly, like they had a reporter there at all times. And I know that many people rightfully find the minutia of local government boring as all heck. But I just want to play you a clip now to try and convince everyone that tuning into these yearly budget amendment meetings are like watching the most niche Bravo-produced reality TV show that I would simply just call the council. Counselor, you are out of order. We only did 59. You are out of order. I have a call. I had every single one of your colleagues come to me and say that we do not fully understand or appreciate what we are voting on or the amount of. They knew exactly what they were voting on. It is not something I did to you. It is something that you repeatedly changed. You moved to table it. You moved to table it and they supported you. And you told them before that you were going to do it. You told them before you were going to do it. Counselor, you are out of order. Out of order. You're out of order. Make me stop. Make me stop, Mr. President. Counselor, is that an appeal of the rule of the chair? You are no longer recognized. Thank you. Can we please move to a vote? Take the vote in, sir. Thank you. Okay, so what you heard there was District 1 counselor, Loretta Smith, going absolutely Al Pacino on City Council President Dunfee while Dunphy attempted to reclaim order. Now, I got to say this was as heated as it got. Just yikes. Yeah.

But it's not representative of the work that was done in those three days of budget amendments. But it does illustrate a few major points of frustration that was seen over and over again, which were petty office politics, hurt egos, and the very real concern of where the money was coming from for these proposed amendments. So the context of the clip you just heard is, Councillor Smith, being upset that Councillor Samir Kanaal had brought up an amendment. that funded something that she also wanted to fund, but in a different way. So I'm oversimplifying, but that was the crux. Specifically, it was over SEI or Self-Enhancement Inc. affordable housing. This directly affected Councillor Conall's District 2, so he found a solution that most of counsel agreed would work. And Smith, who was working on an ordinance for next week to address it, clearly felt undercut and possibly outmaneuvered. But in counselor Smith's defense, she boiled over because adding insult to injury to her ego, some counselors were just not being respectful. She was getting hit with aggressive side convos, getting rudely cut off with points of order that though procedural just felt condescending. And I saw in real time, y'all, a woman on the verge actually fall off the ledge. One of the things I think about when you are saying they were in these meetings for two days straight is you're dealing with a lot of fatigue, like physically and mentally. And I mean, it's only human to only be able to take so much at that point. Also, you had me at Bravo, the council. What a... What an inspired idea. That might have just been a throwaway line, but right when you played the clip, I just saw the whole thing come together. So I think you should tuck that in your back pocket. Thank you. I need you to note that people that I know who work at the city forward me that clip. Eventually, Portland Mercury posted it. parts of it, but they forwarded me that clip and I was all in. I like watched the whole thing, missed a good part of my friend's birthday party to watch the whole thing. Ended up staying up later watched yesterday's because I was like, wait, what happened yesterday? What I miss, what I miss. And it was, again, I'm not saying that what counselor Loretta Smith was trying to argue was valid or correct. I'm just saying as you kind of pointed out. Rachel S. That from a purely human perspective of anyone with like the most average of emotional intelligence, it made sense why she cracked. And that is why these meetings are so endlessly fascinating. Like you can just see all of the wheels turning. So that particular exchange was deemed political football. by counselor canal. But overall, I got to tell you guys, what I saw happen in those two days of actual like going back and forth was political rugby. So I don't know if you guys know how rugby is played, but you can't pass the ball forward. You have to pass the ball backwards to your teaming. Interesting metaphor there. Yeah. I would see like a particular piece in a counselor's amendment.

wouldn't pass. So it would fall back. And then another counselor would jump in and try to save it in their amendment to keep that play going. And these would be counselors who have historically been on like the opposite side of an issue. So even though it appeared violent, overall they were working as a team. But up to a certain point because by the third day, which was when the council was discussing shelters, parks and city jobs, most arguments again only occurred. on where the money was coming from. And what came up over and over and over again was that most of Peacock, which is what the progressive six or so of our counselors call themselves, they felt more comfortable dipping into contingency funds in future years of certain levies, like the Parks Levy, for current funding, while the older and more fiscally conservative counselors kept voting against it. And Councillor Conall got so frustrated that at one point he was like, Okay, so you keep knocking our ideas down. So what's your idea? What is your solution? But even with all the back and forth, some major amendments passed. Morillo restored funding to community health and safety programs like Project Cease Fire and Portland Street Response, among others. Kanaul found funding to preserve a fire engine in St. John's Station 22. Novick and Murillo created a city data and privacy office by allocating $800,000 from various sources, which is a crazy hard thing to accomplish in a contentious budget cycle. And Dunphy saved the small arts grants, which was like something that most people would just throw away, you know? So they did good work. I mean, something like 16 amendments passed out of the 45 that were proposed. And I know that doesn't seem like a lot. But if you saw the meetings, you would just be like, good job, guys. Yeah. I think going back to the tension that's the, like, most dramatic part of this hearing, they are under a lot of pressure because of the budget situation that the city is in. There's a major budget shortfall, and they're trying to, like, save the things that they can from cuts, though there are going to be. dramatic cuts no matter what they do. And yeah, who likes meetings? Who likes day long meetings? That's incredibly stressful. I can't imagine. Overall, it was mostly peacock counselors who passed their amendments with the exception of like counselor Loretta Smith who also got a few in. And I think compared to last year, this was a much smoother process because I also did peek into last year's amendment meetings. And I don't know if you guys remember last year, they proposed 120 amendments. This year, they wisely proposed only 45. So they got better about knowing how things worked. They also got better about when they needed to take breaks and eat something. Like they were more just like, all right, we need to take a break as opposed to just like trying to pummel through.

And though there were still plenty of heated jabs or passive aggressive statements, overall most counselors kept their composure aside from the clip that I played at the top, which again, all tired. Specifically, most retired of counselor Loretta Smith, no matter what was still effective. Just so you know, next week we're going to have some reporters on to talk a little bit more deeply about these amendments because next what happens is the city will send the approved budget to tax supervision and the Conservation Commission for review. So this isn't. done quite yet. Like, I'm curious, do the counselors have enough time? Because, guys, I was seeing some of these amendments come through that were just like so half baked. Even if I agreed with them, there was like, where is it being budgeted? I don't know. Oh, by the way, half of those numbers are wrong. And just stuff like that where you're just like, that shouldn't even be up here. So I'm curious about like asking those questions. But yeah, that's basically in general what I saw, which was still a vast improvement from last year. I think Council President Dunphy actually did a pretty good job of managing it all, which was, again, massive undertaking. I mean, thank you for watching all that as a citizen, as a journalist. We, I definitely. I mean, I don't think I have missed any birthday parties to watch city proceedings, but there will definitely be mornings in the newsroom where something will have popped off in a public meeting and we'll kind of all gather around someone's laptop to watch someone really lose it. So I understand the appeal for sure. Yeah. Thanks for checking in on Bravo's The Council. Yes. We can't wait to hear how it goes through development, Claudia. Well, let's take a quick break here. And when we come back, Rachel is going to talk through what happened at the primary election. Rachel M. You looked over the primary election results. I know we can't go through every single race, but what are we looking forward to in November? Who am I voting for? Well, I'm going to check in on the top of the ticket. You heard an accurate prediction of this if you listen to our Monday election preview podcast, Governor Tina Kotek, who... I'm sure a lot of you know is the Democrat will face the same Republican opponent as four years ago. That's Christine Drazen, who serves in the state Senate. You're going to hear a lot about how the governor's race is a rematch, but there are some key differences from 2022, and I was going to run through a few of those. First,

You know, I think the cost of living cuts both ways. If you'll recall, the Democrats, including Kotech, did support a six cents a gallon gas tax increase. And Republicans locally are going to try and make cost of living a Kotech problem in the fall. Okay. The gas tax did. get voted down dramatically, as predicted. More than 80% of voters voted against that. But from my perspective, I am assuming that Trump will be more front of mind when voters think about gas prices in the fall or other costs of living. So yeah. Yeah. When we had political stratagist, Jake Weigler on, he pretty much called. He's like, yeah, I'm pretty sure no one's going to vote for this gas tax, which the problem there is then, okay, then how do we pay for our roads? So I know that question is going to have to come up again. I am, though, curious about the judge races, or county judge races, because I know something crazy happened, like people gave a crap. It was shocking, right, to drive around and see all the judge signs. I was like, I can't remember ever, ever, ever seeing this. Yeah. Yeah, it was very interesting. I don't think we've ever gotten to the bottom of why there were four contested judge races in one election. Like that is pretty dramatic. But the most striking one was sitting judge Adrian Brown. She faced a challenger, which is quite uncommon. And she lost as well, which is unusual. And if our listeners recall, she had... a pretty public spat with DA, Nathan Vasquez, who disqualified her, which he is allowed to do from hearing major felony cases. So in the end, she was not reelected. And that happened in May. Two of the races will go on to the fall. So, yeah, we'll hear more. Like a runoff? Yep, a runoff. So if you want to, there's plenty more election coverage out there. The Oregonian and OPB have extensive coverage. And you can check out election results, the full election results across the state on the Oregon Secretary of States. results page. And we, of course, will cover the fall election. Multnomah County and Portland City Council. Those races were not on the May ballot because we have ranked choice voting. So look out for that in coming months. Awesome. Well, thank you, Rachel M. I love this, by the way. I love this system. Thank you, Rachel M. When we come back, Rachel S is going to explain what the cherry bombs are.

I can't wait. And I also didn't get a chance to be Rachel M in grade school. I never had another Rachel. So this is like a dream. I had the opposite experience where I'm having flashbacks to first grade where it was Rachel B, Rachel C, and Rachel T. I was Rachel B because I went to elementary school in the 80s and Rachel was such a popular name. I went to school with. tons and tons of Rachel. Oh my God. Yeah. It's kind of a throwback for me. So Rachel S. Yes. I love the idea of a pre-professional, which by the way, I googled because I couldn't believe that was actually a term, a pre-professional sports empire, because we do have one. Can you explain like what we're talking about here? Sure. So pre-professional, I will break that down for you. It is college students almost exclusively who are home for the summer or have summer break and they get to play in these. Super fun teams. It started about 11 years ago with the Portland Pickles who play at Lentz Park and have become a bona fide cultural sensation in Portland. They have all these different traditions, Woof Wednesdays, Dylan's Drag Race, Emo Night, all these different theme nights became like a big deal for them. And so it's these college students who play baseball in Lentz Park. It's a lovely evening out. It's not super expensive. It's great. So that became a whole thing. And it's owned by a company called Collide Sports. And the head of that is this guy, Alan Miller, who I've interviewed a couple of times. And the pickles, basically riding off of that momentum, Collide has since launched two more teams in the last few years. They first launched the... Portland Bangers, which is the men's pre-professional soccer team. And they, their season two kicked off in May. And now we have a women's team, the Cherry Bombs. And they also just kicked off their very first season on May 17th. And they will have seven at home games through June 28th, also at Lentz Park. So that's sort of like the headquarters for this whole movement. It's all Lens Park. Gotcha. I want to hear about the opera. Is that going to become a cultural phenomenon now? Okay, the Portland Opera will be performing at every single home game for the Portland Cherry Bombs, which is the women's team. And when I got this press release last week... Was it April Fool? I was... No, I couldn't understand it, you guys. I was... I read it, and I was like, okay, uh-huh, uh-huh. Cherry Bombs, soccer team, Portland Opera. collaboration and I find I just like called the cherry bombs and I was like I'm not understanding are we talking about arias at half time are we talking about costumes are we like I couldn't understand how they would be like incorporating Portland opera into soccer in a way that made any sense so they sent me a video and it showed all of these opera singers and they were chanting doing like

classic kind of soccer chance, but then also sort of breaking into song at the end. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Amazing. Then it totally made sense. So they will have four singers there at every single, oh, and someone on piano at every single home game and they'll be leading chants. And they'll also be like calling the game a little bit too. So it's going to be a really cool collaboration. Like an operatic chorus for the great tragedy that is. that game. Okay, that is amazing. I need to know whose idea that was. Could you imagine? Like, you're just like soccer. Mm. Pre-professional college. I know. I know the answer to this. I know the answer to this. Okay. The Cherry Bombs and the Portland Opera both have their administrative offices in the World Trade Center building downtown. And I think it was this organic thing that happened because they were just in the same space and the conversations happened. Isn't that great? Yes. I love that. Rachel S. You are making a strong point for like in-person work. I mean, I will. I will ring that bell all day. I feel like so many good random things come of when we're all humans collaborating in a physical space. Maybe not. I don't need it to be five days a week, nine to five, but there are little moments like this where it just couldn't have happened. You know what I mean? No. Of course it had to be organic because I was like, who would have equated, you know, college level women's soccer with like, you know, it would be fucking sick. I'm so glad that is I cannot like I am 100% going to a game just to witness that I mean it is a surprising collaboration but actually in my reporting on Portland opera classical music and especially opera are always being super innovative about how to get their art to the people in unexpected ways. Think of like opera in the park, which is, you know, at Peninsula Park every summer. Or they have like opera a la carte where it like goes out into the community. So they're always innovating in this way. So it didn't shock me quite like it shocked a lot of people because I know they are always so intentional about getting their music to the people. Okay. So again, the season already started. Where do we go to find these tickets? How much are tickets, by the way? I don't know. Well, I looked and it was pretty surprisingly inexpensive. I don't have a number off the top of my head, but they have a website. They have a great Instagram presence. And they have theme nights too. They have great merch. It's all right. Girl inspired. Have you seen this merch? I was pleasantly surprised by their mascot because I was expecting something kind of horrendous like the sausage. Yes. Which I know people like despite, but I mean, it's terrifying. And I was like, oh, man, what are they going to do with the women's? And no, Cherry Bomb is cool as F. And I was actually hoping they would play, I don't think they have the rights to it, but they would play Cherry Bomb by the runways every time the team would come out. But now I'm like, in opera. Yeah, I love their marketing. It's all black and red. It's got red lipstick. I also love that they're a corporate sponsor, or not corporate sponsor, but their sponsor.

is Planned Parenthood. So their jerseys, they plan parenthood super big across the front. You know, it's just like the vibes are all right, I think. And I think one thing that I thought was so funny is like, The Portland Pickles, so much of their marketing is just like dick jokes. It just is. And I asked, I asked Alan Miller about this once. I said like, and then when they announced the bangers and I'm like, okay, so we're keep, we're, apparently we're staying in this lane. We are keeping it going. And I asked him once, like, do you ever get tired of dick jokes? And he said, no. It never gets old. And so here we are with the cherry bombs, just keeping the momentum and the puns going. So, yeah. I love Dylan, and I love the cherry bombs. But the bangers thing is so, like, horrifying, as Claudia mentioned, is like... Are there any regrets at corporate headquarters over that scary monster of a mascot? As far as they definitely did not tip their hand that they have any regrets. Let's do his name correctly. It's saucy the sausage, saucy tea sausage. Saucy tea sausage. Got it. The last time I talked to them about saucy, what they told me, I think they were still so ecstatic that it made. Like the late shows like it like when they debuted the mascot because it was so horrendous To so many people it made the late shows into that from a marketing's I'm not a marketer, but I think from a marketing standpoint That's still a big success to them Always take a look at the Portland Pickles promo nights if you don't already do that. I have my eye on June 20th, which is moms gone wild. They will be providing salon services for moms, and I love this detail. It is on the eve of Father's Day. It's just so good. It's just so braddy. Oh, I love it. So anyway, but look at the promo schedule. See what speaks to you. I try and get out there to a couple games every summer. We'll link to the website in our show notes for easier access. Rachel S. Thank you for coming on and going over the new team. that we have to look forward to. Before we head out, though, we do have some shoutouts. It's one of the perks of being a pay member of CityCast Portland. You have the opportunity to shout out a local business and organization that you love. Rachel M. Do you want to kick us off? Sure. I love this shoutout. It's from listener ERISA P. So Lardo on Hawthorne was giving out.

free sandwiches to Portland Public School teachers on their furlough days. So our member says, thanks Lardo for supporting our teachers and therefore our future. May many students learn from your kind gesture. And ERISA says they also hear that Grasso and Bluto's did this, but they went to Lardo. Anyway, that's that lovely shout out. Nice. Well, here's another one from Jenna A that says, hound and hair vintage in St. John's is packed full of unique and interesting treasures. Last time I was poking around inside, the owner mentioned that she needs a larger space. Please, someone help her find another spot in St. John's. I've... actually been in there and it's really awesome. It is pretty small. Shout out to Irisa and Jenna and a special thank you to Griffin G for becoming a citycast Portland neighbor this week. When you join as a Portland neighbor, we'd also be happy to share your shoutouts of places you love in Portland alongside a bunch of other perks like ad-free listening and member-only invites. You can join at membership.citycast. You guys, thank you so much. The Rachel's, everybody. Thank you so much for hanging out with me. I really appreciate it. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. Yeah, good to be here. You too. Thanks for having me.

That's all for today here on CityCast Portland. Thank you so much for listening. Our podcast production team this week was John Atariani, Julia Fia Yoni, Rachel Monaghan, Jesse Wiza, and myself. Original music by Jenny Conley and Stephen Drizzo's. Additional music by all the kimonos. Our ad music is by Zven Linville and Sarah the instrumentalist from Epidemic Sound via Getty Images. We'll be back Monday morning with more from around the city. Until then, see you at Slims or at the Cherry Bombs, because I am definitely going to go. I'm