Portland City Council (Oregon)

Portland City Council
Portland City Council
Type
Type	Unicameral
Leadership
Mayor	Ted Wheeler
President of the Council	Dan Ryan
Structure
Seats	5
Political groups	Democratic (5) ; (Officially nonpartisan)
Elections
Voting system	At-large (until November 8, 2022); Single transferable vote (current)
Last election	November 5, 2024
Meeting place
	Council Chamber, Portland City Hall; 1221 SW 4th Ave; Portland, Oregon 97204

The Portland City Council, (officially the Portland City Commission), is the legislative body of the City of Portland in Oregon and forms part of the Government of the city.

Portland runs on a commission form of government, the largest city in the United States to do so. The council is composed of five members, referred to as Commissioners, which includes the Mayor, each elected at-large for a term of four years. One of the Commissioners elected to be the ceremonial President of the Council. There are no term-limits for Commissioners and Commissioners are all officially nonpartisan.^[1]

Commissioners are each assigned to run and oversee various city Bureaus (eg. Police, Fire, Environmental Services, Water). These assignments are occasionally switched around with the exception of the Police Bureau of which the Mayor is always Commissioner based on tradition.

The City Council convenes on Wednesday mornings and Wednesday afternoons in the council chamber on the second floor of Portland City Hall, and meetings are open to the public.^[2]

In 2022, Portland voters passed Measure 26-228, which changed the structure of the city council from a commission form of government to a mayor-council form of government. The measure also expanded the council from 5 to 12 members, established 4 new geographic electoral districts, and changed the voting system from first-past-the-post to ranked voting and , with the mayoral race using single-winner ranked-choice voting (Instant-runoff voting) and the council races using multi-winner ranked-choice voting (single transferable vote) to elect 3 council members per district. This new system was first used in the 2024 city election.

Current members

Position	Name	Elected
Mayor	Ted Wheeler	2016
1	Carmen Rubio	2020
2 (President of the Council)	Dan Ryan	2020
3	Rene Gonzalez	2022
4	Mingus Mapps	2020

Members-elect

District	Name	Elected
1	Candace Avalos	2024
	Loretta Smith	2024
	Jamie Dunphy	2024
2	Dan Ryan	2020
	Elana Pirtle-Guiney	2024
	Sameer Kanal	2024
3	Steve Novick	2024
	Tiffany Koyama Lane	2024
	Angelita Morillo	2024
4	Olivia Clark	2024
	Mitch Green	2024
	Eric Zimmerman	2024

Districts

Beginning in 2024, the council will be districted as follows:^[3]

District	Geography and neighborhoods
1	The eastern part of the city, primarily everything east of Interstate 205 all the way to the city's eastern border with Gresham, as well as Portland International Airport: Argay, Centennial, Glenfair, Hazelwood, Lents, Mill Park, Parkrose, Parkrose Heights, Pleasant Valley, Powellhurst-Gilbert, Russell, Sumner, Wilkes, and Woodland Park.
2	Most of North and Northeast Portland north of Interstate 84 and west of 82nd Avenue: Alameda, Arbor Lodge, Beaumont-Wilshire, Boise, Bridgeton, Cathedral Park, Concordia, Cully, Dignity Village, East Columbia, Eliot, Grant Park, Hayden Island, Hollywood, Humboldt, Irvington, Kenton, King, Lloyd District, Madison South, Overlook, Piedmont, Portsmouth, Sabin, St. Johns, Sullivan's Gulch, Sumner, Sunderland, University Park, Vernon, and Woodlawn.
3	Most of Southeast Portland south of Interstate 84 and west of Interstate 205, as well as a small sliver of Northeast Portland east of 47th Avenue and south of Prescott Avenue: Brentwood-Darlington, Brooklyn, Buckman, Creston-Kenilworth, Foster-Powell, Hosford-Abernethy (includes Ladd's Addition), Kerns, Laurelhurst, Madison South, Montavilla, Mt. Scott-Arleta, Mt. Tabor, North Tabor, Richmond, Rose City Park, Roseway, South Tabor, Sunnyside, and Woodstock.
4	All of Portland west of the Willamette River (Northwest, Southwest, and South sextants) as well as a small area on the eastside: Arlington Heights, Arnold Creek, Ashcreek, Bridlemile (includes Glencullen), Collins View, Crestwood, Downtown, Eastmoreland, Far Southwest, Forest Park, Goose Hollow, Hayhurst (includes Vermont Hills), Hillsdale, Hillside, Homestead, Linnton, Maplewood, Markham, Marshall Park, Multnomah (includes Multnomah Village), Northwest District (includes Uptown, Nob Hill, Alphabet Historic District), Northwest Heights, Northwest Industrial, Old Town Chinatown, Pearl District, Reed, Sellwood-Moreland, South Burlingame, South Portland (includes Corbett, Fulton, Lair Hill, Terwilliger, and the Johns Landing and South Waterfront developments), Southwest Hills, Sylvan-Highlands, and West Portland Park (includes Capitol Hill).

Past councils

1913-1971^[4]

Year	Mayor	Commissioner #1	Commissioner #2	Commissioner #3	Commissioner #4
1913	H. Russel Albee	Will H. Daly	Robert Dieck	Wm. L. Brewster	C. A. Bigelow¹
1914				Wm. L. Brewster
1915				George L. Baker
1916				George L. Baker
1917	George L. Baker	A. L. Barbur	John M. Mann²	Dan Kellaher³
1918				Dan Kellaher³
1919				S. C. Pier
1920
1921
1922
1923				Stanhope S. Pier
1924
1925
1926
1927
1928
1929
1930					Earl Riley³
1931				Earl Riley	Ralph C. Clyde
1932			A. G. Johnson³	Earl Riley	Ralph C. Clyde
1933	Joseph K. Carson, Jr.	Earl Riley	Ralph C. Clyde†	Ormond R. Bean¹	J. E. Bennett²
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
1939				Wm. A. Bowes³
1940
1941	Earl Riley	Fred L. Peterson			Kenneth L. Cooper³
1942
1943			Dorothy McCullough Lee³
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949	Dorothy McCullough Lee		Ormond R. Bean
1950
1951					J. E. Bennet
1952		Nathan A. Boody³			J. E. Bennet
1953	Fred L. Peterson				Stanley Earl
1954
1955
1956
1957	Terry Schrunk
1958
1959		Mark A. Grayson
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967		Stanley Earl†	Mark A. Grayson	Frank Ivancie	Wm. A. Bowes†
1968					Wm. A. Bowes†
1969					Lloyd Anderson³
1970		Connie McCready³			Lloyd Anderson³

1971-present

Year	Mayor	Commissioner #1	Commissioner #2	Commissioner #3	Commissioner #4
1971	Terry Schrunk	Connie McCready**	Neil Goldschmidt*	Frank Ivancie*	Lloyd Anderson¹
1972	Terry Schrunk		Neil Goldschmidt*
1973	Neil Goldschmidt¹		Mildred Schwab
1974					Charles Jordan¹³
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979	Connie McCready	Mike Lindberg
1980	Connie McCready
1981	Frank Ivancie			Margaret Strachan
1982
1983
1984
1985	Bud Clark				Dick Bogle
1986
1987			Earl Blumenauer¹	Bob Koch
1988
1989
1990
1991				Gretchen Kafoury
1992
1993	Vera Katz				Charlie Hales¹
1994
1995
1996			Erik Sten¹
1997		Jim Francesconi
1998
1999				Dan Saltzman
2000
2001
2002
2003					Randy Leonard
2004
2005	Tom Potter	Sam Adams
2006
2007
2008			Nick Fish
2009	Sam Adams	Amanda Fritz
2010
2011
2012
2013	Charlie Hales				Steve Novick
2014
2015
2016
2017	Ted Wheeler				Chloe Eudaly
2018
2019				Jo Ann Hardesty
2020			Dan Ryan
2021		Carmen Rubio			Mingus Mapps
2022
2023				Rene Gonzalez

¹: resigned
²: recalled
³: council member was originally appointed
†: died in office
*: elected mayor during council term
**: appointed mayor during council term

History

The Portland Charter was the subject of much debate circa 1911–1912. Rival charters were drafted by four different groups. One of these proposed charters was unusual in that it would have used Bucklin voting to elect the mayor and implemented interactive representation of the people through the commissioner system; each commissioner's vote would have been weighted according to the number of votes he received in the election. eventually, the city council submitted an entirely different charter to the people, which was accepted.^[5] The city commission government form then came into use in 1913, with H. Russell Albee being the first mayor under the new system.^[6]

2022 Charter Reform

Ballot Measure 26-228 in the November 2022 election was an amendment to the city charter that moved the city away from a commission system of government. It removes the five-person board that includes the mayor to a twelve-person board plus a separate mayor. The new city councilors will be elected using proportional multi-winner ranked-choice voting, with three members being elected each from four districts, instead of the standard first-past-the-post method. It also removes responsibility for direct management of city bureaus from commissioners to a city manager overseen by the mayor and confirmed by the council.^[7] Previous attempts to reform the city charter had been defeated seven times since 1913,^[8] including as recently as 2007. Portland is set to become the most-populated city to adopt the single transferable vote to elect city council members.

The first city council elections under the new districts will occur in 2024.^[9] In preparation for transitioning management of city bureaus to a city manager, Mayor Ted Wheeler announced he would group city bureaus into five related service areas.^[10]

References

^ "City Government | Portland.gov". www.portland.gov. Retrieved 2023-08-15.
^ "Upcoming Council Meetings and Work Sessions | Portland.gov". www.portland.gov. 2023-08-15. Retrieved 2023-08-15.
^ "Commission unanimously votes for new Portland voting district map". KOIN.com. 2023-08-17. Retrieved 2023-08-21.
^ "Directory of Current and Past Elected Officials". Archived from the original on 25 December 2015.
^ McBain, Howard Lee. The Law and the Practice of Municipal Home Rule. pp. 598–599.
^ MacColl, E. Kimbark (1976). "Chapter 14 – The Fruits of Progressivism, 1913–1915". The Shaping of a City: Business and Politics in Portland, Oregon, 1885 to 1915. Portland, Oregon: The Georgian Press Company. pp. 443–445. ISBN 0-89174-043-0.
^ "Phase I: Proposed Ballot Measure Regarding the Structure of City Government | Portland.gov". www.portland.gov. Retrieved 2022-11-09.
^ "Ambitious Charter Reform Measure Appears Poised for Victory, Fundamentally Changing Portland City Hall". Willamette Week. 9 November 2022. Retrieved 2022-11-09.
^ "Massive change coming to Portland city government". opb. Retrieved 2022-11-14.
^ "Mayor Ted Wheeler Will Cluster and Reshuffle City Bureaus Come January in Effort to Ease Charter Transition". Willamette Week. 10 November 2022. Retrieved 2022-11-14.

[1] "City Government | Portland.gov". www.portland.gov. Retrieved 2023-08-15.

[2] "Upcoming Council Meetings and Work Sessions | Portland.gov". www.portland.gov. 2023-08-15. Retrieved 2023-08-15.

[:12-3] "Commission unanimously votes for new Portland voting district map". KOIN.com. 2023-08-17. Retrieved 2023-08-21.

[4] "Directory of Current and Past Elected Officials". Archived from the original on 25 December 2015.

[5] McBain, Howard Lee. The Law and the Practice of Municipal Home Rule. pp. 598–599.

[maccoll-shaping-443-6] MacColl, E. Kimbark (1976). "Chapter 14 – The Fruits of Progressivism, 1913–1915". The Shaping of a City: Business and Politics in Portland, Oregon, 1885 to 1915. Portland, Oregon: The Georgian Press Company. pp. 443–445. ISBN 0-89174-043-0.

[7] "Phase I: Proposed Ballot Measure Regarding the Structure of City Government | Portland.gov". www.portland.gov. Retrieved 2022-11-09.

[8] "Ambitious Charter Reform Measure Appears Poised for Victory, Fundamentally Changing Portland City Hall". Willamette Week. 9 November 2022. Retrieved 2022-11-09.

[9] "Massive change coming to Portland city government". opb. Retrieved 2022-11-14.

[10] "Mayor Ted Wheeler Will Cluster and Reshuffle City Bureaus Come January in Effort to Ease Charter Transition". Willamette Week. 10 November 2022. Retrieved 2022-11-14.

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