Charter Commission wants first election under new district system in 2024.

Portland would get a new government, a bigger city council, and a new voting method for $7.9 million or less.

May 10, 2022

If voters say yes, the clock would start counting down toward a hard reset of Portland’s political system in 2024.

But the reform package isn’t final yet. The Charter Commission is still listening, says Charter Commission co-chair Melanie Billings-Yun.

On May 3rd, the Charter Commission released its fifth progress report and a draft of Portland’s proposed new city charter.

To refresh your memory, the revised charter would:

1. Switch Portland’s voting method from winner-takes-all to ranked choice voting.

2. Increase the city council from five to twelve members and divide Portland into four geographic districts that would each elect three representatives to serve alongside each other.

3. Centralize city bureaus under the mayor’s office and require a professional city administrator to help with city affairs, rendering City Council a purely legislative and policymaking body.

“This is a comprehensive package for a government that would be more representative and responsive to Portlanders,” Charter Commission co-chair Melanie Billings-Yun told Rose City Reform.

“If you look at the change of government, the move to representative districts, and the form of voting, it’s a three-legged stool. And if you pull any leg out, it's not going to work anymore.”

So how does the Charter Commission plan to pull off Portland Government 2.0?

Here’s the breakdown:

All seats would be up for election in 2024.

In November of 2024, Portlanders would kickstart the new system by electing a whole new government. All twelve city councilors, the mayor, and the auditor would be elected at once.

And yes, that means that candidates who are running for office this year, like the contenders for Portland City Auditor and two city council seats, wouldn’t serve full 4-year terms if the reform package passes.

No more primary elections.

There would be no primary election in 2024. The reform package eliminates primaries, and all elections would be held in November using ranked choice voting, which has a built-in runoff feature.

An independent districting commission would begin working in early 2023 to draw the district map in time for all candidates to meet filing deadlines for the 2024 election.

Staggered city council elections.

Portland’s nascent government would experience some initial growing pains. For instance, in the 2024 election, all seats would not be elected to full terms.

The Charter Commission wants to stagger elections so that the mayoral election coincides with two district elections during presidential election years, and the election of the auditor coincides with the remaining two district elections during midterm years.

To get the districts on this staggered schedule, only the mayor and the representatives for the first and second districts would be elected to four-year terms in 2024.

Some seats would be up for election again in 2026.

The auditor and the district representatives for the third and fourth districts would be elected to initial two-year terms in 2024, and their seats would be up for election again in the 2026 midterms. From then on, all terms would be four years.

“Having half the districts vote every two years provides a more timely and responsive temperature check on the direction the council is moving in,” Commissioner Billings-Yun said, adding that it would be disruptive for all elected officials to be campaigning at the same time.

Transition costs could approach $8 million.

The one-time transition cost for the proposed reforms is projected to be between $4.6mn and $7.9mn during the period 2022-2025.

To put the City’s projection into perspective, Mayor Wheeler’s proposed 2022-23 fiscal year budget is $6.7bn. Assuming that number remained similar over fiscal years 2022-25, $7.9mn would amount to approximately 0.04% of the total city budget over the same 3-year period.

According to Commissioner Billings-Yun, Portland would assume the bulk of the cost of implementing ranked choice voting, although the county administers and pays for city elections.

Recurring costs range from $3 million to $10 million.

What would the new system cost going forward? Recurring costs associated with the reforms are projected to be between $2.7mn and $10.2mn per year after 2025. This number would depend on council members’ staff sizes, salaries, and office configurations.

The projected recurring costs would be in addition to the current expense of maintaining city offices for elected officials. Estimates don’t take into consideration any potential savings from consolidating city bureaus.

To give you an idea of what Portlanders are paying for the mayor and the city commissioners today, the mayor’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2022-2023 requests $4.2mn for the mayor’s office and $1.5mn per city commissioner office, totaling $10.2mn.

Threshold to win a council seat would drop to 25%+1.

Portland’s four new city council districts would each elect three representatives to jointly serve their geographic district, making Portland the nation’s first large city to use a proportional representation system.

For city council elections, which would produce three winners in each district, Portland would use a form of ranked choice voting called single transferable vote.

This method would lower the threshold for getting elected to Portland City Council to 25%+1 of the district vote, and candidates would win a seat as soon as they cleared that threshold.

In the races for mayor and auditor, which both result in a single winner, candidates would still need a majority of the citywide vote to win.

The executive power duo: Mayor + City Administrator.

Perhaps the most highly anticipated reform is the one that establishes the office of the city administrator. Portlanders appear united in their conviction that the city needs a professional to manage city affairs.

The Charter Commission intends for the mayor to delegate a substantial amount of power to their professional sidekick. While the proposed charter grants the mayor “supervision over the general affairs of the city”, it puts the city administrator in charge of “administration of all city affairs” and “executing and enforcing city council legislation”.

The draft language says the mayor “exercises all executive and administrative powers over the bureaus”. But when it comes to appointing bureau heads, the mayor’s direct power would be limited.

Charter commissioners want the mayor to appoint the city attorney and the police chief, both subject to council confirmation. But the city administrator would have the authority to appoint, discipline, and remove all other bureau and department heads.

Some philosophical differences on city administrator’s role.

The city administrator’s role has sparked some debate among charter commissioners. Commissioner Candace Avalos has voiced concerns that the proposal gives too much power to an unelected individual, and she recently asked fellow commissioners to reserve the power to appoint bureau heads for the mayor instead.

“I think we lost the spirit of what we were trying to accomplish by having the city administrator […], an unelected person, on paper as the one that is responsible for those appointments,” Commissioner Avalos said.

Ms. Avalos, who also serves on the Citizen Review Committee – a police oversight advisory body – added that in her opinion, requiring city council approval for the mayor’s appointment of the police chief would contribute to politicizing the position.

Community can still weigh in.

In May, the Charter Commission will hold four hearings for the public to weigh in on the proposed reforms before the commission votes on June 14th.

Commissioner Billings-Yun said commissioners want to hear from the community:

“We want to hear what is concerning to people. Our thoughts are still open, and at this point this is not a final document.”

“We are still listening,” she said.

More from Rose City Reform:

Sol Mora: “Reform package breaks down barriers for communities of color”.

What in the world is proportional representation?

Mingus Mapps: “Charter reform is a once in a century opportunity, but the devil is in the details”.

Rose City Reform