The City Council was preparing for a complicated few hours of discussion as they once again considered an order establishing a municipal ethics commission on Monday night.

Mayor Mark Dion took a deep breath and addressed the council at around 6 p.m.

“It’s going to be unwieldy, and that’s the most polite term I can come up with this evening,” he said before leading the council through discussions and facilitating votes on 13 proposed amendments from four councilors.

After two hours of discussion, the council voted 8-1 to create the commission with only councilor Kate Sykes voting in opposition.

The ethics commission is intended to oversee the most powerful officials in Portland. Ever since voters approved the creation of the commission more than two years ago as a part of an overhaul of the city charter, the council has been working to establish it. In the intervening years there have been multiple workshops, more than two dozen proposed amendments and several opportunities for public comment.

The commission is charged with establishing a code of ethics for elected and appointed officials, reviewing the ethics code every three years, rendering written decisions over alleged violations of the code of ethics and issuing advisory opinions on questions pertaining to the city charter, code of ethics and council rules.

In its final version approved Monday night, the commission will oversee city councilors, the mayor and anyone elected or appointed to city boards and committees like the planning board and the public art committee.

PROPOSED AMENDMENTS 

By 7:30 p.m. the council had approved an amendment that would remove the school department from purview by the ethics commission and shot down an amendment that would have specifically subjected the city manager, city clerk and corporation council to ethics commission oversight.

The amendment to remove the school department from oversight by the commission was brought forth by Councilor Ben Grant.

“In my view the school department has an ethics code, it has a process for evaluating its own ethical considerations,” said Grant when presenting his amendment. “Having been on the board I am confident that its process is one that works for the citizens.”

The amendment ultimately passed in a 8-1 vote with only councilor, Sarah Michniewicz, voting against it.

“Having a uniform set of ethical standards creates a sense of transparency and unity that is healthy for the city. School board members are no more immune to ethics oversight than any other elected official,” said Michniewicz during discussions.

The amendment to make the City Council’s direct reports, the city manager, city clerk and corporation council subject to commission oversight, was brought forth by Councilors Sykes and Regina Phillips.

Phillips, who was a city employee for more than a decade before serving on the council, said that this amendment was important to her because when she worked for the city she saw unethical behavior from senior employees and felt there was nowhere to report that behavior.

“There were things that happened in the city that I believe was a toxic environment and nobody was held accountable for that,” she said. “I do believe there are employees out there who had a similar experience as mine and would like some accountability.”

Sykes said that the amendment carried out the will of the voters, arguing that the charter commission intended to hold the most powerful people in the city accountable when they voted to establish an ethics commission, and that includes those three positions.

“I am here to be a proponent of democracy and what it is that the people voted on … we should just follow the course that’s in front of us whether or not we think it’s going to cause problems or be complicated is completely irrelevant,” she said.

However, other councilors were concerned that the change could subject those officials to harassment or unfounded ethics complaints. Several argued that the existing accountability structure in which those employees are overseen by the City Council is sufficient.

“I think there are sufficient guardrails in place. We are the employers. I am not going to dislocate that responsibility to a third party,” said Dion.

The amendment ultimately failed in a 6-3 vote with Councilors Sykes, Phillips and Wes Pelletier voting for it.

Other amendments that passed included a requirement that anyone serving on the commission has lived in Portland for at least three years and a requirement that ethics commission opinions pass by supermajority.

The City Council has held several workshops on the creation of an ethics commission and was finally set to vote to establish one in November. But the council delayed the vote and sent it back to committee for more discussion after Councilor Kate Sykes raised concerns that the ordinance drafted by the city was not what voters intended when they approved the referendum calling for an ethics panel in 2022.

The city’s charter commission, a mix of 12 members who were elected and appointed, spent two years reviewing the city’s laws and came up with eight recommendations. One of them was to establish what was described in the commission’s final report as an “independent body” comprised of seven appointees chosen by the City Council.

The next step will be for the council to appoint members of the ethics commission.