THE EXPERIENCE WE NEED

For

THE PROGRESS WE WANT

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Lets Get Steve Re-Elected!

In a brand-new City Council, where the emphasis has sometimes been on rhetoric, Steve Novick has focused on delivering tangible results for District 3 and for all of Portland. He’s worked to reduce gun violence. He’s fighting to ensure that Portland Clean Energy Fund money isn’t diverted to unrelated uses. And he’s responded to constituents’ concerns – from complaints about individual abandoned cars to reports of the gauntlet of sex trafficking that students have to walk through to get to McDaniel High School, in the northeast part of the district.

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Here’s Steve’s report on some of the things he’s been working on:

I successfully pushed the Police Bureau to increase training on and usage of the “red flag law” to take guns out of the hands of people who are a danger to themselves and others.

As some of you may recall, back in 2024 my good friend Katie Pool, who follows gun issues closely, showed me a survey by the Secretary of State that demonstrated that Portland lagged many other jurisdictions in the state in its use of the "red flag law," which provides for a civil (not criminal) process to take guns out of the hands of people who are a danger to themselves and / or others. After doing some reconnoitering, I concluded that a major likely reason for that is that the Portland Police Bureau never prioritized training officers on the existence and use of the law, which was passed in Oregon in 2017. The PPB Behavioral Health Unit is trained in the law, and actually files the paperwork to initiate what are called "Extreme Risk Protective Orders," or ERPOs - but they are largely dependent on patrol officers to identify and inform them of situations where ERPOs might be appropriate.
In the fall, I arranged for a Community and Public Safety Committee hearing where representatives of Everytown for Gun Safety explained that many jurisdiction around the country - including in red states like Florida and Indiana -- use the law far, far more often than Portland does, generally as a result of very intentional training for police and education of the general public. They also presented evidence on the effectiveness od the law, especially in reducing suicides. In addition, Jake Chandler, who as a Bend police officer made Bend an Oregon leader in the use of the law, presented on his experience.
PPB leadership pledged to take some action. And now, stuff is happening! Recently Sergeant Josh Silverman of the Behavioral Health Unit sent me this update:
BHU officers and I are starting next month to teach a one-hour, in-person ERPO class at in-service to every sworn member of the bureau. It will take until December to get everyone trained up, as we’re running about one session a week for groups of 20–40 officers.
This is huge. Previously, in May, the Bureau had authorized Sgt. Silverman to distribute a 10-minute training video on the topic -- but there are light-years' worth of distance between that and an hour-long, in-person class.
I can't be sure how much of a difference my efforts made - Josh is a pretty persuasive guy, and could have made this happen on his own. But I'm glad I was able to be supportive. And I'm so grateful to Katie for alerting me to this issue.

I am leading the fight against using Portland Clean Energy Fund money to renovate the Moda Center – because the money is supposed to be used to fight climate change, and besides, the Blazers’ billionaire owners should chip in.

As you know, I am passionate about making sure that we use the Clean Energy Fund as effectively as possible to reduce emissions and help low income people and people of color deal with issues related to climate change. In my view, we should invest far more in transportation than the 16% of the Fund that is currently used for transportation projects – because transportation is the largest source of carbon emissions, and a huge expense for low income people. Although the Clean Energy Fund’s Climate Investment Plan has already allocated virtually all the money from the Fund through 2028, I am working to lay the groundwork for major investments in transportation in the next CIP.
But the Moda Center proposal would pull money out of the existing CIP (the Mayor’s office hasn’t said which projects the money would come from) to spend on something that has at best a very vague connection to our climate goals. I have been the Council’s loudest voice against this proposal. And, of course, I have taken advantage of the media attention to this fight to highlight my support for more PCEF money for transportation.
See Article

I passed an amendment to the “nuisance property” law to make it easier for the city to force property owners whose properties are being used as a base for illegal activity - such as sex trafficking or drug dealing - to take steps to help put an end to those activities. This proposal was partly driven by hearing from people in the area around McDaniel High School, where students walk to school through a gauntlet of sex trafficking – which is sometimes facilitated by hotel owners who turn a blind eye to the use of their property for sex trafficking.

Under the chronic nuisance law, the police contact the owners of private properties and call on them to take measures – such as improved lighting, installing security cameras, employee training, etc. – to abate the nuisance crimes.
Right now, to use the law, the police have to document three instances of crime at the property in 30 days. With our police force stretched thin, a heck of a lot of bad things can be happening at a property without the police actually documenting 3 instances in 30 days. My proposal would lower the threshold to 3 instances in 90 days.
This proposal was passed in the public safety committee, and will be before the full council in the next few weeks. We had particularly powerful testimony from survivors of human trafficking who said that when they were being trafficked and abused in hotels, the hotel owners must have known, but turned a blind eye.

I worked to establish a city data office to set policy for all the bureaus on data gathering, maintenance, retention and protection, to help keep Portlanders’ personal data from falling into the wrong hands – whether the hands of ICE or of private companies using the data for private gain.

This is a proposal that came up through the grass roots of city employees who work with data, who said that leaving it up to each bureau to figure out how to deal with such data was problematic in a variety of ways. One thing the data office would do is work with bureaus to ensure that contracts with outside vendors who have access to Portlanders’ personal data have strong provisions to prevent that data from being misused – sold to ICE, or used otherwise for private profit. Councilor Morillo and I co-sponsored this proposal, which the Council passed. The administration is working on the details of how the office will be staffed and set up.