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Measure 26-267
Establishes participatory budgeting
No
The only measure on Portland ballots this November promises to give residents a greater voice in how the city spends its $803 million general fund budget. It would do it via a mechanism called “participatory budgeting,” by which Portlanders would suggest ideas for how to spend an amount equivalent to 2% of the city’s general fund (roughly $16 million annually) and then vote on which proposals to implement each year.
The backers of the measure, largely aligned with the left flank of the Portland City Council, promise that the program would wrest a sliver of the budget away from fat cats and their lobbyists and place it instead in the hands of frustrated working stiffs. We have our doubts this would actually happen.
This isn’t mere cynicism, though some might be warranted given the meager results of many experiments Portland’s reformers have floated over the past decade. Instead, our concern is that a plain reading of the measure’s language offers little clarity how the program would work in practice.
Key details are not mandated in the measure. From what we can glean, a steering committee of Portlanders appointed by the City Council would oversee the process. Portland residents (the measure doesn’t say who qualifies, including what the age cutoff would be, or if there would be one) would submit project and funding ideas via a process, also unknown. “Budget delegates” (we don’t know how they would be chosen or what the qualifications would be) would then work with city staff to vet submitted ideas and turn them into concrete proposals, then narrow down the pool of projects to a yet unspecified number to place before voters. Who could vote, and how voting would occur, is also not specified by the measure.
That’s a lot of TBDs in one measure. But even by the most charitable reading, the measure creates at least two layers of unelected political appointees overseeing $16 million. That doesn’t look like more democracy to us; it instead runs the risk that committee members and budget delegates could be candidates for political office or activists already hyperinvolved in local politics, not actual everyday Portlanders.
We elect our mayor and City Council to represent our desires and make budget decisions. Their primary job is to decide how our money is spent. If our councilors and mayor aren’t listening to their constituents, we’ve got a much more fundamental problem—we’ve placed the wrong people in office.
Aside from a process that’s incredibly unclear and offers more opportunities for error than an Oregon Ducks football game, the measure carves out precious discretionary dollars for pilot projects at a time when the city can barely fund basic services like parks, trash pickup and firefighters.
And though the campaign backing the measure argues that the money could come from sources other than the general fund, like the Portland Clean Energy Fund, the risk of adding even a few bucks—let alone $16 million—to an existing budget deficit of more than $100 million seems a foolhardy idea.
And lastly: With so few parameters around what could or would constitute a viable project, the measure could very well set up 10 new programs each year and then refuse to fund them on an ongoing basis, thereby passing on lingering operational and maintenance costs to a city that can’t even take care of its existing assets.
This is a poorly written measure. Vote no.
See the rest of Willamette Week’s Fall 2026 Endorsements here!
