Teachers’ Union President Rebukes City Councilor for His Police Budget Advocacy

Angela Bonilla, president of the Portland Association of Teachers, wrote a lengthy email to City Councilor Dan Ryan on May 24, rebuking him for a newsletter his office sent out the day before. In that newsletter, Ryan chastened his council colleagues for passing a budget amendment that reroutes $2 million of new police funding to backfill cuts to outdoor parks maintenance.

Ryan wrote in his newsletter that the police vote “undermines public safety progress and ignores what most working families, small businesses, and seniors want: a safer, more livable city.”

In her email, Bonilla wrote that it was “disrespectful” of Ryan to write in his newsletter that council members who voted in favor of the diversion of new police funds to the parks bureau were serving “national narratives and political agendas that don’t reflect the reality on our streets.”

Bonilla said that was a warped portrayal of what happened in the May 21 vote.

“If a majority of Portlanders agreed with you, you would have had a majority of the votes on the council to push your position. This is NOT a reflection of national narratives or political agendas that don’t ‘reflect the reality on our streets,’” Bonilla wrote, “but a reflection of my fellow Portlanders realizing that funding to do more of the same work will never provide a different outcome.”

Bonilla’s email is remarkable for a number of reasons, including how infrequent it is for a teachers’ union president to wade into a city budget dispute that only indirectly touches schools.

But Bonilla is coming off of a major show of strength last week after three of the PAT-endorsed candidates won seats on the Portland Public Schools Board. With those victories, the new composition of that elected board weighs heavily in favor of the teachers’ union.

And this isn’t the first time that Bonilla, a longtime educator before becoming union president in 2022, has taken a position on policing in the city. Bonilla earlier this spring sent a strongly worded letter to the Northwest Oregon Labor Council rebuking its move to admit the Portland Police Association into its membership. (The labor council later backtracked, and will take a vote of the full membership later this year whether to admit the police union.)

Another reason Bonilla’s email was unusual: She explicitly made race front and center in a debate where it had previously been subtext.

She noted that a majority of the councilors who voted for the amendment to reroute $2 million in new Police Bureau funding to parks were councilors of color.

“To pretend that they are not speaking for constituents like me is to ignore the important impact that race has on our everyday lived experience as Black and Brown Portlanders,” Bonilla wrote. “We deserve a budget that takes care of us, too.”

Bonilla took on the tone of a disappointed parent in the last paragraph of her email, prodding Ryan to apologize for his newsletter.

“I share with my students and members that when I make a mistake or create harm publicly, my responsibility is to repair that harm publicly, as people learn about what is acceptable by which behaviors we interrupt and which we allow to continue,” Bonilla wrote. “My hope for you, Councilor Ryan, is that if you chose to apologize for the rhetoric in this email to your colleagues, that you make that apology public.”

Ryan responded to Bonilla on May 28 in an email of rival length.

Ryan wrote that he stood by his newsletter’s statements, and wrote that he is “deeply troubled...about the [education] outcomes under your watch.” Among the recent district outcomes of concern Ryan noted were declining enrollment and declining rates of post-secondary readiness.

Ryan also noted a particular decline in post-secondary readiness among Black and Brown students.

“What is the plan to stop the dramatic decline in enrollment?” Ryan asked Bonilla. “How will PAT lead an effort to attract families to our schools?”

“I stand by my intention to influence the budget for 2025-2026 to keep my hometown moving out of the lingering despair that is undercutting our revenue,” Ryan wrote. “Now more than ever, we must focus on funding the basic services that the public expects, particularly public safety.”

Ryan, in so many words, told Bonilla to stay in her lane—let the city do its work around its budget while the teachers’ union focuses on education.

“I was surprised to hear from you this weekend for two reasons: first, your policy inquiry is not particularly related to PPS or education, and secondly, I realized that you have been PAT president for three years and I would have welcomed prior opportunities for partnership and collaboration,” Ryan wrote, “rather than this introductory exchange which was initiated by criticism.”

Bonilla copied the three councilors from District 3 on the email. It does not appear that any weighed in.

Correction: A previous version of this story stated that Bonilla copied all of Ryan’s 11 council colleagues on the email. That’s incorrect. In fact, she copied the three District 3 councilors. WW regrets the error.