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The Portland City Council passed an ordinance Wednesday that will tap underspent budgets to preserve 30 jobs across the city and reverse some of the planned cuts in the fire and police bureaus.
While the ordinance passed by a 10-2 vote, it came at the expense of a rival proposal. One proposal was backed by the council’s centrists, the other by its progressives. The centrist caucus won out, but only after Mayor Keith Wilson, for the first time in more than 18 months in office, wielded his tiebreaking powers to kill the progressive caucus’s ordinance.
Wilson’s one-word tiebreaking vote came after more than five weeks of tense debate over the two competing ordinances that would save jobs and reverse some of the public safety cuts baked into the recently passed 2026–27 budget.
The progressive ordinance—which would have saved 55 jobs and undone some cuts in the parks, police and fire bureaus at an $18 million price tag—failed after Wilson cast a tiebreaking vote against it when it hit a 6-6 deadlock.
The ordinance that did eventually pass is a $10 million package that taps general fund contingency dollars to preserve 30 jobs and overturn some planned cuts across the public safety bureaus. At issue for the progressive caucus, or Peacock, was the funding mechanism: The general fund contingency will be replenished using unspent money from bureaus and offices across the city, with the largest source of unspent funds likely to come from the city’s new Office of Community-Based Police Accountability. That’s the office that supports the work of the charter-mandated Community Board for Police Accountability, which once fully staffed will hear cases of police misconduct and set disciplinary measures.
Peacock councilors argued the centrists’ plan would place pressure on OCPA to underspend its $16 million budget and would betray the 82% of voters who created the board by approving a 2020 ballot measure.
After the Peacock ordinance failed and before the centrist ordinance passed, councilors traded accusations and searing words across the dais.
Councilor Mitch Green called it a “huge slap in the face to Portlanders.”
Councilor Angelita Morillo called the package “fiscally irresponsible” and said it was a shame that the “daddy of the city”—referring to Wilson—had to make the final decision because the council couldn’t reach a compromise. (To that, Councilor Loretta Smith replied: “Who are you calling daddy?” Morillo responded: “He’s your daddy, not mine.” And Smith replied: “I have a daddy.”)
“I hope that, Administration, you are listening to us loud and clear that we will come for you if you touch the OCPA,” Morillo said. “Should this pass, we are going to defend it the way Portlanders expect us to.”
Peacock councilors chastised the centrists for rejecting the Peacock ordinance, which they cast as a compromise package. “I never want to hear who is unable to move or compromise ever again,” Morillo said.
Still, despite the barbs about the ordinance being a betrayal of Portland voters and fiscally irresponsible, most of the Peacocks voted for the centrists’ job-saving ordinance, saying it was better than nothing.
The ordinance passed by a 10-2 vote. Councilors Candace Avalos and Tiffany Koyama Lane cast the two “no” votes.
