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In a Wednesday work session of the Portland City Council’s Community and Public Safety Committee, sparks flew between councilors over a proposal by Councilor Sameer Kanal relating to the city’s proposed police accountability body.
At issue: two seemingly small tweaks to a committee (not yet seated) that will nominate members for the new police accountability body, called the Community Police Oversight Board (also not yet seated).
The new oversight board and the nominating committee are supposed to be chosen this year. The oversight board will replace the city’s existing police accountability body, and the original plan for that board—crafted by a 20-member volunteer committee over two years—was scaled back by City Council in late 2023.
At the time, Kanal was the city’s project manager leading the proposal, and was vocal about his displeasure with the council’s decision to redline the original plan.
When Kanal took office in January as one of the 12 new members of the City Council, he made it clear he was intent on strengthening police accountability. He also made that clear during his campaign, in which he often opined on what he felt was the city’s slow-walking of the new police accountability body voters approved in a 2020 ballot measure.
Kanal’s proposal now seeks to add one additional community member to the nominating committee, and to expand the definition of “bias for or against law enforcement,” which disqualifies applicants from being placed on the board and can also lead to the removal of a board member.
But Kanal’s proposal was met with opposition. Councilors Eric Zimmerman and Loretta Smith questioned the intent of Kanal’s proposed changes.
The president of the Portland Police Association, Aaron Schmautz, blasted Kanal’s proposal, saying it would set a precedent for the City Council to force rebargaining with unions after a contract is already ratified.
“For any fair-minded Portlander, and particularly for all of those who support labor and bargaining rights, to put it simply, if the city’s handshake at the bargaining table is as good as the changing whim of the next election, then no contract is safe,” Schmautz said. “This is an unlawful attempt to force the PPA and its members back to the table at the stroke of midnight. It is on its face an unfair and unjust attempt to force a presupposed outcome.”
Schmautz argued that the PPA has fought proposed disciplinary action against police only 14 times in the past 15 years under the current system, out of a total of 300 instances of proposed disciplinary action.
“This is evidence that we’re breaking a system that works,” Schmautz told the committee. “And it would appear that some would stop at nothing, including breaking faith of labor, to do so.”
J. Ashlee Albies, a civil rights lawyer, said it was the police union—not Kanal—that was engaging in “performative brinksmanship.”
“There is a difference between holding officers accountable and punishing them,” Albies said. “We’re not seeking to punish them, we’re seeking to hold them accountable.”
Councilor Eric Zimmerman said it felt as if “staff who had a biased perspective...who are upset the previous council, and their decision to make the nominating committee less biased and more nimble, to try once again to change their plan back into what the staff wanted and didn’t get their way with last year.” (Zimmerman was clearly talking about Kanal and his previous role at the city.)
“I’m still very unsure of the ‘why’ here,” Zimmerman added. “I’m wondering why language that encourages additional bias is being touted as more fair.”
Smith asked deputy city attorney Heidi Brown what would happen if the proposal were passed by the City Council. Brown explained that the union and the city would go back to the bargaining table, and if the police union were to not agree to the changes, the city would have no recourse.
“All it’s going to do is go back to the union and they’re going to say they don’t want it,” Smith said, directing her comments at Kanal. “So why are you wasting the council’s time? If it was just to have this conversation again and put people on record, that to me is not a good use of our time.”
Kanal defended his proposal, saying that Zimmerman’s comments prove “the point of why this is so necessary. Arguing in favor of police accountability does not necessitate that someone cannot serve on a group like this.”
After it was unclear whether he would get three votes or not to send the item to the full council, Kanal said he would not be seeking a vote from the committee, and instead wanted to hear more testimony. Novick, who co-chairs the committee with Kanal, agreed not to call a vote.
Novick pointed out that Kanal, if he so chooses, could send the proposal to the full City Council if he gets three other council members to sign off on it—independent of whether or not the committee votes to send it to the full body.
Zimmerman took issue with that possibility.
“I don’t understand if you want this committee structure to work, and then not think that’s where all the conversation on this should happen,” Zimmerman said to Kanal. “I find that problematic and troubling that you’ll just move it with the signatures to the full council.”
It’s not clear if Kanal will choose to send it to the full council, or if he plans to bring it up again in committee.
Kanal did not immediately respond to a request for comment.