Police, fire, parks, housing: Outer East Portland neighbors weighed in on what should survive the city’s looming budget gap. Read their message, ahead of the May 2 Budget Listening Session in Wilkes …
In the Parkrose Heights neighborhood, neighbors head into Sacramento Elementary School to attend the outer East Portland City of Portland District 1 Budget Open House.
Story and photos by David F. Ashton
Some 80 neighbors turned out at Sacramento Elementary School on April 13th to quiz City Hall on a looming budget gap – and to demand more attention for outer East Portland.
The City of Portland District 1 Budget Open House ran as a drop‑in session from 6 until 8 p.m. in the school gym. And, instead of hearing a formal program, attendees were asked to move between topic “stations” and write sticky notes and words to post on display boards – and to use QR codes to submit comments – all of which created real-time “word clouds” that were projected on screens.
More and more neighbors arrive as this open house gets underway.
City staff and elected officials circulated, asking people to rank services and describe what was working – and what was not – in District 1.
Chief Financial Officer Jonas Biery characterized the evening as a way to put numbers and charts into “plain language” – and then to invite pushback.
City CFO Jonas Biery explains how public feedback is shaping the Mayor’s proposed budget.
“We’re here to kind of share information about what’s in the budget, sort of how the city is organized, and how our operations are aligned,” Biery told East Portland News.
“We know we’re going to be facing a really difficult budget cycle here, and so this is an opportunity to have some direct interaction with folks in the community, to hear feedback about where their priorities lie…and to help us get the best collaborative effort forward as we make some of these tough decisions coming up in April and May,” Biery pointed out.
Biery mentioned that the Mayor’s proposed budget was scheduled for release on April 20 – which it was – with the City Council given about six weeks to make changes before adoption.
Mayor points to progress, then a “stark” gap
Mayor Keith Wilson described the District 1 open house as the last – and “best” – of his four budget listening sessions across Portland. He opened by pointing to what he viewed as signs of recovery downtown – from central city celebrations to the cherry‑blossom crowds along the waterfront – before turning his attention to outer East Portland streets.
Outlining the city’s budget gap, Mayor Keith Wilson asks residents to stay engaged in the process.
Wilson argued that recent shelter and cleanup efforts had changed what residents now saw driving through the district, asserting that “encampments are far lower than they ever were – the fewest amount in a decade.”
The Mayor then laid out the numbers at the heart of the city’s budget problem.
“For us to do our expenses, as is, right now…would take a little north of $900 million to deliver the services that we have right now,” Wilson stated. “The revenues in our general fund to cover that are at 740 million. So you see, there’s a huge gulf between the two.”
Wilson indicated his proposed budget was “pretty much baked,” but argued that District 1 councilors would still be responsible for pushing changes based on what they heard in the room.
Councilors urged residents to describe daily realities
Urging outer East Portland residents to speak up for their fair share of city investment is Councilor Candace Avalos.
District 1 Councilor Candace Avalos stressed that she did not expect residents to arrive with line‑item solutions. “What we expect is you to just tell us your experience, and that’s our job – to take your experiences, what you’re seeing every day, and turning it into policy.”
Avalos argued that East Portlanders often felt shortchanged on basic investments, despite paying the same taxes as the rest of the city.
“It feels unfair for East Portlanders to be paying our taxes, putting in our dues, and not getting in return the investments that we deserve,” she continued. She added that survey responses showed residents valued “their community, their neighbors, each other” – resilience that she contended is too often taken for granted.
Neighbors need to tell him which services District 1 “cannot live without” in the coming cuts, Council President Jamie Dunphy says.
Portland City Council Chair Councilor Jamie Dunphy said he had “the honor of serving as a District One councilor” in addition to being Council President.
Dunphy warned attendees that the choices facing the Mayor and Council are “bad”, and he said that looming cuts would almost certainly fall on police, fire, homeless services, and parks, not on utilities like water, environmental services, or transportation.
He urged outer East Portland residents to tell him “the hill I need to die on” in the budget talks — “the thing that I absolutely will not let be cut” — and added that he wanted District 1 to get “not our fair share, but… half,” even joking that if people wanted him “to close all the community centers on the west side,” he would be “happy to take care of that.”
Councilor Loretta Smith calls for input on how to balance public safety, parks, and housing in a tight budget year.
Councilor Loretta Smith reported that she had already received letters urging the council not to cut public safety or parks – and to keep enforcing rules against camping on sidewalks.
“The Mayor said there’s going to be $169 million that he has to cut. There’s a gap,” Smith said. “Some of you have already written me letters saying, ‘Don’t cut public safety. Make sure our parks are held harmless. Make sure that we also do take away the unsanctioned camping on our sidewalks.’ Well, those are the things that I care about, too. But…tell me what to cut.”
Smith also pressed for a broader housing and economic mix.
“We need to have middle housing in District One. Can’t have all affordable housing,” she argued. “We need people who can actually go to those storefronts and buy stuff, move stuff around.”
Neighbors raise issues of jobs, safety, and street design
Residents who stopped to talk raised familiar East Portland concerns: Jobs, public safety, and transportation.
Questioning the cost and effectiveness of reducing four-lane streets to two is Argay Terrace neighbor Russ Palmer.
Argay Terrace resident Russ Palmer, who reported living in the neighborhood for 58 years, viewed the open house as “a chance for us to…give an opinion” on what the Mayor wanted to do with the budget.
Palmer focused on “road diet” projects that narrowed four‑lane streets to two.
“In some cases it works. A lot of cases, it doesn’t,” Palmer commented. “They’re taking four lanes, making it two lanes for motorized vehicles, and they’re just doubling the amount of maintenance that has to be done on the remaining two lanes.”
Resident of the Lents neighborhood, Robert Schultz, presses the city to prioritize jobs, law enforcement, and traffic safety as he takes a “QR Code” survey.
Robert Schultz, a Lents neighborhood resident and single father, questioned whether some councilors were ready to make hard trade‑offs.
“I don’t believe that some of these Counselors are qualified to deal with budgets when they think it’s acceptable to spend money on things like a Vienna trip, and their justification is, ‘Well, it’s in our budget. We’ll just spend the money’,” Schultz argued. “It’s tone deaf…it lacks respect for our tax dollars, and our people here in this city.”
Schultz listed his own top priorities: “Business, business, business – if we don’t have jobs, what do we have?” Schultz emphasized. “Jobs, number one. Law enforcement, number two…Traffic safety in that law thing – it’s dangerous to drive on our streets.”
As the two‑hour session wound down, residents were still clustered around maps, charts, and QR‑code signs. Biery and Wilson both underscored that District 1 comments would be bundled with feedback from the other sessions and carried into council budget deliberations in the weeks ahead.
By the way, the City of Portland District 1 Budget ‘Listening Session for the 2026-27 fiscal year is on Saturday, May 2, from 10 a.m. to noon. It’s at the Linfield University Portland Campus Auditorium, at 2900 NE 132nd Avenue (formerly Western States Chiropractic College campus) in the Wilkes neighborhood.
© 2026 David F. Ashton ~ East Portland News™
