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Governance committee discusses public tracker and referral list; pilots for committee pages proposed
Summary
Committee members weighed a proposal for a council-side tracker to show upcoming or in‑progress proposals, debating how much detail to publish, whether draft ideas would create confusion or benefit public input, and a plan to pilot committee-specific pages.
Portland’s governance committee discussed June 9 a proposal to create a council-side tracker — a spreadsheet or web page — that would surface upcoming proposals, referrals and items in various stages of readiness so council colleagues and the public could see what is coming.
The council president and several members said they already see an internal spreadsheet the administration uses and would prefer that council-controlled items be filed promptly so they appear on a public referral list. “If you know it is coming and you know what it is going to look like, file it,” the council president said, urging sponsors to file language when available so the public can weigh in earlier.
Other members cautioned about publishing tentative or very early ideas. One councilor said they personally maintain many early concepts and feared uploading dozens of undeveloped proposals would overwhelm the tracker and create public confusion. The committee debated what threshold of completeness an idea should reach before appearing on a public tracker, and whether an internal collaboration tool — visible only to council offices and staff — would be useful alongside a public referral list for items that are ready for filing.
Several councilors suggested piloting a committee-specific approach: committee pages that list “coming attractions” and items penciled into committee schedules. Keelan, the clerk, said committee pages could be made to display upcoming topics if the committee offices provide the content. The committee asked staff to pilot a tracker or committee pages and report back on feasibility and workload implications.
Members said any public-facing tracker should clearly label items that are conceptual versus those that contain filed language, and that the public referral list should be easy to find so Portlanders can decide whether to testify early.
