The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Portland City Administrator Raymond Lee @ City Club

Lee's comments were a good representation of what executives and leaders know about cities, organizations, and the environments they operate in. Knowledge which conflicts with some of Portland's weirdest political preferences.

https://pdxcityclub.org/event/portland-city-administrator-2026/

Video timestamps

00:00 - Start - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-FRvPa5dgM

08:10 - Raymond Lee gives a speech - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-FRvPa5dgM&t=490s

19:42 - Shane Dixon Kavanaugh, a journalist covering Portland City Hall for The Oregonian/OregonLive, begins his interview - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-FRvPa5dgM&t=1182s

31:05 - Lee says the City, as an organization, is doing bad, frankly. Workers are uneasy and confused. They have no shared vision to give them confidence amidst the reorganization from commission days* "If you have 20 priorities, most of you know, you have zero priorities." - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-FRvPa5dgM&t=1907s

54:38 - We need more police and fire fighters to reduce response times. The City needs to get better at marketing to get more people living, working, and spending their money here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-FRvPa5dgM&t=3350s

58:45 - Kavanaugh: Are we making progress on homelessness or housing? Housing production is abysmal. At a 15 year low. Lee says we are investing more in keeping the city clean and sidewalks walkable, which wasn't the case as much in 2021. He says of cities that bucked national trends to decrease homelessness, did so primarily with ARPA dollars, one-time Federal COVID stimulus. He expects those cities will be challenged to keep increases at bay. To him, prioritizing homelessness means showing we're committed. We need to measure outcomes and we need see our commitment in the data. "It can't be flavor of the month, or flavor of the campaign."

Lee goes on, "Affordability is driven off of revenue coming into the city (tourism and business investments, not City budget revenue)." The city needs to be marketable to businesses and attractive to families. That means the city needs economic opportunities. If we don't address taxes in this city and this state, it's going to continue to be a big issue. In terms of tax burden, we can't even compete with cities we compare ourselves to like Austin, Denver, Seattle, etc. If we don't make ourselves competitive people will choose other options. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-FRvPa5dgM&t=3528s

Lee asks us to think "Why would you move your business here?"

1:05:30 - Audience questions begin - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-FRvPa5dgM&t=3528s

1:06:45 - Fantastic teaching point from Lee about how utility rates (here he means water, but this is true of electric utilities too) are relatively lower for residential customers (i.e., the people) than commercial and industrial customers (i.e., businesses). These large customers subsidize the build out and the replacing of infrastructure, and if they aren't in your community then people have to lift more with their backs to maintain the same system. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-FRvPa5dgM&t=4005s

*Just an errant fact I heard from Councilor Novick: even when the 5 City Commissioners were managing bureaus and representing the whole city, their Council Office budgets were $1.6 million per year. Currently the 12 City Council offices have $1.5 million each with no such responsibilities.