City Hall Update: Tenant protections likely to continue beyond October

Plus, city opens Poet's Beach again to publicize safety of swimming in the Willamette River and budget cuts cause the Oregon Symphony to cancel its annual end of free performance

A majority of the City Council indicated they will extend and perhaps expand the six-month-old tenant protection policy when it is scheduled to expire in October.

The policy, adopted Thursday, requires landlords to pay relocation costs between $2,900 and $4,500 to tenants forced out with no-cause evictions or who choose to move after their rents are raised more than 10 percent a year. It recently was upheld by a Multnomah County Circuit Court judge.

During a Wednesday hearing on extending some of the deadlines in the policy, Mayor Ted Wheeler lamented that the 2017 Oregon Legislature did not repeal the statewide ban against local rent control programs.

"It is difficult to be here roughly six months from where we started and realizing that we're going to have to go on our own. It means we have a lot of work ahead of us, and we're up to the job," Wheeler said at the hearing where the change were approved, which Commissioner Nick Fish missed. Commissioner Chloe Eudaly has said it should be expanded.

Downtown beach opens again

Mayor Ted Wheeler and members of the Human Access project swam in the Willamette River on Thursday morning as part of the grant opening of Poet's Beach, a sandy stretch along the east side of the river near the Marquam Bridge.

Although the beach has been open for three years, the event was held to publicize the safety of swimming in the river following the completion of the Big Pipe project that has all but eliminated summer combined sewer overflows into it. The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality tests the river that runs through Portland every week and has consistently found bacteria samples below state health standards.

Lifeguards will be stationed at the beach from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily through Sept. 4.

Symphony hits sad note, cancels free show

The Oregon Symphony announced Wednesday that is has canceled its annual end-of-summer show in Gov. Tom McCall Waterfront Park after the city withdrew its financial support.

"The city is in the midst of a housing and homelessness emergency and had to make a lot of tough budget choices," Michelle Plambeck, a spokeswoman for Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, told Oregon Public Broadcasting.

The popular free concert has been held almost every year since 1999. Staffing, logistics and other costs for the show total about $300,000. The city has traditionally picked up about two-thirds of the bill.