This morning, city council will be debating a request by Mayor Potter to extend the city’s Drug- and Prostitution-Free Zones for another six months—they expire this weekend, and the oversight committee has only just gotten started.

I’ll be attempting to blog it live, assuming the battery in this laptop holds up. But first, a slight pre-correction: In my column this week (which should be online later this evening), I mentioned that the mayor needed a majority of council to vote to pass it.

That’s actually slightly wrong. Since it’s an “emergency” ordinance, the mayor needs unanimous support in order to make the extension go into effect immediately. And there’s some pretty strong evidence that shows he doesn’t have every vote—specifically, he may not have Erik Sten’s.

If the vote is 4-1, or even 3-2, it’ll have to go through as a regular ordinance, which requires two public meetings and takes 30 days to go into effect. If that happens, the DFZs will be out of commission for the next month. Weird? A little. There are a couple ways this could play out—Sten could vote yes just for practical reasons, or he could go on record with a no vote, then call for a courtesy vote and pass it. I’ve never seen that happen, but it’s a possibility.

Live updates after the jump.

10:00: First up, though, is the police bureau's request to reclassify some internal bureau investigations to non-sworn officers. Portland Copwatch's Dan Handelman is testifying that the change should have been part of the Independent Police Review. He's also arguing that Internal Affairs should still exist alongside the non-sworn, independent investigations. Not surprisingly, he's not thrilled with the fact that there hasn't been any public discussion, and that's come to council as an emergency vote.

10:06: NW Constitutional Rights Center's Alejandro Queral is echoing Handelman's statements. "There are a number of questions still, and this should give city council an opportunity to hear from community members," he said. He's also asked for the non-sworn internal investigators to not be former cops.

10:09: Amanda Fritz is asking the same questions--"Why is this an emergency ordinance? Why hasn't the independent review, which has already been funded, not been completed?" To that question, no one has many answers. The mayor says the auditor is supposed to take over, and Maria Rubio, Potter's public safety aide, assured everyone by saying the mayor's office is taking the lead on it. Randy Leonard is taking her on, now that she's at the dais. "Why weren't people who have regular contact with the Independent Police Review not included in this?" he asked. "I believe that was the chief's decision," Rubio answered. Buck passed.

10:12: Leonard asks for the reclassification to be held over. "On the substance of it, I'm there, but I'm hearing this concerns...and I think it's important to have the discussion." That means the mayor doesn't have the unanimous votes, so he's pulling it back to his office.

10:15: Finally, the DFZs. Rubio is asking for the extension in order to "continue the work of the oversight committee." There are also a couple of amendments, which give the committee direction on what to look at. I posted those a few days ago.

10:18: Sam Adams has jumped in. "As you know, my vote to renew this last year was predicated on this committee being up and running, and it's frustrating that this committee was so long in coming. I've also heard from advocates...that the group isn't working together as well as it could be." Rubio has admitted some if that, and also that there was a long delay.

10:20: Sten's jumped in, saying that some people have complained that the composition of the committee isn't balanced. Rubio ticked off the names of the members. (I'm sitting near public defender Chris O'Connor, one of the few non-police, non-prosecutor members.) Wow. Holy crap. Rubio just said that Mike Kukendall, the PBA's public safety director, represents the NE DFZ because he lives there.

10:24: Sten: "It seems like you've gotten together the two sides of this and threw them at each other. No offense against to the DA's office, but they're not exactly going to find the middle ground... And the public defender's office has a vested interest in seeing these things go away."

10:27: Dan Saltzman: "I tend to agree with Commissioner Sten. When I look at this list, I see a lot of people who are entrenched on either side." I just realized why I don't live blog things like this--I'm missing the look on Potter's face. He's awfully quiet, while council is pretty much ripping into his committee. Rubio just said, "The six-month extension could give us time to look at a bigger group that could examine these numbers." Oh, and, "These meetings ARE open to the public." As much public as can be squeezed into the conference room in the mayor's office--about three people.

10:32: Sten: "I'm not prepared to extend (in the long term) a policy that produces the kinds of racial disparity we've seen, assuming these numbers hold up." Leonard: "I don't want these numbers (the stats the committee has requested from the police bureau on previous convictions, racial makeup, etc.), I want to see them and come to my own conclusions...I want to see the stats and have my worst fears be unfounded, but I'm not expecting that to be the case."

10:34: Rubio: "I do want you to know that we're taking this seriously." Leonard: "Even if this policy were working as well as it could be, I still have to grapple with whether it's okay for a police officer to use their judgment to geographically exclude someone from an area."

10:40: Still at the dais: City attorney David Woboril, Maria Rubio, and the police statistician. Chris O'Connor is chomping at the bit. Despite the grilling by Leonard and Sten, this is heavily weighted in the "everything's gonna be a-okay" vein.

10:42: Finally, testimony from others, including Handelman and O'Connor, all of whom get three minutes. Wow, that's balanced. Handelman: "I think the time is up. City council had a year to do this, and didn't, the police bureau was supposed to report back 90 days before the year is up, and they didn't. I think you need to suspend the zones using the numbers you have until this can be fixed. Maria Rubio said these meetings are open to the public--I and my group are very invested in this issue, and I had no idea this group had even started."

10:45: O'Connor is ripping the process of the committee: "We've met twice, and the group was started only after the state senate met to consider taking away the city's right to impose DFZs....Why renew a policy that isn't working?"

10:48: The owner of the old Pink Flamingo Hotel has encouraged a yes vote, even though he admittedly doesn't know much about the history or process. This illustrates the real split here--people who can only see the zones through their lens of "livability," and people who can only view them through "constitutionality" and "due process."

10:53: Surprise, surprise--as if he just read my last update, the PBA's Mike Kuykendal is urging a yes vote on the extension, because of all the great things that have happened downtown in the last 15 years. He's also attempting to discredit critics by saying there's been inaccurate information given by the police bureau to council and the committee.

10:56: Vote time! Leonard: "I am less concerned about the effectiveness of the zones than I am about balancing constitutional protections." Still, he's voting yes. So is Saltzman, who's appeased by the additional direction the committee has been given with the amendments. Sten: Voting aye on the amendments: "I do think drug-free zones are valid tools...The preferred method, of arresting and confining someone for breaking the law, isn't available... I've been asking for data on the zones for literally ten years, and have been stonewalled. I've advocated for years and will continue to advocate this morning that exclusions should be based on a record. If you don't have a past conviction, I think it's fair to say we should get you a conviction before we exclude you." He's also complimenting Potter for the improvements in the policy that happened a year ago. "At the same time, we were given a year. I think we need to stick to our word, and say, 'We didn't do the work we said we were going to do.'" Sten votes No for that reason.

11:04: Potter votes yes. But since it's an emergency vote...here's Sten's weird procedure I told you about. He's moving for a courtesy vote. "Explaining that I don't support it, but still voting yes, is the kind of thing that loses John Kerry the election." Courtesy vote: 4-0 yes. Tedious? perhaps. But also kinda rad. This is how procedural democracy works. Same process just happened for the Prostitution-Free Zones. Both will be extended until September 30.