‘Unconscionable’: MultCo commissioner expresses displeasure with board passing $3.96 billion budget

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — With Multnomah County Commissioner Sharon Meieran dissenting, the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners approved a $3.96 billion budget for the 2025 fiscal year on Thursday.

Meieran, who is finishing her final term on the board after eight years as the District 1 Commissioner, was vehemently opposed to the budget. Prior to the vote, Meieran made multiple last-minute attempts to redistribute funds in a way she said would better serve Multnomah County and those affected by the ongoing homeless and fentanyl crises. Her amendments failed to carry.

“[The budget] hides investments of hundreds of millions of dollars beneath a bunch of mediocre rhetoric and buzzwords,” Meiran said. “It contains hundreds of pages each describing another program that doesn’t tie into a larger purpose, plan or vision.”

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Tensions grew as Meieran berated her fellow council members for sharing her vision for the future of Multnomah County.

“There is urgency here that I feel is just missing from this board in terms of acting,” Meieran said. “I find it unconscionable and I don’t know how to express that. You can say the words: ‘We all want to see people safe in our community.’ But our actions speak totally differently.”

Chair Jessica Vega Pederson, who defeated Meieran in the 2022 General Election, responded to Meiran’s comments, calling them “unacceptable.”

“I’ve had to talk to you before about impugning the motives of people and basically calling me a liar,” Pederson said. “That is so unacceptable.”

District 2 Commissioner Jesse Beason explained that he voted no on Meieran’s last-minute amendments on the grounds that Thursday’s meeting was not the time to make significant changes to the budget.

“I am not going to be introducing amendments that I would want, but did not garner the support of the board,” Beason said. “…To me, there are plenty of things that I would have proposed not be in the staff package. But I understand we’re in the business of compromise and people spent a lot of time to do that.”

Following public comment, commissioners gave their final comments on the budget, which Meieran said represents the failure of the county government.

“This is the final budget in my eight years of service, ” Meieran said. “I’m leaving with a degree of sadness and outrage I never would have thought possible when I first ran for office because when I started, I naively thought failure would be a matter of not having enough funding to reach our goals and help those most vulnerable. But the truth, I’ve found, is more pernicious. I’ve realized that we’re swimming, or more accurately, drowning, in money. We have more money in Multnomah County than we can effectively waste. And given our history of wasting resources, that is a hell of an indictment.”

The final comment portion of the budget meeting was disrupted when a self-described homeless man named “Charles” stood up on a desk and began to shout at those in attendance. The county cut the sound of the meeting’s broadcast and commissioners backed away from their table corner until the man was escorted outside by law enforcement.

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Following the ruckus, District 4 Commissioner Lori Stegmann gave her approval of the budget.

“With this budget’s funding, we can not only enhance in-courtroom-eviction-prevention support, but we can hopefully now expand this essential service to five days a week. And if I wasn’t in a dress, I would get up on this desk and stand.”

Pederson shared similar sentiments.

“There are many things to be proud of in this budget,” Pederson said. “Living conditions on the streets today are intolerable. There is no bigger or tougher problem than making sure thousands of our community members have a pathway off the streets and this budget shows that we are up to that challenge.”

It remains unclear who will replace Meieran in January as candidates Meghan Moyer and Vadim Mozyrsky are headed for a runoff in the May Primary.

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