This ordinance establishes a city-owned Municipal Public Bank that keeps our money in Portland, investing in the things we need, and creates new non-tax revenues for our public treasury in the process. Our municipal bank’s mission is to serve the interest of the people of Portland to create healthy, secure communities through affordable housing, low-cost student loans, small business lending and greatly reducing the cost of public infrastructure. The municipal bank would partner with already existing community banks and credit unions. A public bank could help end the cycle of more debt, more taxes, and cutting of public services. We also support a bill in the Oregon State Legislature that would enable municipalities in Oregon to form public banks; this is a necessary step toward forming a Portland Public Bank. The original bill HR 3029 got an informational hearing in the 2019 legislative session but did not get out of committee. We support future iterations of this bill in future legislative sessions.
(Portland Forward)