I don't know what "will of the people" means if not a ranked preference. Maybe you can explain?
The "people", not being an individual or an AI or whatever, has a more complex preference vector than a ranked list. The real world is more complex than that.
So can we now agree that Arrow's Impossibility Theorem doesn't apply to all of democracy, that these things are nuanced and there is a long and deep conversation about this kind of topic that has been going on in the human race for centuries, and that frankly, pointing to technical flaws in established, stable enough systems that were set up by people with a hell of a lot less information about anything than us hundreds of years go is not going to do anything to prevent that system from operating in the way that it does or to convince people who have vested interests in it remaining stable?
That's basically what Arrow's impossibility theorem says. Due to its limited inputs, a preferential voting system will necessarily fail one of the three fairness criteria.
There are far better voting schemes out there, none of which are affected by Arrow's impossibility theorem.
As it applies to this situation, it's moot - Portland did not express any cardinal preferences.
[1] Non-private goods introduce other incentives that prevent spending from tracking desire.
It won't apply if you can assign cardinal numbers to the options, but I doubt that's what you have in mind.
Theorem: Hitting your thumb with a steel hammer, instead of hitting the nail, hurts like crazy!
Problem: The pain of a smashed thumb is bad.
Solution: Use an iron hammer. The requirements of the earlier theorem don't apply.
