Next Up at City Council, 8/15 – 16, 2007
Yes, two days with City Council hearings on the Agenda this upcoming week. Yet sadly, even though this is the third Wednesday and the code allows the Council to hold one of its sessions in the evening, again we see
DUE TO LACK OF AN AGENDA
THERE WILL BE NO MEETING
This despite the fact that Thursday afternoon’s hearing is:
1015 TIME CERTAIN: 2:00 PM – Appeal of Jeremy Osterholm, applicant, against the Hearings Officer’s decision to deny a 19-lot subdivision and design review for 19 attached rowhouses at SE Lafayette Street east of SE 74th Avenue (Hearing; LU 06-181122 LDS DZ).
Evidently, the Council doesn’t believe neighbors of those 19 rowhouses, and perhaps even the applicant, will likely have to take the afternoon off work to be able to attend on Thursday.
Wednesday morning starts with three interesting Citizen Communications: two interns thanking the Council for their experience working at City Hall this summer, and Jim Lee highlighting the urgency of the need for repairs to the Sellwood Bridge. The latter, of course, not the City’s primarily responsibility. But having heard “it’s not my job” won’t be much comfort to the victims if it collapses.
Three Time Certain items on the Agenda:
982 TIME CERTAIN: 9:30 AM – Street Access for Everyone Oversight Committee report on status of City Council mandate (Report introduced by Mayor Potter)
The report says all four conditions of implementing the Street Access For Everyone, aka Sit-lie ordinance prohibiting people from sitting on downtown sidewalks, have been met. Mercury Blogtown reports Commissioner Randy Leonard may still oppose implementation of the ordinance. Hearing that does my heart good. Sometimes the spirit of a law may not be met even if the specifics in it are, and in those cases sometimes it’s good to have a No vote even if it’s the only one, makes no difference, and perhaps even makes no sense.
983 TIME CERTAIN: 10:30 AM – Create a local improvement district to construct streetcar improvements in the Portland Streetcar Loop Extension Local Improvement District (Hearing; Ordinance introduced by Commissioner Adams)
I find it very curious that nobody has commented on my report that Portland Streetcar’s numbers differ from the Portland Development Commission’s on who paid what for the Streetcar extensions in South Waterfront. This upcoming item on the Council Agenda is to set the nearby property owners’ assessment/fees for the loop on the Eastside. It says: “The preliminary estimate of the total project cost of designing and constructing the improvements is $152 million and the LID assessments will fund the improvements in a maximum amount of $15 million.” The City and TriMet have applied for a federal grant for part of the rest; some will come out of Tax Increment Financing from the Central Eastside Industrial District. Would someone (staff or citizen activist) please post or send me a table showing who will pay what for the Eastside extension?
984 TIME CERTAIN: 11:15 AM – Establish Code to regulate sales of graffiti materials (Second Reading 977; Ordinance introduced by Commissioner Leonard; add Code Chapter 14B.85)
It’s unusual to see a Second Reading scheduled as a Time Certain, as usually the Second Reading is a Council vote with no additional public testimony taken. After the discussion here, I’ve come around to thinking the ordinance to require spray paint sales to be documented can’t hurt, might help. It’s a minor hassle for store workers, and although there’s unlikely to be significant enforcement without funding, most laws rely on people following them without heavy oversight. I noticed the City of Forest Grove is still at the stage of allowing city workers to clean up graffiti. Portland has been funding clean-up crews and providing materials for volunteers for years, yet the problem persists and seems to be increasing. Later on Wednesday’s agenda are two grants totalling $278,400 to assist with clean-up, although this seems to be the amount previously budgeted from the General Fund rather than an increase. I still agree with Dave Lister in the comments on my post, however, that providing places for real artists to showcase their skills, and counseling for vandals, should also be part of a comprehensive solution. Paint sale regulations would work better as a regional solution, too.
Here’s an item that seems a little odd:
1004 Delegate to the Director of the Portland Parks & Recreation bureau the authority to enter into Intergovernmental Agreements with the Portland Development Commission to provide professional, technical and construction services for parks, natural areas and recreation facilities improvements (Ordinance)
Others have commented previously here and elsewhere that Intergovernmental Agreements eat up a lot of time and money. If it’s A Good Thing to delegate the authority for them to department directors, why not assign it in all cases? And if it isn’t, why is this one a spiffy idea? Particularly, considering the high level of public interest in our parks, and – how shall I put this? – recent mistrust of agreements between Parks and other agencies that citizens might like to continue to see reviewed on the City Council’s public hearings Agenda?
This one sounds like a bargain:
1008 Authorize a contract with Portland Habilitation Center, Inc. for janitorial services in eighteen Community Centers for the Bureau of Parks & Recreation for a contractual amount of $566,903 (Purchasing Report)
Annual costs of a half a million for cleaning 18 centers is about $86 per day per facility. That’s not much, considering how big some of them are.
Nine million dollars for biodiesel, on the other hand, makes me wonder what the cost for fuel would be for hybrids.
1010 Authorize a contract with Fitz Enterprises dba Star Oilco to furnish biodiesel and ultra low-sulfur diesel motor fuels for City Fleet Services with a five-year contractual value not to exceed $9,000,000
There are a couple of exemptions from contract regulations on the Agenda – one for construction of the new park in the South Park blocks, which I’ll cover in a separate post; and one for Qwest with the embedded issue of the Equal Benefits Ordinance, discussed here.
Here’s one I wish I had more time to look into:
995 Authorize an Intergovernmental Agreement with the Port of Portland to establish guidelines to determine primary law enforcement agency jurisdiction in the Portland International Center, protocols for responding to major events and to investigate major crimes that occur on Port of Portland property within the city limits (Ordinance)
More overlapping security forces providing law enforcement in Portland? The agreement says the Portland Police have primary jurisdiction on Port property such as Cascade Station, but that the Port’s officers are responsible for “all current and future properties, buildings and businesses in the PIC that are directly associated with the operations of PDX, including the PDX Employee Parking Lot on NE Alderwood.”
This is a heavy agenda – it’s taken me two hours to look into it already. I’ll check into the Thursday afternoon land use issue another time, and post a comment or new topic if it’s interesting.