I reject your frame, Charter change supporters

Murmurs in Willamette Week on 3/28/07 pointed out that the pro-Charter Change lobby fudged one of their Voters Pamphlet statements, in asserting the Charter Review Commission took 2,000 hours of testimony. In fact, they logged 2,000 hours total volunteer time, or about 100 hours for each of the 20-ish members (it started with more, ended with fewer). Still, that’s a lot of time for each citizen, and I’m grateful for their service and recommendations to the City even though I disagree with the latter.

For comparison, here are some numbers of volunteer hours donated last year in various Portland Parks & Recreation programs. The #1 recipient of volunteer hours? Amateur baseball, with 87,479 hours donated. Second is youth basketball at 57,363 hours, then amateur softball, with 43,220 hours. East Portland attracted the most number of hours volunteered in natural areas, with 26,315, followed by Forest Park’s No-Ivy League with 22,888. Astonishingly, “Friends of 4449 (locomotive)” collected 8,050 volunteer hours, and “PRPA – Friends of 700 locomotive” logged 7,017.

In all, 29 different Portland Parks programs were the beneficiaries of more than 2,000 volunteer hours last year.

The City Council and citizens should respect ALL who donate their time aiming to improve Portland and life for Portlanders. “Respect” does not necessarily mean “agree with” or “owe”. The proponents of Charter change seem to be implying voters owe the volunteers on the Charter Commission four affirmative votes for their recommendations, in return for 2000 hours of their time. That framing makes the debate very difficult for those who of us who appreciate the value of individual members and collective effort of the Commission, but disagree with its proposals. Many of the most vocal opponents of the Charter changes know Commission members who are personal friends and/or people we hold in extremely high regard. By calling attention to the time donated by the volunteers, the Pro-change campaign takes the focus away from the substance of the proposals, instead implying that opponents don’t respect the people who made them. That’s not true.

I reject the Pro-change campaign’s framing, and I hope its spokesmen (gender-specific word used intentionally) in future forum events will stop talking about the number of hours donated by Commission members. There are many wonderful volunteers who give thousands of hours to Portland each year. The questions on the ballot aren’t asking whether Portlanders appreciate their effort.