Charter Reform in the mainstream newspapers

The Oregonian and the Portland Tribune published complementary articles on Portland’s proposed Charter Reform today. Both reporters, Ryan Frank and Nick Budnick, focus on the form of government issue – a trend likely to continue, since it’s the most important and the easiest for most citizens to understand. I’m very concerned that with this one on the ballot, and only three months until the vote, drawing attention to the Civil Service and further Charter Reform measures will be very difficult. The Civil Service changes weaken protections for city employees serving the public interest. Giving future unelected Charter Review Commissions the power to send whatever they choose directly to the ballot could mean we have similar awful proposals referred to voters with short notice and minimal public process every two years. Although the Committee for Accountable Government and the press coverage has so far highlighted the form of government proposal, I hope these other crucial issues will be a significant part of the campaign.

I love the headline in The Oregonian: “Strong-Mayor effort lacks leader”. That pretty much says it all. I was also amused by the statement, “Don’t be surprised if Sten positions the campaign as Big Business vs. The People”. That’s not positioning, that’s reality. As the article continues, “When asked who backs the change, Sten said: “The Portland Business Alliance, The Oregonian’s editorial board and Tom Potter. The mighty three. The establishment. The corporate thinkers.” Nice job of telling it like it is. I suspect the reported quotation may have passed muster with editors because they still can’t believe that Erik Sten is as popular as his re-election led the rest of us to acknowledge, and perhaps they think some voters will oppose the measure just because Erik supports them. While that could be true, there will also be voters who take Commissioner Sten’s words as good advice.

The O’s report says, “Potter’s proposed switch would consolidate operations under the mayor’s office and leave commissioners to be the legislative check on the mayor’s executive power”. But this statement is immediately followed by the sentence, “Potter is the only council member to endorse the idea because he says it would prevent the five council members from sending mixed messages on the city’s priorities”. I’m confused. Oh wait, I get it: Mayor Potter is saying there wouldn’t be four other viewpoints sending messages about city issues, because only the Mayor’s would count. Got it. So Mayor Potter is saying even if the other four legislative members of the Council have one shared priority, the Mayor’s would trump. Hmm. So tell me again, what then is the proposed mechanism for legislative restraint over the executive?

Nick Budnick’s article in the Tribune draws quotes from Bud Clark and Randy Leonard, a nice complement to The O‘s coverage of Vera Katz and Erik Sten’s positions, giving readers studying both papers different information. Nick supplies additional quotes from former Mayor Katz, including this beauty: “Katz said she, like Goldschmidt, spent much of her time tackling problems and issues that arose because of the city’s form of government. Portland’s form of government, she added, was at fault for controversy over the Portland Aerial Tram cost overruns, the departure of Columbia Sportswear in 2000, and the 2001 water-billing fiasco under Commissioner Erik Sten.”

Let’s take these in turn:

1. Overruns in the PHART (Pill Hill Aerial Rapid Transit, per Bob Miller courtesy of Jack Bog’s blog)

Mayor Vera Katz lined up three votes to approve the PHART without doing the additional public process and study to weigh costs and benefits recommended by the Portland Planning Commission. Members of the Corbett-Terwilliger-Lair Hill and Homestead Neighborhood Associations documented numerous times in the record that the cost presented to the Council wasn’t feasible. Having a Chief Administrative Officer and Super-strong Mayor during the consideration of the North Macadam Plan, later renamed to South Waterfront, would only have expedited the outcome. Maybe woulda saved a few million on inflation and the cost of steel, tops.

2. The departure of Columbia Sportswear.

Columbia Sportswear took a snit and left Portland because staff in the Planning and Development Services bureaus correctly wouldn’t promise them that the Council would approve Zoning Code changes that are required to be made in a public process. Even a Super-strong Mayor could not promise to deliver two other votes for Zoning Code changes in a quasi-judicial process, unless that Mayor had made illegal deals to secure those votes. Council members are not allowed to discuss quasi-judicial procedures outside of the public hearings. Repeating Commissioner Randy Leonard’s question to Mayor Katz during the hearing, “So you don’t think that strict interpretation of the code by staff employed to implement it would happen under a Strong Mayor/CAO?”. Maybe not, as the power of the Mayor would have very few checks and balances under the new structure, especially with the proposed damage to the Civil Service section of the Charter.

3. The “Water Bureau Fiasco”.

Erik Sten raised and demolished the Charter Reform supporters’ case on this issue, during the hearings in January and February. He pointed out that he was held accountable and could have lost re-election because of it. He fired the professional manager hired as Water Bureau Director at the time. He answered the phone calls from irate citizens and took the heat in the press. In the proposed form of government, the Chief Administrative Officer would be responsible for all administrative decisions in every section of the city’s $2 billion budget. It is inconceivable one person under the Mayor could keep close tabs on such a vast empire better than five Commissioners-in-charge each supervising a few bureaus. If a Mayor considers a Commissioner incompetent, s/he can remove bureaus from that Commissioner, as has been done many times in the past two decades. There is no evidence an all-powerful Mayor and one professional administrator would have done a better job with the Water Bureau’s computer system purchase. It’s possible, but equally likely that a different Commissioner and Bureau Director might have made different choices. The structure of government wasn’t the issue in this case.

Of these three examples alleged to support changing the form of government, I think only the Water Bureau computer problem is one where most citizens agree a different outcome would have been preferable. The North Macadam Plan needed more scrutiny, not less. The Council under the current or proposed Charter has to make land use decisions in compliance with state law and open meetings requirements, and staff was absolutely correct in telling Columbia Sportswear they would not be given illegal promises to entice them to build in Portland.

Putting all our resources in the care of one unelected administrator, supervised by one Mayor elected once every four years, provides much less accountability than our current system.

Good articles, furthering the discussion, Ryan and Nick. I hope citizens will consider reports in the media as starting points for more analysis and debate on these Charter changes that could radically change the structure of power in Portland.