Next Up at City Council, 1/31-2/1, 2007

The very first item on next week’s Portland City Council agenda is unusually interesting: under Communications, “Request of Margaret D. Strachan to address Council regarding planning in Portland”. Margaret Strachan was a City Commissioner from 1982 to 1986. This commentary on Onward Oregon, co-authored by Ethan Seltzer and Sumner Sharpe, was written in 2005 as the Charter reform effort was starting. The lofty and laudible goals the three outlined for the charter are fundamentally not met in the proposals to be sent to the ballot, in my opinion. I wonder if that issue will be the “planning” topic of former Commissioner Strachan’s remarks to Council. That will be one Communications agenda item I will make sure to watch. Wednesday 1/31, a few minutes after 9:30 a.m.

An item on the Consent Agenda, “Rename the City of Portland Citizen Budget Advisory Board to the City of Portland Community Budget Advisory Board” may make some readers wonder why such a minor change is worth a formal resolution. My guess is that it is a result of outreach work to encourage more participation in civic issues by people in immigrant and refugee communities. Use of the word “citizen” does not always convey its generic meaning as “person of the city”, rather it often implies being born or naturalized as a legal U.S. citizen. People living here on temporary visas, and legal permanent residents who are not citizens, feel excluded by the term. Changing this Board’s name to “community” likely addresses that problem. I’ve yet to find a single word for “citizen” that doesn’t have some unintended connotations. This item reminds me of 1981, the year I filed the “Temporary Resident Alien” federal tax forms – the title making me feel like a hitchhiker from Mars.

There are only two items on the Regular Agenda on Wednesday morning:

* Amending the contract with the Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC); and

* Extending the timeline for the University of Portland’s previously approved zone change, presumably to give them more time to reach a purchase deal for the Triangle Park property. The EPA’s Notice of Proposed Agreement Not to Sue for clean-up of the property notes the comment period ended December 18, 2006. On January 2, 2007, Triangle Park LLC refused to sell; UP then sued. Again, conjecture: since the University of Portland doesn’t yet own the property, they can’t record the approval of the zone change, hence the need for the extended timeline. If that guess is incorrect, please give accurate information in the comments, or e-mail me and I’ll amend this post.

Thursday afternoon at 2 p.m. is the Corrado Measure 37 claim I covered below. After that, appointment of citizens serving on this year’s Citizens Community Budget Advisory Committee, reviewing proposed bureau budgets with the Council. New County chair Ted Wheeler was appointed to the last budget committee; it will be interesting to see if anyone with political aspirations and patronage is in the new group.

So, nothing on the agenda this week that makes me want to take the bus downtown, but I’ll be watching Communications and the Measure 37 claim on cable Channel 30.