Next Up at City Council, April 25-26, 2007

The Portland City Council Agenda for the coming week shows three items under Citizen Communications on the morning of Wednesday, April 25: “World Week for Animals in Laboratories”, “Measure 26-90 Civil Service Charter Changes”, and “Quantification tool and a pocket of corruption”. Bet you don’t need three guesses to figure out which is my topic. I’ll be asking the three Council members who referred 26-90 to the ballot why they believe removing statements of the goals of the Civil Service chapter is in the long term public good. Of course, I won’t really be speaking to the Council, rather using the opportunity for three minutes of free cable-TV time to try to reach voters. When I signed up last week, there were still spaces for Citizen Communications on the May 9 agenda. Contact the Council Clerk, Karla Moore-Love to sign up to speak on whatever you care about.

The most important item on this week’s agenda is on Thursday, April 26 at 3 p.m.: Accept Citizen Campaign Commission: First Report to the City Council and Citizens of Portland. In other words, report on Public Campaign Financing changes, aka Voter Owned Elections. I don’t think even changing the Charter is as important as this program. Under any form of government, the ability to raise money from rich people should not be one of the major prerequisites for election to office. Before this item on Thursday afternoon’s agenda: 432 TIME CERTAIN: 2:00 PM – Accept Staff Report and Recommendation and Order of Council for William E. Lobdell, Measure 37 Claim, which I’ll preview separately, and 433 TIME CERTAIN: 2:30 PM – Accept the report Project Homeless Connect, January 2007 (Report introduced by Commissioner Sten). As usual, no quick way to find it on PortlandOnLine.

The Wednesday April 25, 9:30 a.m. Time Certain, which is a misnomer as it rarely starts before 9:40 and often after that, is a Report from the Sustainable Development Commission. I suggested during my campaign last year that the bureau’s name and focus should be changed to the Office of Sustainable Actions, since sustainability concerns more than just buildings and physical improvements – it’s about what each of us does in our daily lives. A further improvement was suggested by a participant at the Coalition for a Livable Future’s Summit on Thursday. He said “sustainability” doesn’t mean much to most people, certainly not at the gut level needed to provoke actions, and that we should start calling the concept “survivability”. Wouldn’t more people make different choices if they thought their life depended on it? So, what if the bureau’s name was changed to the “Office of Survivable Actions”? Doesn’t that sound a tad more relevant to you, the non-developer Portlander? Nah, OK, fuhgetabahtit. Back to the Agenda.

Not much is on the calendar for Wednesday, with nothing in the afternoon, as two Council members are absent. They’re doing the Consent Agenda on Thursday afternoon. It’s mostly contracts and grants, as usual. The Code sets out the order of business on the Council Agenda in 3.02.030 B which says the Consent Agenda “shall” be heard right after the Communications and Time Certain items, i.e. on Wednesday. So technically, it seems to me the Council should vote on a temporary amendment to allow the Consent Agenda to be considered on Thursday. On the other hand, unless someone pulls an item from Consent, maybe nobody cares. But still.