Vote No on Measure 26-90

The top three reasons to Vote No on Measure 26-90, Civil Service Charter changes:

1. It increases potential for political patronage, favoritism, and corruption in Portland’s city government, by greatly increasing the number and level of employees who may be fired at will by politicians.

2. It takes out Constitutional statements of our values and goals for the Civil Service. The Explanatory Statement for the Ballot Measure LIES to voters in asserting the deleted language is “outdated, conflicting and confusing”.

3. It eliminates protection for the most vulnerable of city blue collar workers, leaving no indication of the core value of seeking employees with long-term commitment to public service.

The following is the three-minute summary I gave to the City Council under “Citizen Communications” today:

The glossy mailers arriving in Portland households this week are slick PR, designed to influence voters rather than give accurate information. For example, Measure 26-90, which would severely reduce Portland’s Civil Service regulations, is being touted as “streamlining and modernizing outdated language”. The following is some of the language cut by Measure 26-90, from the current Charter:

Policy and Purpose: It is the purpose of this Chapter to establish for the City a system of personnel administration which:
1. Provides all citizens with a fair and equal opportunity for public service;
2. Establishes conditions of service which will attract and retain employees of good character, technical knowledge, skill, and ability;
3. Improves efficiency and economy of the agencies of City service by the improvement of methods of personnel administration.

Measure 26-90 would eliminate this language, with no substitute purpose or goal statement. The proposed replacement leaps into details without stating the core values.

What is outdated about this language? We want a Charter that provides all citizens with a fair and equal opportunity for public service. We want to attract and retain employees of good character, technical knowledge, skills and abilities. We want to improve economies and efficiencies of City agencies. If you vote yes on Measure 26-90, you will be saying those goals are no longer important in Portland. The Constitution should set the broad value, leaving the details for later. Measure 26-90 does the opposite.

Worse yet, Measure 26-90 would return the city to the system of political patronage and favoritism the Civil Service chapter was written to correct. It would allow way more employees to be fired at will by politicians with personal agendas influenced by powerful special interests. Employees advocating for the public could be reclassified as supervisors and fired. That is not in the public interest.

And, Measure 26-90 picks on the most vulnerable of city employees, the temporary workers. These blue collar workers have no protections except the current language in the Charter that sets a standard implementing the core value that we want our city staffed by people committed to public service, with permanent employees. By eliminating this standard, while at the same time removing the purpose statement setting the Constitutional values we want for city employment, Measure 26-90 opens the door to a return to the corrupt system the Civil Service chapter was written to reform. Measure 26-90 isn’t reform, it isn’t updating or modernizing. It gives more power to special interests, more power to politicians, and less protection for working people and citizens throughout Portland. Please vote No on 26-90.

And please ask all your friends and neighbors to read the analysis above and Vote No, too.