How the Mercury blows it

Readers who’ve followed this blog from its inception four months ago know I’m a major fan of the Portland Mercury. Since my campaign last year, I’ve come to expect consistently accurate and comprehensive news coverage from their excellent reporters. So I was particularly upset last week to see the paper joined the corporate behemoths in endorsing Measures 26-89, 26-90, and 26-92. And not only that, but its explanations to readers contain inaccurate information. Reasonable people can disagree on whether these proposals are good ideas or not, but readers are relying on reporters to tell them what the measures say, since the language isn’t in the Voters Pamphlet and is difficult to find at the City’s site (so I posted quick links here). I’m very disappointed in the Mercury‘s endorsements on all but 26-91, the form of government proposal. I was chastised on Blogtown for saying so without giving details, so the following notes just some of the reasons why. It may seem long, but in fact I edited it down significantly. Note up front that the other papers’ endorsements blow it even more than the Mercury‘s – but I wasn’t expecting any better from the rest, so only the Mercury merits my time in responding.

1. Measure 26-89, ongoing Charter changes

Assertion: “Here’s how it would work: A group of 20 citizens would be appointed every 10 years (with the first group convening in two), to debate and recommend further changes or tweaks to the city charter.”

Fact: The proposal is to convene the Charter Commission at least every 10 years, with the first group convening within two years.

The difference? The Mercury‘s summary sounds like we only do this ridiculous charade of expensive PR and soundbites to change the Charter to suit a particular political agenda once every 10 years. Even I could tolerate it if it was just once per decade. But that’s not what the ballot measure allows. If it passes, we could have an ongoing Charter Commission, sending measures to the ballot every May and December until voters tire, or the opposition runs out of money, whichever comes first. After all, if you give a committee only one job, to look for changes, they’re likely to feel obligated to come up with some, aren’t they?

Hey, I know, let’s have a committee look at the US Constitution to see what needs to be changed, at least every ten years! Let’s keep changing the Oregon Constitution! What did the people who wrote them know, anyway? Right? Wrong!

Major omission in reporting: No mention that proposed Charter changes can be sent to the ballot any primary or general election. The League of Women Voters testified in January and February that important changes to our Charter should not be voted on by a small percentage of eligible voters, in primary elections. I think many Portland voters would be concerned about this, if the newspapers had bothered to highlight this detail in the ballot measure.

2. Measure 26-90, gutting the Civil Service chapter

How could you blow it so thoroughly and completely, Mercury reporters? I know the proposal is presented with all the new Chapter underlined, all the old in strike-through, so it’s difficult to see the changes. But did you try? Did you talk with people who know and understand the past, and the projected future? Did you think about this from the perspective of working people both inside and outside city employment?

Assertion: “Currently, there’s a section in the city charter that outlines how the city treats its workers—how people get promoted, what the city values in an employee, and how workers are protected. This measure essentially tosses all of those nitty gritty details out, and replaces it with a more general, constitutional framework.”

Fact: It doesn’t do that. Your summary seems paraphrased from the proponents’ spiel. Read the [expletive deleted] thing! It tosses the Constitutional part, the Policy and Purpose statement, along with many details which conveyed values as well as being specific. It leaves hardly any constitutional framework, it’s just a shorter set of rules. Except it is purposefully vague on how many levels of employees could be fired at will under the new system, instead of the specific list of job titles in that category now. Randy Leonard estimates five or six levels below the Department heads would be at risk for losing Civil Service rights; I think it goes all the way down to Senior Planners in neighborhoods, and Parks staff working on surplus property disposal.

Assertion: “The details—which will be in “administrative rules,” instead of the charter—can then be changed as needed. One detail in particular—the city’s definition of a temporary worker—is a contentious one, and we hope that the city will hammer out a compromise rule, instead of relying on an outdated city charter.”

Fact: Since they strike the Purpose statement in the changes, and didn’t add a Constitutional statement of the goal/value of staffing the city with permanent employees, there is nothing in the new Chapter to set the policy to guide those who will set the administrative rules. And there is no surety the public will know about the formulation of new administrative rules, and be invited/allowed to help formulate them or even observe the process, because 26-90 takes out the requirement for public notice of new administrative rules.

Temporary employees often work for months with no benefits, no health insurance, no job security. They make up 32% of the Parks Bureau’s budget. We’re not talking about a minor problem affecting a handful of workers here. “Hope” is not as good as “Here’s the new proposal, pick one or the other, citizens.” Getting rid of the safety net before/without defining a new one is neither prudent nor fair bargaining.

Read the current Charter, amended in 1987. Here’s one “detail” that is tossed by 26-90: “Competition for specific positions may be limited to facilitate employment of those with a substantial physical or mental impairment or for the purposes of implementing a specific affirmative action program.” Don’t we want that, to allow disabled public safety officers to have first dibs at light duty desk jobs, for example? And even if not, shouldn’t we have a discussion about that detail before ditching it, and include its intent in a new Constitutional value statement?

How about “The Director shall establish procedures for recruitment and selection which shall include adequate public notice, affirmative action to seek out underutilized members of minority groups or women where they are underutilized”. Gone, in 26-90. Don’t we want that concept/value still in the Charter? The new chapter says “appointments and promotions shall provide fair and equal opportunity without regard to race, religion, gender…and other such criteria as determined by the City Council by ordinance.” Good to know we’re done with affirmative action and seeking out women and minority contractors, huh? Yes, from now on, if 26-90 passes the Charter will require hiring without regard for those factors. And don’t tell me we have ordinances and policies to allow and require it. Ordinances and policies derive their power from the Charter, not the other way around. The problem here is that in dumping the specific detail requiring public notice of openings, and recruitment efforts for minorities and women, without replacing it with a Constitutional statement of the goal it implemented, the value is totally lost from the Charter.

The Mercury gives no evidence of why/how the Charter is “outdated”, thus perpetuating the myth that it is all old, useless, and in dire need of modernizing. It isn’t. Read it. It’s like our country’s and state’s Constitutions, full of important values that help form and structure our great community.

I would like you to publish a rare reversal of your endorsement on this measure, Mercury staff.

Measure 26-90 is a prime example of how not to amend the Charter. People familiar with unions know that when the contract is up for renewal, it’s not in the best interests of the workers to toss the old contract and start over. The two sides get together in bargaining, and debate which sections to amend, while keeping the framework and hard-won rights in the previous contract. If one side gives ground on one clause, the other will likely have to concede something in another. Measure 26-90 doesn’t do that. Workers get almost nothing, management gets huge increases in their power to flatten and fire employees.

Major omissions in reporting:

No mention of the most controversial aspect of the proposal – removing specific language stating which positions are exempt from Civil Service protections/requirements, and inserting vague language that could make dozens or even hundreds more employees “at will”, subject to firing by politicians without cause. No mention of the reason the Civil Service chapter was adopted, to combat rampant corruption and patronage with politicians hiring their cronies for lucrative positions and promotions. Come on, Mercury writers! I don’t expect some of the other papers in town to give a rip about the workers or take the time to research both sides of an issue…. when the Mercury doesn’t, well, all hope is lost, as I noted on Friday.

No mention of precedent. The City should have done what it did with the Fire & Police fund Charter changes – worked with the staff and independent citizens to come up with a proposed improvement to be voted up or down, rather than just slashing the only protection the most vulnerable city workers have, in the limitation on the length of time of temporary employees’ service.

No mention that the current Charter requires the City to give public notice and notice to labor organizations before adoption, amendment, or repeal of any rule, that the City must take public testimony in writing or at a hearing, and that proposed rules must be adopted by City Council. The new Charter only says the Civil Service Board has to review adopted rules once a year. So those administrative rules the Mercury “hopes” for may well be defined behind closed doors with no public input. Maybe no press monitoring, even, since there would no longer be a requirement to give public notice about them. Good grief, can you see why I’m fried about this?

Oh, and if Measure 26-90 passes and Measure 26-91 on form of government fails, the requirement for the Chief of Police to have been a police officer for ten years will be eliminated. The Charter Commission moved this rule from the Civil Service chapter to a list of the powers of the Mayor. Maybe nobody cares. To me, it shows the Commission worked really hard to strip almost everything it could out of the Civil Service regulations, to give that precious “flexibility” to politicians and their hires.

Think of the elimination of the restriction on temporary workers and other changes to the Civil Service chapter this way, young married people (yay, Amy!): If you and your spouse are having difficulties, you don’t go back and independently nullify the core promises in your wedding vows – unless you want a contested divorce. Imagine if you said to your beloved, “OK, that whole ‘faithful’ thing? It’s too restrictive. Without your permission, I’m throwing that out. Trust me, we’ll negotiate something new to address the reason we said it at the wedding, but I’m tossing the part in our vows that says why we want to be together forever, too, so you’re just going to have to trust me on keeping that value, too.” That’s essentially what Measure 26-90 does to city employees.

3. Measure 26-92, Portland Development Commission (PDC) changes

Assertion: “This charter reform measure would give the city council control of the Portland Development Commission (PDC)’s budget.”

Fact: What is proposed in 26-92 is currently illegal under state law and will require passage of an Act in Salem before it can be implemented.

What 26-92 says is, “If authorized by state law, the City Council shall be the budget committee for the Commission and shall have the duties and responsibilities of a budget committee as provided by state law.” But right before that in the same paragraph, it says, “The Commission shall annually prepare and adopt a budget …. The budget shall be prepared and adopted… and submitted to the Council …. for inclusion as part of the total City budget.” So it’s not clear to me how this happens. The Council as the budget committee submits a proposal to the PDC Board – can the Board make changes, as a board usually can in response to a committee’s recommendation? And if the Board does make changes, can the Council then change them back in the overall city budget process? Exactly how much power is the Council taking from PDC in this measure? Isn’t this a question that should be covered and debated before urging voters to approve 26-92?

Assertion: “Right now, the PDC sets their own budget—which means the council has little say in what sorts of projects the PDC prioritizes, and how much the development agency spends in different parts of the city.”

Fact: Hogwash, baloney, wrong. The Council recently implemented a requirement for PDC to spend 30% of all Urban Renewal money on affordable housing. The Council adopted specific proportions of that 30% setaside to different categories of resident assistance in each Urban Renewal Area (URA). The Council approves each new URA and extensions of time and increases in borrowing/spending for existing ones. The Council has the final say in establishing new URAs. Anyone who followed the South Waterfront process knows it is simply not true to tell readers the Council “has little say”. Again, that seems straight out of the proponents’ propaganda spiel.

Assertion: “Handing the purse strings over to the city council would change that, bringing a much-needed layer of accountability to the PDC—while still giving PDC the flexibility it needs to adjust their budget.”

Fact: The part of 26-92 that truly brings accountability isn’t the budget piece, which the Council already has many ways to influence. The new accountability is in a clause to allow the Mayor to fire PDC Commissioners. But if Measure 26-91 passes, this gives even more power to the all-powerful Mayor, although at least in this measure (which was proposed by the Council, not by the Charter Commission), the rest of the Council could veto a proposed Mayoral dismissal or appointment.

Omission in reporting: 26-92 sets up a separate public employee personnel system, different from the Civil Service, with even less information about what that should look like when adopted by administrative rules. It says it should “be in accordance with any other public policy goals as provided in Chapter 4 [Civil Service] of this Charter” – but the only goal left in the Civil Service chapter if 26-90 passes is “a workforce that reflects the aspirations and values of the City it serves.” Yes, our proposed new Constitutional language for the Civil Service has precisely one goal statement – and that’s it. Interestingly, the language in the PDC personnel administration section in 26-92 incorporates the goals from the current Civil Service chapter that 26-90 tosses out…. which leads me to think the goals’ deletion in 26-90 was unintended.

Vera Katz and Bud Clark, the former a supporter of 26-91, the latter an opponent, both oppose this change. Telling readers that fact alone would make many pause to wonder why.

Like everyone else in this process, the Mercury gave far more attention to the form of government debate around Measure 26-91. I’m concerned that 26-89 and 26-90, in particular, have far-reaching potential consequences, and I’m very disappointed the Mercury didn’t inform readers of their negative aspects for working people in Portland.

Is that enough detail, Blogtown readers? Cos I can give you more, if you want it.

Please vote No on Measures 26-89, 26-90, and 26-92, as well as 26-91.