Next Up at City Council, 5/16/07

Everyone may be anticipating a collective sigh of relief, or an overwhelming flurry of activity, in Portland City government the day after the vote count on Tuesday, as next week’s City Council Agenda shows items only on Wednesday morning – nothing on Wednesday afternoon or Thursday. Or the reason for the breather after Wednesday morning may be the big issue on Wednesday’s Agenda, 530 TIME CERTAIN: 9:30 AM – Council to convene as the Budget Committee to approve a budget. It seems as if many of the items drawing most citizen comments have been resolved – funding for bike projects and for multi-bureau work on tree protection, for example. Citizens still wanting additional projects funded will need to bring lots of people to testify on Wednesday to have any chance of success, and it’s slim even then. You are welcome to post in the comments here, if there are particular outstanding funding needs in your neighborhood.

Four people signed up for Citizen Communications at the start of the meeting. Note to testifiers: Show up on time. Last week, when I was first on the list, I was surprised that the Mayor did not start the meeting with his customary question, “How are the children doing?” followed by a five to ten minute presentation by invited young ‘uns. Either there was a late no-show, the Mayor’s office didn’t line anyone up, or the children of Portland are all just fine, thank you. In any event, Citizen Communications speakers should be ready to start at 9:30. Ish. There is an interesting range of topics this week: Section 8 housing, the Water Bureau, “enumerated powers of the Council” (kudos to Jim Lee for signing up with the very first opportunity after the Charter change outcomes are known), and the Bureau of Human Resources.

I really like b!X’s suggestion, repeated in the comments here last week, that the Council consider adding a “Citizen Conversation” spot on their weekly agenda. It’s good to be able to highlight a concern to the entire Council and citizen audience in Communications, but as Mayor Potter said very clearly to me last week, speakers are “here to make a statement”. Occasionally someone on the Council responds; most often, they don’t say anything in public, although sometimes a staff person follows up with the citizen privately. It would be awesome to have one or two five-minute slots on the agenda for “Conversations with Council”, so a citizen could get feedback on an idea or concern from all five Council members at once.

After the budget hearing, there’s another time certain, of particular interest to hikers and SW residents: 531 10:30 AM – Accept the report on Red Electric Trail Planning Study. I searched for this first on the Office of Transportation’s web pages, but found it on Portland Parks & Recreation’s site.

On the Consent Agenda, the Police bureau is requesting *535 Authorize an Intergovernmental Agreement with Multnomah County Department of Human Services to fund a portion of the salary of the County Domestic Violence Coordinator. See my post and particularly Commissioner Leonard’s comment regarding City-County financial relationships. The City helps pay for many services run by the County. Similarly, on the Regular agenda there’s an item for the city’s School districts, 554 Authorize grants to five Portland school districts for out-of-school-hours youth programs (Ordinance). It would be helpful if PortlandOnLine carried a summary page somewhere, showing exactly how much intergovernmental/interjurisdictional support is provided by and to which entities.

Also on Consent: Office of Transportation – 537 Extend existing transportation system development charge rate study and program through December 31, 2007 (Ordinance). Regular readers likely join me in looking forward to Frank Dufay’s upcoming Guest Post here on Transportation System Development Charges (SDCs), after the community meeting on this topic later on the evening of 5/16.

This is A Good Thing: *539 Accept a two-year grant agreement with The Energy Trust of Oregon for $300,000 to fund energy efficiency or renewable energy projects through the City Green Investment Fund (Ordinance). Whether you support the unerlying program or not, it’s good to see it attracting money from outside city tax sources.

Controversial one buried in Consent: 540 Authorize a contract with Portland Metropolitan Softball Association, for the period July, 1, 2006 through October 31, 2008 (Ordinance). Whether or not adult ball players subsidize or are subsidized by Portland Parks & Recreation is an ongoing debate between Parks advocates. Another Parks item, on the Regular agenda, may have significant implications, too: *551 Authorize a contract and provide payment for the construction of Portland International Raceway Track Repairs and Improvements (Ordinance). Does this mean the idea of moving PIR has been shelved?

It’s interesting to me that 546 Authorize contract with Dignity Village to manage transitional housing campground at Sunderland Yard (Second Reading Agenda 522; Ordinance introduced by Commissioners Adams and Sten) has attracted so much less attention than when Dignity Village was first established. Willamette Week published an interesting interview with a resident in January, and there was a report in The Olympian in February. Otherwise, not much recent media coverage that I’ve seen. Is this a case of “no news is good news”, or not?