Next Up at City Council, 10/31 – 11/1, 2007

The Portland City Council Agenda for this coming Wednesday and Thursday is posted here. The following is a very brief skimming, so please check it out yourself and comment if I skip something important.

Wednesday morning starts with accepting the “generous donation” of part of Ross Island. Aren’t all donations generous? Still, I’m glad agreement has been reached, and I hope it’s fair to all parties.

At 10 a.m. Time Certain (which means the item won’t start before that time, but might start after), former City and County Commissioner Gretchen Kafoury is being appointed to the Housing Authority of Portland board. The term “super-qualified” springs to mind. Portland is blessed with many volunteers serving the City and citizens in multiple ways. Brook Drew is being appointed to the Portland Utility Review Board (PURB) on the Consent agenda. I don’t recognize that name, but I know the PURB volunteers dedicate much time and thought to advising the City Council on utility rates and policies, and I’m glad the vacancy is being filled.

Here’s an item on the Consent Agenda that made me smile:

*1305 Authorize agreement with the State of Oregon, acting by and through its Oregon National Guard to land a helicopter at the Portland International Raceway for TOPOFF 4 Exercise (Ordinance)

For once, I don’t have a problem with the asterisk indicating an emergency motion, since the TOPOFF4 exercise was now over a week ago.

I’d like to know more about this item on the Regular Agenda:

1314 Authorize a major encroachment to bSide6, LLC to install, use and maintain building improvements in the airspace over a portion of the E Burnside St right-of-way at SW corner of SE 6th Ave and E Burnside St (Ordinance)

This airspace use is being leased for $1 per year. The Ordinance says the building projection over the sidewalk has been approved by the Design Commission. While I was serving on the Planning Commission, discussions of private uses in the public right-of-way were always highly controversial, so this is an item that I’d be interesting to hear more about.

There is no Wedesday afternoon meeting. Two interesting items on Thursday afternoon:

1319 TIME CERTAIN: 2:00 PM – Direct the Office of Sustainable Development to revise the City’s current climate-protection plan in coordination with the Bureaus of Planning, Development Services, Environmental Services, Water, Housing and Community Development, Parks and Recreation, Office of Transportation, Portland Development Commission and MultnomahCounty (Resolution introduced by Commissioners Saltzman and Sten)

The Resolution lists the plan for the plan.

1320 TIME CERTAIN: 2:30 PM – Report on fourth City-County Project Homeless Connect event and update on the accomplishments of the Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness (Report introduced by Commissioner Sten)

Kudos to Erik Sten’s staff for sending the link to the actual Report to the Council Clerk for posting on the agenda. Among the highlights for 2007 results listed:

* 221 chronically homeless people moved into permanent housing, more than 80% are still in housing
* 311 homeless families with children moved into permanent housing, including 58 high-resource families
* 191 households were prevented from becoming homeless through the provision of rent assistance

Good. I’m not convinced we can “end homelessness” here in Portland, as we aren’t isolated from the rest of the country in needing to help people find and keep housing. But the “Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness” is the right approach, to dedicate more resources to permanent solutions for individuals and families, rather than continuing to focus on temporary services.