Next Up at City Council 12/5-6, 2007

The Portland City Council’s Agenda for this coming Wednesday morning shows a scheduled hearing on allocating over $76 million in funds to various bureaus and projects. Any questions? Feel like you’ve had plenty of input into how to spend $76 million? Good! Moving on….

No, backing up, $76,678,593 is a lot of money. The City calls it the “Minor Supplemental Budget for the FY 2007-08 Fall Budget Adjustment Process”, sometimes known as the “Fall BuMP” (Budget Monitoring Process). Some will say that $76 million in a budget of over $2.5 billion is a small fraction. But it seems to me that most of the notices I’ve seen coming out from City email sources over the past month or two have been on raising additional funding for transportation improvements, increasing the Parks Systems Development Charges, ongoing invitations to continue Visioning, and watershed planning events. Allocating $76 million? Not on the community involvement radar screen until it shows up on the Council Agenda. Can any reader help the rest of us out, and make time to look into what’s being proposed? One snip:

“The fall Minor Supplemental Budget increases resources and requirements by $77.1 million, in nineteen funds. The largest of these are the General Fund ($55.2 million), Federal Grants Fund ($8.4 million), General Reserve Fund ($3.9
million), Housing Investment Fund ($3.2 million), and Parks Capital Construction & Maintenance Fund ($2.5 million)”

In skimming the report, it seems some of the money is carryover from the previous fiscal year. I also notice that paragraph says $77.1 million while the ordinance says $76.6. I hope staff financial experts in all five Council offices have looked into the reports in detail. But experts and concerned people in the community should have adequate opportunity to look it over and give input, too.

OK, back to the Agenda. Two of the three Citizen Communications seem particularly compelling:

1426 Request of J.D. Cook to address Council regarding prevention of further bloodshed on our streets

With John Canda gone from the Mayor’s staff, I wonder what the plan is for addressing gang violence.

1427 Request of Mary Ann Schwab to address Council regarding citizens voting for Portland for HGTV funding

See here, and please keep clicking the link at the top of my list of favorites, daily.

The first Citizen Communication sounds simply sweet:

1425 Request of Tom Feely to address Council regarding recognizing CityFleet as 9th Best Fleet in North America (Communication)

I’m happy Mr. Feely is taking the time to celebrate this achievement. Tempting though it is to make a “Woo hoo, we’re number 9!” joke, we Duck fans know number 9 is pretty darn good. Evidently being 9th best is worth three minutes of the Council’s attention, and I’m pleased to see someone taking the time to celebrate something good.

Jack Bog’s blog beat me to commenting about

*1449 Authorize contract with Hargreaves Associates to provide planning, design and construction administration services for improvements to SouthWaterfrontNeighborhoodPark (Ordinance)

The ordinance says the total cost for planning and improvements is $4 million. That’s the amount the Portland Development Commission will pay the Parks bureau, which then contracts out the work.

Two interesting Time Certain items, one on Wednesday afternoon, the other on Thursday:

1451 TIME CERTAIN: 2:00 PM – Adopt the mission of the Portland Higher Education Subcommittee, authorized by the Oregon State Board of Higher Education, as part of an emerging Portland Knowledge Industry Strategy (Resolution introduced by Commissioner Adams)

The resolution outlines the background and reasons the City should be supporting higher education and sets up a committee to review data and plan, to report by April 2008. A Good Thing.

THURSDAY, 2:00 PM, DECEMBER 6, 2007

1453 TIME CERTAIN: 2:00 PM – Appeal of Eric Rystadt and Hans Vatheuer, applicant, against the Hearings Officer’s decision to deny a two lot partition with an open space environmental preservation tract located at unaddressed Council Crest Extended and SW Fairmount Blvd (Hearing; LU 07-113299 LDP ENM)

Dividing one lot into two is not a decision likely to have far-reaching implications for the entire city. It might, depending on the legal issues involved. And it matters hugely to the property owners, and probably to their neighbors.

The City Council has three main roles: legislative, administrative, and quasi-judicial. Land use cases are when the Council acts as the final decision-maker at the local level on applications that have been reviewed by others, such as the Hearings Officer or Design Review Commission. I like land use cases because they’re where the rubber hits the road, and the buildings hit the lots, implementing policies that sounded good when adopted. By reviewing how they work out on the ground, the Council can gain more understanding of how their legislative and administrative actions make a difference… positive or negative. So in some ways, this two lot partition is one of the most important items on this week’s Agenda.