633 CHAPTER VII REFORM and REJUVENATION—2005 to 2013 Portland Mayor Tom Potter (2005-2008) Dramatically Reversed the Decline O
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633 CHAPTER VII REFORM AND REJUVENATION—2005 to 2013 Portland Mayor Tom Potter (2005-2008) dramatically reversed the decline of Portland’s community and neighborhood involvement system and instituted the most significant expansion of the system since the 1970s. The two mayors who followed Potter—Sam Adams (2009-2012) and Charlie Hales (who began his first term as mayor in 2013)—continued to support much of the increased funding and most of the programs begun under Potter. The system changes instituted during this period represent a major advance toward a more inclusive and vibrant participatory democracy culture in Portland and a more effective and lasting governance partnership between city leaders and staff and community members. This chapter examines the system reviews and key program changes during the time period from 2005 through 2013. Mayor Potter came into office with a deep belief that governance should be a partnership between City government and the community. Potter brought to his administration his unusually high level of support for public involvement and his long- standing-standing and deep commitment to ensuring a voice for historically under- represented groups—especially communities of color, immigrants and refugees, and youth. Potter used his position as mayor and the significant additional discretionary revenues available to city government during the good economic times of his administration to implement a wide range of processes and programs that put his values into action and implemented many recommendations of earlier system reviews. 634 This chapter begins with a review of a system assessment prepared by neighborhood coalition leaders just prior to Potter taking office. The chapter also reviews early leadership and programmatic changes made by Potter at ONI and four of Potter’s twenty bureau innovation projects (BIPs): BIP 1/visionPDX, an extensive and very inclusive community visioning process; BIP 9, which created a public involvement assessment tool for city staff; BIP 20/Charter Review Commission, which proposed amendments to Portland’s City Charter, including one to change the form of city government (which voters rejected) and another that required the City Council to establish periodic community charter review commissions (which voters adopted); and BIP 8/Community Connect, the most comprehensive review of Portland’s community and neighborhood involvement system since it was founded in the 1970s. Community Connect established three primary goals and developed a “Five-year Plan to Increase Community Involvement” that charted a new and expanded course for Portland’s community and neighborhood involvement system. Community Connect recommended that Portland community and neighborhood involvement system be expanded and formally recognize and support organizations representing non-geographic communities—e.g., communities of people drawn together by shared identity or life condition—in addition to the traditional neighborhood association system. Potter initiated a number of new programs in ONI and elsewhere that implemented Community Connect’s broader and more inclusive vision for community involvement in Portland. This chapter describes these new programs. 635 Neighborhood activists also continued to seek ways to develop city-wide bodies to allow them to work together on citywide policy issues. This chapter examines two of these bodies, one focused on land use issues and the other on park issues. Mayor Sam Adams took office in January 2009. Adams assigned responsibility over ONI to long-time neighborhood activist and newly-elected City Commissioner Amanda Fritz. Adams and Fritz continued to support many of the new community and neighborhood involvement programs initiated by Potter and worked together to insulate ONI from many of the severe city budget cuts necessitated by the national and local economic recession. Adams also initiated or supported the continued operation of number of important processes. This chapter examines: the re-establishment of required budget advisory committees (BACs) for city bureaus; the Portland Plan—Portland’s broad strategic planning process that followed visionPDX—and its introduction of the concept of “equity” for city government; the work of the new Public Involvement Advisory Council (PIAC); the 2011 Charter Review Commission; the creation of Portland’s Office of Equity and Human Rights, and the East Portland Action Plan. Mayor Charlie Hales took office in January 2013. Hales had been a Portland city commissioner in the past and had been the city commissioner in charge of ONA during the 1995-96 TFNI. Hales choose to keep ONI and the new Office of Equity and Human Rights in his portfolio and, at least during his first city budget process, protected ONI from severe budget cuts that affected other parts of city government. This chapter provides some insights into Hales’ priorities and his early discussions with ONI and 636 neighborhood coalition leaders about the future of Portland’s community and neighborhood involvement system. The chapter also looks to the future and summarizes further system changes summarized by ONI staff and leaders of ONI’s neighborhood and community partner organizations, to continue to expand and strengthen Portland’s neighborhood and community involvement system. The chapter also includes summaries of the mayor’s budget messages from Potter, Adams, and Hales and lessons learned from the 2005-2013 period relevant to this study’s three primary research questions. Neighborhood Coalition Leaders’ Strategic Assessment—December 2004 Tom Potter’s election as Portland’s new mayor in November 2004 unleashed great expectations among neighborhood and community activists. The leaders of all seven of Portland’s neighborhood district coalitions hoped that Potter would move quickly to reinvigorate and expand Portland’s community and neighborhood involvement system. They wanted to jump start the process and help shape Potter’s reform agenda. They worked quickly to prepare a document which identified what they saw as the system’s strengths and challenges and their priorities and recommendations for reform. The neighborhood coalition leaders shared their document with Potter and his staff shortly after he took office in January 2005. The neighborhood coalition leaders titled their document, “Portland’s Neighborhood System: Government By and For the People.” Their report clearly reflects their years of frustration with the decline of the system, frequent criticisms of the system and of neighborhood volunteers by city leaders and staff, and unilateral, top-down 637 attempts by individual city council members to redirect the system away from community empowerment and toward city service delivery. In their report, the coalition leaders identified Potter’s election as a “unique opportunity to incorporate new challenges and develop new assets related to public participation through Portland’s ‘neighborhood system.’” They clarified that by “neighborhood system” they meant the City’s broader community involvement structure, including “neighborhood associations, affiliated grass-roots programs, coalition offices, and City Bureaus including [ONI] administration as it impacts resident participation” (1). The neighborhood coalition leaders stated their hope that their document would “lead to a complete review of ‘the neighborhood system’ and the creation of a strategic plan led by and develop by the community.” They advocated for immediate implementation of “reforms dealing with the mechanics of the system.” They suggested that reforms of the “intent and framework of the City of Portland’s commitment to public participation” would “require a more detailed strategic planning process with the widest possible outreach” (1). This section describes the neighborhood coalition leader’s assessment of the current system and their recommendations for short-term and long-term reform. The “Current State of the ‘Neighborhood System:’” The neighborhood coalition leaders began their document with a review of the system’s origin and evolutions. They noted that, “Prior to the creation of Portland’s neighborhood system in 1974, public participation was a rare animal in Portland.” Many barriers prevented community members from being involved in municipal government except for “local 638 elites.” “Structured communications between the people and their government was often reserved solely for elections” (2). They reported that ”For the first twenty years of its existence, the City of Portland’s unique and innovative neighborhood system focused public participation through Neighborhood Associations.” ONA had a small staff that worked with the staff of the neighborhood coalitions to support community involvement through: neighborhood associations; community input into city decision making through the BAC Program and the Neighborhood Needs process; and through community policing. They wrote that, “Neighborhood activism was focused on social services (model cities), housing (CDCs), land use (neighborhood planning program), public policy engagement and self-directed community development activity.” They asserted that that “the system seemed most effective when citizens received the support to participate and when elected officials and staff were genuinely interested in authentic collaboration” (2). The neighborhood coalition leaders reported that, over the previous ten years, “concerns with the effectiveness of the program and budget constraints” had led to changes in the neighborhood