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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 15, 2013)
street roots Feb. 15, 2013 HALES, from page 1 I .B .: There are a lot o f comm unity groups with a high level o f anxiety over budget cuts. How are you going to ensure that people’s voices are heard and there is comm unity involvement? W hat’s the best way to handle budget advocacy without alienating yo u r sta ff and city hall? C.H .: I’m never alienated by advocacy. I welcome it. I am never uncomfortable with people pounding on the table and advocating their point of view. That’s great, we want that. I think the rest of the Council is the same way. This is Portland, we expect people to have an opinion and to be involved. We expect people to actually be heard and have multiple opportunities during the formal budget process for people to come to hearings or work sessions and be able to express what they care about. We do have serious cutting to do; unfortunately, we aren’t going to get by with little tweaks here and there. My philosophy, in making those cuts, is to hold us to several key values. One is commitment to the basic services that the city is supposed to provide. No one else does police and no one else does parks. Those are our core responsibilities. Secondly, always have an eye on equity. Make sure that we are not causing further inequity by how we cut. Make sure we keep a particular eye on vulnerable populations, whether it’s at-risk kids or people that are houseless. We have a couple thousand people on the streets tonight. Third, as I mentioned earlier, build a city to compete for the long run. This is a one- year squeeze that’s going to start to ease up. We have to build a strong foundation for the future. If we have to cut things, cut things that we know how we are going to add back. Part of this is advocating to other governments. For example, the city has put money into public schools from time to time because we’ve been in this permanent crisis in public education. Every year, the schools are getting cut. This year, we’ve made school funding by the legislature our top legislative priority. The city doesn’t have the money to be grantmaker for the schools this year. As much as I love helping the schools, that’s just not a realistic possibility this year. If the legislature doesn’t step up, we are not in a good position to ride to the school’s rescue. People are uncomfortable, because it’s scary, and we will have to make some difficult choices. I .B .: W hat’s the answer fo r R ight 2 Dream Too? C.H .: I think the answer is a different site that is a good place to live that doesn’t have the friction that that site has. I was on the council when we approved the creation of Dignity Village. It is clearly a success. It seems to me that Right 2 Dream Too is on the way to being that kind of sustainable, self-managed community. It’s not in the right location on the corner of Fourth and Burnside. I think there are partnership possibilities between organizers and residents of Right 2 Dream, property owners, other non-profits and public agencies that will lead to positive outcomes. I went out to Dignity Village last fall. I am impressed. I’ve been to Right 2 Dream a couple of times. You see people really doing a great job, managing that enterprise for themselves. I’ve got a lot of confidence in the capacity of those folks to make this work. It’s up to the larger community, me included, to try to find a place for the camp to land that makes sense. I .B .: What are yo u r thoughts on the city’s efforts on equity, most notably addressing continued disparities am ong comm unities o f color? C.H .: The thing about equity that you will see from me is that I am going to be relentlessly looking for ways to make it real. Where are we paving the streets? Where are we building the parks? Where are we creating the jobs? Who are getting those jobs? What’s the next class of recruits in the police bureau look like? Are they representative of the community? What is the summer youth program in the Parks Bureau doing in terms of reaching at-risk kids and giving them summer jobs? Make it real. We have an office designed to monitor and inform the city on equity issues, but the buck stops with decisions that we make to make it real. Every hire, every promotion, every investment needs to be looked at and we need to honestly ask ourselves the question: Are we making the city more equitable by this? I .B .: Talk to Street Roots readers about police reform and the directions you see the bureau going in. better than getting out of this building and getting it first-hand, in person. We are going to be that kind of community policing bureau in everything we do and embrace the changes that are required to reduce the wrongful use of force. We’re not being dragged into these changes. We’re embracing these changes, because it’s going to make for a better relationship between the police bureau and the community and a safer city. I .B .: The Portland B u sin ess A lliance obviously thinks the current sidewalk management is not enough. Are you p la n n in g on cracking down on pa n h a n d lin g and changing the current sidewalk ordinance? wWe i o h a w serious cutting to io ; »nfortm iately, we aren't going to get by w ith little tweaks here a it i there, My philosophy^ la m aking those cnts^ Is to hold ns to several key values« One Is com m itm ent to the basic services that the city Is supposed to provide, No one else does police and no one else does parks« Those are oar core re sp o n sib ilitie s/' C.H .: No one is happy with the status quo — not the advocates for the homeless, not the downtown business managers, not the suburban shoppers who come downtown occasionally, and not the folks who live or work downtown. So no one is happy with the status quo. The current sidewalk management ordinance is dysfunctional. So, let’s move to an ordinance that works better and to an environment where we can give people real options. We have to do both at the same time. We have to have a livable downtown where we are taking care of people. I .B .: W hat’s the next evolution on the C.H .: We are going to make sure that the Portland Police Bureau is a truly community-policing agency that practices peacekeeping and de-escalation, that understands mental illness and who to reach out to for help. I think we are on the way. I think Chief (Mike) Reese is following my direction on this set of issues very well. I hear a lot of commitment in the Bureau. Captain (Sarah) Westbrook is a great resource and gets it. I am going to spend some time on the street with her and her team. I’m spending a lot of time doing ride- alongs and walk-alongs with everybody from Clean & Safe officers to the police so that I have that first hand view of what’s happening in the field. There is no substitute for that. Sitting in this building getting briefings doesn’t give me the tools I need to lead on this effort. There is nothing transportation fro n t in Portland? C.H .: The big picture in transportation is first we have to recommit to basic maintenance and show people that we can take care of the streets, because right now we are not. We have to go to the community for additional money for transportation. I don’t know what that’s going to be — a gas tax, vehicle registration fee. We cannot even start that conversation with the broader public until they know we are being good stewards of the streets we have, that we are out there filling the potholes and fixing the streets. 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