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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (April 8, 2016)
Page 8 2016 PORTLAND MAYOR'S RACE Street Roots • April 8-14, 2016 A FEW OF THEIR FAVORITE THINGS Each candidate was asked to select a local artist - professional or amateur - to draw his or her favorite thing about Portland. Their submissions are on Pages 8-10. Jules Bailey submitted this art by Wilder Schmaltz. QUIZ, from page 7 equity extraction that all profit-based Wall Street banks inflict on cities who bank with them. We must tackle the causes of issues instead of only treating the symptoms and wondering why we aren’t getting better. 1. Comprehensive investments into transitional housing dedicated to solving homelessness, long term. Emergency services must happen in tandem with clear paths to not needing those services in the future. 2. Crime increases with disparity. It is disparity that we must fight. Programs that increase community empowerment, access to education, economic equality and opportunity are the answer. Not more police. When given a choice between a bright future and crime, people choose a bright future. 3. Land acquisition to ensure that every Portlander has a park in their life. Parks are the lungs of a city, and without them we will suffocate. I do want to answer this directly as well. I would prioritize social services and the fire bureau over parks and police funding. Social sevices: 3.8 million Fire Bureau: 2.7 million Parks: 1.8 million Police: 1.7 million DEBORAH HARRIS My first response would be to compliment those agencies for showing a desire to address and support the human needs of people with a sense of urgency. Too often leaders either fail to give recognition, or a simple “thank you” to those who are passionate in supporting economic stability to improve and enhance the quality of life for our communities. Yes, the cost and benefit(s) of each need to be weighed due to our instinct that one’s needs supersedes another. I will request a review of analysis and documents from each bureau defining the expenditures for requested finances. Knowing these represent critical issues that mayors before me have allowed to set on the shelf, I will effectively collaborate with constituents, bureaus, analysts and related: $17 million/$10 million. What do I do? At my inception as the new mayor, I took an important step by having an audit of the treasury and audited our city’s debt obligations. I can comfortably take the available resources, divide them into our cited neighborhoods thereby avoiding behaviors that created a debt-ridden city such as Detroit SARAH IANNARONE I’d take the $10 million and build a 311 system, including cost-effective digital interfaces. Then, I’d reallocate the overall savings to human services and parks. DAVID SCHOR I would try to raise more revenue, either through fundraising, taxes or bonds. Barring that, I would look for ways to reduce administrative overhead, perhaps by combining fire and police agencies. Ultimately, I would ask the people of Portland to help me set the priorities by meeting with the public to seek their input I expect that we would prioritize social and emergency services, and accept some increase in fire response times as well as some decrease in parks and police services. No agency will get all that it wants in this scenario. JESSIE SPONBERG I’d be reluctant to give the police any extra money so long as they fail to act in good faith with the community. I would use this leverage as part of the negotiations for the new contract (and they have to fire Mark Kruger). Of course they would immediately threaten to cut our most vital services, as usual. I won’t fall for that. The fire bureau has Randy Leonard all over it, so assuming it is halfway as wasteful as our Water Bureau I would encourage them to stretch 4 million, giving the full 5 million to social services and asking our friends at the parks department to be patient with me while I find the funds and let the grass grow for 1 million. Of course, this is a hypothetical box, and the trick answer is go cut your bloated budgets. AUDIT TIME! TED WHEELER When you only have $10 million to deal with $17 worth of needs, your approach needs to be diligent, rigorous and creative. That’s the approach I took as chair of Multnomah County when we were faced with massive budget shortfalls as the result of the Great Recession. Among the strategies we employed: • We focused on the core mission of county government, which was services for our most vulnerable citizens. • We examined whether county leadership and manager ranks could absorb cuts in order to protect front line workers. • We asked our front line workers to tell us what tools and resources were most important to their job duties, and protected them. • We looked for technology innovations to decrease the cost of providing services. The city will increasingly be in a resource constrained environment, and the next mayor must have the budgetary experience and expertise to navigate these challenges. Sean Davis submitted this art by TL Steinbroner. 7 Yes or No: As mayor, will Ub you end the practice of contracting for military and militarized equipment for use by our police bureau? J Please place the following items 1 in order of priority as mayor. Note with 1,2 and 3. Increase parking Bike infrastructure Low- or no-fare public transit JULES BAILEY: Yes. PATTY BURKETT: Yes. Yes. My vision for our police force has nothing in common, in spirit or mission, with our war making apparatus. When you wear thé mask too long it becomes your face. We have police officers dressed in all black with weapons I carried during wartime. We need community minded ambassadors to repair our relationship with our police bureau and our neighborhoods. SEAN DAVIS: BIM DITSON: Yes. DEBORAH HARRIS: Yes. SARAH IANNARONE: DAVID SCHOR: Yes. Yes. JESSIE SPONBERG: As a person who has personally experienced pepper spray, the LRAD device and flash grenades, I will push hard to eliminate this practice. TED WHEELER: Yes. This Mt. Scott- Arleta neigh borhood mural painted by stencil artist Tiago DeJerk represents “conviviality, you know, that joy we derive from being in community with each other,” says Sarah lannarone. JULES BAILEY 1. Low- or no-fare 2. Increase parking 3. Bike infrastructure public transit 2. Bike infrastructure 3. Increase parking SARAH IANNARONE PATTY BURKETT 1. Low- or no-fare public transit 2. Bike infrastructure. 3. Increase parking SEAN DAVIS 1. Low- or no-fare public transit 2. Bike lanes 3. Increase parking BIM DITSON Bike infrastructure Low- or no-fare public transit 3. Increase parking 1. 2. DEBORAH HARRIS 1. Low- or no-fare public transit 1, Low- or no-fare public transit 2. Bike infrastructure 3. Make downtown a car-free zone DAVID SCHOR 1. Low- or no-fare public transit 2. Bike infrastructure 3. Increase parking JESSIE SPONBERG 1. Low- or no-fare public transit 2. Bike infrastructure 3. Increase parking TED WHEELER 1. Low- or no-fare public transit 2. Bike infrastructure 3. Increase parking The bast ever past
