[These are the answers and questions received from (corrected for typo) someone and I liked the final email so much explaining things, I just put it here.
Which three policies would you introduce, and what would each cost?
Glad to answer. First would be a value-based audit and investigation of where our money went over this year and the past two years as a starting point. The reason to start there is to see what percentage of our money is going toward asset management versus buying assets, as well as creating a detailed list of city assets. I would even like to make that information public.
This would help with Councilwoman Clark’s Asset Management Plan, Councilman Morillo’s efforts to further green business, and more, because without knowing what we have, it is hard to say what we can do as a city. I would expect that to cost no more than $5 million. I would expect it to cost less, but you plan for the worst deal you can find, and if you save money, you can always put it back. Also, as a caveat, while this is going on, no additional taxes or fees would be passed until we figure out where everything is going.
Second would be, if I could get it passed, a resolution that each councilor would put in 100 hours of volunteer work per year while they are on council. This would be with groups they did not start, such as Avalos, or with a group where they already hold a position, such as chair or secretary, as I do. The majority of people do not feel seen or represented by City Council, so this would provide more opportunities to rebuild the connection between City Council and the people. The cost would be 1,200 hours of volunteer work, plus the paper and ink needed to document it.
Third would be that until the City of Portland is back to growth in average salaries and jobs for at least two full years, with tests done every six months, benefits and the pay structure for City Council would be frozen at current levels. When good-paying jobs are becoming rare and people are having trouble paying their bills, it smacks of insincerity to get a pay raise while the city is doing poorly.
That money could instead be used to pay benefits for staff, support other workers at City Hall, or be funneled back into the general fund. The direct cost of this policy would be minimal, although the exact savings or reallocation would depend on the current compensation structure.
2. Our side-by-side issue summary still lacks a sourced, current position on housing affordability and production; public safety and responses to homelessness; city spending and revenue; climate, transportation and environmental health. Could you point us to your positions or briefly explain the specific actions you support?
Absolutely. One point I want to make is that I think a lot of City Council looks at one thing doing well at the cost of everything else, when really all that does is hurt a lot for a little gain. There are ways to get growth in the areas we are looking for, but we have to remember the balance of things.
Housing affordability, as an example, has been a failure in the city despite all the efforts made by both sides, sometimes with one effort taking away from another. It is not about needing a legislative victory. It is about needing to do it right. We need more housing, and the fastest way could be to make the city more investable, but there may also be ways we could reuse city assets to help with it.
Signing yourself to a single plan and only that plan, without taking as many factors as you can into account, only limits your moves. This is the same with production. Reuse city assets at a lower cost for short-term help, and for the long term, we need to make the city more approachable and investable, not just to big accounts but to people who want to make Portland a home.
Public Safety: Get police response times down. We will need more officers. That is pretty much a given. But if we can find ways to handle issues that may not need our most highly trained officers and instead give those responsibilities to a combination of cadets, volunteers, and other programs as appropriate, we can work on getting response times down faster.
Homelessness: Spending money without thought is not helping. We need to figure out what has been working, what has not, and work with urgency because there are people who need help. But there are also citizens who do not want to see their taxes wasted, so first a clear understanding of what got us hear, a timeline of peoples needs through homelessness and a method to best work with others in the city to accelerate it and covering what needs remain.
City Spending: Get it under control. We have enough to do what we need with what we have, or at least get a full view of what we need before asking for more. Revenue is in the same boat. When revenue is not growing, we are not growing our tax base, and that means what we have available for next year will generally be smaller than this year’s budget.
Climate and Environmental Health: I think we can use this to help our business investability. If someone invents a car that runs on less fuel, or someone creates a light bulb that stays bright with less electricity, for example, I do not think that is something that will only be good for the climate or business. It is good for both, and we can use those areas of focus that benefit multiple things to help our climate efforts.
Transportation: We are always going to have some cars and trucks, but I would like to see more public transit and better train systems. Leave cars for those who want them and those who need them for their services. Don’t burn our finances for the future for what we want now.
3. To strengthen our account of your disability advocacy, advisory or budget-committee work, could you share one or two concrete accomplishments, your own role, the outcome and a public source?
Sure. I would say go contact the groups in question if you want, because I will say the amount of coverage people get for doing civics is rather small. For all the work being done, most of it is not even talked about until well after the fact. I would like to help fix that as well. With more than 40 different groups this is not the full resume but enough to answer questions with sources.
Disability advocacy: When I was with PCC, my work was largely focused on helping students maximize their college experience by finding opportunities with volunteer groups and learning the processes needed to do well in them. That was at AEDR. At Portland Community College, I was also an honor society president for two groups and worked as someone with disabilities alongside students with disabilities to help them feel like they had a place.
Even with Phi Theta Kappa, we were able to send some people to Florida to assist with a national semifinalist in the elections, all while staying within budget. I was also the finance chair for student council coming out of the COVID lockdowns, so we had a new set of rules and systems to adjust to very quickly. Part of the time was spent working between the different groups, looking at which accounts money was going into and finding where the different funds for students at PTK were located.
Multnomah County Disability Services Advisory Council and a representative for O4AD, the state group: It has been more about being a good councilperson, hearing needs, finding issues, and exploring data. I have filmed content for internal use, been present at readings, and tried to make the groups as open and welcoming as I can when called upon.
TriMet Committee for Accessible Transportation: We have gone through information related to recent cuts, trying to make sure the lowest number of people would be affected, as changes to the TriMet service area are also reflected in paratransit. We also helped establish the use of the blue-light phones, testing them out and seeing how we could maximize efficiency while still making sure they could be used by the highest percentage of people.
When people are using TriMet LIFT as a service and it may be their only transportation service, and we have to make cuts, then the question becomes: How small of a group can we make the affected population?
Tuition Review Advisory Committee at Portland State: As a student, we voted on a recommendation for an 8% tuition increase for students. We explained that it was needed because it would be the only time it could be done while keeping the roughly 50 jobs we were trying to save. While it was not a popular decision, the fact that SEIU has recently voted to strike at public universities shows that it may have been the time to act.
As a student, saying an 8% increase is tough. But making decisions when things are difficult and explaining those decisions to the finance board, as I did with others, meant explaining our different ideas and why we voted certain ways. The 8% vote in our group passed 5-4 as a recommendation. The finance board ultimately felt it was not a move they could make.
Multnomah County Central Budget Action Committee: We worked on understanding the history and processes behind our positions, building our understanding of what was being asked of future groups, and trying to make that easier to achieve. Since then, the CBAC system has focused on getting more people involved. The central co-chairs who came after me have done a great job illustrating needs and seeing what is needed.
As chair for the Department of County Assets and Management, I helped bring the group’s thoughts together toward the budget recommendations for our department and the projects being considered. I went over the needs, values, and usage of each project to help determine what we thought was the best way to use the funds. I did include some forms and links to help if people want to peruse those, go right ahead.
Let me know if there are any other questions.
[So I got this interview set of questions and I thought it was worth posting here for everyone, below are some of the forms from the cbac’s I worked on, the cat annual report and some of the work done for the PSU TRAC]
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