Communication Breakdown

[May 14th, 2008]

Sure, the Portland City Council looks like a sweet gig—$93,000 a year, your picture in the paper, big office windows. But then there are the migraines.

In just the past week, “Homeless Liberation Front” campers outside City Hall demanded an end to “Gestapo tactics.” Beloved pets fell ill. Karin Hansen blogged that Council “evil doers” “are trying to erase all the good work” of her husband, Mayor Tom Potter. And Potter again rejected talks with Mullah Omar—er, Commissioner Sam Adams.

No wonder a little thing like the city’s $523 million general fund budget is late.

On May 9, the city Office of Management and Finance, which reports to Potter, requested a two-week extension from the group required by state law to review the spending plan.

That group, the Multnomah County Tax Supervising and Conservation Commission, was supposed to hold a public hearing June 12 on the budget, which deals with everything from parks to police. OMF had already gotten a four-day extension on a deadline that it’s now asking be pushed back again to June 25, just before the budget takes effect July 1.

The extension doesn’t mean the city is facing a shutdown. But TSCC director Tom Linhares says, “A request to extend it this long is pretty unusual…. It does impact the process…for the public at large that might want to weigh in.”

Potter says the delay will allow extra time for “negotiations.” That’s a nice word for a total breakdown.

What’s the problem? As the fiscal year ends, the city has a $33 million general fund surplus. OMF received more than three times that amount—$116 million—in requests.

As in any year, the mayor proposes a budget, then commissioners haggle like tourists in Istanbul. But this year’s budget bazaar resembles a bombed-out Baghdad market, thanks to mutual distrust on the Council and the special paranoia of election-year politics. Potter supports Adams’ best-funded opponent in the mayor’s race, Sho Dozono, and echoes Dozono’s rhetoric about focusing on “core services.”

Because Adams and Potter don’t get along, Commissioner Randy Leonard is bargaining for both himself and his ally, Adams. Commissioner Dan Saltzman is lying low; he missed a PDC budget hearing last Thursday because his 15-year-old cocker spaniel, Curly, is on his “last legs.”

Potter says he’s standing against “shadow budgets” that mask the true costs of certain projects, especially transportation projects—Adams’ forte.For example, Potter says, “I’ve never heard a cost for all of the streetcar and light-rail costs.” (Adams says Potter should check with Tri-Met.”)

Potter maintains that Adams, the sneak, tried to interfere with OMF’s work. (Wah.) Leonard says it’s cranky Potter who was playing games. (Wah wah.) The two met May 6 to go through Leonard’s counterproposal line by line. Leonard says Potter refused to deal. “He said, ‘I just can’t live with this,’” recalls Leonard.

What bothered Potter most: how Leonard proposed raising $1.8 million for a $5 million rainy day fund by capturing money from unfilled police positions. Potter had wanted rainy day funds to come from the year-end surplus.

“I asked, ‘Is this intended to eliminate positions?’ They said no. I hope that’s true,” says Potter. The mayor says police use the money from unfilled positions to fund overtime—a bigger-than-usual drain this year, with presidential candidates staying in town longer than the average creative-class barista. Speaking of jobs no sane person would want….