Skip to main contentWhen there's trouble in Northeast Portland--when dodgy cars prowl past drug houses, suspicious characters loiter on corners or neighbors trade dirty looks--many solid citizens call Paul Dinberg first.
Dinberg is one of 10 crime-prevention specialists in the city's Office of Neighborhood Involvement. He and his colleagues act as liaisons between citizens and cops. Based in offices scattered around the city, they investigate citizen complaints, attend neighborhood meetings and clue in cops on what's really happening.
Now some fear a staff shake-up could wipe out ONI's crime-prevention office, eliminating the current staff's combined 120 years of experience and neighborhood knowledge.
"We'll be in deep doo-doo if they go away," Detective Sgt. Scott Johnson, who supervises neighborhood patrol officers at Northeast Precinct says of the ONI specialists. "If they're not there to give things the sniff test, we'll spend our whole day on the phone, trying to figure out what to pursue and what to ignore."
In early August, Dinberg and his colleagues learned their jobs, as they know them, are finished come fall. ONI management, backed by City Commissioner Randy Leonard, wants to add new duties to the crime-prevention posts. Leonard wants specialists to patrol problem liquor businesses to enforce a proposed ordinance aimed at quelling boozy neighborhood nuisances. The specialists will also be responsible for building new crime-stat computer databases.
Instead of asking the current employees to learn new tasks, ONI plans to open renovated positions to all comers. That means that if Dinberg and the others want to keep their jobs (which pay from $33,800 to $43,900 a year) they'll have to reapply.
Both ONI director David Lane and Leonard's office say the move is a routine personnel matter. Dinberg, the crime-prevention unit's union steward, calls it a veiled effort to purge the department.
"We're just stunned by the process," says Dinberg, who reports long-standing tensions between the specialists and ONI management.
Lane and Leonard seem to share the feeling that the new duties will put the ONI jobs in a different league (and boost the pay more than 10 percent).
"The level of training needed for some individuals would be beyond the scope of the department's time and budget," says Brent Canode, Leonard's policy advisor.
Dinberg counters that current staff could be retrained. "We could get there together, as a team," he says. "But that's not happening."
Leonard and Lane stress that current specialists will be welcome to apply for their old jobs should the shake-up occur. Dinberg says he expects a majority to do so; if so, they'll have fans pulling for them.
"Paul's been amazing," says Deirdre Atkinson, crime-prevention chair for Northeast's Vernon neighborhood association. "He's really mentored us on how a neighborhood can make a difference."
"These people explain the system to you as a citizen and make sure you'll be heard," says Betsy Radigan, who's active in North and Northeast Portland neighborhood associations. "They're the translators."
After a series of contentious meetings, the two sides remained far apart last week. Mayor Vera Katz reportedly learned of the ONI upheaval late last week but awaits a briefing from Leonard before weighing in.
WWeek 2015