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The Richmond Neighborhood Association, still reeling from a contentious board of directors election last June, on Monday narrowly rejected a provision that would have required neighbors to show identification to vote in neighborhood association elections.
The 6-5 vote to strike the voter ID provision from rules taking shape at the association keeps Richmond in line with most other Portland neighborhoods—and off any list that includes states such as Mississippi, where a requirement to provide photo ID before voting has drawn harsh criticism from Democrats. President Barack Obama has called such laws barriers to voting.
Monday's decision is just the latest episode in a neighborhood drama that flared last summer when the neighborhood association's board chairman lost his seat in what he would later call a "coup." Running beneath the surface are simmering tensions over density, housing affordability and bicycling in the fast-growing Richmond neighborhood, which runs east and west of Southeast César E. Chávez Boulevard near Division Street.
Last summer, longtime board member Doug Klotz described the then-board as "less than bike friendly" in a Listserv geared toward bicyclists. Dozens of people then showed up at the June election, and chairman Allen Field and two other board members lost their seats.
Field, though, fought back. He felt the "less than bike friendly" label had targeted him.
"It's not healthy to play dirty politics to try to oust those who don't share your opinions," he wrote in a letter to the editor in The Southeast Examiner. "That dirty politics and negative campaigning occurs on the national, state and city political stage is not reason to be OK with it happening on the neighborhood level."
Around that time, Field filed a grievance with the board saying Klotz had violated its code of ethics by calling him "less than bike friendly." The label was false and not in keeping with rules that called for treating fellow board members with respect, Field argued. (Field is a bike commuter.)
"I didn't think it was disrespectful to say the board was 'less than bike friendly,'" Klotz told WW in August.
That month, the board voted 6-6 to effectively reject the ethics violation. But Klotz then faced a recall election. More than 200 people voted in that recall election in September, spurred by a new online campaign that drew critical attention to Klotz's pro-density outlook.
Klotz held on by a single vote. But the drama continued. In October, the organization that oversees the neighborhood association, Southeast Uplift, overturned the 6-6 vote and found Klotz in violation of the association's ethics code.
This chaos was the backdrop for Monday night's vote on the ID requirement. Among some members of the neighborhood association there's still a lingering feeling that some who voted in September weren't actually Richmond residents.
Opponents of the proposed rule, though, said there was no proof of voter fraud and that they preferred to trust that people who give up an evening to come vote in a neighborhood election actually live in the neighborhood or own a business or property there.
Klotz says he's relieved.
"I'm glad that we were able to avoid having the ID requirements, which seemed more than was necessary for a neighborhood association board," Klotz tells WW.
Willamette Week