Murmurs: City Bureau Director Out

CITY BUREAU DIRECTOR OUT: Andrea Durbin, director of Portland’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, announced March 15 she would leave the job she took a little less than three years ago. Durbin, who came to the city after 13 years at the Oregon Environmental Council, where she served as executive director, struggled to make the transition from advocate to administrator. In the fourth quarter of 2020, Durbin’s bureau proposed a controversial new tax on smokestack emissions (“Glass Houses,” WW, Jan. 27, 2021). Emails showed that she had shared policy details with environmental groups in advance but had given far less notice to companies that would pay the tax. Those companies put tremendous pressure on Durbin’s new boss, City Commissioner Carmen Rubio, who withdrew the initial tax proposal and has moved gingerly toward a replacement plan. Durbin’s departure also comes after a city audit found that the Portland Clean Energy Fund, which is administered by in her bureau, lacked metrics and oversight of its spending. For her part, Durbin says it was time to go: “If we’ve learned anything from the pandemic, it is that life is too short. I’ve decided it is time to prioritize my family.”

THREAT TO ABORTION RIGHTS REACHES OREGON’S BORDER: Oregon now borders a state that outlaws abortion. The Idaho Legislature on March 14 passed a “heartbeat bill” that closely mirrors an abortion ban in Texas that the U.S. Supreme Court refused to block following a 5-4 vote in September. Idaho’s bill prohibits abortion of a “preborn child” once a fetal heartbeat has been detected—usually around six weeks into a pregnancy when the embryo is the size of a pomegranate seed. The bill states that “any female upon whom an abortion has been attempted or performed, the father of the preborn child,” a grandparent, sibling, aunt or uncle may sue the medical provider for up to $20,000 in damages. On the heels of the Idaho’s bill passage, Oregon lawmakers on March 15 announced the $15 million Oregon Reproductive Health Equity Fund approved in the session’s final budget bill to “address immediate and urgent patient needs for abortion funds and practical support” like travel and lodging. State Rep. Tawna Sanchez (D-North Portland) noted that Texas’ and Idaho’s abortion bans can affect Oregon. “People from states with more restrictive laws already travel to Oregon for abortion care, and we face the very real likelihood that other states will ban abortion and shutter clinics,” Sanchez said. “We are rising to this alarming moment to invest in abortion access as a central foundation of Oregon’s health care infrastructure.”

NEW OLCC WAREHOUSE ADVANCES: The Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission announced March 8 it would move forward with a long-planned replacement of the Milwaukie warehouse that receives nearly all of the liquor shipped to Oregon. The bad news? Inflation in land prices and construction costs have pushed the price tag from $62.6 million in 2019 to $145.8 million. The commission last week approved the purchase of land in Canby for the new warehouse, which will serve 280 state-licensed liquor stores—unless grocers get their way to sell liquor on their shelves. “If we’re going to continue to be able to offer the diversity of products, the amount of products, be able to get products to our customers and also make money for the state, this is going to be an investment that will truly pay off,” Commissioner Jennifer Currin said in a statement. The agency faces an existential threat this year from the Northwest Grocery Association, which hopes to privatize liquor sales through a ballot measure. A dispute over the ballot measure title is currently before the Oregon Supreme Court.

PORTLAND STILL LAGS IN USE OF HOUSING VOUCHERS: Last year, the federal government awarded 476 emergency housing vouchers to Home Forward, the city’s housing authority. The agency has only secured leases for 28 of those vouchers. That’s 23 more leases than it had secured as of Jan. 19, almost two months ago. (Spokeswoman Monica Foucher says 19 other units are “nearly leased” and seven vouchers initially awarded to Home Forward moved to other jurisdictions.) But Portland continues to lag significantly behind its neighboring counties. Washington County has secured 70% of its potential leases, and Clackamas has secured 95%, according to a dashboard maintained by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. In related news, HUD awarded $46 million to programs across Oregon aimed at helping homeless residents access services and find housing as part of a nationwide annual package. Those yearly funds make up about a quarter of the funding for homeless services in the metro area.