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An internal memo drafted by senior Multnomah County officials this summer, and obtained by WW, laid out a “recommended approach” to counteracting the daytime camping ban implemented earlier this year by Mayor Ted Wheeler.
The suggested approach: ask the city to delay implementation of the ordinance while the county developed a “clearly articulated implementation plan,” and have the County Attorney’s Office perform a “legal analysis” of the ordinance’s compliance with state law.
The memo was sent in June to County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson and chief operating officer Serena Cruz by four officials, including Stacy Borke, one of Pederson’s senior policy advisers. But the proposal received pushback. Commissioner Julia Brim-Edwards issued a rebuke, saying the county should “support” the city’s plans and accelerate efforts to provide complementary services.
Pederson tells WW that the demand to the city to delay its ordinance was ultimately never made. She was won over by city officials who explained their planned outreach efforts, she says.
The conflict highlights tensions within Multnomah County government, which oversees the social services that unhoused Portlanders rely on even as the city seeks to restrict unsanctioned camping and move people from the streets into sanctioned shelters.
The city’s camping ordinance, which gives police authority to arrest, jail or fine people who camp repeatedly on public property between 8 am and 8 pm, went into effect July 1—but its criminal penalties are not being enforced by police. Wheeler’s office hasn’t said when such criminal citations would begin. But advocates for unhoused people have decried the policy as unjust and cruel—and are challenging it in court.
Those arguments clearly had some sway in Multnomah County. The memo drafted by Borke outlines a “political strategy,” “led by the Chair’s Office and would include drafting a letter from the Board to the City of Portland asking for a stay on implementation of the time and manner sections of the ordinance as adopted. The implementation pause will allow the County and contracted providers, in partnership with the City of Portland, to develop a plan to resolve and/or reduce the likely physical, social, and legal impacts of the ordinance and develop sustainable alternatives.”
It also outlines a “legal strategy,” “led by the Chair’s Office and County Attorney’s Office to conduct legal analysis of the City’s ordinance for it’s compliance with the intention of HB 3115, which requires the City/County to consider the impact in passing regulations of ‘sitting, lying, sleeping, or keeping warm and dry outdoors on public property.’”
Instead of battling the city on its policy, Pederson says, the county is now focusing its efforts on figuring out ways to adjust to increased demand at county facilities like libraries and day centers. Those public facilities are likely to see more people using them for respite if they aren’t allowed to camp in daylight hours. She says the county just held a kickoff meeting Aug. 1, with more than 100 people invited.
Meanwhile, Brim-Edwards is pushing forward with plans to complement the city’s ordinance with a similar county ordinance. The idea, she explained at a recent board meeting, is to prevent “a patchwork of rules.” If Portland bans camping, the reasoning goes, unhoused people will just move somewhere that doesn’t—like county property.
Vega Pederson was coy when asked whether she supported the idea, citing the impacts on cities in east county. “That’s an idea that we’re going to have to look at and have a conversation about as a board,” she told WW.
A vote on that proposed ordinance is expected next month.