Bulldog

For a man who runs the city's largest booster group, Franklin Dumas "Kim" Kimbrough III displays unusual people skills.

One of Kimbrough's first moves upon coming to Portland from St. Louis two years ago was a small but telling renovation.

The door to his 10th-floor office in the Pioneer Building at 520 SW Yamhill St. contained a large glass panel. Kimbrough immediately ordered it replaced with a solid wooden door with a secure lock.

Kimbrough informed employees that his door was always open--provided they made an appointment to see him at least 24 hours in advance.

Shortly afterwards, he fired nearly half of his 25-member staff.

Kimbrough's public behavior is equally unusual. As president and CEO of the Portland Business Alliance, he's supposed to market the city to the rest of the world, yet he has spent most of his two years here talking about what a terrible place Portland is to do business. "When you start a mantra that Portland is anti-business, you're helping to make that reality," says City Commissioner Erik Sten. "It's a strange message for a group that we're paying to market the city." (More than 80 percent of Kimbrough's $11 million budget is public money.)

Then again, Kimbrough, 43, didn't move to Portland to make friends. His marching orders were to secure a better seat at the table for business.

In some people's minds, he has accomplished that goal. "I've done business in this city for 50 years, and I think that Kim has done the best job of anyone that I've ever seen in his position," says real-estate developer Pete Mark. "I'm very, very high on him."

Other people say Kimbrough's tactics have backfired. "He doesn't seem to understand the way that Portland works," says Pearl District developer Homer Williams. "I don't see any strategy. He's just sitting there with a rifle, taking pot shots."

Whether he's a straight-talking savior or a clueless carpetbagger, there's no denying that Kimbrough has raised the volume of debate in this city. On issues ranging from the right to sit on the sidewalk to tax reform, he has placed himself and his organization squarely in the middle of the action. Like a bulldog, Kimbrough has sunk his teeth into Portland in a way that Portland Mayor Vera Katz says is unparalleled in her 10 years as mayor. "Nobody has done business this way," Katz says. "I don't understand where he's coming from."

Kim Kimbrough is camera-shy and rarely appears in public. He would not agree to be interviewed for this story. But because of whom he represents--about 2,000 businesses in the metro area, ranging from Qwest to single-employee startups--when Kimbrough speaks, people listen.

His words, for example, drowned out the collective voices of the more than 20,000 anti-war protesters who took to Portland's streets on Jan. 18. A single letter from Kimbrough trumped the marchers and the thousands of cards, emails and phone calls City Hall received in support of a resolution against attacking Iraq.

On Jan. 21, the day before the City Council voted on Iraq, Kimbrough sent a letter to all commissioners. "Time spent by the City Council during Council meetings debating, hearing, or acting upon the proposed resolution only helps to diminish the credibility of the Portland City Council," he wrote.

Katz and Sten voted to support the resolution. Randy Leonard, a longtime firefighter whose son is in the Coast Guard, voted "no." Commissioner Dan Saltzman was absent. That meant the crucial vote belonged to Commissioner Jim Francesconi, who had earlier written to President George W. Bush expressing his opposition as a private citizen to war with Iraq.

Francesconi voted "no."

The resulting tie made Portland only the second major city not to vote "yes" among the more than 70 that have considered such a resolution. (A similar resolution also failed in Hartford, Conn.)

The buzz inside and outside City Hall was that Kimbrough got to Francesconi.

Francesconi denies that. He acknowledges that Kimbrough and Alliance Board Chairman George Passadore spoke to him about Iraq prior to the vote, but Francesconi says he decided in October that the council had no business addressing the issue. "If I had thought that this symbolic gesture would have made a difference, I would have voted differently," Francesconi says. "But I don't think that it's going to matter."

Kimbrough has never been shy about flexing his muscles. A buttoned-down Southerner who shudders at the concept of casual Fridays, Kimbrough earned his undergraduate degree in political science at the University of South Alabama and added a graduate degree in public administration from Ole Miss. Starting in Panama City, Fla., he steadily climbed the ladder of business booster trade, holding top jobs in Roanoke, Va., Jackson, Miss., and St. Louis before coming to Portland.

In his last post, Kimbrough's habit of knocking the local business climate and his sometimes imperial behavior rubbed some people the wrong way. "He was one of the tools in the box here, but he thought he was the carpenter," says St. Louis political consultant Richard Callow.

Kim Kimbrough's 2001 arrival in Portland was no accident. His style was exactly what some influential members of the downtown business community wanted. In the past couple of years, they had come to blame City Hall for Portland's soaring unemployment rate and the steady departure of corporate headquarters.

Perhaps the most vocal of those was Pete Mark. "I think that we've gotten into a situation where an extreme group is running this city," Mark says.

In some ways, Mark is an unlikely figure to be leading the charge on city government. At 76, he is in the twilight of a career that has seen him build one of the Northwest's most successful real-estate development companies. Over the years, Mark has attracted far more notice for philanthropy than for political activism.

A major contributor to the renovation of the Multnomah County Library (the second-floor lobby is named after him and his wife, Mary), Mark also served as chairman of the Portland Art Museum and has donated millions of dollars to civic causes.

Rather than easing into retirement, however, the arts patron has turned into a firebrand. In 2001, he engineered the ouster of Ruth Scott, Kimbrough's predecessor, who had held her job for 13 years. "We needed a stronger organization," Mark explains. "And the business community needed a stronger voice."

Kimbrough gave notice early on that his predecessor's collegial relationship with City Hall was history. For several months in 2001, he stonewalled requests for financial information from city officials.

Finally, in September of that year, according to correspondence WW obtained through a public-records request, City of Portland chief administrative officer Tim Grewe sent Kimbrough a demand for compliance. "I am writing to you to express my serious concerns regarding [your organization's] contractual performance over the past several months," Grewe wrote. "At this time, the city is in the process of reviewing its legal options to correct this situation."

Kimbrough shot back a lengthy response referring icily to Grewe's "half-truths," "open hostility" and "poisoned communication."

Last year, Mark and Ken Novack, president of Schnitzer Investment Corp. and chairman-elect of the Alliance board, also opened their wallets in support of developer Robert Ball's effort to diminish the City Council's authority and invest Portland's mayor with far greater power.

Campaign records show that Mark pumped $39,000 into Ball's unsuccessful "Good Government" initiative and Novack and his company kicked in another $22,500.

Despite losing that battle, Mark is more eager than ever for change. "I think that Randy Leonard and Jim Francesconi are trying to do the right things, and I think Saltzman is trying," he says. "But the other two [Katz and Sten] aren't trying. They aren't listening."

Others share some of Mark's frustration. Bookstore owner Michael Powell, bruised from an Alice-in-Wonderland permitting process for a warehouse renovation, says, "Is it tough to do business here? The short answer is 'yes.'"

Not everybody agrees. Homer Williams calls the notion that Portland is anti-business "bullshit." He cites as evidence the Pearl District and his nascent development of the North Macadam project. "I just spent two years working with just about every agency in this city to get a deal done," Williams says. "In San Francisco, a deal that's very similar took seven years to get approved."

Part of Mark's strategy to get "The City that Works" actually working was the hiring of Kimbrough. "I compare Kim to John Buchanan at the Portland Art Museum," he says. "Both have taken over an organization that needed help and made major progress."

Mark credits Kimbrough with forcing the city's regulators to be more business-friendly, an assessment that commissioners Francesconi and Saltzman say is accurate.

Katz, who oversees the Bureau of Development Services, the focus of most of the unhappiness, disagrees. She says that over the past year the city has moved aggressively to address complaints but that Kimbrough didn't prompt the response. "We would have done it anyway," Katz says, crediting the infamous Columbia Sportswear relocation among a number of catalysts.

Developer John Russell agrees with the mayor. He says Katz's 2002 Blue Ribbon Committee on Economic Development recommended much of the regulatory reform that's currently underway.

Planning consultant Peter Finley Fry is also reluctant to credit the Alliance for streamlining the permitting process. "The PBA hasn't forced those changes, not at all," Fry says. "It's been smaller businesses and groups like the Alliance of Portland Neighborhood Business Associations that got their attention."

Whether Kimbrough has made the city more business-friendly may be in dispute, but nobody would deny that he has built the Alliance into a political force.

Last July, the Association for Portland Progress (which Kimbrough ran) and the Metro Portland Chamber of Commerce merged to formed the Alliance. Prior to the merger, neither group involved itself in political races. But last year, the Alliance dangled endorsements in front of City Council candidates.

Contenders for the seat vacated last June by Charlie Hales responded to a 30-question loyalty test that featured such questions as, "Often-heard complaints of our City Government is that no one is responsible, that agenda-driven bureaucrats run the City and that Commissioners turn a blind-eye to bureaus outside their portfolio. Please comment."

Most observers agree that the Alliance's endorsement helped Leonard win. The organization plans to form a political action committee to channel money directly to candidates.

In addition to raising his organization's profile, Kimbrough has built a strong staff, plucking heavyweight lobbyist Mike Salsgiver from Intel and extending his reach into Washington County by adding State Sen. Bruce Starr, a Hillsboro Republican, to his business-development team.

Kimbrough has also impressed people with his work ethic. Port of Portland boss Bill Wyatt recalls that, last September, he invited Kimbrough to join a Port delegation wooing Germany's Lufthansa Airlines. Kimbrough had a previous commitment, but at the last minute his designated replacement canceled. When Wyatt assembled his group in a German hotel lobby, he says, he was shocked to see Kimbrough emerge from an elevator. "He dropped everything to fly over there and back in 24 hours," Wyatt says. "That showed me something."

Other accomplishments are more difficult to identify. In the Alliance's first six months of operation, Kimbrough's group spent a lot of energy on two policy initiatives that brought little or no change.

Last August, the Alliance proposed that the City Council enact a "sit-lie" ordinance to crack down on loiterers. Katz promised instead that police would enforce an existing law.

So far, a bureau spokesman says, they've only made four arrests. That's a small payback for the controversy the Alliance's proposal provoked. "With all of the issues that the city was facing, I couldn't believe that they chose to attack people sitting on the street," Sten says.

Last September, the Alliance produced a report recommending parking on the transit mall. The idea was widely panned. "To argue that a couple of parking spots on the mall would improve retail conditions was absurd," Katz says.

Perhaps no issue has occupied as much of Kimbrough's time and effort as the attempt to reform the Multnomah County Business Income Tax and the city's Business License Fee. Lately, the maneuvering around the taxes has come to resemble a cross between a poker game and a soap opera.

Players in the drama include the Alliance, Katz, Multnomah County Chairwoman Diane Linn and the school-funding lobby.

The city and county depend heavily on business taxes, which last year raised a total of about $80 million. That money accounts for about a fifth of the city's general-fund budget and 10 percent of the county's budget, but receipts have plummeted with the weak economy. "People don't realize how important this revenue is to the county," Linn says. "And it's declining fast."

Businesses despise the taxes, which they say penalize local employers and encourage companies to locate elsewhere. In January, after more than a year of research, an Alliance study recommended switching from a tax on profits to a payroll tax, which would spread the burden more fairly.

A payroll tax is attractive because can be implemented quickly with a majority of votes by the City Council and County Commission. But the long-awaited tax reform ran smack into the school-funding lobby.

At the same time that Linn and County Commissioner Maria Rojo de Steffey were preparing to present a resolution on the proposed tax revision, K-12 funding advocates also identified a payroll tax of their own as their best hope for local funding.

They feared, however, that if the county and city moved without them, their chance for a local solution would be lost. "Once you take a bite out of the payroll-tax apple, I don't believe that you'll get a second bite," says Bruce Samson, a member of the Portland Schools Foundation Board.

Despite the schools' rapidly deteriorating financial situation, the Alliance Board voted 28-5 on Jan. 14 to recommend moving forward immediately. By far their most vocal public-sector advocate was Linn, who shocked many of her supporters by pushing aggressively for a revision that would do nothing to address schools' funding needs. "My mouth dropped open," says Jane Ames, a veteran school-funding advocate.

Linn's position has led to questions about her relationship with John Rakowitz, her former chief of staff, who is now the county lobbyist for the Alliance. The two are dating, and people say it's sometimes unclear whom each of them represents. "It has blurred the lines," says Randy Leonard.

Linn says she and Rakowitz are simply performing their jobs and that their relationship is irrelevant to their duties. "We're in partnership on this issue for all the right reasons," she says.

That may be, but last week city and county officials produced three new local school-funding mechanisms, pushing business-tax reform to the back burner. The momentum has clearly shifted from reforming the old tax to raising new revenue by whatever means possible--a setback for Kimbrough.

The conflict between Kimbrough and his foes could cost the Alliance dearly. Later this month, the City will seek bids for the management of its six downtown parking garages. APP and now the Alliance have held the contract--currently worth $3.5 million annually--since 1985.

Over the past 13 years, three audits have raised a variety of concerns about the contract. Last November, a report by the consulting firm Barney & Worth found substantial fat. "By reducing Smart Park garage costs to the levels of peer cities or national standards," the report said, "Portland could save up to $1.6 million in annual garage operating costs." (The Alliance disputed the report's findings on its website.)

The contract's most controversial element is a $700,000 marketing component that is supposed to generate business for the garages and downtown. "The marketing dollars have never been effectively spent, and that goes back to my time," says Rick Williams, who oversaw the city garages for APP from 1987 to 1995 and now works for the Mark Companies.

Katz insists that the decision to seek competitive bids for the garage-management contract at this time stems purely from financial reasons. But few City Hall watchers believe that.

"It's obvious that [Kimbrough's] pissed the mayor off and she's going after the parking contracts," says Fry, the planning consultant. "That's appropriate, because the marketing subsidy should not be hidden in that contract."

It's too early to assess Kim Kimbrough's record at the Portland Business Alliance, but there's no doubt that in an effort to make City Hall more responsive, he has driven a wedge between the Alliance and at least two city commissioners.

Kimbrough may have pleased his backers by attacking City Hall. However, his tactics on issues ranging from Iraq to sidewalk loitering to school funding may have alienated enough people to nullify any gains he has made.

Not even Kimbrough's primary targets would disagree that the city's business climate could be better. "Can we improve conditions here?" Katz asks. "Absolutely."

But Katz and others who have dealt with Kimbrough says that, like a bulldog that barks at both friend and foe, he doesn't get much accomplished.

Just eight days after the City Council rejected the anti-war resolution, the county passed a similar version--despite a letter from Kimbrough opposing it. The lobbying irked at least one commissioner. "To come out heavy-handed as the [Alliance has] makes it very difficult to want to do business with them," says Rojo de Steffey.

KIM'S RULES

At a staff meeting shortly after his arrival in Portland, Kim Kimbrough gathered his staff together and opened the floor for questions.

"How old are you?" inquired one employee.

In his southern drawl, according to three employees, Kimbrough replied that he was "not comfortable" responding.

Kimbrough also handed out a revised employee handbook, which included a confidentiality policy warning staff that "immediate termination" could result for sharing "the content of known conversations, thoughts, correspondences, drawings, plans or strategies."

Kimbrough's employee handbooks, first at the Association for Portland Progress and later at the Portland Business Alliance, provide some insight into his management style. Here are some of Kim's rules:

1. Chewing gum by all employees is prohibited during all hours of
employment.

2. No eating of foodstuffs is allowed at an employee's work station or office or at any other place in the office except those area(s) so designated from time to time by the president.

3. Sandals and other open-toed shoes will always be considered inappropriate footwear for the office environment.

4. Individuals who are not current employees or interns of the Portland Business Alliance may not be present in the work areas or private offices.

5. All employees of the Portland Business Alliance are prohibited from using any tobacco products during any time of employment when the employee is 1) representing the Portland Business Alliance or 2) fulfilling any responsibilities of his/her position.

--NJ

Kimbrough purchased a $733,500 West Hills home when he moved to Portland. His salary is not public record.

A 2002 study by the consulting firm ECONorthwest found that San Jose, Phoenix and Minneapolis have higher local business taxes than Portland.

The Alliance's biggest source of revenue is the Downtown Clean & Safe Business Improvement District, which uses City authority to tax a 213-block area. The BID raised $4.4 million for the year ending June 2001.

Judy Peppler, the top official in Oregon for Qwest, a company that has clashed repeatedly with the city, heads the Alliance board's policy committee.

Pete Mark says that the Alliance board voted 19-17 to endorse Measure 28.

In 1994, Kim Kimbrough landed a job heading the downtown business organization in Jackson, Miss., where Ben Canada headed the schools. In 2001, when Kimbrough came to Portland, Canada headed the schools here.

Three minority Chambers of Commerce have indicated interest in the garage management contract.

WWeek 2015