Skip to main contentLast Friday afternoon, we pulled aside a couple of non-newsroom staffers to get their reaction to the cover design of this week's paper. Specifically, we were wondering about our inclination not to include Jim Francesconi's name or the office he's seeking in the headline.
"So," we asked one of the employees, pointing to the photo, "you know who that it is?"
"Oh, yeah," she replied. "He's that guy who's running for…uh, something."
Exactly.
In less than three months, Portland voters will be asked to make one of the most important decisions in a city's history: who will be its elected leader. And yet, the 2004 mayor's race has all the excitement of a Tupperware party-with even less suspense.
Francesconi is the only candidate in this race with enough cash to run a serious campaign. There have been only a handful of candidates' forums and little media attention given to the May 18 election. As a result, few Portlanders know much about the man who is most likely to be our next mayor.
Francesconi came to Oregon from California to attend law school. As he built up a practice representing injured workers during the 1980s, he threw himself into the effort to reform the state's workers' compensation laws. Later, he got involved with the Portland Organizing Project, which battled City Hall on behalf of low-income residents and, in the early '90s, led an effort to get employers to hire gang kids.
During his seven years on the Portland City Council, he's become known as someone who works hard and avoids controversy, which explains why he's known to many voters as "that guy."
So a couple of weeks ago we invited him into our office, where Editor Mark Zusman, News Editor John Schrag and reporters Nigel Jaquiss and Nick Budnick grilled him on dogs, cops and why he continues to take big contributions from people who need favors from City Hall.
Below are excerpts from the interview, edited for brevity and clarity, with annotations for background.
WW: Before running for City Council, you were an outside advocate-as a lawyer working on workers' comp laws, as a leader in the Portland Organizing Project. You made a decision at some point that you were going to work from the inside. Is that a process of age or change in your personality?
Jim Francesconi: It's a process of a lot of thought. I actually spent a year and a half talking about it. And I decided it would be good to try to do a strategy, where you're in government but you work with people outside of government to create a city that everybody can participate in.
You're known as a good guy who wants what's best for the city and is as honest as the day is long. But even your biggest supporters say, 'This is a guy who's got a hard time getting people excited.' Would you agree that, in terms of generating interest about this city and this race, that's a flaw?
I don't know if "excited" is the right word. We do need to connect with larger groups of citizens, but to be honest, I'm less concerned with this "Inside Portland group" than I am connecting with people who are apathetic about voting.
One of your opponents, former Police Chief Tom Potter, isn't taking any contributions over $25. That may be stupid, but he's doing that to make a statement that the mayor cannot be bought, that the issue of money and politics is a serious one. Is your candidacy a statement that it isn't?
I am, I think, a person of honesty, and I pride myself in my reputation. The issue here is, how do we communicate with voters what the issues are in the city? And the issues are jobs, schools, and getting back to the basics.
In Seattle there's a limit on what city candidates can accept-I think $600. What's your biggest contribution?
Uh, I don't know-$10,000, I believe.
ANNOTATION: Francesconi, a tireless fundraiser, has raked in $10,000 checks from developer Pete Mark and gravel king Bob Pamplin Jr., along with a passel of $5,000 checks from the likes of lumber executive Peter Stott and Gerding/Edlen Development.
So you are getting money from people who, at some point, will come to the city and say, "I need your help." Wouldn't it be cleaner if the checks they were writing were smaller?
My job is to ask, "What's in the best interest of the city?" I don't think anyone can say that I've done anything in the past based on campaign contributions.
No one is saying you have-and it's not just you. But the guys that keep coming before City Council saying, "I'd like to develop this project" or "I'd like to change my plans for Ross Island" are the same ones writing the $10,000 checks. Don't you agree that it smells bad?
I wish there was a different way to raise money. I mean, this isn't my favorite thing. But until the system's redesigned, I just know that I've got to communicate with the citizens and they have a right to know what the issues are.
One of the issues you've raised is lowering the local business income tax. What evidence could you give us that that will actually do anything to create or retain jobs?
We're gathering a list-I think it's up to 50 businesses that have left because of the business income tax. We need to send some signals to the business community, the small-business community-our average manufacturers are 10 to 20 employees-that we get it, that we're willing to take less money.
You've proposed raising the owner's exemption on the city's income tax from $56,000 to $75,000. Isn't this exemption basically going to help well-paid lawyers and doctors and consultants rather than manufacturers?
It also helps architects, it helps small-business owners and small retailers, so it's broader than architects and doctors, but it does not include manufacturers, so my example was not a good one.
ANNOTATION: The city and county impose a license fee-essentially a tax on profits-for businesses within their borders. Francesconi's proposal to raise the exemption on owners' income has drawn heat from fellow commissioners, who argue that the change would cost the city's general fund about $2 million while providing little incentive for more jobs.
At a time when you're essentially proposing a cut in revenue, we're down to one full-time gang officer in North and Northeast Portland and 600 miles of roads that are either unpaved or unfilled. How are citizens supposed to reconcile that? It looks like a gift to the wealthy downtown business guy and taking away something from the people in the…
Well, first, we need jobs in our community in order to pay for parks and police. This income tax which funds the gang unit that you just talked about has been down $12 million. And, folks, this thing is going to get worse before it gets better. So the idea is to send some concrete signals.
Earlier this month we wrote about the Bureau of Licenses, which Randy Leonard has inherited from you. He's identified what appears from the outside to be a pretty serious problem relating to the director, Jim Wadsworth, whom he's pulled off the job. It seems there are two likely conclusions: one, Randy is off on a wild goose chase; or two, that he's cleaning up your mess. Which one of those should I conclude?
You have to do whatever you want. First of all, if you look at my history with the Fire Bureau, the Parks Bureau and Transportation, I think that people will tell you that my bureaus have been very well-managed. On the particulars, I can't say much because I don't know much. I can tell you that there's a firewall between a commissioner and the people in the tax-collections business. So they can't talk to me about any of this. There were no reports to me. There was none of that kind of information.
ANNOTATION: In July, Commissioner Randy Leonard demanded an audit of the license bureau, which he had taken over from Francesconi. Leonard subsequently placed bureau chief Jim Wadsworth on administrative leave amid concerns about alleged settlements of business income-tax bills.
According to your website, one of your big goals as mayor would be finding efficiencies in spending. Can you give us some specific examples?
We're working through it in this budget process.
Wait. You've had seven years to look at the budget, so how can you say you're working through the budget process?
Well, first let me tell you what I mean. I'm the guy that required the audit of Portland Public Schools. I've done audits of Portland Parks. We've saved $200,000 as a result.
ANNOTATION: In 1998, Francesconi demanded a full outside audit of Portland Public Schools as a condition of continued city financial support. He also requested an audit of Parks, which was delivered in 2000. The schools audit concluded that things were pretty screwed up, which most people knew. The parks audit found that citizens liked parks but the bureau wasn't particularly well-run.
Where else would you look?
The fleet is another area. The materials and services budget, which supplies the city, is $100 million.
You talked earlier about finding efficiencies in the Police Bureau. What specifically do you mean?
I can't tell you at this point, and the reason is that we're waiting for more materials from the bureau that they are submitting to the mayor. I've never had the Police Bureau, but the issue I'd look to is the overtime budget, which I believe is $6 million. That's where the management practices come in. I can also tell you that the idea of just promoting based on seniority into a position of administrative responsibility in the Police Bureau doesn't make a lot of sense to me. The idea of bringing in outside administrators who understand human-resources practices is the approach that should happen.
Do you agree with the people within the Police Bureau who say some of the special units-not gangs, but some of the other ones-are unnecessary?
It's an issue that I need to study more. Having only eight patrol cars in Northeast Portland is a worse problem than taking people out of the specialty unit. So if the choices are having that few officers on the beat [or keeping all the specialty units] then we'll have to decrease the specialty units.
How do you feel about a casino in Portland?
Not for Major League Baseball, not for convention centers.
ANNOTATION: The Warm Springs tribe, which owns the Spirit Mountain Casino west of Salem, is maneuvering to build a casino in Portland. The tribe has offered to help finance a Major League Baseball stadium in return, or build a hotel at the Oregon Convention Center. So far, Gov. Ted Kulongoski has nixed the idea.
What if it's for giving money to health and education?
It's the governor's call, not the mayor of the city's. But it is an issue worth exploring.
You're not opposed to casinos?
I'm opposed to casinos in Portland for every other reason than if we have no alternative to funding health and education. The reason my position on this has softened just a little bit is because there will probably be a casino 10 miles from here, in Washington, and money from citizens from Portland is going to go there. But it's not the preferred way to fund a world-class education, because it's so regressive.
Let's talk about dogs. For years, the conflict between dog owners and non-dog owners has raged in parks across the city…
In parks across the country.
…but there is a perception that you really didn't address it until the dogs were killed in Laurelhurst Park. Is that perception right?
The perception is wrong, and the facts are there to show it, because the plans were all devised before the dogs were killed. We'd had a council hearing and the date to implement it. So that part is incorrect. Should I have acted sooner on the dogs? Yes, I should have acted sooner on the dogs. That's one of the issues that I don't deny. It's a very tough issue to deal with, let me tell you. It's better that people are passionate than apathetic. And people love their neighborhoods, they love their parks and there's diminishing green space.
ANNOTATION: The debate over canine off-leash laws for public spaces raged for years before the July 2003 poisoning of 15 dogs in Laurelhurst Park-11 of which died-brought the issue to an unpleasant head. Francesconi, the proud owner of a 9-year-old golden retriever and a 5-year-old beagle, is in charge of the parks bureau, so the problem was his to deal with. In August, his solution was unanimously approved by the City Council: designate early-morning and late-night off-leash times at 26 parks, make three parks free for leashless pups at all times, and levy $150 fines for noncompliance.
At the same time, it's got to be frustrating. When you were organizing to get gang kids matched up with employers, there'd be maybe six people in the room. You talk about dogs running in the park and you can fill the council chambers. As someone who comes from a history of social justice and activism, doesn't that just piss you off…
I wouldn't say it pisses me off. It deeply saddens me.
…that there's more affection for dogs than for…
Actually, it irritates the hell out of me. The council hearing… [pause] …I can't say that, because for some families, their dog is like their kid. We have two dogs and we love our dogs, but as a city policy, we are never going to equate dogs with kids. Kids are what is the highest priority for Portland parks. But what you really are talking about, dogs or no dogs, is why the community is or is not getting outraged by these recent [gang-related] killings. And the reason is that it's poor folks and kids of color. And if this were happening in other parts of town, it still would not be accepted. So we have so far to go on that.
Are you saying Portlanders have their priorities skewed?
I do think that there hasn't been enough outrage on the issue of the gangs. Does that mean that the dog owners don't have a right to love their dogs and want their dogs to run off-leash? Here's the deal. I don't want to transfer the passion from the dog issue to the gang issue-that's good, and we have to come up with an answer for those dog owners. So it's not a question of misplaced priorities per se, but that for all the attention and focus on that issue, we need even more on the gang issue. That's what I'm saying.
What do you point to as your greatest accomplishment?
By coincidence, one of the people I met with today was the SUN coordinator at Parkrose. And he told me today that there are 120 kids there that are given ESL help and after-school help, and 70 parents getting help with ESL and computers. We have coordinated the whole community with the effort, and we now have 46 in the Portland area that are SUN schools.
ANNOTATION: The Schools Uniting Neighborhoods Program began as a joint venture between the city, county and state in 1999, with Multnomah County providing the biggest chunk of funding. The program provides after-school services, and its top goal is to improve student achievement, attendance and behavior. An evaluation of the program, done by Multnomah County in 2001, found no difference between students at SUN schools and comparable schools in reading, math absenteeism or disciplinary referrals. Nonetheless, the program was dramatically expanded earlier this year.
That's your greatest accomplishment?
This is a big deal. It is a big deal, because it shows how you can cut across jurisdictions. The schools are involved. The counties are involved, and [former Multnomah County chair] Bev Stein deserves equal credit with me. Employers have adopted these schools. And it shows the same approach that I took on the gang issue. We, as volunteers, got 250 employers to hire 750 gang-involved youth by creating a coalition. I think we need leadership in a mayor who can build coalitions to do difficult things.
What would be your second-greatest achievement?
Parks. The whole effort with parks, including the citizen-involvement side of the Parks Board, the Parks Foundation, the Parks levy, and all of the energy that has been created and how we engage citizens in parks.
ANNOTATION: Voters passed a $48.4 million, five-year parks levy in November 2002. A similar measure failed earlier when fewer than 50 percent of voters turned out.
What else?
The third is the whole issue of small business. We now have a small-business council. I've walked 23 different business districts, and on the whole, we've reduced system development charges.
What are your strengths and weaknesses as they relate to being mayor?
Strengths are that, I think, I can motivate people and I can actually inspire a variety of people. The second strength is that I have relationships from different parts of the community, which is my experience. I've run a business for 18 years, and I have connections there. I've organized the neighborhoods, and I think I understand that. I have a lot of relationships in Southeast Portland, in North Portland, in minority communities. I know this complicated form of government, how it works. So those are some strengths.
And the weaknesses?
Starting out, it was harder coming from the outside than it was from the inside, so I wanted too much certainty. When I first got in, I would think out loud too much and I would talk to too many people. So in the last three years, there is a lot more focus. But it created this perception that I'm still living with.
Let's make a couple of observations, then ask you to respond to them: On Iraq, you wrote President Bush saying, "Don't go to war," and then on the council you took a position the other way. On dogs, you just said that you didn't move fast enough. The firefighters said that they couldn't get a contract from you. Last year, when we were close to a teachers' strike, the teachers felt that you weren't there as much as they wanted you to be. So here are four examples where you disappointed people by not taking strong action or by taking action too slowly. Accurate or not, that is the perception. You say you put the indecisive tag behind you. Can you think of an example where you have pissed people off by taking bold action?
I went the way of voting against the Freightliner tax payment. Five million dollars to give to Freightliner, and I said no. You should have seen what the reaction was from folks in the business community. The reason was that there were no strings attached to it. We do need jobs for our citizens, and we do need big businesses like Freightliner including their headquarters here, but when we're going to use public money, we have to know that we're getting something in exchange.
ANNOTATION: In 1999, City Council voted 4-1 to give Freightliner, a North Portland truck manufacturer, a $7 million property-tax break. Francesconi was the sole "no" vote, arguing that the city was giving a subsidy before nailing down details of what it would receive in return.
And on Iraq?
On Iraq, I've always been opposed to the war. At the time I voted, I disagreed with the war in Iraq, which is why I disagree with your characterization. When I voted, I said, "I'm opposed to the war. I just don't think that the voters gave me their authority to settle foreign affairs for them."
You said that with Freightliner you didn't want to give the money without some strings, but you just voted for the city to back the Armory project. How you say that you don't want to give money without strings, but give $15 million to a project without a realistic business plan?
Well, the Armory is an opportunity to get historic tax credits and use federal dollars, not city dollars, except for $4 million from PDC. The primary attraction to me was that 25- to 35-year-olds are really bringing Portland a reputation as a city that not only respects its history, but is going to capitalize on arts and culture. The worst-case scenario is we're going to get a building that'll be worth more than the city-backed loans.
ANNOTATION: On Dec. 17, City Council voted unanimously to back a $10.5 million bank loan to Portland Center Stage's plan to build a new home in the historic Armory in the Pearl District. The struggling theater group will spend $28 million on the project, $4.6 of it from the city's development agency, Portland Development Commission. The project bails out Armory owner Gerding/Edlen, the politically powerful developers of the Brewery Blocks, who have been unable to find a use for the building.
Again, let's talk symbolically. Your decision on the Armory was to buy property for far in excess of its appraised value. And the seller gave you a $5,000 campaign contribution. We're not questioning your integrity, but do you understand people may view you as an insider helping out his buddies?
I do understand that. I have to do what I think is in the best interest of the city. Having said that, though, what concerns me more is the issue of using the tax credits that are designed for low-income people and the symbolism of that. And I said, "Don't bring in another one of these using tax credits. It has to be used for poor people."
ANNOTATION: Besides the city's guaranteeing the bank loan on the Armory, the key piece of financing is the use of $8.5 million of equity generated from federal tax credits specifically designed for use in impoverished neighborhoods. The Pearl District technically qualifies, the city says, because it is in a census tract that includes Old Town.
What do you like least about public life?
When I was running my firm, I either made money or I lost money. I either helped people in individual cases or I didn't. In public office, it's more amorphous. So what happens is…. I need some help in my relationship with the press.
So what would you like from the press? Are we too superficial? Do we play "gotcha"? Is it that we're never going out to lunch with you?
I would like a little more of that-the last thing you said. I think that you have a very important job and I know it's hard, but I wish sometimes that we could share a little bit more information.
We're all up for that.
So it's a two-way thing. I'm not saying that I've been that exceptional in giving you what you need.
What scares you the most about the prospect of being mayor?
I don't just want to be mayor, I want to be a good mayor, and we're facing enormous challenges. Getting our act together fiscally is one, but the biggest issue is the schools in Portland. They are really important. How we improve the quality of schools and generate quality jobs to support the quality of life so our kids can live here-not being successful in that, that scares me.
While Jim Francesconi is getting most of the attention in the mayor's race, there are a dozen candidates officially making a run for the office, with a few more expected by the March 9 filing deadline. Here are the four candidates waging the most serious campaigns.
Phil BusseOccupation: News editor of the Portland MercuryPhone: (503) 249-0283Email: phil.busse@meformayor.comWeb: www.meformayor.com
Jim FrancesconiOccupation: City CommissionerPhone: (503) 233-4987Email: jim@jimfrancesconiformayor.com Web: www.jimfrancesconiformayor.com
James L. PoseyOccupation: ContractorPhone: (503) 249-3808Email: james@poseyformayor.comWeb: www.poseyformayor.com
Tom PotterOccupation: Retired Portland police chiefPhone: (503) 233-7365 Email: info@tomformayor.org Web: www.tomformayor.org
WWeek 2015