Author: David Yaden

Portland City Commissioner Mingus Mapps says, “[City] Charter reform doesn’t need to be rocket science.”

He’s right. Rocket science works when a bunch of very smart people get together behind what uncontested physics and engineering dictate.

Which means he’s wrong to propose that 3 or 4 City Commissioners should come out in October with their version of city charter reform as an alternative to the one headed to the November ballot from the Charter Review Commission (let’s shorten it to CRC) appointed by the City Council.

Charter reform is not science. It is harder because it requires of citizens that we struggle to find agreement on how to govern ourselves, which, of necessity, needs to be a process of uniting, not dividing. The notion that we can skip the struggle and go straight to the ballot treats the question as a “simple” matter of getting rid of the commission form of government.

Portland is ready to change the commission form of government, but the real problem facing the city is the dysfunction of a divided, fragmented citizenry and rudderless, temporizing political leadership.

The process of charter reform could be one avenue to tackle that fundamental issue. It is not shaping up that way. In fact, it might make it worse.

Given the determination of both proponents and opponents of the CRC proposal to fight it out at the ballot box, each using exaggerated claims and scare stories, it is hard to see how any outcome leads to coming to grips with the growing unreality about the homeless situation, public safety and police accountability, housing affordability, and the growing education gap for so many kids.

(“Unreality” about the homeless situation? Over the weekend we read both about the glowing success of Metro’s supportive housing program and, separately, a desperate plea for help by Old Town non-profits that provide services to the homeless because they are overwhelmed by the situation on the street. Sure, they could be talking about different parts of the elephant but citizens would like someone to talk about the whole elephant. )

Anyone who thinks we will suddenly be back on track by removing city commissioners from leadership of city bureaus is overly optimistic. That is a good and necessary thing to do. Both sides get that.

Unfortunately the Charter Review Commission proposal would make governance less effective and accountable by giving us a mayor with the title but no leadership capacity or accountability.

The opponents of the Charter Review Commission are right on that score, but , in their eagerness to defeat the CRC proposal, they are wrong to push ahead with a proposal crafted by the very people that Portland’s younger generation and marginalized groups feel has ignored them in the past.

Ironically, some of the same people now supporting the “alternative measure” approach fought against a 2007 charter reform measure because it sprang full-blown from a few citizens with no public process to build it.

Governance by pollster?

The Charter Review Commission pursued an intensive but narrowly focused public engagement process. It did polling that appears to have mostly yielded what they wanted to hear. (This is not to allege deliberate bias so much as failure to challenge their own beliefs.) The result has been their surprise when their proposal generated critical questions and opposition. (Unfortunately, for some that questioning has been taken as nothing more than the old guard seeking to hold on to power.)

Now comes Commissioner Mapps ready with an alternative because that is the way to defeat the reform measure from the CRC. He’s right about that being smart politics. The desire to have a full-blown ballot measure ready for the May, 2023 election—assuming defeat of the Charter Review Commission measure this November—rests on a political calculation backed up by some focus group results.

First we had the Charter Review Commission ballyhooing that they had relied on polling that showed Portlanders strongly in favor of their proposal.

Now we have the Commissioner Mapps’ Ulysses PAC showing different results from its focus groups.

Wonderful. Governance by pollster.

Polling has its place. As do election campaigns with all their poll-tested messaging. But not as substitutes for what democracy ultimately requires: some form of public deliberation and discussion. I know, that this is just childish idealism. Nonetheless, I’ll keep on arguing that without it, we will continue to find ourselves without the shared sense of purpose and respect that allows us to tackle the really hard issues.

Can we talk about this?

Earlier I proposed that both camps around charter reform go light on campaigning and agree to an extensive series of well-moderated public debates. No surprise that that is not happening.

The CRC measure might yet win in November but it is now an uphill battle. It will do so because voters are fed up and want change, not because it has such a compelling case to make, not because it has such convincing, campaign-simple answers to the questions and doubts being expressed.

So, my next naive suggestion: instead of promoting a carefully-crafted measure for the May 2023 election, the Ulysses PAC should promote a much more open and extensive process of building a ballot measure for the November, 2023 election.

That sounds like a do-over of the work of the Charter Review Commission, which, to some extent it is. It would differ in being much broader in its engagement process. It would use a variety of forums, civic organizations and media to get deeper into some prolonged, calm exploration of the pros and cons about all aspects of governance—representation, accountability, effectiveness, “vision” (or North Star, or policy umbrella, or shared sense of strategic direction that good leadership provides).

It would make a more responsible use of public opinion research.

And it would honor the work of the Charter Review Commission by providing a second look at its deeply-felt need for greater voice for all citizens.

Both sides are throwing words like ”efficiency,” “accountability,” “representation” around but it takes only a moment’s reflection to see how hollow they ring. Weapons in the war of words of the campaigns.

We don’t have access to the full transcript of the focus groups that Commissioner Mapps cites, but he has said in a broadly distributed email: “At the focus group’s conclusion, most voters said they would vote NO on the November ballot measure if they knew they would have the opportunity to vote on an alternative measure in the future.” So, it may not be necessary to rush a measure to the May ballot.

It seems to me worth the effort to use charter reform to work on the real problem of civic dysfunction rather than treating it as “simple” housekeeping to rearrange the furniture.

I don’t have much hope, however. It would be harder than rocket science. Democracy is, you know.