What a weird situation at Portland City Council today.
As we reported after a meeting was shut down because of public outcry yesterday, Mayor Charlie Hales made the decision to severely limit public access to council in a substitute hearing this afternoon. Only reporters, city officials, and select members of the public (who’d missed a chance to testify earlier) were admitted to chambers for a hearing on an extremely controversial police union contract. Council wound up approving a relatively small amendment [PDF] to a tentative agreement with the police union. A final vote on ratifying the contract will come next week.
But there was still much more on the agenda. And in order not to fully stymie the regular run of things, Hales allowed community members—who were forced to watch the hearing at a viewing area in the adjacent Portland Building—to enter chambers one at a time to speak to other business matters.
The first item following the union contract? Whether the city should purchase a bridge inspection crane for around $812,000. And I have to say it was delightful watching accountability advocates trying to speak out against the police deal under the diaphanous facade of bridge-crane concern.
Hales was having none of it. Watch as Portland Copwatch’s Dan Handelman, Don’t Shoot Portland’s Teressa Raiford, and others give it a go.
Video appears to have live link, not excerpt! I got test pattern.
We have a perfect storm causing police problems.
Retirements – easily forecastable. Street protests driving overtime. A large buildup of specialty units taking officers off the streets. Sworn officers doing jobs that civilians or contractors could do. Online police report filing that citizens have not figured out how to do (even me). Excessive and dishonest disability claims. Bad behavior discipline reversed in arbitration. Broken police review board processes. The Federal court case constraining profiling and killing mentally ill individuals, making up a large proportion of homeless. Exploding homelessness. The police culture. An adversarial union. The decision a few years ago to hire 2 year rather than 4 year degree recruits. Suspicion nationally of police over killings of African Americans which translates to Portland police unwarrantedly. Savvy police public relations around things like the gang unit and the horse patrol. Significant taxes to support previously unfunded police and fire retirement. A falling crime rate, but a growing police count. The war on drugs.
Despite all the above our police are not the worst, but there is always room for continuous improvement at lower cost.
As for the body cameras – the initial proposal is probably flawed. But it can be redone after two years of experience. Waiting for Wheeler is dumb – he is not going to want to aggressively deal with this on entering office.
The activists need to grow up to be effective. Just focusing effectively on a few of the above issues would be a start.
This latest bid by Hales to rubberstamp yet another police contract brings up bad memories of the last time, when he also signed the KKKruger settlement, which he later admitted he hadn’t even bothered to READ. I hope fellow council members will give this guy the vote of no confidence he deserves and save real business for a real mayor.
The City and Police Union have not been so enthusiastic about Judge Simon’s other directives and haven’t complied with them, so why cherry pick staffing quotas? Oh, yeah, cuz the bigger the budget, the bigger their heads. Portland Police already eat up far too much of our budget. Maybe if they weren’t sued for brutality so often we could afford more of them, but such is not the case.