Pressed by Commissioner Amanda Fritz to show some of his cards during a budget work session this afternoon, Mayor Charlie Hales laid out his office’s “nutshell” strategy for tamping down—and not paying for—the NE Alberta bacchanalia known as Last Thursday.
Some of it’s familiar: The city wants out of the business of mustering volunteers and paying for cops and street closures at the beloved/accursed street-art event—which brings out families and culture-lovers on the last Thursday of the month, starting in May, but also attracts choking traffic and rowdy types who drink too much and pee too much.
But some of it’s not: While it hunts for a neighborhood or community group to take the event over, the city wants to start collecting fees from the vendors who set up at the event—not right away, but “probably” at some point this year. Hales’ spokesman, Dana Haynes, says the mechanism and particulars have yet to be vetted with the city attorney’s office or the city’s revenue bureau. But that’s just a hiccup on the way to change.
“He doesn’t want this forevermore to be paid for by the taxpayers at large,” Haynes says of his boss.
Hales took on the conflict over Last Thursday last year, to mixed success. He was following in the footsteps of his predecessor, Sam Adams, who also made attempts in his final year in office to raise money and control the event.
Hales’ staff tried enforcing Last Thursday’s hours of operation and started tracking nuisances tied to the event. But the new controls led to a falling out with the grass-roots community group that had been traditionally been seen as leading the event, Friends of Last Thursday. FoLT resigned in protest over the changes, and the mayor’s office ran things for the rest of the season. The monthly event has cost the city at least $10,000 a month and often more.
In today’s work session, said he hoped to do a hand off to a community group in time for next year, with that group stepping up to pay for the event and collect vendors fees.
Rumors abounded last year that Hales’ staff wanted to get the Northeast Coalition of Neighborhoods to take things over. Talks this year haven’t gotten that far yet—they’ve mostly involved figuring out the fee mechanism and running interference with city commissioners, the city’s noise control officer, and the bureaus, like police and transportation, most affected by the event.
“But that’s what we need to get to,” Hales said. “The city needs to work its way out of that role.”
Haynes said the one-year timeline is likely “aspirational” but not impossible. If the city starts collecting fees, he says, that might blaze a trail and ease concerns for a skeptical nonprofit or neighborhood group.
Asked fi FoLT might re-enter the picture, Haynes said it was his understanding that last year’s falling out has shown no signs of thawing. On either side.
“We took them at their word,” Haynes says, “when they said they resigned in anger.”
The art vendors already make pretty much no money from Last Thursday at the moment. Take the fees from the bars and restaurants, they’re the ones making a profit from it.
(and if part of the fee goes on better enforcement to stop people bringing their own booze, that helps the bars, and everyone’s a winner…)
What art vendors?
Solution isn’t cops for traffic control. People of Alberta already know how to divert cars from Last Thursday on their own.
I’ve lived very near Alberta for years. I think FoLT did a pretty good job when it was running things. There were honey buckets, streets were blocked off without any trouble, and the next morning the streets were always spotless.
There are always going to be a few idiots who make a bunch of noise, who get drunk and pee in yards, or break a bottle on their way from a house party to the street, or park like assholes. It’s like 6 or 7 days a year, total. We can deal with it. Sweep up some glass, call a tow truck, life goes on.
Further, most of these extra costs seem like they only exist because the city has decided they should exist.
Here’s a question – how much revenue does the city/PPB make from LT by issuing parking tickets and other citations? How much from DUI’s? Wouldn’t just a handful of DUIs cover $10,000?
@CC: the problem is that the amount of drunken loutery was way up last year compared with previous years, at least around our bit (I live a block off Alberta). The bars are the ones raking in the money and shirking their responsibilities. And the problems happen after the street closure has ended, so I doubt if the return of FoLT would make a lot of difference.
More DUI checks would be great, because the person and the bar owner can both get fined. But the cops aren’t allowed to do random breath tests on every tenth car (unlike many other places in the world), so their hands are tied.
Stu, there are house parties all over the neighborhood, and danged rowdy teens caused the high-profile stuff last year, so it’s tough to say the bars are mostly responsible for general loutery.* Also/again, we’re talking about a handful of days a year, and basically zero lasting damage.
* Working on a slow-building solution to the problem that I’m calling “Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Loutery.'”
If you think Alberta is bad for asshole drunks peeing in yards and being loud, you’ve never lived by whatever that soccer stadium is called now. FAR worse than Thursdays on Alberta.
So glad I moved away from all that. I’m starting to doubt it will ever really change.
CC, I don’t see how the city can avoid having significant police presence getting paid overtime. It’s just the reality at this thing.
@Blabby: the way to avoid the city having to pay cops overtime is to change the cops’ schedule so that it is covered by their normal time. Of course, the chances of the police union accepting that when they can keep the status quo and rake in more money is negligible, but still…
Stu, under what “normal schedule” would ten cops be concentrated between the 15th and 33rd blocks of Alberta Street? And if they are, what’s happening the rest of N and NE Portland? It is by definition a special circumstance.
It’s a special circumstance, yes. But the police’s job includes covering things like that, there’s no reason why they should be paid double for those hours. It’s not like it’s an unpredictable event. ‘Normal schedule’ shouldn’t mean ‘same hours and place every week’.
OK, tangent over, back to the main point: drunks are dicks.
Maybe if the police started covering the event in the same way that they cover hip-hop shows in Portland… Oh no!!!
Shut it down. Just shut it down now.
The City has been trying to “neuter” Last Thursday for the last 6-7 years, just the way they did with First Thursday about 15 years ago. Anyone remember when First Thursday was cool? Fighting off neighborhood management and charging the vendors will be the final nail in the coffin. Many of the artists gave up on LT as it’s starting to look more like any other street fair and less vibrant then it did 10-12 years ago. Maybe we’ll start “Last Saturday on Alberta” to bring back some of the old vibe if the City insists on following their current course.