Hall Monitor

City Commissioners Amanda Fritz and Randy Leonard had
a contretemps at last Wednesday’s city council session. Fritz had asked
council to delay voting on an ordinance Leonard had proposed until she
could ask a few more questions about it.

“I fear we’re developing into a pattern,” said Leonard, testily.
“These questions are good questions, but they should be asked before
the hearing… I make a strident effort… to avoid consuming the
time of my colleagues when I have questions in advance that could
be answered before the hearing.”

Leonard said Fritz’s questions were starting to look like “a
delaying tactic,” but Fritz said she’d only had four days to look
through the information. “And let me tell you I get the information the
same time you do,” Leonard shot back. “And I have yet to ask the
council in seven years to hold something over, because I ask the
questions in advance.”

I describe the exchange as a contretemps, because it maintained
an air of civility absent from what I would otherwise describe
as a straightforward beef, set-to, or slanging match. But only just.
And Leonard and Fritz do seem to be taking the gloves off a bit when it
comes to their vastly differing approaches to city government. He: too
fast. She: too slow.

Fritz also had an editorial in the Oregonian on May 4 asking
why the city is focusing on “sports facilities and iconic
signs,” two of Leonard’s pet projects, at a time when the country
is facing “the most challenging economic and environmental conditions
of our lifetimes.” Fritz urged Portland to “refocus,” which read to me
like a moderately more civilized “eff you” aimed in Leonard’s
general direction. Like I say it’s just a contretemps, at this stage,
but one to watch.

When I asked Leonard and Fritz if they were still going to be able
to work together with such obvious tension in the air, Leonard wrote in
an email that I was “making much ado about nothing,” perhaps
referencing Shakespeare’s play that takes civil discourse as a
theme.

Fritz concurred. “Commissioner Leonard and I have a long history of
disagreeing passionately on one issue, then being able to work
collaboratively pushing hard together on the next,” she wrote.

“Your readers would be better served if you cover the news,” Fritz
continued. “Rather than trying to create drama where none
exists.”

I think Fritz is suggesting I, too, “refocus,” and one is tempted to
offer her similar advice… with civility, of course.