Hall Monitor

City Commissioners Randy Leonard and Dan Saltzman aren’t talking to each other. It all started when Saltzman accused
Leonard of an “emotional” reaction to the death of a child
thrown off the Sellwood Bridge into the Willamette River, back on
October 7, when Leonard wanted $367,000 of city money for a new rescue
boat.

“I told him I did have an emotional reaction to the child dying at
the hands of its mother,” says Leonard. “But there were other reasons
why I brought forward that proposal. And I kept telling Dan what those
reasons were, but he kept insisting that it was an ’emotional
reaction,’ and I found that offensive.”

The following week, Leonard concocted a plan to arm water bureau
security guards that Saltzman has also since pooh-poohed, bizarrely
saying that Portlanders might be confused by a second armed police
force in the city. I say “bizarrely,” because Saltzman is a staunch
supporter of Portland Patrol, Inc., the private security firm
that employs armed security guards who dress confusingly like police
officers to patrol downtown. Saltzman also paid private security to
patrol the city’s reservoirs when he was water commissioner—so…
color me confused.

Despite his staunch efforts to avoid discussing their standoff with
the media, Saltzman has also been doing his best to undermine Leonard
behind the scenes. He invited himself to a meeting of the parks
board last Wednesday, November 4, for example, to tell them
Leonard’s idea sucks—even after having been asked to stay away by
the new parks commissioner, Nick Fish.

If Saltzman can mess with Leonard’s bureaus and undermine his
decisions, Leonard appears only too ready to fight back and give
Saltzman a taste of his own medicine. He called Saltzman a “parrot
for the police chief” last Wednesday, shortly before Saltzman
decided to give just two weeks off to two cops who, in 2006, killed
James Chasse, a man with schizophrenia. Leonard also recently
called Chasse’s death “unjustifiable and inexcusable,” and he isn’t the
only one beating up on Saltzman for his handling of the affair,
either.

“This shows a basic lack of courage,” says Jason
Renaud with the Mental Health Association of Portland, in reference
to the two weeks off for the Chasse cops. “This is the lightest
possible discipline imaginable. This doesn’t make us safer, this
doesn’t protect us better.”

Since Saltzman refuses to talk to us about it, I have no idea what
his response to these allegations would be—so I’m with Leonard
and Renaud on this one.