Around city hall, Thanksgiving kicked off a day early—with
Chinese food.
On Wednesday, November 21, after the city council’s second round of
voting against the idea of renaming Interstate Avenue for César
E. Chávez, the committee behind the rename headed to Fong Chong
Restaurant on NW 4th for a celebration of sorts. Though Interstate
hadn’t been renamed, neither had 4th Avenue (AKA the council’s
11th hour compromise from a week earlier, and one the Chávez
committee—and Chinatown’s businesses along 4th— staunchly
opposed).
Outside of council chambers, moments after the council opted to vote
down the “well-meaning, but not a good” plan to rename 4th (thanks
largely to prodding from Interstate-rename advocate and Multnomah
County Commissioner Maria Rojo de Steffey), Richard Louie of the
Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association invited the Chávez
committee out to dim sum for lunch. The two groups had worked
together to thwart the council’s plan, and succeeded.
So what’s next?
Commissioner Dan Saltzman tabled an ordinance that would have
reshaped the city’s rename process—making it easier for the
council to initiate renames—and told the committee exactly what
someone in city hall should have told them earlier this year.
“If you want to work with the existing process with either one of those
streets… I’m open to that,” Saltzman said. But Commissioner Sam Adams
pledged to craft yet another new process, and post it on his blog for
public comment. (Let me be the first: We don’t need a new rename
process. There’s a perfectly good one in the city code.)
Oh, and de Steffey’s considering a city council run, thanks—in
part—to the Interstate debacle. “I have been talking to a lot of
people saying you need to run,” she says. “We need more women, we need
more people of color. I think the city needs a balance on the
council that it doesn’t have.” She plans to announce one way or another
in January for the open seat Adams is vacating.
Returning to city hall—and to the less sexy business of
running a city—after the holiday weekend, the council’s chiefs of
staff met up on Monday afternoon, November 26, to try and reach
consensus on the fall budget surplus. Going into the meeting, they
still had to cut over a million bucks from the wish list. “We got very
close, but we didn’t reach the exact total,” says Austin Raglione,
Potter’s chief of staff. “We still have about $700,000 left to find.”
The mayor’s putting together the final ordinance, with items that he
believes has a majority of the council’s support.