Mayor Sam Adams has been sitting through the testimony on the new sit-lie law in council this afternoon. I’d be down there in person, but we’ve been doing endorsement interviews here at the Mercury, so I’ve been catching up on the end of the session over the council video. Best quote of the afternoon so far comes from City Commissioner Amanda Fritz. “The Portland Business Alliance are human beings too,” she said. “And they have human rights.”
After being accused of the usual litany of things—seriously, how many times have we sat through debates over this issue and heard the same accusations from both sides?—the mayor has used a variety of responses, mainly thanking people for their testimony. Respectful people can disagree, and so on. But I don’t think he is grateful for their testimony. I think he’s just willing to suffer through it to get the so-called “sidewalk management ordinance” through, and move on. He’s even sat through a song by busker Barry Joe Stull, singing:
“Portland is my city, and it has a housing crisis.
You respond with meanness when you could respond with niceness.
There’s many more of us to shoot.
That you choose to fund the police is at this problem’s root.
We wouldn’t sleep on sidewalks if you gave us just one park.
Portland is my city and it has a housing crisis.
You respond with meanness when you could respond with niceness.”
“Very nicely delivered, lyrically,” said Adams. How can he mean that, sincerely? How? I mean, it just has to be sarcastic, that comment.
Later, “I’m listening,” he said. “I’m listening.”
What do you think?
“If you think we’re going to get sued on this aspect,” said Adams, later. “Just wait until we come forward with newspaper ordinances.”
Wha?
“Where is the outcry for this ordinance? Where is the support for this ordinance?” asked Dan Handelman with Portland Copwatch. “We all know that it’s the Portland Business Alliance.”
The ordinance hasn’t passed today, and has been sent back for some additions. It’ll come back next Thursday, May 6, for a vote.
Particularly, the question that was raised was, why would the ordinance include an exception for a gathering of more than three people in the pedestrian zone as ‘free speech?’ City Attorney David Woboril said as long as there was a group of more than three people on the sidewalk, they wouldn’t get moved on under the new law because it could qualify as a ‘free speech event.’
“Therein lies the balance,” says Randy Leonard. “We’ve got to be very careful in this state in terms of our free speech balance. I think we need to have more conversations about free speech events versus simply sitting or lying. And if we somehow confuse the two, then we’re going to potentially get ourselves in trouble.”
“If people want to stand outside McDonalds with signs that say ‘don’t eat the meat in this restaurant’,” said city attorney David Woboril. “This doesn’t touch that.”
“But how do we know that three people who are homeless and when they’re approached, they say, ‘we’re immensely communicating with each other about the meat in this restaurant, telepathically protesting the use of meat in this restaurant’, how do we regulate that?” asked Leonard.
It wasn’t clear. So that’s going back to the city attorney’s office for more work.
“My concern is, why would we allow anybody to sit in the pedestrian zone, regardless of their free speech status?” asked Amanda Fritz.
“We believe that’s defensible,” said Woboril. “We believe you take less risk, the less you prohibit.”
Because it’s defensible.
Actually, “Very nicely delivered, lyrically,” is pure genius. Of course it’s sarcastic, and mean, and far more clever a sting than I would ever have thought possible from our mayor.
I testified today, and I don’t feel as though we were heard. It’s insulting that they use the Americans with Disabilities Act as a guise for circumventing the court’s ruling on Sit/Lie. The degree to which this council will kowtow to the Portland Business Alliance is infuriating, but honestly not surprising.
While I could see all the evils the law brings (addressing a symptom instead of a solution, things like that), I could really use hobos- and in particular the street gutter punk types- not accosting my girlfriend for spare change and then throwing bottles when she rightfully refuses to give them any. This has gotten really bad up around the nob hill area, and it’s always this bad- especially in the summertime- in downtown. If a cop could kick their asses out and use this law as reasoning to do so, I’m all for it.
Jake, they didn’t listen and never will. Isent comments to Mayor Adams and all the council members, and for some reason they never made the handout. As far as the stance from some council members that the PBA being human beings is just plain wrong, they are an organization trying to preempt public property. I and others are kust waitng for the city to put this in place as they STILL exempt sidewalk cafes. But by using the ADA Act, they overlooked one thing. Under the ADA Act, businesses can not be exempted and our plan is simple in it’s beauty. According to the City video, the first 6 to 8 feet of a building frontage is to be left open for peds, so other people and I covered under the ADA act will file complaints against ANY cafe or other commercial use in that first 6 to 8 feet that the CITY quotes with both the city HRC and federal offices so they can’t cover it up. What is good for people on the sidewalk is good for businesses on the sidewalk. If it’s not discriminatory as the city says, they should have NO PROBLEM enforcing against sidewalk cafes
Right on, Dale. The immorality of using ADA to persecute street people is astonishing. Agree with everything you said.
We’re in bizarro world where Portland’s business alliance has enough power to get this type of law pushed through but Seattle’s gets smacked down by hundreds of activists and a mayoral veto that can’t be overridden.
Innit the other way around usually?
Who gives a shit about Seattle? Shut the fuck up.
Seems like lots of people feel like the Mayor didn’t hear them, or listen to them. Have you listened to other people? I mean, there’s a lot of disagreement on this, right? I sure want a sit/lie ordinance, and I know most of you don’t agree with me. S do you understand that we’ll both have to compromise, or do you just want everything your way? If you don’t get everything exactly your way, will you say the ‘process was flawed’ and the evil mayor dictated the new ordinance?
Oh my god, I get on-demand replies if I mention Seattle.
This is great information for future use.
Seattle!
Waiting…
I’ve got it! Move the homeless, clipboard drones, and activists into THE MALL. That way, people who have nothing better to do with their day than trying new gadgets at the Mac store can alleviate some privilege class guilt and working lads & ladies can grab lunch without the daily dodge of Greenpeace & gutter punks.
Class warfare averted!
Lots of empty space in the Galleria!
Ps, SEATTLE!
This isnt’ a civil rights issue. The city wants to specify that you sit at the edge of the sidewalk instead of in the middle of it where people are walking. This isnt’ some grave injustice. It’s common sense, and if you have any manners, you’d already be doing this anyway.
There are many homeless in Portland who are older people, many with disabilities. These people deserve our support.
18-year-old gutterpunk losers do not deserve our support. They do not deserve to clog up our sidewalks with their filthy dogs. This city is so wound up about ensuring the “rights” for these peices of shit that it can get extremely unpleasant for the other 99% of the population to try to get around downtown.
These kids aren’t civil rights heroes. They are fucking losers.
God damn it, Blabby. You write one more thing that I agree with and I’m eating a Double-Down from KFC.
I’m buying!
Everyone around here agrees with me at least once, then I go back to just being the town curmudgeon. I’m comfortable with my role.
Blabby, I hate to say this; but I almost agree with you except for one point. It is a civil rights issue when the city uses the ADA act as color for this ordinance, but exempts businesses. If you follow the letter of the ADA, there can be NO exemptions for commercial use, as the ADA act was developed to allow equal access to accommodations for all. If the city really wants to crack down on unacceptable behavior, maybe they should do what the judges told them to do when they struck down this law FOUR times, use the existing state statutes you already have