Mayor Charlie Hales delivered his final State of the City at noon, as City of Club of Portland members and public officials noshed vegetarian dishes at downtown’s Sentinel Hotel.
The speech didn’t have the notes of finality you might expect—Hales says he’ll work up another address at the end of his tenure that’ll include all the wistfulness. Instead, the mayor spoke for an hour or so on many of the things you’d expect—rehashing accomplishments from the last year and slathering the city’s state of affairs with a sunshiny patina. He also dropped a couple legitimate news items, took a selfie with his audience (see above), and acknowledged troubling problems with homelessness and gun violence that have grown while he’s been in office.
It won’t surprise you that not all of the thing was scintillating, so let’s distill Hales’ final SOTC into a few of the more salient lines.
“I don’t believe anyone should be living in a car, a tent, or a shelter. And Carl is not a criminal for having to live in a car, a tent, or a shelter.”
Here, Hales was utilizing an old State of the [Fill in the Blank] speech chestnut, tying real people’s experiences into his points. The Carl he mentioned is a science-loving high schooler who has family issues and is homeless. (Hales has mentioned him before.)
But the quote is significant to the state of homelessness in Portland in general. After beginning his mayoral career with an effort to sweep campers/activists from the front of City Hall, Hales’ administration has shifted dramatically in recent months to policies that formally allow homeless camping and a bunch of other experiments.
Which gets to one of Hales’ new announcements. After a trip to San Francisco earlier this year, the mayor’s office is planning on cribbing that city’s Navigation Center model—and putting it in a still-secret building belonging to Portland Public Schools. SF’s invite-only Navigation Center offers its residents services on-site, and allows them to stay until they’ve found permanent housing.
Hales today said he’ll get a 100-person center up and running in short order, at an undisclosed location and for a cost that’s still being determined. He suggested the center would be only temporary, potentially switching locations periodically (though, of course, he’ll be out of office by the time that theoretically happens).
“In five years, almost 80 percent of our patrol officer will be new to the police bureau.”
It’s no secret that Portland’s having trouble finding police officers. The Portland Police Bureau currently has 45 vacant officer positions, and a bunch of people on the verge of retirement. Lots of other police departments have higher starting pay than Portland, too.
Hales has already pushed money for hiring more people to check the backgrounds of prospective cops. Today he said he’ll propose raising officers’ starting pay from $49,000 to $60,000 (which is what they’re paid after six months on the job anyway). He also said he’d offer a signing bonus to new recruits, though couldn’t say how much. And he announced that the city’s planning to work with Portland Public Schools and Portland Community College on early training courses for students interested in becoming cops, fire fighters, or 911 dispatchers.
“What happened at Matt Dishman Community Center last summer should happen every summer.”
Hales was talking about the free admission for teens to Dishman and other community centers he funded as part of last year’s budget. It was pitched by the mayor as a way to keep youth out of trouble amidst a rise in gun violence.
The free programming didn’t stop that violence from being the worst in decades in 2015, but it was popular. And Hales pledged today he’ll seek to make it an ongoing thing.
That’ll likely happen, but it’s worth pointing out that Portland Parks and Recreation is trying to figure out how it’ll pay millions for workers at its community centers, many of who just won the right to union pay and benefits. The city’s under no obligation to pay those workers—it could eliminate their positions instead if money’s too tight. But if Hales’ plan for continued free community center access is going to work, it implies the city also will pony up for the parks workers.
“…Pembina got the message!”
A dig on the Canadian energy giant Pembina Pipeline Co., which Hales first welcomed to town because of its interest in building an enormous propane terminal, then gave the cold shoulder when lots of Portlanders wound up despising the idea.
Hales only mentioned the company as a segue to a discussion of climate change and the necessity of energy efficiency. And he made a few announcements on that subject, too. First Hales updated the city’s carbon reduction goals, announcing Portland’s emissions have now decreased 21 percent from 1990 levels.
He said he’d help push that even further several ways (none of them, weirdly, involving changes to the city’s transportation network). Most notable of those? Hales says the city’s going to build a 2 megawatt solar project near the Bull Run Reservoir, where Portland draws much of its drinking water. It’ll be a “community solar” project, allowing Portlanders to invest in the project to purchase clean energy.
There was a ton more, obviously. If you’re interested, OPB will air the mayor’s speech in its entirety Friday (March 25) at 7 pm.