MAQUETTE REEVERTS was either nervous or close to tears.
“I moved here because of Last Thursday,” she told an Alberta Arts District studio packed with reporters and community members on Monday, June 24. “Please understand that we really tried.”
Reeverts, an event coordinator with Friends of Last Thursday (FoLT), called the meeting to announce a dramatic culmination of years of push and pull over Portland’s famed summer street festival: Her group was washing its hands of the event. Mayor Charlie Hales’ demands had become too much, Reeverts and other organizers said.
They insinuated the mayor had threatened to use “pressurized water hoses” to disperse celebrants, and went so far as to post a picture of civil rights protestors being fire-hosed in 1963 Birmingham on the FoLT Facebook page.
It was melodramatic, sure, but the tactic worked. The day after the press conference, Hales announced Last Thursday would proceed without the proposed changes, though the city’s relationship with FoLT remained unclear as of press time.
The drama is significant, and not just because it may decide the future of one of the city’s largest events. It’s also an eye into Hales’ ability to work with stakeholders like FoLT—a group very much like one he’s got in mind to control weekend chaos in Old Town/Chinatown.
A rundown of the controversy: Last Thursday, long criticized by some neighbors and businesses as a magnet for drunken and disrespectful activity, was required this year to obtain a city permit for the first time in its 16-year history.
But Hales’ office said FoLT, which has run the event since 2011, didn’t meet expectations in May. The city wanted more security guards and toilets—provisions the volunteer group says would have doubled its already-stretched $3,800 monthly overhead.
“We said, ‘If you can’t get that number of volunteers, that number of porta-potties, let’s shrink it,'” said Hales’ spokesman, Dana Haynes, who showed up at the announcement and talked to reporters.
So on June 18, nine days before this month’s event, the city gave word that street sweepers would be sent in at 9 pm instead of the traditional closing time at 10 pm. And Last Thursday would also include three fewer blocks of closed streets—stretching from NE 15th to 27th rather than NE 30th.
Haynes characterized those as mere suggestions. But FoLT heard them as mandates, and decided to resign. That meant no one was slated to provide basics like road barriers, restrooms, or security for an event that was days away.
“We said, ‘Let’s have that conversation,'” Haynes said. “We found out this morning there’s been a change in status here.”
As first reported by the Mercury, the conflict prompted the mayor to pull back on the new proposals for June’s Last Thursday. In addition, the city will pay for street closures.
“We don’t know [whom] to work this out with but are eager to work with whomever,” Haynes said in an email.
Hales isn’t the first mayor to court controversy by tackling the freewheeling Last Thursday, which has had no official oversight for much of its existence. Former Mayor Sam Adams’ administration found itself paying close to $10,000 a month to close streets and provide security for the event. Adams took steps toward the end of his tenure to corral the event, threatening to solicit sponsorships and do on-street fundraising to cut the city’s costs.
The current fight erupted as Hales looks to create a group that will preside over weekend street closings around Old Town’s bars and nightclubs.
Despite criticism that the closures create a sense of desolation in Old Town and hurt business, Hales has pushed forward with that effort, saying it’s increased public safety [“Closed for Business?” News, May 1].
In early June, he persuaded his colleagues to set aside concerns and extend the closures until October, while he works to fine-tune it into a “street festival.” Part of that will require establishing a nonprofit group of neighborhood stakeholders to administer the changes.
But while the mayor has frequently said leadership in Old Town needs to come from the neighborhood and not city council, FoLT’s members would argue he’s taken a very different tack on NE Alberta.
“We had a lot of support from the previous city administration,” said Jeff Hilber, who runs logistics for the group. “That administration included us all the time. We should have been part of the discussion.”
Following the Monday press conference, a FoLT supporter complimented Haynes’ handling of the media.
“You did good,” the man said, clearly a partisan for his cause. “What you said was bullshit, but that’s besides the point.”
Haynes laughed.
The concept of having an event virtually without rules scares the City. Charlie Hales is now the third Mayor doing his best to tame the event. In working with Sam Adams we found two areas of agreement that were implemented immediately. We agreed to close the event at 10 PM which was hours before it had previously closed. We also agreed on a zero tolerance on open containers. Neither was especially easy to implement but both were. By the time Sam got involved we had provided porta potties and trash removal for years and already figured out a way to close off the street to car traffic- maybe not quite by the rules but it worked.
At that point we wanted Sam to back off and call it good but he viewed those agreements as a mere beginning and spent the rest of his tenure trying to gain concession after concession. To us the plan was not an opening position but the structure we wanted for years to come. We’ve been fighting City Hall since. A short list of “demands” from the City we rejected was corporate sponsorship, charging the art vendors, screening the art vendors, registering the vendors, closing the event earlier and the list goes on. I used the frog in boiling water analogy often enough to where people started rolling their eyes each time I used it. I still think it’s an appropriate analogy. For years we tried to create a plan that the City would sign off on once and for all to where they would stop asking for further concessions but we were never able to get them to agree to such a plan. They would agree to a one month plan but we’d always be back fighting next month when they’d want to modify what we had agreed to only a few weeks earlier.
Once again the City is trying to wrestle control away from the neighborhood group and have their cronies take the event over. There is a meeting scheduled by the Mayor for Monday July 1 where the event adversaries have been invited and presumably will be offered to run the event. FoLT is invited but more as an afterthought then as the group that is recognized as the official organizers. The key players invited are representatives from ONI and NECN. Those two organizations have have all along been the strongest adversaries to Last Thursday and the biggest proponents of “neutering” the event. Hopefully Charlie is somewhat naive thinking we’ll just lay down and play dead. I keep telling City Hall that 1,000’s of us will fight for this event. We’re about to see if I’ve told the truth.
Thief
“The city wanted more security guards and toilets…”
I don’t know about the security guard issue but the neighborhood’s bushes and trees in the Alberta Arts District have been pulling toilet duty for as long as I can remember; why change now?