“This Meeting Is a Beautiful Thing. But When’s the Next One?”

• Loretta Smith

It was billed as a forum where African-American men could gather and be heard discussing their needs—and their futures—while Multnomah County crafts its spending plan for the next year, and it was led by the county’s first African-American commissioner in 20 years, Loretta Smith.

“When it’s time for me to go, I don’t want it to be another 20 years,” she told the 200 or so people who filled the county board’s meeting room last night, apparently in excess of the 190-person occupancy limit. “I want it to be one of you.”

And there was plenty of discussion—much of it stirring, thoughtful, and cathartic. High school students, some working their way out from criminal records, spoke alongside university professors and community leaders.

They pored over grim statistics: a third of blacks in the county live in poverty, compared to 1/8 of whites; black youths are disproportionately found in foster care; their high school dropout rate is about twice that of white kids; more black kids are unemployed and in jail.

One after the other, they demand more job opportunities, better schools and more attentive teachers, and continued funding for mentoring, job-training, and aid programs. They decried a “public safety approach” to problems that require a “public health approach.”

Roy Washington, foster father of Shiloh Hampton, the teenager who was killed this spring near Lloyd Center, gave a list of county job-training programs started over the years, and then stopped for whatever reason.

“Once they start creating jobs,” he said, “then they pull the money back.”

Charles Hannah complained that income caps for program eligibility are too low and keep out a lot of families—likely to manage costs—but who still desperately need services.

“Sometimes I’ve been 40 dollars over the limit,” he told me after telling the room: “I want the county to address that.”

But how much of that discussion was heard? Is there any more funding with state and federal budget cuts looming for the county? That all remains to be seen.

Smith and her staff collected questionnaires from many of those who showed up to listen or speak, asking respondents to think about where in their communities they feel safe and unsafe, what they need to survive, what they aspire to do. She promised to take a couple of weeks, tabulate those forms, and then come up with ideas on how to “direct funding” to programs and “create policies.”

She also was the the only top public official who stayed till the end of the event. County Chairman Jeff Cogen—the guy who crafts the budget—was there when the event started and said some good things.

“In Multnomah County today, there is a tremendous amount of inequality,” he said. “A lot of that is the result of the legacy of racism.

Probably, often, it seems like government doesn’t care. and probably because we haven’t in the past.”

But Cogen didn’t stay much longer after his remarks, heading home maybe a half-hour later as planned, and missing the heart of the discussion (although some of his staffers remained). Although you couldn’t even say that much about the other county commissioners, who will vote on Cogen’s budget, or for any officials from the county’s largest city, Portland.

Those absences were noticed by some, even as the presence of social services agencies and program representatives was noticed. (Mayor Sam Adams, it should be noted, did send Tiffani Penson, from his Summer Youth Connect program, to take applications.)

Amid the outpouring and the exhortations, there a few who questioned whether this was theater, cathartic and rare as it might be, or a genuine departure from the way things are now.

“This meeting is a beautiful thing,” one speaker said. “But when’s the next one?”

Another speaker challenged Smith, who earlier had won over the room when she hugged a 12-year-old boy who had been encouraged to speak and told the room “we need more programs.”

He asked, bluntly: “What is going to be measured” after the meeting?

Smith explained she would be reviewing answers participants submitted to her survey. She also later insisted that “people are taking it very seriously.”

“I’ve never seen this kind of attendance.” she said.

“I don’t have a silver bullet, but I hear you loud and clear. We need more programs. We need more mentors. We need to preserve certain programs…. We will follow up with you. There will be some action I press in the next couple of weeks.”

There might be promises. There might not be any more money. Hopefully, at least, there might be another meeting.