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Hales offers 'team leadership' if elected

LEE PERLMAN
THE MID-COUNTY MEMO

Former city council member Charlie Hales runs for mayor against Jefferson Smith.
Mid-county Memo photo/Tim Curran
On the surface, at least, Charlie Hales would appear to be the frontrunner in what is now a two-man race to be Portland's next mayor. His political experience, as a particularly active City Council member for 10 years, most closely mirrors the mayor's responsibilities, and though he failed to gain an absolute majority of votes in the May primary, he was the top vote getter. So, assuming he won what would he do?

One of the mayor's most important functions is assigning responsibility for city bureaus to himself and the rest of council. What assignments would Hales make?

“I'll assign all the bureaus to myself for the first three months,” Hales told the Memo. “I want to let the whole City Council think about the whole city. I think we'll reshuffle bureau assignments every couple of years. I will ask my colleagues what they're interested in, who wants to take on the work of expanding parks, [and] 60 miles of unpaved streets. I have a pretty good idea of what I'll assign myself: police. I'm passionate about community policing, working with neighborhoods, dealing differently with mental illness.” Other bureaus he would keep are “Planning [and Sustainability], the Portland Development Commission, maybe Development Services. I want to bring coherence to working together to create jobs, promoting neighborhood businesses. Infill housing is not fitting in well, and I don't want to take a year to resolve it.”

As to other council members he said, “Nick Fish has a passion for housing, and Dan Saltzman has a great understanding of environmental issues. Steve Novick has been very bright and creative in dealing with pollution issues.” Regarding Council Position 1, where there will be a runoff election by incumbent Amanda Fritz and challenger Mary Nolan in November, Hales says, “Mary and Amanda bring different strengths.” He said that he had worked with Nolan while she was in the state legislature, and that he had appointed Fritz to the Planning Commission.

“I'm bullish about this team,” Hales said. “What I offer is not egotistical leadership, but the ability to lead a team. We won't be getting into corners and fighting; I don't think Portlanders like that.”

All well, but the council will have less funding than it has available to meet all needs. Where would Hales first look to make budget cuts that will certainly be needed, and what parts of city government would he protect? He would begin looking for savings in the city's top-heavy management structure: “I know it's there because the auditor says it is,” he says. Currently there is one supervisor for every six workers rather than an ideal ratio of one to ten, he says. “Managers are expensive, and workers deliver services,” he says. “We could save tens of millions over time; it's our best chance to avoid cutting basic services, to make the city leaner and better. There wouldn't be a 'Saturday Night Massacre'; we would do this over time as people retire.” He would avoid cutting “the number of police officers assigned to community policing. My second priority would be park maintenance - that took deep cuts. People want their parks to be safe and green with the restrooms open. We need to start repaving our streets or we'll be passing on a great liability. We need to show people we're good managers of the resources we have; the city has lost some credibility there.”

Paving the 60 miles of unpaved streets is “unrealistic with the money we have. Should we introduce a street utility fee? I don't know yet. Not every street needs to be 32 feet wide with curbs and sidewalks, but you can't expect the city to pay for it all.”

What was Hales' best day in public life, and what is he proudest of? “The 110 parks projects we did with the last bond measure,” he replies. These included three new community centers. “The [opening of] East Portland Community Center was the sweetest because my parents were there,” he says. “It's nice to share a proud moment with the folks who raised you.” Conversely, what was his worst moment, and what would he do differently if he had the chance to do it over? “It was not because of anything happening in Portland, but the worst day was September 11, 2001, and watching the catastrophe in New York. No one knew what was happening other than that it was violent and destructive. Everyone was on the phone or staring at a TV set. Doing things differently - that would be having the discipline of getting out of City Hall into the community instead of being surrounded by people paid to be there. I visited a Nabisco plant and I heard, 'Great you're here, no mayor ever came here.' It's about time someone came and said, 'How's it going?' ”

Some of our readers think the new office of Equity is a waste of money better spent on infrastructure; what does Hales think? “At first I was skeptical,” he said. “If I had been in office I would have resisted any new office for anything. But the decision has been made, the Office has been created, and it has a clear agenda. I will give it a chance to prove itself. I will assign it to myself, because its best chance is if it has the authority of the mayor behind it. It's important for neighborhoods to be getting their fair share, and people of color being considered when we select contractors.”

What does Hales think of the East Portland Action Plan? “I had a walking tour of Hazelwood with [city employee and EPAP coordinator] Lore Wintergreen, and Arlene Kimura and Linda Robinson [longtime Hazelwood Neighborhood Association chair and board member, respectively]. We stopped at the East Portland Neighborhood Office and looked at a whole bunch of issues. There's a one-mile stretch of Glisan with no sidewalks. It's a really well-done blueprint for specific, tangible improvements that will make a difference. A lot of it will cost money we don't have yet, but let's get started.”

Critics argue EPAP - created to address the city's chronic inattention to the area - is a top-down, government-induced solution using crony capitalism to secure political outcomes favorable to City Hall. Simultaneously EPAP gives city government political cover, masking its failure to keep promises made to voters more than 20 years ago during annexation to provide amenities the rest of Portland enjoys: Arobust, developed park system built-out sidewalks and paved streets.

What has Hales, and his campaign, done for east Portland businesses? “I listened,” he says. “I was told the permit process has once again become confusing and slow, and that System Development Charges have made it hard for businesses to expand. They want water rates spent on water facilities, and nothing else. [Mayor] Sam [Adams] has thought of having some government functions moved to Gateway or put on line.” Pressed to discuss specific campaign spending on east Portland businesses he says, “I don't spend much money.”

If he found himself in an embarrassing situation, how would Hales handle it? “I don't think the voters expect their leaders to be perfect,” he says, “but when I make a mistake I admit it, apologize to anyone who needs it, and take corrective action.”

Lee Perlman's side note:

Both candidates were a bit coy about their future bureau assignments, but that is par for the course for Portland mayors. They gave virtually identical answers to the question of how they would deal with embarrassing situations. In retrospect, we have to say it's too bad they can't seem to practice what they preach.

Following my interviews, it was revealed that Smith's driving record includes a number of serious infractions. Rather than simply come clean, it was revealed in installments that his license had been suspended seven times, and that at least once he was caught driving with a suspended license.

As for Hales, it would seem that anything he does wrong is someone else's fault. When it developed that a recent campaign statement was plagiarized from a 2009 Oregonian article, Hales said it was first the fault of his staff, and later the St. Johns Review newspaper. The Southwest Community Plan, a venture Hales oversaw, which had a cost over-run of more than $1 million and took more than three years past its scheduled time to complete was, according to him, the fault of City planners. (Some of those planners beg to differ.) Then there is the matter of Hales' dual residency and tax records, Smith's failure to vote regularly before 2002 and suspension to keep his license to practice law in effect three times

Consciously or not, they both seem to be promoting the bumper sticker, “If God meant us to vote, he'd have given us candidates.”

Interestingly, they both have campaign headquarters in southeast Portland, albeit in very different areas: Hales in a storefront on Southeast Grand Avenue, Smith in an empty industrial space on Southeast Holgate Boulevard. They also both have cute and friendly office dogs.
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