Gov. Tina Kotek’s Portland Central City Task Force, a new task force focused on addressing downtown Portland’s economic future, held its first meeting behind closed doors Aug. 22.
Kotek’s office announced the roster the morning of its first meeting, and community members and local service providers raised concerns the task force centers moneyed interests and leaves out people most affected by rising rents and sinking livability. The same community members and service providers had to wait until the day of the meeting to discern membership, as Kotek elected to close the task force meetings to the media and the public.
Kotek’s controversial decision to exclude uninvited people and the press from contributing or attending task force meetings could place the governor’s office on the wrong side of Oregon’s public meetings law. The law requires all governing body and advisory council meetings to be open to the public. However, Kotek’s office argues a technicality places the task force outside legal government transparency requirements. The task force, a public-private partnership with the Oregon Business Council, will unveil its recommendations at a Dec. 11 Oregon Business Council conference rather than directly to a governing body like the Portland City Council or the Oregon Legislature.
Kotek and Dan McMillan, president and CEO of The Standard insurance company, co-chair the task force, which includes 12 elected officials. Mayor Ted Wheeler gave opening remarks at the first meeting.
The Oregon Business Council is a 501(c)(6) organization — otherwise known as a “business league” — a not-for-profit association organized by people with common business interests, according to the IRS. Its list of directors reads like a list of presidents and CEOs from the largest corporations in the Northwest and beyond — Northwest Natural, Columbia Sportswear, Kaiser Permanente, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, among others.
The Portland leaders involved in Kotek’s task force are similar, but local, state and federal politicians are peppered in with local small business owners like Lisa Schroeder of Mother’s Bistro and Jessie Burke, Society Hotel owner and Old Town Community Association board chair.
“We want to hear from service providers and all residents of the central city,” Kotek said at an Aug. 22 press conference after the meeting. “The central city has to be a place that works for everyone, and I want to thank the service delivery providers who have been through the last three years and are still standing.”
Asked what service providers were involved in the first meeting, Kotek said Central City Concern and other nonprofits served as representatives, and she expects the committees to allow for more people to get involved. The task force will have two more meetings before unveiling its recommendations. McMillan said several service providers contacted him personally to see how they could help.
“This task force is trying to just make the most of that energy and interest to make progress,” Kotek said.
Kotek outlined five committees breaking out from the task force, each with a different focus — livable neighborhoods, community safety, housing and homelessness, taxes for services, and a central city value proposition committee charged with advancing a new vision for downtown Portland.
Marisa Zapata, director of Portland State University’s Homelessness Research and Action Collaborative, said how officials frame the process determines who wants to engage with the task force and how they want to engage. She said the framing around trash, graffiti and homelessness sends a message about which constituents are invited to help plan the future of downtown.
“It's signaling a particular entry point of what we could describe as social disorder, as opposed to the opportunities of having a downtown that is focused on what could be positive — and along with that, how some of the issues around social disorder could then fade out,” Zapata said.
Kat Mahoney, Sisters of the Road executive director, said Matthew Tschabold, Kotek’s housing advisor, contacted her before the governor’s office announced the task force earlier this year. Mahoney told Tschabold she would be interested in joining the group and recommended he contact other local nonprofits like Blanchet House, Rose Haven, SMYRC and Ground Score.
Mahoney only realized she was excluded from the task force when the announcement came from the governor’s office without her name on it.
Kotek’s office told Street Roots it could not comment before publication as employees associated with the task force were out of town.
Scott Kerman, Blanchet House executive director, said the governor’s office contacted him and other service providers for input on the task force, but no further communication followed.
“I don’t have any expectations for joining this task force or related committees, but if the governor requests my participation in some manner, I’d be happy to contribute as I’m able,” Kerman said.
Leaders from other prominent downtown service providers said they, too, received no communication from the governor’s office in advance of the first meeting.
Katie O’Brien, executive director of the women’s and gender-diverse day shelter Rose Haven, said no one contacted her about the task force. RJ DeMello, communications manager at Transition Projects, also said no one invited the organization to join. Transition Projects has provided shelter and other services across Portland for over 50 years.
Barbra Weber, Ground Score Association co-founder & G.L.I.T.T.E.R. program manager, said she was not contacted despite the organization’s work aligning with many of the proposed committees.
"Ground Score would love to participate in the task force and welcomes the opportunity to join any of the task force's committees,” she said. “Our work intersects with central city's value proposition, community safety, livable neighborhoods, housing and homelessness, taxes for services, and so much more."
Service providers said the task force’s lack of representation of direct homeless service organizations is a missed opportunity to address the structural challenges facing Oregon’s economic bellwether holistically.
“I would love to be in on those talks,” Mahoney said. “I would even love to give suggestions. I would love somehow to not be under the thumb of a landlord — because somebody's making money off of that, and maybe it shouldn't be a private entity.”
Possible futures
McMillan said he and Kotek see a mixed use of downtown in the future — a vibrant mix of arts services, offices and residential buildings. They noted the COVID-19 pandemic changed how people work now and into the future, but the city center was first developed with attention to office buildings and transit meant to bring people into the city.
“I think it’s going to mean a lot more people living downtown, not just working downtown,” Kotek said.
That idea aligns with the goals of housing advocates, who say it is possible to work together to create an equitable downtown if the focus is on more than just penciling out investments. Zapata said she finds it exciting to think about this moment as an opportunity to invest in public or social housing.
“If there's a commitment to economic equity — I don't want to be cliche, but — I see everybody winning to some degree,” Zapata said. “We can have large corporations and businesses coexist with people living downtown in larger numbers.”
To the task force members, the three meetings are an opportunity for businesses to develop action steps they will present at the Oregon Business Summit in December. Critics see the meetings as an opportunity for already wealthy and influential groups to gain more direct — and less restricted — access to policymaking.
“Somebody’s going to make some cash,” Mahoney said. “Somebody’s going to come out ahead.”
Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-OR, a task force member, said he sees a shared recognition of how critical things are for this moment in Portland.
“I’m optimistic that we can make progress,” he said. “The stakes are high, but the opportunity is even greater.”
Opportunity knocking on a closed door
Critics agree the stakes are high and the opportunity is great, mainly because the highest-ranking elected officials in the city, county, Metro Council and state are in attendance. For those reasons, they argue Kotek’s insistence on a lack of transparency is the wrong approach.
The task force presenting its recommendations to the Oregon Business Council forms the governor’s core argument the task force is allowed to operate outside public view. The state statute governing public records, reports, and meetings, ORS 192, defines a governing body as “the members of any public body which consists of two or more members, with the authority to make decisions for or recommendations to a public body on policy or administration.”
While 12 task force members have “the authority to make decisions for or recommendations to a public body on policy or administration” as elected officials, Kotek’s office maintains the task force falls outside the reach of ORS 192 because it will officially make recommendations to the Oregon Business Council. If a government body decides to take up any recommendations from the task force, it will undergo a full public process before the recommendations are adopted, according to Elisabeth Shepard, Kotek’s press secretary.
Kotek said she’s opposed to public view because she wants task force members to be able to hold confidential conversations, adding she believes press conferences after meetings and the eventual public release of recommendations is sufficient transparency.
“The information that will come out will definitely be made public,” Kotek said. “It's not like we're hiding what the conversations result in and the recommendations of the action plan.”
Zapata said an opportunity exists for stakeholders to share and deliberate about values. How the group decides to resolve the challenges of downtown is a matter of equity, and for Zapata, providing safe, affordable, accessible housing should be a high priority.
“It's never too late to add in bigger framings around what a project is about,” Zapata said.
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