The preliminary Nov. 3 returns put all six council incumbents seeking reelection in winning positions. The results are not certified, but the apparent outcome is the return of the same six people. The voters did not make a mistake, and their ballots were not miscounted. People are entitled to prefer candidates I would not choose. The voters did their job.

For the next five pieces I am going to make the case for three things.

• Single-member districts, independently drawn. One identifiable representative per seat, chosen by a majority in a two-candidate final on the November ballot.

• A clearly accountable executive. The mayor already directs the city administrator, proposes the budget and holds appointment and removal powers. I would add a defined legislative veto with a council override and leave the independent auditor exactly where the charter put it: outside everyone's reach.

• A different use of the public's campaign money. Replace matching payments to campaign accounts with neutral, publicly provided access to voters: real candidate comparisons, forums, an equal basic chance to be heard.

  

Not to reverse an election. Not to install a more agreeable machine. Not to restore councilors running bureaus. And I will support these when they help elect someone I oppose, or they are not principles.

That is the plan. This piece is why.

Paramount

The first time I visited Paramount, it looked exactly as I thought a Hollywood studio ought to look. After a lifetime of watching movies, it was reassuring to discover that I had learned something about the business.

The meeting was less reassuring.

I had brought a licensing proposal involving titles the studio owned. It was a good deal or certainly seemed so to me. It was slightly unusual, but unusual was part of the opportunity. We had found a way to make money from something the studio already possessed.

We could not get it done.

My business partner had made a fortune writing, producing and directing movies. Afterward, he explained that I had misunderstood what those executives' jobs required. I thought their assignment was to license titles and generate revenue. Their assignment was not to get fired.

You get fired for making a decision.

An opportunity declined leaves no evidence. Nobody can point to the revenue from a deal that never happened. Approve something unusual, and there is a decision with your name on it. I was describing an opportunity for the studio. They were considering a risk to their employment.

Those executives had a job description. Somewhere at Paramount had a document about maximizing the value of the library. Nobody in that room was reading it. They were reading the other document, the one nobody writes down, the one that says how you get this job and how you keep it.

Portland's councilors have the same two documents. In Portland, both are public.

The job description

The city did not leave the job to my interpretation. It wrote the standard down, in Chapter 1.03 of the City Code, and it is better than anything I would have written.

Code 1.03.030: "City officials' decisions are based on the merits of the issues. Judgment is independent and objective."

Code 1.03.020: policymakers "place long-term benefit to the public as a whole above all other considerations, including important individuals and special interests." The same section says the public interest includes protecting the rights of under-represented minorities. It bars political campaigns on city time or property.

Merits. Independent judgment. The whole public first. That is the job. I did not write it. The city did.

Then the city wrote one more sentence. Code 1.03.010: provisions of the chapter not otherwise enforced by law are advisory.

Read that again. Portland defined independent judgment for its elected officials, and in the same chapter declared the definition a suggestion. The job description is a poster in the break room. Everybody has seen it. Nobody has ever been fired for ignoring it.

So, what actually gets you hired?

How you get the job

In August I printed the terms Portland DSA publishes for the candidates it endorses, and I will not relitigate them here. The short version, from the chapter's own endorsement page: "DSA is your party." A priority relationship. Regular meetings. Coordinate your work in office with the chapter's priorities. Use the office to build and recruit for the organization. The 2026 voter guide adds the disqualifiers: accept a chamber of commerce endorsement, or oppose the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, and voters are instructed to give you no ranking at all.

That is not a conspiracy I assembled from suspicious photographs. It is the help-wanted ad.

Hold it against Code 1.03.030. The city says judgment is independent. The chapter says coordinate with us. The city says merits. The chapter says priorities. One of these documents is enforced by an organization that meets every month and endorses every two years. The other is advisory.

Now the other side because this cannot be a story about one organization. United for Portland told District 4 voters to rank Eric Zimmerman and Olivia Clark, in either order, and then gave this instruction: "Do not rank any other candidates." Eli Arnold was not on the list. That is not declining to make him the first choice. That is advice to leave him off the ballot. Future Portland Action Fund, usually counted on the same side, recommended all three. There was no business ballot. There were two.

I do not know why United for Portland cut Arnold. I know what the 2024 ballots showed when I counted them: Arnold lost that year to the discipline of his own lane. Clark's surplus went to Zimmerman over Arnold five to one. In 2026 the same lane wrote him out of the instructions. Twice is a pattern. When the county certifies this year's ballot records, I will run the same count and print it, whatever it says.

A ballot instruction is different from a standing expectation of coordination after election. I will not pretend it is. But both are hiring criteria, both are written by somebody other than the voters, and neither one mentions the merits of the issues.

How you keep it

Here the city's standard meets the chapter's, and the collision is one word long.

The chapter runs a Socialists in Office Committee. Its 2023 endorsement policy describes the committee's meetings with officeholders this way: "In these meetings, they will strategize, enforce DSA policy, and figure out how our actions can be coordinated." Cadre candidates are "required to meet with the chapter twice a month" and "to form a socialist caucus in the legislative body they are elected to."

The charter, at Section 2-205, requires every councilor to swear that "the official is not a member of any committee of any political party," and adds that if the oath "be false in any particular, it shall be deemed a delinquency in office." Section 2-204 makes it a standing condition of the office: No elected official shall "serve on or under any committee of any political party."

So, the whole question turns on one word. Is the Socialists in Office Committee a committee of a political party?

The chapter says DSA is your party. The state says DSA is not a registered party. The Oregon Government Ethics Commission has looked at the arrangement twice and twice found no law that reaches it. The city's ethics code, as we have seen, is advisory. Nobody has asked the question under the charter. I am asking it. I am not answering it, because I do not know, and the people whose job it is to know have not been asked.

Before anyone else draws the line, I will. In 1966, in Bond v. Floyd, the Supreme Court told the Georgia House it could not use an oath to keep Julian Bond out of his seat because of his politics. An oath to uphold the government is not a license to screen beliefs, and neither is this article. A councilor is entitled to be a socialist. A councilor is entitled to agree with the socialists every time the vote comes up. The question is not what they believe. The question is what happens on the day, the chapter's priority and the merits of the issue point in different directions, and whether the councilor who goes with the merits still has a job in two years.

The test of independence is not whether people agree when agreement is easy. It is whether an officeholder is free to disagree when disagreement costs the support that keeps the seat.

A capable candidate should be able to say, "I agree with you about housing. I disagree with you about something else. Here is what I propose to do for this district." That should be a viable political position. In Portland it is a failed membership application.

Why the charter

The city's own ledger does not fix this. Matching payments went to all six incumbents, across the council's divide. That tells you where the money came from. It tells you nothing about which relationships an officeholder believes must be preserved to keep the seat, and the chapter is the only institution in town that put its answer in writing.

Senator Russell Long used to say Louisiana's corruption could be made illegal but never made unpopular. Portland has the reverse. The arrangement is popular, nobody has found a way to make it illegal, and the city's ethics code has volunteered that it does not intend to try.

That leaves the charter. The next four pieces take the three things one at a time, with the certified ballot records when the county releases them, a district map, the mayor's actual powers and what the public's campaign money has actually bought. Single-member districts can elect ideologues. Strong mayors make bad decisions. None of this repeals ambition. What it can do is make responsibility clearer, competition more direct and independence, something a councilor can afford.

At Paramount, my business partner did not tell me the executives were stupid. He told me I had misunderstood the problem they were solving. I do not intend to spend two years telling Portland that the winners are stupid or the voters were fooled. I intend to take the city's own job description, the one it wrote and then marked advisory, and ask what it would take to make it the one that gets you hired.

The objective is to make doing the public's job well the safest way to keep your own.

Robert S. Miller is a Pearl District resident and president of a gaming technology company. He uses AI tools, Claude and ChatGPT, to gather public records, run the numbers and check facts.

Prices are rising everywhere, including the cost of citizen input. Even so, overhead costs assigned to a committee of Northwest District residents advising the Portland Bureau of Transportation on local projects is extraordinary.

Under an agreement adopted by the Portland City Council in 2013, half of the net revenues from meters and permits in the zone are set aside for transportation enhancement projects chosen by the committee. But that half also has to cover PBOT staff who facilitate the monthly meetings of the Stakeholders Advisory Committee and implement projects.

And PBOT overhead keeps rising. In September, PBOT presented a budget increasing staff costs from $195,000 per year to $491,842.

Parking District Manager Liza Farr explained the jump.

“When Stanley [Ong] or I spend an hour working on something for the Northwest Parking District … that hour gets billed to the parking district.”

Now PBOT intends to add employee benefits and a share of PBOT overhead to those hourly rates.

“The benefits rate is 98%, and the overhead is 89% on top of that,” Farr said.

Outside consultants who facilitate the monthly meetings or do research are also costing more.

“We have gone through another competitive procurement process, so this new contract has their updated rates based on seven years of really bad inflation, so that is why that is so much higher. It’s all the same work, it’s just seven years of inflationary costs all at once,” she said.

“It ends up being almost four times the [old] rate,” Farr said.

“Almost four times,” Ong confirmed.

“It’s been a moment of reckoning for us, too,” Farr said. “We did not hide this from you, I will say that.”

SAC members took the bombshell calmly, none questioning the premise that the dedicated neighborhood funds should be burdened with a share of the bureau’s overall operating costs.

“That’s a big adjustment upward in staff [costs],” SAC Chair Amy Spreadborough said. “It’s basically increasing three times what was originally budgeted.”

“We’re here to advise PBOT on our recommended priorities for projects that can bring value back to the community … so it would be helpful to understand what kinds of activities that we ask for trigger the use of staff time. We’d be more hesitant to have you guys go and explore or research something that we could spend our dollars not knowing that’s going to rack up.”

SAC vice chair Todd Zarnitz added, “What isn’t being said is that the city’s in a severe budget crisis, and this is one of the many ways that we’re going to be seeing attempts to plug a lot of these gaps.”

Costly though it may be, Zarnitz credits PBOT staff for surmounting past divisions that led to the city unilaterally shutting down the committee for six months in 2023-24.

“This committee has drastically changed in character, in tone and in people involved,” he said. “It’s definitely moving in the right direction. … That team has been a significant contributor to putting us in a better direction. … We can talk about the costs involved, of course, but we also have to recognize the contributions.”

SAC member Victoria Via also took a sympathetic stance toward PBOT’s budget woes.

“The other aspect … is looking into increasing revenue,” Via said. “When we have discussions about increasing parking rates, that has always been a really challenging and tricky conversation. But now looking at the budget and understanding all of the things that we want to do … is it worth increasing rates?”

We are now posting the latest edition of the newspaper on our home page. See the paper as print edition readers have been doing for 40 years. Also, you can click on any ad and go directly to the business’s website.

View November newspaper

District 4 City Council election results

Round 1 / Final

Olivia Clark 31% / 25%

Mitch Green 24% / 25%

Eric Zimmerman 20% / 25%

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Eli Arnold 10% / 12%

Jamey Evenstar 4% / 5.6%

Jeremy Beausoleil 4% / 5.6%

The easy reelection of the three District 4 City Council members is confounding to even those who warned of the power of incumbency under our particular form of ranked choice voting.

Eli Arnold, who narrowly missed election two years ago, ran again with more campaign experience, higher visibility and more donations, and yet he was not even in contention. He raised more money in direct donations and the public match than any other candidate, but it didn’t matter. He got less than half of necessary votes to win.

In District 3, challenger Kellie Torres also led in fundraising and was endorsed by Mayor Keith Wilson. Yet she got less than half as many votes as the successful incumbents in the first round and stalled at 14%.

If candidates of this caliber fall so far short of the mark despite enormous effort, few people of substance will attempt to climb this wall in the future.

For Elliot Lavine, November is always a special month for Saturday Morning Classics, a time when as the end of the year approaches, Lavine becomes even more introspective and thoughtful in his film choices. Perhaps something about the end of daylight saving time or the falling leaves? Time to decompress, as brisk and crisp turns to chilly and raw? So many reasons to turn inward this month and contemplate the real world, then spend a few hours each Saturday morning, escaping into cinematic fantasy.

This is our monthly look at coming attractions for Cinema 21’s popular Saturday Morning Classics. Film programmer Elliot Lavine curates a theme every month, and we let you know what’s coming to the big screen each Saturday at 11 a.m. at our iconic neighborhood theater at 616 NW 21st Ave.

Note: There will be no Saturday Morning Classic movies in December. But have no fear, the classics return with a vengeance in January with a month of Hitchcock. On second thought, maybe there will be something for you to fear come January.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (La Belle et la Bête) (1946) at Cinema 21 on Nov. 7. Director: Jean Cocteau

Cocteau considered himself a poet first. That shows in his approach to filmmaking. Instead of words, the French director often uses surrealistic images and dreamlike scenes and sequences. Lavine calls “Beauty and the Beast,” “a poetic masterpiece by any standard … a moody rendering of the classic fairy tale, evoking mesmerizing images out of its endlessly romantic shadows.

This is film magic, shot in black and white. That was magic before the more colorful Disney remakes. And I am not knocking the sweeter and sanitized Disney versions. My daughter and I enjoyed them.

But Cocteau’s “Beauty and the Beast” is a film for grownups. It is filled with darkness, dread and desire. There is also old-fashioned trick photography using mirrors, slow and reverse motion, rather than today’s highly technical visual effects. Cocteau’s “tricks” may seem archaic by today’s standards, but they create their own wizardry. And oftentimes, simple is better.

The Beast in Cocteau’s story is a lonely, misunderstood man. The film critic Roger Ebert said the film’s message is that “anyone who has an unhappy childhood may grow up to be a beast.” Cocteau made this film in France just after the end of World War II and the Nazi occupation of France, when many French children had suffered unhappy childhoods.

Starring Jean Marais as the Beast and Josette Day as the Beauty.

Interesting facts:

• France’s economy was shattered by World War II. Everything was in short supply. Cocteau was forced to film in black and white, but that ended up working to the film’s advantage, giving it a mysterious and supernatural quality.

• To create living human carvings, Cocteau hired small children who were made up with plaster to look like stone figures.

• Jean Marais spent five hours in makeup daily to transform into the Beast. It is a remarkable costume complete with claws that smoke, but it has to be said, some modern-day movie-goers will look at Cocteau’s Beast and see Lucas’ Chewbacca.

Favorite lines: “Love can turn a man into a beast. It can also make an ugly man beautiful.”

MIRACLE IN MILAN (1951) at Cinema 21 on Nov. 14. Director: Vittorio De Sica

Still post-war, still Europe, still black and white. But this time, the mystical, surrealistic fairy tale takes place in Italy in the years after the war and after the collapse of the government of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. Lavine says the film “presents a gritty, neo-realistic slice of impoverished life on the streets in Milan, Italy.”

Despite that, this movie starts in the most charming way, when a slightly shriveled but sprightly nonna named Lolotta goes out to water her cabbage patch. She hears and sees a crying baby hidden among the leafy food staple of post-war Italy. (And of course, it is a baby boy, because according to European legend, baby boys come from cabbage patches, baby girls come from rose bushes.)

Lolotta raises the orphan boy as her own, lavishing her attention, optimism and magical spirit on her dear Toto. But Lolotta dies when Toto is just 11. He is sent to an orphanage, eventually ages out and finds refuge with vagabonds, beggars and derelicts sheltering in boxes on the fringes of the city.

The sights and sounds of the post-war poverty are “heartbreakingly real,“ says Lavine. But he adds that De Sica transcends “the banal into a mystical fairy tale, lifting itself into the realm of mystical surrealism, bringing us closer to the spirit of the people it depicts.”

Toto is his Lolotta’s boy and his sunny disposition is infectious. He turns this ragtag group of squatting destitute souls into a close-knit community. Just as that happens, oil is discovered on the land and greedy, top-hatted, fur-collared businessmen swoop in to claim the land. We know how this movie will end.

But not exactly, because the ghostly spirit of Lolotta appears. Doves and angels fly. And the poor eventually fly away on broomsticks for a better world where when a man says “buongiorno,” he really means it.

Critics have praised De Sica for linking magic with moral truth. And the film possesses a sly Chaplin-like sense of humor.

“Miracle in Milan” is considered a classic of Italian cinema. It won the Grand Prize at Cannes in 1951. Still, Lavine tells me, it rarely plays anymore on the big screen.

Emma Gramatica plays Lolotta. Francesco Golisano plays Toto.

A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH (1946) at Cinema 21 Nov. 21. Directors: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

There is so much going on in this film. It is political, philosophical and fantastical. Lavine calls it “an unusual mix ... It’s one of those films that needs to be seen to be believed and once seen can never be forgotten.”

It is also a war story and a love story.

Set in England during World War II, a Royal Air Force pilot gets ready to plunge to his death. He has to bail out of his burning plane without a parachute. But before he does that, he contacts an Allied radio operator to tell her what he is about to do.

David Niven plays Peter, the dashing hero. Kim Hunter is June, the American radio operator working in England. She becomes the last witness to his last words. After some witty and heartfelt banter between the two of them, he signs out, and she can do nothing to prevent his death.

This is England, more than four long years into the war that had killed almost half a million British soldiers and civilians. The story is set in the last days of the war, just before Hitler surrenders.

Our hero cheats death. He wakes up on an empty beach, not sure where he is or what has happened. Is he on land or is he in the hereafter? (We are told from the very first that the pilot’s life and imagination was shaped violently by war, as was likely true of many returning soldiers — but if we dwell on that too much, we may miss the film’s enchantment.)

Pilot Peter is alive, and June finds him. They fall in love, quickly.

Alas, a celestial messenger from the above and beyond comes down to earth to tell the loved-up couple that the pilot’s life should not have been spared. He should have died. His survival is the result of a clerical error made above in the afterlife. The lovers are devastated, but Peter is given the opportunity to argue for his life in a court up in the celestial hereafter.

To mount that defense, Peter climbs the stairway to heaven, where court is in session.

There are no bright halos in this depiction of the hereafter. No soft, round cherubs. It is stark, sharp and angular. The geometry creates a futuristic landscape that is clean and sterile and interesting, but utterly unfriendly.

Directors Powell and Pressburger film the celestial afterlife scenes in crystal-clear black and white. In contrast, they film England in vivid Technicolor. Terra firma appears far more inviting and promising

Will earthly love triumph over this life-and-death bureaucratic snafu? Of course, this is romance and fantasy. But how we get there is the movie’s vision. Lavine calls it brilliant.

Interesting facts:

• After the war, the British government’s film board suggested to the directors that they make a film with the intent of improving relations between the British and the Americans, who together had just defeated fascism.

• There were some tensions between the two allies after the war as the world realigned. America was ascending, while Great Britain was in decline. Also, there were still a lot of American soldiers in Britain after the war. The British resented them, commonly saying American GIs were “overpaid, over-sexed and over here.”

• While the British government proposed the idea for the film, it did not have any involvement in the story or the movie itself.

• There were 106 steps in the motorized escalator to heaven built for the film. The contraption was driven by a 12-horsepower engine so it could move forward and backward.

• When the film was released in the U.S., it was titled “Stairway to Heaven” instead of “A Matter of Life and Death.” Interesting, because the afterlife in the movie is not called heaven. The directors did not want to limit themselves by creating heaven, with all that implies.

• However, American distributors did not want the word “death” in the title, thinking that would deter war-weary Americans from going to movie theaters.

THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (1940) at Cinema 21 on Nov. 28. Director: Ernst Lubitsch

This is the one American film in November, though it is directed by a German immigrant and based on a 1937 Hungarian play “Parfumerie” by Miklos Laszlo. Lavine says that “only a genius European director could pull this one off with such style and class.”

Compared to the other films in this month’s Saturday Morning Classics series, you might think this film is a simple romantic comedy, but Lavine says Director Lubitsch showed “what a little sophistication could bring to a film like this.”

The film is shot in black and white. It takes place in a leather goods shop in Budapest during the Depression just before World War II.

Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan portray two bickering sales clerks. They’re both lonely, but each has an anonymous secret pen pal to whom each can pour out their hearts. Of course, they don’t know their secret pen pals are one another.

In person, they quarrel. In their anonymous letters, they fall in love.

A first meeting and date, and a Christmas Eve dinner between the two will reveal all, which makes this a nice pre-Christmas movie to end November.

Great repartee between Stewart and Sullavan fills the plot-twist storyline with both trepidation and charm.

The plot may seem old hat to us now, especially after the popularity of 1998’s “You’vGot Mail.” That, of course, is a remake for the electronic age of “A Shop Around the Corner.”

Interesting fact:

• Meg Ryan in “You’ve Got Mail” owns a bookstore called “The Shop Around the Corner” — Director Nora Ephron paying explicit homage to Lubitsch’s film.

“It’s brutal for small businesses,” he said. “It’s taking a toll on out-of-pocket expenses since insurance doesn’t cover these costs.”

The NW Examiner featured the close-knit family in a previous story here.

If you’ve never visited John’s Café now’s the time. Cash only.

Unified leadership is a simple and well-tested principle necessary for success. Multiple leaders and uncoordinated management lead to incoherence in strategy, duplication of effort, gaps in practice, and a resultant waste of resources. Unfortunately, adherence to this basic principle is completely lacking in the response to homelessness in Multnomah County.

Current situation

The response to homelessness in Multnomah County is divided between the county, the city, Metro, and the state. Each has different responsibilities, strategies, and policies. Their sources of funding are sometimes separate, sometimes overlapping, sometimes pass-through, with each funding stream having its own unique requirements. In addition, private charity funds some service providers, who may or may not coordinate with government-sponsored programs.

Differing approaches

The most glaring example of different philosophies was the county’s policy (now ended) of giving out tents, sleeping bags and tarps to the homeless, only to have the city throw them away during clean-ups and sweeps. Whether or not you think campsite sweeps are a good idea or not, the policy conflict was absurd and wasteful. It took years to resolve.

There are different philosophies for supportive housing, too. Some service providers aim to help their clients get back into normal lives. They offer wrap-around services including drug and alcohol detox and treatment, mental illness stabilization, skills training, job training, both temporary and permanent supportive housing, and similar support, all designed to make their clients self-sufficient. This process can take many months, but the success rate is good (typically 40% to 50%).

The county, on the other hand, adheres to a “housing first” philosophy, which they have transformed into “housing only.” Their objective is to get everyone into housing as quickly as possible, regardless of their condition, with the assumption that they will then get better. But the county makes little or no effort to provide the appropriate level of services, resulting in longterm dependency. How many become self-sufficient is not known.

In addition, many homeless, especially the chronically homeless suffering from severe mental illness or drug addiction, are not ready for housing. In fact, trying to force them into housing is slowly bankrupting some service providers. Link Report #6.

Most recently, while the county continues with its “housing only” policy, the mayor is carrying out a plan to expand emergency shelters in the city. Again, whether this is a good plan or not, it runs counter to the county’s programs and receives no support from the county.

Funding

On the funding side, the primary sources of money for addressing the acute social problem of homelessness are from governmental entities: federal, state, metro, county and city. Additionally, charity provides significant support. In Multnomah County/Portland, the logical options for centralized leadership would be the state, Metro, county or the city. While we recognize that there are significant organizational and political hurdles for each in the way of achieving centralized leadership, somebody needs to be in charge.

Traditionally, the county has focused on behavioral health services, along with shelters and outreach. The city’s job was to address issues of affordable housing, cleaning the streets and policing. However, increasingly, the city’s and county’s homelessness approaches have bled into each other.

The Metro Supportive Housing Tax, passed in 2020, raised a large amount of money that they allocated to the three counties, after deducting their administrative overhead. (Prior to this tax, Metro had no experience managing housing or funding for housing and had to create an entire bureaucracy from scratch.) The county, in turn, passed some of this money down to the city’s housing operations, but kept most of it to expand the county’s homeless services portfolio to include supportive housing. This overlapped with the city’s affordable housing programs, resulting in multiple requirements, complex application processes and multiple lengthy and uncoordinated wait lists.

On the streets

The situation with the shelter system is no better. This was originally the county’s responsibility. But since the shelters run by the county were insufficient, the city has funded shelters, too. The new mayor has expanded this with several new overnight shelters and day centers. There are also several private shelters run by charities. Since no single entity is in charge, nobody is sure how many shelter beds there are in the county or city or what kinds of shelters there are (overnight, 24-hour, high- or low-barrier, women’s, men’s, walk-in or requiring reservations, etc.).

And again, since no one is in overall charge, there is no systematic way for homeless individuals to find an appropriate shelter with free capacity at any given time. It is up to the individual case worker or outreach worker to rely on their personal experience and personal contacts to find a bed. It usually requires several phone calls to find a free one. There is no centralized system; it depends on individual knowledge.

Outreach is similarly disjointed. These are the workers who should be a homeless person’s first contact with the service system, who should build trust, send the homeless person to the appropriate services and start them on their road to recovery. The county funds over 100 outreach workers spread over 20 nonprofits. The city funds more, and private services often have their own outreach staff. Some of them do a good job getting people into services; some merely hand out water, blankets, needles or straws. Some collect data to start an Individual Recovery Plan (IRP); some do not. Some that do collect data enter it into the overall Homeless Management Information System (HMIS); some nonprofits use their own software that does not interface with other systems.

What the outreach workers do depends on the nonprofit or government entity they work for, and the individual worker’s motivation and experience. There are no county- or citywide protocols for what to do, what data to collect or accountability for their results in connecting people to the right services.

Gaps in services

A homeless person’s path to recovery often goes through several stages, with the stages often handled by different service providers. For example, an addict needs to go through detox/withdrawal management, generally followed by weeks of transitional housing with intensive support services. Medicaid, which funds most of the detox treatments, only provides for limited stays after which the newly sober person, still in need of extensive support, must move to another facility (often funded by a different agency with a different funding stream and its own requirements, which the newly sober person may or may not meet).

Once again, there is no central system to find the next placement. It relies on the individual caseworker’s knowledge of what is available. Very often, no beds are available for the next stage of treatment, and the newly sober person is forced to go back onto the street. Back on the street, they are hard to find when a bed becomes available, and they frequently relapse into addiction.

Similar situations happen in shelters, which have different allowable lengths of stays. When the allowable stay ends, the alternatives are often run by different nonprofits, funded by different agencies with different agendas. Sometimes the individuals can seamlessly pass to an alternate shelter, sometimes they find space in temporary or permanent housing; sometimes they don’t and wind up back on the street. And in all cases, there is no central clearinghouse to keep track of where people can access needed services nor where they went.

Cumulative overheads

The absence of unified leadership also leads to unnecessary overheads. This cannot be tolerated in an environment where we will have to do more to address homelessness with dramatically less money from the federal government.

It is hard to get an accurate figure on overhead costs as money cascades through the structure of homelessness funding. However, we can begin to approximate total overhead by examining the overhead involved in the Metro Supportive Housing Services (SHS) tax money. Metro states that its administrative overhead is 2.7%, but the reported figures indicate 5% or more.

Multnomah County received $140.4 million from SHS monies in 2024, of which $63.3 million flowed to the Homeless Services Department (HSD). The county claims its overhead costs are 5.1%, but a more realistic figure is 15%. HSD’s 2024 report describes their administrative and overhead as 2.2%, but a review of the numbers appears to be at least in the range of 30%. It is difficult to tease out accurate overhead figures, but they multiply as the money flows downward, and the cumulative overhead can easily reach 30%.

And all of this comes before any money is spent on the homeless because, in general, governmental entities in Multnomah County do not actually provide services. Rather, they subcontract to nonprofits and church groups with their own overheads to provide food, shelter, medical care, housing and job placement.

Conclusion

Like other jurisdictions that have had success, Multnomah County requires one entity to lead all efforts to end homelessness. We must overcome the political obstacles to unified leadership and eliminate the policy conflicts and overlaps, close the gaps and get onto one coordinated program. The current system seems designed more for bureaucratic convenience than to address the true needs of the homeless (and the taxpayers).

Sources

1. Supportive Housing: https://www.cbpp.org/research/housing/supportive-housing-helps-vulnerable-people-live-and-thrive-in-the-community

2. Bakersfield and functional zero chronic homelessness: Bakersfield and Kern County, California: Functional Zero Case Study - Community Solutions

3. Portland Housing Bureau - Wikipedia

4. Multnomah County 2025 Budget Review: www.tsccmultco.com/wp-content/uploads/MultCo-A-FY25-Budget-Review.pdf

5. JOH: 2023-2024 SHS Annual Report https://multco.us/file/joint_office_of_homeless_services_adopted_budget-1/download

6. Transition Projects 2023-2024 Annual Report: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/637bc5e7223fbf2204465446/t/682f6f6e262e5f37ea9e1377/1747939196571/FY23-24+Annual+Report.pdf

7. Multnomah Cost Allocation Plan: https://multco.us/file/fy_2025/2026_/download

   Portland Voice is a community forum affiliated with Oregon Harbor of Hope promoting effective and cost-efficient approaches to ending homelessness in Multnomah County.

Troubles at Home Forward

October’s article about Home Forward’s proposed development at Northwest Ninth and Johnson [“Broken housing system,” October 2026] revisits several troubling Portland themes.

A Pearl District Neighborhood Association board member wonders why Home Forward keeps building. I think the answer is staring back at us. A housing builder must keep building to justify its staffing and budget. Ironically, the front-page caption, “Far Left: Home Forward …” offers an unintentionally amusing commentary.

Construction costs, vacancies and leasing concessions suggest Home Forward may not be the answer. We constantly hear Oregon has a housing shortage, but rarely discuss what kind of housing is needed. If subsidized apartments require concessions to attract tenants, perhaps Portland already has more of that product than the market wants. Even Home Forward is subject to supply and demand.

According to the article, Home Forward’s own development director, Jonathan Trutt, acknowledges that evicting drug users or problem tenants is extraordinarily difficult, with little support from police or courts. Private landlords know this problem well. Tenant protections are important, but when they protect bad actors from consequences, responsible tenants and neighbors unduly bear the burden. Some residents need support beyond subsidized rent.

Portland must stop confusing construction activity with successful housing policy. Success means safe, occupied, well-maintained communities where misconduct has consequences. It should be measured by outcomes, not dollars spent.

Max Brunke

NW Pettygrove St.

Red Scare treatment

I am shocked and appalled to see that the NW Examiner is conducting a campaign directed at Councilor Mitch Green. Clearly, you do not agree with his statements of the past as a socialist.

Your articles, editorials and choice of opinion letters reek of Red Scare McCarthyism from the 1950s.

It is enough using your journalistic power to endorse a candidate of your liking. That action reduces the Examiner to one of being a political hack, not surprising in this age. To delve into a person’s past, and likely well-meaning idealistic statements, and use that as destructive fodder is nothing more than modern day McCarthyism.

You should be ashamed of your actions, Allan. As a longtime reader and supporter, I am disappointed. Maybe it’s time to retire.

Rich Miller

NW Raleigh St.

Green lacking in judgment

Good judgment is one of the most important characteristics for anyone wanting to be an elected official overseeing our city. Before being elected to City Council, Mitch Green tweeted that “the left should riot more,” that he felt “pure hatred for the Portland police” and that businesses suffering from graffiti should “clean up your own mess” and stop “leaching off the community.” He has more recently stated that those tweets were not a good “look.”

After being elected, he failed to pay his 2025 property taxes until contacted by an Oregonian reporter. Do we want him having oversight on how to spend millions of dollars for the city if he misses paying his own taxes?

This past summer, as wildfires were being fought throughout much of Oregon, he decided to burn brush in his own backyard, violating multiple burn bans. Because of significant lapses in judgment, I sincerely hope Mitch Green is not reelected.

Frederick Wearn

NW 11th Ave.

Portland voters didn’t understand the complexities of the charter reform measure on the 2022 ballot, but having no confidence in the city’s course, 57% of them approved it.

The big promise was of inclusion—those historically left out could get a seat at the table. In that regard, it has succeeded. A majority of our 12 present councilors may never have considered running in the old system.

The new charter—coupled with Portland’s extremely generous campaign financing system—opened the doors to new faces, new views and new organizations. No longer was elected office confined to those having broad citywide appeal; the threshold became 25% of the votes in one quarter of the city. Under this system, big money and inside players could be overcome by community organizing and populist pitches.

So who got excluded? The aforementioned old guard, of course. And now it appears that socialists, diversity champions and assorted others who didn’t catch the first wave may also be shut out in future elections. Of the six councilors up for reelection next month, early polls suggested that all would prevail. This despite ethical investigations, childish tirades, embarrassing private behavior and persistent deadlocks traceable to the three Democratic Socialists of America now on the ballot, yet all of them may cement their hold on incumbency.

The 25% threshold makes inclusion a one-time deal. Mere name familiarity counts for something in any election, and when coupled to a fringe but loyal base, incumbents could entrench even if a majority wants them gone. Picture Angelita Morillo in 40 years as an aging firebrand sticking to her guns.

Publicly funded campaigns compound the problem. Portland’s Small Donor Elections program awards a 10:1 match to campaign donations up to $25. Candidates having minimal voter support can nevertheless be prolific fundraisers under this system. In 2024, two City Council candidates who together failed to garner even 1,000 first place votes nevertheless collected more than 1,500 donors, for which the public had to shell out about $120,000 in matching funds.

This year, two DSA-aligned District 4 candidates, Jeremy Beausoleil-Smth and Jamey Evenstar, have received $236,000 in matching funds. The NW Examiner did not consider either a serious contender and did not invite them to a proposed debate among the top four candidates. For that reason, DSA member and incumbent District 4 Councilor Mitch Green refused to participate in the debate, and the host venue, the Armory, canceled rather than face a possible legal challenge due to its nonprofit status.

Another nonprofit, City Club of Portland, using fundraising as a criteria, included all six of the aforementioned candidates in its debate. In this way, the Small Donor Elections program gave borderline candidates leverage to be taken seriously, and a district that is nowhere near half socialist had a debate in which half of the candidates were.

Under our novel ranked-choice voting system, the three socialists are not rivals but teammates. Any votes garnered by the weaker two candidates will likely transfer to Green in the early rounds of vote counting, giving him at least a slight boost. More importantly, the auxiliary candidates broadened the dissemination of their message and financially aided the building of their political organization.

Lest anyone believe DSA candidates share only a general philosophy, Olivia Katbi, who co-chairs the Portland DSA chapter, said, “Our councilors are DSA. So what they are doing is DSA until further notice, unless we say it’s not.”

This is a disciplined political organization demanding loyalty far greater than our traditional parties expect. Its goals include “fully abolishing the police and prison system, which protects the rich and jails the poor.”

According to a 2026 post in the Portland DSA newsletter, “[O]ur goal isn’t to win just a single match; it’s to take home the trophy. (That means one day wholly defeating capitalism and creating a society for the benefit of all people, not just the billionaires.) To do that, it’s the job of our socialists in office and our movement to construct and take advantage of moments where we can beat back the capitalist forces and their faux-gressive candidates.”

This is partisanship squared, beyond anything we’ve seen in recent Portland history. No matter what folks were thinking in 2022, 96% of the 252 readers who took our online poll said they wanted the charter amended “as soon as possible.” I don’t think 25% winners taking it all would fare well among the electorate as a whole if that proposition were put to a simple yes-no test.

Stop the Cell Tower Here We Stand

The Sauvie Island Grange agreed to let Verizon build a cell tower on its property, which is next door to an elementary school. Neighbors were alarmed by the effects of radiofrequency radiation and other environmental impacts, so they got organized, did research, held meetings, sent letters, put up lawn signs and sought legal advice. It all added up, and the cell tower application was withdrawn.

Max Steele Citizen Journalist

Steele has been producing the Recalibrate Portland for two years, covering City Council and local progressive activism more thoroughly and insightfully than other media big and small. This fall, he made the New York Times by unearthing previously deleted about 10,000 social media posts by City Councilor Mitch Green that revealed hateful, extremist views.

Ray Davis The Igniter

Last spring, he led a small group of Pearl residents and business people who imagined what it would take to help the district recover from its slump, and then they dug into their own pockets and made it happen. They called it Re-Ignite the Pearl, and it involved regular public events attracting residents and visitors to the streets and parks. It succeeded beyond expectations. The kickoff packed the Armory with community members eager to do their part.

Karen Whitman Lifetime Achievement

Whitman was a major part of Portland’s downtown recovery in the 1970s. She founded and directed Artquake, an arts festival highlighting the new downtown transit center. She also founded the Association for Portland Progress to focus business leadership on downtown. She also directed Pioneer Courthouse Square. Her greatest challenge may lie ahead, as she leads an uphill campaign to save the Keller Auditorium, an essential part of the downtown she has dedicated her life to.

Special thanks to Awards sponsors, and to Ecotrust for donating the event space.

One way to make a friend is to crash into their car and total it. That’s how Seunghoi An met real estate broker Mark New in the days leading up to this Saturday’s opening of her bakery Love Crumble at 1759 NW 24th Ave. “We’ve been fast friends ever since,” said New, who bought the former Food Front Cooperative Grocery building last year, is feeling buoyed by the recent energy on Thurman Street.

Playing it safe, I walked there and was led inside by the sister of the owner Seunghoi An.

Seunghoi is a Korean name (pronounced “sung way”) that means joy. She is the epitome of the word.

She gave me a quick tour, showing me the milk bottles from Helvetia’s Schoch Dairy, where she drives to pick up the milk herself.

“The cows are really, really cute,” she said.

She mixes custard with the milk, a bit of heavy cream, egg yolk and vanilla bean all mixed in with brown sugar and salt. The custard becomes part of their signature Crumble, a layered dessert made of fruit compote, cookie crumb and custard.

“It’s a British dessert,” she said. “We’ll seasonally change the flavors. For the opening we’ll have apple berry crumble that features apples from Kiyokawa Orchards. Mmm.”

The custard goes in drinks, too, including matcha, coffee, cold brew and hojicha. Tea is sourced from Cup of Tea.

“How much matcha do you drink daily, I asked.

“A lot, a lot,” she said.

“The matcha comes from a farm in Japan. One is a blended matcha that has very floral deep notes and is kind of savory and has some really nice umami,” she said. “Another is brighter and lighter. The green tea is roasted at a low temperature so it “has a really nice smoky richness.”

Like the best tea of all, Oolong? I asked.

“Yes, exactly,” she said. “It’s very yummy.”

Love Crumble opens on Halloween and will be open roughly 5-10 p.m. to start.

“We want this to be a place both for young people to come and study or work on some projects, to feel like you’re entering someone’s home,” she said. “A place that’s safe and enjoyable where you can enjoy conversation over a little dessert. A lot of places open late are serving alcohol and all the coffee places close at 4 or 5 p.m. So we want to give that space back to the younger generation.”

The Charter Commission wanted districts that would elect Black, Latino and Asian councilors. Portland’s minorities don’t live in concentrated enough neighborhoods for any district map to do that. So the commission replaced districts with a counting rule: any group that is a quarter of the voters and votes as a bloc gets a seat. The group that turned out to be a quarter of the voters and voted as a bloc was the DSA. The rule did what it was written to do. It was written for someone else.

Nobody redrew a map. That would have been crude, and somebody would have noticed. They gerrymandered the math.

The maps

Portland’s 20-member Charter Commission did the work in the open. It heard research on minority representation three times. The first study ran 100,000 computer-generated maps of the city at five, seven and nine single-member districts, looking for one in which a community of color would be a majority. There wasn’t one.

The Supreme Court has a test for exactly that situation, and it is 40 years old. Under Thornburg v. Gingles, a minority group is entitled to a district of its own only if it is large enough and compact enough to be a majority in one. If it isn’t, the Voting Rights Act requires nothing. The commission’s own research said Portland’s minorities fail that test.

The law said stop.

The commission kept going. Its progress reports say single-member districts would keep people of color from electing a candidate of their choice because they are not concentrated in any part of the city, and that multi-member districts elected by proportional ranked choice would let a candidate with 25% support win a seat. If geography would not produce the seat, the counting rule would. Twelve seats, four districts, three per district and a quota of a quarter plus one.

The three changes went to voters as one measure: the new form of government, the districts and the counting rule. A poll the commission never saw found that Portlanders overwhelmingly wanted them on the ballot separately. Commissioners said they were too interdependent to separate.

On June 14, 2022, the commission voted 17 to 3 to send the package to the ballot. The three who voted no were David Chen, David Knowles and Vadim Mozyrsky. Mozyrsky’s alternative was seven single-member districts.

The trick

Let me show you the trick, because it is a good one. Portland elects three councilors from each of four districts. Under the single transferable vote, the election quota for one of those three seats is a quarter of the valid vote, plus one. Not a majority. A quarter. That is how proportional representation is designed to work: A cohesive minority can win representation without needing 50%.

Now suppose an organization can get roughly a quarter of the voters in each district to rank its candidates in a disciplined order. It can secure one seat in each district: four reliable seats on a 12-member council. Count to seven and it needs three more votes. That is where coalitions, slates and binding political commitments become important. The mathematics does not hand anyone a majority. It gives a well-organized minority a durable starting position.

You never needed a majority to establish a foothold. You needed a list and the discipline to follow it.

I spent 50 years in gambling. Gamblers trust the game, not the house. Here the incentives built into the game deserve a hard look. The disciplined slate is an awfully attractive bet.

So organizations did what organizations do. They wrote pledges. Candidates signed them before the election. The determination can precede the discussion. A councilor may arrive at the dais with a position already promised to somebody other than the voters. That is not a conspiracy. It is the strategy the rules reward. But it raises a question worth asking: Whose judgment did we elect?

The rule is blind to race, geography and intent. It rewards exactly one thing: a bloc that is a quarter of the district and votes in order. The commission assumed that bloc would be communities of color. The one group in the city with a membership list, a pledge and a ranking order was the DSA.

Now ask what that does to an independent voter. If your first choice gets a quarter of the district plus one, she is elected whether or not anyone coordinated. But an independent’s first choice almost never does, because independents don’t agree with each other about who that is. Twenty-one candidates ran in District 4, and the unaffiliated voters spread their first choices across most of them. A quarter of the district voting independently elects nobody. A quarter of the district voting in order elects one.

So your vote counts in full only if one of two things is true: you are part of a bloc, or you rank deep enough that your ballot keeps transferring until it lands on a winner. Most people do neither. They rank two or three, the ballot exhausts, and the seat goes to whoever had the list. Under this system an independent vote is a bloc of one, and the rule only counts blocs.

Who paid

Measure 26-228 was not free. The yes campaign, Portland United for Change, reported $1,036,881 in contributions during 2022 to the Oregon Secretary of State. Here is where it came from.

Donor Amount

1 Coalition of Communities of Color Portland $211,213

2 Oregon Ranked Choice Voting Advocates Corvallis $177,872

3 Building Power for Communities of Color Portland $118,096

4 ACLU Oregon Portland $101,500

5 FairVote Action Takoma Park, MD $75,000

6 Northwest Health Foundation Portland $50,000

7 Unite America PAC Denver $50,000

8 North Star Civic Foundation Portland $44,676

9. Christy Eugenis, Portland 20,000

10 James Kelly, Kimberly, OR $20,000

The arithmetic of the list:

• Ten donors: 84 cents of every dollar

• Sixty-six individual Portlanders: nine cents of every dollar, $96,003

• Out of state: $138,302, 13 percent

• Coalition of Communities of Color and its political arm, Building Power, together: $329,000, nearly a third of the campaign

The organization whose constituents the counting rule was written for paid for the counting rule.

Unite America describes its mission as reducing polarization. It put $50,000 into Portland and got four socialists on the council.

None of this is a conspiracy. The people who paid to build this system are not the people who captured it. Good-government reformers and equity nonprofits bought a system that rewards disciplined slates, and the disciplined slate that showed up was not the one they had in mind.

The witnesses for the prosecution

You do not have to take my word for the problems. Take theirs.

The NW Examiner sent a written questionnaire to District 4 candidates, incumbents and challengers alike. Three respondents already hold council seats. One is trying to win one. Their responses point to two related problems: who gets represented and whether the resulting government can govern. The summaries below are paraphrases of their responses, not verbatim quotations.

ELI ARNOLD, challenger. No District 4 councilor lives in the northwest or southeast portion of the district. He recommends single-member districts. Think about that one. The district was drawn to give neighborhoods a voice, yet some parts of it have no councilor living among them. The man asking for a seat is pointing at the empty chairs.

OLIVIA CLARK, 4 incumbent. The city should eliminate ranked-choice voting or change Portland’s particular single-transferable-vote arrangement. Clark is challenging the election mechanism itself. The combination of multi-member districts, transferable voting, and public matching funds merits scrutiny as a system, not as three independent provisions.

MITCH GREEN and ELI ARNOLD, incumbent and challenger. Their responses describe unelected administrators approving severance and nondisclosure arrangements without timely council oversight. That is a governance problem rather than a mathematical one. But it is no less consequential: Who is accountable when public obligations are created outside public view?

ERIC ZIMMERMAN, incumbent. A 12-member council without sufficient executive checks struggles to decide. He favors eight councilors and a mayor able to break a tie.

Zimmerman proposes a different council size from mine, but we agree that the present allocation of responsibility deserves reconsideration.

Three sitting councilors and one candidate. They have not supplied one unanimous reform program, and not every complaint is about election arithmetic. But together they are telling us that parts of the machinery do not work. The incumbents are among the system’s winners. The challenger is asking to join them while questioning its design.

The way out

The impossible has happened. I have become radicalized.

Not by a culture war. Not by a party. I have been radicalized by a question I did not expect to be asking at 78 in a city I chose at 68: Do the people of Portland have the right to representative government?

I thought that one was settled. In 1964, Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren wrote that legislators represent people, not trees or acres. One person, one vote. I was a junior in high school. Nobody I knew thought it would come up again.

In 1986, a Louisiana progressive named Sam LeBlanc told me what we should expect from the people we elect. He called it pretty good government. It took me years to understand how ambitious that modest phrase was. People with different convictions accept the rules, do the city’s work and answer to the voters who sent them. A coalition can help a candidate win an election. It must never be allowed to acquire their vote after they take office.

So what does a city do when the people it elected under a system tell it the system is broken?

The charter provides for periodic review, but we do not have to wait. There are two doors. The council can refer a charter amendment to voters. Or citizens can organize an initiative, collect signatures, hire lawyers and pay for a campaign. The second door is harder to open, but it does not depend on councilors voluntarily changing the system under which they won. Somebody paid a million dollars to build this system. Somebody will have to pay to change it. The first check will tell us whether the civic coalition is a coalition or just a mailing list.

Here is the reform I would put before voters. It is my proposal, informed by the councilors’ concerns, not a plan on which those councilors have collectively agreed.

Five fixes. One ballot.

1. Nine districts, one councilor each. Nine neighborhoods, nine councilors, each one living among the voters who elected them.

2. One vote per voter, and a majority to win. A runoff between the top two if nobody clears 50%, the way Portland elected its commissioners for a century.

3. A mayor who can say no. Meaningful veto authority, subject to an override by six of the nine councilors.

4. No secret severance. Public approval of severance commitments above a defined threshold, without routine confidentiality clauses that conceal public spending.

5. Pledges on the record. If a candidate accepts the city’s matching funds, every organizational pledge is filed promptly with the Auditor so voters can read what has already been promised before they vote.

That last one does not need an initiative. The matching-fund rules are city code, not charter. The council can adopt it by ordinance, and the councilors who told the Examiner the system is broken can vote on it before the year is out.

Nine neighborhoods, nine councilors, each one living in the district whose voters elected that councilor. The west side becomes two districts, East Portland beyond I-205 becomes two, and the middle becomes five, with Sellwood on the east side of the river where it belongs. Those are concepts, not surveyed boundaries. The Independent District Commission would draw the real lines.

None of that strikes me as radical. It is an argument for municipal government whose elected representatives are individually answerable to identifiable voters.

I said I had been radicalized. Here is what it amounts to. I want the people of Portland to have the right to elect their own representatives, one at a time, and I want those representatives to answer to the people who elected them and nobody else. That used to be the floor. In Portland it is now the ceiling, and the only way to raise it is to change the charter.

The commission ran 100,000 maps and could not find the city it wanted, so it wrote a rule that did not need one. The councilors gave us the diagnosis. The arithmetic exposed the incentive. The initiative is the door citizens can open themselves. Walk through it.

Next: what the initiative costs, who pays, and the calendar to May 2028.

Robert S. Miller is a Pearl District resident and president of a gaming technology company. He uses AI tools, Claude and ChatGPT, to gather public records, run the numbers and check facts.

Ten individuals and groups were honored Oct. 20 at the NW Examiner’s 31st annual Community Awards. Here are three of their stories. Part two of three installments.

Jim Rice Community Builder

The Fields Bar & Grill, where public gatherings, volunteer events and civic forums happen, has become the Pearl District’s unofficial community center. Owner Jim Rice hosts monthly business support meetings and has rolled up his sleeves to remove trash or whatever was necessary to see the neighborhood thrive. When rioters rampaged and shattered windows throughout the Pearl in 2020, neighbors surrounded The Fields at night, protecting it with their bodies until the threat passed.

Bruce Studer Heart of the Pearl

Under his leadership, the Pearl District Neighborhood Association has become the most active, effective and constituent-connected association I have covered in 45 years. About 60 volunteers in vests serve on teams that patrol, clean-up and serve the neighborhood daily. Within one year, PDNA events filled The Armory auditorium three times for events that held public officials accountable and rallied residents to fund a campaign that reactivated the community this summer.

Mike & Peter Albrich Heroism

While driving the dike road on Sauvie Island last December, Peter Albrich spotted an overturned jet ski and its rider, who flailing in the water of the Multnomah Channel. Albrich raced to reach his father, Mike, and together they sped in his boat to the scene and pulled the young man, who was hypothermic, to safety. They warmed him in their truck until an ambulance arrived and he was deemed fully recovered.

Here’s what they won

The Washington Park reservoir opened for a “sneek peak” on June 14, 2025, whetting appetites for regular public access to the promenade around the 1894 landmark.

For 16 months, the gates remained locked as a series of announcements by the Portland Water Bureau hid more than they revealed.

Finally, in response to NW Examiner queries, the city revealed what was going on below the surface. The decorative pool atop the underground reservoir has been losing about 68,000 gallons of water per day, and the bureau does not know how to fix it.

“We do not yet have a confirmed timeline for repairs,” wrote Andy Kieman, spokesperson for Portland Utilities, which includes the Water Bureau. “Once the necessary work is determined, repairs could require draining the reflecting pool.”

The Examiner learned the 68,000 number from neighborhood sources last month and asked the city to respond. On Oct. 21, Kieman issued a statement.

“We first identified an issue with the decorative reflecting pool at Washington Park Reservoir in August 2025, when crews noticed a bulge in the pool’s liner system. Testing found water accumulating between the reflecting pool’s two liners.”

A year later, the problem had not been corrected, although a series of deflections had been offered by the bureau.

“In June 2025, shortly before the community celebration of the site,” wrote bureau spokesperson Grace Wilson, “Water Bureau leadership identified incomplete construction tasks and safety concerns that led to the difficult decision to keep the site closed to the public. While it’s not ideal, large projects like this often experience prolonged construction and testing periods.”

Instead of a solution, the problem only grew larger.

“In August 2026, crews identified a second leak beneath the lower liner. That water is draining into the stormwater system,” Kieman wrote. “The bulge in the reflecting pool’s liner was first observed in June 2025. The second area, which drains into the stormwater system, was identified in August 2026.”

Still, he denied the leaks were the reason for keeping the public out.

“The reflecting pool issue subsequently became one of several items crews worked to address during the extended closure,” Kieman wrote. “However, other outstanding work, including the restoration and installation of the historic globe lights, remained the primary reason for the closure.

“By August 2026, the liner issue was the only remaining item. We had not identified any safety concerns related to the issue, so, rather than keeping the public space closed while we determined the necessary repairs, we moved forward with opening the area around the reflecting pools in August.

“The water is moving between or beneath the pool’s liners, rather than escaping through a visible opening. The reflecting pool remains operational, with water added as needed to maintain its level. There is no disruption of the promenade or other public spaces.”

Hoffman Construction, the contractor on the project, referred us to Kieman for further explanation.

“We do not yet have a confirmed estimate of the total financial cost, as this will depend on the scope of the necessary repairs,” Kieman said. “Final financial responsibility has not yet been determined and will depend on the scope of the necessary work and the applicable contract terms and responsibilities.”

Although spokesperson Wilson had earlier attributed the delay to safety concerns, Kieman wrote, “We have identified no safety concerns associated with the issue, and there are no impacts to drinking water quality.”

Wilson’s last announcement on the subject was upbeat. “Come enjoy the historic charm and natural beauty of Washington Park’s newest attraction—it was worth the wait. … Good things take time.”

Ten individuals and groups were honored Oct. 20 at the NW Examiner’s 31st annual Community Awards. Here are three of their stories. More installments to come.

Todd Zarnitz Neighborhood Champion

Zarnitz quickly grasped the significance of City Hall plans to redefine the role of neighborhood associations, and as president of the District 4 Coalition, he raised the flag. As associations from across city caught on, pressure built on the City Administrator, who paused the planned revisions. Zarnitz also uncovered the moment in 2025 when the outgoing City Council enabled this major power shift without public awareness or discussion.

Lance Orton Road to Recovery

Orton turned his personal recovery from heroin addiction into a mission to help other men turn their lives around. Six years after getting the support he needed from a Southeast Portland shelter, he heads the successor agency, City Team, which last year moved into a beautifully restored historic building in Old Town. Nearly 100 men at a time now take the steps through rehabilitation, employment and on to independence.

Linda Witt Night Watch

Witt leads the Pearl neighborhood’s Shelter Oversight Committee, faithfully documenting the degradation of the surrounding district and reporting the findings. Her skillfully presented monthly reports were based on the findings of a team of 10 volunteers, and they overcame the mayor’s claim that all was well. At least partly as a result, the Northrup Street Shelter and River District Navigation Center were shut down recently, but her mission continues to restore safety and livability throughout the Pearl District.

Lost and Found:

A lady’s jacket was left behind after the event. Please call Joleen at 503-804-1573 to claim it.

Northwest Emergency Team volunteers will hold an “earthquake drill” at Wallace Park on Saturday, Nov. 7, 1-4 p.m. Wallace Park is located at NW 25th Ave. between Pettygrove and Raleigh streets.

The Portland Bureau of Emergency Management, which is overseeing the event, will notify team members on that day to prepare for either an earthquake, large fire, flood or severe weather or other mass casualty incident that overwhelms public and private responders.

“We must be prepared for anything,” said team leader Joseph Springer. “Come on out, meet us, perhaps even assist during the exercise as a volunteer and learn how you can get prepared. Who knows, you might even want to join the team.”

“We meet monthly, train frequently, and enjoy serving the community together,” Springer added.

Teams have four primary roles:

1. Remain self-sufficient for two weeks during any emergency.

2. Provide emergency assistance to their family and immediate neighbors.

3. Work with emergency response team to save lives and property in their neighborhood.

4. Guide untrained volunteers who want to help others during a disaster.

“Show up at Wallace Park on Nov. 7 around 1 p.m. and our team will show you what we do, and what you can do as well. Whether you just want to see us in action, learn more or join the team—you are welcome to attend. Look for us in the high-visibility orange vests.”

There are four Neighborhood Emergency Teams in Northwest and inner Southwest Portland:

• Northwest District (Interstate 405, West Burnside, and NW Westover/Cornell)

(nwnetpdxlead@gmail.com)

• Pearl District (tl.pearl@friendsofportlandnet.org)

• Northwest Hills (tl.nwheights@friendsofportlandnet.org)

• Goose Hollow (tl.goose@friendsofportlandnet.org

Migration Brewing will trek to the Field Office buildings, the blueish-black twin office buildings on Front Avenue adjacent to the Dockside Saloon and the train tracks. The landscaped courtyard is quiet except for piped in ambient music and train sounds. There’s a French café nearby, a daycare and a small cafe/brewpub across Front Avenue that serves nearby apartment dwellers. When Migration opens in March 2027, there will be pizza, a full bar and Migration stalwarts like their Patio Pale. Migration has a pop-up in the PACWest Center in downtown with a wrap-around patio affording eye-level views of Portlandia’s biceps. Migration has other, more obvious locations on North Williams and Northeast Glisan streets.

Emporia Art Bar, 714 SW 11th Ave., will open soon in the historic two-story Deutsches Haus, where the German American Society of Portland once gathered. The new proprietor is Chadwick Gibson, founder and director of Los Angeles gallery Smart Objects. Plans call for live music Wednesday-Sunday from 6-10 p.m., as well as gallery shows.

Outdoor store KOROGI, 318 SW Taylor St., will open Nov. 7, specializing in Japanese camping equipment.

Light + Home, 347 NW Ninth Ave., is having a clearance sale, after which it will move to online sales only.

Global magazine, art and zine shop Chess Club will open its new location at 1111 SW Washington St. in the Telegram Building on Oct. 30.

Published Oct. 15, 2026, in Oregon ArtsWatch

One of the most important Portland public art decisions in decades is unfolding behind closed doors.

The decision is being fast-tracked. It is expected to be announced in November.

See story on Oregon ArtsWatch

In an era when all housing construction is deemed a public necessity, the Pearl District Neighborhood Association is making a distinction.

Poorly managed public housing that harms the surrounding neighborhood chills future development and should be opposed, the association contends.

PDNA voted unanimously to pause construction of a 219-unit apartment building at Northwest Ninth and Johnson streets proposed by Home Forward. In a letter to the mayor and City Council, the association laid out four conditions for its support.

1. Reassess current neighborhood economic, social and public safety conditions.

2. Establish a neighborhood livability and safety plan with measurable goals and a clear timeline.
3. Ensure safe access to essential services, including clear and safe pedestrian access, for building residents.
4. Verify that Home Forward, which “has not demonstrated satisfactory management of its existing Pearl District properties,” has the capacity to manage the building.

“Our goal is not to stop redevelopment, but to ensure its success,” concluded the letter. Addressing these concerns before construction begins will protect future residents, strengthen surrounding neighborhoods, encourage future investment and safeguard the city’s substantial public commitment.”

The only pushback to that position came from PDNA Planning and Transportation Committee Chair Sean Sweat.

“When’s the last time we saw a crane in the Pearl?” Sweat asked. “If our neighborhood’s going to come back, we’re going have to become a neighborhood people want to build in again, and I don’t think stopping building is going to help us the way we think it might.

“I’m concerned about the Pearl getting tagged as a bunch of NIMBYs who will fight developers tooth and nail,” said Sweat, who abstained from voting.

“I think there are lots of risks with this, including poisoning the well for the future, which I think is the biggest risk,” countered PDNA President Bruce Studer. “The failure to launch a successful project will doom other projects in that area.”

The Home Forward building is the first proposed in the 14-acre former U.S. Postal Service Property between Northwest Hoyt, Lovejoy, Broadway and Ninth streets.