I don't trust you, but trust me

Northwest Examiner editorial

It is an honorable thing to love one’s country, to embody its best aspirations and be willing to sacrifice—even die in combat—to preserve it.

It is likewise noble to love one’s children, to put their future above your own and to bring down the wrath of a mama bear on any who would harm them.

But woe to those who would exhibit similar instincts toward their neighborhood, the shared geography that can turn familiar faces into friends. People who love their communities and want to preserve them are written off as NIMBYs, self-centered islands caring only about their own property, disregarding the greater good for their personal patch of isolated security.

Funny thing, good parents and patriotic Americans also tend to be good neighbors, folks willing to do more than their share to take care of their parks, streets and the people whose lives intersect. Possibly their best selves come out in their roles as local citizens.

In fact, some of the best exemplars of citizenship I’ve seen do their thing at the hyperlocal level. People tolerate their neighborhood’s faults and idiosyncratic characters with a grace they do not exhibit at national or regional levels. Partisan political views are almost irrelevant at the neighborhood level, as I have learned over and over. My main coworker in the early days of the NW Examiner bathed in rightwing national media, a trait I didn’t discover for three years because it wasn’t relevant to the local scene. If our nation ever overcomes its bitter divides, I suggest it will take root in people working together with neighbors.

So where does the prejudice against neighborhood defenders come from?

I have a theory. Local government officials and private developers see neighborhoods associations as opposing their goals by blocking projects and initiatives they tout as benefiting the city as a whole. Local governments and the home building industry have united under the banner of maximizing housing construction as the universal solution, and any who impede them must be discredited.

The NIMBY slur endures even as the city has largely removed neighborhood associations and the public from their role in land-use decisions. The major projects roll through without local notification while associations receive gratuitous notices about homeowners wanting to change the style of their windows or businesses seeking to modify signage—things so trivial that associations almost never weigh in. Though local powers to review and critique projects have been gutted, the symbol of obstructionism is such an effective tool of deflection it never goes out of fashion.

The people putting two overnight homeless shelters in Northwest Portland believe their plans are so urgent that they could not let word out until the deals were locked in. The city of Portland and Blanchet House may be taking input, but they are not listening, in the sense of weighing the value of counter ideas and being open to reconsideration.

That is a violation of the most fundamental commitment to democracy and civic engagement made by the city of Portland to its people.

In 2010, the City Council adopted Public Involvement Principles. They include:

• Partnership.

“Community members have a right to be involved in decisions that affect them. Participants can influence decision‐making and receive feedback on how their input was used. The public has the opportunity to recommend projects and issues for government consideration.”

• Early Involvement

“Public involvement is an early and integral part of issue and opportunity identification, concept development, design and implementation of city policies, programs and projects.”

• Transparency

“Public decision‐making processes are accessible, open, honest and understandable. Members of the public receive the information they need and with enough lead time to participate effectively.”

We did not get that. Mayor Keith Wilson, believing his plan was the best it could be given the need to act now, did not trust that the people would agree with him. He feared they might change or obstruct a course that could afford no amending.

Now he asks for the trust he was unwilling to demonstrate. In the dance of democracy between the people and those they elect, that counts as a misstep.