Portland's silos are winning

Editorial

Charter reform washed in on a wave of voter disdain for Portland’s outdated commission form of government. The new charter was supposed to cure many ills, largely by breaking down the bureaucratic silos that insulated and isolated the entities running the city.

In the previous system, city commissioners defended and advocated for the bureaus assigned to them while generally tolerating whatever was going on in the other bureaus, a reciprocal understanding loosening accountability all the way around. At budget time, commissioners tended to seek funding increases in their own portfolios and sat still for such requests from their colleagues in quid pro quo fashion.

But nearly two years into the new system, silos are as impenetrable as ever. Bureaus rule themselves, and council members can do little more than talk about it. The mayor and city administrator should be providing direction—calling for audits in many cases—but they haven’t risen to the task. If they utter stern words in private, the department heads on the receiving end aren’t getting the message.

A few examples:

The park that never comes—the Slabtown Park at Northwest 20th and Pettygrove that was supposed to be built about a decade ago—finally got some attention. Portland Parks & Recreation now wants to form a focus group to guide the design of the park, to be followed by forums of the kind we’ve seen many times before. Highlights are displayed on easels at drop-in events. People can jot brief suggestions on sticky notes, which are later tabulated in some way. The connection between input and final decisions is nebulous.

A government committed to citizen participation would draw community members into deliberations at the onset to set goals for the project, setting the direction before city staff and consultants begin setting the parameters. In this case, a consultant was hired—without input from the neighborhood—to propose designs that citizens will merely react to.

This hasty process of circumventing neighborhood involvement was defended as a time-saving measure. After a decade of delay, the city now says no time can be spared to hear the community’s goals.

I have written many times about how the Northwest Parking Stakeholders Advisory Committee chases its tail while the Portland Bureau of Transportation picks the local improvement projects it pleases.

A couple of years ago, PBOT staff defined the roles of these citizen advisers:

Involve – Discussion is prioritized so concerns and aspirations are understood.

Consult – Feedback is collected on analysis, alternatives or decisions.

Inform – We will keep you informed by providing balanced and objective information.

In other words, the greatest weight the city will give citizen input is to understand the message. In other cases, citizens can do no more than listen.

Disrespect for citizen engagement starts with undermining Portland’s national model neighborhood system. The head of the Office of Community and Civic Life, responsible for what was once that neighborhood system, proposed abruptly dumping the complex relationship between City Hall and neighborhood associations for new rules dictated by the city administrator. Fortunately, that director is now gone.

But the city administrator now calls the shots on the future of Civic Life. City Administrator Raymond Lee has paused the unilateral reconstruction of the program, but its future is a mystery.

And the bureaus carry on in their silos beneath the kerfuffle. Deputy city administrators now oversee specific bureaus instead of a city commissioner, who was at least familiar with the departments and had to take the heat when things went sideways.

I had to look up the deputy administrator for transportation and for parks. That would be Priya Dhanapal, whose contact information is not on the city website. It took a 311 call to reach her assistant, but I have gotten no response to my questions as to how Dhanapal knows whether her bureaus are effective or responsive to community concerns. Her calendar is full of appointments with city officials, but I have never seen her at a neighborhood meeting.

We have replaced silos with a new layer of management, isolated from the public and insulated from accountability. At least, in the old system, we knew the names of the people in charge. We could vote them out.

What do we do with these mid-level managers we can’t find and who may never hear our grievances?