Portland Business Alliance

[August 24th, 2005] This week's Rogue goes to the Portland Business Alliance and its behind-the-scenes power network for its frantic efforts to halt the public campaign-finance ordinance approved this year by the City Council.

When opponents of the ordinance filed a signature-gathering petition last week aimed at overturning campaign finance at the ballot, it turned out two of the three initial chief petitioners didn't even live in the city.

It's all part of a trend increasingly noted at the Rogue Desk in which many of the people ginned up by Portland's powerhouse interests to raise Cain about the city-callers to Lars Larson's radio show, writers of vitriolic letters to the editor-don't live here.

In this case, petitioners Fred Chown and his friend Reuel Fish reside in unincorporated Washington County. Chown says his involvement was an honest mistake; he thought owning a Portland business (Chown Hardware) would qualify him as a petitioner. Chown says he doesn't feel strongly about public campaign finance, has never contributed to a candidate, and opposes politics in general.

So why serve as a chief petitioner? Because like Fish and the third petitioner, Portland resident and lawyer Mark A. Long, Chown was asked to by his friend, former AT&T lobbyist Laura Imeson. In turn, Imeson says she was recruited by other Alliance leaders, whom she declined to identify (the Portland Business Alliance passed a resolution opposing the campaign-finance ordinance before the City Council vote in May).

By Monday, the campaign had managed to rustle up two actual Portlanders: Fred Chown's brother David and Alliance board member Eva Kripalani, senior vice president of Knowledge Learning Corporation and a former Stoel Rives attorney.

Opponents to the ordinance are prepared to pay petitioners, and they'll have until Jan. 17, 2006, to collect 26,691 valid signatures to get it on the May ballot. They claim they just want residents to have a say in spending public money on campaigns. Might be nice if they started with some real residents.