Nearsighted

[September 5th, 2007]

Mayor Tom Potter is supposed to make his re-election announcement before Sept. 19, when the City Council will hear a key report on his signature program, visionPDX.

The “outreach” is over, and the surveys are in (if not all summarized). Now Potter’s visioneers will be asking the council to fund an “action phase,” though specific projects and price tags are still being hashed out.

The $1.2 million program, coming in six months overdue, has been mocked for lacking focus. Potter spokesman John Doussard says visionPDX was too high-concept for the press. “It’s up here,” he says, raising his hand high over his head. “They don’t get it.”

WW asked the other four commissioners what it would take for them to keep supporting visionPDX. It appears they might not “get it” either.

The snickering doesn’t mean Potter won’t get visionPDX funded for another year. Barring disaster, he will probably get something . He just needs to convince commissioners there’s something in it for them. Problem is, keeping visionPDX alive may mean compromising its inclusive ideals. The idea for the project was to glean what Portlanders wanted for their city—as opposed to justifying what was already planned.

Yet Potter’s people have been courting votes by explaining how “the vision” can support commissioners’ pet projects. Last Thursday, the visionPDX team met with Commissioner Erik Sten to discuss tie-ins to his Schools, Families, Housing initiative, a plan to increase Portland’s dwindling school enrollment through development incentives.

Sten says he’s “inclined to fund an action plan” for visionPDX, depending on the cost. “The big opportunity is to tie the vision work to some ongoing initiatives,” he says. “If we’re doing that, I get excited.”

Commissioner Sam Adams is more reserved. He’d like to see some “action items” and a “values document.”

Commissioner Dan Saltzman is skeptical. He says he’s not always sure what the visionPDX people are talking about. He’s also “not real keen” on open-ended grants. Last year, visionPDX granted $250,000 to 29 community organizations. It paid for everything from classroom surveys to musical theater.

The most likely “no” vote is Commissioner Randy Leonard. He wants to see “an on-the-ground project” that will improve livability. “In fact,” says Leonard, “I don’t know what an example of that would be.”

What will the council hear on Sept. 19? Not a plan, but a plan for a plan. “It’s not going to be what some people are expecting,” says Bronwyn Buckle, a visionPDX staffer. Details will have to wait.

The mayor’s office does have a few initiatives ready to present to the council, Buckle says, but “they’re being kept under lock and key.” Stephanie Stephens, visionPDX’s program manager, says those initiatives won’t be “sustained, long-term things.”

Notably, those initiatives were in the works before the survey phase of visionPDX was wrapped up. Last week, visionPDX staff and volunteers were still buried in paper. Potter’s “outreach” has produced 21,000 pages of survey responses in a tiny font. (“I just crammed it on so it would fit,” says Buckle.) All of them had to be summarized and indexed.

A sample of Portlanders’ visions: “Stop pretending that Portland is a progressive, welcoming place for all people.” “I love KBOO.” “Ban leaf blowers.” “We need a sales tax.” “I can swim and can read.” “Go Beavs!” “Educat [sic] the masses.” “Fire bomb the suburbs.” “The graffitti [sic] is bad ass.” “Mayor Potter—you need to show some backbone and some clear thinking.”

The full 300-page report won’t be done by Sept. 19. Commissioners will get an executive summary.

One item isn’t in the next visionPDX budget, Stephens says: salaries for the four full-time staff, including herself, who’ve been toiling in the cubicle maze that is the city planning bureau. At the end of this year, they’re moving on.