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Given his circumstances, you might think Multnomah County Sheriff Dan Noelle doesn't have many bullets in his political revolver. After all, he's an electoral novice presiding over an agency whose traditional role--law enforcement--may be reduced to the point where it vanishes altogether. Yet in a recent fracas, it took the combined weight of District Attorney Mike Schrunk, County Chairwoman Beverly Stein and Oregonian publisher Fred Stickel to rein the sheriff in. Had they not succeeded, he could have wound up with one-third of the county work force under his control. As it was, he successfully beefed his budget by $766,000 and won other concessions. The standoff--a confusing conflict over who should control parole and probation services--ultimately ended in a draw, but it provided some insights into one of the county's most powerful elected officials. In some ways, the dispute was a simple battle over turf. As sheriff, Noelle (rhymes with holy) has two main responsibilities: patrol duties, which have been shrinking, and jails, where Noelle sees the future focus of his department. The county's five jails, which are managed by sheriff's deputies called corrections officers, are filled to capacity, and there are plans to build another facility near Delta Park. Once an inmate leaves jail, or state prison, he or she becomes the responsibility of the county's Adult Community Justice Department, better known as parole and probation services. That agency is run by Elyse Clawson, a non-elected administrator who reports to Stein. In its simplest terms, Noelle's beef with Stein arose because of natural conflicts between the two departments. Several months ago, Stein decided to give Adult Community Justice $766,000 so it could rent 40 beds at the downtown Restitution Center for parolees and probationers on work-release programs. Noelle thought those beds--and that money--belonged to him. He runs the center and uses it to house jail inmates on work release. The feud continued when the sheriff learned that he wouldn't control a drug and alcohol treatment center that was slated to be built alongside the proposed new county jail near Delta Park. Instead, Clawson's shop would run the 300-bed facility. Noelle says he didn't like that idea for two reasons. First, he points out that the treatment center would be used to serve people who had been sentenced there by the courts, or who had their probation revoked. These men and women might be dangerous offenders, he says, and community justice might not be able to keep workers and citizens as safe as trained sheriff's deputies could. He says the public, which strenuously fought a new parole office in St. Johns, would agree. "Parole and probation [services] couldn't have sited a telephone booth," he says. Second, Noelle objected to Clawson's plans to allow offenders at the center to have what would amount to day passes for things like job searches in the community. That, he says, would break promises he made to citizens during the lengthy jail-siting process. That plan has since been abandoned, although Adult Community Justice says it will allow offenders outside under direct supervision. The dispute blew up in front of a committee that until then had been quietly reviewing the Multnomah County charter for possible changes. At a committee meeting in late May, member Patrick Donaldson, Noelle's ally, introduced a motion that would have allowed voters to decide whether to put Adult Community Justice under the sheriff's control. The plan would have meant that Noelle would control $154 million of the county's $800 million budget and 1,494 workers, or 32 percent of the county's work force. According to committee chairwoman Nita Brueggeman, the proposal blindsided her committee. "The idea was [introduced] during the negotiations that were going on between the sheriff and the chair's office," she says. "Heck of a coincidence, huh?" Stein, too, was caught off guard. "Rather than sit down and try to work things out, he had a back door, which was the Charter Review Committee," says Eddie Campbell, a spokesman for Stein. Noelle worked committee members hard, lobbying them personally to vote in favor of the plan. This had Stein and others very worried. Before the scheduled June 2 vote on the plan, Stein called a meeting with Noelle, Schrunk and Stickel, who is chairman of the Citizens Crime Commission, a business group active in justice issues. In the publisher's office at The Oregonian, the group made a deal. Noelle would tell the committee not to vote in favor of the parole and probation proposal if Stein gave him several concessions. Noelle did as he promised and told committee members he had changed his mind. But apparently, his initial pitch was very convincing. In front of a standing-room-only crowd, the committee deadlocked. Brueggeman cast the tie-breaking vote against referring the plan to voters. "It was very dramatic," Campbell says. Even Noelle concedes that his motives in initially lobbying the committee for support were mixed. "It was an opportunity, probably, to generate leverage on the issue I was really concerned about--who operates the treatment center," he says. If so, it worked. In the deal between him and Stein, Noelle appears to have come out the winner. The $766,000 has been added to his budget, not Adult Community Justice's. The treatment center won't be located on his jail site, which allows him to absolve himself of any problems associated with it. And in the future, Noelle will have the authority to consult a lawyer, under certain circumstances, when he has a dispute with the County Commission. Noelle's success in this first major conflict with Stein was quite surprising. He has been in elected office for just three years, far fewer than Stein and Schrunk, who between them have 25 years of political experience. Noelle spent most of his career in the Portland Police Bureau, where he rose to the rank of deputy chief before being demoted by Chief Tom Potter. He first ran for sheriff in 1995 to fill out the unexpired term of Bob Skipper, who had retired. Noelle was a welcome change at the agency, which under Skipper and his temporary replacement, John Bunnell, had a reputation of being a good-old-boys network where racial and gender discrimination ran rampant. Even Noelle's critics applaud how much he has been able to change that culture. During his first campaign, Noelle promised to end the matrix system, by which offenders are released from jail early. He hasn't succeeded, but it's not for lack of trying. He successfully challenged the court-ordered cap on the downtown jail, and as a result he has been able to add 200 beds there. Noelle also won public support for the new jail. At the same time, Noelle has run roughshod over political conventions. When the governor introduced a plan to transfer some state prisoners to county control, it drew widespread support throughout the state. Noelle called it "a piece of shit." That kind of candor has alienated some people in politics. "He operates without the same kind of political vision a lot of elected leaders do," Stein spokesman Campbell says. "He doesn't really build coalitions. It's probably the paramilitary background. He's sort of a lone wolf." Campbell and others add that it's surprising Noelle has so much power and support in the community considering his tenure as sheriff has been tumultuous. He has weathered the suicide of Steven Dons, the marijuana grower accused of killing a Portland cop (a death some people still regard as suspicious), the controversial death of another suspect in custody, and the revelation that the sheriff's office has accumulated a huge backlog of warrants. In his most puzzling error, Noelle stood by former Commander Vera Pool for far too long when she was accused of several acts of wrongdoing, including letting a friend out of jail early and accepting gratuities from jail contractors. That's actually a common complaint about Noelle--that he doesn't choose key employees wisely. Nonetheless, the voters don't seem to have noticed. In May, he was reelected by 62 percent of voters, the same percentage as Stein, who had only token opposition. "It's mysterious to me that he's been able to walk the coals so well," Campbell says. |
