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Escuela Viva Community School sued Multnomah County and several elected officials on Monday, alleging they made plans behind closed doors to put a drug deflection center in the Buckman neighborhood, in violation of Oregon’s public meetings law.
The preschool is a block from the deflection center, which is under construction in an old printing warehouse at 900 SE Sandy Blvd. Parents and teachers have protested the plan, saying safety precautions are too weak to prevent drug users dropped at the facility from becoming a threat to students and staff.
The deflection center was born out of House Bill 4002, which recriminalized drugs by repealing parts of Measure 110. Seeking to avert a new battle in the war on drugs, the Legislature urged Oregon counties to “deflect” people arrested with user amounts from jail and toward treatment.
Multnomah County chose to do so by building a brick-and-mortar center where police could take people willing to try deflection. County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson led the process that resulted in the center, convening private meetings with the county district attorney and sheriff, the chiefs of police in Portland and Gresham, and experts in drug addiction and behavioral health.
“Oregon’s public meetings law expresses a simple but foundational principle: That ‘the Oregon form of government requires an informed public aware of the deliberations and decisions of governing bodies and the information upon which such decisions were made,’” says the complaint, filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court. “Accordingly, the law commands that ‘decisions of governing bodies be arrived at openly.’”
But, in “flagrant violation” of the law, “Multnomah County and its officials have conducted a series of confidential meetings to fashion a new drug ‘deflection’ legal regime for the county,” the complaint says. “This closed-door process has resulted in the County’s plan to open an ill-defined and ill-designed drug ‘deflection center’ one block from a preschool, among other controversial decisions.”
Multnomah County’s press office didn’t immediately return an email seeking comment on the lawsuit.
David Watnick, the attorney for Escuela Viva, sent a letter earlier this month warning that the preschool was considering legal action. The county never responded, Watnick said today.
“It feels like they see us as a nuisance that should be sidestepped, rather than a stakeholder whose concerns need to be addressed,” Watnick said. “If they get this whole thing right, we’d welcome that. In the meantime, we’re going to continue to pursue our legal remedies.”
Named in the suit alongside Multnomah County are Vega Pederson, Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt, and County Sheriff Nicole Morrissey O’Donnell, all members of the group that worked on the plan for the deflection center.