By Richard Barker
This year citizens are conducting a Portland City Charter Review. What does this mean? The Charter Review will analyze the current governmental structure used for the City of Portland and research other forms of City government used by other cities our size and larger to see if our current structure is the best option or if we should vote to change the city governance structure to another form.
The Charter Review committee began reviewing, analyzing, and gathering public input from August of 2021 through the end of the year. This information will be evaluated and synthesized into a set of recommendations and presented at a series of public hearings beginning in March 2022. Once the public input is gathered, they will create their report and recommendations which will be presented to Portlanders beginning in July 2022 and going through October 2022. The goal is to have the recommendations in place for the ballot and elections in November 2022.
Why is the Charter Review committee looking into alternate forms of government for the City of Portland? Currently, the public opinion is that changes need to be made in the structure of our city’s government. The high level of criticism regarding the functionality of the Commissioner based structure has increased dramatically over the past several years. Currently Portland is the only remaining city of our size that still uses the Commissioner structure of government. All other cities have transitioned to a more equitable and stable structure which allows them to address the issues faced by cities our size and larger in a more equitable and effective manner.
The Commissioner structure was implemented when Portland was a city of 200,000 but is struggling to manage the current demands of our 620,000 and growing population. The Mayor assigns Bureaus to the Commissioners who may or may not have any experience or expertise in the areas, Bureau heads change every 2-4 years which hinders their ability to address long term problems.
The initial findings so far are leaning toward a City Councilor form of government, where there are an increased number of Councilors who represent a smaller community which allows them to understand their community needs, answer more directly to the people they represent, and it allows for the safeguarding of democracy ensuring no one area has greater influence on governmental policies and programs.
Research and analysis of the data gathered from the study of other cities’ successes and the input received at the public meetings held in November and December is currently being reviewed. If you would like more information on the Portland City Charter Review Committee, you can reach them at Charter Review Website: https://www.portland.gov/omf/charter-review-commission.