On Thursday October 2, 2008 mayor-elect Sam Adams will lead his colleagues in a vote which will confirm the future Adams administration policy of UNLIMITED Neighborhood Concentration Of Public Housing. Adams has abandoned his claim that good public decision making requires good public data for back room political deals as his policy making process. Sam Adams has made it clear that he would secretly abandon the bicycle alliance, art advocates, the gay community and his own neighborhood if and when it suits his vote trading needs with other city commissioners.

In early July I asked for a meeting with Sam or his staff to discuss how Sam could work with neighborhood leaders to stop the giveaway of more than a million dollars of surplus city property to a tax-exempt non-profit corporation with no track record and a history of refusing to provide the owners of the property, i.e. city taxpayers, with any contact information about its board and funders. (In October of 2006 Sam made the unassailable argument that the disposition of the surplus city property, the John Ball School site, to the Portland Hope Meadows corporation was illegitimate and wrong because it clearly violated due process. He voted against the resolution. He was joined by Randy Leonard and future council candidate Amanda Fritz.) I should have known when I was told that no staff person in Adams office was assigned nor even available to discuss the issue and that I should to go to Saltzman's office, that the behind the scenes deal had already been cut. 

It was dishonest of Sam's office not to tell me in early July that Sam had traded his vote and his credibility for something more important to him. As a result, Sam's hidden agenda wasted enormous amounts of time by citizens, who, under the false impression that Sam Adams believed in the value of due process, continued blindly in their efforts to organize opposition.

Commissioner Sam Adams twice ignored the request of more than 160 members of the Portsmouth Residents Action Committee to provide them with public data, contact information for the Portland Hope Meadows corporation board and its funders.

Commissioner Sam Adams voted to spend a million dollars to bring more citizens into the process of governing our city. He voted to fund the Office of Neighborhood Involvement. ONI is a bureau dedicated to bringing more citizens into the process of governing our city. This public spending and support notwithstanding, commissioner Sam Adams dismissed as irrelevant the request of more than 160 members of the Portsmouth Residents Action Committee (property and business owners) and the request of the Portsmouth Neighborhood Association representing another 15 Portsmouth residents, to heed the overwhelming rejection of Saltzman's selfish proposal to bring more social and economic stress to a neighborhood with the highest total number and the second highest percentage of public housing clients of any neighborhood in Oregon. Obviously, citizen input is most valued, indeed, has its only value, when it supports rather than challenges those decisions already made in Portland city hall's private vote swapping machine.

Commissioner Sam Adams recently voted for three HAP candidates that refused to give him or anyone public housing statistical data. Adams made no effort to acknowledge, much less support, Richard Ellmyer who guaranteed Sam that if appointed he would get the public housing statistical data that commissioner Adams has twice asked for and was twice refused.

Commissioner Adams voted for the deceptively worded PDC 30% Public Housing set aside funds destined to bring more public housing to the already overloaded Portsmouth neighborhood.

Commissioner Adams ignored a request from the Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area Advisory Committee to the Portland Development Commission to stop funding public housing in Portsmouth and redirect those public dollars to Urban Renewal Areas with 15% or less public housing clients.

Commissioner Adams continues to support the N. Newell street Hacienda CDC project which will add even more public housing to Portsmouth and North Portland.

Commissioner Adams, with no public housing statistical data to defend his position, is advocating for more public housing in the vacant public property on Lombard in St. Johns.

The evidence is overwhelming and undeniable:

Mayor-Elect Adams Votes For The Policy Of UNLIMITED Neighborhood Concentration Of Public Housing.

Mayor-Elect Adams Votes Against The Policy Of Equitable Distribution Of Public Housing.

Mayor-Elect Adams is unconcerned about the long term moral, social, educational, security and economic consequences of creating a low-income housing ghetto in the Portsmouth neighborhood or any neighborhood in Portland. He has no problem publicly branding North Portland as somewhat less than a desirable place to live and do business by making it a dumping ground for all the so-called "do good" projects that people like Dan Saltzman and his neighbors wouldn't tolerate in their backyards.

On July 22, 2008 I met with Sam to encourage him as mayor-elect to ask HAP for the third time for public housing statistical data. He surprisingly refused and foisted the job onto newly minted so-called "housing" commissioner Nick Fish. You will remember that Fish lied to an Oregonian reporter about supporting the public's right to public housing statistical data when he was a HAP commissioner. Through two campaigns for city council Nick Fish never once asked HAP for public housing statistical data nor mentioned the need for this information as the basis for defensible decision making to the voters. Adams promised me that Fish would bring him the data he had twice before requested by October 1st. So far there is no evidence that Fish has asked HAP for it, got it and gave it to Adams or anyone else.

This is an excellent example of the failure and corruption of Portland's commission form of government. You don't mess with my bureaus and I won't mess with yours. Public policy is made behind closed doors. Five commissioners may vote but only one commissioner makes policy for any bureau - unchallenged by colleagues or citizens. That's wrong. Open, due process, public debate and discussion would never have resulted in Saltzman's scheme to add more government subsidized low-income housing to the Portsmouth neighborhood on the John Ball School site. Any plan for owner occupied market rate housing would easily have crushed Saltzman's pet project. We will never know what vote(s) Saltzman traded to Adams for not only his acquiescence but Sam's support. What we do know is that Sam Adams will carry on business as usual when he takes office.

Adams recently went to China ostensibly to promote economic development. Yet he ignored the growing number of vacant storefronts on the Kenton to St. John's Lombard business corridor. Businesses won't move to North Portland if there isn't sufficient disposable income to buy their products. Every time Sam Adams votes to add more low-income government subsidized housing to North Portland he votes against economic development and the growth of the business community in North Portland.

Where are Charles Lewis and Amanda Fritz our taxpayer funded candidates? Would there be any reason to vote for publicly financed elections and either of them if both of these candidates don't show up to testify for openness, sunshine and due process in the disposition of city property, for citizen and neighborhood involvement and against the illegitimate give away of the publicly owned John Ball School site because it is a pet political project of Dan Saltzman advanced by a corrupted vote swapping culture?

Where is elected Multnomah county circuit court judge Alicia Fuchs whose professional job and commitment is to due process in her courtroom. It appears that judge Alicia Fuchs does not extend her belief in due process outside the Mutlnomah county courthouse. Voters will certainly be interested in an appearance by judge Alicia Fuchs, a member of the Portland Hope Meadows board, on Thursday October 2, 2008 to defend her support for the complete disregard for due process in the matter of the disposition of the public property known as the John Ball School site.

Where are those that work for the Windemere realty company (supporters of the Windermere Foundation - a Portland Hope Meadows corporation funder), especially realtors from the Kenton branch? Why would anyone in North Portland do business with a real estate company that ignores property owners, business owners, the financial consequences on property values and business development in their own neighborhood? It will certainly be noted which Windermere real estate agents from the Kenton branch do not appear and testify in support of Portsmouth and North Portland interests.

I supported city commissioner candidate Sam Adams in the dark days when it looked as though his competition, Nick Fish, was on the road to victory. I wrote that mayoral candidate Sam Adams was going to change our city government for the better. If you put personal politics and council gamesmanship above public policy and the people of Portland then you become part of the problem not the solution. Sam Adams' long experience on the government payroll hasn't made him better at governing only better at playing the same old, same old game. Sorry readers. I was wrong.


Richard Ellmyer