2009

Mayor Adams Denies HAP Public Housing Data To Taxpayers/Voters As Colleagues Watch Wordlessly - 12/28/09

Portland's mayor, Sam Adams, is so afraid that his failure to hold the Housing Authority of Portland accountable will expose his coverup and culpability of potential waste, fraud and abuse that he won't allow even the slightest crack in the wall that hides and separates HAP's Public Housing Statistical Data from the sunshine of public view. He is aided and abetted in this coverup by his fellow members of the Portland city council (most notably the uncharacteristically uncurious, go along to get along, taxpayer funded commissioner Amanda Fritz ), the Gresham city council (which incredibly has a councilor on the HAP board) and the Multnomah county commissioners (including Jeff Cogen who twice asked, as a candidate but never as a commissioner ???, for data and was rebuffed) any of whom could also ask for HAP's Public Housing Statistical Data yet they are mute as stone statues. Some, perhaps all, of these silent coconspirators will soon join Sam Adams, Enron, Tiger Woods and the Catholic Church of Ireland in the rogues gallery of the disingenuous, the disreputable and the disgusting.

Mayor Sam Adams Denies Existance Of PUBLIC Housing In Portland - 12/2/09

During the Portland Plan community meeting at the St. Johns community center Mayor Sam Adams defined the city of Portland as a Public Housing free zone. Throughout this event based upon and awash in statistical data neither the words, Public Housing, nor any questions nor statistical data related to Public Housing appeared on the projected presentation nor from the mouth of mayor Adams. When asked why he was denying the existence of Public Housing and misleading his audience by deliberately misusing the term "affordable housing" he responded, "I will continue to use affordable housing."

This is a dishonest deliberate obfuscation of the truth. A lie.

Mayor Adams' St. Johns Brownfield Project RFQ Violates Housing Bureau Location Policy Goals - 11/19/09

Mayor Adams continues his disgraceful unabated efforts to promote the discredited and abhorrent public policy of UNLIMITED Neighborhood Concentration of Public Housing in St. Johns as he recently did with the N. Newell Street public housing project in the Portsmouth neighborhood. His Request For Qualifications for the downtown St. Johns Brownfield Project (see below) REQUIRES PUBLIC HOUSING in direct contravention of the Bureau of Housing's published goal to, "Discourage the concentration of low- or no- income households in any one area of the city." The fact that the Portsmouth and St. Johns neighborhoods already are OVERLOADED with Public Housing is irrelevant to our mayor, Sam Adams.

Without Public Housing Statistical Data "Portland Plan" Efforts Are A Fraud - 11/17/09

Mayor Sam Adams makes yet another disingenuous invitation for public participation in the governance of Portland.

In January 2009 mayor Adams invited hundreds of citizens to city hall to contribute items to the city's lobbyists' agenda. Not a single new suggestion was ever included.

The due process fiasco of the John Ball school site and Adams' back room treachery stands as the premier example of the irrelevance of citizen input when it conflicts with city hall's personal political agendas.

Oregonian Columnist Misses The Point On New Columbia And Public Housing - 11/14/09

New Columbia is NOT a neighborhood. It is Oregon's Largest PUBLIC HOUSING Compound located in the PORTSMOUTH neighborhood.

"the debate over what form public housing should take continues" NO IT DOESN'T.

There is NO debate over PUBLIC Housing

Senate Candidate Chip Shields Et. Al. Must Confront Need For Public Housing Statistical Data - 9/19/09

Senate district 22, which includes North and Northeast Portland, has the highest total and the highest percentage of Public Housing clients of any senate district in the state of Oregon. This intentional overloading by the state of Oregon, Multnomah county, the Portland Development Commission, the Housing Authority of Portland and most egregiously by the mayor and the Portland city council has serious consequences on public safety, public schools, property values, local businesses' ability to survive with diminishing disposable incomes in their potential customer base, the ability to attract and hold middle class families when their children reach school age and the quality of life of everyone in senate district 22.

Regardless Of Who Is Appointed This Public Policy Issue Will Remain On The Table

Mayor Adams Poisons Senate Appointment Process - Withholds Truth As He Did In Breedlove Affair - 9/16/09

Sam Adams seems to have a penchant for withholding the truth during elections. Whatever his explanation turns out to be this time it will no better than his "self-interest" excuse last time.

As a candidate for state senate district 22 I will be presenting to the voters, i.e. the Multnomah County Democratic Party and the Multnomah County Commission, my public policy legislative proposals for the 2011 legislative assembly. They will include several plans related to Public Housing (means test + government subsidy + rental agreement) which is totally under government control.

Senate Candidate Ellmyer Requests Public Housing Statistical Data From Mayor Adams Et. Al. - 9/14/09

In order for the voters and other candidates to evaluate, support or challenge my public policy legislative proposals it will be necessary for them to have authentic, accurate, complete and timely public housing statistical data from the Housing Authority of Portland and the Bureau of Housing whose combined annual budget approaches $200,000,000.

Mayor Adams Mocks Due Process, Citizen Involvement And North Portland - Again - 8/18/09

Mayor Sam Adams has indicated to his appointees on the Portland Development Commission that they are to grant 1.5 million tax dollars to the private Bridge Meadows Corporation. They are to do this under cover of darkness without citizen involvement and public discussion. Why? Because the North Portland Business Association, the Portsmouth Residents Action Committee, the Portsmouth Neighborhood Association and the Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area Advisory Committee have repeatedly testified against this project and/or the continued use of PDC funds for new public housing in the Portsmouth neighborhood. If you invite these serious players they will howl with indignation that more taxpayer dollars are being spent against their will and their community interests. Sorry, Sam, but we noticed.

Mayor Sam Adams Should Be Recalled - 7/13/09

Mayor Sam Adams has failed to carry out his official duties.

Mayor Sam Adams supports policies that are NOT in the public interest.

Mayor Sam Adams should be recalled.

Mayor Sam Adams has failed in his singular statutory responsibility to oversee and hold ACCOUNTABLE the annual spending of more than $80,000,000 in taxpayer money by unelected appointees on the board of the Housing Authority of Portland. His defiant coverup of HAP public housing statistical data alone is sufficient reason to remove him from office.

Elected Judge Alicia Fuchs Summoned Before The Court Of Public Opinion - 6/29/09

Federal judges are bound by a code that says they should not join any group that discriminates by race, sex, religion or nationality. Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court, recently resigned from an elite women’s club, the Belizean Grove. It's time for you to follow judge Sotomayor's excellent example and resign from the board of the Bridge Meadows Corporation.

Playing Favorites - NOT Good Policy - NOT Good Government - Makes People Angry - 6/20/09

The terms, "due process", "neighborhood involvement" and "citizen participation" have been used extensively by all of you recently regarding the proposed use of public property for a sports arena in the Lents neighborhood and using public funds from an Urban Renewal District to help pay for it. A great fuss has been raised by commissioner "process is very important" Leonard demanding that everyone heed the recommendations soon to be pronounced from the Lents URAAC. Which raises the questions:

1. Why are the residents of the Lents neighborhood, much like those of the Buckman neighborhood (Washington/Monroe school), being asked to give their opinions to neighborhood leaders, URAAC leaders and city officials about the future use of public land in their neighborhoods and the citizens/taxpayers/voters of Portsmouth/North Portland are not?

2. Why are the opinions of residents of the Lents and Buckman neighborhoods and the Lents URAAC being seriously considered while the concerns of the Portsmouth/North Portland neighborhoods and the Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area Advisory Committee are summarily dismissed?

City Council's Last Chance For Credibility And DUE PROCESS In John Ball School Property Disposition - 6/15/09

On behalf of the Portsmouth Residents Action Committee and the 195 taxpayers/voters who recently signed ballots supporting DUE PROCESS in the disposition of the John Ball School site and along with the North Portland Business Association opposed the illegitimate giveaway of this public property to the private Bridge Meadows corporation:

1. We ask that mayor Adams and commissioners Leonard and Fritz honor their testimony of October 25, 2006 and immediately bring forth a resolution placing the disposition of the public John Ball School property on the public table for extensive and expansive public discussion and debate.

2. We demand that the Portsmouth/North Portland neighborhoods be treated with the same RESPECT and DUE PROCESS accorded the Buckman neighborhood in the disposition of the public Washington/Monroe School property which resulted in a $600,000 federal grant to design a community center.

Stop Lying To Lents And Hiding The Truth From Portlanders About PUBLIC Housing Funding And Data - 6/5/09

Portland city commissioners Nick Fish and Amanda Fritz as well as Onward Oregon and the Coalition For A Livable Future are NOT telling the truth to Lents and everyone else in Portland.

Portland city commissioners Nick Fish and Amanda Fritz as well as Onward Oregon and the Coalition For A Livable Future support the discredited and abhorrent policy of UNLIMITED neighborhood concentration of PUBLIC housing.

Portland city commissioners Nick Fish and Amanda Fritz as well as Onward Oregon and the Coalition For A Livable Future support UNLIMITED concentration of regional PUBLIC housing into a few select neighborhoods in Multnomah county such as Lents, Portsmouth, St. Johns, Hollywood, Kenton etc.

Can't Get No R - E - S - P - E - C - T - 5/31/09

The Portsmouth Residents Action Committee, the North Portland Business Association, the Lents neighborhood association and the Argay neighborhood association all support the following ICURAAC statement. Nevertheless, neither the Portland Development Commission nor the Portland city council paid any attention, dismissing the request out of hand. So the question arises: Why would the Portland city council RESPECT Lents leaders and the LURAC in a dispute over the use of public property in Lents, as they RESPECTED the Buckman neighborhood regarding the Washington/Monroe public school property becoming a community center, and completely DISRESPECT Portsmouth/North Portland leaders and the ICURAAC?

What's Good Enough For Lents & Buckman Is Good Enough For Portsmouth/North Portland - Right Randy? - 5/24/09

So the question arises: When will commissioner Randy Leonard publicly persuade mayor Adams, who also voted against the resolution in October 2006, and commissioner Amanda Fritz, who testified against the resolution in October 2006, to join his motion to REVOKE all previous resolutions involving the John Ball School Property and place this public property on the following due process track?

Adams OKs Due Process For Lents And Buckman - Portsmouth/North Portland Still Shut Out - 5/22/09

Just in case there was any doubt that three votes on the Portland city council can undo anything, including, we hope, its illegitimate decision to giveaway without due process the John Ball School property to a private corporation, consider the council's new found willingness to transfer the 30% URA housing set aside for a sports arena. This is the same city council that ignored the Portsmouth Residents Action Committee, the North Portland Business Association and the Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area Advisory Committee when they all supported a letter to the Portland Development Commission to:

It's Unanimous. 195 Signed Votes to 0 Support Due Process/Oppose Bridge Meadows - 5/18/09

195 signed votes by Portland residents, 184 of those from North Portland, support DUE PROCESS and oppose the Bridge Meadows corporation project (see names below). Not a single signed vote has been produced opposing DUE PROCESS and supporting Bridge Meadows. Supporting DUE PROCESS and opposing Bridge Meadows are inextricably tied together as are its opposite, opposing DUE PROCESS and supporting Bridge Meadows. You can't have one without the other.

Bridge Meadows Admits Public Meeting Sign Removal - Ian Simpson Confronts PPS Board & Police Bureau - 5/12/09

The Bridge Meadows Corporation was forced to admit on May 11th before Ian Simpson, the hearings officer, that it had taken down the sign on the John Ball School site inviting the public to attend a meeting intended to explain and discuss the meaning and process of the conditional use hearing on May 11th. What does this bizarre behavior say about the character, morals and ethics of these do-gooder types from outside North Portland who would destroy a sign about a public meeting called to educate citizens about government procedures. Clearly they hoped to prevent neighborhood residents from participating in this community discussion lest the locals should get wise, organize and challenge their corporate NIMBY scheme. Quite shocking.

Portsmouth Neighborhood Association Policy Positions Affect The Entire Portland Community - 5/7/09

The following persons, members of the Portsmouth Neighborhood Association, promote with taxpayer dollars the views and decisions cited below that have an effect on the quality of life in our community:

1. Despite testifying twice against the illegitimate disposition of the John Ball School site and without change or challenge to any of the valid arguments placed on the public table they capitulated to the city ignoring the overwhelming objection of Portsmouth property and business owners and then abandoned them forcing the creation of the Portsmouth Residents Action Committee to protect and defend local interests from those of city hall.

Vandals Destroy And Steal Public Meeting Notice At John Ball School Site - 4/29/09

At 6 PM Tuesday April 28th three men and woman drove in separate vehicles to the John Ball School site and tore down then packed the sign pieces into the woman's red vehicle. The sign invited the public to a meeting on Friday May 1st to discuss the public conditional use hearing on May 11th which was announced on a sign next to the one that was stolen. Who would do such a thing?

Change Is Inevitable - Growth Is Not - 4/17/09

The very title of this public meeting sets the tone of defeatism, Growth in Our Neighborhoods: Accommodating Density. Change Is Inevitable - Growth Is Not. Elected politicians, especially in the state legislature, make the decisions that determine who, when, where and how much public and non-public housing will be available. To simply talk of density is obfuscatory and intellectually dishonest.

Mayor Sam Adams Follows Law In Buckman Plays Politics In Portsmouth - 4/11/09

The Portland Public Schools Board is legally obliged to offer so-called "surplus" property to the city of Portland before placing it on the market for sale in order to keep the asset in continued PUBLIC USE.

So the obvious question arises: How is it that Sam Adams, Randy Leonard and Amanda Fritz, whose arguments in 2006 AGAINST the transfer of public property to a private corporation remained UNCHANGED and UNCHALLENGED, in 2009 "forgot" their arguments and quietly, very quietly, switched sides? The answer lies with Sam Adams.

Portland's Urban Renewal Policies And Programs Demand Scrutiny - 3/27/09

In a vote trading power play engineered by and for the purpose of enhancing the personal political capital of former city commissioner Erik Sten, the Portland city council commandeered 30% of Urban Renewal Area funds from the Portland Development Commission for so-called "affordable" housing. About 90% of this public money will actually be used for PUBLIC Housing in neighborhoods that are already overloaded with PUBLIC Housing. A fact mayor Adams is doing his best to conceal.

3 Votes At City Hall Trump A Covenant Every Time - 3/17/09

I don't mean to throw cold water on your efforts to enlarge Multnomah county's piece of the tax pie by negotiating a "new covenant" with the chief Portland pastry cutters but it would be useful to keep a few historical facts in mind. Despite our delusional propensity to believe that we are a government of laws not men/women the evidence continues to challenge that assumption.

Mayor Sam Adams The Great Pretender - 3/16/09

After more than four years as candidate, commissioner, mayor-elect and mayor it is now abundantly clear that Sam Adams pretended to have one set of values while acting out another completely opposite set.

Fledgling Facilitates Five Fiefdom Fiat Failure - This Is What We Bought For 1.6 Million Tax Dollars - 3/5/09

Our 1.6 million taxpayer dollars commissioner Amanda Fritz invited all present at a community meeting on March 3rd to contact her office for any help they needed with city government. When Richard Ellmyer spoke to her she said that she would NOT help get public housing statistical nor financial data from the Bureau of Housing, PDC or HAP. The "missing" 42 employees and $150,000,000 former PDC housing funds from the city's draft budget was of no concern to her. She refused to discuss any policy or budget issue involving her assigned bureau, Office of Neighborhood Involvement, until after the budget was passed and citizens could no longer have an influence. This is what we bought for 1.6 million tax dollars.

Mayor Sam Adams Makes A Mockery Of Citizen Participation - Again - 2/23/09

Mayor Sam Adams has failed to do his job providing citizens with basic public data from the Housing Bureau making it impossible for them to credibly participate in the city budget exercise meetings to which they have been invited. Adams dismissed every individual request for change to the city lobbyist's agenda at a recent invitation for citizen input to city decision making. Sam Adams is "working hard" to make sure citizens don't get the information they need to make reasoned and defensible decisions.

Coalition For A Livable Future Dives Off Moral Mountaintop - 2/17/09

BILLIONS for Bankers, MILLIONS for HAP with NO ACCOUNTABILITY. There is no difference between giving BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars to the Wall Street Wizards and MILLIONS to the Housing Authority of Portland because neither of them will tell those of us providing the funds where and how they are spending OUR money. It's outrageous and it must stop.

The Coalition For A Livable Future defiled its self-anointed holier than thou moral superiority when all but one of its members, Oregon Sustainable Agricultural Land Trust, indicated support for the discredited, abhorrent and UNACCOUNTABLE public policy in Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington counties of UNLIMITED regional neighborhood concentration of public housing in Multnomah county.

Mayors Adams And Bemis Impose Self-Inflicted Public Housing Data Ignorance On Their Constituents - 2/2/09

The appointment of David Widmark to the HAP board on January 14, 2008 represents the jointly held positions of Portland mayor Sam Adams and Gresham mayor Shane Bemis that UNLIMITED neighborhood concentration of public housing will continue to be their policies.

Adams/Fritz Citizen Lobbying Participation Process A Sham And A Failure - 1/26/09

It is now January 26 almost three weeks after the meeting and two weeks into the legislative session. There is NO EVIDENCE, confirmed by the Office of Government Relations, that a single suggestion made by any citizen at the January 6th meeting became a part of the city's official instructions to its lobbyists.

Wheeler Asks Commissioners To Hide Voter Registration Data - 1/21/09

I propose that we deny access to Multnomah county voter registration records to everyone except Multnomah County Commissioners and that we restrict taxpayer funded notification of elections to our supporters. These actions will greatly benefit those of us currently in office.

Please do not be frightened by the fact that this appears to be patently UN-American. It is. But that has not stood in the way of decisions made by our nation's elected leadership over the past eight years and the Portland city council's continuing commitment to hiding inconvenient public data and supporting illegitimate neighborhood elections.

Stopping New Public Housing Projects In Portsmouth - Now The Mayor's Choice - 1/15/09

On behalf of the Argay Neighborhood Association, the Portsmouth Residents Action Committee, the North Portland Business Association, the Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area Advisory Committee and the Lents Neighborhood Association you are asked to direct the Housing Authority of Portland and the Bureau of Housing to immediately STOP all new funding for pubic housing projects in the Portsmouth neighborhood and redirect those funds to other neighborhoods with a population of less than 15% public housing clients.

Multnomah County Public Housing Boss, Mayor Sam Adams, Ducks His Responsibility. AWOL On Public Housing Duty - 1/12/09

Everyone understands that the person who has the power to fire a subordinate is the BOSS. Portland mayor Sam Adams and only Portland mayor Sam Adams has the power to fire the entire board of the Housing Authority of Portland and fire the commissioner he appointed to oversee Portland's Bureau of Housing from that job. This unique and statutory power makes the mayor of Portland, Sam Adams, the unrivaled and undisputed Multnomah County Public Housing Boss.

Mayor Adams Visit To St. Johns Appreciated But Unfullfilling - 1/6/09

Consultant and longtime North Portland activist Richard Ellmyer also complained that the city was overloading the area with low-income housing projects, saying their residents do not have enough disposable income to support local businesses. Although Adams did not agree or disagree with Ellmyer, he admitted that the city frequently does not have enough information to know whether any part of town is bearing more than its share of such projects.

Richard Ellmyer's Commentary On Public Housing Policy in Portland, Multnomah County And Oregon

2009