LIVE BLOG! State of the City 2015! Will the Real Charlie Hales Please Stand Up?

Portland Mercury:

It's 2015. Mayor Charlie Hales has been the boss of the city for two years. Now he's at a crossroads. Amid the luck of inheriting a pleasantly robust local economy—and some debacles of his own making, like the up and down street fee Ferris wheel currently shut down—he can't keep pointing his fingers back at the men and women who preceded him on Portland City Hall's third floor. If Hales intends to seek re-election, and he seems healthily prideful enough to not want to be the city's third consecutive one-term mayor—then he's going to have to do more to tell us who he is and what he wants and where he's going. The "earnest handyman" meme worked okay in 2013. It worked not as well in 2014. It won't work at all this year. But it's not clear whether that will be the case this afternoon. He'll be talking again about housing and homelessness—although, in fairness, maybe it's a subject we should always be talking about. He'll be talking again about infrastructure. He'll be talking again about police accountability—albeit with some boastfulness over his pick for police chief. Time is running out. It was about this time in 2011 when Hales started thinking about challenging then-Mayor Sam Adams. Activists are casting their eyes about for champions. Rivals are quietly considering the mayor's future. The "real Charlie Hales" has been a theme dating to his first 100 days. If Hales comes out strong here, maybe he'll persuade some of those would-be challengers to wait a few more years. Will this be his first re-election speech? Follow along for updates! 12:19 One initial observation while Portland City Club goes through their housekeeping announcements: Oregon AFL-CIO's president, Tom Chamberlain, an occasionally rumored city council/mayoral candidate, is seated at Hales' table next to US Representative Earl Blumenauer. 12:23 Hales takes the stage at 12:21. He's reminiscing about music and being a "geeky high school band kid" and his mother's piano music. He loves Copeland's "Appalachian Suite," and he sings it!!! He's not bad! "Tis the gift to be simple... tis the gift to be free..." People politely whoop and cheer. "I know now why I didn't major in music." 12:25 He's thanked Adams, who's leaving for DC, and engendered more applause for the man that during Hales' past two speeches combined. This time, he said kind things about the place Adams' is leaving behind, City Club. 12:29 Next is a recitation of all his budget cuts and debt payments—including a plan not yet finalized to take $800 million from urban renewal districts and put it back on the regular property tax rolls. He's also talking up the stability and ease of our police and fire pension fund—funded through property taxes, mostly. It's worth noting. Other cities rely on stock markets to keep funded. But it's not really his doing. Then it's on to challenges and other hurdles: "Now it's time to pilot the ship to where we as a community want to go." He's using this to thank his city council colleagues. He thanked Nick Fish for fending off the water bureau/sewer bureau putsch by industrialists. He's thanked Amanda Fritz for the parks bond that passed last fall. He's thanked Dan Saltzman for renewing the children's levy. And before he gets to Steve Novick... the street fund. "I'm tired of asking people to face this problem for the past 14 years." He says the paving improvements in 2013 came first, up to 100 miles a year, before the money ask. He reminds the city still needs $91 million a year to catch up and stay even. 12:32 Blumenauer's there in part because Hales is making a point about the lack of federal investment in transportation. Hales has asked the local delegation to stand in recognition of talk that Salem will help. Tina Kotek, the speaker of the House, from North Portland, wasn't among them. Hales says the unfunded street liability here is $1.5 billion "and it's getting bigger, growing by $12.5 million a month... tick... tick... tick..." He says we can ignore that. "But it's still going up... tick... tick... tick..." And now he's gotten to Novick, thanking him for "your courage." Someone whooped. Hales promised he won't let up. 12:35 Yes. Police reform now. He mentioned earlier that he took office federal reforms looming as something "aspirational." Now it's time for him to enact them and oversee them. He stresses how important it is for everyone to feel safe among police officers. He says the bureau has changed promotions, hiring, training, force, and discipline. He's touting the same kind of stats Adam did: 40 percent of hires are women or people of color. But he's also chalking it up to his direction as police commissioner. He's also dropping his favorite bit of rhetoric: the overnight reports that show day after day the times cops defused incidents or helped people. John Canzano wrote about the cop, Parik Singh, who gave a homeless man his boots. Another officer bought a cart of groceries for a man caught shoplifting to feed his crying, pregnant girlfriend who was waiting in the car. "You won't necessarily read these stories in a headline," even if one of them was. 12:37 "Portland is healthy and getting stronger." His office has unveiled a dashboard showing metrics and civic improvement. Hales betrays his GOP roots and quotes Reagan: "Trust but verify. The website is here: portlandoregon.gov/dashboard. 12:37 Now it's a history lesson about the magical ways we've solved the urban equation that saw downtowns like ours deteriorate. Vacant lots downtown and vacant homes in neighborhoods have been developed. Transit has boomed. "We put our values into action... That's the Portland way." Hales wants to keep neighborhoods great and extend benefits of livability to neighborhoods. Finally some mention of affordability. Let's better monitor demolitions. "The charming old house next door is a pile of rubble and a few weeks later there's a McMansion there." He vows to limit demolitions and require stricter design standards for infill housing that match their surroundngs. 12:40 And now he's onto Lents. "He's taking us on a walk in Lents two years from now": a community center near the Jade District, a greenway and apartments named for Woody Guthrie, a town center will rise. "Finally we'll have action." 12:42 Next is an array of planned development in Old Town/Chinatown. "This is long awaited critical mass for a neighborhood that's waited a long time." He's seeing arts and education and the "new economy" changing the place. He looks forward at taking those walks with us. No mention of homelessness or social services. And then he's walking to one more place, the new "soul district" on NE MLK, where he envisions community led efforts to push smaller homes, storefronts, and grocers. 12:45 Back to "the Portland way," but some acknowledgment about income inequality, and the shrinking middle class—which he says used to be due to people "climbing up" the ladder. Now? They're falling down into poverty. "If poverty was a city" in Oregon, "it would be bigger than Portland." He's using that to translate to talk of racial justice. Hales wants to make this one of his issues for the second half of his term, rebounding from a fiscal but politically tonedeaf decision in 2013 to cut funding for educational and job skills programs targeted for African American students. He's talking again this year about the Black Male Initiative—and notes a press conference on Monday that I was told no white mainstream outlets attended. 12:47 Hales hits on disproportionate discipline in public schools. "The numbers simply call us to action." The other week, the council at Hales' behest heard a report on this issue from Portland Public Schools. He's reciting some of that knowledge today. But "I'm not picking on PPS," he says, noting their plans to getting a 60 percent decrease in discipline for African American boys. 12:49 Big applause as soon as Hales mentions "living wages for city workers." And here's some news: Hales and Saltzman will propose paying all full-time city workers $15 an hour. That's a $4.4 million hit. He's challenged others, in the private sector to do the same. 12:53 Hales also pledges to do more to connect city contracts with businesses owned by women and minorities. And he wants to help "returning citizens," "banning the box" for city jobs that released convicts must fill out saying whether they've been convicted of felonies before interviews and job offers. He plans to get that done citywide and wants to reward businesses, somehow, who also hire convicts. It's a $5,000 tax credit for two years, as part of a pilot project for 100 or so people with felonies. He's previewed this at his appearance in Don't Shoot Portland events. He says he was moved in part by a letter by Mitchell Jackson, author of "The Residue Years," who frets over his mother's future. "Will this be expensive?" Hales says. "How will it compare to the billions of dollars this country spends on prisons. No contest. It's a very good investment." 12:54 He's onto Uber and the sharing economy. he makes it clear we'll embrace Uber. But only if drivers are paid a living wage and that customers are safe. 12:58 The $20 million housing plan meant to mollify critics of a planned Trader Joe's gets a nod, along with the money the housing bureau has spent, using surplus cash in past years, to invest in services and housing work that have helped people of color. And tiny houses! He forecasts 1,000 units in the next four years by the developers we wrote about. And he's nodding to the O's new series by Anna Griffin. He mentions funding for homelessness, which has gone up every time he's had the chance to spend the money during his administration. But let's do more, he says, like efforts to partner with agencies that help veterans. He's promoting the cross governmental task force with county officials working on homelessness. When Deborah Kafoury stands, she gets more cheers than even Hales. "We're gonna house every last one of our homeless vets here in POrtladn by next Veterans Day. It's the right thing to do." [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

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