Blogtown, PDX

Monday, July 16, 2007

Politics Smoking Ban Outside City Buildings?

Posted by Scott Moore on Mon, Jul 16 at 5:45 PM

Smoke while you got ‘em, city employees: Commissioner Randy Leonard is working on an ordinance that would ban smoking outside of city buildings, according to his chief of staff, Ty Kovatch.

Specifically, the ordinance would be geared toward the Portland Building, at SW 5th and Madison, which houses many of the city’s bureau offices. On the west side of the building is an overhang that spans the entire length of the building—which is where smokers naturally congregate, especially when the rainy season hits.

The problem, according to Kovatch, is that the water bureau’s customer service walk-in center is on the first floor, and second-hand fumes leak in through the doors and wall. So, Leonard is drafting an ordinance that would ban smoking outside of all city buildings.

The Office of Management and Finance, which manages all city buildings, would be able to determine how far away smokers would need to be from the building—and whatever they decide, you can guarantee that that is where the line of discarded cigarette butts will pile. (Don’t believe me? The Standard Building plaza, which contains Seattle’s Best, directly across the street from the Portland Building, has a no-smoking-near-the-building policy. In the inches just past their property line, you can find dozens and dozens of cigarette butts. It isn’t pretty.)

Meanwhile, that very same bureau, OMF, continues to come under fire from city insiders for forcing a program of centralized purchasing that has failed miserably. The idea was to save money—the initial estimate was $5 million per year, then downgraded to $1.7 million—but, in reality, the savings has been a whopping $61,000. Compare that to the $911,000 the city paid to the consultant company, Silver Oak. Peep the auditor’s report here.

So, using the same math, if OMF says you can’t smoke within 25 feet of a city building, what they actually mean is that you can now smoke 10 feet inside the building. In fact, you might have to now.

That’s just how the City of Portland rolls.

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Comments

1) Thanks for not warning me about the size of that pdf. Way to kill my '98 Compaq.

2) I'm not sure I get the connection. Am I just dense and/or stupid?

3) Please don't answer the above dense/stupid question. I was being rhetorical.

Posted by martin | July 16, 2007 6:27 PM

This shouldn't be a surprise. Back when they were shooting for a parks-wide ban, rather than a ban around children's play areas, and when they were banning smoking in Pioneer Courthouse Square, I mention that it was just the start, and they'd be gunning for all public sidewalks.

Randy's response was (paraphrasing, but accurate nonetheless) You Betcha.

I guess they decided not to try for all the sidewalks just yet.

Posted by b!X | July 16, 2007 7:49 PM

So if an elderly person is walking down the sidewalk and has emphysema and can't avoid a person smoking on the sidewalk quickly enough because they didn't see them, then has an asthma attack, the elderly person will just have to deal with it?

Smoking vs not smoking is an issue of rights - who has more rights? Someone will lose out. Should it be the person who actually medically needs cleaner air?

Posted by Dickey45 | July 17, 2007 7:29 AM

>>So if an elderly person is walking down the sidewalk and has emphysema and can't avoid a person smoking on the sidewalk quickly enough because they didn't see them, then has an asthma attack, the elderly person will just have to deal with it?>>

Show me a medically documented case of an asthma attack being brought on by second-hand smoke *outdoors* and I'll buy you a steak dinner.

Posted by Beaton | July 17, 2007 9:35 AM

The city spends ungodly sums on consultants. You have to wonder why, considering the folks that run the bureaus make around 150K per year. Aren't we paying professional salaries to people who ought to know what they are doing? Why do they need consultants for everything?

Case in point:

They paid the consultant who helped them pick out the second water bureau billing software MORE than it would have cost for us to custom write the software. And they ended up with a licensed product, rather than one they own.

You can read the whole story in my article "Dripping Dollars". You can find it in the archives of BrainstormNW.COM.... July 2003 feature.

Hope that's not a shameless plug Scott.

Posted by Dave Lister | July 17, 2007 11:10 AM

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