The mayor’s Street Access For Everyone (SAFE) oversight committee is meeting for what’s likely to be the last time this morning before going back to council and asking for the controversial sit/lie law to begin enforcement.UN-SAFE AT ANY SPEED? Mayor’s committee…

For those of you new to Portland, the mayor’s SAFE group first started meeting last year, and eventually decided to outlaw sitting and lying on the sidewalk downtown, in exchange for offering day access centers to the homeless, more benches, and more restrooms so the homeless mightn’t feel so bad about having their civil rights shafted.

The committee is, in this reporter’s eyes, a fop to Manchurian Global The Portland Business Alliance, which has lobbied consistently for the sit/lie law, and has been willing to inject $150,000 of its own money into the committee in order to get it. Thanks to the PBA “moving things along,” the committee even advocated going ahead with enforcement back in June, without any of the other services in place, but council sent the law back until 25 benches were installed, showers and lockers were available downtown, and a 24 hour bathroom was available. It’s all been highly embarrassing for the committee members.

Not that it’s likely to make any difference to the law being enforced, but even now, members of the oversight committee say downtown restrooms, which are supposed to be open from 7am to 11pm, are not available when they should be. These are supposed to be opened by Clean & Safe officers, but it appears they’re not. A representative from Sisters of the Road went to the restroom at SW8th & Ankeny, which is supposed to be supplying 4 restrooms, but currently only has two, every day between July 13 and July 28, at 8am and 10.15pm. The restroom was closed on 12 out of the 16 days he checked.

On hearing this, PBA representative Mike Kuykendall fled the room with his Blackberry. He’s been gone five minutes now…just got back…now he’s muttering something to fellow committee co-chair Monica Goracke.

UPDATE: 10.40pm: The committee has just spent fifteen minutes deciding whether to include a slide in their presentation to council about Portland Patrol, Inc—the PBA’s rent-a-cops. Honestly, it’s been painful to watch—I’m still wincing. I just heard someone from the District Attorney’s office say that PBA were “just like any other concerned citizen talking to someone else,” as justification for not mentioning the fact that PPI officers, who dress like cops, many of them carrying guns and patrolling old town to focus on “livability issues,” are all being trained on the ordinance, and are positively chomping at the bit to get out and clobber downtown’s homeless with it. Nobody has discussed any training given to PPI on this—since PPI is a private business and won’t discuss its training in public, ever. Bear in mind that these guys are often the first responders to those in mental health crisis.

I’ve been aggressively shaking my head over here in the corner and making “sheesh” gestures for the entire duration of this conversation—in an attempt to embody the whopping elephant in the room, that PPI has no public oversight despite being authorized to carry out city policy. Everyone has studiously ignored me, and PBA representative Mike Kuykendall has been averting his eyes and staying out of it. The outcome was that PPI would not be mentioned specifically, but that a slide would be included on “community outreach.” I don’t know if the elephant in the room just took a poop, but something stinks.

UPDATE 10:55: The PBA’s Mike Kuykendall is saying “certain individual reporters have suggested the ordinance is being driven forward by the mayor’s office,” as well as the PBA. I’m grinning. More “sheesh” gestures. Kuykendall and Monica Goracke, the committee’s co-chairs, do not want to give the presentation to council, because according to Goracke, they want to avoid the “mis-impression that there’s a minority of us that are creating this—I think there’s the impression that the whole committee doesn’t necessarily support it. But it shouldn’t just be up to us to make the case and then feel like nobody supports us.”

Do they want to lurk in the shadows? The PBA has been getting remarkably press-shy, lately.

Gennie Nelson from Sisters of the Road says:”The press will do whatever they do, and you two are our chairs, and I mean just as a matter of course it would normally be the two chairs of a committee that would do this presentation.”

Kuykendall: “Well part of this is also that in council we don’t want one commissioner to take out a lightning rod and have it be the focus. I want to make sure that that doesn’t happen perhaps because of something deeper going on that isn’t the work of the group. Some deeper feeling.”

He’s referring to Randy Leonard, who was the guy questioning the ordinance on June 13th, and said the PBA and police bureau had been pursuing an “enforcement-centric approach.” I wonder what the deeper feeling is?

“I’m glad that Randy Leonard said what he said,” says Nelson. “Because I think that what we have today is a much better piece.”

Someone just tried to leave the committee room, and the door handle came off in their hand. I have no idea what’s going to happen, but I can’t think of any room in the world I’d rather be stuck in. No, really.

UPDATE 11:10: Apparently the Clean & Safe cleaner who is supposed to open the toilet at 8th & Ankeny was summoned by Kuykendall’s Blackberry when he left the room. He’s on his way to the committee room, along with Bill Sinnott of Clean & Safe and PPI Chief Executive John Hren. It’s high-noon! Too bad the committee just adjourned…

UPDATE 11:20: I just had an extraordinary conversation with a pretty scared-for-his job looking Clean&Safe cleaner, who said the days when the 8th and Ankeny restroom were closed were “on his days off.” I would imagine any teething problems associated with the restroom opening hours might be on their way to complete rectification right now. Poor chap.