Here’s what I saw on the way to the mayor’s sit/lie oversight committee, meeting this morning for the first time since the law was passed by city council last week. A closed restroom! Four have been closed since noon yesterday, and until noon tomorrow.RESTROOM ON NW BURNSIDE AND PARK: You better go take a poop on the Burnside bridge, mate…

And guess who was sitting on the sidewalk, right next to it? A rent-a-cop!RENT-A-COP: ARREST THAT MAN!

Anyway, who cares whether enough restrooms are open downtown. They were just a fop from the Portland Business Alliance to get this law passed. So. Onto the law…

1.COPS! Trained police officers will begin enforcement on August 30. They have to watch a 45-minute training DVD, broken down into five sections, first. All written warnings and citations issued will be referred to the oversight committee on a monthly basis.

2.RENT-A-COPS!…are already going around giving out verbal warnings. It’s not clear what training they’ve been given. District Attorneys will meet with downtown security officers next Tuesday. Gennie Nelson of homeless nonprofit Sisters of the Road told the committee: “That warning has been going around a lot—and because they’re in uniform and they look like police officers, and many of them are armed, I wanted to bring that up.”

3.WRONG NUMBER! The phone number for the Julia West day access center given on the sidewalk obstruction written warnings is WRONG. “If they call that number, they’ll get no response,” says the center’s executive director. Although enforcement hasn’t even begun, the center, which is supposed to have capacity for 50 people, is regularly getting at least 90 people showing up. “We’re definitely at capacity,” he says. “We’re at a max.” The committee may have to open another center. Julia West’s director is suggesting another location downtown—the PBA’s Mike Kuykendall doesn’t seem to like that idea. He’s rocking back and forth in his chair.

4.BOG OFF! The committee has no intention of opening another 24-hour restroom in Pioneer Square, on top of the one at City Hall. “I suppose the individual council person could do it,” says Kyle Chisek, of the mayor’s office—referring to Commissioner Randy Leonard, who pushed for it last week in council. “Pioneer Square is a park, so anyone with a park exclusion can’t use that restroom,” he adds.

Monica Goracke of the Oregon Law Center has asked him for a whole list of what the barriers may or may not be to opening the restroom. There are also no toilet seats at the restrooms in the city-owned parking structure at 1st and Davis—the committee may also look into opening that one on a 24 hour basis. Commissioner Randy Leonard says he’ll push for money to fund security in either place, according to the PBA’s Mike Kuykendall. But don’t hold your breath.

5.DEFENSE! John Connors, of the Metropolitan Public Defenders office, has shown up. I’m not sure what his interest is (I’ll ask him when I get the chance…) but I just googled him, and he sat on a Multnomah county task force on racial over-representation in the criminal justice system in 2002. He graduated from Lewis and Clark in 1981, and is 2006-07 president of the Oregon Criminal Defense Lawyers Association. In other words? He’s really interested in oversight…

6.ARGUMENT! Sisters of the Road representative Patrick Nolen says aspects of the way the SAFE oversight committee’s presentation was delivered to city council “feels to me like we’re being dishonest.”NOLEN: “It feels to me like we’re being dishonest…

Nolen’s first gripe was that his organization was listed third in the list of the committee’s partcipants, right underneath the two co-chairs. He had previously asked that the list be presented in alphabetical order. It wasn’t—and obviously, that made it look like Sisters supported the ordinance. It’s the only member of the committee that hasn’t.

Nolen is also concerned that John Connors was listed as a committee member—when “I have never met John Connors.” As a public defender, Connors’ involvement might have ensured more balance, but he’s never shown up until today.

The presentation also said 18 lockers were available at the Salvation Army, when they weren’t. And he is also concerned about the presentation of some of the facts about the ordinance on the city’s website. All in all, I don’t think Nolen is too happy about his organization being used by the PBA as a political justification for moving people along. The PBA did not respond to any of his concerns.