In a city where “public involvement” is the mantra of city government, it’s the ordinances that pass with none of it that deserve most scrutiny. So it’s ironic to be sitting in city hall this morning listening to council discussing lobbying rules, with council about to vote without so much as a whisper on a ten year extension of the contract between itself and the downtown business community (represented by the Portland Business Alliance) to pay the salaries of three cops.

Lobbying is one thing, but if you really want influence down at city hall, it seems buying three police officers is a subtler way to go about it. And nobody asks you to declare your economic interest (as if it weren’t obvious) or scrutinizes your involvement in the shaping of public safety policy too closely. To hammer the point home: The Portland Business Alliance (PBA) is led by a former Oregonian reporter, Sandra McDonough, who wants downtown to be a place where suburban shoppers can feel comfortable spending their money. It has lobbied consistently to make it illegal for homeless people to sit on the city’s sidewalks, and pays $1.5m per year for private rent-a-cops to patrol Old Town and downtown’s parks—dressed like cops, many of whom carry guns, and with no public oversight. Do a search on this site for “PPI” or “Portland Business Alliance” if you like.

Central Precinct Commander Mike Reese is here, sitting next to Mark Warrington, the public safety manager of the Parks Bureau, Mike Kuykendall of the Portland Business Alliance, and Bill Sinnott, director of the PBA contracted Clean & Safe program. Dan Handelman of Portland Copwatch is signed up to testify, and Street Roots wrote to the mayor and all the city commissioners yesterday to question the wisdom of the BAKSHEESH contract extension.

11:20am, here we go:

Central Precinct Commander Mike Reese just made a one minute statement, then Dan Handelman said this: “What we have is in this case extending a contract for ten years to provide police officers essentially to a private entity, the Portland Business Alliance. I understand the value of public/private partnerships, but there’s a thing called tax money. And most people, when they pay tax money, who get the same services as everybody else.”

“In this case what we have is a private entity paying the salaries of police officers to do something that, I assume, is pleasing them, otherwise they wouldn’t continue to pay. I think this would be better to a have a serious discussion with the community about what this means. If we raise enough money, can we buy our own police officers, too?”
COUNCIL: Randy Leonard questions Central Precinct Commander, Mike Reese (right.) PBA lobbyist Bernie Bottomly (left), and Copwatch activist Dan Handelman (middle) listen to the discussion.

Randy Leonard said: “This money pays for police officers to a private entity. But it’s my understanding that they augment the officers assigned to central precinct. But that the individual officers who work downtown don’t even know that their salaries are being paid by the Portland Business Alliance.”

He got his information from the PBA’s lobbyist, Bernie Bottomly. It’s wrong.

Commander Reese: “The officers that are assigned to work with PPI under this contract work directly for me. They’re accountable to the citizens of downtown Portland. We do liasons with Clean & Safe, and the officers who are riding bicycles carry Clean & Safe radios as well as ours. We have 3 officers that are dedicated to that detail. It can rotate but generally we like to keep the same three officers because they know the business owners.”

Leonard: “Do these officers narrow what they would do because their salaries are being paid by the PBA?”

Reese: “…they do.”

Leonard: “You see what the issue is here. There is some sense that they’re just doing the work of the PBA.”

Leonard basically accused the PBA’s Bottomly of misleading him, but of course, after a bit of back and forth, the contract extension passed. But then, you’d expect it to. Neither Kuykendall nor Sinnott from the PBA/Clean&Safe were required to even speak.

I’m glad the discussion was at least raised. The mayor pointed out that the Police Bureau also contracts with the Housing Authority of Portland and the Lloyd District to pay for cops. But should anybody be paying the salaries of our police? Other than the city, I mean.

Dan Handelman says: “The public should be paying for the police, and everybody should receive equal service. The implication that the PBA is not getting any better service than anybody else is ridiculous. If a downtown homeowner calls non-emergency and says ‘there’s a drunk guy on my lawn’, they’re going to have to wait until the end of a long list of calls to get any service. But if a downtown business owner calls Clean & Safe, then boom. One of these three cops is going to be there. Isn’t that wrong? It’s just wrong.”