Matthew Freedman writes an editorial from London in World Architecture News:

In 1965, along with 20,000 others, Allen Ginsberg saw the Beatles play Skidmore Owings and Merrill’s Memorial Coliseum in Portland, Oregon, and then he wrote a poem about it: “the million children / … / become one animal / in the New World Auditorium”.

Of course, there is no inherent reason why a bunch of disparate cultural and historical factors should ensure the preservation of anything. The Beatles played here at the height of their fame; a towering American poet commemorated it in a poem; it’s a significant mid-twentieth century work in the canon of a respected architectural practice; it contains a major war memorial — this is the Veterans Memorial Coliseum, to use its full name. But none of these, even the last, should guarantee automatic survival.

News of the Coliseum fight has also reached the Historic Preservation Magazine, for those keen to catch up on their reading.

The Citizen Campaign Commission delivered its second biennial report on voter-owned elections to city council this afternoon. The report itself is pretty vanilla, but the issue of voter-owned elections is really going to heat up next year when it's likely to go before the voters in a referendum.

Voter-owned elections have had a checkered history since they started in Portland back in 2005: Former council candidate Emilie Boyles ran off with the public money in 2006 and is yet to pay any of it back, for example. On the other hand last November, City Commissioner Amanda Fritz won election to council using public funds. Go democracy!

Under the system, any candidate can get public money to run a political campaign if they collect enough signatures and $5 contributions. The aim is to reduce the amount of money spent on political campaigns, increase the diversity of viable candidates and reduce the influence of special interests in Portland politics.

The report makes a series of recommendations including better training for candidates on the process, shortening the qualifying period for candidates, and tightening up the financial rules so that polling done before an election begins would count towards the public financing limit—blurring around this issue caused controversy during the 2008 mayoral election.

Then came the burning question.

"If we were to refer the voters in 2010, do you have a recommendation on the timing of that referral?" asked City Commissioner Nick Fish of auditor Gary Blackmer.

Fish beat a publicly-funded candidate, Jim Middaugh, in last November's election. He's also up for reelection next year and, ahem, has faced questions in the past about the effect of campaign donations on his decision making on the sit/lie ordinance. It's unclear whether he plans to take an active role in the referral effort next year, but he has always been a vocal questioner of voter-owned elections on the apparent principle that he's too independent to be influenced by money.

Blackmer said he thought it might be best to refer the idea to voters next November, after Fish's reelection campaign is over, but the CCC agreed to take a look at the idea over the coming months. Fish then brought up his concerns about voter-owned elections, in a possible precursor to next year's referendum debate.

"I've been on this body almost a year," said Fish. "I have come to appreciate the fact that my colleagues are very independent people, and I'm constantly surprised by how independent. And I regularly see my colleagues cast votes that seem to go against the people who elected and supported them, and I say that almost without exception."

"But the one premise I still don't understand is the notion that large contributions render politicians beholden to the contributor, and I think that's an interesting point, it's just something that I haven't experienced," he said.

"I guess as an auditor I'm very sensitive to appearance and potential conflicts of interest," said Auditor Gary Blackmer. "And we look at all those things that can undermine organizational credibility. I've been trained in the fact that appearance is a critical element for a public body or a public official. I don't think anywhere we've said that the city council was compromised in its decision-making, but polling of the public has shown consistently that they think money influences politics." More after the jump.

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