Raymond picks his first fight: Forest Park
Portland is abuzz today with the news that our fearless new city manager, Raymond Lee, is going to buck local environmentalists, and probably most of the City Council, to join Portland General Electric in pushing for new transmission lines through Forest Park, at the expense of hundreds of trees.
Lee signed an agreement last week with the head of PGE, Maria Pope, pretty much guaranteeing that the city's staff people will reverse course and recommend that the project be approved. The NW Examiner has the story here, and the contract here.
Of course, that green-light recommendation will be challenged and appealed, and it could wind up, years down the road, before the state Supreme Court. But in the meantime, it will be quite amusing to see Lee and his minions try to sell the new deal to the City Council, half of whom are up for re-election in November – including all three council members from Northwest. The last City Council vote on this was 12 to 0 against PGE.
People ask me why the mayor hired Lee. I don't know, but one possibility is to be the fall guy for unpopular decisions. If that was the motivation, we'll likely see how it plays out pretty soon.
It's pretty funny seeing Lee refer to himself as "City administrative leadership." The verbal equivalent of the pocket squares. Let's just hope there's no arithmetic involved in the deal.
Council certainly doesn't want to have anything to do with unpopular decisions. Tiffany Koyama Lane and Angelita Morillo didn't even bother to show up for today's meeting to decide whether to support the appeal to preserve Lloyd Center/push back on development. Glad to see at least the 10 who were there supported moving forward (with much hand wringing).
ReplyDelete“Let’s just hope there is no arithmetic involved in the deal”. Priceless
ReplyDeleteFunny thing ... under the new charter, the mayor has the "duty" and/or "responsibility" to "Authorize, negotiate and execute all contracts and intergovernmental agreements, consistent with the City budget." Council has no authority to stop this, unless it's via the budget.
ReplyDeleteAnd, yes, the charter is a mess.
The mayor blind-sided the Forest Park Conservancy and their allies with this decision, and the mediations/negotiations with PGE excluded them as well. If this is the battle Lee wants to fall on his sword in, it might be a quick exit for him.
ReplyDeleteI’m not surprised that PGE prevailed on this issue. I’m surprised that some people didn’t see it coming.
ReplyDelete