"You're gonna see dashboards"

Allan Classen, the tireless voice behind the NW Examiner newspaper, recently got his first look at Portland's comical city administrator, Raymond Lee. And from this writeup, posted today, it sounds like Classen was not impressed. 

His story quotes some of what I've written about Lee since his carpet bag arrived in December, but it also gives readers a brief sample of the endless stream of meaningless hot air that emanates from inside the Lee suit.

“In the two years [since charter reform], they never had a conversation about priorities until I got here. I just want to make sure that I’m creating that environment for our City Council to have these conversations about strategy.”

If there was an answer in there, [Oregonian reporter Shane Dixon] Kavanaugh didn’t detect it either.

“Hearing you talk about the city needing up to five years for there to be a culture change in Portland,” Kavanaugh asked, “Do you think that the public has the patience for five years to get to that culture change?”

Put in those stark terms, Lee reframed his estimate.

“I think you will see things along the way. You’re gonna see changes. You’re gonna see a strategic plan. You’re gonna see dashboards. You’re gonna see things. You’re gonna see more town halls,” he said.

I hope the NW Examiner continues to keep an eye on Raymond. For all his "conversation"-enabling retreats, town halls, dashboards, executive coaches, and convention junkets, he was not the right guy for the Portland city manager job. Not even close.

UPDATE, an hour later: Given the interest in my writing about Raymond, I've created a label just for my posts about him. And so if you click here, you can see the posts. So far, 22 of them. To see the oldest of them, click "older posts" at the bottom.