#stopthesweeps — Public Fediverse posts

Downtown Clean & Safe Expansion and Renewal

City Council hearing
Portland City Council is holding a hearing on the Downtown Portland Clean & Safe ESD Expansion Petition on Thursday, Oct. 31 at 2:45 p.m.

Background
Three years ago, the Portland community mobilized against renewing the Downtown Clean & Safe Enhanced Services District (ESD) contract. A 2020 City Auditor’s report found that ESDs in Portland had virtually no oversight or accountability while overpolicing communities. The Clean & Safe ESD in particular was funding Portland police officers and hiring armed private security guards to patrol public streets, all while subsidizing the salaries of Portland Business Alliance executives.

Thanks to community pressure, in 2021 City Council reduced Clean & Safe’s contract term from 10 years to five. But despite overwhelming pushback, City Council still approved the five-year contract. Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, the only commissioner to vote no, said, “The city failed the community today.”

Since then, the City finally began responding to the 2020 audit. They hired a Seattle-based firm, Uncommon Bridges (formerly BDS Planning), to write a report recommending “best practices” related to ESDs. Portland community members opposed several of these recommendations (such as forcing residents like condo owners to pay ESD fees) at public feedback sessions and in written testimony. However, many of these objections were ignored.

Now, two years before the contract expires and mere months before the new City Council takes office, Clean & Safe is trying to fast-track a new, expanded contract. In August Clean & Safe filed a petition to expand its boundaries, revise the fee rate structure, implement residential rate caps, renew the ESD for another 10 years, and set up a new five-year contract. Their petition addresses minimal recommendations from Uncommon Bridges, like rate caps, while ignoring calls for greater oversight and transparency.
If approved by City Council, these items would go into effect on October 1, 2025.

Tell City Council what you think!

Don’t let PBA rush this contract through City Council! Submit testimony today.
The link to register to testify orally, or to submit written testimony, is posted in the agenda for the City Council hearing by 9 a.m. the Friday before the hearing.

Agenda Items
Thursday, October 31st - 2pm
951
Amend District Property Management License Code to update fees and district boundary to extend Downtown Portland Clean and Safe Enhanced Services District Property Management License Fee for an additional ten years and to align with amended City Charter approved by voters in Portland Measure 26-228 (replace Code Chapter 6.06) (Ordinance)

952
Authorize Agreement for District Management Services of the Downtown Portland Clean & Safe Enhanced Services District by Clean & Safe, Inc. for an estimated amount of $58 million over five years (Ordinance)

TALKING POINTS
City Council should table this petition until the current Clean & Safe contract expires in 2026.

Given existing concerns about Clean & Safe’s governance and transparency, the City should not renew its contract in this rushed manner.

The petition ignores key community concerns about Clean & Safe, namely lack of transparency and governance. This petition does not introduce any requirements about transparency in governance or operations, as recommended by Uncommon Bridges/BDS Planning in their report to City Council.

Since taxpayer money goes into the ESD, the public should be able to provide feedback like any ratepayer. Public entities already pay into the ESD, and new public entities like Oregon State University fall within the proposed expanded boundaries. However, Clean & Safe continues to shut the public out of its planning process.

The rate increase violates the moratorium on new taxes and fees proposed by Gov. Kotek and the Central City Task Force. The moratorium as recommended is supposed to extend through 2026 at a minimum, while the proposed new contract will take effect in 2025.

The rate increase would solidify a double standard in matters of City-level revenue generation and distribution. According to this double standard, increasing taxes to fund public services is problematic and to be avoided (“A persistent complaint of late from businesses and leaders like [Mayor Ted] Wheeler is that Portland is one of the highest-taxed cities in the country,” OPB) while increasing rates to fund the ESD’s private services is unproblematic and to be encouraged. The proposed rate increase reveals that the true nature of leaders’ complaints about taxes is not about the tax burden, but about whether private organizations receive and control disbursal of collected revenues.

The ESD should not fund significant portions of Portland Business Alliance salaries. The petition does nothing to reduce how much ratepayers contribute to PBA salaries. It is inefficient and inappropriate to use public resources to subsidize the salaries of business lobbyists.

The 5-year term of the proposed contract will fully bypass the first terms of incoming City Council members. New representatives will not be able to evaluate and alter the program within their terms; further, representatives elected to District 4, which overlaps the ESD’s service area, will face two elections prior to the new contract expires. Adopting the contract with its proposed 5-year term would be an affront to voters at the very moment they are choosing their new representatives.

The proposed contract will partially subsidize the activities of the Portland Business Alliance and empower the PBA to continue its efforts to shape local policymaking and elections through the full first terms of incoming electeds. The PBA is not only the City’s most prolific political lobbying organization; the PBA also directs a political action committee actively working to shape electoral outcomes in favor of its own interests, without the limits imposed on candidates under the Small Donor Elections Program. By approving the proposed contract, the outgoing City Council will be partially subsidizing and tacitly authorizing PBA’s continued political activity and influence operations throughout the 2026, 2028, and 2030 City Council elections.

Portland Business Alliance sued and bankrolled a campaign to block charter reform. They should not be allowed to circumvent the new City Council by pushing an early renewal.

#PortlandOregon #PDX #StopTheSweeps #HousingNotHandcuffs #CareNotCops

https://www.portland.gov/auditor/council-clerk/events/2024/10/31/city-council-meeting-afternoon-session

Today the City of Aberdeen demolished multiple campers' homes during their so-called cleanup.

People who had built solid structures to avoid the elements this winter, a winter where the City of Aberdeen also refused a cold weather emergency shelter, had their structures demolished, and everything they couldn't haul across the train track crushed and thrown in the back of a dump truck.

Everyone was forced to remove what they could from their space and were not even provided with a spot to place their belongings out of the rain, while the City did their demolition. Luckily a local property owner stepped up and allowed people to lay out their belongings on tarps across the tracks from camp. The entire operation placed multiple people all over the dangerous train tracks themselves.

Thank you to those who came down to support, help, and protest these disgusting actions. Especially those comrades who traveled from out of town to show their support.

#Solidarity #CRMAN #MutualAid #HousingNotHandcuffs #StopTheSweeps

Get yourself to the River St camp this Friday morning to help defend the camper's rights and document the City's actions, as the City comes to demolish their residences and steal their belongings.

#CRMAN #Solidarity #HousingNotHandcuffs #StopTheSweeps #MutualAidRequest

🚨🚨EMERGENT REQUEST!!
👉We need people to show up and help provide eyes on the City during this eviction. If you can attend Friday morning at 9 am it would mean the world to our unhoused friends and family.
📆Under the Chehalis River Bridge. Aberdeen, Wa. Friday 9AM. BE THERE. Lets show the community there that they are not alone, and show the City that we stand with the unhoused.
Paperwork was served on camp yesterday, the City of Aberdeen will be moving everyone from the lower camp and destroying the built structures, then everyone can move tents back into the area.
This is always a traumatic experience that involves a lot of chaos and loss of property for the already vulnerable population. This move is additionally cruel as it is occurring during winter, a winter in which the City denied the Cold Weather Shelter for our people. They have necessarily built themselves structures capable of withstanding the cold elements this winter, now the City will be removing them. IT SNOWED LAST WEEK Y'ALL!!
#StopTheSweeps #MutualAidRequest #HousingNotHandcuffs #CRMAN #solidarity

A human rights defender, I am. Rich people shouldn’t be the only ones whose rights are respected. #HousingNotHandcuffs #PovertyApartheid #StopTheSweeps