Brown's comment says it all - great example of how bureaucracies "work".

It's unclear to me how this idea was first broached. Board members' comments and questions made it sound as if this meeting was the first time most of them had heard about it. Based on that assumption, who was part of the "selection process" to hire Parametrix? What's the problem they're trying to solve here?

You would think that Saltzman would know enough to leave this hot potato in the oven until after the election. Apparently not.

Maybe he's decided he's going to lose, and wants to head up this new entity when he's out.

A Parks District isn't Tri-Met-like, with appointed oversight. The model I could support would have an independent, directly-elected Board, like the Tualatin Hills Parks & Recreation district. The main virtues are that if the parks system is separate with a set allocation of property taxes, the city can't undercut the parks budget by passing levies then reducing General Fund support; also that a directly-elected Board answers to the voters and has ongoing accountability not affected by changes in Commissioner bureau assignments.

This idea has been brewing inside the Parks bureau and in the community for years. My approach would be to involve the neighborhoods in discussing it now, rather than hiring consultants to roll out a proposal.

This would be a good chance for Fireman Randy if he wants us to take his Blue Oregon Post Seriously and the rest of council to put thier actions where their mouths are and not let Portland Get TRAMMED again by the same cast of characters, particularly with our precious parks one of the assets that makes Portland so special.

This rasies the same questions as the reallocation of the million or so in GF resouces to by the SoWa Park you blogged about earlier.

http://www.zoominfo.com/Search/ReferencesView.aspx?PersonID=16174921

PS. I Googled on one of the other names that popped up in the minutes you posted. You recently bogged on McMinnville (Another one bites the dust in February 2005)

I particularly like the advice to "bottle and sell" what McMinnville has.

That's developer speak if I ever heard it, looks like that firm represents a fair share of them.

Amanda wrote,
"The main virtues are that if the parks system is separate with a set allocation of property taxes, the city can't undercut the parks budget by passing levies then reducing General Fund support"

How about our friend Tax Increment Financing and Urban Renewal? The biggest enemy of general funds.

This FY alone some $42 million is being diverted from basic services. Another $20 million from schools with larger diversions on the way.

All A-OK with the status quo.
They just keep telling us urban renewal doesn't use general fund money. Even as the drain grows to over $4 billion in assessed property value no longer being taxed for basic services and schools.

The Increment within the UR 12,000 acres is now larger than the frozen base.
More general fund property taxes from the UR districts are NOT going to basic services than are.
Now isn't that special?

All according to plan says the PDC.

Too bad the newspapers don't shed some light on how well it's all working.

Apparently they have ALL been lying for so long about UR that any new light would be an admission to their lying.

So mum's the word until newly elected people spill the beans.

if the parks system is separate with a set allocation of property taxes, the city can't undercut the parks budget by passing levies then reducing General Fund support; also that a directly-elected Board answers to the voters and has ongoing accountability not affected by changes in Commissioner bureau assignments.

Why not dismantle city government entirely, and have every municipal function be its own "district"? We could have a police district, a fire district, a pothole repair district... I'd love to see a separate vote on "urban renewal" taxes -- nearly 20 cents of every dollar of property taxes that the city collects.

Switching to a parks district would only make sense, in my view, if the same services could be provided at lower cost. Perhaps the creation of a parks district would provide the City a legal avenue to dump its union employees and replace them with contracted labor. That would save a bundle.

I thought the parks were a potential profit center that can be bonded just like parking spaces downtown.

Some parks guy in Gresham wants Main City Park to host rental space, commercial and residential, to fund parks. Get it?

The next step is to confine the eligible renters of the "affordable housing," if on "parks," to city staff and friends . . . and use a waiting list to allocate who gets the housing. That allocation mechanism though will fully eliminate the need for "rent." They will be called . . . "stakeholders."

They might need a good security fence too.

It would take a direct hit from a nuclear tipped missile to get the city "to dump its union employees and replace them with contracted labor. Nothing so unimportant as saving taxpayers "a bundle" will even get their attention.

First, let me say there are a large number of great people working for Portland Parks and Recreation; people who believe in providing great spaces for play, relaxation and learning. All walks of life can benefit, and better themselves, from what a quality parks and recreation system provides. It's hard to say the same about many other government services.

Portland Parks and Recreation would therefore seem to be one of the most essential services we have. Yet, you will always see (especially in a city) parks and recreation coming out on the bottom of the pile come budget time when cutting up the pieces of the pie. Police, fire, building departments, and other divisions are often considered far more "essential" than parks and recreation. This continual battle often leads to the discussion of forming a stand-alone district. It's much like being the youngest sibling in a big family, trying to get your word in edgewise. And when the "family" is as dysfunctional as the City of Portland, you can see why Portland Parks wants to fly the coop. I can't blame them. Vancouver is rolling right through the exact same process at the moment, and it just so happens their Director is the former assistant director for the City of Portland Parks and Recreation Bureau, David Judd.

I see the fact they have hired a consultant is a hot item. Generally, governments need assistance to put together such a study with some outside input and perspective. But who they have hired will certainly continue the trend of large high end firms pulling up to the government money trough and going to town to help pay the rent on their bitchin' office space. Get a copy of their budget for the project and see how many hours they think it will take to complete even the simplest of tasks. I haven't seen it, but my guess is they have dozens upon dozens of hours dedicated to the arduous tasks of "document review", "project setup", or something else the average person would say "it takes that person 180 hours do to what?". Message is, too bad they couldn't have hired a smaller firm that still knows how to bust their butt for a reasonable fee and do innovative, fresh work. Chances are another firm might not be as incestuously connected as this one.

It will certainly be interesting to see who will lead them to this promised land of an independent district. Portland Parks has gone from being under the leadership of Charles Jordan, who was an engaging, connected (all the way to the White House), and driven individual who knew how to play the political game very well, to Zari Santner, who has drained the confidence and respect of vast numbers of her employees to the point of having a website dedicated to bashing her leadership of the Bureau. I would question whether it's her vision for the future of parks and recreation in Portland driving this process, or City leadership getting rid of a pain in the rump and drain on the City's budget. It would be a shame to see the parks system hurt further by this process.

It is true some special districts or stand-alone agencies have less than stellar track records. But far more are examples of excellent government service. If Portland Parks became an independent district at least if you had a problem with your parks and recreation system you would go straight to the source. You wouldn't have to interact with leadership that was dealing with funding a tram, a NBA team, schools, or any one of a number of other things outside of what makes a city the "City that Works".

Good Humor

rickynagg spouts off: "It would take a direct hit from a nuclear tipped missile to get the city "to dump its union employees and replace them with contracted labor. Nothing so unimportant as saving taxpayers "a bundle" will even get their attention."

I'm curious as to why it is that so many people think that dumping union employees is going to save so much damned money. What's the deal?

You people don't want folks to earn a decent wage? Is that it? Or, are you just jealous because these people were smart enough to negotiate (in good faith, no less) for things like weekends and decent benefits?

If you want to save money on the city level, don't look to the beleaguered unionized employees, try removing a couple of layers of management and some top brass. These people get paid outrageous sums (often multiples, or even double digit multiples of the average union employee) to do things like lie to city commissioners, engage in illicit and illegal behavior with public funds, envision new ways to feather their nest and those of their friends and families through innovative uses of public financing and inside help and information on city processes.

I work in another huge bureaucracy here in the city, and what happens is the managers, who don't like having to live to the stipulations of the contract language (which they were often responsible for negotiating on behalf of the employing institution), hire lower level managers to deal with these "unpleasant" tasks, thus insulating themselves from the staff and allowing them more time to "envision" new ways to tap into those tax dollars.

Get your priorities right...The people who need to be replaced are all higher up the status scale than union employees....They are managers, and their friends, consultants.

Amanda Fritz at March 28, 2006 09:23 AM The model I could support would have an independent, directly-elected Board, like the Tualatin Hills Parks & Recreation district. The main virtues are that if the parks system is separate with a set allocation of property taxes, the city can't undercut the parks budget by passing levies then reducing General Fund support; also that a directly-elected Board answers to the voters and has ongoing accountability not affected by changes in Commissioner bureau assignments.
JK: Sounds good. How about doing that to any city agency with a budget of over , say, 10 mil?

I would just love to vote on the head of PDOT and their priorities.

Same for the water bureau.

Could make the city council mostly redundent.

Thanks
JK

I suspect a lot of this has occurred because in Portland there have been two political sacred cows: parks and libraries. Starve these two while diverting revenues to other not-so-beloved programs and watch the citizens scramble to do fund-raising....or vote a new bond measure.

"If you want to save money on the city level, don't look to the beleaguered unionized employees"

Oh, please, now the city's unionized employees are "beleaguered"? 'Don't look over here at us, for God's sake, we're just hard workin', good faith negotiatin', poor union schlubs.' Even mentioning the cost of union labor is off limits. Just look over there (waving arms and yelling) at what management is skimming off the top.

"You people don't want folks to earn a decent wage? Is that it? Or, are you just jealous because these people were smart enough to negotiate (in good faith, no less) for things like weekends and decent benefits?"

There's that "you people" again. I make a comment that the city is unlikely to seriously consider privatizing much of anything it does and incur the wrath of godfry. Hey, don't leave out that we "hate children", too. I'm sure there's plenty of deadwood in every layer of city government - including union workers.

"The people who need to be replaced are all higher up the status scale than union employees"

Now there's an honest, comprehensive look at waste in city government. NOW we know where the problem lies.

Thanks for straightening us out.

Godfry:

The bidding out of contracts for city services doesn't cut wages. Unions often win these bids anyway. What it does is eliminate the three other guys standing around watching the one guy work. Now, the one guy gets paid and either the other three guys do something productive or they get a job elsewhere, again, doing something productive.

Having a payroll of union (or non-union) folks waiting for marching orders is very expensive. Having a contract staff doing a specified job is much cheaper, even at the same wage/benefit level.

This is what the current council doesn't get. This is the kind of knowledge a guy like Lister has.

It's not about "race to the bottom" philosophies or other (unprovable) nonsense. It's about extracting maximum porductivity for your investment.

How about making the Parks Bureau and a few other government agencies non-profit corporations
and take them off the tax dollars?
Canada turned its air trafic controller's agency into a non profit agency some years ago with some great results.
M.

Just as long as the consultants aren't Montgomery Watson Harza, who would report back in a few months that our parks are a terror target and need to be buried.

LOL, b!X. It always struck me as wildly arrogant to think we would be considered a target for anything.

ROFLMAO

Wow, rickynagg...

You need to get a grip.

Y'know, not once in my years have I seen any politician run on reigning in the bloated bureaucracy by streamlining the management of any governmental unit, yet the call from fascist ideologues to gut the unions to realize savings is perennial.

Yet, most union members have been losing ground to spiralling health care costs and inflation to the effect that their net pay has shrunk over the past ten years. That certainly does not seem to be the case with CEOs or managerial types at all. Bureaucracies tend to be top-heavy, and the top ain't where the unionized employees are.

And, Don? I never stated that contract city services reduces wages. I merely asked as to why it is that it's always the union employees who get dissed in these discussions, while non-union management personnel gets off scot-free. I'm perfectly aware that contracting services can realize cost-savings in some cases. In other cases, contracting out can lead to gouging, cost-overruns and sweetheart deals...all at much greater cost to the taxpayer than maintaining a unionized workforce.

If there are three workers standing around watching one, either there's a good reason for it, or the supervisor/manager is not doing his/her job. And nobody even flipping whispers about those three hour alcoholic lunches and early clock-outs (not being on the clock at all -- manager, y'know) to go golfing? Talk about wasting taxpayers' (or, in the private sector, customers and stockholders) money.

What's the matter, ricky? Did I hit too close to home? You're the one doing all the hand-waving.

Godfry:

I'm all about trimming management fat. Your post just made it seem as though it's management versus labor. I think we're in agreement, just emphasizing different aspects. I lump management in with "public employees" for this discussion. You're right, three guys holding up shovels IS a management problem, but the solution isn't to trim management or their perks, it's to change the model. If everyone SHARES IN THE PROFITS - labor included - there's a motivation to be productive.

JP & Ricky --

Spin off Parks? Hmm, the strucure described in the Parks Bureau minutes uses different labels, but looks, smells and feels a LOT like the PDC. Dedicated source of tax funds from city taxpayers, no direct accountability to council for actions, and complete insulation from economic and revenue realities facing all other city services.

And all in the name of the sacrosanct parks.

If you like the PDC you'll love the spun off Parks Bureau.

But in a city where the pols on the council have ignored for years the prime responsibility of any municipal government -- public safety -- to each pursue their own pet projects and pandering to the interes groupd who elected them, its not surprising.

After all, we're going to spend $ 200,000 on jump starting Potter's re election --- er, no, I mean doing a "visioning" project, when we should be focusing on the ruinous fire police pension plans.

Parks, parks, wonderful parks. Gotta' love Portland.

Regarding union vs. management, the lowest paid unionized City employee I could find (Maintenance Worker) makes about $20,700 a year at entry-level. [There are lower paid staff, but most are in part-time or seasonal positions.] I remember reading that the highest paid City employee (I think it's usually the CAO or the Police Chief) makes about $150,000 a year. That's 7.25 times the bottom, which is much, much less than the difference in the private sector. The City has very few six-figure employees, and they are all heads of bureaus or large divisions.

What the City needs is more flexibility to manage all of its employees, union and non-union. And let's face it, the union protects all of its employees, even the ones who are worthless. That's no better than management protecting its own, and it doesn't do much to improve the standing of the union, either. What the City needs is civil service reform that gives more flexibility in hiring and firing of all employees.

More to the topic at hand, the separation of Parks into its own governmental entity with dedicated resources just contributes to the overall problem of Portlanders (and Oregonians in general) demanding government services but being unwilling to pay for them. Yes, Parks takes a back seat to Police and Fire in annual budget decisions, and that drives parks supporters crazy. But separating parks from those decisions and dedicating a chunk of our property taxes just exacerbates the problem of funding other government services. It's not a solution for anyone except Parks.

I used to know Sumner Sharpe pretty well. I've always thought highly of him. He was my mentor when I was an undergraduate at PSU.

However, you need to know that he, and by extension, Parametrix, are "hired guns". They consult for a fee, paid by a client. I'd bet that they work toward the client's interests, whoever they might be.

When I last met him, he was emceeing the public meeting on the proposed tram *rimshot* at the Marriott in November 2003. He informed me that he had been hired to facilitate a process between the CAC for the affected neighborhoods and PATI. His objective was to represent the interests of the neighborhoods to PATI, OHSU and the City. He indicated that he had been hired by the CAC, not PATI. He was evidently part of the process for those neighborhoods to put the screws to the City over the long ignored improvements which were supposed to happen to reroute the traffic around the west end of the Ross Island Bridge...which suddenly became a lever when OHSU and the developer crowd wanted to hang out their laundry above their homes.

As for his personal motives, I can't speak for him.

Look to his recent community-minded effort, the revision of the City Charter. He, and his wife, former City Commissioner Margaret Strachen, were appointed to the Charter Review Commission by the in-coming Mayor Potter. I assume he's not getting beaucoup bucks for this assignment, as he was listed as a "volunteer".

If this Charter Commission doesn't come out of its sessions with a means of reigning in PDC, then we'd have a good idea where his head is at, as it was my understanding that that was one of the specific tasks which Potter wanted assigned to the Charter Commission.

Sumner used to work for an outfit known as Cogan & Associates, along with owners Elaine and Arnold Cogan. And, yes, as noted, he used to teach in the Urban Studies Program at PSU. He's been around Portland since I was a college student, so he's been here for better'n thirty years. Last I heard, he and Margaret lived on the eastside, in the Alberta neighborhood

Just to expand on what I started earlier regarding making this a non profit and taking it off the tax dole.

Some years ago I read an article about cities
in the eastern U.S. that were losing their middle class and one of the reasons cited was that they were exempting many organizations from property taxes. Boston was a particular case mentioned and
I seem to recall that about 50% of the property in Boston was exempt from that tax. Of course these non profits still received government services, but at no cost. That is, the city gave away services to some and expected others to pick up the cost. Portland is doing exactly that.

One way to end that would be to abolish the property tax and go to a direct billing service for services rendered. Portlanders get billed for water and sewer regularly. Why not do something similar with these other services?

If it can't be done with all of them then maybe some of them can be handled this way.

Secondly the departments, er bureaus might be more responsive to the monetary issue. I especially get a kick out of seeing the Fire Bureau send hook and ladder trucks to medical emergencies. That's not exactly the fastest way to respond, but it does eat up a lot of money over the course of a year.
M.

These folks may be on the right track.

The neighborhoods do need a New DEAL.

It amazes me that Richmond Neighborhood which has the same occupancy stats headcount wise as the new SoWa has been waiting for modest funding thier park since 1991, while faithfully paying there taxes, that go to the general fund, and the best I can figure their share of Parks funding is about 10x what they receive in thier one existing park.

A similar situation exists in East County with the Storm Water runnoff Sewer system, where those folks pay but they don't use the service. All those folks had to sign up for leins on thier property and the EZ payment plan to pay for their sewer hookups. Can the same be said for SoWa and The condo construction that caused the collapse of the Sewer on Burnside a few months ago.

http://www.portlandtribune.com/archview.cgi?id=34426

I knew Sumner Sharpe, too,though not well, when I went through the MUP program at PSU in the early 80s. I thought very highly of him; he did his best to help students; when I was job hunting and asked him for ideas , he wrote me a long letter full of good ideas on how to proceed. He's very bright and in those days was neigborhood oriented. I get the impression he doesn't like to stir things up, though. But that he will listen to people who do.

Miles noted: Regarding union vs. management, the lowest paid unionized City employee I could find (Maintenance Worker) makes about $20,700 a year at entry-level. [There are lower paid staff, but most are in part-time or seasonal positions.] I remember reading that the highest paid City employee (I think it's usually the CAO or the Police Chief) makes about $150,000 a year. That's 7.25 times the bottom, which is much, much less than the difference in the private sector. The City has very few six-figure employees, and they are all heads of bureaus or large divisions.

Okay... That's good to hear. At the public institution I work for here in Portland, the CEO makes 15 times what I do, and I'm far from being the lowest paid employee here. I'd guess that our CEO is making in the range of 30 times what an entry-level maintenance worker does. Of course, if we're talking "custodial" staff here, my employer outsourced all that to a private non-profit that employs the disabled....at who knows what suppressed wages. The result of this management decision is that the work is now done at a much more "slap-dash" efficiency and at much less frequency (the trash can under my desk gets emptied once a month, so the staff has taken to dumping their desk trash recepticles into the larger public recepticles. Net result: Crappier service. And that's just one stinkin' instance.

Oh... On my way to work yesterday, the bus had to skirt around a project in the street. As we passed, I noted that one man was seven feet down in a hole in the street, while two others stood around talking to the flagwoman....the logo on the side of the work vehicle: NW Natural.

You better get on their ass, ricky.