December 16, 2003
Mayoral Reassignment Of Bureaus Confirmed For Early Next Year
Returning to something previously reported (although that won't be a link to the item in question until we're back on the normal server), today's Portland Tribune confirms that Mayor Katz will be reshuffling bureau assignments amongst the members of the City Council:
Mayor Vera Katz is planning on shuffling bureaus around to different city commissioners in the next month or so. The mayor periodically redistributes the bureaus in the middle of the year but will do so earlier so it won't be "disruptive," she said. She also said switching sooner rather than later will give the commissioners a full year to supervise their new bureaus before a new mayor is hired.
At the same time, the Mayor denies that the move is somehow punitive:
She said the commissioners are aware the changes will happen, but she has "never used this as punishment" for them to do specific things within their bureaus, lest they lose them. The mayor said she assigns bureaus to fit the strengths of each commissioner.
While I'm not quite sure I entirely believe this denial, it occurs to me that the Mayor's authority to assign bureaus to Council members is a power that could easily be exercised -- or threatened -- as part of Tom Potter's vision of trying to ensure bureau activities and budgets properly match some sort of citywide strategic plan.