March 05, 2004

(Updated) From Communication To Conversation?

Council Open To Considering Public Dialogue Sessions

Note: This post has been updated. Any and all updates appear at the end of the original post.

During recent weeks, two different parties have expressed frustration with the lack of conversation and debate at City Council sessions.

On one side, from the above-linked "City Matters" column, we have Commissioner Randy Leonard (likely here referring to intra-Council discussion):

FEELING STIFLED: The council member who brought the "time, place and manner" ordinance, Commissioner Randy Leonard, says there are parts of his previous decade-long career in the Legislature that he misses, as he runs for re-election to a second council term.

Leonard, never shy about voicing his opinions, wants more "healthy" discussions of issues coming before the council. "In the Legislature, you have this fairly Socratic forum where you debate ideas," Leonard says. "It doesn't exist here and I miss that. I enjoyed that debate, and here it's almost like debate is stifled."

And on the other side, from the same column, we have Portlanders who regularly appear before Council:

NEVER STIFLED: Todd Kurylowicz and Glenn Warren, two organizers of the protest "peace camp" that arose across City Hall for five months last year, have again become regular visitors inside the building.

Showing videos of how Portland police treated protesters during White House visits and denouncing Katz's oversight of the Police Bureau, both men use their three minutes at the start of council meetings to voice their views and promise more political demonstrations. The council rarely responds to citizens' comments during that weekly communications period. And that often leads to less-than-Socratic monologues in which Kurylowicz and Warren demand responses from a mute council. Warren says, "This is not something that can be resolved in a couple of meetings."

Kurylowicz brought this up again during the Communications to Council portion of another recent agenda. And after Leonard took the bait and had a brief back-and-forth with Kurylowicz, Mayor Vera Katz jumped in to defend the Communications process.

Katz credited the City Council for making the decision to include Communications at all, and further for placing them at the start of Council business on Wednesdays rather than leaving them at the end.

"We weren't going to have conversations," Katz said, "otherwise we'd be extending this for another hour."

Just what is the background of the Communications portion of the City Council's agenda? Council Clerk Karla Moore-Love provided the following helpful history lesson via email:

After doing a bit of research of [Portland City Code] 3.02.030 and 3.02.040, in 1990 an amendment placed communications on the consent agenda and assigned the request to the Commissioner in charge of the issue. Remember consent items are not read individually.

Then in 1997 an amendment put in the 3 minute request on the regular agenda at the end of the Wednesday morning session.

Sometimes the people testifying would wait for hours to be heard, so in 2003 Code was amended to move communications up to the first item on the agenda, 3 minutes each and only allow for 5 people.

Nowhere does it state Council will respond or will not respond. As the Mayor stated if they got into a discussion with all communications we could be there for quite a while.

For the sake of reference, the City Code to which she refers is Chapter 3.02 on Council Organization and Procedure.

Given the frustrations expressed on both sides of the City Council chamber, we got to thinking. What about the possibility of an additional regular Council session -- even if only one or two hours each month -- expressly for what might be termed Conversations with Council?

So we asked.

"Your suggestion has the real potential to turn into a bizarre exchange if there were not some tight rules implemented on how a more free flowing exchange were conducted," said Commissioner Leonard. "Having said that, I would support trying it for a while to see how it works. There are definitely times when I would like to respond to erroneous assumptions or comments."

"The Mayor's initial reaction was that this is an idea worth pursuing," said Scott Farris, the Mayor's chief of staff. "She suggests you canvas the other Council members to see what their reaction would be."

"I've never really had a hard time getting into dialogue with citizens," said Commissioner Erik Sten. "That being said, why not try it."

Although we've been working on this item for some time, we've yet to receive any response from the offices of Commissioner Jim Francesconi and Commissioner Dan Saltzman. Nonetheless, as evidenced above, a majority of the City Council is open to exploring the idea.

There are concerns, of course, over too few people monopolizing these conversations. But what we envision here is a process much like that currently in place for Communications to Council, wherein those interested in participating would be required to sign up in advance for one of the available slots.

Each slot obviously would have to be longer than the 3 minutes currently allotted to Communications, to allow for a conversation to ensue, but likely would not have to be longer than 10 or 15 minutes. If the former, that would mean each Conversations with Council session (which, for the sake of argument, let's set at two hours) would accomodate 12 people.

Those interested in urging the City Council to pursue such a Conversations with Council session should contact members' offices and express their support.

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