Mayor Potter Reforms City Hall
At Portland City Hall, Mayor Tom Potter has assigned the bureaus and redesigned how business gets done there. From his announcement:
Removed from the daily burdens of individual portfolios, the City Council has built the trust and understanding needed to build a City budget that looks beyond the desires of individual bureaus to address the larger concerns of the entire community. We have been successful at inviting the public into the public’s business, and found a common ground that will allow us to successfully undertake the deeper discussions about Portland’s future not just next year, but five, 10 or 30 years from now. ...I have decided to take the City’s four infrastructure bureaus – Water, Environmental Services, Transportation and Parks - and bring their strategic, long-range planning and capital spending needs under the guidance of the entire City Council rather than the individual Commissioner-in-Charge as has been the practice in the past.
This means that while individual Commissioners will be responsible for the daily operational and administrative functions of these bureaus, the entire Council will work collaboratively to shape a vision and strategy for the long-term health of these critical City functions. Portland’s infrastructure – its water and sewer pipes, the parks where our kids play and the streets we all depend on – is the foundation of our city’s business environment and its livability. Each is an irreplaceable asset, and each faces enormous challenges in the near future. Those challenges are best met by a unified Council, working together strategically for all Portland. ...Finally, in order for the City to successfully complete the challenging tasks ahead, I have agreed to accept the resignations of the bureau directors of Water, Transportation and Emergency Management. I have also had discussions with the director of the Bureau of Environmental Services about my vision for the direction of that bureau - and the need for change.
Discuss.
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June 22, 2005
Posted in in the news 2005. |
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Jun 22, '05
tom potter does not know what he is doing. it's laughable for him to write in his statement today that his 4 lofty goals for "breaking down silos" and "encouraging collaboration," and "promoting diversity" etc., are going to be met now, partly as a result of FIRING 3 people for no tangible reason, in the service of a strategy that he has never even described. This is all symbolic. Potter gets to look--at least to a superficial, entertainment-oriented media-- like the Big Dude who "kicks bureaucratic ass."
10:24 p.m.
Jun 22, '05
More about the strategy Potter's "never described".
Jun 23, '05
Well done B!x!
Teyuna if Potter was a head of a corporation wouldn't he be allowed to form the team he wants to work with? It wouldn't be an issue. You don't have a clue about the inner workers of city hall at this point. Give the guy a chance.
Jun 23, '05
What "strategy?" I cannot read past or through such meaningless drivel as "To make every customer our most important customer."
Good grief.
What does "most important" mean when everyone is most important? Hint: NOTHING.
Will people ever stop dumbing themselves and their language irretrievably down?
Jun 23, '05
Ever read a Corporate mission statement? People said they want Government to be run like a business, well Better BS is the first step in the process.
10:47 a.m.
Jun 23, '05
Are people just reading the intro statement on that page, or are they bothering to read down into the pdfs that outline the Bureau Innovation Project's recommendations, and show the current status of about half of the implementation teams?
Jun 23, '05
I for one am glad that Parks and Community Gardens issues will no longer be railroaded by a single councilor. Francesconi was so worried about pissing off dog owners, before his run for mayor, that he let that debacle with the dog poisings and the chaos over the off-leash areas develop. Either that or he was just the consummate mossback. He was told for two years that if he didn't do something to encourage dog owners to show some basic respect/follow the rules that a train wreck was coming, but it took him 18 months to appoint a new Parks director and they never enforced existing policy. They have their own private police that citizens couldn't contact directly. The waste is staggering, especially considering most of their real work is done by volunteers (Community Gardens mainly). The only time something got done- like the off-leash areas- was when the issue can before the full council. Voters passed a bond issue a few years back and the Reed Garden got two picknick tables that were left to weather. I have to believe that there are a lot of other areas that languish under the thumb of a single councilor and this move can only help.
1:48 a.m.
Jun 24, '05
Don't forget that Emergency Services was being run like a gulag by its director, who then cited every excuse in the book for her abusive behavior toward employees. Back when Auntie Vera was winning her last term, that was a huge issue. And that's the last city service you want to have disgruntled employees. If the new director can avoid screaming down the employees, Potter's got himself a winner.
That Mayor Potter found a way to remove that infection from the City of Portland already speaks volumes.
And now that Francesconi is no longer in charge of Parks all by himself, perhaps RedTail Golf Course can quit dumping cadmium, arsenic and lead into the Fanno Creek watershed.
Perhaps the city's water billing system won't cough up a huge hairball.
Down here in the suburban hinterlands, we haven't heard anything about police brutality at demonstrations since Mayor Potter took over. Not even at PSU when people commit voting rights atrocities in the Park Blocks. Of course, it's not election time yet, and if you don't want Tre Arrow to get tased, you can't want "Ben Dover" to get tased, either. But you gotta take the good with the bad, y'know?