Voters will have the opportunity to decide whether the city will have more control over the Portland Development Commission in the May 15 special elections.
If passed, Measure 26-92 would give the City Council control over the Portland Development Commission (PDC) budget, authorize the mayor to appoint and remove PDC commissioners, and subject the commission to financial audits and performance reviews by the city auditor.
Created by Portland voters in 1958, the Portland Development Commission is a state-authorized redevelopment and finance program that uses urban renewal to “focus attention and resources in blighted or underused areas to stimulate private investment and improve neighborhood livability.”
The PDC’s annual budget is around $250 million. On its website, the agency states that its main goal is “to use public funds to stimulate private sector investment, job creation and expansion of the tax base.”
City Commissioner Erik Sten addressed the issue in a recent City Club of Portland public forum, saying that while the PDC has accomplished a great number of projects, it is “an agency that is neither as connected nor as accountable as it should be.”
The PDC’s budget, he said, “is more than police and fire combined, and one-eighth of the city is now in urban renewal districts with more being discussed all the time.”
The path to “a better PDC,” Sten said, “starts with values and conditions for success.” He said that the “PDC must constantly remind itself that it exists to help create a better city for everyone. PDC works when it follows the community’s plans instead of creating its own…when it works collaboratively with the City Council.”
Measure 26-92 addresses the issue of collaboration between the City Council and the PDC, specifically on issues concerning the budget. According to Kyle Chisek, a representative from the mayor’s office, many City Council members feel that this measure would help “facilitate the relationship between the PDC and the City Council.” He added that “it would clear up gray areas about who does what and put a stop to the meddling that is going on now.”
Mark Rosenbaum, chairman for the PDC, said he feels that the passing of 26-92 would take away the independence of the PDC that makes it effective and make the agency vulnerable. “The measure itself is a whole shift in the budget that was set up 50 years ago to give PDC quasi-independence separate from political influence.”
Rosenbaum said that the current structure of the PDC is comprised of a diverse group of volunteers from broad business and ethnic backgrounds that “doesn’t support any particular constituencies.”
It is the experience, diversity, and somewhat autonomous nature of the PDC, he said, that makes it valuable.
“Right now you have a checks-and-balance system, but all of a sudden the volunteer process is being undermined.”