A recent survey commissioned by Oregon Values & Beliefs Center found that fewer than a third of Portland voters said they feel represented by anyone on the 12-member City Council and only slightly more said they trusted the body.
I don’t think you can talk Portlanders into trusting the City Council. And it is difficult to feel represented by a Council that doesn’t have a collective vision for Portland. Being a councilor is about potholes and water bills. The question is: in service of what? People should be able to see the trajectory we are proposing for the whole city, not just government as a collection of disconnected votes and siloed programs. A unified vision defines the trajectory we want for Portland, strategy connects decisions to it, and then the execution of that strategy is how the Council earns Portland’s trust. I want Portland to become known as the most ambitious city in America, and that requires vision, and that vision can be, should be, clearly defined in a new Portland Strategic Plan.
The new Council behaves too often like they are either twelve individual offices reacting to one issue at a time, or two cabals with no sense of a larger vision, or proposed trajectory, for the city. I would require a citywide strategic plan before the next budget and would keep asking how each decision affects the whole beast. The City Council should originate ambitious ideas instead of primarily reviewing or reacting to proposals and problems delivered to it. Ideas run aground when the deciding factor is always dollars, or short-term reaction. The necessary capacity for ambitious ideas often does not exist when commitments are made (Apollo 11, rural electrification, even Pioneer Courthouse Square). The commitment to a vision caused the capacity to be assembled. Vision, conviction and a maniacal focus on execution should define the culture.
