On a dry 98-degree day in Portland, some folks are expressing their opinions about the city’s secretly negotiated deal to allow PGE to mow down trees and run new transmission lines through Forest Park, a project that has previously been rejected 12 to 0 by the City Council.
The NW Examiner has the lowdown here, and it’s a salvo of flying brickbats for Portland city administrator Raymond Lee, who signed the agreement, apparently on his own initiative, on behalf of the city. Lee isn’t returning the Examiner‘s phone calls, and has left it to yet another one of his flacks, Chenoa Philabaum, to answer the questions and criticisms.
Here are a few highlights from the Examiner story, but the whole thing is well worth a read.
“Neither members of the council nor the mayor were decision-makers or signatories to the settlement agreement,” Philabaum wrote. “That agreement was made between the city’s executive branch and PGE.”…
“We have a carpet-bagging city administrator who is wasting no time in leaving his mark,” Paul Douglas wrote. “I thought the city administrator worked under the mayor under our new, so-called charter reform. Is the mayor culpable for allowing his underling to set policy like this?”…
“The city and the conservation advocates agreed to enter into mediation with PGE to attempt to agree on an alternative to PGE’s proposal,” according to a Bird Alliance of Oregon newsletter. “After four months of mediation, city leadership entered into bilateral negotiations with PGE, cutting out the conservation partners from the negotiation.”
I love where Philabaum talks about the “executive branch.” It’s like when Raymond identifies himself as “City administrative leadership.” What a bag of hot air.
At some point, the mayor, Keith Wilson, needs to step up and face the music on Forest Park. Lee is his pick to represent us in this fiasco, and several others. We didn’t get to vote for Raymond, and certainly wouldn’t have. Grandpa Keith, you need to pick up when the Examiner calls.