In an email dated September 17th*, HAP Chair, Howard Shapiro, announced a new HAP policy that will prohibit certain citizens from communicating directly with the Housing Authority of Portland's government appointed Board of Directors. These "chosen" ones must funnel all their messages intended for the HAP board through Howard Shapiro. Shapiro says his unelected board members:

Nicholas Fish, Occupation: Attorney
Kandis Brewer Nunn, Occupation: Director of Special Projects
Jeff Bachrach, Occupation: Attorney
Richard Fernández, Occupation: Affordable Housing Developer
Shar Giard, Occupation: Realtor
Chris Lassen, Occupation: Consultant
Lee Moore, Occupation: Director
Antoinette Teixeira, Occupation: Unknown

support these special segregationist censorship arrangements. It was not clear if Shapiro's censoring activities would include opening US mail addressed to board members labeled "personal", confiscating emails or US mail sent to HAP board members' places of employment or their homes OR whether Howard would be seeking additional "HAP patriot" legislation and support from Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Shapiro significantly raised the anti by choosing to openly send his pronouncements to elected officials.** All of these recipients are now in the uncomfortable dilemma of being challenged to take a public position with regard to the two policies in Shapiro's email:
A. Restrict messages sent to HAP board members by certain select citizens. [Howard Shapiro will first pass judgement, presumably on the "worthiness" rather than difficulty of the message, and then pass along those parts he deems fair and balanced.]
B. Restrict information regarding HAP's client locations by zip codes rather than by neighborhoods because, Shapiro says, "we don’t have a need for the data." [Apparently neither Howard nor anyone on his board ever considered that there might be lots of other institutions e.g Portland Planning Commission, Portland Development Commission, the Gresham city council, Portland NAACP, Coalition for a Livable Future, Urban League, Alternatives to Growth Oregon, every neighborhood association in Multnomah county, students and teachers of sociology and political science throughout Oregon, the odd inquisitive print journalist and everyone who believes in distribution not concentration of low-income clients that DO have a need for such data. Besides HAP, the only other easily identifiable community with "no need for this data" is local TV news. But they have "no need" of HAP's zip codes either.]

**Gresham mayor, Charles Becker
Multnomah County Chair, Diane Linn
Portland City Commissioner, Dan Saltzman
Portland City Commissioner, Erik Sten
Portland City Commissioner, Jim Francesconi
Portland City Commissioner, Dan Saltzman
Portland mayor, Vera Katz
Portland City Commissioner, Randy Leonard
Multnomah County Commissioner, Serena Cruz
Congressman Earl Blumenauer
Metro Chair, David Bragdon
Metro Councilor, Rex Burkholder
Portland Development Chair, Matt Hennessee
Governor Ted Kulongoski
State Representative Gary Hansen
State Senator Margaret Carter

Howard Shapiro has thrown down the gauntlet before these elected officials and the Boards and Commissions in the cities of Portland and Gresham, Multnomah County and, indeed, the entire state of Oregon. He has "bravely" challenged all of these people to subscribe and support his view of the democratic process. It is long past the time for all of these folks to pay attention to HAP's behavior. Thank you Howard.

I say Howard Shapiro and his HAP board are dead wrong on both policy issues.

Appointed public officials that serve on Boards and Commissions especially those that spend millions of tax dollars cannot be allowed to hide from the public. All citizens must have not only reasonable access but equal access to these public servants. "Special" restrictive categories of access may not be created just for those citizens that successfully expose the inadequacies, foolishness or fraud of a public organization.

Members of the Portland Planning Commission, the Portland Development Commission and neighborhood leaders throughout Multnomah County recognize the political usefulness of HAP client location data based on neighborhoods not zip codes.

It's time to vote. Those elected officials who received a copy of Howard Shapiro's policy proclamations (see above) have been challenged, by Howard Shapiro. I know there are thousands of interested parties who will be awaiting comments from all of you on these matters. I promise to make sure that HAP watchers will hear what you folks have or don't have to say. My email address is always accessible. Email away.

* http://www.goodgrowthnw.org/shapirocensor.html

Richard Ellmyer, "Special" status citizen
North Portland
http://www.goodgrowthnw.org