Mayor Katz:
This is a formal request to remove from public office the following Housing Authority of Portland commissioners:
Jeff Bachrach, Harriet Cormack, Richard Fernandez , Shar Giard, Chris Lassen, Lee Moore, Kandis Brewer Nunn, Howard Shapiro, Antoinette Teixeira.

Public officials must be accountable to the public for their acts. The public officials mentioned above have failed to account to the public for how the $90,000,000 in taxpayer funds they will spend in FY 2004 supports the public policy goal of distribution of public housing clients throughout the jurisdiction not concentrating HAP clients in a few select neighborhoods. In fact, the evidence shows that 10% of the 117 neighborhoods in Multnomah county house 26% of HAP clients which directly contravenes the distribution versus concentration in select neighborhoods policy.

All of the current HAP commissioners behave as though they had volunteered for the same high school reunion refreshment committee not an official public appointment to a quasi-government agency that has the statutory authority to spend $90,000,000 of taxpayer's money. Although appointed as individuals, all of the current HAP board have taken on the Star Trek quality of the Borg. The personal pronoun "I" is always replaced by "we." This collective identity is alien to the democratic process as practiced in the state of Oregon on planet earth.

These persons were appointed to the HAP board as individuals not as a team or collective. As on the elected Portland City Council, the elected Multnomah County Commission and the elected Gresham City Council each appointed official on the HAP board is also individually responsible for his or her actions. Apparently the Consent Calendar approach to appointment has left all of these HAP appointees with the mistaken impression that they are accountable to no one and have no responsibility to express their positions publicly on basic public housing policy. This is not acceptable behavior. All of this current board should be removed from office immediately.

Other failures and causes for removal:
1. They supported unprecedented censorship of citizen access to and direct responses from HAP board members.

2. They continue to refuse neighborhood map based accounting of HAP clients in favor of an indefensible zip code plan.

3. They failed to stop HAP's illegal behavior of lengthy and numerous zoning code violations at Columbia Villa which included at least one official citation that they ignored.

4. They sanctioned the sending of HAP staff to the Planning Commission to establish ten acres of seventy at Columbia Villa with business zoning. They exercised no oversight on a staff that had no idea where the ten acres would go nor did these HAP commissioners care that establishing a ten acre business zone at Columbia Villa would be antagonistic to the interests of Kenton, St. John's/ Lombard plans and business districts. The Planning Commission came close to laughing HAP staff out of the room for professional incompetence, unpreparedness and an outrageous proposal. Any private developer making such a pitch would have been cut off and "thrown out of the building" for wasting the Commission's time.

5. They approved the falsification of the HOPE VI grant submitted to HUD by listing a financial commitment by Multnomah County of $3,758,500 for a branch library to be sited at Columbia Villa which was never budgeted nor sanctioned by the Multnomah county commission and opposed by the local library citizens committee that spent years working on the issue.

6. They mislead the public by approving the publishing in HAP's newsletter and in the official Hope VI grant revision of December 20, 2002, a set aside of 4 acres and a rudimentary proposal for a new elementary school at Columbia Villa at HAP's initiative without commitment or funding from the Portland Public Schools.

7. They suppressed from the HOPE VI proposal submitted to HUD a letter dated June 9, 2001 from the North Portland Business Association which refused to endorse the Housing Authority of Portland's Hope VI plan.

8. They approved deceitful tactics (mentioned in the NPBA letter) to unnaturally extend the Interstate Light Rail Corridor Urban Renewal District about three miles west of Interstate Avenue in order to HAP claim that Columbia Villa was within an Urban Renewal District so that it would get extra points at HUD not money from the ILRCURD. Of course, the minute HAP won its designation it reneged on its promise and asked for "a money allotment for street improvements." Then a bit later HAP came back a second time "asking for money for infrastructure improvements."

9. They failed to secure free methane from the Columbia Boulevard Wastewater Treatment Plant which could have been used for generating electric power, heat, hot water or steam across the street at Columbia Villa.

10. They failed to secure free recycled water from the Columbia Boulevard Wastewater Treatment Plant which could have been used on vegetation across the street at Columbia Villa.

11. They failed to investigate utility sharing options such as those used by motels, hotels and large buildings which could have been used in planning the Columbia Villa remodel.

12. They failed to have not a single one of the hundreds of structures to be built at Columbia Villa evaluated for ecological and environmental soundness by The United States Green Building Council, PGE or other third parties.

13. They failed to justify building the highest concentration, 230 units, of "chubby" houses (HAP made 50'x50' "chubby" lots instead of 25'x100' so they couldn't be accused of building "skinny" houses) in Multnomah county.

14. They failed to take responsibility for setting the price of for sale homes in the $140,000 to $175,000 at Columbia Villa when the Portland Planning Commission, the Portland Planning Bureau and the St. Johns/Lombard plan have identified the need to increase buying power in the Portsmouth neighborhood which would be accomplished by selling homes in the $200,000 to $250,000 range not the anti-business, anti-neighborhood, artificially low figures they supported.

15. They failed to address the overloading issue in the Portsmouth neighborhood which has the highest number of HAP clients of all 117 neighborhoods in HAP's jurisdiction, Multnomah county, and will maintain or increase those numbers when the Columbia Villa remodel is completed.

The Oregonian recently set public accountability as the highest standard by which to judge public officials. Years of service and a myriad of good deeds are trumped by one major decision to avoid being accountable to the public. In the case of four Multnomah County Commissioners is was the failure to be accountable for public process which lead to an unaccountable public policy. In the case of HAP commissioners, they failed to be accountable by refusing to show that HAP's public spending of $90,000,000 was in concert with the established or presumed policy of distribution not concentration of public housing clients into a few select neighborhoods. 26% of HAP's clients are housed in only 10% of Multnomah County's 117 neighborhoods. This is clearly a concentration of HAP clients in a few select neighborhoods. Refusing to acknowledge this fact and practice is a coverup and must not be allowed to continue.

The evidence for removal is so overwhelming and compelling that the HAP commissioners named above should be dismissed from their appointments as soon as possible by a council resolution placed on the Consent Calendar, which was the method used to appoint them.

The city of Portland already has a public housing policy which supports distribution not concentration of its low-income housing clients. The federal government supports distribution not concentration of low-income housing clients. Academic research supports distribution not concentration of low-income housing clients. Matt Hennessee, Chairperson of the Portland Development Commission, has suggested a cap on the number of low-income clients per neighborhood. Given the overwhelming evidence and support in favor of distribution not concentration of its low-income housing clients a new, more specific public housing policy needs to be established for both the city of Portland and the Housing Authority of Portland. A policy with goals that can easily be measured and observed by the general public to assure that public fund expenditures are spent in support of the public policy goals not against them. This can readily be accomplished by neighborhood map based accounting.

Before appointing new HAP commissioners the Portland City Council should immediately adopt a public housing policy goal for all of Multnomah county's 117 neighborhoods that establishes SIX PERCENT of the total population of any and every neighborhood to include public housing clients with no neighborhood having fewer than THREE PERCENT and no neighborhood having more than NINE PERCENT of public housing clients.

No candidate for a HAP appointment should be considered who does not agree to support the 3-6-9 goal.

Candidates for appointment should be restricted to citizens living in neighborhoods with the nine highest concentrations of HAP clients:
1. Portsmouth
2. Northwest District
3. Centennial
4. Lents
5. Powellhurst-Gilbert
6. Hazelwood
7. Sellwood-Moreland
8. Cully
9. Richmond

Ample advanced public notice must precede a full hearing on every appointment.

Serious consideration should be given to disbanding the Housing Authority of Portland and transferring funding and responsibility for public housing to elected officials at our Metro regional government. Metro Councilor Rex Burkholder and the Coalition For A Livable Future could form the basis for a discussion group and a constituency for political action.

The Oregonian has recently set the example for wholesale repudiation and removal of government officials unwilling to be accountable to the public. The current HAP board fits the profile and should be removed.