A Second Opinion - Not Nine Months But An Hour 6/9/05

Below is an email sent today to mayor Tom Potter from a reliable source, a citizen of Multnomah county who voted for and supported Tom Potter who is skilled at both computer technology and matters political. 

Hi Tom,
    I am rather confused as to why it should take so long to produce the information.  Does HAP have a client list in a computer database with addresses?  Does HAP have someone on staff who works with GIS mapping software?  If these two things are true, then it is not very difficult to geocode the addresses onto a GIS layer and assign the neighborhood name by location.  A statistical summary of the data showing numbers by neighborhood can then be generated.
    I have done this myself with other data (geocoding 400,000 records and assigning them to 1500 geographic areas within Multnomah County) and it took me less than a day to complete (including time to make many corrections for addresses that did not properly geocode).  The GIS layer of neighborhood boundaries is readily available from Metro in the RLIS data, or I'm sure the city must have it in the Office of Neighborhood Involvement and for use at portlandmaps.com.  My guess would be that HAP probably already has the neighborhood boundaries layer in their GIS system.
    If for some reason HAP does not have anyone on staff capable of geocoding addresses (which I find highly unlikely) the data could be sent over to the Portland City staff who operate portlandmaps.com to have them complete it.  They are very skilled, and I would not be surprised if they could complete the entire task in under an hour.  In fact, if someone was to send me a file containing just the addresses, I know I could run the geocode on my own computer, assign neighborhood by location, and compile a statistical report of counts by neighborhood within a very short time (certainly not several months).
    Sorry Tom, but there must be some reason other than technical capability that is delaying HAP's ability to provide this data.
 
Tom Potter Supporter


Imagine that the owner of the business at which you work told a subordinate to do the equivalent task HAP's Chair, appointed commissioner Kandis Nunn, was given by her boss, mayor Potter, and was told by that subordinate employee that it would take nine months to accomplish. Some time later your boss, like Potter, is told by two of his supporters who are computer professionals that this assignment shouldn't take more than an hour or maybe a day but most certainly not nine months. Exactly how long would the employee that tried to con your boss  and make him look like a fool continue to be employed in your shop?

So the question arises, why is Kandis Nunn still on the HAP board? You got any ideas I'd love to hear them. (Besides the fact that she's very rich and connected to the Schnitzers.) Is anybody now curious about how well HAP maintains or doesn't maintain its client database? Could HAP's record keeping be so abysmal that it can't geocode addresses because its computer records are in shambles? If it's not gross incompetence or a coverup of something HAP doesn't want the public to know then what the hell are these people up to? And is Tom Potter smart enough to find out?


Richard Ellmyer
President, MacSolutions Inc. - A Macintosh computer consulting business providing web hosting for artists and very small businesses.
Writer/Publisher - HAP Watcher commentary* - Published on the Internet* and distributed to 3500 readers interested in public housing policy in Multnomah County.
Portsmouth - formerly the 18%, currently the 6% solution neighborhood, North Portland
* http://www.goodgrowthnw.org

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