From: ellmyer@macsolve.com
Subject: Such and Giard - Tom's Troops or Vera's Leftovers?
Date: January 31, 2005 3:46:57 PM PST
To: jfolsom@ci.portland.or.us
Cc: erik@ci.portland.or.us, mazziottid@pdc.us, bferran@windermere.com, sugerbs@teleport.com, sgiard@equitygroup.com, mhennessee@quiktrak.com, lkaeser@easystreet.com, samadamspdx@comcast.net, board@hapdx.org, jimpatmc@msn.com, joewykowski@cs.com, dblomgre@prestongates.com, roserriar@portlandhousingcenter.org, sstoltenberg@portlandimpact.org, chrislassen@verizon.net, rleonard@ci.portland.or.us, terri_silvis@hotmail.com, tony@hdc1.org, john@hostdevelopment.com, catherine.such@pnc.com, tpotter@ci.portland.or.us, mazziottid@pdc.us, billv@noah-housing.org, kmontgomerysmith@portlandalliance.com, rogernmeyer@earthlink.net, dsaltzman@ci.portland.or.us, ollouis@msn.com

Hi Jamall:
You are the staff person choosen by Mayor Potter to have liaison responsibility for all aspects of public housing policy. Therefore, you are the primary contact to receive this communication. While I have made it clear to you that I support our new mayor and want him to succeed that does not mean I intend to allow him to neglect his statutory responsibility to oversee the twenty-nine public housing commissioners that serve at his pleasure.

Catherine Such and Shar Giard are now Tom Potter's appointees. So the question arises, will either or both of these public housing commissioners fail the standards set by statute, "neglect of duty, inefficiency etc." or by whatever standards Mayor Tom Potter has personally set ("homophobe?, pedophile?, child rapist?" [see public testimony 1-26-05]) to continue in office? Since the mayor has the power to dismiss any housing commissioner at will, it can be logically and reasonably assumed that whatever actions any of these 29 public housing commissioners take it meets with the approval of the mayor. Otherwise, he has the power to stop it. You have a very big job keeping track of what all twenty-nine public housing commissioners are doing so that you can make sure your boss is immediately informed if any of them veer off Tom's behavioral public housing policy track.

We shall revisit this question in early May 2005. At that time each of these public officials will have had more than three months in office. At that time, Mayor Tom Potter will have spent four months overseeing all twenty-nine of his public housing commissioners at HAP, PDC and HCDC as they make public housing policy and spend about $67,000,000, as of that date on his watch, of taxpayers money on public housing in Multnomah county.

Here are the questions to be asked at the beginning of May:

1. What evidence do you have that demonstrates your specific request to have HAP provide you with an email address, such as CatherineS@hapdx.org or SharG@hapdx.org, which would allow citizens to contact you directly, similar to email addresses established for members of the Portland School Board, without the current unnecessary and unjustified staff filter? Do you wish to make any argument supporting the proposition that individual HAP commissioners are under NO obligation, as understood in the last phrase of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America which guarantees the right of citizens to "petition the government for redress of grievances" or any other government order for citizen access or any direct instruction from Mayor Tom Potter, to accept communications from citizens?

2. What evidence do you have that demonstrates your support for the gathering of public housing data by neighborhood at HAP, HCDC and PDC?

3. What evidence do you have that demonstrates your support for a public discussion of the 3-6-9 Public Housing Resolution?

4. What evidence do you have that demonstrates your support for a series of quarterly meetings of all twenty-nine public housing commissioners from HAP, PDC and HCDC for the purpose of hearing the mayor's public housing policy goals and providing him with valuable feedback on housing commissioners' perspectives, which would help assure that all three organizations with the statutory authority to spend $200,000,000 per year would be moving in the same direction?

5. What evidence do you have that demonstrates your support for regionalizing public housing policy by transferring policy making and operational control to Metro?

Mayor Potter has spoken to me directly about the importance of citizen access to public officials, the fundamental requirement to gather public housing data by neighborhood, the necessity of revisiting public housing policy once adequate neighborhood public housing data was available, the usefulness of regular meetings with all the public housing commissioners and the self-evident justification for regionalizing public housing policy and operations.

Let's find out how well Mayor Potter's appointees Such and Giard as well as the remaining twenty-seven public housing commissioners that serve at his pleasure can provide evidence of an understanding of their individual roles as public servants accountable to the mayor of Portland, Tom Potter.

See you in May. Best of luck.


Richard Ellmyer
Portsmouth - the 18% neighborhood solution, North Portland
http://www.goodgrowthnw.org