No public official is more responsible for violating our public housing policy of distribution NOT concentration of public housing clients into a few select neighborhoods in Multnomah County and taking extraordinary and long term efforts to cover up the data that would reveal his fingerprints then Erik Sten.

Tom Potter, who came into the mayor's office knowing nothing about the politics nor the policies involved with public housing, had a very big IOU out to Sten who supported Potter for mayor instead of his council colleague, Jim Francesconi. Potter's debt to Sten was so large that to pay it off Potter was forced to make a public fool of himself. On January 26, 2005, during a city council meeting, in front of HAP's chair and two other board members Potter announced that he had asked HAP if it could provide public housing data by neighborhood. The answer was yes. He then declared that he would send a letter to HAP asking for that data. Sten stopped that letter and has forced Potter to hide out and avoid all talk of releasing neighborhood data until as least after the May primary.

Erik Sten raged about not getting authentic, accurate, complete and timely information about PGE and the Tram project yet when his opponent, state senator Ginny Burdick, asked for the same kind of information from HAP, Sten had Potter shut off the data pipeline.

Erik Sten mismanaged the Water Bureau costing rate payers millions. Erik Sten continues to coverup his culpability for the effects on neighborhoods and schools of concentrating and overloading a select few neighborhoods with public housing clients. Erik Sten stands out as a public hypocrite, righteously demanding public data when it suits his purposes while at the same time surreptitiously concealing public data when it might harm him.

Erik Sten is now in the awkward position of "managing" the Bureau of Housing and Community Development, whose advisory board has recently adopted the Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing report. That document calls for HCDC to review a location policy embedded in the 3-6-9 Resolution (which Sten has, quite naturally, opposed for years) with the city of Portland, the city of Gresham and Multnomah county. In order to discuss and debate this issue it is absolutely necessary to have public housing data by neighborhood. It's a good bet that Sten will do whatever he can to prevent the bureau he controls, BHCD, and through pressure on Potter, the HCDC, from letting the 3-6-9 Resolution ever raise to the top of the agenda.

Finally, Erik Sten has abandoned any claim to the terms, "liberal Democrat" or "progressive Democrat." Sten has become just another professional establishment politician whose personal ambition does not allow him to recognize that our city and our state are in a moral and economic health care crisis that must be addressed by our state government. He ignores the solution to the $25,000,000 INCREASE in health care costs which will occur during the next elected city commissioner's term. The remedy is the Oregon Community Health Care Bill which would not only stop the increases but actually reduce the city's health care costs by 20%. Sten, who has never been without generous publicly paid for health care, offers no solutions. 

Ginny Burdick, like Tom Potter, got into a city council race knowing virtually nothing about the politics and policies of public housing. To her credit, Ginny Burdick recognized that you can't make good public policy without good public data. She asked for public housing data by neighborhood. Sten's protector, Tom Potter, made sure she didn't get it. Surprisingly, Burdick, a sitting state senator, shrugged off the insult to her and her constituents and simply gave up. Try to imagine Kate Brown or Karen Minnis being told they couldn't have public information during a campaign or anytime for that matter. Tom Potter and the city's lobbyist wouldn't be allowed in Salem much less anywhere near the capitol for an entire session after a stunt like that.

If Burdick doesn't demand that Potter give her the information she needs to debate and hold Erik Sten accountable for his coverup very soon she will have squandered an opportunity to show us, the voters, her mettle. Citizens are ill served by wimps purportedly representing their interests in public office. A solo press conference or even better one with Sam Adams and other candidates who have been similarly rebuffed and insulted by Potter in their quest for public data would be a good start.

Finally, Ginny Burdick MUST address the health care issue. There are volunteers on her own campaign staff with no health insurance. If she won't help them why should they help her? Burdick must tell us how she plans to deal with the $25,000,000 INCREASE in health care costs which will occur during the next elected city commissioner's term. Senator Ginny Burdick has known about the Oregon Community Health Care Bill for fifteen months. As both a candidate for Portland city council and as as state senator it's time for her to tell us if she supports the Oregon Community Health Care Bill or what other solution she proposes to our moral and economic health care crisis.


Richard Ellmyer
3-6-9 Resolution author and project champion
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 12,000 readers interested in public housing policy in Multnomah County.
Portsmouth - formerly the 18%, currently the 10% and rising solution neighborhood, North Portland
http://www.goodgrowthnw.org