Hi PDC Director Bruce Warner:
The Portland Development Commission is poised to overtake the Housing Authority of Portland as Oregon's largest administrator of public housing. HAP currently serves approximately 33,000 public housing clients on a budget of $80,000,000. The recently approved $111,000,000 in TIF funding for public housing could add 45,000 [based on HAP's average $2424/client.] to the more than 6,300 public housing clients already under PDC administration for a total of potentially more than 51,000. At that point PDC would more rightly be called THE Housing Authority of Portland.
Perhaps PDC commissioner Sal Kadri sensed the enormity of the change about to overtake the Portland Development Commission when he tasked PDC's housing director Andy Wilch on February 28, 2007 to gather information by neighborhood on the location of all public housing clients that are subsidized and administered by any government agency within PDC's area of influence.
Perhaps PDC commissioner Sal Kadri recognized the necessity of using authentic, accurate, complete and timely public housing statistical location data to make good public housing policy decisions when he tasked PDC's housing director Andy Wilch on February 28, 2007 to gather information by neighborhood on the location of all public housing clients that are subsidized and administered by any government agency within PDC's area of influence.
Perhaps PDC commissioner Sal Kadri understood that in order for PDC to follow a public housing policy of equitable distribution and NOT unlimited neighborhood concentration of public housing it must have authentic, accurate, complete and timely public housing statistical location data and so he wisely tasked PDC's housing director Andy Wilch on February 28, 2007 to gather information by neighborhood on the location of all public housing clients that are subsidized and administered by any government agency within PDC's area of influence.
Perhaps PDC commissioner Sal Kadri feared the obvious danger of PDC being rightly accused of concentrating its soon to be tens of thousands of new public housing clients not just in a few select neighborhoods in Multnomah county, not just in a few select neighborhoods in the city of Portland but in a few select neighborhoods that are in Portland's urban renewal areas and so he wisely tasked PDC's housing director Andy Wilch on February 28, 2007 to gather information by neighborhood on the location of all public housing clients that are subsidized and administered by any government agency within PDC's area of influence.
In any case and for whatever reason PDC commissioner Sal Kadri did, in fact, on February 28, 2007 publicly order a subordinate PDC staffer, Andy Wilch, to gather information by neighborhood on the location of all public housing clients that are subsidized and administered by any government agency within PDC's area of influence.
Commissioner Kadri's assignment involved requesting exported files from computers controlled by:
A. The Housing Authority of Portland
B. The Portland Development Commission
C. The Oregon Housing and Community Services department
D. Multnomah county
E. The Portland Bureau of Housing and Community Development
F. The Portland Planning Bureau
To date PDC has provided me and commissioner Kadri with the following:
1. Two PDC data files that claim to include all PDC public housing records related to commissioner Kadri's request. Most include both neighborhood and number of clients. However, 25 projects include neighborhood but not the total number of clients in each project - without explanation. 25 projects could include dozens, hundreds or thousands of public housing clients. Perhaps these facilities are under construction? If PDC has no legitimate explanation for why these totals were not included then the request for this item remains incomplete and unfulfilled.
2. An untimely 2005 data file from OHCS without column headings that does include addresses that can be converted into neighborhood fields but no clear indication which column contains total client numbers. If the column that shows total clients per project is identified then technically this would be in compliance with my demand for a data file from OHCS in PDC's possession as part of data gathered for commissioner Kadri's request.
3. A file named, "HUD DB 1-2006 Mult Co.xls" that contains no neighborhood nor total client information, is not from any of the six public entities mentioned above and is irrelevant to my and commissioner Kadri's public request.
To date PDC has NOT provided me and commissioner Kadri with the following:
1. Any data file from the Housing Authority of Portland. Whether you are not in possession of this data file because PDC didn't ask for it or HAP refused to send it to you doesn't matter. If PDC has no data file from the Housing Authority of Portland then it can not send me what it doesn't have and therefore would be in compliance with my demand for a data file from HAP in PDC's possession as part of data gathered for commissioner Kadri's request. Of course, in time it will make a difference to PDC's credibility should it be revealed that PDC staff never asked for this data and the PDC commissioners never held their staff accountable for failing to ask.
2. Any data file from Multnomah county. Whether you are not in possession of this data file because PDC didn't ask for it or Multnomah county refused to send it to you doesn't matter. If PDC has no data file from Multnomah county then it can not send me what it doesn't have and therefore would be in compliance with my demand for a data file from Multnomah county in PDC's possession as part of data gathered for commissioner Kadri's request. Of course, in time it will make a difference to PDC's credibility should it be revealed that PDC staff never asked for this data and the PDC commissioners never held their staff accountable for failing to ask.
3. Any data file from the Portland Bureau of Housing and Community Development. Whether you are not in possession of this data file because PDC didn't ask for it or the Portland Bureau of Housing and Community Development refused to send it to you doesn't matter. If PDC has no data file from the Portland Bureau of Housing and Community Development then it can not send me what it doesn't have and therefore would be in compliance with my demand for a data file from the Portland Bureau of Housing and Community Development in PDC's possession as part of data gathered for commissioner Kadri's request. Of course, in time it will make a difference to PDC's credibility should it be revealed that PDC staff never asked for this data and the PDC commissioners never held their staff accountable for failing to ask.
4. Any data file from the Portland Planning Bureau. Whether you are not in possession of this data file because PDC didn't ask for it or the Portland Planning Bureau refused to send it to you doesn't matter. If PDC has no data file from the Portland Planning Bureau then it can not send me what it doesn't have and therefore would be in compliance with my demand for a data file from the Portland Planning Bureau in PDC's possession as part of data gathered for commissioner Kadri's request. Of course, in time it will make a difference to PDC's credibility should it be revealed that PDC staff never asked for this data and the PDC commissioners never held their staff accountable for failing to ask.
5. Any data file generated by PDC that incorporates the data received from all public agencies contacted in pursuit of fulfilling commissioner Kadri's request. If PDC didn't make such a file then it can not send me what it doesn't have and therefore would be in compliance with my demand for a combined data file generated by PDC as part of data gathered for commissioner Kadri's request. Of course, the obvious question is: If the PDC staff under Any Wilch's supervision didn't create a combined data file from the various public housing sources mentioned above then how did they expect to make the maps, charts and reports which needed to be presented to commissioner Sal Kadri, his fellow commissioners and the public? The paucity of data collected after twelve weeks and no combined data file clearly means that there was NO INTENTION on the part of PDC staff to ever provide any maps, charts and reports in compliance with commissioner Sal Kadri's request for public housing statistical data.
In the near future I and perhaps others will be requesting PDC commissioners to make a policy decision regarding the expenditure of public funds administered by PDC for public housing projects to be withheld from neighborhoods within urban renewal areas that are overloaded with public housing clients. The PDC commissioners cannot seriously address my impending official request to withhold any PDC funding to my Portsmouth neighborhood unless they have the authentic, accurate, complete and timely public housing statistical location data requested by PDC commissioner Sal Kadri.
Your email of May 30, 2007 in support for PDC public housing director Andy Wilch does not refute nor even address the FACTS of his public performance about which I say he must be held publicly accountable. It merely states your confidence in his general job performace much as president Bush expressed confidence in Alberto Gonzales, Donald Rumsfeld and FEMA's Michael "Katrina" Brown for their public work despite overwhelming public evidence of deception, ineptitude and incompetence.
Your email of May 30, 2007 in support for PDC public housing director Andy Wilch makes you, Bruce Warner, now as accountable as Andy Wilch for providing the data requested by commissioner Kadri on February 28, 2007.
If you don't instruct your subordinate Andy Wilch to fullfill commissioner Kadri's February 28, 2007 public request immediately then the PDC commissioners should be considering your dismissal.
Citizen Richard Ellmyer has asked the six public entities mentioned above for the statistical public housing location data requested by commissioner Kadri.
Citizen Richard Ellmyer has the same right to access this public data as commissioner Kadri and 700,000 other citizens of Multnomah county.
Citizen Richard Ellmyer will gather all the data publicly sought by PDC commissioner Sal Kadri and, if necessary, explain why any public entity didn't fully respond to his legitimate and rightful request for public data then offer an opportunity to commissioner Kadri to obtain the results.
For more than three months PDC staff has deliberately refused to deliver to Sal Kadri, a public official appointed to the Portland Development Commission, the public policy decision making information involving statistical public housing location data that commissioner Kadri officially, legally, rightly and publicly requested. The result of this disgraceful, outrageous and subversive behavior will be further public humiliation to PDC staff and PDC commissioners when citizen Richard Ellmyer presents authentic, accurate, complete and timely public housing statistical location data to commissioner Kadri necessitated by PDC staff's incompetence, insubordination and ultimate failure.
PDC management cannot be allowed to march to its own drummer. A rogue staff that decides for itself which instructions from its superiors it will follow, especially those given in public, cannot be permitted to remain on the public payroll to oversee the spending of millions of dollars of the public treasury on 6,300 public housing clients much less 51,000.
Your May 30th email of misguided, wrong and indefensible support of a subordinate, Andy Wilch, instead of his and your superior, Sal Kadri, added to PDC staff's demonstrable and inexcusable failure to provide one of its commissioners with public data necessary for good, reasoned, defensible public decision making are excellent examples of why Portland voters don't trust PDC and so recently voted to give more oversight of PDC behavior to the elected and accountable Portland city council.
Richard Ellmyer
Community leader coordinating a local effort to bring the Oregon National Guard to the Sharff Army Reserve Center
Community activist leading the campaign to Stop The Portland Hope Meadows Corporation From Adding To The Overload Of Public Housing Clients In The Portsmouth Neighborhood And North Portland
3-6-9 Resolution author and project champion
Writer/Publisher - HAP Watcher commentary - Published on the Internet and distributed to 13,000 readers interested in public housing policy in Multnomah County.
President, MacSolutions Inc. - A Macintosh computer consulting business providing web hosting for artists and very small businesses. Located in Portsmouth, the neighborhood with the second highest concentration of public housing clients, 24% and rising, within HAP's Multnomah county jurisdiction of 117 neighborhoods.