Bertha Ferran Targets East Multnomah County And Gresham With New Segregation Plans

From: Bertha Ferran - PDC commissioner, Hacienda CDC board member, Windermere mortgage consultant
To: Fellow PDC commissioners - Sal Kadri, John Mohlis, Mark Rosenbaum, Charles Wilhoite
To: Fellow Hacienda CDC board members - Alejandro Tosi, Dave McConnell, Bernie Kronberger, Amalia Gabriela Alarcon, Ana Alvarado, Carlow Crespo, Tom Cusack, Pedro Moreno, Luis A. Ornelas, Guillermo Sandoval, Consuelo Saragoza, Fernando Velez
To: Fellow Windermere real estate associates - Christine Wood, Adam Bartell, Jeff Berrier, Carl Brenden, Sarah Cavender, Carol Chaffer, Tony Gustafson, Myrna Heil, Ben Hollenbaugh, Nancy Husband, Johanna Keith, Tim Klee, Stella Kopperud, Larry Mills, Jim Morrelli, Kelly Pearsall, Michael Pratt, Debilyn Riggs, Jana Ripley, Jeff Tinkham, John Anunsen, Joe Broker, Brian Carlson, Amy Couey, John Eskew, Melissa Freels, Nathan Gale, Randy Stephens et. al.:
Subject: Diverting Attention From Our Low Income Housing Ghettoization Goals in Portsmouth, Lents Etc.

My colleagues, the times they are a changing. That annoying light of public housing statistical data Richard Ellmyer has been shining on our activities for almost seven years keeps getting brighter. Ellmyer's "sunshine" is finally exposing us by name as the citizens most responsible for perpetuating what Ellmyer calls the discredited and abhorrent public policy of unlimited neighborhood concentration of public housing in Multnomah county. Most disturbing are the increasing number of elected officials, candidates for public office, voters, taxpayers and now even some in the press that are awakening to Ellmyer's call to moral and fiscal accountability. Our days in the dark are numbered. It's time for a new strategy.

I propose to my colleagues at PDC that we immediately acknowledge and agree with the terms of the ICURAAC, Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area Advisory Committee, letter that asks PDC to reroute all new public housing funds away from the demonstrably overloaded Portsmouth neighborhood and toward any other neighborhood in the Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area that has less than 15% public housing clients. This is especially necessary with the N. Newell street project in the Portsmouth neighborhood. Dewey Ackers, Lents neighborhood chair, seems to be in cahoots with Ellmyer. It is surely only a matter of time before Ackers persuades his Urban Renewal Area Advisory Committee to adopt the same standards. Others may follow. Let's get ahead of this potential tsunami.

I propose to my colleagues on the board of the Hacienda Community Development Corporation that we immediately withdraw our plans for public housing on the N. Newell street project in the Portsmouth neighborhood. After the Interstate renaming debacle, which was a serious public relations disaster for the Latino community, the last thing our obviously Latino based Hacienda CDC wants is another situation in North Portland where the Latino community is perceived to be bullying North Portland again for its own selfish purposes. Regardless of the truth of this matter that is how Hacienda CDC and by extension the Latino community will be seen. Another ethnic conflict in North Portland in which the evidence and majority of the citizens are against us is definitely not in our best interest.

I urge my friend and colleague Amalia Gabriela Alarcon, Director of the Office of Neighborhood Involvement, to immediately announce that she does not support a public policy of unlimited neighborhood concentration of public housing and opposes any involvement by the Hacienda Community Development Corporation to add to the already overloaded Portsmouth neighborhood, or any neighborhood under her authority, additional public housing beyond 15% concentration. Supporting the creation of neighborhood low income public housing ghettos is not an activity that would justify keeping anyone in the job of ONI director.

I propose to my colleagues at Windermere that we tell our Windermere Foundation to withdraw funding pledges for more public housing by the Portland Hope Meadows Corporation in the Portsmouth neighborhood. It will be very bad for all Windermere associates to be labeled red lining income segregationists. Our colleagues in North Portland are especially vulnerable. We need to get out now. This is very, very bad for our business. We don't want Richard Ellmyer shining his accountability beam on us. We have no protection and no defense. As a Windermere mortgage consultant I'm also very concerned about being investigated by those who think that Bertha Ferran and her Windermere colleagues may be part of the subprime-mortgage crisis by operating as or recommending predatory lenders who are misrepresenting the terms of their mortgages and making loans to people who couldn't afford them. Our company, Windermere Realty, can avoid all of these public relations problems by doing good elsewhere than the Portsmouth neighborhood in North Portland.

Tom Potter's self-inflicted ignorance and complete lack of interest in public housing policy has been a boon to us. Tom's done a great job of keeping the lid on access to HAP's and BHCD's public housing statistical data. But that is certainly going to change. Candidate for mayor Sam Adams has twice been rebuffed when he asked HAP for public housing statistical data. Sam voted against Gresham's HAP nominee, Nathan Teske, when he refused to agree to give Sam or anyone else public data if confirmed by the Portland city council. Sam does not support our policy of unlimited neighborhood concentration of public housing. It also seems very unlikely that potential candidate for mayor Sho Dozono, a strong advocate of diversity and past chair of the Japan America Society of Oregon, will be supporting any of our efforts to create low income public housing ghettos which are not too much of a step from low income neighborhood internment camps without the fences. Don't forget, New Columbia does have armed uniformed officers patrolling the compound. The next mayor is not going to be one of us. We need to come to grips with this reality. It is also almost a certainty that whichever candidate moves into Sam Adams' current digs at city hall he or she will join mayor Adams or Dozono in demanding public housing statistical data leading to a public discussion of the merits of a policy of equitable distribution of public housing.

The most devastating news to our low income public housing discrimination schemes is the departure of Erik Sten. Ellmyer often referred to our leader as the Darth Vader of the public housing universe, the dark force behind our stealth conspiracy to prevent anyone from gaining access to public housing statistical data and discovering what he and we have been up to for years. It is now quite possible that whoever wins Sten's open seat may become the third or even fourth vote to stop our plans to dump more public housing into the Portsmouth neighborhood by rescinding the giveaway of the surplus city property known as the John Ball School site to the Portland Hope Meadows Corporation. There is some chance that two time loser Nick Fish may replace Sten. But Fish has been caught by Ellmyer in a lie and there is no chance Ellmyer's going to let a dishonest slippery Fish out of his public housing honesty net. Even if Fish wins he'll be damaged goods.

There are also stirrings at Multnomah county. Jeff Cogen, who like Adams was twice refused complete public housing data from HAP has just asked Richard Fernandez and Lee Moore to provide him with the public housing statistical data he requested as a candidate. If appointed HAP commissioners Fernandez and Moore refuse to give elected Multnomah county commissioner Cogen what he requests they will clearly not be serving the interests of Multnomah county and eligible for dismissal. Multnomah county chair Ted Wheeler, who was refused complete public housing data from HAP as a candidate, should soon be joining colleague Cogen in asking Richard Fernandez and Lee Moore to prove, by providing him with the public housing statistical data, that they are in fact serving Multnomah county not their own personal interests and agendas. This is bad news for us.

I propose to you, my colleagues at PDC, the board of the Hacienda Community Development Corporation and Windermere, that we change tactics. We need to redirect all of our efforts to create low income public housing ghettos to East Multnomah county, especially Gresham. The rubes on the Gresham city council, Mike Bennett, Shirley Craddick, Carol Nielson-Hood, Dick Strathern, Paul Warr-King and David Widmark being lead by mayor Shane Bemis neither know nor care about public housing in Gresham neighborhoods. They're an easy mark. I also see no problem with Multnomah county commission candidates Carla Piluso or Diane McKeel replacing Lonnie Roberts as the next uninvolved, lackluster seat warmer. None of these folks have a clue about public housing policy and as long as they don't talk to Richard Ellmyer they will remain ignorant and that works for us.

My colleagues I'm sorry to start the year off on such a dismal note but I serve and work for three entities that figure prominently in the expenditure of millions of dollars of public funds in support of a public policy of unlimited neighborhood concentration of public housing which can only be sustained as long as we keep public housing statistical data away from elected and appointed officials, candidates for public office, taxpayers and voters. Ellmyer and his growing band of democratic, open, accountable government malcontents are publicly challenging my credentials and reputation as a public do-gooder. This is very uncomfortable for me especially since I have virtually no defense against Ellmyer's mountain of evidence. So let's leave the Portsmouth neighborhood alone and go for the low hanging unprotected fruit in East Multnomah county and Gresham.

Happy new year.

[For those of you who were out sick when your class studied figures of speech, metaphor, symbolism, sarcasm and other literary devices commonly used to make a point, please do not call the Portland police bureau, as Portland Hope Meadows Chair Rhonda Meadows once did, and try to have Bertha Ferran arrested because you "fear" for your reputation. The above memo wasn't really written by Bertha Ferran. But it could have been.]