Next Up at City Council, 4/9/2008

Submitted by Amanda Fritz on April 8, 2008 - 2:36pm.

The Portland City Council agenda for tomorrow is here. The Council will:

* Decide how much Public Campaign Finance Fund money should be allocated to Certified Candidate Jim Middaugh, if he is in a runoff in the July Special Election for the seat Erik Sten vacated.

* Appoint Martha Simpson, Don McGillivray, Lois Chilcott and reappoint Charles Kurtz, Dolores Hubert and Patty Brost to the Elders in Action Commission

(hooray, this is a great cause - thank you for serving)

* Vote on a whole slew of contracts, none of which I've had time to look over

* Adopt a whole year of Council minutes, from January to December 2006

I find this disgraceful. Minutes of each meeting should be adopted within one month, in my opinion.

* Increase taxi cab rates

* Accept the report recommending transfer of 2nd Lt. Sharff U.S. Army Reserve Center to the Oregon Military Department for use by the Oregon Army National Guard and transmit 2nd Lt. Alfred Sharff USARC Reuse Master Plan to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and U.S. Department of Defense

I've heard many neighbors in North Portland support this use of the current Reserve Center.

* 469 Assess benefited properties for improvements in the Portland Streetcar Gibbs Extension Local Improvement District

Gosh, I wish I had time to look into that.

There are other items on the Agenda on Wednesday morning. Nothing Wednesday afternoon or Thursday. Please post in the comments with more information on the notes above, and on anything I missed.

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The taxi cab rate increase

Submitted by FrankDufay on April 8, 2008 - 5:48pm.
The taxi cab rate increase of 10 cents per mile --my name's on the ordinance-- is actually coming to the City as a recommendation from the Company Standing Committee of the Private for Hire Transportation Board of Review. That was last November. The full Board originally voted down the proposal, but that was based on the City funding a Rate and Demand Study this year. When the City didn't do that in the budget adjustment process, the full Board voted to support the increase. We --the regulatory section of the Revenue Bureau-- have asked for funding for this overdue study in next year's budget. When you think about how much gasoline --and other sundry expenses-- have gone up, a dime a mile increase to support our taxi drivers doesn't seem at all out of line, in my personal opinion. But I'd also point out that this request is not at the City's initiative, but we're simply carrying forward the recommendation of the Board, which has both citizen and industry representatives.
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Thank you for this

Submitted by Amanda Fritz on April 9, 2008 - 7:48am.
Thank you for this information, Frank.
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Amanda, I agree 100% about

Submitted by Pete Forsyth on April 14, 2008 - 9:51am.
Amanda, I agree 100% about meeting minutes. Minutes should be adopted and published no more than a month after the fact -- every group I've participated with, that maintained minutes, has operated within that structure. Beyond official minutes, City Council has a pretty cockamamie scheme of disclosing its meetings to the public. Some very good elements, but some very bad implementation.
  • Streaming video during Council meetings, if you have non-standard RealPlayer software.
  • Several repeats on television the following week, if you have cable television.
  • Archival video available on portlandonline.com, but not available for nearly a week after the fact. Also, it's still only available in RealPlayer format (as opposed to something like Flash-based YouTube, which would work on most computers without adding any software.)
  • Closed-captioning text files from the meetings, with lots of typos (presumably an automated process.) Available only if you request it from the Council Clerk -- not sure if they are distributed to all askers, or based on certain criteria.
Somebody needs to take a comprehensive look at this stuff, along with meeting minutes practices, and give us something that makes sense.
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Speaking of which, I have

Submitted by Pete Forsyth on April 14, 2008 - 9:53am.
Speaking of which, I have posted the text transcript of last week's meeting on the blog I just started, Our New Mind. Actually, it's only the part on public financing, but if anybody wants the rest of it I'd be happy to forward it along. -Pete Forsyth member, Citizen Campaign Commission
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