The Multnomah County Commission reduced its business income tax a couple of months back to the tune of over $700,000 annually in order to be, in the words of the county chair, "fair to small business".

Of the county income tax they will still receive, the county gifts over $6 million annually to the cities of Gresham, Fairview, Troutdale and Wood Village. The City of Portland, on the other hand, has its own business income tax and does not receive any money from Multnomah County.

The City pays over $5 million dollars a year to the county to help pay for current county services including $1.8 million to keep jail beds open. No other city in Multnomah County pays the county for its services and in fact, as I said previously, all other cities actually receive money from Multnomah County.

Thus, the City of Portland is currently not only subsidizing Multnomah County but all the other cities within Multnomah County for the services the county provides.

Now the county chair is proposing to no longer pick up dead animals within Portland or to pick up intoxicated individuals in the city unless Portland pays for those services. That cut is being proposed while the county's proposed budget reflects a tax cut to business and continued payment to the four other cities I mentioned earlier.

For the county chair to try and pressure the city council to give even more money by having the most vulnerable of the vulnerable show up last night to request money from the city while the county chair chooses to give tax breaks and subsidies to other governments is, as I was quoted accurately, troubling and irresponsible.

Randy:For the county chair to try and pressure the city council to give even more money by having the most vulnerable of the vulnerable show up last night to request money from the city while the county chair chooses to give tax breaks and subsidies to other governments is, as I was quoted accurately, troubling and irresponsible
JK: Reminds me of the city giving away over $65 million annually to residents of the urban renewal districts through TIFF. SOME OF WHICH WOULD HAVE GONE TO THE COUNTY. Or all those tax abated million dollar condos in the Pearl (Did the city ever try to get that particular abuse shut down at the state level?)

Not to mention all the sweet land deals. Wasn’t there something about a Eastside building going to a SoWhat UR advisory committee member real cheap?

The city is not without fault here.

(PS: Thanks Randy, for opposing some of this crap. - But the owners of the, money bleeding, SoWhat DID want to build without subsidies and the Katz Klowns said no.)

Thanks
JK

Thank you for the clarification and additional information, Randy. I and perhaps others read the snippet quote in the O's blog as saying the organized citizen testifiers were irresponsible, rather than the County Board in implying the City is obligated to do more. What you just said/amplified makes much more sense to me.

P.S. I apologize, Randy. I should know better than to comment on a phrase of a conversation reported in the media, without knowing the context.

Also, several weeks ago there was a meeting between representatives of PDC and the taxing jurisdictions, discussing the use of money in Urban Renewal Areas. I'll try to get the report on that meeting written up and posted in the next couple of weeks. It's only regarding the tax money in those specific areas, rather than the whole City-County (and School District and TriMet, etc) division of responsibilities city/county-wide, but it relates to the overall issue.

Thank you, Amanda. I appreciate that.

I do think, however, that both Ryan Frank's blog and today's Oregonian article do not give the appropriate context for my obersavtion that the county's behavior is "irresponsible" in the current budget discussions. I am going to attempt to better explain by comments by writing a BlueOregon post that I hope to have up in the next short while.

I hope they don't close Hooper. I won't have anyplace to spend the weekends.
Dave Lister

Everyone has a stake in Hooper staying open. Seriously, please click that link and read about what they do. I've read the County's current request is for the City to take over the "sobering" component, before Hooper staff manage the "detox" part of recovering from acute withdrawal from alcohol over the next week, then ongoing help to stop drinking for those wanting to do so. "Sobering" isn't as simple as helping your college room-mate throw up in the bathroom rather than the bedroom floor, and get to bed to sleep it off. Acute alchohol poisoning is a serious medical problem, and intoxication can trigger serious health problems even for people who experience it regularly. The notion that the City police should provide the "sobering" facility doesn't make much sense to me. It seems more likely that more people will end up in expensive hospital emergency rooms. Some area hospitals, including OHSU, don't admit patients to inpatient care whose primary diagnosis is drug/alcohol addiction, except to treat acute medical problems or active suicidal/homicidal ideation. Our psych unit isn't set up to provide a complete program for those clients - Hooper is. Whether patients "sober" in hospitals or in a police facility, it is less likely they will move on to treatment and recovery without a seamless care delivery system.

Fewer services at Hooper will mean taxpayers funding much more expensive care in hospital emergency rooms, for people with no health insurance - care that is not as wholistic or coordinated as Hooper's, so the extra money spent won't result in more help for people needing it.

I hope they don't close Hooper. I won't have anyplace to spend the weekends.

It was a long time time ago, Dave, but my night at Hooper Detox wasn't anything to write home about.

First off, I was stone cold sober. Sitting on a cold cement floor, a passed out heroin abuser curled up next to me ("Man, I ain't drunk, I'm stoned" he protested to me before passing out.)

Back then, not sure it's still the case, they just took you in. No sobriety test. "Excuse me," I'd protested upon admission, "Can I have a drunk test?" I'll never forget the answer, the ultimate answer from the ultimate bureaucrat: "The more you talk to me, the longer you'll be here." I shut up.

The interesting thing about Hooper, and the police dropping you off there, is that it's confidential. So when my then wife called the police to find out where I'd been taken, what I'd been arrested for, no one would tell her. (Though a sympathetic clerk eventually told her some people get taken to Hooper.)

How I got on the wrong side of this officer was sort of funny. I'd been complaining to our local Safeway about their practice of locking and blocking --with shopping carts-- one set of their entrance/exit doors in the evening. Doors with the "These Doors to Remain Unlocked" stickers just above them. (Which they've since stopped doing.) When Safeway's then manager called the police on me, instead of backing me up, the cop took me outside and "arrested" me. I was taken to Hooper not with a beer in my hand, but a copy of City Code. Guilty of self-righteousness, I guess.

"Arrested" is in quotes because, sure, I was handcuffed, and jammed into the car's doorframe and driven away. But, as I later found out from Sandy Herman --then the Police Internal Investigations Committee Secretary, and now ex-Police Chief Moose's wife-- it was something well known about, and called a "POP arrest". Pissed Off Police.

Sandy took pictures of my badly bruised arms, from when Officer Friendly --oops-- smacked me into the door frame. But, see, I wasn't arrested, there were no charges...I was simply taken to Hooper for my own "safety." And so I spent a few uncomfortable hours...definitely a sobering experience.

You have to wonder how many non-drunks have spent the night at Hooper. The absolute black hole that citizens can fall into. When they released me in the morning, I was the first one released, so I guessed my "good behavior" was recognized. The guy who gave me my wallet back asked me "so what'd you do to piss him off?"

There's a funny and ironic coda to this story. Ed Freeman, who was then head of the Fire & Police Disability & Retireement Fund, and a friend, called me the next morning. He was sick that day, and was supposed to swear in a bunch of detectives and could I --as a fellow Deputy City Auditor-- fill in for him. "Sure, Ed," I told him.

And so when I asked those police officers to raise their right hands, as I rose mine, to take their oath of office to uphold the law...my handcuff bruises were very, very visible on my wrist.

Wow. What a sad and scary story. Thank you for sharing it, Frank.

Returning to the main topic of the post (City-County finances), I forgot to mention in my summary of the City's response to the County request, that in addition to "No", the City proposes discussion of buying some County assets (properties) as a way of helping them out in their immediate budget crisis. I think that is a good suggestion, and I hope it's pursued.

Frank,
I was never in Hooper. But I was in the Mult. Co. drunktank once. That was downtown, in the old jail above the courthouse. I had a sprained ankle, no shirt, no socks and no shoes. And I was stone cold sober. That was a very bad night indeed.
Dave Lister

What a sad and scary story. Thank you for sharing it, Frank.

Actually...I think of it as a funny story.

I asked my wife Anne, before I posted it, if I should because it is certainly a weird story...but she said she's always loved it for its "symetry" and "elegance of Frankness" as she puts it. Swearing in a bunch of detectives at police headquarters after a night spent at Hooper...you gotta admit not everybody's done that. :-)

Raising my kids, I've always said everyone should work as a waiter, work in a restaurant kitchen, and work in a factory where if you're not paying attention, some machine will rip your arm off. It helps give you perspective on life. (And it helps you see the need for paying attention!)

Maybe everybody needs to spend a night, too, where there's no phone, no lawyers, no nothing...but people totally controlling your life, with neither fairness nor justice the issue, but you're there just trying to make it through the night.

their immediate budget crisis

Back to the topic at hand...once you declare a "budget crisis" and put your hand out, you need to be willing to subject yourself to budget scrutiny. I don't know that Multnomah County is ready to do that. As Commissioner Leonard has suggested, there's an awful lot of questions out there about their budget choices.

Buying County assets --at reasonable, market rates-- may have some value for both the City and County, but a one-sided bailout doesn't seem to me to be in anyone's interest. And I think the way some County advocates have approached this so far seems unfairly manipulative.

I thought your story was sad and scary in terms of lack of due process in the incident at Safeways, Frank.

Had you spent more than a night at Hooper, I suspect you would have had many more memories of courage and compassion, from both fellow-clients and staff.

A further irony is that this is a problem all over. (For instance, the improperly locked doors at Whole Foods' entrance on Burnside in the Pearl.) There's a reason those "This door to remain unlocked" signs are posted above the doors. And imagine the lawsuits when some crowd goes barreling toward a locked door when there's a fire, and the exit is locked and blocked.

I think there should be a one-stop-shopping 24/7/365 City/County Complaints Hotline number, well publicized, as well as the all-purpose 823-4000 information and referral number. Things like locked and blocked exits (and water main breaks, and sewer overflows, and ilegal tree-cutting, etc.,) should take but one call for an immediate response by people skilled in city/county code regulations and authorized to enforce them.