Former U.S. Attorney Calls for New Oversight for Portland Water Bureau
Monday, December 08, 2014
Former U.S. Attorney Calls for New Oversight for Portland Water Bureau
The recommendations came from a 12 member committee, headed by Holton, that released their findings Monday: calling for the existing volunteer oversight board that watchdog the two city bureaus to be replaced by one new comprehensive board.
The committee was convened to study how to better control what critics saw as runaway spending at both the water bureau and the city branch in charge of sewers, the BES. The two bureaus had a combined capital budget of about $210 million in fiscal year 2014-2015.
“Our recommendations reflect the fundamental conclusion that the people of Portland, ratepayers and the City itself will be better served by a significantly strengthened system of oversight,” stated the report, signed by Holton and the other members.
Critics of the Water Bureau’s spending mounted a all out offensive earlier this year and attempted to spin the water bureau off into it’s own independent public utility. A ballot measure put before voters that would have pulled the water bureau from the city’s control was handily defeated in May.
The city’s “Blue Ribbon” committee was launched two months later.
One of the water bureau’s biggest critics, Kent Crawford, dismissed the effort on Monday, calling it "window dressing."
“There's no tangible reform here," Crawford said of the recommendations. “We’ve had no fewer than five advisory committees looking at this over the years. Now we’re going to create a sixth to do it all over again. I don't expect any difference in outcome. We need more structural change and not more."
City officials, however, said the recommendations were a good start.
“We have a very good recommendation that has the value of being generated by an independent blue ribbon commission,” said Jim Blackwood, policy director for Water and BES commissioner Nick Fish said of Monday’s recommendation.
The committee recommended that the Budget Advisor Committee and Public Utility Review Board, that oversee the water bureau and BES respectively, should be replaced with a single, year round advisory board, that would have two full-time staff position assigned to it. The new “Public Utility Board,” as Blackwood called it, could have as many as 11 members on it.
Committee would review the capital improvement programs and budgets for both bureaus’ and be what Blackwood called “prescribed advisors.”
“It would be a year-round board that is unique in it’s advisory role and independent in its ability to analyze spending,” Blackwood said.
Crawford said the idea of replacing two advisory committees with one new advisory committee failed to get at the heart of the problems of unchecked spending by both bureaus, and spiraling costs.
"This is simply City Hall process masquerading as action," Crawford said. "This is more toothless advising."
Crawford slammed the Blue Ribbon committee headed by Holton, saying that it was a "kangaroo court" stacked with political appointees. Chris Liddle, a manager of regulatory affairs at Portland General Electric, was an outspoken opponent of the move to spinoff the Portland Water Bureau, Crawford said.
"You gotta do more than look a the message," Crawford said. "You have to look at the messenger."
Blackwood, however, said the voters had already spoken on the subject and there was no mandate for radical reforms of the two agencies.
“Voters turned down [the May ballot measure] by a 3-1 margin,” Blackwood said. “It didn’t create a mandate for an independent entity.”
Blackwood said it would take the city about six months to devise a legal proposal to put before city council.
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