Public Safety Priorities
Jane Ames
We are moving forward on our multi-jurisdiction public safety partnership. In regular speak, that means political leaders within Portland and Multnomah County are working together on a project to identify our communities’ highest public safety priorities. Then we will allocate our combined public safety tax-dollars on the necessary services to deliver results in meeting those prioritized needs.
People don’t think about City or County dollars when we pay taxes, and typically don’t care which jurisdiction is providing which service. My motive is that our public safety system is overwhelmed and I am certain that we can spend more than the $361 million per year that Portland and Multnomah County budget on public safety more effectively and efficiently.
It’s crucial that we spend those dollars effectively. Prevention, patrol, enforcement, incarceration, courts, treatment, probation and parole are several key features of public safety systems. When any section of a system becomes overloaded, the entire system is out of balance, and either runs inefficiently or it breaks.
The various services in our public safety system are run by different jurisdictions: Portland Police do enforcement in Portland, Gresham Police protect Gresham, the County Sheriff’s Office patrols in areas that fall outside any city limits. The jails come under the County Sheriff’s office, prisons are run by the State; many of the prevention and treatment programs are funded through the County, as are probation and parole. The flow of funds and the delivery of services is complex.
Complex or not, however, our responsibility for assuring that our citizens feel safe where they live, work and play is one of our most sacred responsibilities as government leaders. We can’t afford to operate in parallel, or to have turf disputes over money, service providers, or territory. We can not afford to budget by jurisdiction, and this Fall, we will begin a process to provide for an effective and efficient system of public safety in our community.
Posted by Jane Ames on July 27, 2005
(13) Comments | Permalink | TrackBack (1)
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Comments by site visitors
Aaron,
Thank you for commenting and drawing my attention to the SE Powell and Cleveland High School setting. I will look into it to see if there are measures than can be taken. I do drive by that park and intersection often but haven't worried about it so much because most of the kids I see crossing there and using the park are high school age and that doesn't set off my danger radar so quickly. But you make some good points, and of course that park isn't just going to be used by high school students and adults.
Tonight several of us from Sam's office, including Sam of course, went out to about 9 of the National Night Out parties around town. We did it to say hello and thank you to folks for taking the important crime prevention step of knowing their neighbors. And we also went to listen to concerns as well as the reasons people like Portland so much. I expect one of the reasons so many people like Portland is because we live in a city where there are over 150 National Night Out parties held throughout the city. Portland cares, on a lot of levels. We aren't perfect, but we are engaged in being a really great community.
Back to your point Aaron, I must have heard requests for speed control, especially speed bumps, at 5 or more parties. People who are out to enjoy their neighborhoods and parks do not like speeding, and we all wish we had effective means to counter it. I suspect there are literally thousands of locations where people want the traffic slowed, calmed, or stopped.
While I do want PDOT to be responsive, I also want them to have the tools to respond effectively to the public's concerns. Of course what I really fantasize is that they have the resources to respond to all the worrisome situations. But there is no way that will come to pass, so we have to have the means for the city to prioritize the kind of responses, or the level of trying to correct the concerns, without having their budgets and workload consumed with the, I suspect thousands, of valid concerns.
I will follow up on this Aaron, but if you have ideas about the bigger picture, I would love suggestions.
Thanks, Jane
Posted by: Jane | Aug 2, 2005 10:24:16 PM
I think you need to include the State in this multi-jurisdictional effort. The State runs a court system and a prison system and a parole system that are pretty integral to public safety. People on the jail grand juries have said, again and again, that there is not adequate co-ordination of efforts among City, County & STATE.
Regards, Ron Buel
Posted by: Ron Buel | Aug 3, 2005 12:02:26 PM
Jane, I was contacted by one of the residents at 103rd St and Clinton St. He indicated that they had been being terrorized by several individuals living in Section 8 housing in the area. They have called police, noise control, office of Neighborhood involvement,crime prevential coordinator, abandon vehicles hotline and code comliance, Mult. Co. Animal services and the housing authority to no avail. They are frustrated and worried. Many of these families do not speak English and are legal immigrants from Russia, Ukraine, etc. I felt badly for them but couldn't think of anyone else in the city who might be of assistance to them. Maybe a hotline or blog about areas in the city that are problems would focus attention on the areas in need of assistance. It's sad when people come here escaping violence in their own countries only to encounter it here as well. If the city could clean up one neighborhood at a time, maybe we could make progress. You could also get the housing authority to participate as many of the problems are associated with section 8 housing. When peole get free housing and services there is no incentive for them to work or take pride in what they have worked for.
Posted by: Ann | Aug 3, 2005 1:28:19 PM
Dear Sam,
Its getting old, the issue I have delt with on the idea that 5 criminally insane people should have 90 minutes of unsupervised walks past a grade school with 400 little kids it.
In the last two weeks, two incidents, both in the news, have reminded me you and I are still at odds on this public safety issue.
There is a giant chance I have been asked to prepare for by producers of a national TV show that are as sick of elected officals running from their first responsibility..." PUBLIC SAFTEY." as I am.
My questiion for you is: Do you want to risk the chance of some bad PR and add to the image of Portland being lax on issues that in these times can really get someone hurt?
There is for you, the chance to outshine your council brothers by light years, or do you wish to gamble that what I have been called about may not happen. "your call!"
Posted by: JACK PEEK | Sep 8, 2005 5:09:43 AM
Did anyone notice....NO REPLY TO THE ABOVE. Someday, there will be a newstory about this issue, once again..Sam, will have no reply. Jack Peek
Posted by: JACK PEEK | Sep 24, 2005 8:38:31 AM
Jane, I was contacted by one of the residents at 103rd St and Clinton St. He indicated that they had been being terrorized by several individuals living in Section 8 housing in the area. They have called police, noise control, office of Neighborhood involvement,crime prevential coordinator, abandon vehicles hotline and code comliance, Mult. Co. Animal services and the housing authority to no avail.
Would this "housing" be the 92ND AND CLINTON LOW INCOME/ REHAB/PSRB/ PLACE?
Sure it is?
Posted by: JACK PEEK | Sep 24, 2005 8:41:38 AM
Jack,
That's because we're tired of your rants. Now that b!x has shut down I guess you head on over here.
Posted by: user | Sep 26, 2005 12:32:43 AM
I have an issue with how a problem was handled yesterday 10-05-05. Some one drove a car down our alley and parked it in front of my neighbors garage. She called the non emergency number the policey came out said sorry not our problem. The car was not stolen they said just dumped and you will need to have it towed awayed. This woman is a single mother who does a paper route to make ends meet. She does not have the money to have the car towed away. Now if the car was left on the street the city would tow it a way why cant that happen. Is this how the city works? Please help us concered neighbor.
Posted by: Lorinda | Oct 6, 2005 3:50:12 PM
Sam, we are counting on you. Whatever influence you have, use it to make downtown Portland safe and clean again. Panhandlers, street people, drunks,criminals, mentally ill, etc., make visiting the city even in daytime a grotesque hassle. I voted for you because I thought you had the vision to change the decline of downtown Portland through the power my vote gave to you. I want to vote for you again. But first you have to do something tangible about the ugly cesspool downtown Portland has become.
Posted by: Carol Edwards | Oct 22, 2005 12:30:51 PM
More jail beds, more downtown cops on bikes and/or walking a beat.
If there is an aggravated assault downtown at 1:00 a.m., it shouldn't take 22 minutes for Portland's finest to make the 4 block drive. It should not be the responsibility of a high-rise security guard (making $11/hour and unarmed) to take a knife away from a punk, or risk a fist fight with 7 "homeless" teens.
The "show of force" we put on for every protest would be very reassuring to downtown shoppers (albeit with a less aggressive posture) every week night. Otherwise, Bridgeport Village offers free parking (completely full last Friday night), no bums, and a much more relaxing ambiance.
Posted by: Shades of Gray | Dec 14, 2005 3:21:07 PM
By Tomas Alex Tizon, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
March 16, 2006
PORTLAND, Ore. — It might be one of the prettiest jails ever built.
A long driveway circles past a modern-art sculpture on the front lawn. The main building appears like a manor, with pink stucco and glass tile on the outside. The interior motif leans heavily toward pastels. Vaulted ceilings and open-air corridors suggest the design principles of feng shui.
The Wapato Facility, in the city's northern outskirts, took $59 million and two years to construct. But in the nearly two years since its completion —as Portland has struggled with a crime surge — not a single inmate has set foot in the building.
Multnomah County, in charge of Portland jails, can't afford to open it.
"We held a ceremony, cut the ribbon — then locked the doors," says Sheriff Bernie Giusto, who attended the dedication in the summer of 2004. "We have a brand-new jail sitting here empty, and I don't have a good answer when the public asks me, 'Why was it built if there was no plan to operate it?'
"Even I get tired of telling people how dumb we are."
Today, the jail is a symbol of Oregon's continuing financial troubles in the midst of an improving economy. As the state and its counties prepare for another round of budget cuts this year, Wapato has come to represent different shades of failure to different people.
Activists cite it as an example of government incompetence. "Remember Wapato!" has become a rallying cry for citizen groups bracing for new tax increases. Gov. Ted Kulongoski would like to raise the cigarette tax to pay for school programs. Portland Mayor Tom Potter has suggested a temporary personal income tax to make up for an expiring levy in Multnomah County.
Economists and politicians say Wapato reveals the instability inherent in Oregon's tax system, which makes local governments vulnerable to economic plunges.
Giusto just wants to put bad guys in his jail. For the sheriff, whose name adorns the front entrance, Wapato is a mocking reminder of what crime-fighting in the Portland area could be — but isn't. For the last five years, an acute shortage of jail beds has forced police in the region — Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington counties — to systematically release inmates early to make room for new ones.
Multnomah County last year released a record 5,000 criminals: drug dealers, burglars, car prowlers and assorted con men, many of them drug addicts or mentally ill. Police say the situation has fueled an explosion in property crimes and has increasingly meant the release of dangerous criminals.
On Jan. 20, a man with a history of violence, Richard P. Koehrsen, 45, was arrested for trespassing and drinking in public. Because the county detention center was full, jailers released him and 14 other inmates the next day.
Two days after he was set free, Koehrsen was arrested again, this time accused of fatally stabbing a man in the neck downtown in front of Jake's Famous Crawfish. Witnesses said Koehrsen had gotten into a fight with Christopher Darryl John Carter, 42, a laborer and lifelong Portland resident.
The killing renewed public demands for more jail space. A member of a local crime commission, Louise Grant, called the incident appalling, and the head of a public safety committee, Howard Weiner, said it was time for the region to wake up to the problem.
The sheriff gritted his teeth.
"I love coming to an empty $59-million jail."
Giusto (pronounced JOOS-toe) can barely conceal his frustration. He is 55, a lifelong Oregonian, a career lawman and currently the disgruntled sheriff of the state's most populous county. He is conducting one of his occasional tours through Wapato in his campaign to swing wide its doors.
He talks of getting his staff to create a virtual tour of the jail so Oregonians on the Internet can see it for themselves. The tour would include an explanation to the vexing question of how Wapato came to be in the first place.
In sum: The jail was conceived during good times and finished during bad.
At the height of the boom years in the mid-1990s, Oregon taxpayers approved a levy to build the jail with the idea that rising property taxes — the chief source of revenue for local governments in Oregon — would generate money to operate it.
In 2000, a recession, along with two tax initiatives that imposed sharp limits on property taxes, caused the economy to plummet. Unemployment surged to 8.5%, the highest in the nation. Schools cut class lengths, social agencies dropped programs, and police sliced personnel — in particular, corrections officers.
Fortunes changed about a year ago.
Revenue and job-creation figures show the state economy on a steady upswing. The unemployment rate dropped to 5.4% in January, the fourth straight month below 6%, a figure that economists associate with better times.
State Economist Tom Potiowsky recently characterized Oregon's economy as robust.
Nevertheless, the state and many counties may not have the money to maintain some government services at current levels. Multnomah County expects to be in the hole at least $32 million.
Potiowsky says it takes several years for local budgets to reflect swings in the economy. But the main reason for the shortages is Oregon's one-of-a-kind "kicker" law that requires amounts above projections to be kicked back to taxpayers. An estimated $666 million will be refunded to Oregon taxpayers and businesses next year. Multnomah County also faces the loss of revenue from a three-year county income tax — used to prop up ailing school districts — due to expire this year. This makes it certain that competition for county funds will be fierce.
None of this bodes well for Wapato, which could hold 525 inmates at a cost of about $20 million a year. Giusto would be happy to use just a part of the jail — 150 beds at a cost of $6 million, a tiny fraction of the county's $1.2-billion budget.
"It would be a foot in the door," he says.
His voice echoes in the empty corridors.
No one publicly opposes opening Wapato, but politicians choosing between funding classrooms or jail cells have, in recent years, favored schools. Social programs, such as drug rehabilitation, also get priority.
In the backdrop lurks the notion expressed by Maggie Miller, director of the Citizens Crime Commission of Portland: "If a sheriff has a million beds, he'll fill a million beds." More jails don't solve the crime problem.
True, says Giusto. But what if the jail is already built?
Giusto's tone carries the lament of "what a waste."
The sheriff's eyes wander covetously over dozens of never-used metal bunks arranged in neat rows and separated into spacious 75-bed dormitories. Flat-screen televisions adorn the walls in each dorm, where the ceiling soars 30 feet high. The county spent more than $600,000 on art for the jail, including the sculpture — meant to evoke river pilings — out front.
"The public has this image of inmates rattling tin cups on bars," Giusto says. "Take a look around. There aren't gun ports on the ceilings. Look at the colors. Private showers. If I didn't tell you this was a jail, you'd never know. Right?"
It's another long night for Lt. Rachel Getman, commander of the evening shift (3:30 to 11:30 p.m.) at the Multnomah County Justice Center in downtown Portland. The center is one of three jails run by Giusto's department.
One of Getman's main duties is "balancing beds," tracking the number of inmates that exceed the system's capacity of about 1,690 beds. "It's a numbers game," she says, sitting in front of a bank of computer screens. "It's brutal."
The department uses a formula that assigns inmates a score of 1 to 100 based on criminal history and propensity for violence. The lower the score, the greater the chances of an early release.
The overcrowding has meant the release of inmates with increasingly high scores. Getman says the department has released an inmate who scored 80. "I start worrying when we get into the 60s," she says. "The 80 made me very nervous."
On a recent night, the department let three dozen inmates out early. They were brought together and released in a horde into a single lobby. "We opened the door," Getman recalls, "and they were laughing and joking and they were right back out on the street, back to the same party they left."
A couple even flashed a "see-you-tomorrow" kind of grin.
Most were young men like Joseph L. Craddock, who spent two days in jail for theft; Charles E. Bernbeck, two days for malicious harassment; Jerry Ray Gonzalez, one day for carrying a concealed weapon. The Sheriff's Department maintains a website (www.inmatereleases.org) of early-release inmates with mug shots, criminal records and home addresses.
The revolving door is the chief reason that Portland's rate of property crimes — burglaries, car and identity thefts, vandalism — has risen to double the national rate in recent years, police officials say.
Getman and other backers of Wapato say the early-release problem undermines the criminal justice system in Portland. Police wonder whether it's worth the bother to arrest someone who'll be back on the street before the next shift. Prosecutors, keenly aware of the space shortage, have resorted to recommending shorter sentences. Judges too have been affected.
"I've become a liar," says Steven Maurer, the presiding Circuit Court judge in Clackamas County, which last year released nearly 5,000 inmates early. Maurer says he is deeply disturbed that a criminal he sentences to six months in jail could be let go in a matter of hours.
The region's three counties are discussing the possibility of sharing the jail and, most important, sharing the cost.
"Crisis is not too strong a word to describe the problem," Maurer says. "That's exactly what we have here."
Not even the top lawman in the region is immune.
One workday not too long ago, Giusto returned to the detention center's parking lot to find his car windows caved in. A gym bag had been taken in broad daylight — in front of surveillance cameras and right under a sign that read "Multnomah County Sheriff." Giusto recalls inspecting the damage and scanning the lot for clues.
He had no words.
Out of habit and helplessness, the sheriff bit down and gritted his teeth.
Posted by: At least the Art was fully funded | Mar 17, 2006 7:07:09 AM
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The greatest Public Safety issue which I've seen in Portland is Powell Blvd. Specifically between 20th and 27th avenues. Here you find Cleveland High School right across the street from Powell Park. Using the park is uncomfortable because of the noise, and I personally witnessed two young boys almost struck by a panel truck which was attempting to make a green light.
ODOT has already made it clear that they have no concern for pedestrian/bicycle safety (I've spoken with several people there). Are there any ideas for getting around ODOT?
Posted by: Aaron | Aug 2, 2005 6:27:13 PM