Speeches & Testimony

Commissioner Adams joined developers Ray Leary and Jeana Woolley, PDC Commissioner Charles Wilhoite and Carl Talton to celebrate the grand opening of Vanport Square - located on NE Martin Luther King, Jr Blvd & Alberta. Sam's remarks follow:

Thank you Ray for that introduction. It's wonderful to join you all here today on this brisk morning for a project opening that warms the heart.

Schools are starting up, and student energy will begin to focus in from the expansiveness of summer life lessons to the intentional lessons that make up formal education. Many of those lessons involve reading: either learning to read, or learning from reading.

Chalk It Up for Oregon LiteracyA few weeks ago Sam addressed those gathered for the Oregon Literacy event in Pioneer Courthouse Square.

From Here to Portland's Transportation Tomorrow
City Club of Portland Remarks
Commissioner Sam Adams
July 20, 2007

Listen to the speech here.

Thank you, Don Williams, for that gracious introduction. It is an honor to return to the Portland City Club.

I have never seen a passion for any other issue be more intense, a problem more intractable, or options so hotly debated. It was on the front page of every newspaper and the top of all the newscasts for weeks. In fact, history likely will regard it as the most important transportation-related question of our generation. If you haven't already guessed, the issue I am talking about is, "Should, or should we not, allow duct tape on our streets and sidewalks?"

Click to view video of the hearing.

Last week Commissioner Adams was called to Washington, D.C by Congressman David Wu, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation, to testify during a hearing addressing “Green Transportation Infrastructure: Challenges to Access and Implementation.”

These are the remarks I gave today speaking at the noontime "CHAMP" (Culture, History, Art, Movies and Preservation) rally on the steps of the Oregon State Capitol in Salem, Oregon.

"I am Sam Adams and I am proud to be Portland Arts and Culture Commissioner.

George Bush's transportation secretary offered words of praise for rail transit at the Rail-Volution conference in Chicago last week.  Take a look at why even conservative officials see the merit of rail transit as they seek to serve a diversity of transportation needs for the public.

-Roland

Remarks by the Honorable Mary Peters

We are at a pivotal decision point in our collective and ongoing city-making and city-remaking responsibilities.

Depending on the choices we make, and how we spend tax increment financing, we can greatly influence affordability for perhaps the next two generations of Portland families.

Rarely have the stakes for Portlanders been higher.

The state legislature has been resistant to taking needed action on housing.

An open Letter to City of Portland:

It has been brought to my attention by several concerned members of the community that the 95.5 radio broadcast of “The Playhouse” on July 13, 2006 and July 16, 2006 included a number of inflammatory statements that could negatively impact the safety of Portland. These statements may have included sentiments that news of people dying is funny. It is not. The discussion included statements to the effect of:

Sam attended the grand opening of Bridger Rainwater Garden on Earth Day. After more than five years of hard work, the 12,000-square-foot rainwater garden was recognized by the community. This rolling native plant garden fills the school's center courtyard where there used to be a sea of barren asphalt. Once the plants are fully rooted, the garden will be fed by storm water runoff from its roof. By returning this water to the earth's groundwater through natural filtration, the garden will help divert almost 300,000 gallons a year from our sewer systems. Here are Sam's comments from the event:

Good Morning. With the help and contributions from Urban Water Works, Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services, Portland Public Schools, the Environmental Protection Agency and the countless volunteer hours from the parents, children and neighbors of Bridger Elementary School, this project became a reality. Give yourselves a round of applause because you deserve it!

This is one of many important partnership projects between BES and PPS. We were pleased to have Urban Water Works join us on this project.  BES and PPS have had a long history of collaboration on a variety of watershed improvement projects.

In providing important financial support, the Innovative Wet Weather Program has enabled BES to work with the community in demonstrating a variety of innovative sustainable storm water strategies.

Storm water management projects are an important learning opportunity for students and the community.

Storm water runoff from this area is typically directed to combined sewer pipes, which can contribute to combined sewer overflows to the Willamette River.  Runoff from roofs and asphalt can pollute water, destroy habitat, and degrade our watersheds if not properly managed.

Bridger’s Water Garden will reduce the quantity and improve the quality of storm water leaving the site. 

Voluntary storm water retrofits like this project support our recently adopted Watershed Plan, help the city meet regulatory and financial requirements and engage citizens in improving local watersheds.

Once completed, this project will manage almost half a million gallons of storm water runoff per year, helping to reduce combined sewer overflows and providing an innovative outdoor learning opportunity for students and the community.  That is amazing.

Once again, thanks to all for your commitment to this important project.

PSU is a real-world university; it really reflects Portland and truly serves the city.  I’m a good example.  My background:
I lived on my own in high school, and paid my own way through my first round of college.  I quit college when I got a job with now Congressman Peter DeFazio.  I was 38 when I started at back at PSU.  I went back to college because I do not like to leave stuff undone.
I also went back to college because PSU made it possible for me to hustle up here from City Hall during the day and after work…
Attending classes for two years at PSU allowed me to finish my degree at the U of O  – but I will always be a Viking at heart.

PSU doesn’t have to wow people with statistics on diversity… just walk around the campus.
Nearly everybody is represented. 
And because everyone is expected to be here,
   everyone is pretty well accepted as belonging here.

According to a Fall 05’ survey on perceptions of PSU, that dedication to diversity is one of the qualities students, faculty, and staff identify as something that sets PSU apart from other institutions.

I am grateful for PSU's mission:  "Let Knowledge Serve the City".

The educational opportunities you provide and the academic excellence, including research, that you perform are often where the conversation concludes about how universities serve. But at PSU, another large category of impact exists: public and community service and engagement.

Currently, our economic development plans do not set attainable, measurable goals. Our cities and counties are pulled in different directions and, as a result, we get muddled outcomes. Meanwhile, our cost of living is increasing; our median family income is declining. The economic challenges facing our region are not unique but our lack of urgency to deal with them is unique!

I also think we need to turn PSU’s motto around and
Let the City Serve Knowledge.
I have a responsibility to serve you as a City Commissioner.

I asked Mayor Tom Potter to create the position of Higher Education Advocate and I asked to be appointed to the job.   He did and I am. 
So, I am responsible to help PSU serve Knowledge to the city through its teaching, research, and civic engagement.  I bring passion and ideas to this new role:
I plan to launch a Knowledge City Strategy:

1. “Knowledge Cities” are characterized by a significant investment of community resources in research, education and training.  (We clearly have to work on this. Sunday, Feb. 12th’s Oregonian article on "Two States, Two Directions" pointed out the dismal Oregon Higher Ed spending level of $613 million, compared to Washington’s $1.53 Billion.) And our current K-12 funding crisis reflects our long standing battles over school funding.

2. Knowledge Cities engage in knowledge-driven community development: development that provides both direct and indirect benefits to individuals, communities and institutions.

3.  Knowledge cities rely on a critical skill base in the business and legal sectors;

4. And in research excellence in social and life sciences, as well as technology;

5. They build, and build on an entrepreneurial culture linked to local and global expertise and enterprise;

6. They depend on efficient and accessible infrastructure to facilitate the flow of people, goods and information.

Please click here for the entire text of Sam's speech to the Ferdinand Faculty Club.

Chris Coleman is the Artistic Director of Portland Center Stage. He delivered this speech at Northwest Business for Culture & the Arts' annual Arts Breakfast of Champions on November 4, 2005. Download his speech (PDF) here.

One of my favorite past times since moving to Portland has been reading about the city’s history.  This might come as a surprise to my friends back in Atlanta, because during the 27 years I lived there, I don’t think I ever cracked a book about my hometown’s history. 

My favorite discovery of late is the fact that in 1850, a year prior to Portland’s founding, there were 821 residents; 2/3 of whom were male; 90 percent of which were in their 20’s.  If you consider this carefully, it becomes much less difficult to understand why today, the Oregon Supreme Court places such a high premium on the basic rights of strip club owners.

In 1886, Portland was first connected to the transcontinental railroad; and the following year, 1887, the first bridge spanned the Willamette (the Morrison Bridge) and the city’s first theatre was constructed.

By the year 1900, fifty years after the city’s founding, Oregon was the second largest producer of timber in the country, and enough wealth and ambition had coalesced in the region to make hosting the World’s Fair seem a viable proposition. 

The Lewis & Clark Exposition occurred in the summer of 1905, shining the international spotlight on the city, and resulting in a burst of economic expansion that continued right up until the Great Depression.  Many new industries emerged, many fortunes were built, and, until the mid 70s, timber was the unrivalled engine of this region’s economy.

By now, I know you are thinking, “I am listening to some theatre guy from Georgia teach me about Portland History.  Did I get off on the wrong bus?”  But stick with me.

I am no expert on either Portland or economics, but what I do understand is narrative:  how stories are built, how they fit together and how you discover what is at their core.

I would argue that there currently exists a profound disconnect between the story we collectively carry around in our heads to describe who Portland is – and the reality of who we are actually becoming.  And I would add that the task of reframing this story holds the key to both our economic and cultural future.

Two Snapshots:

Number one.

I am sitting in the CEO’s office of a local construction company.  I ask, “How has this city changed most since you grew up here?”  He casts his glance out the expansive window beside us and thinks for several moments. 

“You see those buildings out there?  The vast majority of them were built by companies that once had their headquarters in this city.  Most of those companies are gone.”  I ask, “Why were they here?  What was the magnet?”  He says:  “the timber industry.”

You’ve heard the story before.  You wouldn’t have to walk across the room to find someone who would be willing to tell it today.  This is the story many people still carry around in their heads about what is driving (or not driving) our economy.  The timber industry imploded, headquarters left and we will never recover.

Snapshot Two:

Joe Cortright, our eminent local economist, is addressing a group of leaders from the Biotech Industry.  In the middle of his powerpoint presentation, he flashes a slide onto the screen.

On the slide is a picture of the universe.  Not just any picture of the universe, but a picture of the high tech universe in Portland.  The slide features two dominant orbs juxtaposed against each other in the heavens:  one says “Tektronix”, the other says “Intel”.  Then circling around each of these giant stars, are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of planets, moons, and asteroids – with the names of high tech companies who were birthed in response to, or by talent emerging from Tektronix or Intel.

Two pictures of Portland:  Which expresses the truth?  That’s what we’re all trying to figure out, isn’t it?

Commissioner Sam Adams recently spent a chunk of time traveling around the city talking to businesses about what they needed to succeed.  I’m so happy I didn’t have to go with him.  Can you imagine?  A government official asks a business person how to make the city better, and he’s going to start hearing about the tax burden, and regulations, and permitting.  How depressing.  I mean, has anyone ever actually met a business person who thought his tax burden was reasonable?  It’s a dead-end conversation.

But I’d be interested to see what would happen if you changed the question and asked:  “how are creativity and innovation fueling your business?”  I’ve tried this one out a few times, and rather than leading to a dead-end, the answers open up an astonishing universe of possibility, imagination and profitability.

You find surprising answers in every industry:  it is not just the brilliant footwear designer at NIKE who relies on her creativity to differentiate in the marketplace.  It is also the computer engineer at AMI who is making a more reliable pacemaker; it is the graphic designer at Lancair, who is figuring out how to make small planes both faster and cooler to look at; it is the environmental specialist at Glumac who is figuring out how to build a condo that only spends $18 a year on energy; it is the marketing person at Widmer Brothers who is creating a new distribution system for beer; it is the mechanical engineer at Freightliner who makes it possible to custom design more trucks than any company in North America; it is the executive at Wieden & Kennedy who is launching a record label to connect local talent to a larger marketplace; and yes, in the timber industry, it is the chemist at Columbia Forest Products, who is figuring out how to make a non-toxic particle board by harnessing the adhesive properties of Oregon Mussels (that’s my favorite).

If you ask Duncan Wyse at the Oregon Business Plan, he will tell you flat out that the local companies competing most effectively in the global marketplace are those innovating at the leading edge of their industry.  Now you might say, “Well I don’t care about competing in the global marketplace,”  and I would reply:  “Yes, you do.”  Not perhaps for your own enterprise – but the horses drawing our economy are largely traded sector companies (those that produce goods and services in Oregon and sell them elsewhere).  If those companies are not competing aggressively at the global level, then the rest of us are riding in a car without any gas. 

So we are searching for the narrative thread, the story of who Portland is becoming – and two words seem to rising to the surface:  creativity and innovation.  And it is not just about making things cooler, or more fun.  It is not just about zany cows on the sidewalk, or singing Lions, or martinis of various hues (all of which I love).   

Snapshot Three:

This time I’m at lunch with executives from M Financial Corp, an Executive Benefits Firm, and Gerding/Edlen, a Real Estate Developer.   I ask them both to talk about what had fuelled their success.  They speak of their ability to innovate at the front of their industry.  I ask what enabled them to innovate.  They both reply with slightly different words:  “We hire geniuses.”

Talent.  They hire the most talented, creative people in their field (whether the need is for a construction project manager, or an actuarial scientist) – and set them to work on a problem.  THIS is the key as I see it.  Attracting and retaining high level talent is the key to creating profitability and success for both an individual business and a region in today’s economy.

Now, if this thought is starting to sound familiar, it’s probably because it has begun to find its way into conversations around the country, due to the writing of Richard Florida.   Until very recently, Florida taught at my alma mater, Carnegie Mellon University, and began his research with the question:  “Why is everyone leaving Pittsburgh?”  (If you’ve ever lived there, it wouldn’t take a study to come up with an answer, but let’s be generous).  In 1900, Pittsburgh was the 6th largest city in the U.S. and steel had made it one of the wealthiest cities in the world.   But over the past thirty years, it has consistently lost both population and economic traction.

He studied what was driving regional economic performance and published his findings in a book entitled “The Rise of the Creative Class”. He first defined the “Creative Class” as people who add value to the economy by thinking; and then, the “Super Creative Class” – as people who add value to the economy by creating a new way to do something.  In the year 1900, by Florida’s estimation, 3% of the American workforce could have been said to belong to the “Creative Class”.  In 2001, that number was 33%, and was responsible for generating more than half of all American wages.

He discovered several basic factors that seemed to contribute to a region’s success in this model:  1) density of high tech companies; 2) density of Creative Class workers; 3) density of Bohemians; and 4) visible tolerance.

The basic theory he drew from his findings was that economic success was no longer driven by which companies were in a particular region, but by which TALENT could be attracted to and retained in that region.  So, if you jump back to the conclusion we heard earlier from M Financial and Gerding/Edlen (“We hire geniuses”) – a relationship starts to emerge. 

And what seems to attract this level of talent to a given place?  Many different things – but at the top of Florida’s list are a few key factors:  a) density of knowledge workers (“if I go work for Intel and they dump me, are there enough other opportunities in this place so that I can get work; or are their other creative people around so I can set out on my own if I need to?”); b) tolerance (is this a place where new ideas are welcomed; where you are encouraged to experiment; where diversity is celebrated and where someone like me will fit in?); and c) artistic stimulation (is this a fun, interesting place to live?).  It was no accident that every city that made the top of Florida’s economic list also had thriving cultural scenes. 

Think about it for a second:  you are recruiting a ‘genius’ computer whiz at the top of her field.  She can choose to work anywhere in the world.  Money is an incentive, but she is going to weigh many factors, one of the most important being how interesting, how stimulating the place is to live in.  Do her recreational, intellectual, and cultural options stack up against Austin, Denver, Toronto, London, Shanghai?  Florida’s measurement of the “bohemian index” (how many artists, writers, dancers, filmmakers, actors, etc. are living in a city) is a direct barometer of how culturally interesting a place might be to live in.   And in his interviews with members of the creative class, the desire to live in a community with a vibrant cultural scene, from the Symphony to the street, was critical.

But the value of the cultural scene actually extends a step further in this model.  If your job depends on your ability to create a new way of doing something, then you need the intuitive and intellectual materials with which to accomplish that job.  One aspect of your work will be gathering tons and tons of data, defining your goal, selecting creative partners, and chewing on the problem at hand.  Then you hit what is known in the creative process as “the point of saturation”.  You’ve taken in as much information as you can digest.

And at that moment, you have to let the problem sit in the oven for a while.  And you seek (consciously or unconsciously) external distraction or stimulation that might spark the intuitive leap required to deliver your brilliant solution.  You go to an art gallery, you ride your bike, you listen to a concert, you watch a movie, you go rockclimbing, you see a ballet.   And the themes from the latest Decembrists concert ends up in a new ad campaign at Wieden & Kennedy, or the imagery at Elizabeth Leach Gallery surfaces in the design of a new condo tower.

The Creative Worker wants a creative city because it is more interesting to live in; and he needs a creative city because the stimulation it affords is required in order to perform at his peak.

So the equation looks like this:  a company’s ability to differentiate and compete in today’s marketplace is increasingly driven by their ability to innovate; innovation is driven by a high level of talent; that talent is attracted first to the PLACE, then to the JOB.   

What do we do with this information?  Statistically, Portland is doing a pretty good job of attracting talent.  But are we able to attract and retain the level of talent that will allow us to stay competitive?  Once the talent is here, what are the obstacles that stand in the way of their success?  How do you make certain that the next Kristy Edmund, or the next Phil Knight are connecting to the level of capital needed to transform their brilliant idea into an enterprise?  What are we doing to identify and fortify the excellence already living in our midst?  And how are we building an educational system that arms our kids with the creative problem solving skills they will need to compete for jobs?  Those are a few of the questions we should be asking.

And those of us in the “arts community” need to change the lenses on our glasses.  Instead of asking, “How can we get business to more generously support the Arts?” we need to ask instead, “What kind of investment could we collectively make to transform this city into one of the most creative communities on the planet?”  We should be looking at every single way we can identify, foster and celebrate creativity whether in the rehearsal hall at BodyVox, or the research lab at OHSU.

*

The Rise of the Creative Class was reprinted in paperback form in 2004, and I was struck by how Portland ranked on Florida’s overall “Creativity Index” (the amalgam he uses to define a region’s overall readiness to compete today).  In the 2001 statistics, Portland ranked 16th overall.  Not half bad.  But in the 2004 version, we ranked 6th.

What this says to me, is that if you believe any of this guy’s research, then many of the advantages a community needs to thrive economically are already here, alive and kicking.  And our job as leaders is to look in the right direction, seek out the connective tissue, remove the obstacles, connect talent to capital – and most critically – to reframe the story of who Portland is becoming. 

The following is a summary of Sam's comments before City Council as he introduced the Public Safety Partnership.