October 2009 Advocacy

Action Committee Report
October 19, 2009
Debbie Aiona, Action chair

Metro:  Making the Greatest Place

At the direction of the board, I checked with Marge Easley, LWVOR president, and Peggy Lynch, LWVOR Natural Resources chair, about Portland commenting on Metro’s Chief Operating Officer Michael Jordan’s report:  “Making the Greatest Place:  Strategies for a sustainable and prosperous region.”  LWVOR had no plans to weigh in on the report, but Marge said as long as we checked in with LWVCRR it was fine for Portland to submit comments.  Peggy said she’d be happy to review our draft to ensure we were consistent with the actions they have taken in Salem on this issue.

After attending a Metro workshop and reviewing the materials, I drafted an outline with points to include in a letter to Metro.  Peggy reviewed it and was happy with the direction we were taking.  I sent it to Lorie James, CRR president, and informed her of our intentions.  In the meantime, Ann Mulroney took the outline and turned it into a well-reasoned letter.  Carol and I provided some editorial suggestions and the letter was completed early the week of Oct 12th. 

The letter focused on three areas

·    responding to the challenges of global climate change and limited resources,

·    conserving and protecting our natural resource base and farm and forestlands into the future, and

·    strengthening robust citizen involvement in the Metro process, especially with Metro’s local government partners.

Here are the three main points we made: 

The challenges of global climate change and limited resources demand that the region invest in what we have and maintain the established Urban Growth Boundary.  Conservation of our natural areas, habitat, and farm and forestland are critical to the preservation of a life sustaining natural environment and the human needs for food, water and open space.  Sustaining and strengthening Metro’s citizen participation infrastructure are critical to the success of Metro’s role in the region, especially its local government partnerships.

Betsy attended the hearing on Oct. 15, and gave a two-minute version of the testimony.  Councilor Liberty thanked her and reminded the group that the LWV has been involved in land use for over 35 years.  I saw some of the hearing on TV over the weekend.  Many of the people there were looking out for their own or their client’s personal interests, so I’m glad we managed to pull something together and contribute to the discussion.

Making the Greatest Place Letter to Metro

Police Oversight

Some of you may have seen in the newspaper that the auditor’s office is drafting an RFP to hire an outside expert to review the closed investigation of the Chasse case.  According to the press release, “the outside expert has yet to be selected, but the review will not be a re- investigation of the officers’ conduct or the facts surrounding Mr. Chasse’s death. Rather, the expert will evaluate the quality of the internal investigation, as well as the adequacy of the police policies that affected the actions of the officers.  The Auditor’s Independent Police Review Division will release the final report to the public, elected officials, and the Chief of Police.  The report will comment on improvements made by the Bureau since 2006 and will make any recommendations that emerge from the expert evaluation.”

At this time, we do not know to what extent IPR was involved in the Internal Affairs investigation of the Chasse case.