Portland needs more transparency from citizen advisers: Guest opinion

By Guest Columnist

Guess what's illegal in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego? Voting to give yourself millions while serving on a city advisory committee. Yet, it's currently legal in Portland to vote on your own or your client's financial interests while serving on a city advisory committee. Portland City Council must make this illegal by requiring advisory committee members to recuse themselves from voting on their own or their clients' financial interests.

As the City Ombudsman has stated - and local media reported -- members of the West Quadrant Stakeholder Advisory Committee had financial interests in specific properties or had been hired by developers of those properties. Thus, the "advice" they gave to raise heights, remove long-standing protections for view corridors and increase floor area ratios was ethically-conflicted advice. We have little doubt that conflicts of interest have occurred on other committees as well since the city lacks specific city rules for advisory committees.  Portland shouldn't be doing business this way.

In Seattle, Los Angeles and San Diego, these "advisers" would receive a hefty fine for voting to benefit themselves or their clients. In San Francisco, they could receive jail time. In most of these cities, advisory committee members must recuse themselves if they have direct or indirect financial interests in the matter being discussed.

In Los Angeles, a committee member who has more than three recusals in a year indicates a "significant and continuing conflict," which requires that member to quit committee service. That prevents those with patronage relationships from advocating for their clients' interests, such as architects who serve on commissions and advocate for developers who frequently hire them.

In Seattle, you can't bid on a competitive process for a year, if, as an advisory committee member, you helped design the contract, the scope of work or the process to be used. In San Diego and Seattle, advisory committee members must recuse themselves if a client or anyone who has paid them more than $500 in the past year has a financial stake in the matter.

These are best practices that Portland should be emulating.

We agree with the Oregon League of Women Voters' stated goal for 2017 to protect "democracy by minimizing the influence of money in politics." Portland must remove the influence of money in our advisory committees, commissions and boards. Portland should be at least as ethical and transparent as these other major West Coast cities by requiring recusals and asking those who stand to gain financially to leave the room during discussions.

It's inexcusable how far Portland lags behind other cities. We are the only major West Coast city that allows people to vote to give themselves or their clients more money while "advising" the city. We admire the council's efforts to bring greater transparency to the committee process and appreciate the addition of a disclosure requirement. But, Portland City Council must also include required recusals as the law.

As City Council now deliberates on changing the way advisory committees function, this is the opportunity for our city to get it right.