Commissioner Steve Novick was elected to Portland City Council in 2012. He currently heads the city’s Transportation, Emergency Communications and Emergency Management Bureaus.
On March 6, KATU conducted a poll of Portlanders, asking their views on various options to help close the City’s deficit. The poll found that 85 percent were opposed to closing “the Clark Center, a 90-bed homeless shelter.” The idea of closing the Clark Center drew the opposition of more Portlanders than any other cut that the poll mentioned.
In subsequent weeks, Nick Fish, Amanda Fritz and I all let Mayor Hales know that we placed a very high priority on preserving not only the Clark Center, but the other safety net services championed by Street Roots. On April 30, Mayor Hales released a proposed budget that preserved the safety net services. The budget the Council finally adopted made significant cuts to police, to fire and rescue, to administrative services, to planning; it assumes that city employees will not receive a full cost of living increase; but it made no cuts to the safety net services.
Unfortunately, there will still be cuts in safety net services this year. The support services that the Portland Housing Bureau provides, for instance, were forced to absorb a nearly $1.3 million reduction from the Federal government. That affects programs like rental assistance, transitional housing, and permanent housing and access for vulnerable populations.
But there is some reason to hope that next year will be better for people in need. On January 1, the Affordable Care Act will become fully effective, which means that thousands of people will suddenly become eligible for Medicaid. Right now, the city and especially the county spend a lot of money on health care (including “regular” physical health care, mental health services, and alcohol and drug treatment) for those who are uninsured. If Medicaid starts picking that up, your local governments should have more money to spend on other services — such as affordable housing.
Personally, I am interested in exploring the question of whether national and state health reform provides an opportunity to restructure the way emergency medical services, including the huge percentage of the fire and rescue bureau’s work which falls into the medical category — are delivered and paid for. Right now, fire and rescue’s medical-related work isn’t covered by health insurance. I hope that I, as Commissioner for the Bureau of Emergency Communications, along with Commissioner Saltzman, as Fire and Rescue Commissioner, can talk with the medical industry about forging partnerships whereby we change the way we do business in a way that helps reduce their emergency room costs. In return, they can help bear some of the cost of our medical services. If we are successful, that too could free up local tax dollars to improve other services.
Now that I have been assigned the role of Transportation Commissioner, I have another set of inequities and funding shortfalls to try to figure out how to deal with. I want to work with TriMet to see how soon we can add more frequent bus service in underserved areas, such as along 122nd Avenue. I want to add sidewalks in places where there are no sidewalks, so children can walk to school and seniors (and others) can walk to transit. But we also need to figure out how to address a $750 million street maintenance shortfall, over the next 10 years ($75 million a year; we’re only spending $10 million a year now).
Those are going to be heavy lifts. But I don’t think they’re impossible lifts. After all, Portland families, businesses and governments spend $244 million a year on car maintenance and repair, and over $600 million on gas. We should be able to come up with a small fraction of that for street maintenance, plus some additional funds for sidewalks and transit.
I look forward to working with you on these and other issues. I thank you for your advocacy for services for the vulnerable in the city budget. And I am grateful to my fellow commissioners and the mayor for responding to that advocacy.
