Portland City Council is considering extending a controversial multimillion-dollar cleaning and security contract
As the Portland City Council considers extending a controversial multimillion-dollar cleaning and security contract with Clean & Safe for another ten years, the program’s top executive quietly resigned last month.
Maureen Fisher is out as the executive director of Clean & Safe, the embattled private nonprofit. Fisher also left her role at the Portland Business Alliance (PBA) — the high-powered Portland area chamber of commerce boasting many of Mayor Ted Wheeler’s top campaign donors — which manages Clean & Safe. According to a 2019 PBA press release, Fisher was hired into a dual role that included the title of vice president of downtown services for the alliance.
Less than a year into the positions, Fisher was asked by city auditors in a January 2020 meeting to explain the relationship between a city-sanctioned special business district managed by Clean & Safe and PBA. At the time, Fisher said she was “sorting through the web of relationships to untangle some of this.” In 2019 tax filings for Clean & Safe, Fisher describes the relationships more succinctly: “The employees are all employees of the Portland Business Alliance.” Despite the extensive crossover and PBA management, the two entities remain legally distinct.
Fisher did not respond to several attempts to contact her, and PBA declined to discuss the details of her departure.
Clean & Safe, responsible for administering more than $5 million in fees levied on downtown property owners and businesses to finance supplements to public services in the “Downtown Enhanced Service District,” is fighting calls for the city to discontinue their contract amid growing concerns about accountability and oversight. The City of Portland’s own auditor said the program has created a “city within a city.”
PBA received $4.7 million from those district fees as part of a contract with Clean & Safe for “management services” in 2019. PBA, in turn, distributes that money through subcontracts for cleaning, security and other miscellaneous services in downtown.
In 2019 tax filings for Clean & Safe, Fisher describes the relationships more succinctly: “The employees are all employees of the Portland Business Alliance.” Despite the extensive crossover and PBA management, the two entities remain legally distinct.
The two largest contracts are with Central City Concern and Portland Patrol, Inc., for cleaning and security services, respectively.
Portland Patrol personnel are often seen in blue uniforms resembling real police uniforms patrolling the downtown area. Unhoused residents have long said the private security officers are aggressive and unprofessional, which, in addition to the lack of formal oversight, has become the crux of the argument against the city renewing the contract with Clean & Safe.
PBA is actively working to ensure the contract is renewed. This year, Wheeler’s office has met with PBA lobbyist Jon Isaacs and other PBA staff at least half a dozen times for discussions related to the renewal of Clean & Safe’s contract with the city, according to recent lobbying disclosures.
PBA frequently lobbies city government. In the first six months of 2021, PBA spent just under $12,000 lobbying the city, according to records from the auditor’s office. The organization reported 356 “contacts” with city officials, which include virtual meetings, in-person meetings, emails, text messages and phone calls.
Inquiries from Oregon Public Broadcasting unearthed additional contacts made by PBA last year, including a text message from Isaacs to Mayor Ted Wheeler’s office that appears to have helped PBA secure an additional $5,000 dollars from the city budget.
However, some of the pressure the city faces to rethink its relationship with Clean & Safe may be internal.
When auditors started asking questions about accountability and oversight over private security officers in public spaces in March 2020, John Hren, a retired Portland police officer and owner of Portland Patrol Inc., pushed back.
He described a conversation with Robert King, Wheeler’s outgoing public safety advisor, where he told King not to release information about security officer oversight to the public in response to a public records request..
“(Hren) said he didn’t want things to get into the media and said there has been much written about him and his company,” auditors noted in the meeting summary.
Those 2020 internal audit documents, reviewed by Street Roots, further questions about democratic governance and a 33-year public-private partnership that City Auditor Mary Hull-Caballero referred to as “a city within a city.”
“Perhaps we need to ask the bigger question as a city — if we want to continue to allow geographic areas of the city to allow this, then we have to put governance structures and accountability in place,” read meeting notes from a March 2020 meeting with Hull-Caballero and an auditor’s office team investigating city oversight of Portland’s three Enhanced Service Districts.
During several public listening sessions over the last month, the city said it is conducting a comprehensive review of Enhanced Service Districts and establishing “clear equitable criteria for the development and oversight of the districts,” including policy recommendations and oversight that is in line with the city’s “core values.”
That work won’t be complete by Sept. 23, when the City Council votes on extending the downtown district’s contract for another decade. An emailed statement sent by Wheeler spokesperson Tim Becker on Aug. 16 said the mayor supports Clean & Safe continuing to fund private security officers and paying for Portland Patrol Inc. to jointly supervise sworn Portland Police officers.
Wheeler’s office did not respond to questions about PBA’s relationship with Clean & Safe, but he’s no stranger to the power players involved with PBA.
PBA came to Wheeler’s aid last year as he trailed challenger Sarah Iannorone in polling during Portland’s last mayoral race.
United for Portland emerged to raise more than $500,000 in funding for Wheeler and received substantial funding from PBA. Of the total figure, PBA’s PAC contributed $50,000 worth of marketing support and another $50,000 in cash. Board members and associated entities also contributed at least an additional $63,000, according to state campaign finance disclosures.
A week before Fisher had her last reported meeting with Portland officials about Clean & Safe on April 30, Wheeler responded to a letter from a coalition of organizations requesting additional transparency and public participation around the contract renewal process.
“While the contract renewal meetings between city staff and Downtown Clean & Safe are not public, City Council has directed the (Chief Administrative Office) to ensure that the contract renewal process includes opportunities for the people, businesses, and organizations most affected by the districts to provide input and comment on the contract scope of work,” Wheeler wrote in an email obtained by Street Roots.
