Your editorial makes a good case for trying to restore the $1.9 million addition to police in the mayor’s budget that six colleagues and I voted to divert to parks maintenance – which the mayor had cut substantially, (“A $1.9 million budget shift Portland can’t afford,” June 1). In the past week, I have been working with Chief Bob Day to clarify how that money could be used effectively for recruitment, and I am optimistic that we can find the money to fund a well-defined effort. Chief Day is well on his way to answering what you rightly described as councilors’ “legitimate questions that city staff and police should have been able to answer more clearly.”
I was very disappointed, however, to see you write that Portland Clean Energy Fund money “could be used for parks.” The Clean Energy Fund was created to reduce our carbon emissions – for example, by retrofitting buildings to make them more energy efficient or investing in transit to reduce reliance on cars – and take steps to shield vulnerable populations from the effects of climate change. If we just siphon the money to maintain our preexisting parks system, we will make no progress toward those goals.
I would expect the Oregonian/OregonLive editorial board to understand that, and am surprised to see you say, in effect, “hey, climate, parks, it’s all, like, nature and stuff, what’s the diff?”
Steve Novick, Portland
Novick is a Portland city councilor for District 3.
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