Council should be more engaged

Here’s a modest suggestion for improving city government in Portland: Get the members of the City Council more engaged.

Take a tip from town councils. Take a tip from the Dunkirk City Council.

In those cases, individual council members are given specific departmental liaison responsibilities.

For town councils, it can be pretty intense, since there’s no mayor involved. But in a situation like Dunkirk’s, the council members work arm-in-arm with the mayor, focusing on specific areas of concern.

Take Dunkirk’s Tom Johnson. Tom’s a former mayor himself, and he’s served as a councilman under two or three different mayors. As a councilman, he’s been given particular responsibility for working with the city park and municipal swimming pool.

He’s not in that role to undermine the mayor. He’s not a rival.

Instead, he’s the go-to guy when questions about the park or pool are raised. He’s the guy the mayor can rely on for a little extra effort and expertise. And because of that, he and the mayor can speak together on issues with greater credibility.

Here’s how it works: Council members are assigned specific departments as their area of special concern.

One gets the police department, another gets the fire department, another gets the water department, another gets the street department, another gets wastewater treatment, another gets parks, and maybe another gets the redevelopment commission. All of that depends, of course, on the number of members on the council.

Portland’s approach, at least for the past several years, has been quite different.

Council meetings are perfunctory and superficial. Some observers have suggested that council members barely open their informational packets until the meetings are called to order.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

These are pretty smart people, and they certainly love and care about their community.

But under the current system, that care and concern are not translated into meaningful action.

Imagine how different a Portland City Council meeting would be if council member A had spent a few afternoons with the head of the street department, getting a better understanding of priorities and problems.

Imagine if council member B not only sat in on meetings of the city’s redevelopment commission but actually served as a member of that body.

Some mayors hate this approach. They feel it undercuts their authority.

But that’s short-sighted.

What it does is put talent to work. These people ran for city council because they said they wanted to make a difference.

Making a difference is more than going to a handful of meetings.

Put the talent to work. Challenge the council. Give its members real responsibility.

You’ll be pleasantly surprised. — J.R.