The Tribune’s two articles today (here and here) on the city council and the Portland Development Commission are worthy of study. They describe the struggle for control over the PDC — should it be independent of the City Council, take direction from the mayor, or take direction from the entire council? Coupled with this question of control is the extent to which the PDC and the City Council make decisions behind closed doors, with consensus worked out in advance before the public gets a chance to speak.
I’ll have more to say about these two issues. One principle that came to my mind when I read the articles is this: the public will cut elected officials a good deal of slack when they make bad decisions in public after substantial public involvement, or when they make good decisions in private. The public will not, however, cut elected officials any slack when they make bad decisions in private. Certainly the City and PDC can get more accomplished, and faster, by cutting the public out of the process, but if the public perceives that their decisions are for the private benefit of a few favored developers and not in the interest of the city as a whole, the public can rightly complain that their representatives should have taken public comment and considered the public interest before subsidizing a private party.