The Portland Development Commission is expected to name its new director today. The commission itself selects the director, but no doubt it will give Mayor Potter’s opinion serious consideration before it votes.
I don’t know which of the three candidates Mayor Potter favors, but I think we can read at least a few tea leaves from looking at his assignment of bureaux. The Mayor assigned the Planning Bureau and the Portland Development Commission to himself. He assigned the Bureau of Transportation to another commissioner.
One of the candidates formerly headed the Planning Bureau. Another was PDC’s general counsel. The third has a background in transportation. From this I infer that PDC will select either David Knowles (formerly of Planning) or Karen Williams (its former general counsel) — that is, one of the two candidates whose background tracks the Mayor’s announced interests — and not Bruce Warner, who came from the Oregon Department of Transportation. Which way the Mayor will lean depends, I think, on what he wants PDC to do in the next four years, and in particular on whether he will look to PDC’s new director to set policy or to clean up the agency.
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Do you think that the PDC board is listening to Potter? As much as, say, to Tom Imeson?
I think the board will listen to Mayor Potter with great attention, particularly now that they’ve read the news about the Mayor’s firing three entrenched civil servants.
Is the PDC decision to be handed down today, or Monday? I thought I read in Wednesday’s Willamette Week that the decision would be Monday.
You might be right. PDC’s board had scheduled an executive session for June 20 to “consider the hiring of an executive director.” It announced that session a few days in advance, on June 16. (State law requires government agencies to announce executive sessions in advance and to give a general description of the topics to be covered.) I figured that the board expected to make a decision on June 20, but didn’t, because on June 21 it announced another executive session to be held on June 22, also to “consider the hiring of an executive director.” It hasn’t announced any more executive sessions which makes me think that the board came to some sort of decision on June 22, but needed more information (I have no idea what) before taking a formal vote in public.
I had heard that PDC is making the decision today, but it’s possible that I’m a business day or two off.
The Tribune says that PDC will announce its choice on Monday, June 27, but unless PDC sets another executive committee session between now and Monday, I think it’s safe to assume that it’s made its choice and will notify the candidates today.
The board doesn’t fear Potter. They’re lame duck volunteers whose next moment in the sun will come via Teddy K., not Tommy P.
Perhaps so for the members who are leaving, but those who want another term on one of the few volunteer commissions with an independent budget will (I predict) take a great interest in anything that the Mayor and Council have to say about their choice.
It will turn out that I guessed wrong.