Just Say “No” to Re-electing JoAnn Hardesty for Portland City Council

We applaud JoAnn Hardesty’s successful record as a social justice activist. Her experience as such is why many of our Portland Party members voted for her in 2018 (including one of our founders, who you can hear speak about this topic among many others in a recent Rational in Portland podcast episode).

We who voted for Ms. Hardesty did so with high hopes that she would help reform the police department while performing other functions she was assigned as a City Commissioner.

In 2020, Ms. Hardesty gained oversight of the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) and the Fire Department when Mayor Wheeler reassigned bureau management responsibilities. (We understand that oversight of City bureaus by commissioners with no related experience is an issue, which is why we fully support charter reform; but NOT the proposal up for voter approval in November—rest assured, a better charter reform option is coming in May 2023.)

However, our current system is what we have to work within, and we believe Ms. Hardesty has failed to successfully run the bureaus assigned to her. For the alleged purpose of “equity,” Ms. Hardesty instructed PBOT to stop enforcing laws that are in place for EVERYONE’S safety. It is not equitable to pick and choose when to enforce laws and as a result, the citizens of Portland have suffered.

These laws include no RV or trailer parking on city streets except for loading and unloading, and no parking in one location for more than 24 hours. Which makes perfect sense given that many accidents have been attributed to motorists’ inability to see around these vehicles and subsequent collisions involving bicyclists and pedestrians. Garbage trucks, emergency vehicles and even TriMet buses have difficulty maneuvering through certain neighborhoods due to this illegal parking.

Almost every Portland-adjacent municipality has established “safe sleep areas,” i.e., secure RV/trailer parking areas that give peace-of-mind to nearby residents that they can go to work without fear of their possessions being stolen. Why hasn’t Ms. Hardesty set aside PBOT properties or worked with other agencies to secure similar secure parking areas for the same types of transient vehicles?

The Fire Department made history this year because, for the first time in recent memory, they refused to endorse their own boss. And the reasons are obvious. We’ve heard countless stories of neighbors in fear of their homes burning down because of fire hazards at nearby camps. But all too often they are told that the Fire Department has been instructed to “stand down” until a fire is raging out of control. This is unacceptable.

There is no reason a houseless campers shouldn’t be told to move hazardous materials or relocate their campfire for everyone’s safety, including their own. But for the past two years the reality is we have seen too many campsites go up in flames; outcomes that easily could have been prevented under pragmatic leadership.

Mayor Wheeler’s new emergency orders have lifted some of the burden; perhaps you’ve noticed that PBOT has started towing derelict cars and RVs. But this positive development has occurred in no thanks to Ms. Hardesty. And because the City waited so long to clean things up, there’s obviously a huge backlog.

Within PBOT’s purview lies the Graffiti Removal Program, Leaf Day Program, and Street Sweep Program. Every City-funded effort that is needed to clean-up Portland is within Ms. Hardesty’s oversight. But as anyone who’s joined any meeting with her will attest, Ms. Hardesty spends her time complaining about an inherited backlog of issues instead of proposing actionable solutions. Sure, the leaf and street cleaning programs have always performed poorly—but why didn’t Ms. Hardesty attempt to improve them? In a city that prides itself on its tree canopy, is it equitable to say only certain neighborhoods are eligible for free leaf pickup? And only one day out of the year? We can and must do better.

As a candidate who was elected to bring change and diversity to the police, why has Ms. Hardesty not pushed for such improvements within the bureaus she oversees? Recent reporting indicates diversity issues within the Fire Department, as well as a lack of staffing and excessive forced overtime—which likely would be mitigated by equitably enforcing the fire safety laws discussed previously.

While we support the efforts of Portland Street Response (PSR), the program is riddled with issues. Citizens are hesitant to call 911 for PSR action because they’re leery of further burdening the already overwhelmed 911 system.

But recently we learned about a successful tri-county program called Project Respond that is unheard of beyond those who work in that field. Project Respond offers a dedicated phone line with live responses 24/7. But assuming Ms. Hardesty knew about Project Respond, why didn’t she work to work in parallel with such a successful, existing program?

We believe JoAnn Hardesty’s heart is in the right place and that she’s destined to benefit society; but as a City Commissioner, she’s in over her head. After four years of headline-grabbing rhetoric, Ms. Hardesty has achieved little progress within the purview of her oversight. ACTUAL job assignments for us to let her have another four years. In a perfect world she would be able to pursue her social justice activism in addition to her regularly assigned, voter-mandated duties, but clearly, she is unable to do so in Portland’s current political climate. Ms. Hardesty cannot be allowed another four years in office as a City Commissioner.

Just say ‘No’ to JoAnn in November.