PORTLAND, Ore. – During a Friday forum discussing policing in Portland, Mayor Ted Wheeler expressed frustration with his dual role as mayor and police commissioner and said he would be open to a change in how Portland’s city government is structured.
Wheeler’s Friday discussion was facilitated by Rukaiyah Adams, the Chief Investment Officer at Meyer Memorial Trust, and hosted by the City Club of Portland.
The discussion was intended to break down several issues Wheeler talked about during his more formal State of the City address on Thursday. But instead, Adams and Wheeler dedicated the hour to a conversation about police reform.
Adams said Wheeler’s State of the City address, where he called for more officers, “community policing” initiatives, and reducing police response time to calls, didn’t discuss substantive change.
“The comments that you made are about operations – resources, response time -- and that just didn’t sit well with me,” she said, and called on Wheeler to provide a clear vision forward for police reform.
Adams asked specifically about Wheeler’s response to the police shooting at a homeless shelter last week, in which eight officers responded to a call of a man armed with a knife, and ended up using deadly force.
Wheeler said that, as police commissioner, he has a duty to protect the investigation process, although that hampers his ability, as mayor, to discuss the shooting.
“I have an obligation to the integrity of those investigations,” he said, noting that a police commissioner is obligated to wait for an investigation to be finished before discussing what happened.
He also expressed frustration after some community members attacked him for declining to discuss the shooting.
“Already this week it’s been suggested I be shot, my life has been threatened, my family has been threatened,” he said.
Wheeler noted that he does not know of any other mayor in America who also has to take on the role of police commissioner.
“Ordinarily the mayor would be in the position of holding the police commissioner accountable. We don’t have that,” he said.
“Being mayor is a multifaceted job. It’s a great job,” he said. “Being police commissioner is a completely different proposition, to make sure our bureau is effective, accountable.”
“The two jobs are directly in conflict,” he said.
The current city charter prevents Wheeler from hiring an outside police commissioner but he said he would be open to discussing a change to the model of city government.
"I'd be delighted," he said.
Portland’s commission system governmental structure is unique among big cities, in that its handful of city commissioners – including the mayor - have far more power than other more diversified governmental structures. City commissioners have legislative, administrative and quasi-judicial authority, according to the city auditor’s office. Portland is the last big city in America to run on a commission system. The commission system was voted into place in 1913.
To change the city’s charter, a petitioner would have to gather signatures from 15 percent of registered voters and voters would then have to pass a ballot initiative during a city-wide election, according to the secretary of state's office.
