Mingus Mapps: Charter reform is a once in a century opportunity, but the devil is in the details.

Will the City Commissioner who campaigned on government reform throw his weight behind the Charter Commission’s recommendations?

City Commissioner Mingus Mapps has been one of the most outspoken voices at City Hall about the need to reform Portland government.

So what does he think about the Charter Commission’s initial proposals?

Will his PAC, formed specifically to support charter reform, launch a campaign to move the Charter Commission’s recommendations forward?

Portland City Commissioner Mingus Mapps

Portland’s City Council has been cautious about weighing in during the charter review process. However, now that the Charter Commission has released its initial reform recommendations, the onus is on city commissioners to react.

It’s fair to say that no other reaction will be more impactful than that of City Commissioner Mingus Mapps.

Why? Because he is the only city commissioner who has a PAC exclusively dedicated to charter reform. 

Mapps won his 2020 city council bid after campaigning on the need for government reform and sharing his own personal accounts of institutional dysfunction as a former city employee.

In late 2020, when the Charter Commission was only just embarking on its two-year review, Commissioner Mapps and a small team of campaign professionals formed the Ulysses PAC to position themselves to support charter reform - with one important caveat. They would only help bring it over the finish line if they agreed with the Charter Commission’s recommendations. 

Rose City Reform sat down with Commissioner Mapps to ask his opinion on the reform package – and whether his PAC will support it.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

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You have been an outspoken voice about Portland’s need to replace its commission form of government. Were you hoping for a particular form of government to replace the current system?

The piece that I think is desperately needed is to have some sort of city manager system here in Portland, and I’m glad to see that’s contained in the [Charter Commission’s] proposal. That’s what’s missing in Portland and frankly explains why we struggle so hard to solve basic problems like houselessness or getting permits out on time.

Portland is unique in that we have this commission form of government, which was popular about a hundred years ago. In the ensuing century, basically every city of our size has abandoned the commission form of government for either a strong mayor system or a city manager system.

Portland has managed to limp along with the old commission form of government, partly because up until two decades ago, we were still kind of a small town, and kind of a simple town. But we have grown so much and become so diverse, and our problems have grown so complex that we really can't run the city without some mechanism to coordinate services across city bureaus.

Who should have firing and hiring authority of bureau heads: the mayor or the city manager?

It would be my preference that hiring and firing authority would ultimately lie with the mayor. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I think in democratic institutions, the ultimate authority needs to rest with elected officials.

Under the Charter Commission’s proposal, the executive mayor will not have veto power. What do you think about that?

The mayor doesn’t have a veto in our current system, so it doesn't feel like a loss to me, but I do think it might be good government practice to give the mayor veto authority over budget issues. I wouldn't want to see the mayor veto ordinances that come out of council.

As an individual member of council, I don't really have the responsibility of trying to balance the entire budget. That's something unique to the mayor. And because the game isn't structured for most members of council to think about the overall budget, I think it's quite possible we could find ourselves in some uncomfortable financial waters, even in the next couple of years. After we get through this round of reforms, I hope we think about that.

The charter commission is recommending a 12-member city council. That’s an even number, but the charter commissioners don’t want to grant the mayor a tiebreaking vote. Do you foresee any issues with a council that can't break a tie?

I do. I'm surprised by this particular proposal. I can't think of a legislative body which is set up in a similar fashion. It is inevitably going to cause problems. I would be shocked if we pass this and then don't find ourselves revisiting that decision at some future date. Creating the option for councilors to be at a stalemate is just not wise.

I really hope that the Charter Commission cleans up the tiebreaker situation before they send the package to voters. It's just an obvious problem that will inevitably need to get fixed. We should fix it before we implement it, rather than after we implement it. I don't understand why they did that.

The Charter Commission wants to divide Portland into four districts with three representatives each. What’s your reaction to this type of city council structure?

I think it's a wise idea to expand the size of council.  I think every Portlander feels that recent city councils have not been reflective of all the voices in the community. And a more nuanced version of that concern is that we need to have better geographic representation. For example, folks who live in outer east Portland feel like members of the council don't understand their life experiences. As a guy who used to work at 111th and Sandy I think that’s true.

I'm not a huge fan, frankly, of multi-member districts [districts represented by more than one person]. I would much rather have individual districts represented by one member of council. I'm not sure what benefit is derived by having multi-member districts.

I think it would be cleaner and easier if we had smaller districts that represented distinct places, which also makes sense for Portland because Portland is very much a city of neighborhoods. I think that's kind of in our DNA and that's how we think of ourselves.

Do you think twelve is an appropriate number of members for Portland’s City Council?

I think it's probably a little bit too big, frankly. Twelve people is a lot. Council needs to work together on issues and as you grow the size of council, coordination and communication becomes harder and harder.

I think it would have been wiser to go with a smaller number. But I know that as the Charter Commission was having these discussions, they talked about numbers even larger than twelve. So twelve, I believe, is a compromise. It's not the best compromise, but it's a compromise I can live with.

The Charter Commission wants Portland to adopt ranked choice voting to allow voters to rank candidates in order of preference. Would you have campaigned differently if Portland had used ranked choice voting when you were running for office? 

I don't think it would have impacted how I campaigned. I've heard theories about how ranked choice voting would make our local political campaigns less contentious, because there would be incentives to build coalitions and whatnot. I'm actually not sure if that’s true.

With coalition-building, you could have three candidates run in a district and agree to say nice things about each other, and to say bad things about three other people on the ballot.

Frankly, when I look at the ranked choice voting piece, I'm not sure what problem they're trying to solve. I imagine trying to explain this proposal to someone who's not deeply engaged in politics. I think that's a heavy lift.

I think ranked choice voting is just introducing an awful lot of confusion. I'm not sure how it would impact our system, which is one of the reasons I'm skeptical. If you look at a reform and you can't really tell what benefits it's going to bring, or how it's going to change your politics, then why are you doing it?

Ranked choice voting would allow Portland to eliminate the primary election. Do you see value in that?

Actually, I don't. I think that’s a mistake. When I ran for this office, I had to do a primary and a general election. It's brutal. I was on the campaign trail every day for more than a year. But by going through that marathon, I learned so much more and I got to engage more deeply with Portland voters.

I think that having a primary really does a great job of preparing you for this job. Those extra months of meeting people and talking about the issues really helped me out.

Your PAC is uniquely positioned to champion charter reform. Are you planning to support the Charter Commission’s recommendations?

The package of proposals that we got out of the charter commission contained some things I'm awfully excited about, like having a city manager. I also support growing the size of council and moving towards district-based elections. But I have concerns about how various parts have been implemented. I’m not thrilled by multi-member districts, and I’m frankly disappointed by the ranked choice voting proposal.

I have put together an advisory board that shares my passion for common sense government. I think it's entirely possible that our advisory board might recommend that we support some proposals and don't support others.

Even though I'm kind of disappointed in some aspects of the proposals, I want to thank the Charter Commission for doing their due diligence and putting together an interesting package of ideas.

Ultimately, I think in the next week or two, we'll know what the final package looks like. And then we can really engage in a broad-based discussion about what the next Portland is going to look like.

I think this is a once in a century opportunity to turn our city around. After we get through this next cycle of [primary] city council elections, I think charter reform is going to be the talk of the town.

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