City Council found themselves in a tense standoff with Mayor Keith Wilson and angry Portland residents over a councilor’s failed plan to reallocate a portion of city dollars that have been used to sweep homeless encampments. At times, those defending Wilson’s plan sat side-by-side with community members who countered that the city should be spending its money on long term solutions to confront the city’s homelessness crisis and its impacts on neighborhoods.
While the comparatively long meeting on November 12 covered various issues, seven out of 10 hours of the session were particularly heated, partially because the mayor had spent the prior weekend imploring supporters of his homelessness plan to stop Councilor Angelita Morillo’s proposal in its tracks. That included what some characterized as thinly-veiled threats from the mayor to homeless providers.
Morillo’s proposal failed with 5 councilors voting yes, 3 voting no, and 4 absent…