There’s been an important shift in how policy is made in Portland City Hall. Last week, council voted in a new committee structure that come with significant changes — including a new member of the committee that oversees the Portland Bureau of Transportation.
Portland is just one year into a brand new form of government, so when they adopted the committee structure last January, it was their first time doing so. The idea is that committees can get deeper in the weeds on topic areas and hash out policy details before final votes at the full, 12-member council. It’s been a good system in many ways, but almost immediately there was grumbling about how many committees were stood up (eight), and the fact that some of them lacked representation from all four council districts.
The new structure reduces the number of committees from eight to five, aligns them more closely with existing service areas, and comes with changes to membership. Most of the stuff BikePortland cares about was in the (now defunct) Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. That committee no longer exists and PBOT-related issues will now be discussed at the Public Works Committee. (The other four committees are; Housing and Permitting, City Life, Community and Public Safety and a Committee of the Whole.)…