Mayor quits Chavez debate

JAMES MAYER and ANNA GRIFFIN

The Oregonian

Declaring that he wasn't a "voting member of the council anymore," a red-faced Mayor Tom Potter walked out in the middle of a City Council discussion Thursday about renaming North Interstate Avenue for farm labor leader Cesar Chavez.

"But you're the mayor," said a stunned Commissioner Randy Leonard.

The council members, clearly taken aback by the mayoral implosion, put off a decision.

The meltdown is only the latest dramatic twist in what has turned out to be a public relations disaster for the council since it unanimously approved putting the renaming idea before the public in a series of community meetings.

The meetings didn't go well. The idea -- with Potter as its main champion -- inflamed passions, among North Portland neighbors who said the city was forcing the name change on them and among Latinos who want a landmark to call their own.

Commissioners Sam Adams and Randy Leonard hoped to quiet the controversy with a resolution promising to name a city street -- not necessarily Interstate -- for Chavez and create a committee to return in July with recommendations.

The council was debating the resolution when Potter stormed out.

He handed the gavel to Adams, the council president, announced, "I am irrelevant," and left the room.

"That has never happened. I don't even know what to say," Adams said later.

The fate of the Interstate-Chavez renaming is now in a muddle. The resolution returns to the council Nov. 14. An up-or-down vote on the Interstate question is slated for the day after, but it's not clear if council members will try another compromise.

Potter, who is serving his first term as mayor and has announced that he won't seek re-election next year, has demonstrated a stubborn streak before but prides himself on keeping his temper in check.

During the debate over Interstate, he made two public statements urging people on both sides to behave respectfully to each other and to honor Chavez with their behavior.

Thursday's incident may not kill Potter's ability to get anything done over the last year and a half of his term, but it certainly won't help. He has proven to Adams and his fellow commissioners that he can be ruffled and that his inability to get things done has frustrated him to the point of losing control.

"Maybe I saw something like that once or twice in the Legislature," said Leonard, a former state lawmaker. "But never a mayor. This represents exactly why we got to this place we're at. There has been a complete and utter shutdown, an inability or a refusal -- I don't know which -- to talk about anything else. I'm frankly just shocked."

What apparently set off Potter was Commissioner Erik Sten's possible support to slow down the decision on renaming Interstate.

Sten was the swing vote. He earlier said he leaned in favor of Potter's plan for an up-and-down vote but also said he wanted to take more time. He began discussing a possible compromise -- different than the resolution offered by Adams and Leonard. Instead, he suggested a shorter process, which the council itself would own rather than delegate to a new committee, might win his support.

Potter clearly began stewing when Leonard said he might go along with something like that. But it was far from clear that any plan was heading for a three-vote majority when Potter headed out the door.

Commissioner Dan Saltzman was absent, but said earlier that he would have voted no on the Adams-Leonard resolution. After the meeting broke up, his chief aide, Brendan Finn, asked, "What am I supposed to tell my boss just happened?"

Earlier, Leonard said the council made a mistake -- himself included -- in sending the renaming proposal out to a hostile community without a proper process.

But Jose Romero, a co-chairman of the Cesar E. Chavez Boulevard Committee, said talk about alternatives to Interstate would be futile.

"Any arterial would meet the same resistance by businesses and neighborhood naysayers," Romero said.

Opponents of the name change testified that they support honoring Chavez, but not by renaming Interstate, which has been undergoing a slow revitalization since light rail opened a few years ago.

Potter left City Hall less than 10 minutes after storming out of the meeting, walking quickly behind a security guard and his chief of staff, Austin Raglione, who said, "Not now," when a reporter approached. The mayor merely shook his head at the prospect of answering questions.