Portland's Community Safety Director said city leaders have failed to manage a series of public safety crises and said the mismanagement has led the city to where it is on a range of problems like police call volume, gun violence, and 911 wait times.
The comment came up in a meeting Thursday that was mostly focused on the dire situation inside Portland's dispatch center, where wait times are as long as four or five minutes for people calling 911 in Multnomah County.
"The reason that we’re all here in this emergency today, and we’re talking about the police being overwhelmed with call volume, gun violence off the hook, call wait times, is because we have not been managing it to this point," said Community Safety Director Mike Myers said. "I will do everything I can to right-size the ship in 15 months."
City leaders discussed a range of public safety topics in Thursday's meeting. The director of the Bureau of Emergency Communications said the increase in calls is leading to burnout among his employees and placing a burden on their ability to do the job properly. He estimated roughly half of the one million calls it receives annually are for non-emergencies. The average wait time has also tripled since last December when it was 19 seconds to 57 seconds last month.
"Some callers are experiencing a 4-minute wait, a 5-minute wait, or even longer, and if it’s your worst day, the worst day of your life, and you’re calling for help, you want someone to be able to pick up the phone right away," Bob Cozzie told commissioners.
He recommended expanding the 311 center and transitioning non-emergency callers to that agency on a 24/7 basis, though the director of 311 said it was only capable of taking about 60,000 calls. Cozzie said the dispatch center needed 311 to take the calls likely by mid-summer next year to avoid even further staff burnout.
Myers pledged to address the problem with 911 wait times and the call overload but said he needed buy-in from other city leaders.
"I only have so much authority here," Myers said. "I don’t supervise these chiefs and these directors, so I need commitments from this staff: if you’re going to ask me to be responsible for these performance measures, and I accept the challenge, I’m either going to have the authority to get it done or I need your commitment to make sure that your directors and your chiefs are right there with me to do this work."
Commissioner Mingus Mapps also pressed colleagues to set a goal on decreasing the gun violence in Portland that's been surging since last year. He wants to reduce shootings by 20% by the end of 2022. This year is on pace to be even worse than 2020, which proved to be the most violent in Portland in decades. The council is set to discuss gun violence at its next public safety work session on November 2.
"Effort and good intentions are not enough. We have to set a goal and hold ourselves accountable for meeting that goal," Mapps said.
Mayor Ted Wheeler, for his part, took on a much more optimistic tone, imploring his colleagues to focus on the work that's been accomplished. However, Mapps said he continues to hear from constituents that not enough is being done to address the trash problem, homelessness, or gun violence.
"First of all, let’s not be too hard on ourselves. We’ve actually come a long way on a whole host of issues in a very short period of time," Wheeler said. "As a council, we’re unified in a way that very few city councils nationally ever are on these issues."
Wheeler hinted at a more contentious discussion to come among council members: what to do with the Portland Police Bureau. A series of KATU News investigations have illustrated the staffing crisis within the police bureau and the level of attrition seen over the last year. The city commission will discuss the police bureau's budget in the upcoming Fall Budget Monitoring Process.
"I think we should spend a little more time on how we are going to facilitate difference on opinion on key issues like police staffing. We cannot afford to be conflict-avoidant when we’re talking about whether we’re going to increase the police bureau personnel or not, and in what capacity, for what purposes, to do what," Wheeler said, pointing to the broad agreement on issues like 911 call volume and other community safety issues.
Wheeler closed out the two-hour work session with a charge to his fellow colleagues: communicate with the public about the work the city is doing.
"I do think the public is confused about what we’re doing, what we are working towards, what North Star we are aiming towards, what our objectives are, and where we’re succeeding, and being honest about where we’re not succeeding and what challenges we’re experiencing, and how long it’s going to take us to do the things we say we are going to do," Wheeler said.