By Molly Harbarger
The Oregonian
PORTLAND — Standing across from City Hall to meet with protesters who earlier shut down a City Council meeting, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler told protesters Wednesday that he “unequivocally” wants to work with them to help the city’s homeless population.
He also fielded questions about police use of tear gas and pepper spray during the Inauguration Day protest last week, considering some new ideas but largely leaving their demands to remove Police Chief Mike Marshman unsatisfied.
Wheeler earlier recessed the weekly council meeting twice when leader Mimi German, and later others, talked over him. The meeting stretched on as activists used the public comment sections to lambast Wheeler, gentrification and his refusal to engage them during the council session.
Instead, he put a flannel and rain jacket over his dress shirt and tie and stood in the middle of a circle of about 40 people in Terry Schrunk Plaza.
The protesters started the morning at 9 a.m. with speeches in front of City Hall, passing around a tiny white coffin adorned with flowers to symbolize a baby who was stillborn on the streets of Portland to a mother who police say suffered from severe mental illness.
Four other people have died of exposure on Portland streets since Jan.1 during a long stretch of below-freezing days and nights and nearly a foot of snow that caused city and county officials to go into overdrive. Wheeler said between government and nonprofit efforts, 600 shelter beds opened for the emergency. According to Multnomah County, nearly 750 people had a safe place to sleep on the busiest night of the storm.
Wheeler also personally helped outreach workers contact homeless people to encourage them to come inside.
But Mimi German, leader of the demonstration, said he could have done more. She said homeless people she talked to wanted shelter, but not in rooms packed with dozens of other people.
She and the three others also recalled occasions when each of them asked police during the storm to help homeless people but were refused.
“I expect people in the community, especially the people who draw a paycheck from the city, to be responsive,” Wheeler said, repeating that he sees police, fire and City Hall workers as public servants. It’s “unacceptable” if they don’t help when they can, he said.
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Star Stauffer, a member of the group, responded: “If you say that’s unacceptable, I should never ever see a cop in the vicinity of someone asleep on the sidewalk who is homeless without walking over and checking in with them.”
But when protesters tried to draw Wheeler into denouncing the police response to Friday’s protests after President Donald Trump took office, he refused.
Police arrested five people and used tear gas, pepper spray and pepper spray balls at various times during a march of 8,000 to 10,000 people through downtown Portland. In response, protesters have called for Marshman’s removal.
Later Wednesday, police arrested 11 people among several dozen protesters who gathered downtown and then on the east side of the Willamette River, some blocking traffic and others carrying a banner demanding Marshman’s ouster.
Wheeler maintained his position that he agrees with the police level of force. He encouraged people to file complaints with the city’s Independent Police Review Division, saying 10 are already filed.
Jessie Sponberg, a Portland activist and former mayoral candidate, said that the division is a “paper tiger.”
The mayor said he stayed at the city’s emergency operations center until 10 p.m. Friday, where he could watch video feeds of the protests and it looked as if the use of force was justified.
“I do not yet have all the facts,” Wheeler said. “As you all know, there is often more than one side to the story.”
The meeting ended on a note of compromise.
A bone of contention has been the city’s requirement for marchers to seek a parade permit.
The Friday marchers refused to pay for a permit, saying that civil disobedience is their constitutional right.
But Stauffer argued that the organizers of the Women’s March, which drew up to 100,000 people to downtown Portland on Saturday, paid for the privilege of not being arrested through the city’s permit fees. “They invested in a very expensive permit to not be beaten up on the streets,” Stauffer said.
The group started chanting at Wheeler: “Ted buys the permit” as the mayor’s aides tried to pull him away. But Wheeler paused.
He told them perhaps the city could waive fees on protest permits, as people yelled back that they might actually use them.
“I will look into it,” Wheeler said.
As he walked back to City Hall, he added that he wants to hold more of these informal meetings.
©2017 The Oregonian (Portland, Ore.)