Failure of Public Stewardship: Real Estate Trust Parallels Halliburton

Here is my statement before the Portland Planning Commission on 4/22/08:

Good evening. My name is Lynn Schore. I am a homeowner in the Ash Creek neighborhood, PPS parent of two daughters, founding member of the Neighborhood Schools Alliance, member of the Oregon Assembly for Black Affairs, and the Jefferson High School PTSA. I want to thank our Planning Commission members for your volunteer service to our City.

In the last five years in Portland, my volunteer work has shifted from supporting public education to protecting and defending its very existence. I feel that struggle is now necessary to continue to even own our Portland Public Schools and school lands. I'm here to ask that you consider important school facilities issues when updating the City's Comprehensive Plan, or reviewing the proposed changes and work plan.

Though the City does not have the City Schools Policy up on its website at all, it was adopted as policy in November 1963 under City Ordinance 150580.

The current Comp. Plan clearly states:

“Agreements for shared use of City and School District properties reflect the knowledge that the City and the District share the same constituency. The same public has bought and paid for the facilities operated by both the City and the Portland Public Schools. Public buildings and lands should serve the people, not the agencies under whose names the buildings or lands are managed.”

I believe that the sales and leasing of school properties undermines the public education system in PPS district, and that the privatization of the school system is inherently unequal to all students and endangers the vitality of the City itself.

It is the duty of the Mayor who appointed you, the City Council, the PPS School Board, and the Planning Commission to protect the network of public schools and STEWARD the properties on behalf of the public at large. I believe that PPS has failed and abrogated its responsibilities in stewardship of properties.

Does the Commission know that not only do you have the Comp Plan and City Schools Policy, but you can bring to bear the full force of Constitutional law in your protection of PPS schools and lands?

Public schools were created as a birthright provided to American citizens by the Land Ordinances of 1785 and 1787 passed by Congress. PPS properties were purchased by the citizenry for public school use, and as such are a perpetual legacy that preserves our neighborhoods and provides the backbone of our students' education.

The Real Estate Trust is the private corporation which in 2002 convinced PPS that it could better manage public school properties than the fully public PPS School Board.

The Real Estate Trust is to PPS as HALLIBURTON is to the US military, in the sense that it is a private outsourcing of essential City and school functions, it can hide its actions because it is a private corporation, and can avoid public oversight. The Real Estate Trust is not representative of the interests of the Portland community, and is in total disregard for the spirit and intent of the Land Ordinances.

Neighborhood schools are integral to City infrastructure, are service elements to homes under the Comp Plan, and must be available to accommodate inevitable and cyclical demographic shifts in Portland. The City and Commission are doing long range planning to make neighborhoods more walkable, bikable, safe and supportive, but closing down 20 neighborhood schools in the past five years flies in the face of that.

PPS had no LRFP adopted for five years, but suddenly in December 2007 saw fit to adopt the plan in order to join other municipalities in placing a construction excise tax on its citizens. Why did PPS wait five years to adopt the Plan? Why is only a short summary available on the PPS website, NOT the whole 400 page plan and critical schools data?

More importantly, PPS has stated that the Magellan plan coming out of Houston, Texas will soon supplant its Long Range Facilities Plan. Doesn't that make it a Short Range Plan?

Both PPS plans, the Long Range Facilities Plan and the Magellan plan out of Houston, are considered tainted by the citizenry. And citizens are rightly concerned that the Magellan Plan may be swept in to Portland with no public process, no time to review it, no due diligence, and will be adopted as PPS Policy. I want you, the Commission, to prevent that from happening.

I also request that you help the PPS community to disband and terminate the relationship between the Real Estate Trust and the Portland Public School Board.

These are OUR public schools and OUR school lands.
They are owned by the public, not the Mayor, City Council, School Board or Real Estate Trust. Please use all your powers to protect our public school properties for future generations. Thank you.

Lynn Schore
4/22/08