DEVELOPMENT

Lawsuit crushes Citizens

By Noah Bruce

The referendum calling for greater citizen involvement in the city’s planning process is right around the corner, but the measure’s sponsors aren’t doing much campaigning. “We put out one little flier,” says Jim Estes, a leader of the Citizens for a Comprehensive Plan, “and there’s one person who’s making some signs in their basement.”

The reason the effort sounds more like a campaign to elect a junior-high class president than a serious attempt to promote a referendum with far-reaching effects to the city’s future is the lawsuit levied against the Citizens and the city by Silver Street Development Corporation back in February.

Even though Silver Street eventually allowed the Citizens out of the suit, according to Estes the legal action had already taken its toll.

“The legal bill was a little over $3000 at that time and we hadn’t raised any money,” he says. The group has now raised around $1700, most of which was spent on the flier. Estes says he’s not sure how the group will pay its outstanding legal bill.

One possibility is that the judge will rule Silver Street’s suit was a SLAPP (Strategic Litigation Against Citizen Participation). Though the lawsuit against the group was dropped, the SLAPP ruling is still pending, and if the judge rules in the Citizens’ favor, Silver Street will be forced to pay their legal fees.

In the meantime, the lawsuit has hampered the group’s ability to organize effectively. Estes says it not only bankrupted the group before it got off the ground, it also sapped the Citizens’ will and left them demoralized.

“It was partially a financial thing but partially a morale thing, too,” says Estes. “It really distracted people from the campaign. When we got sued, all anyone wanted to talk about was the lawsuit. We had to pass a rule at the meetings that no one could talk about the suit. It also scared other people away who had expressed an interest. They said, ‘Hope you guys do well but don’t use my name.’ It had exactly the effect [the developer] wanted it to have.”

Roger Gendron of Silver Street Development Corporation says this isn’t true. “We haven’t taken a position one way or another on the referendum. We were only concerned with the retroactive portion.”

The retroactivity piece of the proposed ordinance would ban any large-scale development in Portland that received a building permit after October 16, 2000 (including of course, Gendron’s proposed housing development on North and Walnut Streets that got the Citizens started in the first place) until the city completes the housing portion of the Comprehensive Plan for development.

Even without Gendron’s lawsuit, the Citizens are up against gargantuan odds. The Portland Press Herald reported on April 21 that the opposition group, Citizens Protecting Portland’s Future, has raised nearly $40,000. “There’s no way we can compete with that,” says Estes. “I expect a huge media blitz on the last week before the referendum. It looks to me like they’re going to buy the election and it looks like it’s going to be a successful strategy.”