Long interviews are tough to transcribe. It’s also tough to take the material and just file it away unused. Hell, it takes a lot of work to go through the recording and transcribe the material from a good interview, and Mary Volm gave me a lot of good information. Take the material below as such: a transcription of a 90-minute conversation with no editorializing and edited to make readable. There is more material from Volm than the other interviews for two reasons: one, it was the first and so I had more energy; second, I really wanted to get to know her better, to make sure I gave her candidacy a thorough review. I have done so, at least to my own satisfaction.

In reviewing this transcription, my one discomfort with Volm would be the potential for conflict with Mayor Sam Adams. While she states she would have no problem working with him, I hear a number of snarks throughout, attacks on the lack of qualifications of Council members — including on transportation, Adams’ bailiwick and one in which, at least in terms of Portland, his knowledge and understand is not only thorough but continuing to grow. Her support of the recall is based on her belief that his personal action makes his current service illegitimate; that would have to make a productive working relationship more difficult to develop.

There’s a big difference between a manager responsible for decision-making (and the other responsibilities of a City Commissioner) and what you’ve been doing for twenty-plus years.

I’ve worked in Office of Management & Finance where the budget is. I have to know the budget inside and out. I worked in a variety of bureaus. As a city manager, you’re usually stuck in one bureau with one level of expertise, whether it’s water or sewer or transportation. Throughout my 24-year career as a public information and communications director, I was never told what to say. I had to do the research; I had to learn about every program and everything the City did and speak about it in a way that was thoughtful and educational, honest and truthful as well as informational. I think it’s one of the hardest jobs you can do, particularly when you go across bureaus and managing — and I hate to say this because I know the media doesn’t like it —it’s managing the media. The media will always come at you from a negative side. The important thing to so is to think about what the program or what the policy is about, and explain it in bigger terms. Making those connections between neighborhood livability and city services and budget and delivery of those services in a fiscally responsible way, they all tie together. So you have to know a lot about a lot of things, not a little about a lot of things. That’s why i liked the job because i really did learn an intense amount, both in my time at the state and at the City, as well as at OMSI, which I was the PIO there.

[On the difference between making the decision and understanding/communicating the decisions others make

I’ve seen a lot of good decisions, and I’ve seen a lot of bad decisions made by our elected officials. I certainly have been an insider in the pure sense that I knew what was going on. I knew when decisions were being made for political reasons or decisions that were made in the best interests of the public. I can make a decisions because I have had to make decisions on-the-spot with tv cameras and microphones and talking to people like yourself…

Those are transferable skills?

Very much! Actually even more so than some of the electeds who are serving right now. Because it’s not just about talking; it’s talking accurately and honestly and …

But you don’t always want to talk honestly.

Well, you talk as honestly as you can. But you also position the issue in a broader perspective that helps people to understand. One of my best successes, I think, was capped by Mayor [Vera] Katz and Tim Grewe, who was the Chief Administrative Officer, to help them get the budget out in front of people. When you are going through the budget process, [people] could care less. But with Ballot Measure 5, 47, 50, there were some serious cuts that had to be made, and we had to come up with a way to take the budget and encapsulate it: here’s discretionary money … and general fund money, and how that gets allocated. It was a very tough responsibility on my part, and I came up with “Your City, Your Choice” which really was one of the most successful budget outreaches and educational, because we brought every bureau manager there, we sat in groups of eight and talked about … tried to get people off their one issue and understand the budget as a whole. That’s critical. That’s one of the biggest challenges City Council faces. People come in and say, I care about this one thing.

People are busy until something hits the fan, and all of a sudden they’re very concerned. I think the biggest challenge is, how do you make government interesting for folks and keep them engaged and involved. I’ve had a stellar career doing that. I’ve also been a part of the decisions when Tim Grewe was Chief Administrative Officer. He had me on his leadership team because my input and my value was … because I’m a good listener and I can see things, not being so steeped in them but seeing them from a bit of a distance, I have a good perspective on how a decision needs to be approached.

In micro-managing a bureau, you lose that perspective. As communications person, you can withdraw to the 10,000- 25,000-foot perspective.

Not necessarily

The bureau requires you to be at the 1-foot level all the time…

That’s if you want to micro-manage the bureau. To me, Council is not doing their job, and that is being policy-makers, not micro-managing every decision, but setting up the direction and accomplishments you want to achieve, the goals you seek for the bureau. And finding good managers to manage that bureau. And having some accountability. That’s leadership. Leadership is not doing everything and having your fingerprints all over it. Leadership is encouraging people to step up and allow them to lead as well, as long as it’s under a bigger umbrella. I think the Commission form of government — I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — is not as functional as it should be. (I’ve said it even harsher.) In all honesty, electing someone and then, all of a sudden, they’re to be an expert on water or environmental services or transportation or planning — none of the electeds have any kind of real on-the-ground experience in that, yet their micro-managing. Some have micro-managed bureaus in the past as if they do. That’s, I think, a horrendous mistake. I think we need, as a Council — if we get there — when I get there! — to operate as a board of directors and take the public input. It is the conduit, it is the first line between the public and the municipal services they receive. Things come into the commissioners’ offices; you need to be aware of the public's feelings. You set your agendas and goals based on fiscal responsibility, public need and desire and input, not just a very loud vocal [minority of] people, but rather … having your finger on the pulse of what’s going on. And the interconnections between all the other bureaus. I think so much money is wasted when you’ve got this trained staff over here in this bureau and this trained staff, trained almost the same way, with the same equipement, not able to help each other in times of crisis.

The issues separate them but the skills shouldn’t.

And you should also see there is some commonality between what individual bureaus do, and that, in my 20 years, has never happened. … Through the process … of my twenty-four years … I have gained an enormous depth on the issues both at the state and at the city. And regionally. Being part of the City, I would go to JPAC, and you’d learn about the other issues in transportation. So it’s a matter of how much you’re willing to take in, and in a lot of stuff, that’s what it’s really about.

In working for Mayor Katz, even though I [worked with all the different bureaus] I would be tasked by the Mayor to work on bigger, special projects directly along side of Sam Adams. He and I worked together for 10 years, closely for 10 years. As a result, I learned how important it is that you know the bottom line, the budget. You know the bottom line, you know where the money’s coming from. The best thing I can say about the City of Portland is we have a Triple-A bond rating, and that’s not to be taken lightly. That’s one of a handful of cities in the United States that has a Triple-A bond rating. That’s because we do a 5-yer forecast. We can budget each year knowing, to the best of our ability, what’s going to happen 5 years down the road in terms of revenue flow. We don’t program out … if we have one-time money left over, it’s because we don’t program out 5 years if we know [a program has a short life-span].

[break in recording and loss of a few minutes conversation]

…focusing on things that are not necessarily City services, that are County services or state services. Children’s levy is a good example. Dan [Saltzman] came over from the County, he was perfectly positioned to do a levy there but he came over to the City to do the Children’s Levy, which was a social service function.

Here’s the deal: … are not all that effective, but as an elected official for those municipal services, focus on what those services are to be. We couldn’t even get certain commissioners to look at their responsibilities and make decisions that could move us forward with transportation or planning, whatever. I say that being an elected official is not about you; it’s about the job that you’ve taken on. There’s a very specific job description. It doesn’t mean that we don’t influence education, that we don’t influence mental health, that we don’t have a voice in this; but make sure your ducks are in a row first. I have seen a lot of balls being dropped, particularly in the last five years, because it’s just not fun to do those municipal services until e-coli shows up in the water.

It’s not extra things: they need to make sure the basics are being taken care of in the first place?

That’s right. Also, during Vera’s tenure, yea, 47/50 - it killed our schools. But we gave them $1 million a year with no accountability back. That’s not ok. It’s ok certainly to care about schools and to work very, very hard to ensure at the Legislature, which we had no presence at last year… There are ways we can influence, and there are ways we can bring our power and our strength to the good causes. But let’s keep our eye on the ball of what we’re supposed to be doing first. I feel that some of the commissioners feel like it’s not all that exciting to do BHCD pass-through money. But that’s our job. Our job is to be fiscally responsible for that.

That’s different than partnering with other governments.

You should be partnering. … I started a group called “Partners for a Livable Future” — Metro, TriMet, ODOT, Planning Bureau, BES, PDOT, Multnomah Co, Vancouver, Port of Portland — and we talked about cleaner regional transportation issues and smart growth, and we did a lot of education. Visual Preference Surveys are a good example: 5,000 people participated in that. … It educated everyone else in the region that this is really going to work. It’s not pie-in-the-sky. Change is the hardest thing in the world to accomplish. So you bring people along with you. That’s an example of partnership. We can’t solve the transportation problem, congestion… We’re all in it together; what I’m saying is instead of going off in this direction because you think that’s going to get you some media attention or that’s going to make you look like a hero or it’s going to make a legacy for you… The bottom line is, be smart about the public’s money and where you put your attention. I’ve watched so much waste over the twenty years.

What do you think are Portland’s biggest resources & biggest problems?

Portland’s biggest resources is its community, its people. I include everybody. I think we are so rich as a community. We’re diverse, we’re talented, we’re smart, we care about this place, we want to live here. I think that’s our biggest resource. I think our biggest detriment … people are afraid of change. Density is a good example. Density actually makes your neighborhoods safer because you have eyes and ears 24/7. But you say that word, or you change just a little bit of the landscape, and people freak out. Until they start enjoying it. I think that loudness on the front end of a project can really be a detriment. Yes, you listen, you take their comments and you work in their concerns. But the minute we stop moving forward, growing — and I’m not talking growing out, I’m talking a little bit of growing up — and I coined the phrase 15 years ago, for a conference on livable communities, and I said think about land the same way you think about your garbage. Recycle it. Redevelop it. I know that’s old hat now, but it was not old hat back then. Infrastructure is already in place. Maintain what we have here in the infrastructure, and you can create redevelopment. But where your streets are falling apart, when your sewers underneath Burnside and Tanner Creek under PGE Park — that thing won’t take any more. … If we don’t keep moving forward, we lose jobs, we lose our schools, we lose our community. We need to think freshly about how we redevelop business districts when we have the opportunity.

Bring storefronts out to the sidewalk level - since we can’t wipe everything out & start over, what do we have to work with? We cannot divide communities like we did in the past.

We need to replace I5 bridge [but need a] reasonable approach. … I wouldn’t be flip-flopping on that issue, either. I would be very clear about what’s in Portland’s best interest and work with the people around the table, not fight against them.

You like so many different topics; are you going to be happy sticking with a single bureau?

I don’t intend to stick with a single bureau. … [Being assigned a bureau] doesn’t mean I don’t go into every bureau and find out what’s going on and get up-to-speed on some of the biggest projects. … There is so much cross-over and opportunity being missed because they are all sort of isolated. I don’t intend to stick to my two bureaus. I intend to work with every bureau. … I can’t direct them to do anything until it comes before the Council, but I can certainly ask some very good questions. … It’s not directing a bureau; you hire a bureau director to do that. [Hiring Bureau directors] is at-will now, so you have the opportunity to find the best person for the job [which might be] the person that’s sitting there now. You hire your professionals to do that part.

Prior to five years ago, any major thing that was going on, [the bureaus] made the rounds of the chiefs-of-staff, or the Commissioners, whoever wanted to hear it. And you’d be brought up-to-speed on everything. It stopped under Mayor Potter, and I don’t know why. I think it was absolutely valuable. You had to sit, brom a Bureau perspective, went in to each of the offices, sat with staff, got grilled, had to come back with more answers, before you could even get that ordinance in front of [the Council]. The bureaus educating Commissioners is really valuable. Instead, now I feel there is a little bit of horse-trading going on behind closed doors. In fact, I know it is because that’s what I hear from my colleagues. And that’s not the best way to govern. The best way to govern is to know what’s going on and make good decisions based on what you know from other bureaus. That’s what Portland has always stood for. It’s just not so open or transparent anymore.

I fully intend to make decisions at Council, not behind closed doors or [in return for a favor’. That’s not good government. And I’ve watched it for years. [This did not happen under Mayor Katz.] That’s where your public discourse happens at Council. It doesn’t happen in your office. It’s not ok; it’s why we have the rule of quorum. There are ways to get around it…. But I don’t want to do that.

Integrity means you take what you say and your actions, and you put them on the same platform. That’s what I intend to do.

I saved this for last because it’s the most awkward question: How would you foresee working with Sam?

I would look forward to it. As I’ve said, I was his go-to girl…

That was before…

Yea. Nothing has changed when it comes to doing the work for the City. Our personality differences and our personal differences, that doesn’t belong there.

The recall is about his personal actions taken into the public…

He lied, and he admitted that he lied; that’s the only reason for the recall. He lied, and he admitted that he lied to get elected. … If I take him now at his word, that’s just not ok. Give people a chance to vote again. And if the community decides they’re happy with Sam, that’s great. … If the public wants the chance to vote again, they should be given it. … It fell short for a variety of reasons, primarily money. That’s what the new campaign will tell you. …

Money got rid of Gray Davis in California…

… it got 66/67 on the ballot.

[I argue that lack of money mattered much less than a lack of volunteers who cared enough to make it happen]

People were very enthusiastic about [the original recall] and signed-up in droves, but to get them to do the actual work on it, to get the petitions out, to canvass, to do all that, was a bit like herding cats. We gave them a lot of opportunities, and what a lot of volunteers … there were probably 50 volunteers [out of the 700 or 800] that were engaged. When you ask people to do the campaign your way — and it wasn’t my campaign; I was just a volunteer — there was a lot of push-back: Oh no, I think you should do this, and Oh no…

Those are not volunteers; those are busybodies.

Jason Wurster … wanted to engage people in their own democracy. And good for him.

[I argue that there was a ton of media and publicity about the original recall, but people didn’t want to deal with it, not with the economy and other issues that mattered far more to them.]

That’s true. … To me, it was an abuse of power, and I’ve worked for 24 years to get people to believe in their government. I have to say, it was like flushing all my great work down the toilet. Personally. … I heard more than one time, All politicians lie. That’s not my idea of good democracy. … The City is much better off when you can trust your leaders to be doing the work…

After I stopped recording, we talked about how expensive permitting process is in Portland, that her doctor relocated just across the street from the city limits & is saving over $10,000 - costs more to get a permit for an awning than the awning itself costs. More recall talk and other topics; you want a good conversation about Portland, Mary Volm will give you a good conversation!