Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory

Like many others, I’ve been baffled by the angry reaction of the Latino group that failed to get Interstate Avenue named for Cesar Chavez.

In all likelihood, they will end up with a renaming of the more prominent Fourth Avenue for Chavez instead. The result will be much better than what they had fought for.

How can that be a defeat — or an affront or an insult, as they have called it?

The problem is that the group became so vested in the strategic way they had chosen to achieve their goal of honoring Chavez that the strategy's success became more important than the goal.

In the same way, many soldiers fall in love with war.

As several observers have noted, Cesar Chavez would have been the first to see the folly of his supporters’ divisive position.

Neither the Latino group, nor the Mayor who blindly and inexplicably backed them, saw the presumptuousness and effrontery of simply stepping in and replacing “Interstate” with “Chavez.” Never mind what people who lived along the avenue thought.

The Latino group and the mayor felt they had taken the higher moral ground, and, in one way, they had. The name “Interstate Avenue,” unlike “Cesar Chavez Avenue” had no moral force to it. It stood for nothing except itself and its obvious, historic commercial function.

The people who live and work along Interstate, on the other hand, could invoke their own morality. Try "Thou Shalt Not Steal."

The name of their stretch of the world was not something that could be taken from them by interest groups, ethnic or otherwise, and by politicians possibly stuck with IOUs and definitely feeling political heat.

As it turned out, the “Interstaters” could generate their own political heat.

And so the struggle became more important than the goal of honoring the memory of Cesar Chavez.

Of course, the substitution of 4th Avenue for Interstate as a compromise addressed the goal magnificently, but it also created “winners” and “losers” in the Interstate struggle.

The hope is that all the parties one day will be wiser for the experience. They may even end up congratulating each other on their shared victory.

For the City of Portland, that day can't come too soon.

On reaching consensus

First, thanks to Commissioner Randy Leonard for responding to my post about the Interstate Avenue renaming issue and about the mayor’s self-described “irrelevancy.”

I’ve written a response in which I urge Leonard and his colleagues (including the mayor) to look at the larger issue behind renaming the street. To do so might get the City Council (and other interested parties) back to a point where they could find consensus.

His response to that is that all parties, sadly, seem deadlocked.

Which takes me back to consensus, where I left off yesterday….

In the piles of books donated for our Dec. 9 Hillsdale Book Sale, I came across a well used workbook put out by Pace e Bene Franciscan Non-violence Center. I shared a couple of César Chavez quotations in yesterday’s post. I hope Commissioner Leonard and the other members of the council are familiar with them. Indeed, I hope everyone becomes familiar with them. I confess I wasn’t until I browsed through the workbook.

The workbook also has a concise section on “The Consensus Process” which I also recommend to the council and to anyone else involved in group decision making.

As a Quaker, I well versed in reaching consensus (or, as Friends say, a “sense of the Meeting”) because that is the way Quakers conduct all their business. I also have used the techniques of consensus in chairing various neighborhood committees, and I have made “believers” of friends and neighbors who have been part of the process.

Consensus is a powerful tool.

I find it interesting, and frankly ironic, that an institution within the hierarchical Catholic Church would advocate consensus. But then the Franciscans have always marched to their own drummer. Dare I say, “Thank God!”?)

But there’s more. How to explain that one of the best books written about Quaker consensus-making is “Beyond Majority Rule” by Michael J. Sheeran, a Jesuit scholar? Actually, Sheeran traces the connection between the Catholic Church and consensus to the notion of “Communal Discernment” among early Christians. For more, read this excellent book.

Now, back to the Franciscan workbook on non-violence and its brief section on consensus. City Council members (and others) make note!

The workbook neglects to talk about who should be at the table in the first place. The answer is all (and I do mean ALL) stakeholders. In the case of the street renaming proposal, the gathering should include commercial property owners on Interstate Avenue, leaders of the Hispanic community, City Council members and any others who have a serious, legitimate interest.

The goal is to find agreement, if possible. But there are other important benefits. To quote from the workbook, “Through consensus, we are not only working to achieve better solutions, but also to promote the growth of community and trust. It is also a process which invests everyone in the outcome and in the responsibility to carry it out.”

The workbook presents four brief sections that apply to the naming controversy.

“Voting (as opposed to consensus decision-making) is a win or lose model in which people are more concerned with the numbers it takes to win than with the issue itself. Voting does not take into account individual feelings or needs.”

“With consensus …no ideas are lost; each member’s input is valued as part of the solution.”

“(Consensus) means that the final decision doesn’t violate someone’s fundamental moral values, for if it did, they would be obliged to block consensus….”

“…when (consensus) works, collective intelligence does come up with better solutions than could individuals.”

I’d add one more Quakerly aspect. Periods of silent reflection (whether for minutes or days) bring wisdom and dignity to the process. Time is NOT, and must not be, of the essence. (And time may be needed in the present stalemate as it is described by Leonard.)

In my experience, all of the above are true. If the City Council members would employ the techniques of consensus, I believe they (and the entire city) would benefit from these truths.

City Council healing requires return to basics

There were no winners at Thursday’s City Council deliberations that led to the Mayor Tom Potter’s walking out.

The clip of the proceedings that is on-line gives a different impression of the mayor than the one portrayed in print. He isn’t angry. He’s being matter of fact: He has been marginalized and feels “irrelevant.”

What he apparently doesn’t realized is his own role in his marginalization.

Should he have been made to feel this way? Should he have put himself in this position?

Clearly not.

Should he have walked out?

Probably not, but when he did so, he did it with no apparent rancor. He was simply acknowledging a fact.

Anyone who knows anything about group dynamics, knows that you must work at being inclusive, and you must remain open to change. The problem with raw majority rule (and that is what we were witnessing at the council) is that it doesn’t require inclusion. All it requires is a majority.

And the problem with stake-planting like the mayor's, is that you lose your flexibility and place in the discussion.

Commissioners Randy Leonard, Erik Sten and Sam Adams were shaping a majority solution that Potter had rejected out of hand. Hence the mayor became a non-person at the table.

Consensus has no non-persons. You have to address the minority’s concerns. You have to respect their views, even if it is going to take more time and force you to be flexible too.

Everyone has to work together.

Majority rule, which produces winners (and often arrogance) and losers (and often resentment), should be the last resort. (Sadly, partisan government hinges on majority rule. Fortunately, city government is non-partisan and offers the opportunity of consensus and inclusion — Thursday’s session notwithstanding.)

Thursday's meltdown is evidence the council has a lot more work to do on the street naming issue. It is time for the five members to go back to fundamentals by asking what is important.

You don’t honor a Cesar Chavez or a Rachel Carson, a Martin Luther King, Jr. or a Mahatma Gandhi, a Dag Hammarskjold or a Rosa Parks by naming streets, schools, parks or fountains after them.

You honor them by honoring what they believed in and struggled for.

That's worth repeating: You honor them by honoring what they believed in and struggled for.

It is far, far more important to keep their ideals before our eyes than their names.

Name the familiar places of our Commons after the values they espoused.

If you could ask these leaders whether they would prefer a street or park be named for them or for their cause (Justice, Stewardship, Equality, Fairness, Respect, Peace, to name a few), who could doubt what their answer would be?

Honor them by honoring that answer.

Send Charter Commission back to drawing board, broaden mandate to include consolidation

Mayor Tom Potter laid out ambitious new plans yesterday to overhaul the Portland school system by giving principals more power and autonomy, requiring teachers to undergo rigorous review in order to gain tenure and revising the school financing system that has allowed more experienced teacher to cluster in affluent schools.

If only.

Substitute “Mayor Michael Bloomberg” for “Mayor Tom Potter” and “New York City” for “Portland” and you have the lede to a New York Times story earlier this week.

Using his authority to run the schools, Bloomberg announced sweeping school changes in his annual address to New York City Council on Wednesday.

In Portland on Thursday, the Portland City Council, which includes Potter as a "first among equals," reviewed Charter Revision Commission recommendations that said not one word about consolidating city and school governance in Portland.

Obviously the destinies of the schools and the city are intertwined, but in Portland the school district and the City are on entirely different pages in terms of governance and policy.

And the pages aren’t even in the same book. Portland Public Schools and City Officials rarely talk to each other. They aren’t required to. Very frequently they don't want to because of friction over turf and money.

But why should Portland look to New York for guidances? For starters, The Big Apple obviously has some similar problems. Do Bloomberg’s concerns about low school funding and school inequity sound familiar? (I'll leave it to others to comment on how rigorous the review of tenured teachers is.)

The Charter Review Commission clearly needs to expand its mandate to include possible city/schools consolidation. The commissioners could start by talking to officials in cities where city and school governance is one and speaks with one voice, as it did Wednesday in New York City.