In Plan to Revive Ailing City, Portland Task Force Calls for Ban on Public Drug Use, Moratorium on New Taxes

A task force launched last summer to help rejuvenate Portland, Oregon is calling for the declaration of a 90-day fentanyl emergency, a ban on public drug use, increased shelter capacity, and more law enforcement as part of an effort to combat the converging homelessness, drug-abuse, and mental-health crises that have ravaged the far-left city.

Among its ten recommendations announced on Monday, the Portland Central City Task Force is also calling for: a concerted effort to clean the city by targeting “trouble spots” for trash and graffiti, the removal of any plywood still covering downtown windows that was erected during the 2020 racial justice protests and riots, and a moratorium on new taxes, according to news reports and the Portland Metro Chamber.

The recommendations, unveiled on Monday by Governor Tina Kotek, “are laser focused on solving the serious challenges facing Portland, and when enacted will represent a genuine investment in our central city,” Andrew Hoan, president and CEO of the chamber, said in a prepared statement. “This is a proven example of what can happen when the public and private sector unite to achieve a common goal.”

Downtown Portland has been one of the slowest urban cores in the nation to recover from the Covid-19 business shutdowns. The city was also hammered by racial-justice riots in 2020. That same year, Oregon voters passed Measure 110, which decriminalized drugs in the state. The result has been a skyrocketing number of drug-overdose deaths, proliferating homeless camps, and a decline in visitors and downtown foot traffic that has weakened the city’s economy.

A poll in August found that a clear majority of Oregon voters now support repealing Measure 110.

“The human suffering has been at a scale we can’t afford to normalize or downplay,” Kotek said during an Oregon Business Plan leadership summit on Monday, according to the Oregonian newspaper. “Whether you’re sleeping on the street, struggling with an addiction, a nonprofit that is short-staffed, or business owners whose employees don’t feel safe in downtown Portland, it’s been a tough few years.”

Kotek announced that she was launching the task force in August to improve the city’s — and the state’s — economy. It includes more than 40 elected officials and business and civic leaders.

A visible recovery in 2024 would be one where people feel safe in public, open drug use is rare, streets are clean, and the media is telling a positive story, according to the task force’s website.

The task force’s recommendations “tap into Portland’s strengths in innovation, collaboration, art, and culture,” Kotek said in a prepared statement.

In calling for a new tax moratorium until at least the end of 2026, the task force is seeking to address a main concern from the city’s business community. Portland is one of the highest-taxed cities in the country. The task force is calling for further study of the city’s tax structure and possibly tax credits for downtown businesses, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported.

Kotek’s office told OPB that ideally the state, Multnomah County, and the city of Portland would all declared 90-day fentanyl emergencies, and they could work together to combat fentanyl sales, use, and addiction. The task force is also requesting that the Legislatures take action to ban the public consumption of drug and that prosecutors move aggressively against suspected drug dealers.

Backers of the drug decriminalization measure criticized the recommendations around banning public drug use and increasing the number of law-enforcement officers downtown.

“We all agree that state leaders must take swift action to address the drug addiction and homelessness crises across Oregon,” the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon said in a press release. “However, criminalization is a false promise that will not solve these pressing societal issues; instead, criminalization will have unintended consequences, especially on Black and brown communities.”

Larry Turner of the Health Justice Recovery Alliance, a coalition of nearly 100 organizations that support drug decriminalization, said that increasing the criminalization of drugs in Portland “will not work and is the wrong direction.”

“Criminalizing public use and increasing law enforcement interactions with people in crisis fail to address the real issue and will only cause harm,” he said in a social-media post.

So far, attempts to clean up the streets and rejuvenate downtown Portland have had limited success.

In September, Portland city leaders approved an emergency ordinance banning the use of hard drugs in public. But the vote was mostly symbolic because of Measure 110, which decriminalized user amounts of street drugs, like heroin, fentanyl, and methamphetamines. State lawmakers would have to change the law for Portland to act on its ordinance.

Over the summer, the city passed public camping restrictions, which prohibit people from camping on public land during the day, and ban camps altogether in a variety of places, including on sidewalks, in parks, and near schools and construction sites. But homeless advocates filed a class-action lawsuit, arguing that the restrictions are “impossible to understand or comply with.”

Last month, a county judge blocked the city from enforcing the camping restrictions until the lawsuit is resolved.