Who Wields Power in Portland

Brian Kevin

Source

Down East

Date

4-2021

Pages

58-61, 76

Abstract

An account of the latest attempt to revise Portland's city charter, from it's accidental inception as fallout from a clean elections initiative to the upcoming charter commission and its potential impact on city governance. Discusses changes made to the city charter in 1923, which decreased the representation of ethnic and nonwhite neighborhoods, dovetailing with the agenda of the Ku Klux Klan during its brief Maine ascendancy. Relates how local residents and activists, including Black Lives Matter Portland (now known as Black Portland Organizers Working to End Racism, or Black POWER) have seized on the inadvertent call for a new charter commission to address inequities in city management.

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