Tram ouster sparks backlash

Manager’s dismissal sparks complaints, board resignations

By Nick Budnick

The Portland Tribune, Jan 24, 2006, Updated Oct 30, 2009

City Commissioner Sam Adams’ abrupt ouster of Vic Rhodes last week as director of the OHSU tram project may help Adams in the eyes of the public. But it alienated key players in the project and, some say, has sent a wave of distrust rippling through Portland’s business community.

Adams is standing his ground: “This has been a poorly managed project. I’ve had it seven months, and I made it clear from the very beginning that I was not happy with the way that his project was managed.”

So far, those resigning from the tram board in protest of Rhodes’ forced resignation include Oregon Museum of Science and Industry President Nancy Stueber, developer Dike Dame and Pat Lacrosse, one of the town’s business heavyweights and former executive director of the Portland Development Commission.

“Any mistakes that were made were made before he came on,” Lacrosse says of Rhodes. “I don’t think he did anything wrong.”

One of the most vocal critics of the decision doesn’t sit on the board: developer Homer Williams, Dame’s partner, an investor in Rhodes’ consulting business and a major contributor to Adams’ 2004 council campaign.

The story buzzing around town late last week was that Williams, shouting at Adams over the phone last Thursday, called Adams a liar Ñ at which point Adams hung up.

Adams confirms the shouting but says the overall story is inaccurate. Asked which part, the “liar” or the hang-up, was inaccurate, he would not say.

Williams won’t discuss how the conversation ended, but he says it started with him complaining that Rhodes was being scapegoated, saying: “Sam, this is politics. This is about headlines. This isn’t about getting the job done.” Adds Williams, “The conversation went downhill from there. Things were said that shouldn’t have been.”

Why the fuss? Because Jan. 17, at a meeting of the tram board, Adams, reacting to an article that had appeared in The Oregonian the week before, directed the board to demand Rhodes’ resignation.

The article detailed how the construction costs for the tram connecting OHSU with the South Waterfront District grew from $15.5 million to 45 million. So far, the city’s share remains only $3.5 million, money that will be generated by taxes off the new buildings in the South Waterfront project. The vast majority of the overruns will be paid by Oregon Health & Science University and landowners, though who will pay for the latest $5 million in cost overruns is still up in the air.

Adams says the figure could end up being $50 million or more, and though he acknowledges that worldwide market forces have affected other city construction contracts, too, he argues that there were things that could have been done to control the price.

He also says that public perception played a role in his move.

“In a project surrounded with so much mistrust, in a project whose price has ballooned more than any other project that I’ve seen, I’ve got to do everything I can to bring a measure of trust back to the project.”

Move leaves many shaken

Greg Baldwin, a prominent Portland architect who now is considering whether to resign from the tram board, says his biggest concern about Adams’ move is the precedent it sets.

The nonprofit board that oversees the project, Portland Aerial Tram Inc., known as PATI, is a public-private partnership including OHSU and landowners as well as neighborhood representatives. He says for Adams to dictate how the partnership would treat Rhodes, who was their employee, was wrong.

Arrangements like this have helped build Portland, ranging from Pioneer Courthouse Square to the Pearl District, he said, and “this is the first time where one of the partners has essentially gone out and I think really undermined the ability of the other partners to work within that partnership.”

John Perry, an architect who was named to the board as a citizen representative, says he thinks the entire board shared Baldwin’s concern. As for who considered resigning, “I think probably everybody did consider it,” he says.

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