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Portland police have moved its eight horses to a farm in Aurora and are transporting them back and forth to Portland by trailer due to structural problems at the Centennial Mills site, police said.

(Portland Police Bureau)

Portland Commissioner Steve Novick last week called Portland Police Bureau's Mounted Patrol unit "largely ornamental,'' and suggested the city could use its public safety money more wisely to pay for other services.

to his City Hall colleagues and the media, Novick questioned the sense of spending $860,000 on the police horse patrol. He said the unit appears to be largely for crowd control, but the city hasn't seen "marauding crowds'' for quite some time.

On the heels of Novick's memo, the Facebook group "Save Portland's Mounted Patrol''

and urged supporters to contact Novick and explain why they believe the mounted patrol is important to Portland, "why our horses make a difference.''

What do you think?

Should the city of Portland continue to pay for the mounted patrol, which costs about $1.2 million, with help from the non-profit group?

Complicating the issue is that the mounted patrol in recent weeks was forced to move its horses

because of structural defects in the Northwest Naito Parkway facility.

Novick is seeking more spending for programs in bureaus he oversees. He wants more money set aside for road improvements, such as flashing beacons at dangerous intersections, for the city's emergency operations center and a westside fueling station for emergency vehicles.

The Police Bureau hasn't suggested cuts to the mounted patrol in

for next fiscal year.

Yet in the last two years, city fiscal analysts had recommended the city discontinue the mounted patrol.

During l

, the mayor and the Police Bureau held it out as a possible program for the chopping block, but it was saved at the last minute. The mounted patrol went from six officers to four, with funding drawn from other money budgeted in police personnel and training. Friends of the Mounted Patrol also pledged to pay $200,000 for each of the next two years and the company that provides horse hay waived fees for a year.

On its Facebook page, Save the Mounted Patrol accused Novick of going back on that deal.

Friends of the Mounted Patrol said it has raised the money for the first year. The group alerted the mayor's office about two weeks ago, and was helping prepare a resolution for the city to receive the funds when Novick's memo came out.

"I'm waiting for guidance from the council. Are they going to do the two year deal? We have more than $200,000 raised, but we have to know they're going to live up to the agreement,'' said Bob Ball, who is president of Friends of the Mounted Patrol and commander of the Portland police reserves.

Novick has argued that the mounted patrol is still around through the end of this fiscal year, "but I never promised anyone that we'd keep the mounted patrol for two years.''

--Maxine Bernstein