Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler this week reflected on his first year as it drew to a close, lauding the strides the Portland City Council made on housing and homelessness, as well as on police, livability and public safety concerns.

The mayor promoted the accomplishments in a letter released Wednesday. He also reflected on the challenges posed by the national political climate and a series of ice and snowstorms last January that left roads slick and unpassable, closed schools, shut down businesses and caused at least four exposure-related deaths.

"My administration did not plan to spend our first months governing from one crisis to the next," Wheeler wrote in his letter, "but we took on each crisis as it came, all the while making progress on the issues Portlanders care about most: housing, homelessness, public safety, economic growth, environmental protection, equity, and government transparency and accountability,"

Wheeler touted the city council's progress on his agenda and its ability to often reach consensus when voting on policy. He detailed specific accomplishments on his website. Much of what he mentioned started under the previous administration or at the urging of his fellow commissioners.

HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS

The mayor promised during his campaign that he would create affordable housing and get Portlanders experiencing homelessness off the streets.

He touted on his website the city's $28 million investment in the city's and county's Joint Office on Homeless Services. He also praised the city council's adoption of Commissioner Chloe Eudaly's renter protection rule that requires landlords to pay relocation costs to tenants evicted without cause or who must move as a result of a rent increase of 10 percent or more.

Wheeler noted that the city found Right 2 Dream Too a new home on Portland's Central Eastside, which was largely the culmination of years of advocacy and work by Commissioner Amanda Fritz and others to find a new location for the homeless community.

Commissioners extended Portland's "housing emergency" declaration, which city officials said encouraged spending on housing, gave the city and county flexibility to open shelters and enabled the city to fast-track building permits for affordable housing.

The city and county also challenged landlords and property managers to come up with 40 rental units for homeless families. They pledged to add 2,000 apartments with social services by 2028 to help keep those experiencing homelessness housed, an idea championed by Commissioner Nick Fish and County Chair Deborah Kafoury. Those services could include physical and mental health care, drug addiction treatment and career coaching.

PUBLIC SAFETY AND POLICING

Wheeler also pledged to improve police accountability and to restore community trust in law enforcement, especially among the African American community.

The mayor highlighted the hiring of Danielle Outlaw, the first African American woman to serve as police chief. The city council this year also required police officers who use deadly force to speak with internal investigators within 48 hours, the mayor wrote. When proposing this years' budget, the mayor and police commissioner also implemented a community policing program, which has officers step out of their cars to get to know the community they serve.

Wheeler also noted police accountability efforts, which included increasing the authority of the city auditor's Independent Police Review and establishing the Portland Committee on Community-Engaged Policing. Critics blasted the panel, saying community members would get cut out if the mayor, who is also the police commissioner, also oversaw the group meant to hold the police bureau accountable.

The mayor also pointed to the city's efforts to improve livability and public safety, which he said included clearing trash and needles, abating graffiti and removing abandoned vehicles. He also employed more park rangers and tasked police with enforcing rules that forbid people from camping along the Springwater Corridor and North Park Blocks.

Finally, the mayor praised the city's efforts this year to stimulate Portland's economy, protect the environment and promote social justice, equity and effective government.

The city this year released a plan to make good on the mayor's promise to create 25,000 jobs paying $25 per hour by 2025 and positioned Portland as a testing site for autonomous vehicles, the mayor noted.

He also proposed a $50 million plan to fix Portland's roads.

'A STORM AT MY BACK'

Wheeler explained how the unpredictable result of 2016's presidential election and a local weather crisis forced him to spend his first few months quickly reacting to reaffirm Portland's values, manage large protests and protect the lives of Portlanders sleeping outdoors during a historic snowstorm that the city did not prepare for or predict.

"I took office with a storm at my back, quite literally, and during the early months of my term," Wheeler wrote.

President Donald Trump's election and his attempts to impose a travel ban, to ramp up federal immigration enforcement efforts and then to punish so-called sanctuary cities like Portland that refused to spend local resources to enforce federal immigration policy sparked unrest across the country and protests in Portland's streets, Wheeler wrote. The unrest prompted a police response that drew criticism and sparked further protests against Portland police and calls to fire then-Police Chief Mike Marshman.

This pressured Wheeler, the police commissioner, to deliver on a campaign promise to conduct a national search for a new police chief. In August, he hired Outlaw.

As Wheeler moved to install a new chief, he drew criticism in August for moving too slowly on his promised to increase affordable housing options in Portland and to get Portlanders experiencing homelessness off the streets.

Since then, the council approved spending guidelines for the city's $258 million voter-approved affordable housing bond, the mayor ousted former housing director Kurt Creager and the mayor announced plans to use housing bond proceeds to build as many as 300 new affordable apartments in Southeast Portland.

Wheeler acknowledged that the council will continue to face "tremendous challenges" that will not be easy to solve in 2018, but said his administration is up to the challenge.

"We are a can-do city and mine is a can-do administration," Wheeler wrote. "Working together, we can continue the progress we began this year."

--Jessica Floum

503-221-8306