Updated at 6:30 p.m.

Portland Police Chief Mike Marshman issued a defense Tuesday of a proposed police contract a day before a scheduled City Council vote, stressing the need to hire more officers for the understaffed department.

Marshman's statement also talked about changes the police bureau is making in officer recruitment, training and community relations, partly because of greater scrutiny locally and nationwide of police.

But in an interview with The Oregonian/OregonLive, Marshman said a key reason he issued the statement in advance of the council vote was because of "misinformation out there" about whether a proposed body camera policy is included in the contract. It's not, Marshman said, something that is addressed in detail in a frequently-asked-questions document Mayor Charlie Hales office has posted about the proposed agreement.

The FAQ says a proposed body cameras policy was included in a contract package to council members "as reference material on a proposed policy."

Critics have attacked a provision in the proposed policy that would allow officers to view body camera footage before writing up any encounters with civilians except fatal ones. The fact that the body camera policy was developed behind closed doors between the police union and city negotiators, and made public just this week, heightened concerns.

However, an opinion Mark Amberg,chief deputy city attorney, sent to Hales and City Councilors on Tuesday says Oregon Employment Relations Board may require the city to bargain with the police union over a body cameras policy - if the union were to challenge an adopted policy.

The board, if asked for an opinion, may "find that the review of audio/video by officers - whether under a body camera policy or otherwise - impacts mandatory subjects of bargaining and, therefore, is mandatory for bargaining," Amberg wrote in his opinion, noting the entire issue of body cameras is "fairly recent (with) little guidance supplied by other jurisdictions."

The contract as well as the body cameras issue brought activists from the group Don't Shoot Portland to Portland City Hall on Tuesday evening.

After marching down Southwest Fourth Avenue, they pitched tents in front of City Hall, where they planned to stay the night, lead organizer Teressa Raiford said.

Protesters feel they have been shut out of conversations about the contract, Raiford said. Last Wednesday, Portland Mayor Charlie Hales canceled a City Council meeting about the contract after protesters disrupted the meeting. It was rescheduled Thursday afternoon with limited public access.

Protesters and police watchdog groups have said they want the vote on the contract to be delayed until Mayor-elect Ted Wheeler takes office in 2017.

"I just want to change the process of it being fast-tracked," Raiford said. "I want the mayor to give sufficient time to engage with the community and all communities that want to be involved."

Raiford is also worried about the contract's handling of body cameras.

In the interview on Tuesday, Marshman said the main reason for issuing his statement was to emphasize the importance of hiring more officers, soon. "The staffing crisis was kind of getting lost in the weeds," he said in the interview.



Marshman's written statement said the bureau, which can have 948 sworn officers, is facing "a staffing crisis with 65 vacancies, and at least 21 more to come this month ... even more alarming is that 385 members are projected to retire over the next five years."



"This crisis has been further amplified by both a significant and steady increase in population and calls for service, and a complexity in calls that take longer for officers to resolve," Marshman wrote. "Finally, there is a shared expectation by the community and me that officers will spend more time building relationships and preventing crime."



City negotiators and the Portland Police Association reached a tentative contract agreement this summer. The proposed three-year contract would raise starting pay from $49,837 to $60,840 and deliver substantial pay raises to experienced officers.



In exchange for the raises, the association agreed to eliminate a controversial 48-hour waiting period before an officer can be interviewed by internal affairs investigators about use of deadly force. The union also agreed to drop 11 grievances against the city.



The financial incentives are needed to hire and retain qualified officers, Marshman said in the statement issued Tuesday, noting that only one of every 20 candidates is hired and that it takes 18 months before an officer is trained.



"The (contract) would also provide an incentive for officers currently working at other agencies to come to Portland," he said. "Lateral hires do not have to go through the state academy, significantly reducing training time, which benefits both the lateral hire and the community.



"I've been to more retirement parties than I can count. I watch our well-trained, knowledgeable officers, who have a strong connection to this community, walk out the door and immediately go to work for another police agency. We must accept this reality and retain those officers. The (contract) provides an incentive for retiring officers to continue their career in Portland."



Marshman said the bureau is making changes in officer recruitment, training and community relations because "there is an important local and national conversation about police and community relations."



The changes, the chief wrote, include:

Starting equity training for officers, beginning with a history lesson on race relations in Portland and institutional racism that has existed throughout our society. Training will be ongoing and will soon include training on implicit bias.

Building a more diverse work force through recruitment and hiring processes.

Making community engagement a priority, "whether it's a simple conversation or an event. A portion of this work is shared via social media, so the community can see what is occurring in our city."

Continuing partnership with the Department of Justice "to fulfill and exceed the expectations in the Settlement Agreement."

"We continue to seek the balance of how to police in a community where social services have broken down," Marshman wrote, "and traditional enforcement strategies are no longer an effective tool in many cases."

Marshman's appeal comes one day ahead of a City Council vote lacking suspense. The contract is set to pass with support from Mayor Charlie Hales and Commissioners Nick Fish and Amanda Fritz. Commissioner Steve Novick is expected to vote "no," citing uncertainty about how the city will pay for higher salaries. Commissioner Dan Saltzman will be absent for Yom Kippur.

Reporters Samantha Matsumoto and Brad Schmidt contributed.

--Allan Brettman

503-294-5900

@allanbrettman