Portlanders do not experience problems in neat jurisdictional boxes. They experience them in neighborhoods, on our streets, in hospital, in shelters, in businesses, and in public spaces. They experience the combined effect of city systems, county systems, nonprofits, healthcare providers, and public safety agencies all at once.
That is why siloed government does not work.
After reviewing Sharon Meieran’s Comprehensive Multnomah County Turnaround Plan, what stood out to me most was not just the critique, but the operational framing behind it. The plan argues that Multnomah County’s failures are not isolated problems, but “symptoms of a deeper operational breakdown — a systems failure of County government itself.”
That matters, because this is not just a county issue. It is also a city issue.
The public will hold all of us accountable whether city and county government work together or not. So we should work together. If the problems are overlapping, then the solutions have to be coordinated. That is why I support stronger city and county collaboration built around real accountability, measurable outcomes, and a more holistic response.
One of the strongest parts of the plan is its clarity about what reform should actually look like. It calls for an “operational blueprint for transformation” built on four principles: “Organize for impact,” “Measure what matters,” “Budget for results,” and “Account for every dollar.” Those are not abstract ideas. They are exactly the kind of discipline the public has been asking for.
The plan also makes a point that I think too many leaders avoid saying plainly: the issue is not always lack of funding. In its homelessness section, it says, “Multnomah County does not lack funding for an effective homelessness response. It lacks a single, accountable homelessness-to-housing (survival to stability) system.”
That is a powerful distinction. Spending alone is not a strategy. A fragmented system with unclear responsibility will continue to underperform no matter how much money is pushed through it.
That same section goes further, explaining that poor outcomes persist because “Money and services follow programs, not people,” because “Accountability is fragmented or nonexistent,” because “System flow lacks continuity and is unmanaged,” and because “Outcomes are weak or unmeasured.” This is exactly why city and county leadership cannot afford to operate like separate islands. If each institution protects its own lane while the public continues to live with the combined impact of failure, then no one is really governing.
I also appreciated the plan’s warning about how government too often defines success. It says, “Currently, the County measures processes and activities,” then lists examples like meetings, referrals, and transport counts, and concludes that these “do not provide meaningful information relating to outcomes or system performance.” That is a direct challenge to performative government. Counting activity is not the same as solving problems. Residents do not care how many meetings were held if the underlying crisis remains.The plan says this matters because “Claiming success based on measuring processes and activities masks failed processes that not only waste resources but harm people and cost lives.” That line is especially important. It reminds us that public sector dysfunction is not just frustrating. It has real human consequences.
Another section gets to the larger structural issue. The plan says county responsibilities are currently carried out through “eleven siloed, largely uncoordinated departments,” creating “a fragmented system of care” with redundancy, waste, confusion, and an inability to track resources clearly. Whether one agrees with every proposed reorganization or not, the broader diagnosis is hard to ignore. Silos are expensive. Silos confuse accountability. Silos make it easier for everyone to say they are helping while outcomes continue to worsen.
That is why I keep coming back to the need for a holistic approach.
To me, holistic does not mean vague. It means practical. It means city and county government understanding where their responsibilities meet, where they overlap, and where failure in one system creates visible consequences in the other. It means building structures that allow information sharing, coordinated planning, and meaningful follow-through. The plan itself calls for “integrated planning, oversight and coordination” and highlights the value of relying on “accurate, complete and relevant data” that is “analyzed and shared effectively.”
It also means accepting that these are elephant-sized problems. We are not going to solve them with one speech, one press conference, or one task force. We have to take small bites, and we have to do it as a village. That is the only way to build the unified, practical help needed to take on problems of this size.
What I appreciate about the Turnaround Plan is that it is not pretending there is a magic fix. It talks about immediate stabilization, structural reform, deeper partner engagement, and continuous improvement. It calls for a “deep listening tour” with residents, employees, civic leaders, nonprofit leaders, and frontline staff. It calls for engaging nonprofit providers “immediately and continuously.” And it calls for expanding partnerships with healthcare systems and others to better integrate care.
That is the right instinct. Large systems improve when they listen, coordinate, and stay accountable over time.
I support collaboration in city and county efforts because the problems demand it. I support a holistic approach because residents live with the combined impact of public failures, not the technical boundary lines between agencies. And I support systems that measure outcomes, track dollars, and make someone clearly responsible, because compassion without execution is not enough.
If we want better outcomes, city and county leadership must stop acting like separate islands and start acting like partners responsible to the same public.
That is how we begin to fix what is broken.
