Fifty-five years ago Dennis Buchanan left his job at the Chicago Tribune to come to Portland, where he took a job as an investigative reporter for the Oregon Journal. He got the public’s attention with a story on the December 22, 1964 collapse of the John Day Bridge, which the chairman of the Oregon Highway Department termed an Act of God. Mr. Buchanan found the blameworthy in a less lofty place. As Mr. Buchanan put it years later, “My articles acquitted God and assigned responsibility to highway engineers who allowed a change order without following prescribed procedures.” A few years later he moved to KGW-TV, also as an investigative reporter, where he broke a story about auto dealers fraudulently rolling back odometers on used cars, that included interviews with the mechanics themselves. An affable man with an “aw, shucks” manner who spoke with a subtle touch of Texas drawl, Mr. Buchanan didn’t get the culprits to confess so much as he persuaded them to brag on camera about their skills with a screwdriver.
In his time as a reporter, Mr. Buchanan, who died on December 26, broadened his interests to include urban planning. He researched and presented stories on the Forecourt Fountain, redevelopment of the Willamette riverfront, billboards, and visual clutter, and as a reporter developed connections with the elected officials and backstage political players of the day.
In 1973 he gave up journalism to become a stockbroker, but had the misfortune to enter the financial world immediately before a recession struck. As he pondered the silent phones at the office a year later, a seat on the Multnomah County Commission became vacant, and the four remaining commissioners had the opportunity to appoint someone to fill it.
The hot local issue of the time was the Mount Hood Freeway, which would have connected the Marquam Bridge to US 26 east of Gresham, cutting a swath through southeast Portland. Commissioners Alice Corbett and Dan Mosee supported the freeway; Commissioners Don Clark and Mel Gordon opposed the freeway. A dozen or so public-spirited citizens applied for the vacant seat, some who favored the freeway and some who opposed it. Mrs. Corbett and Mr. Mosee voted against every applicant who opposed the freeway; Messrs. Clark and Gordon voted against every applicant who supported it.
It occurred to Mr. Buchanan that he had been more active in Democratic politics than many of the applicants, and also that he’d never said anything in public about the Mount Hood Freeway. Also, no one was trading stocks. He had a word with a backstage player who made a few phone calls, and Mr. Buchanan’s name suddenly appeared on Alice Corbett’s lunch schedule.
He didn’t know Alice Corbett, and he asked his friends what to expect. “Be careful,” one warned him, “she will come across as a lady, and she is, but don’t be fooled by her manner: she’s sharp, and she can tell the difference between chicken salad and chickens**t.” Mr. Buchanan was prepared to give a noncommittal answer if she asked him what he thought of the Mount Hood Freeway, but he didn’t have to hedge, as she didn’t mention the freeway at all. (She may have assumed that any stockbroker in pinstripes would of course support the freeway.) He did, however, struggle to keep a straight face when Mrs. Corbett ordered chicken salad for lunch.
A few days later, after the commission had rejected a fresh crop of nominees on a series of 2-2 votes, Mrs. Corbett nominated Dennis Buchanan to fill the vacancy, he was invited to say a few words about his willingness to serve, and his nomination was put to a vote. Don Clark and Mel Gordon, who were in on the secret, joined Mrs. Corbett in voting yes, and Mr. Buchanan began his public service. He soon joined Messrs. Clark and Gordon in a procedural vote that effectively killed the Mount Hood Freeway. The federal dollars that would have paid for the freeway were redirected a few years later to build the MAX Blue Line to Gresham, made financially possible only because the freeway was cancelled.
After several years of service on the county commission, Mr. Buchanan ran for and was elected as the second County Executive, succeeding Don Clark. The county’s biggest problem of the time was mid-county, the unincorporated area between Portland and Gresham, in which 150,000 people lived without sewers. It was the largest urban area in the United States without sanitary sewers. The county provided police service through the sheriff’s office, and other public services were provided either by a patchwork of agencies or not at all. In Mr. Buchanan’s view, which he and Don Clark shared, the county couldn’t afford to provide urban services to the area without dragging down the county’s financial structure.
Some more backstage discussions ensued, resulting in Mr. Buchanan presenting to the county commission, in 1983, the famous “Resolution A,” in which the county resolved to get out of the business of providing urban services over the next three years. Residents of mid-county who wanted police protection and urban-level services would have to annex to Portland or Gresham, and over the next ten years the two cities expanded until they met in the middle. With city government came city sewers, city water, city fire protection, and the other services that mid-county residents wanted to enjoy but didn’t want to pay for.
Unknown to the public at the time, when Mr. Buchanan presented Resolution A to the county commission, he had in his pocket an alternative, “Resolution B,” which he intended to propose if the commission rejected Resolution A. Resolution B said in essence that the county would continue to provide urban services until it went broke. He gambled that none of the commissioners would want to vote for a resolution that admitted that they were being financially irresponsible, and he was right.
In 1988 the county voters restructured county government and eliminated Mr. Buchanan’s position as County Executive. He retired from public service, dabbled in private business, and became a poet and a painter. Unusually among our local Solons, he sought no higher office and he didn’t care if he was recognized for what he accomplished. He was a model that others might do well to emulate.
Dennis Buchanan’s political life demonstrates that big things sometimes come from small actions. The next time you ride to work on MAX, imagine how you might be commuting today if, forty-plus years ago when Alice Corbett ordered chicken salad, Dennis Buchanan had laughed.
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