Measure 26-217, Police Oversight Board Charter Amendment

PAALF Action Fund’s Position on Measure 26-217, Police Oversight Board Charter Amendment

PAALF Action Fund exists to help our Black communities imagine the alternatives they deserve and to build our political participation to achieve those alternatives. Before spring 2020, the world we imagined, one where our people were not unjustly targeted by police and carceral systems, seemed only possible through reform.

But it took the collective grief and uprisings in response to the murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd to say these words out loud: we want a world without police and without prisons. We are abolitionists. PAALF Action Fund is an abolitionist organization.

Abolitionists, like Black people, are not a monolith. When examining Measure 26-217 — the Portland measure that authorizes the creation of a new police accountability system for the City of Portland — we find ourselves with mixed feelings for many reasons and without the necessary time to meaningfully engage our members and come to consensus. For this, we remain neutral.

We are grateful for, and indebted to, the decades of tireless and often thankless work that so many Black Portlanders have done to chip away at the unjust and undue power of Portland’s police force to upend and end the lives of Black people, Native people, disabled people.

We look forward to the work ahead, to build a more accountable Portland Police Bureau.  Still we strive for a city without it. A city where Black people have the rights, resources and recognition that we deserve to be a thriving, resilient and connected community.