In the summer of 1987, a fledgling experiment in regional governance was looking for someone to help with the legalese that goes with legislating.
Daniel B. Cooper was representing some suburban governments when he stumbled upon a job posting for Metro's legal counsel. For the next 25 years, Cooper was a fixture at Metro, a tenure that ends with his retirement this week.
He spent 23 years as Metro's lead attorney before stepping in as the acting staff boss in 2011. For the past year, he's been advising staff working on the Oregon Convention Center hotel concept.
How long has Cooper been at Metro? On his wall is a giant poster photograph of the opening night of the convention center. On the side of the building to its north is a mural touting the building as the future home of a convention center headquarters hotel.
Cooper was on hand in the 1990s, a time when Metro was still trying to find its footing as the regional collaborator, convener and regulator. In those days, it wasn't just that city and county governments distrusted Metro. Metro distrusted Metro, too.
That was never more evident than in the early 1990s, when Metro sued Metro.
Wait, what?
Longtime Metro observers recall that prior to 2003, Metro's staff head position was elected independent of the Metro Council. The council and the Metro Executive weren't always on the same page.
Never was that more evident in the wake of the opening of the landfill in Arlington, when the Council and Executive Officer disagreed on whether to agree to a contract amendment with the landfill's operators.
Cooper represented neither side as the Council and Executive Officer asked a judge to decide who had the right to settle the contract; Cooper said the judge found the Council lacked the legal authority to file a lawsuit on behalf of Metro.
Shortly after that, Metro began working on a new charter to separate staff and elected officials. He said the legal aspects of the drafting of the charter weren't terribly hard.
"It's a lot less complicated than participating in the drafting of an agreement to finance a solid waste composting facility backed by variable bonds that could be reissued every week in order to capture the lowest interest rate possible…" Cooper carried on.
It wasn't just the legalese of the charter amendment that had Cooper's signature on it, said Metro Council President Tom Hughes. Hughes was involved in government in Hillsboro at the time, and recounted an extremely contentious relationship between the suburbs and the regional government.
The ballot title for the Metro Charter amendment, Hughes said, read: "A measure to limit the power of Metro."
"It limited it to a slightly higher scale than it had been before," Hughes said last week, laughing. "It was a great opportunity to … use your opponent's weight against them by using your own leverage"
Cooper said he feels as though Metro's role in the community has become more accepted over time. He pointed to the 2004 hearing on the urban growth boundary expansion, when more than 600 people testified, the vast majority against what Metro was proposing.
In 2011, about 40 people testified, their opinions fairly evenly split among support and criticism for the proposed UGB changes.
Also negotiated by Cooper: Agreements to take over some of Multnomah County's properties, including the Expo Center (Cooper said the county also wanted Metro to take on gun control, because of the gun shows at the Expo Center) and an agreement with the Phoenix Zoo about fees and rights relating to artificial insemination of elephants.
Metro's walking encyclopedia – Cooper is famous at Metro for ambling the hallways and chatting with staff – grew up in the Philadelphia area, watching baseball at Shibe Park before going to New York for college and law school. He came west to clerk at the Oregon Court of Appeals, then worked in the administration of Portland Mayor Connie McCready. When her term ended, he went into private legal practice.
Councilor Carlotta Collette said she appreciated Cooper's expertise and mentoring to councilors new to elected office.
"You've been there for all of us at those moments where you think 'What is going on?'" Collette said at a recognition of Cooper last week. "You'd calmly walk into the room, close the door and explain that it was all OK, that we were going to land this vessel and it was going to be fine. I want you to know how reassuring that was."
Hughes said Cooper was an inspiration to everyone at Metro.
"You understand how things get done, someone that every agency needs," Hughes said. "We'll miss your ability to do it, and with the level of humor… Hopefully you're not gone away forever, and we'll see you in our halls again. But you deserve some time."
In that time, Cooper plans on visiting family in Truckee, Calif., and traveling by train to Chicago, New Orleans and Los Angeles. Along the way, he plans on seeing the San Francisco Giants play the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field and clinch visits to all 50 states. In California, he'll go to a Dodgers' home game – his first since seeing the Brooklyn Dodgers play at Ebbets Field.
And, he said, he'll be watching as the public sector continues to evolve with an increasingly skeptical public and media.
"Metro right now is probably one of the more effective, accountable and efficient governments in the region. It certainly hasn't been that way – it's had a history of people distrusting it, and it's doing its best to overcome that," Cooper said.
"Government is kind of a group grade. If TriMet stumbles, everybody thinks that's Metro. When Multnomah County does something wrong and has three elected officials called "mean" something or others, people don't like the City of Portland, Washington County, Clackamas County, the state of Oregon, Metro and the U.S. Congress because of it," he said.
"Work is hard and (governments) are subject to lots of feelings that they don't want to be the ones who slip up and have people going 'Well there they go again,'" Cooper said. "It's a high bar you have to meet but it's attainable, and I think Metro in the last 10 years in particular has come a long way towards being far more respected than it used to be, and being viewed as far more effective than it used to be."