Is This Portland’s Greatest Blog or What?
It’s Jack Bog’s Blog and it’s high on our daily reading list. Want righteous invective? Try this (reprinted with Jack Bogdanski’s kind permission)…
Here's where we all nod our heads knowingly. The Portland Trail Blazers, the fake pro basketball team that has tanked its way to universal laughability, is joining forces with Albina Vision, the fake Black reparations program, to promote the construction of more apartment bunkers occupied by white hipsters over where the Black neighborhood used to be. Oh, the "equity" of it all!
Here's the best part:
This new alliance will work across four strategic areas, according to the two groups. These are:
A joint development strategy for Lower Albina, including the Rose Quarter.
Joint storytelling and communications.
Joint legislative strategy and advocacy.
Joint celebration of community through events and gatherings.
I love the "legislative strategy and advocacy" bit. Translation: Your tax dollars are going to make some developers and construction weasels even richer than they are today. Hundreds of millions, no exaggeration. And hooray! Suddenly Paul Allen's sister gets a piece.
First Deadly Deborah gets in on it, and now the Blazers. So many winners to bring us even more winning.
We couldn’t have said it better (so why try?). Best part: subscriptions are free.
Did Our Senators Fail to Get the Memo?
In the slowly disappearing Portland Tribune, our two distant senators celebrated their handiwork…
…which was a big pat on their backs for spending lots and lots of OPM. They wouldn’t be proper Democrats without this tip ‘o’ the hat…
Organized labor, representing both construction and production workers, is integral to these efforts, and its support is critical to Oregon’s ability to continue to lead the way in the semiconductor industry.
Odd, but the same day this ran, the Oregonian dropped this…
Many more happy anniversaries like this and we’ll using slide rules again.
Surreal News ‘O’ the Day…
The Oregonian reported with a straight face…
…and you’d never guess that the Oregon Health Authority hired a Multnomah county apparatchik, Abbey Stamp, who ran the county’s 90-day fentanyl emergency which, as you’ll recall, swept the demon drug off our streets. And prompted this headline…
Maybe Ms. Stamp can do something about yet another headline…
…by just routing the calls to the county’s new deflection center. On second thought, since calls will certainly be put on hold (the government gold standard), the dopers will be out the door and off to scare the kiddies at a nearby preschool (not to mention the posh SoHo Club) before they have a chance to chat.
Put This In Your Tickle File
Since Portland voters have notoriously short memories, it might be a good idea to drop this in your personal time capsule, to be opened before the election in two and one-half years…
…but lighten up! Sheriff Morrisey O’Donnell (yet another dual-name pol in the Big Girls brigade) is really on a lifesaving mission, since 12 jail inmates have died in the lockup since 2022, the latest in July. Plus two jail deputies were indicted for official misconduct related to two deaths in 2023.
The junkies might not be safer out on the streets.
Yet Another WillyWeek Backdoor Endorsement
The alternative (to what?) weekly ran yet another in its vaunted “Ballot Buddy” series and singled out yet another of the many, many, many candidates running for the new city council…
…in this case a member of the PPB’s bike squad whhich may or may not be sweeping crooks off the streets faster than our lame duck DA can kick ‘em out, but which runs one of the most entertaining sites on Instagram…
The county sheriff hadn’t yet shot off her mouth about making her very own drug policy, so recent UofO grad Eliza Aronson couldn’t be faulted for asking Officer Arnold if he wanted to amend his answer to her question about drugs…
Fentanyl is the focus here. It comes down to consequences and alternatives. I’ve worked to identify and arrest dozens of fentanyl dealers. And I can tell you, we need help from the Multnomah County district attorney to remove them more effectively. They come right back to the street because there’s no real expectation of consequences. And then we also need a sobering center and a real deflection program.
Newly-minted reporter Aronson didn’t think to ask other questions, such as:
You’ll be one of 12 votes, so how will you get a majority when most of the announced candidates are stone-cold progressives and/or retreads?
How do you feel about your “surplus” votes—presuming you hit that magic 25-percnt-plus-one-vote threshold—being creamed off for other candidates you might not like working with?
How about our current mayor/city administrator combo putting together committees and procedures ready-made for the council? How many committees do you think the council should have? Which one would you want to be on…and who will make that assignment?
Should the council president have Vega Pederson-style absolute power?
What about the Transition Commission’s advice to tell your constituents to call 311 if they want help with their little problems?
…which we pondered in our last drop.
I emailed Willy’s managing editor, Aaron Mesh, to ask why most of the council wanna-be’s are yet to be pitched powder-puff questions and got a limited hangout response, something about logistics, plus a reassurance that there’s no secret “formula” involved. At their current rate of rolling out their ballot-buddies, they should wrap it up in time for the next election.
Always Look on the Bright Side…
It’s a mess, but give ‘em a break says the O…
I see your latest post only allows comments from paid subscribers? Is that what you intended?
Here’s a GREAT letter to the editor about our feckless Sheriff. I hope Mark Williams will run for public office.
Letters to the editor | The Oregonian:
Multnomah County Sheriff Nicole Morrisey O’Donnell’s unilateral decision not to book those arrested under Portland’s anti-camping law is nothing less than outrageous , (“Multnomah County sheriff defends decision not to jail 1st person arrested for violating Portland’s camping rules,” July 30).
County sheriffs are elected and sworn to uphold and enforce the law. They should not have discretion to pick and choose which laws they will enforce. The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the right of communities to ban urban camping. If O’Donnell feels that she cannot enforce our anti-camping laws within the bounds of her conscience, then she should do the right thing and resign.
Once again, it seems as if Multnomah County’s officials live in a dream world of their own, where urban camping and rampant drug use are not really a problem requiring action and urgency. Maybe they all should just have another meeting. That’s what they do best.
Mark B. Williams, Portland
https://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/2024/08/readers-respond-enforce-portland-camping-law.html