I think Betsy spent too little time in Portland's working class neighborhoods like Lents and Kenton. There were whole neighborhoods that would have been open to her message of prioritizing public safety IMHO, and they would have been far more vote productive for her than spending so much time in places like Prineville and Pendleton. I deeply admire her effort and applaud her willingness to continue overseeing and holding Tina and the hyperprogressives accountable.
Portland started to hit the skids back in 2008 during the Great Recession. Recovery was slow because Sam Adams was focused on green energy efforts, but I consider the start of the big decline at the passage of M91 in 2014. That's when the sidewalk tent scene really started to explode. Many folks derided Charlie Hales and hoped Ted Wheeler would rescue the city. Portland was still livable then, but businesses were still recovering from the recession. Then Trump was elected, and this begat Antifa and downtown was kneecapped. Then came the GF protests in 2020, on top of the economic impact of COVID. Despite all this, Dem leadership focused on promoting green energy, enforcing gender and race identity politics, decriminalizing more mind-altering agents, spending $$ frivolously (like $1.6 million spent for homeless tent giveaway), and raising taxes to pay for it all. And now, the new city charter ensures that blame and responsibility for the city's ills get spread around even more. So everyone gets to sleep at night.
My point in recounting this history is that it's prob. too late to save Portland. We could hurl insults at the leadership all day, but I don't think they much care. We can feel schadenfreude at Salt and Straw, since they were against Trump's offer to help restore order in the city, but that doesn't really help solve problems now.
Perhaps Portland needs to go through hell and come out the other side. Meanwhile, I can only hope the neighboring municipalities heed the lessons, and work to keep Portland's problems from becoming theirs as well. At least businesses will have somewhere to flee.
Betsy please don’t feel too bad for Kim Malek of Salt and Straw. Did you know she is a board member of the the Oregon Justice Resource Center? This Portland based nonprofit has been been busy promoting less police in Portland and less prosecution of criminals. She is part of the problem in the implosion of Portland. And now she and her employees are reaping what she has sowed. Unfortunately so are all of us fellow Portlanders.
My whole theory on where everything went sideways in this state starts with Occupy Portland in 2011. Those folks never left and now: they're still agitating activists for specific organizations, they're in public office, in charge of non-profits, working in our bureaus, etc. Apparently, making a six figure salary in a nonprofit that you don't pay taxes on makes you less 'corporate' and therefore more 'entitled' to call others on the carpet as they see it. Ironic.
I worked a block away from the Occupy Portland circus and took hundreds of pictures every day on my lunch hour, breaks, and after work. The weather was good and I was for the most part totally ignored except once by who else but a member of Antifa who I was photographing as he was putting his mask on (I use to get the same treatment when photographing my Mother before she put her "face on". I apologized and told him I'd delete the picture (which I did old Portland Polite). Last year was the 10 year anniversary and I sent an e-mail to Stumptown Blogger to ask if he was interested in posting any of my pictures and he wasn't interested. I can't really draw a line from 2011 to 2021 but the blame rests with our state and local leaders. I still remember smacking my forehead when the Director of Public Health announced that racial disparity is every bit a public health emergency as Covid. When I heard that I knew Portland was over and for the first time in my long life here (50+ years) I was afraid, very afraid.
" but the blame rests with our state and local leaders". I disagree! Portland Progressives are the ones who continue to vote these idiots in to office over and over and over again. Take 20 min and read the comments on any next-door post about crime, police, housing etc etc and you'll find 80% sticking to the progressive narrative - doubling down - as if cause and effect does not exist. Year after year there is opportunity to vote in an independent
(case in point with Betsy), moderate or, gasp - a conservative. But nooooooo! I've never known a more educated and credentialed group of people to be so dumb. They are literally cheering on their own demise. So sad.
It’s leftist penance, I think (especially when the very worst of it is happening to someone else). Social justice at the lowest common denominator, as in communal ignorance, guilt and misery. Because of slavery, Jim Crow, carbon emissions, Third World poverty, domestic income inequality and imperiled trans sensibilities, America and Americans must be brought low, and existing wealth and influence redistributed. Wealthy and successful leftists must feign guilt over or at least indifference to their status, no matter how hard they and theirs worked to attain it.
"give me what you have that I don’t have" Give me Give me Give me..... I am silly enough to belong to a FB group called What's Happening in Albany. I have never in my life experienced the amount of BEGGING that occurs on this site. With Christmas around the corner it has intensified. One woman posted an amazon wish list with over 20 items that totaled over $500 for her two very young sons. In checking it a few hours later it had bloomed to over 50 items. It breaks my heart that people are willing to give to such excess to help one person and ignore those who would like to see a better stocked food bank or a nice couple of toys for many families. In comments from a few about how this is taking away from the non profits and the folks that they serve; there is no recognition that they are in effect jumping the line and jumping at great cost to so many who need help. Certainly those lunatics in charge of the site are so blind and comment that they are in control of the site and will allow this and if you don't like it leave and create your own site. Just like the State Legislature there is no shame, no controls, no discipline and certainly no sustainable way to keep funding at a high level that makes cuts to far more deserving programs. Betsy please hold Salem's feet to the fire. It's not just Salem that needs a change of heart but it sure needs to set a far better example.
I agree with Betsy's words about business but Portland businesses that support the chaos either directly or indirectly should not get a pass. Reap what you sow Salt and Straw, et al.
Oh how I wish you had won. I agree 💯 with what you said. I am a 65 year old native Oregonian and the place has gone to hell. We keep dumbing down the school system and then have to keep raising minimum wage because so many of our young people don’t have skills to have a career. When I was in high school those jobs were considered entry level to get work experience and to move on to better positions as time went on. Now they seem like careers.
Thank you for the honest campaign and championing impactful change
I think Betsy spent too little time in Portland's working class neighborhoods like Lents and Kenton. There were whole neighborhoods that would have been open to her message of prioritizing public safety IMHO, and they would have been far more vote productive for her than spending so much time in places like Prineville and Pendleton. I deeply admire her effort and applaud her willingness to continue overseeing and holding Tina and the hyperprogressives accountable.
So sick of landlords! They are always acting like they own the place or something.
But seriously, the leftist agenda vilifies accomplishment and accumulation, period.
Guaranteed income and housing for all, no strings attached, is the redistributionist endgame.
Portland started to hit the skids back in 2008 during the Great Recession. Recovery was slow because Sam Adams was focused on green energy efforts, but I consider the start of the big decline at the passage of M91 in 2014. That's when the sidewalk tent scene really started to explode. Many folks derided Charlie Hales and hoped Ted Wheeler would rescue the city. Portland was still livable then, but businesses were still recovering from the recession. Then Trump was elected, and this begat Antifa and downtown was kneecapped. Then came the GF protests in 2020, on top of the economic impact of COVID. Despite all this, Dem leadership focused on promoting green energy, enforcing gender and race identity politics, decriminalizing more mind-altering agents, spending $$ frivolously (like $1.6 million spent for homeless tent giveaway), and raising taxes to pay for it all. And now, the new city charter ensures that blame and responsibility for the city's ills get spread around even more. So everyone gets to sleep at night.
My point in recounting this history is that it's prob. too late to save Portland. We could hurl insults at the leadership all day, but I don't think they much care. We can feel schadenfreude at Salt and Straw, since they were against Trump's offer to help restore order in the city, but that doesn't really help solve problems now.
Perhaps Portland needs to go through hell and come out the other side. Meanwhile, I can only hope the neighboring municipalities heed the lessons, and work to keep Portland's problems from becoming theirs as well. At least businesses will have somewhere to flee.
Betsy please don’t feel too bad for Kim Malek of Salt and Straw. Did you know she is a board member of the the Oregon Justice Resource Center? This Portland based nonprofit has been been busy promoting less police in Portland and less prosecution of criminals. She is part of the problem in the implosion of Portland. And now she and her employees are reaping what she has sowed. Unfortunately so are all of us fellow Portlanders.
My whole theory on where everything went sideways in this state starts with Occupy Portland in 2011. Those folks never left and now: they're still agitating activists for specific organizations, they're in public office, in charge of non-profits, working in our bureaus, etc. Apparently, making a six figure salary in a nonprofit that you don't pay taxes on makes you less 'corporate' and therefore more 'entitled' to call others on the carpet as they see it. Ironic.
I worked a block away from the Occupy Portland circus and took hundreds of pictures every day on my lunch hour, breaks, and after work. The weather was good and I was for the most part totally ignored except once by who else but a member of Antifa who I was photographing as he was putting his mask on (I use to get the same treatment when photographing my Mother before she put her "face on". I apologized and told him I'd delete the picture (which I did old Portland Polite). Last year was the 10 year anniversary and I sent an e-mail to Stumptown Blogger to ask if he was interested in posting any of my pictures and he wasn't interested. I can't really draw a line from 2011 to 2021 but the blame rests with our state and local leaders. I still remember smacking my forehead when the Director of Public Health announced that racial disparity is every bit a public health emergency as Covid. When I heard that I knew Portland was over and for the first time in my long life here (50+ years) I was afraid, very afraid.
" but the blame rests with our state and local leaders". I disagree! Portland Progressives are the ones who continue to vote these idiots in to office over and over and over again. Take 20 min and read the comments on any next-door post about crime, police, housing etc etc and you'll find 80% sticking to the progressive narrative - doubling down - as if cause and effect does not exist. Year after year there is opportunity to vote in an independent
(case in point with Betsy), moderate or, gasp - a conservative. But nooooooo! I've never known a more educated and credentialed group of people to be so dumb. They are literally cheering on their own demise. So sad.
It’s leftist penance, I think (especially when the very worst of it is happening to someone else). Social justice at the lowest common denominator, as in communal ignorance, guilt and misery. Because of slavery, Jim Crow, carbon emissions, Third World poverty, domestic income inequality and imperiled trans sensibilities, America and Americans must be brought low, and existing wealth and influence redistributed. Wealthy and successful leftists must feign guilt over or at least indifference to their status, no matter how hard they and theirs worked to attain it.
"give me what you have that I don’t have" Give me Give me Give me..... I am silly enough to belong to a FB group called What's Happening in Albany. I have never in my life experienced the amount of BEGGING that occurs on this site. With Christmas around the corner it has intensified. One woman posted an amazon wish list with over 20 items that totaled over $500 for her two very young sons. In checking it a few hours later it had bloomed to over 50 items. It breaks my heart that people are willing to give to such excess to help one person and ignore those who would like to see a better stocked food bank or a nice couple of toys for many families. In comments from a few about how this is taking away from the non profits and the folks that they serve; there is no recognition that they are in effect jumping the line and jumping at great cost to so many who need help. Certainly those lunatics in charge of the site are so blind and comment that they are in control of the site and will allow this and if you don't like it leave and create your own site. Just like the State Legislature there is no shame, no controls, no discipline and certainly no sustainable way to keep funding at a high level that makes cuts to far more deserving programs. Betsy please hold Salem's feet to the fire. It's not just Salem that needs a change of heart but it sure needs to set a far better example.
I agree with Betsy's words about business but Portland businesses that support the chaos either directly or indirectly should not get a pass. Reap what you sow Salt and Straw, et al.
Salt and Straw certainly did its fair share of virtue signaling. Speaking on behalf of their NE Alberta location.
Oh how I wish you had won. I agree 💯 with what you said. I am a 65 year old native Oregonian and the place has gone to hell. We keep dumbing down the school system and then have to keep raising minimum wage because so many of our young people don’t have skills to have a career. When I was in high school those jobs were considered entry level to get work experience and to move on to better positions as time went on. Now they seem like careers.