Clean-Up Time

Following up on a few items in the archive, plus occasional oddities

Time for another cruise through the rubble…

Is This Someone’s Idea of a Joke?

The stenographers in local media gave gallons of ink to GuvTina when she announced that she would step in, aided by something grandly called “The Central City Task Force,” to figure out what went wrong with Portland’s downtown.

The CCTF (how our city loves acronyms!) finally met, downtown, ‘natch. In typical progressive fashion, it was closed to the press, which resorted to blind quotes.

You would think that in her former job representing parts of the city and then in her mighty position as speaker of the state House, Ms. Kotek might have been aware—just a suspicion—that all was not well downtown. Particularly when one of her top legislative aides got busted for a little bit of rioting. (Which, we bet, will nowhere be mentioned, along with the non-word Antifa, in whatever final report the CCTF belches up.)

Since progressives like nothing better than citizen commissions—this one has 50-members!—the group will deploy and cogitate and ponder and, if all goes well, will come up with some sort of “action plan,” and will get it all done…by December. Haste makes waste, right?

Prediction: The plan will involve lots more money creamed off the city’s citizens—many of whom wouldn’t venture downtown on a bet, since many of the city’s commercial clusters tend to be (1) safer (2) friendlier (3) livelier (4) fewer bums—even out here at the Mall 205.

It will take a half-year for 50 people to figure this out?

Guess who’s on the Task Force? The list will surprise no one—there’s perennial lady in waiting Candace Avalos, who helped foist off the new city charter; many, many, many downtown business types watching their portfolios evaporate; Mr. Brian Ferriso, head of the super-woke Art Museum; scads of politicians, including that perennial relic, Rep. Ol’ Earl Blumenauer, who is more interested in bike lanes (so much seniority, so little clout); one of our US Senators (Wyden) who visits from time to time (the other one is too busy in New York); US Rep. Bonamici, whose suburban district is pirating downtown jobs; state Rep. Janelle Bynum, of Happy Valley, who will inject race at weird moments; Kathryn Correia, who ran Legacy Health into the fiscal ground (if she’s unemployed will she still be on the TF?); and others. Find the whole roll-call here.

On a quick glance-through a few things stand out:

• If you wanted to compile a list of people whose inattention, avarice, stupidity, and arrogance got us into this mess, this would be it.

• Where’s anyone from the big property owners, such as the parking lots-to skyscrapers Goodman clan?

• How come Barry Menashe, head of Menashe Properties, isn’t reporting for duty? After all, he owns one of downtown’s biggest, most persistent drug dens, boarded-up (since when does plywood stop bums?) Washington Center.

• Among all of the members of Homelessness, Inc., where’s an honest-to-god bum?

• If Candace Avalos runs for mayor, will she have to be nice to current Mayor Wheeler?

Final thought: If you bundled the amount of money, even after taxes, earned by this gang during their time at the meeting, you’d have enough to house a majority of the feral who are at the root of downtown’s problems.

The Uncollectable From the Unmentionable

After presiding over a tumultuous civil trial (which we covered here), in which two Antifa thugs intimidated a jury into giving them a pass, Circuit Judge Chanpone Sinlapasai awarded $300,000 to journalist Andy Ngo in a separate proceeding against another three of the thugs who whupped his ass in 2019.

The threesome, one reported to be sojourning under a downtown bridge, refused to contest Mr. Ngo’s case. The judge—who in the former case allowed the Antifa defense attorney to remind the jurors “I’ll remember your faces” without yelling, “Mistrial”—must have breathed a sigh of relief.

Media shrugged.

You will no doubt be relieved that the Oregonian’s Zane Sparling managed to write his entire story about the latter case without ever mentioning the no-no word, “Antifa.”

Our colleague, Pam Fitzsimmons, had the last word…

If OPB, The Oregonian or Willamette Week had shown as much courage as Andy did in 2020, Portland wouldn’t look like it does now.

Amen. 

Map for Minorities

After ignoring the Districting Committee’s quiet cogitations (which leaves us wondering who actually drew those lines, which seem to have arrived via telepathy), local media finally woke up to the way the city will be chopped up into four districts…

…and if you’ve been following our coverage here…and here…and here…and here…you know more than the media, which treated the map with casual indifference. No mention, for example, the Charter Commission and the Districting Commission’s naked racism.

Their goal, mentioned frequently by the Charter Commission and the Districting gang, was to juice minorities into office. We would reproduce the telltale paragraph in the Charterite’s “Progress Reports,” but readers of these posts probably have it memorized.¹

The problem: there aren’t enough minority voters out there to give ‘em their own district—so the dice must be loaded. Thus we have the progressive Pravda, Oregon Public Broadcasting celebrating …

OPB didn’t bother noting that these councilors reshaping power will be elected by an exotic, experimental, largely unknowable, mathematical “single transferrable vote” scheme that no one else in a city our size (or any other) has seen fit to use.

These reshapers will be catapulted into office with 25-percent of the vote. Three per district, which will doubtless redefine the expression, “Passing the buck.”

Here’s the way the “excess” votes will be counted, as we reported here…

…got that?

The map isn’t much to look at, although there are many little peculiarities—you wonder what bosky Alameda or Grant Park has in common with Cully or St Johns. The Charterites vowed that their new scheme would take money and power and pedigree (at least from white men) out of the equation…but let’s stipulate that your average white guy living in a Beaumont-Wilshire foursquare will have a few bucks more to spend on a political career than a renter in Kenton.

Meanwhile, the vast area known as the east side is chopped off at the 205, except for an intriguing little dog-leg out to 82d. How come?

Let’s go back to a July interview in WillyWeek with one of the Commission’s members, Paul Lumley, who—no surprise here—hails from the nonprofit world. He flipped the kimono open and let us in on the way the Districting game was really played…

There are so many maps that use 82nd Avenue as a dividing line, and that divides Jade District in half. And that’s the current home of most of Portland’s Asian community. So we started working with the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon quite a bit. They studied it. And they came back and said that they actually wanted to use 82nd Avenue as a dividing line. They felt like, if they were divided down 82nd Avenue, then they would have more elected officials to advocate for them.

“Advocate” has a little more charm than “pushed around by.”

And how nice of the map-makers to carve a little dog-leg, moving Sellwood/Brooklyn into the waiting arms of the west side—but, hey! Wasn’t the entire purpose of the map to diminish, if not end, the hegemony of Goose Hollow and West Hills and other places where they lurk?

Thus it’s no surprise most of the graphics on the commission’s nifty interactive map on the web stress the racial makeup of the districts, to the exclusion of any “communities of interest.” The commission’s map even provides a tool for budding pols considering a run for the money ($133K a year). How to bundle those minority votes?

…to put together your own political combos of 25-percenters, in which we will finally find out whether there is some grand “coalition” of ethnic groups (all except you-know-who) who really, truly just love one another.

And if Grant Park can make common cause with St Johns—god bless ‘em.

We Flunk the Art Test

You may recall our three-part series on the weird little bureaucratic pocket known as the Regional Arts and Culture Council (here…here…and here), which spends gobs of public money siphoned off the infamous Portland Arts Tax on various local artists and noisome arts groups.

Which, upon investigation—since the RACC does everything shrouded in deepest secrecy—just happen by mere coincidence to be gay, transgender, drag queens, Volvo-revolutionaries, radical feminists, woo-woo dreamers, tattooists, rappers, occasional halfway decent (but otherwise unknown) musicians, mom-n-pop theatrical troupes, oddball poets, trans authors…and all, without exception, progressive to a fault.

It’s a safe bet that the RACC gives out tranches of money more numerous than the audience for any of the stuff—but RACC will send you packing if you dare to inquire about who decides who gets the handouts (the jurors are other unnamed artists; you know how that works) and what, in fact, they will do with the dough beyond the listing of uninformative titles…

…and on—dozens more. You can join the guessing game here.

In the third episode of our inquiry into RACC, we applied for one of the grants. True, it was a test, of sorts…

My primary goal is to enhance voices of dissent to the oppressive system of progressive culture in Portland. We believe in giving voice to the ethnic majority of the city's citizens through comedy, song, and speech.

We will celebrate our true diversity on the 4th of July in a stirring day-long "We Are Still Here" celebration of bravery and reimagination. We plan to focus on freedom of speech with a recitation of forbidden (but legal) words in a poetic series of public readings.

…and we thought getting their attention with one of the magic progressive words, “oppressive system,” would do the trick. And, basically, standing around on the 4th of July reciting the First Amendment and the Declaration of Independence was doable. And cheap.

Are you shocked that RACC didn’t give us the measly $1,000 we requested—mostly since that is their rock-bottom minimum award and probably well below the current DA’s definition of fraud. I’ll bet that some of our frequent commenters—you out there, Larry? And Josh? And Javier?—would have joined the recitation. A thousand bucks would easily have bought the revelers after-event drinks at Tinker Tavern.

It was not to be.

A very, very nervous Ms. Carol Tatch. co-executive director of RACC’s external operations, called with the bad news. It seemed safe to assume she or someone above her on the lengthy staff roster (28 at last count) had read the trifecta of stories, so he was worried that this might just turn into another hostile column.

She finally explained that the reviewers—unnamed—who looked at the application wanted more, well…data—perhaps a flow-chart or something, and details on who would do things like printing and, well…numbers ‘n’ stuff. (This is abbreviated, because I calmed Ms. Tatch down by vowing not to quote her directly.)

In fact, what seemed more pressing to Ms. Tatch was the prospect that she and the rest of the RACC will be out of a job. That’s because the city announced recently that it will end its contract with the group next year and replace it with yet another arts bureaucracy, this one in-house.

Do you think that the city bureaucrats, under the wing of Commissioner Dan Ryan, will approve an ode to democracy and freedom of the press?

Drinks on me if they do…

---

1. Here it is…

   Increasing opportunities for communities of color to elect their candidates of choice has also been a driving goal for the Commission. Portland does not have a geographic distribution of BIPOC residents
   that could allow for a drawing of a majority BIPOC district, nor does it have the level of income or age segregation and stratification that characterizes other large cities. The Commission favored reforms
   that would more likely give smaller and historically under-represented communities (e.g., renters, young residents, communities of color, minor political parties) a greater ability to form coalitions to
   elect candidates of their choice.
   

…

1. Here it is…

Increasing opportunities for communities of color to elect their candidates of choice has also been a driving goal for the Commission. Portland does not have a geographic distribution of BIPOC residents that could allow for a drawing of a majority BIPOC district, nor does it have the level of income or age segregation and stratification that characterizes other large cities. The Commission favored reforms that would more likely give smaller and historically under-represented communities (e.g., renters, young residents, communities of color, minor political parties) a greater ability to form coalitions to elect candidates of their choice.