Headline Hi-Jinx

What media is interested in--and isn't. What they tell you--and won't.

Sophie Peel—Gasp!—Discovers Socialists on the City Council!!!

Most local. legacy journos are, as the old saying goes, always swimming toward the shore. As Exhibit A, we present WillyWeek’s ranking headhunter (now that Nigel Jaquiss is off chasing so-so stories for Mark Zusman’s nonprofit), Sophie Peel. She made this week’s cover…

…with an interminable account of our four¹ socialistas, members of the Democratic Socialists of America (they’re not a partay; they’re a nonprofit!) and what they want to do with Other People’s Money. Peel gives the most ferocious (and childish) member of the quartet, Angelia (“I Only Ride the Bus”) Morillo the first kiss on the cheek in the lede…

Councilor Angelita Morillo asserts that a better Portland is possible.

…and then tells you all you wanted to know—well, not quite—about the fantastists in the non-party and what they’re supposedly up to.

Yes, there’s a lengthy exposition of their platform, which really could have been condensed to “Free for me, but not for thee,” but that would be too easy—and accurate. Besides, Ms. Peel has a big problem as she tiptoes through the minefield, since a big percentage of the Weekly’s dwindling readership are the nut-jobs who voted to install Angelita and the others in their big paycheck jobs. Curiously, among the many details Peel left out was this number: $133,000 a year, indexed for inflation.

Plus offices and hired help.

The rest of the piece was, essentially, what pros call a “clip job,” a rewrite of previous stories with the hope that they’ll sound kinda new. She creeps briefly into snarkland with asides such as…

The DSA technically isn’t a party. And city councilor isn’t a partisan office. But the Portland chapter of the DSA says in its own materials that it wants candidates it endorses to “criticize the Democratic Party establishment and put forward the necessity for a socialist party and a rupture with the Democratic Party.”

…but then drops the opportunity to say anything more about this sneer at the intent of the city charter…or to ask for a reaction by any former members of the charter commission² ( one might start with the three members who voted no). She briefly touches—much as a medieval king would touch a subject with scrofula—skepticism…

“In my opinion, this electoral system was designed in part to emphasize groups like DSA that, rather than a broad electoral coalition, represent a slice,” says Doug Moore, who ran a political action committee last fall that was set up by the Portland Metro Chamber.

…and then drops it like a hot rock. It wasn’t until the 52d paragraph that Peel finally nudged into a danger-zone…

The DSA spied an opportunity in November 2022 when Portland voters approved an overhaul of city government and elections, expanding from five to 12 members elected in districts. Ranked choice voting meant that any candidate who received 25%+1 vote would be elected—a far lower threshold than for any other office.

…and then waltzed away without getting into the deep weeds. Golly, if she had been reading pirate journalist Max Steele, she could have cribbed his by-the-numbers analysis of how that rank-choice thingy actually works…

This is where the math falls to shit. Avalos doesn’t have a 25% constituency. She received 25% of the votes in a low turnout year, and only after her gains from the single transferable system.

Around 20% of those who voted chose Avalos, with a District turnout of only 55%. On top of that, around 29% of District 1 ballots didn’t have a city council representative marked at all.

If you find that math confusing or you don’t understand single transferrable voting, you’re starting to see the problem.

Nor did Peel drop by any of the four lavishly-written “Progress Reports” by the commission itself, all of which carried the telltale prediction…

Historically, candidates of choice for Black, Indigenous, communities of color, and political minority groups, have lacked access, power, and representation in Portland city hall.³

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.

We have reprinted that one so often that, frankly, it makes us sick. Julia Meier, the commission’s executive director and shot-caller, clearly got what she and her allies⁴ wanted, so suck it up.

None of this interested Peel, then or now.

Well, charters can be revisited—in our view, sooner rather than later. Someone is going to have to step up to the plate, bell the cat, observe the emperor’s nudity and end this 25-percent nonsense. Why no one wants to put a charter revision on the ballot is something that ought to interest Peel. We doubt she’ll be the first to ask the obvious question that might get the ball rolling.

For that, we await pirate media…

Rashomon and Bum-Dumps

In what would seem to be a big favor for our town’s capon-mayor, Keith (Beddy-bye) Wilson, the Portland Police Bureau just happened—a mere coincidence!!!—to release a report…

..just as—another coincidence!!!—people in the Pearl woke up to the terrible realization that their neighborhood of slipping condo prices will be sharing in the mayor’s effort to make good on a campaign pledge⁵ by dumping a bunch of bums—200 of them!—into their midst.

Wilson (and his counterparts at the county) have gotten away with this east of the Willamette, but that’s where the bums belong, don’tcha know? To which those of us out on the wrong side of 82d can say, Welcome to the party!

The Pearlistas have been hoolding raucous meetings—to which the mayor and councillors have been invited, and which they have declined to attend—and if the drama plays out as planned, there will be a bum-dump right down there next to the trendy cocktail bars and pilates spas.

The horror!

So, to quell fears of drug-zombies and walking crazies, the PPD looked at two other bum-dumps, both run by the old pros at the Salvation Army (“say a prayer, get a bed, but just for the night”). The release of the “study” sent local media into a strange frenzy…

…that reminded us of the classic Kurosawa movie, told from differing points of view. All taking a swing at the stats, getting somewhat different results…and all missing the point.

Everyone fell for the study’s headline—that total crimes around each of the two centers fell compared to the previous six months. All of the various stories—in the Oregonian, KGW, KPTV/12, KATU, among the media that bothered—reported the findings, some warily.

KATU tossed a bone to Mayor Wilson…

It is important to note that when a report is published about crime down in Portland, many argue it is because people aren't reporting it, or they've just given up on reporting it.

KATU brought that concern to Mayor Keith Wilson and he responded.

“Report your crime. I would never, ever say to somebody, just expect it as normal,” he said. “We don't want to normalize human suffering. We don't want to normalize crime. If something occurred to you, report it.”

KGW was skeptical…

The report shocked many residents who live by shelters, telling KGW that they deal with constant crime and drug use in their neighborhoods.

…and Fox rewrote the press release, no questions asked.

The Oregonian turned it over to their new homelessness beat reporter, Lillian Mongeau Hughes, and their “data team,” picked at the numbers, and found a store-owner near one of the shelters who liked selling snacks to the feral bedding down for the night.

What everyone neglected to read—or point out—was the study’s third page. Which pointed out that overall, crime in Portland is down in the same six-month period, from 29,345 to 26,803—a decrease of 8.7-percent. Which, as any freshman statistician will tell you, is where the trouble starts…

Percentages based on very small counts can swing wildly with tiny numerical changes, making comparisons unreliable or exaggerated. For example, increasing from 1 to 2 events is an apparent 100% increase, even though the absolute change is minimal.

..which is exactly what the study did.

Another question: Portland has seasons, particularly long winters. The base six months, July-January, are some of the city’s most tolerable. The second two months, January-June, are god-awful. But then maybe crooks skulk more successfully in damp pitch-darkness. Who knows?

Then there’s the question: why cherry-pick just two shelters when the city is full of ‘em? Why center on two run by the old veterans at the Salvation Army? Dare we look at Transition Projects, which we wrote about here?

Aside from how many crimes are actually reported inside the magic 1,000-foot circle around the shelters, why not present stats on how many times Street Response or the cops are called into the shelters themselves?

How many inmates are blacklisted for infractions inside or around the shelters (the Oregonian cited one instance, but didn’t follow up on it), thus dumping the most serious miscreants back onto the streets?

Crime statistics are notoriously iffy…and as KGW timidly pointed out, they really don’t say much about the optics of congealing the feral in temporary clusters which—perversely—help to support the continuation of a social collapse.

Then again: Out of sight, out of mind.

1. Actually, in practical terms there are five, since Jamie Dunphy is a DSA dude in all but name.

2. …which WillyWeeek didn’t bother covering until it was too late for any real disclosure or debate.

3. …written, we’ll remind you, when four of the five council members were members of one minority or another.

4. She was the executive director of both the City Club and the Coalition of Communities of Color—both were embedded deep in “advising” the commission—and after the vote, ran the city’s transition. She has never, to my knowledge, sat for an interview and she doesn’t directly answer her email, at least from this writer. We wonder if Peel has ever approached Meier for an interview about her handiwork.

5. It’s gone from “ending homelessness” to “ending it from 7pm to 8am.