Well the milquetoast City Councilor Dan Ryan (don’t forget this is the same guy who called parents “homophobes” for asking for simple background checks for the denizens at his low barrier (active drug users welcome) Queer Affinity homeless village he pushed in next to two schools) actually said something decent for once. This is his from his email to constituents:
“…The most reckless move came just before midnight: a $2 million reduction to the Portland Police Bureau, passed by seven Councilors. This undermines public safety progress and ignores what most working families, small businesses, and seniors—want: a safer, more livable city.
Too many Council decisions now serve national narratives and political agendas that don’t reflect the reality on our streets. I won’t stand by while performative politics replaces practical solutions. “
Things looking grim for the new I-5 bridge and the Rose Quarter fix..........which I think are "tied," meaning both are built or neither is built. on the other hand, tens of millions being spent on planning and that keeps a lot of people employed.
Richard, you can write with authority because of all you’ve seen in politics working in Chicago, Detroit and Philadelphia. This nailed Keith Wilson: “Stuff like this always comes back to haunt a pol. His moment passed. It ain’t coming back.”
Come to Washington - if not Vancouver consider Ridgefield. The taxes are lower, housing costs are lower, and the City Councils and Mayors do a very good job...
I was curious to see how they’d vote on the parks/police one. Surprised it went parks’ way because I thought police support on the council was stronger. Do you think it had to do with the fact the police chief didn’t have an answer for what he needed the money for? One of the councilors asked him and he said he weirdly didn’t have an answer? He said something like “services will be impacted” and they asked what services and he said “idk.” Also, the fact that PPB has 90-odd fully funded vacant positions is confusing to me. I hear often about how the city needs more police, and I assumed it was a funding issue. It turns out the funding is sitting there in a big pile of cash but the positions just aren’t being filled and it’s been that way for years. I wonder why? Police pay is good money from what I can tell. And they want people. So I wonder why there are almost 100 unfilled positions despite the money being there to hire? Maybe I’ll find out on June 11 when they reconvene.
It takes just over a full year to actually train a cop (in Portland or anywhere else). Part of the training is down in Salem...then there's a lengthy "apprenticeship" in Portland...and then it's out on the street on your own. Day had a point--the uncertainty and clear animus against cops in this town isn't attractive to someone who wants a law enforcement career. Especially if you're not allowed to "enforce" much of anything.
Yeah it’s really clear that overall, policing in Portland seems like it would suck. In my hometown, police are highly respected. It’s a good job and a great option for people looking to move from lower to middle class without needing to spend an arm and a leg on skyrocketing college tuition.
If you were interested in a police career, would you want to be a cop in Portland?
For more than a decade, I’ve been attending Portland’s various “citizen oversight” groups of police. This story from 2016 will tell you why the city was losing officers to even smaller departments that paid less: https://www.heldtoanswer.com/2016/05/tail-wagging-police-dog/
If you go into the comments, you’ll see a quote from then-Police Association president Daryl Turner about the political dynamics of working in Portland.
Keep in mind, that was before the Community Oversight Advisory Board was replaced with the Portland Committee on Community-Engaged Policing. Now we have in the works the latest police oversight group, the Community Board for Police Accountability, which will have the power to subpoena, discipline and fire police. Members of this group could have criminal histories. There also will be “complaint navigators” to help the public file complaints against officers. Cops may even be subjected to “courtesy violations.”
If you tab down in the comments, at the 17th post from “Matt,” he writes:
“Losing six officers to other agencies when Portland, as the big city, should be the place where career opportunity and benefits draw officers from the suburbs is disturbing. Do you have info about where those officers went? Was it to bigger agencies with more opportunities or local suburban agencies with less opportunity but also less drama?”
In reply, I put those questions to a Portland Police personnel spokeswoman, plus Daryl Turner, who was the president of the Portland Police Association (this was 2016). Here’s my reply with the Turner quotes:
A spokeswoman for the Portland Police Personnel Office said why officers choose to leave is a personal matter and not public. Off the top of her head, she recalled that among the agencies they had moved to were Lake Oswego, Oregon City, Port of Portland and federal ATF.
Officer Daryl Turner, president of the Portland Police Association, said other agencies included Clackamas County and King County.
"It’s not about monetary compensation … Oregon City and Lake Oswego pay less than we do. Port of Portland pays less …," he said.
In his 25 years with the department, Turner has not seen so many people leaving in a six-month period, and the department is already understaffed.
“Between 8 a.m. and noon there are less than 30 officers on the street,” he said.
It adds to the feeling of danger on some calls when cover may not be available for three minutes — a long time in especially risky circumstances.
You are correct about the draw of less drama.
“Political dynamics are very hard in this city,” said Turner, citing the layers of government oversight: the PRB (Police Review Board), CRC (Citizen Review Committee), IPR (Independent Police Review), IAD (Internal Affairs Dept.) There are also the citizen groups like PortlandCopWatch and Police911 and the court-mandated Community Oversight Advisory Board (COAB).
Consider that Charles Johnson, the man who threw water in the face of one of the Citizen Review Committee members, has been welcomed at subsequent meetings of the CRC.
It’s part of the political dynamics of being a cop in Portland.
Heck no I wouldn’t want to be a cop in Portland. Seems like a thankless job, and they don’t have community support like in other places I’ve been. I said in another comment on this thread that in my hometown, cops are highly respected and it’s a ticket to a middle class life. For someone who grows up poor, where I’m from if you become a cop you could go up a rung on the socioeconomic latter, plus the community respects you. That’s not the case in Portland.
Those were interesting blogs to read, thanks for sharing. The one about Avalos and privacy was insightful. It reminds me of some conversations I had with family and friends during the 2020 demonstrations about police. It seemed back then, and even now, there was a three way divide among liberals when it came to police. In my experience of talking to people and listening and reading, the vast majority of democratic voters want a police force, but they want police to follow rules and be accountable when they break them. Seems reasonable. Then there are two other a much, much smaller sections of liberal voters. One wants police and believes they should be allowed to use whatever force they deem necessary because their job is dangerous. People who support this view justify it based on the assumption most cops are good, which is a fine assumption. The second smaller group does not necessarily identify as Democrat, but something further left, and they advocate for the abolition of police. Often, conservatives and especially those who identify as Republican combine these three groups together and ascribe the beliefs of police abolitionists to the entire group, and that’s simply not the case. This conflation has a manufactured, unproductive, toxic effect on local politics, and the city as a whole soccer the consequences. People suffer, police suffer, the city’s reputation suffers, businesses suffer, and it’s compounding. Avalos and a few others, especially Morillo, are definitively left of center in general and particularly when it comes to police, but none of them are abolitionist as far I’m aware. If one were to describe them as such, I’d say one were either lying, dumb, or lazy (too lazy to learn but not too lazy to talk about things they don’t actually understand). And getting back to this council vote on not increasing the police budget, I think after taking into consideration that there is money just sitting there for 90-something unfilled positions, and that the chief couldn’t be bothered to articulate what that $2 million increase to the police budget would be used for, and considering every bureau had to take a cut, I’m ultimately fine with the decision. Some people are calling it a “cut” to the police budget, which it isn’t. The mayor proposed to increase the police budget, and council voted not to. That isn’t a cut. As councilor Kanal said, “If we were talking about a cut, this would be different.” That was a great line and hopefully Portlanders took note of that, because some news outlets were reporting that the council voted to “cut” the police budget.
I have a way that the Mayor could get back $1.5 million of the $2 million that the commies cut from the Police budget. He could ask USDOJ to agree to terminate the consent decree that requires the city to pay $1.5 million per year to an outside consulting firm to monitor whether Portland cops are being nice to crazy people who threaten and menace the normies. I’m fairly confident that the Administration would look favorably on such a request, given that DOJ just dropped two similar civil rights pattern and practice cases against Minneapolis and Louisville. I don’t know if the City Council’s approval would be needed for such a maneuver but my best guess is not and in any event, the only way to find out is to try.
Let’s not forget that Dan Ryan’s house (located a few blocks from the bombarded police union building on Lombard) was itself attacked repeatedly by the Antifa/BLM mobs during the Summer of Love. It’s hard to acknowledge, but he may have been one of those liberals who wakes up from a mugging and realizes the cops ain’t so bad after all.
Sad commentary that Dan Ryan is one of the better clowns on the Council….remember when he called parents homophobes for asking for simple background checks at his Queer Affinity village (vagrant camp)?
No cop hater has ANY business being in politics. Least of all these crazies. The only sane was is Loretta. At least she voted no on the defund bullshit. I can't wait for things to heat up, and they WILL. There is trouble in paradise. It's gonna be fun to watch the drama, when Candy and Jamieeeee realize how lacking they are in comparison to Loretta. She'll make mincemeat of those two... metaphorically speaking of course. Things are only going to get more dramatic and comical... LOL...
As a D1 resident it is disturbing on many levels that 2 of our reps… Candice and Jamie cannot acknowledge the fact that high crime areas including murder are still occurring in their very own district despite a small downturn of overall murder in this city. For them to think that clean bathrooms and garbage pick up in parks is somehow going to make the safety of our neighborhoods better and entice more residents to access them is the thinking of a 4 year old. Have they not connected the dots to scarce police patrols and murder. The criminals will have a hay day knowing the decision makers for this doom loop city have little interest in prioritizing safety of its residents and businesses. Crime and murder takes place in parks ie The Gateway Discovery park ( district 1) where a teenager was shot and killed not long after it was built. Let’s be real, the park rangers are scarce and rarely available during the daytime let alone during the evening especially since most parks are open until 12:00 am. They couldn’t hire enough staff with the money grabbed from the police budget to be the necessary security for
most parks. Candace and Jamie are completely out of touch with reality and their distrust of police is telling and disturbing. If you can’t look realistically at the area you’re elected to represent and vote for a budget that places safety over “ feel good “ funding or better yet funding that only appeases the small anti police population Thst you apparently support, then you’re front and center and “ all in” in the continuation of the city’s doom loop.
The 6 DSA/DSA adjacent folks make me a little nuts. Yes they seem like 'nice' people, but I don't recall them running on police abolition or even defunding? Yet watching them in meetings they have a bone to pick with the cops and want to chip away at them. Looking back at Willamette Week candidate interviews Morillo ran on Housing, Sanitation, etc. Nothing about police. I saw her tik toks but she did not use the same content to campaign in person or on her official social media.
It feels weird to me this is their platform but they don't really talk about it or did not while campaigning. Is this unethical? I don't know enough about politics to know the answer, but it seems like they understand it in't really palatable to the majority even in Portland and that feels very manipulative.
There is a connection between DSA and antifa. Remember the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) where antifa and BLM rioters took over a six-block area of Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood? They forced police to board up and abandon their own East Precinct. Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan famously said that CHAZ could be the city’s “summer of love.” She showed as much support for police as Angelita Morillo would have in the same situation.
When Andy Ngo visited CHAZ, among the booths he saw lined up to get it on the action and solicit members was the DSA. In his book, “Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy,” he noted that the group “has been given a veneer of mainstream respectability with the popular rise of Sen. Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, two politicians endorsed by the party.”
DSA almost seems like a political arm of antifa. Rioting will only get the revolution so far. Getting elected to office is where the real power is.
I don't think it's random that Dan Ryan's spine only started to grow in *after* the charter was officially changed, and he decided to go after the moderate/has-ever-opened-an-econ-textbook-in-their-lives voting bloc of District 2. (Clearly an excellent strategy, based on the other reps he won with.) But whatever.
With the whole police budget thing, I really think Portland's only hope is to collapse under the weight of it's own idiocy, come to its senses, and rise from the ashes. I do place a fair amount of blame on the voting public, frankly. Regardless of the Political Machine, many of the survey-takers begging for public safety now are the same dummies who got swept up in the 2020 deranged white guilt era and voted to spend 5% of the Police Budget on the police accountability board. So even if it was .1% of the population responsible for trashing the city for the next decade, it was over 50% who voted to let them do whatever they want.
Can't take much more of this bullshit. I am so ready to leave and sell my properties and get the h out of Portland. This is like monkeys running the show at this point. I can't stand it and it just aggravates that h out of me
I've been wrestling with the same dilemma since so-called Charter "Reform" passed... and I was born here. I used to say that they'd cart me out of my house feet first, but now we're actively trying to figure out where to move. I never dreamed Portlandia could enter into such a death spiral.
Sure, let’s go ahead and save the Portland Parks so we can have another place to set up all the tents and accumulate all the garbage and drug needles. What’s the point of having parks if you don’t have anyone to enforce laws to keep the parks clean?
Well the milquetoast City Councilor Dan Ryan (don’t forget this is the same guy who called parents “homophobes” for asking for simple background checks for the denizens at his low barrier (active drug users welcome) Queer Affinity homeless village he pushed in next to two schools) actually said something decent for once. This is his from his email to constituents:
“…The most reckless move came just before midnight: a $2 million reduction to the Portland Police Bureau, passed by seven Councilors. This undermines public safety progress and ignores what most working families, small businesses, and seniors—want: a safer, more livable city.
Too many Council decisions now serve national narratives and political agendas that don’t reflect the reality on our streets. I won’t stand by while performative politics replaces practical solutions. “
https://www.wweek.com/news/city/2022/05/12/downtown-school-administrators-renegotiate-with-portland-city-hall-over-safe-rest-village/
Things looking grim for the new I-5 bridge and the Rose Quarter fix..........which I think are "tied," meaning both are built or neither is built. on the other hand, tens of millions being spent on planning and that keeps a lot of people employed.
Richard, you can write with authority because of all you’ve seen in politics working in Chicago, Detroit and Philadelphia. This nailed Keith Wilson: “Stuff like this always comes back to haunt a pol. His moment passed. It ain’t coming back.”
I left two years ago. I chose well new community-wise. Every day since leaving Portland has made my life more worthwhile
Come to Washington - if not Vancouver consider Ridgefield. The taxes are lower, housing costs are lower, and the City Councils and Mayors do a very good job...
I was curious to see how they’d vote on the parks/police one. Surprised it went parks’ way because I thought police support on the council was stronger. Do you think it had to do with the fact the police chief didn’t have an answer for what he needed the money for? One of the councilors asked him and he said he weirdly didn’t have an answer? He said something like “services will be impacted” and they asked what services and he said “idk.” Also, the fact that PPB has 90-odd fully funded vacant positions is confusing to me. I hear often about how the city needs more police, and I assumed it was a funding issue. It turns out the funding is sitting there in a big pile of cash but the positions just aren’t being filled and it’s been that way for years. I wonder why? Police pay is good money from what I can tell. And they want people. So I wonder why there are almost 100 unfilled positions despite the money being there to hire? Maybe I’ll find out on June 11 when they reconvene.
It takes just over a full year to actually train a cop (in Portland or anywhere else). Part of the training is down in Salem...then there's a lengthy "apprenticeship" in Portland...and then it's out on the street on your own. Day had a point--the uncertainty and clear animus against cops in this town isn't attractive to someone who wants a law enforcement career. Especially if you're not allowed to "enforce" much of anything.
Yeah it’s really clear that overall, policing in Portland seems like it would suck. In my hometown, police are highly respected. It’s a good job and a great option for people looking to move from lower to middle class without needing to spend an arm and a leg on skyrocketing college tuition.
If you were interested in a police career, would you want to be a cop in Portland?
For more than a decade, I’ve been attending Portland’s various “citizen oversight” groups of police. This story from 2016 will tell you why the city was losing officers to even smaller departments that paid less: https://www.heldtoanswer.com/2016/05/tail-wagging-police-dog/
If you go into the comments, you’ll see a quote from then-Police Association president Daryl Turner about the political dynamics of working in Portland.
Keep in mind, that was before the Community Oversight Advisory Board was replaced with the Portland Committee on Community-Engaged Policing. Now we have in the works the latest police oversight group, the Community Board for Police Accountability, which will have the power to subpoena, discipline and fire police. Members of this group could have criminal histories. There also will be “complaint navigators” to help the public file complaints against officers. Cops may even be subjected to “courtesy violations.”
Here’s a quick read from another police oversight group, the Citizen Review Committee, involving the case of a cop using a profanity: https://www.heldtoanswer.com/2016/10/oh-darn-please-drop-gun/
Police work can be an interesting, meaningful career. But in Portland, the police bureau is being strangled by politics.
The quote by Daryl Turner appears to be missing.
If you tab down in the comments, at the 17th post from “Matt,” he writes:
“Losing six officers to other agencies when Portland, as the big city, should be the place where career opportunity and benefits draw officers from the suburbs is disturbing. Do you have info about where those officers went? Was it to bigger agencies with more opportunities or local suburban agencies with less opportunity but also less drama?”
In reply, I put those questions to a Portland Police personnel spokeswoman, plus Daryl Turner, who was the president of the Portland Police Association (this was 2016). Here’s my reply with the Turner quotes:
A spokeswoman for the Portland Police Personnel Office said why officers choose to leave is a personal matter and not public. Off the top of her head, she recalled that among the agencies they had moved to were Lake Oswego, Oregon City, Port of Portland and federal ATF.
Officer Daryl Turner, president of the Portland Police Association, said other agencies included Clackamas County and King County.
"It’s not about monetary compensation … Oregon City and Lake Oswego pay less than we do. Port of Portland pays less …," he said.
In his 25 years with the department, Turner has not seen so many people leaving in a six-month period, and the department is already understaffed.
“Between 8 a.m. and noon there are less than 30 officers on the street,” he said.
It adds to the feeling of danger on some calls when cover may not be available for three minutes — a long time in especially risky circumstances.
You are correct about the draw of less drama.
“Political dynamics are very hard in this city,” said Turner, citing the layers of government oversight: the PRB (Police Review Board), CRC (Citizen Review Committee), IPR (Independent Police Review), IAD (Internal Affairs Dept.) There are also the citizen groups like PortlandCopWatch and Police911 and the court-mandated Community Oversight Advisory Board (COAB).
Consider that Charles Johnson, the man who threw water in the face of one of the Citizen Review Committee members, has been welcomed at subsequent meetings of the CRC.
It’s part of the political dynamics of being a cop in Portland.
Thank you for sharing. I really like Daryl Turner. He seems to really be enjoying his retirement. 😊
Heck no I wouldn’t want to be a cop in Portland. Seems like a thankless job, and they don’t have community support like in other places I’ve been. I said in another comment on this thread that in my hometown, cops are highly respected and it’s a ticket to a middle class life. For someone who grows up poor, where I’m from if you become a cop you could go up a rung on the socioeconomic latter, plus the community respects you. That’s not the case in Portland.
Those were interesting blogs to read, thanks for sharing. The one about Avalos and privacy was insightful. It reminds me of some conversations I had with family and friends during the 2020 demonstrations about police. It seemed back then, and even now, there was a three way divide among liberals when it came to police. In my experience of talking to people and listening and reading, the vast majority of democratic voters want a police force, but they want police to follow rules and be accountable when they break them. Seems reasonable. Then there are two other a much, much smaller sections of liberal voters. One wants police and believes they should be allowed to use whatever force they deem necessary because their job is dangerous. People who support this view justify it based on the assumption most cops are good, which is a fine assumption. The second smaller group does not necessarily identify as Democrat, but something further left, and they advocate for the abolition of police. Often, conservatives and especially those who identify as Republican combine these three groups together and ascribe the beliefs of police abolitionists to the entire group, and that’s simply not the case. This conflation has a manufactured, unproductive, toxic effect on local politics, and the city as a whole soccer the consequences. People suffer, police suffer, the city’s reputation suffers, businesses suffer, and it’s compounding. Avalos and a few others, especially Morillo, are definitively left of center in general and particularly when it comes to police, but none of them are abolitionist as far I’m aware. If one were to describe them as such, I’d say one were either lying, dumb, or lazy (too lazy to learn but not too lazy to talk about things they don’t actually understand). And getting back to this council vote on not increasing the police budget, I think after taking into consideration that there is money just sitting there for 90-something unfilled positions, and that the chief couldn’t be bothered to articulate what that $2 million increase to the police budget would be used for, and considering every bureau had to take a cut, I’m ultimately fine with the decision. Some people are calling it a “cut” to the police budget, which it isn’t. The mayor proposed to increase the police budget, and council voted not to. That isn’t a cut. As councilor Kanal said, “If we were talking about a cut, this would be different.” That was a great line and hopefully Portlanders took note of that, because some news outlets were reporting that the council voted to “cut” the police budget.
I have a way that the Mayor could get back $1.5 million of the $2 million that the commies cut from the Police budget. He could ask USDOJ to agree to terminate the consent decree that requires the city to pay $1.5 million per year to an outside consulting firm to monitor whether Portland cops are being nice to crazy people who threaten and menace the normies. I’m fairly confident that the Administration would look favorably on such a request, given that DOJ just dropped two similar civil rights pattern and practice cases against Minneapolis and Louisville. I don’t know if the City Council’s approval would be needed for such a maneuver but my best guess is not and in any event, the only way to find out is to try.
So much easier to ask for forgiveness, than to ask for permission
Let’s not forget that Dan Ryan’s house (located a few blocks from the bombarded police union building on Lombard) was itself attacked repeatedly by the Antifa/BLM mobs during the Summer of Love. It’s hard to acknowledge, but he may have been one of those liberals who wakes up from a mugging and realizes the cops ain’t so bad after all.
Sad commentary that Dan Ryan is one of the better clowns on the Council….remember when he called parents homophobes for asking for simple background checks at his Queer Affinity village (vagrant camp)?
https://www.wweek.com/news/city/2022/05/12/downtown-school-administrators-renegotiate-with-portland-city-hall-over-safe-rest-village/
No cop hater has ANY business being in politics. Least of all these crazies. The only sane was is Loretta. At least she voted no on the defund bullshit. I can't wait for things to heat up, and they WILL. There is trouble in paradise. It's gonna be fun to watch the drama, when Candy and Jamieeeee realize how lacking they are in comparison to Loretta. She'll make mincemeat of those two... metaphorically speaking of course. Things are only going to get more dramatic and comical... LOL...
As a D1 resident it is disturbing on many levels that 2 of our reps… Candice and Jamie cannot acknowledge the fact that high crime areas including murder are still occurring in their very own district despite a small downturn of overall murder in this city. For them to think that clean bathrooms and garbage pick up in parks is somehow going to make the safety of our neighborhoods better and entice more residents to access them is the thinking of a 4 year old. Have they not connected the dots to scarce police patrols and murder. The criminals will have a hay day knowing the decision makers for this doom loop city have little interest in prioritizing safety of its residents and businesses. Crime and murder takes place in parks ie The Gateway Discovery park ( district 1) where a teenager was shot and killed not long after it was built. Let’s be real, the park rangers are scarce and rarely available during the daytime let alone during the evening especially since most parks are open until 12:00 am. They couldn’t hire enough staff with the money grabbed from the police budget to be the necessary security for
most parks. Candace and Jamie are completely out of touch with reality and their distrust of police is telling and disturbing. If you can’t look realistically at the area you’re elected to represent and vote for a budget that places safety over “ feel good “ funding or better yet funding that only appeases the small anti police population Thst you apparently support, then you’re front and center and “ all in” in the continuation of the city’s doom loop.
The 6 DSA/DSA adjacent folks make me a little nuts. Yes they seem like 'nice' people, but I don't recall them running on police abolition or even defunding? Yet watching them in meetings they have a bone to pick with the cops and want to chip away at them. Looking back at Willamette Week candidate interviews Morillo ran on Housing, Sanitation, etc. Nothing about police. I saw her tik toks but she did not use the same content to campaign in person or on her official social media.
It feels weird to me this is their platform but they don't really talk about it or did not while campaigning. Is this unethical? I don't know enough about politics to know the answer, but it seems like they understand it in't really palatable to the majority even in Portland and that feels very manipulative.
There is a connection between DSA and antifa. Remember the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) where antifa and BLM rioters took over a six-block area of Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood? They forced police to board up and abandon their own East Precinct. Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan famously said that CHAZ could be the city’s “summer of love.” She showed as much support for police as Angelita Morillo would have in the same situation.
When Andy Ngo visited CHAZ, among the booths he saw lined up to get it on the action and solicit members was the DSA. In his book, “Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy,” he noted that the group “has been given a veneer of mainstream respectability with the popular rise of Sen. Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, two politicians endorsed by the party.”
DSA almost seems like a political arm of antifa. Rioting will only get the revolution so far. Getting elected to office is where the real power is.
No, they don’t seem like nice people at all.
I don't think it's random that Dan Ryan's spine only started to grow in *after* the charter was officially changed, and he decided to go after the moderate/has-ever-opened-an-econ-textbook-in-their-lives voting bloc of District 2. (Clearly an excellent strategy, based on the other reps he won with.) But whatever.
With the whole police budget thing, I really think Portland's only hope is to collapse under the weight of it's own idiocy, come to its senses, and rise from the ashes. I do place a fair amount of blame on the voting public, frankly. Regardless of the Political Machine, many of the survey-takers begging for public safety now are the same dummies who got swept up in the 2020 deranged white guilt era and voted to spend 5% of the Police Budget on the police accountability board. So even if it was .1% of the population responsible for trashing the city for the next decade, it was over 50% who voted to let them do whatever they want.
Can't take much more of this bullshit. I am so ready to leave and sell my properties and get the h out of Portland. This is like monkeys running the show at this point. I can't stand it and it just aggravates that h out of me
I've been wrestling with the same dilemma since so-called Charter "Reform" passed... and I was born here. I used to say that they'd cart me out of my house feet first, but now we're actively trying to figure out where to move. I never dreamed Portlandia could enter into such a death spiral.
I’m right there with you.
I told my spouse something similar today. I don't feel the same about this place I have lived for decades.
Sure, let’s go ahead and save the Portland Parks so we can have another place to set up all the tents and accumulate all the garbage and drug needles. What’s the point of having parks if you don’t have anyone to enforce laws to keep the parks clean?