IF the property had been wrongfully taken there might be an argument for restitution to the owners, or in rare cases their direct heirs, but when, as Cheverton points out, nobody is batting for the taxpayers, it is easy to give away "the city's money."
My grandfather was a Jewish businessman in Germany who was forced to flee that country in 1934 and the Nazi government seized his considerable property. The West German government made reparation payments to him, but never to my father, and certainly not to me.
We have seen, over and over again, how easy it is to give away the public's money.
I watched the parade celebrating 250 years of the army. The organized job placement group who has been providing resources and life skills to young adults for a long time. There was a bubbly black female military member riding in a tank. She was having a great time. She was smiling and flashing heart symbols to the crowds. Her positive energy had her tank mate joining in. This brings me to the psychological concept of sour grapes/ sweet lemons.
She did not need to sue anyone to make herself “whole” She partnered with herself to change her own generational wealth trajectory. Meanwhile in Portland, we have a sample of the community shouting they are owed something. The government is the cause for their declining wealth trajectory.
This is a really thoughtful and detailed article on the OOPS the city council members just made. If these lawyers are out looking for other cases of this sort I'm sure they can easily find them. God help the taxpayers in Portland.
I am just curious why Loretta Smith has placed urgency on disbursing this“extraordinary circumstances” settlement effective July 1. She was in panic mode that this could not wait untill the fall bump. Sure, I get it. Smith 12 is a technical requirement to the budget. The surprise increase of city responsibility portion came in after the proposed budget. Green prompted DCA Beiry to explain the potential outcomes of using claims/risk funds. Beiry talked of need to maybe look at a general fund model to disperse risk more evenly across bureaus. Hence returning at fall bump. Avalos prompted smith as to why this payment had to be available in July. Of course it passed. Zimmerman left the room. Oddly, Novick had the sense to say no.
Smith slashed out and shamed DCA Beiry. He is a public employee doing his job. He was explaining the risks of this action. She made allegations he was rolling his eyes. His tone of discussion needed to be more in line of remorse in finding solutions for past harms. She exerted her power as marginalized community member in a very distasteful way. A fantastic visual aid for children who look like her. I understand the black community’s emotional need to be seen and heard. That’s why we go to therapy. The money strategy is misaligned with this community’s emotional need to be “made whole”. Money does not fix emotional issues.
These decisions by council are putting a financially struggling city in a more fragile state. There is a need for council to partner with the city administrator, the mayor and multnomah county. FY budget 2026 is a bigger problem child than FY 25. PDX is recruiting a new city administrator for 2026. The charter states the city uses merit. The county states they lead with race. This may take into account the urgency on Smith’s part. Green signaled he was not asking questions due to solvency issues. I thought that was ironic. The fallout continues at 5:34:00
There are no middle roaders on council. There are radical leftists, leftists, and progressive liberals. They aren’t with shouting distance of the middle.
To paraphrase Harry Truman: A million here, a million there, and sooner or later you’re talking about real money. Portland’s socialist city council has no idea what real money is.
You are correct. Some say it actually originated in a 1938 NYT article. Coincidentally, Ev Dirksen’s term in the Senate overlapped with that of Senator Paul Douglas, also from Illinois.
The homes were all dumps. I question whether or not any of the residents were scammed. Unless you were there, and most Portlanders who say this was injustice never saw those homes. They were falling down dumps. I was there. I saw them.
Most Portlanders here today did not live in Portland and were not of age or even born then. Shaking down people who moved here in the 1990’s for alleged sins of the 1970’s is insane.
I feel like there are some families that should be given some monetary restitution for what happened. Don remembers that time, and the rumors that old black people and others, were not given fair prices for the sales of their homes, so I think there’s some merit in some manner of restitution…
But… but… Candace Avalos is not a native here. She didn’t grow up here. She’s 35-36 years old, and grew up somewhere else. That clip? Good Lord. Talk about drama, and over reacting?! She acts like it was her family bamboozled, tossed out on the streets. She wasn’t even alive when the gang violence in Portland was raging. The black kids dying weekly in drive-bys, and now we’ve got people like JoAnn, and Avalos too, no doubt, questioning the reality of those days, telling us what they think. That the Bloods and Crips from LA was just a fantasy. That it never happened…
I find it nauseating that Candace tried to make this legal situation all about her. Have some decorum. Have some grace! Some self-control. She wasn’t even alive then. She didn’t live here, it was not her family impacted.
I should also clarify that most of those houses were rundown dumps. Don describes the condition of those houses in his first book, “Behind the Badge in River City…”
In any event, Avalos did reveal herself. In more ways than one.
“I’m angry. I’m so angry.”
Yeah. We know you are Candace. And hopefully you won’t let your raw emotionalism cloud your better judgment. For example your hatred of police.
Like my husband Don DuPay has often said, “Everyone hates the cops, until they need one.”
No to restitution. Certainly not without a thorough adjudication of claims in court where each claim must be proven according to the law and the rules of evidence.
I worked in this area in 1965 and ‘67 and fixed many windows for the black people who owned the houses in question. The neighborhood at that time was Portland’s worst ghetto and predominantly but not totally black.
My memory is that about half of the homes were clean and well kept, while the other half ranged from crummy to totally uninhabitable eyesores. How can we sort out the proud homeowner from the ones that were letting their houses rot away?
The conscientious families most likely took the above market prices for their homes and bought a nice house in a far better neighborhood where their investments grew in value along with the rest of Portland’s homes. The other half, had they kept their houses, would have ridden them into the ground and be worth less than the price of a clean lot in the same place.
I thoroughly enjoyed working for the elderly blacks who were kind and gracious, even giving me a tip now and then from what I assumed was their meager incomes! I also enjoyed working for “Dave the Pimp” who worked a stable of very attractive girls out of one of the big 3 story houses. No tips there, but a frequent glimpse of the scantily clad girls!
I remember getting my drivers license as an excited 16 year old along with a lecture from my parents not to drive on Williams, Vancouver, or Mississippi. I also remember the real estate agent who was sued by some yuppies after she sold a house to them in the Mississippi district at the very beginning of the gentrification of the area. Why did they sue, because they weren’t told about the frequent gunfire, shootings, and drug dealing in their new neighborhood.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but values are now determined by 25%ers who never lived in the neighborhood, or were even born at the time. 😡
IF the property had been wrongfully taken there might be an argument for restitution to the owners, or in rare cases their direct heirs, but when, as Cheverton points out, nobody is batting for the taxpayers, it is easy to give away "the city's money."
My grandfather was a Jewish businessman in Germany who was forced to flee that country in 1934 and the Nazi government seized his considerable property. The West German government made reparation payments to him, but never to my father, and certainly not to me.
We have seen, over and over again, how easy it is to give away the public's money.
How does other black that were affected by the albina issue get involved with this settlement?
I watched the parade celebrating 250 years of the army. The organized job placement group who has been providing resources and life skills to young adults for a long time. There was a bubbly black female military member riding in a tank. She was having a great time. She was smiling and flashing heart symbols to the crowds. Her positive energy had her tank mate joining in. This brings me to the psychological concept of sour grapes/ sweet lemons.
She did not need to sue anyone to make herself “whole” She partnered with herself to change her own generational wealth trajectory. Meanwhile in Portland, we have a sample of the community shouting they are owed something. The government is the cause for their declining wealth trajectory.
This is a really thoughtful and detailed article on the OOPS the city council members just made. If these lawyers are out looking for other cases of this sort I'm sure they can easily find them. God help the taxpayers in Portland.
I am just curious why Loretta Smith has placed urgency on disbursing this“extraordinary circumstances” settlement effective July 1. She was in panic mode that this could not wait untill the fall bump. Sure, I get it. Smith 12 is a technical requirement to the budget. The surprise increase of city responsibility portion came in after the proposed budget. Green prompted DCA Beiry to explain the potential outcomes of using claims/risk funds. Beiry talked of need to maybe look at a general fund model to disperse risk more evenly across bureaus. Hence returning at fall bump. Avalos prompted smith as to why this payment had to be available in July. Of course it passed. Zimmerman left the room. Oddly, Novick had the sense to say no.
Smith slashed out and shamed DCA Beiry. He is a public employee doing his job. He was explaining the risks of this action. She made allegations he was rolling his eyes. His tone of discussion needed to be more in line of remorse in finding solutions for past harms. She exerted her power as marginalized community member in a very distasteful way. A fantastic visual aid for children who look like her. I understand the black community’s emotional need to be seen and heard. That’s why we go to therapy. The money strategy is misaligned with this community’s emotional need to be “made whole”. Money does not fix emotional issues.
These decisions by council are putting a financially struggling city in a more fragile state. There is a need for council to partner with the city administrator, the mayor and multnomah county. FY budget 2026 is a bigger problem child than FY 25. PDX is recruiting a new city administrator for 2026. The charter states the city uses merit. The county states they lead with race. This may take into account the urgency on Smith’s part. Green signaled he was not asking questions due to solvency issues. I thought that was ironic. The fallout continues at 5:34:00
https://www.youtube.com/live/ZIXzac_E_rU?si=ZMXlVjHtrDVR5CUr
There are no middle roaders on council. There are radical leftists, leftists, and progressive liberals. They aren’t with shouting distance of the middle.
We sadly get the government we elect
What an incredible story and dumb settlement. Thank you for covering it in such detail.
Thank you for an excellent report on this case, the applicable law, and the scandalous, corrupt payoff the City Council is making with our money.
Reverse-racist extortion. Damn.
To paraphrase Harry Truman: A million here, a million there, and sooner or later you’re talking about real money. Portland’s socialist city council has no idea what real money is.
I thought that was from Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen!
You are correct. Some say it actually originated in a 1938 NYT article. Coincidentally, Ev Dirksen’s term in the Senate overlapped with that of Senator Paul Douglas, also from Illinois.
The homes were all dumps. I question whether or not any of the residents were scammed. Unless you were there, and most Portlanders who say this was injustice never saw those homes. They were falling down dumps. I was there. I saw them.
Most Portlanders here today did not live in Portland and were not of age or even born then. Shaking down people who moved here in the 1990’s for alleged sins of the 1970’s is insane.
I feel like there are some families that should be given some monetary restitution for what happened. Don remembers that time, and the rumors that old black people and others, were not given fair prices for the sales of their homes, so I think there’s some merit in some manner of restitution…
But… but… Candace Avalos is not a native here. She didn’t grow up here. She’s 35-36 years old, and grew up somewhere else. That clip? Good Lord. Talk about drama, and over reacting?! She acts like it was her family bamboozled, tossed out on the streets. She wasn’t even alive when the gang violence in Portland was raging. The black kids dying weekly in drive-bys, and now we’ve got people like JoAnn, and Avalos too, no doubt, questioning the reality of those days, telling us what they think. That the Bloods and Crips from LA was just a fantasy. That it never happened…
I find it nauseating that Candace tried to make this legal situation all about her. Have some decorum. Have some grace! Some self-control. She wasn’t even alive then. She didn’t live here, it was not her family impacted.
I should also clarify that most of those houses were rundown dumps. Don describes the condition of those houses in his first book, “Behind the Badge in River City…”
In any event, Avalos did reveal herself. In more ways than one.
“I’m angry. I’m so angry.”
Yeah. We know you are Candace. And hopefully you won’t let your raw emotionalism cloud your better judgment. For example your hatred of police.
Like my husband Don DuPay has often said, “Everyone hates the cops, until they need one.”
No to restitution. Certainly not without a thorough adjudication of claims in court where each claim must be proven according to the law and the rules of evidence.
I worked in this area in 1965 and ‘67 and fixed many windows for the black people who owned the houses in question. The neighborhood at that time was Portland’s worst ghetto and predominantly but not totally black.
My memory is that about half of the homes were clean and well kept, while the other half ranged from crummy to totally uninhabitable eyesores. How can we sort out the proud homeowner from the ones that were letting their houses rot away?
The conscientious families most likely took the above market prices for their homes and bought a nice house in a far better neighborhood where their investments grew in value along with the rest of Portland’s homes. The other half, had they kept their houses, would have ridden them into the ground and be worth less than the price of a clean lot in the same place.
I thoroughly enjoyed working for the elderly blacks who were kind and gracious, even giving me a tip now and then from what I assumed was their meager incomes! I also enjoyed working for “Dave the Pimp” who worked a stable of very attractive girls out of one of the big 3 story houses. No tips there, but a frequent glimpse of the scantily clad girls!
I remember getting my drivers license as an excited 16 year old along with a lecture from my parents not to drive on Williams, Vancouver, or Mississippi. I also remember the real estate agent who was sued by some yuppies after she sold a house to them in the Mississippi district at the very beginning of the gentrification of the area. Why did they sue, because they weren’t told about the frequent gunfire, shootings, and drug dealing in their new neighborhood.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but values are now determined by 25%ers who never lived in the neighborhood, or were even born at the time. 😡
Well said!! What a great experience to have done what you did!! Thank you for sharing!!!