17 Comments
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Pamela Fitzsimmons's avatar

A 20-member commission, and not one of them opposed these recommendations? That’s disturbing. It looks like these recommendations were not seriously vetted. Commissioners went along to get along, or they were already on the same page before the first meeting.

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Richard Cheverton's avatar

A city in which the leadership class is this devoted to abstract theories (based on racism) is heading for big trouble. We're reaching the end-game...Baltimore beckons. The latest population figures, widely discounted in media, are the first indication. The city will become a place for the ultra-rich and the destitute. We are not immune from the nation's greatest urban crisis...just (in the best Oregon tradition) a bit slow.

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Jica Blool's avatar

Give The The Mayor Veto Power!!!!

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Richard Cheverton's avatar

Careful what you wish for. Never forget that the city's voters came within a whisker of putting Sarah Iannarone into office.

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Richard Cheverton's avatar

When progressives deploy "Equity" it means someone is about to get screwed.

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Ollie Parks's avatar

This is equity in action: What's mine is mine and what's yours is also mine. Candace Avalos makes no bones about what is going on:

"In the last few years, leadership rising from historically underrepresented communities continues to demonstrate that we can direct resources to heal the generational harms of racial, economic, and environmental injustice." https://twitter.com/candaceforpdx

Whether it's eying the almost $200 million in the Portland Clean Energy Fund to make the PCEF an engine of black restitution it was never intended to be or looking for ways to give minorities political power disproportionate to their share of the population, BIPOC insiders in City Hall and the nonprofits are seeking to center the interests of the marginalized minority in all that government does, sometimes in apparent violation of anti-discrimination laws. Here is one example; ask yourself how it is legal: https://www.portland.gov/bds/empowered-communities-programs/arts

It's high time that our elected officials and the nonprofits that thrive on taxpayer dollars started to work for all Portlanders and not a favored few. The ends do not justify the means, and the remedy for past discrimination is not present discrimination.

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Pamela Fitzsimmons's avatar

Avalos has an extremely high opinion of herself, so I made sure she got a link to this. Once she realized it was not in praise of her, I doubt if she read to the end.

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Richard Cheverton's avatar

The only question is which public purse will Avalos be opening next? She hath a lean and hungry look...

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Pamela Fitzsimmons's avatar

A hungry look, yes. But lean? She’s a Lizzo fan, you know. Not that there’s anything wrong with diversity in body types! One of the funnier moments in a Citizen Review Committee meeting she was chairing via Zoom was when she was distracted by a plate of noodles.

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Larry's avatar

Charlie Hales? No, we need to call out the big guns - Eric Sten, Randy Leonard, and Storm Large.

I'm barred from posting on Willamette Week but someone that can ought. And, when he or she does, point to Portland Dissent's coverage of this effort of our local kakistocracy.

Help Nigel to do his job.

Never forget our political legacy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMnY5FAKhl4

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Pamela Fitzsimmons's avatar

In 2008, I was still living in Spokane, Wash., so I have never seen that. How funny and quaint. Portland’s political and cultural leaders blissfully unaware of what awaits their city. Now even the Elk statue isn’t safe.

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Larry's avatar

Then you missed the cobbler’s son and the Grant High student body prez (Da was Bonneville Power Veep, I think) pulling off a long string of armed robberies with a teen gang. Things went really south when the biopic shot himself in the leg and the Veep!s boy booked for the nearest foreign border - Tom and Ethen.

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Tom's avatar

2008 so long ago I forgot all about it. Thanks for that it actually cheered me up a little.

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Tom's avatar

Rearranging the deck chairs so to speak.

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Larry's avatar

Like Ahab, Portland relentlessly prowls the sea of nincompoopery pursuing the iceberg.

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Joshua Marquis's avatar

The chart is pretty damning.

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Don's avatar

Portland already had a ranked choice voting system, from 1914-1932, I believe. It worked more or less the same way that this one would and, just like New York's, was a "mess." Read The Oregonian from those days and you can get a flavor of it.

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