A few days ago, we had occasion to write about the fate of the statues trashed in Portland’s summer of riots, including Ol’ Abe, the guy who signed the Emancipation Proclamation (and won the Civil War)...
…and who remains locked up in a super-secret city warehouse awaiting liberation by the lame-duck city council. Along with….
George Washington (slaves; forget about the part about winning the Revolutionary War)
Theodore Roosevelt (can’t be forgiven for that “big stick” stuff)
Harvey Scott (long-ago Oregonian publisher whose paper survived long enough for him to be branded an irredeemable racist by the current editor)
A Pioneer family (too white, carrying guns, ripping off the natives)…
When will they get out of lockup? Who the hell knows.
Supposedly, the lame duck city council will decide what to do in July; we predict that the urge to kick the can will be irresistible given that three commissioners are vying to become to city's future capon-mayor.
As we noted, what should have been a super-easy solution…
Put them back on those empty plinths and arrest any black-clad FBI informants1 bent on committing political vandalism…
…eluded our civic leaders, who did what progressives always do…
…hire a bunch of people for top dollar to do their thinking for them…
…and such thinking it was! As Dan Ryan, the city commissioner charged with overseeing the city’s arts (why? don’t bother asking) said…
“We are determined to create a thorough and inclusive process to ensure underrepresented communities are engaged in these discussions.”
…without mentioning that, as an elected representative, that’s what Mr. Ryan was supposed to be doing himself.
Predictably, it took high-powered consultants, a university professor, Lewis & Clark College, and others to do the thinking. Thousands of words gushed forth on city web pages that dripped with “equity” and “inclusion” and self-congratulation.
What didn’t drip was any mention of what this high-powered thinking cost.
So, we asked.
Amazingly, the city’s gears clanked and we received a pile of copies of invoices. And concluded that we here at PortlandDissent are the only people around town not getting paid for giving advice. Silly us.
The big winner was an outfit down in San Diego called The Cultural Planning Group, which advertises its services with traditional progressive boilerplate…
We believe every person and community has the right to shape their own creative life.
…which may not be grammatically correct, but you get the idea. Why they were summoned from California to do the scut-work in Portland is a mystery. What we got for it is beyond obscure.
The invoices sent along by the city weere curious, since they were numbered 4 to 6.
We got a D in arithmetic in 4th grade, but we learned that there are numbers prior to 4. Where did they go?
Still, add up the three bills supplied by the city and you get a payday of $269,500—not bad for doing something or other. Parse the invoices and you get a whiff of the honey-pot hidden among the what-do-you-suppose-that-means?” stuff, such as “Metropolitan Group Phase 2 (apportioned),” which was, somehow, worth $29K.
The kimono parted, momentarily, with…
“Steering Committee Honoraria (2nd half),” $18K (begging the question: who the heck was on this group and what were they honored for? After all, most of the people on the many local and state commissions aren’t paid; they make it up by doing favors for people in their respective nonprofits or businesses. Exhibit A: the usual suspects on the governor’s Housing Commission who have helped engineer the flood of money for developers to build GuvTina’s beloved 36,0000 “units.”)
Travel, $13,500…well, San Diego is a rather long way from Portland. Southwest will fly you business class for $500—one way. As we said, arithmetic isn’t our speciality, but that’s an expensive commute.
This was a bit confusing, since the city had also hired Lewis & Clark College, “for up to $67,000 to develop…Portland’s Monuments and Planning Engagement strategy.” Which they did—and there’s a 65-page report, which you can read here, to prove it.
Short version: put ‘em back—but swaddle them with progressive payouts and patronage.
On top of that, the city paid one of the college’s professors, Jess Perlitz, $7,500 for unspecified “professional services.” Prof. Perlitz, who moved to Portland recently, teaches sculpture—but, we’ll guess, not of the variety that might put Theodore Roosevelt on a plinth…
“She is particularly interested in various histories of art-making dedicated to political and social use-value that bring to light ideologies and utopian impulses, such as Constructivism and Productivism, the return in art towards the social, and contemporary discussion of monuments & memorials…”
In addition, the city also shelled out $18,750 to Amara Perez to “Work closely with the Monument Engagement Support Team (MEST) to co-create and refine an equity-driven public engagement process to generate input and insights to shape public policy…”
Ms. Perez lists herself as a “Critical Race Spatial Educator, Researcher, and Strategist.” As for statues of long-dead and all-too-white types…
“Drawing from critical pedagogy, critical race theory (CRT), and spatial theory, her research examines the role of planning, design, and built environments in maintaining structural oppression.”
Alas, both Ms. Perez and Prof. Perlitz departed in a huff from the project (the issue seemed to be: not enough equity)—but it’s nice to know that their protestations didn’t hold up the payment of their invoices.
The Monument Project’s propaganda required translation into Spanish, Russian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Tagalog, and Ukrainian. Enter an outfit, Mindlink Resources LLC, which also gilds the progressive Lilly…
We enable you to help community members feel empowered, connected and understood.
…which sounds like a Portland kinda outfit. They got $5,994, which seems pretty cheap for empowerment.
Muddying up this accounting is the fact that the Mellon Foundation (named for an early 20th century plutocrat) gave the city $350,000 for the project. But, still, $24K for “Cultural Planning Group Phase 2 (Tasks 2.1 & 2.2 apportioned)” and you’ve got to wonder
Nevertheless, Abe, Teddy, George, Harvey, and the pioneers remain in their secret prison—to which, we daresay, many progressives would like to send anyone to the right of GuvTina.
As you know, we’re having a “housing emergency.” Might be one way to solve it.
…if the cops haven’t infiltrated the ranks of Antifa, it would be the only extremist group not on the take: court cases have proved that the FBI was subsidizing members of the Proud Boys; and the Portland cops had a plant in a local chapter of a Mexican cartel, and who helped kidnap a rival drug dealer who was later killed.
Great reporting, Richard! Makes one wonder how much Portland taxpayers are paying, in total, for DEI fluff. Tens of millions seems a reasonable ballpark, and that might be low.
Where's the Elk?