"I’ll vote for Will Lathrop for attorney general. I’ve met him, and he seems human, as opposed to the robotic Kotek-style cipher he’s running against, who is both a darling of the machine and The Oregonian. Two institutions that deserve a good spanking."
"As I’ve mentioned before, after reading all of the minutes of the Charter Commission I simply cannot find who, specifically, advanced the farcical idea that—for no apparent reason—the city should be chopped into four, no more, no less—districts with three councilors apiece. Why three? Ask Candace Avalos next time you see her. "
There's a reasonable argument to be made that the Charter Commission found no need to deliberate over the number of districts and the number of councilors per district because a research committee of the private City Club of Portland worked out those details, like most other key elements of what became Portland's new city charter, in reports published in 2019 and 2020.
A cynic would have no difficulty explaining the purpose of the Charter Committee given that the City Club did most of the work. They effectively laundered the work product to disguise the fact it was ghost written by the great and the good white people at the City Club of Portland.
Anyone interested in learning more about the City Club can find a profile of the organization in the the Oregon Encyclopedia. Here's the group's raison d'être in a nutshell: "The City Club mission is “to inform its members and the community in public matters, and to arouse in them the realization of the obligations of citizenship.” [1]
In an article about the City Club's review of Portland's form of government that was published shortly after the report was released, The Oregonian described the research committee's work and its purpose: [2]
"The report, written after months of research and interviews with current and former city officials, promises to reignite the debate over whether Portland should abandon its commission-form of government in favor of something better."
/ / /
"City Club researchers set out to answer two questions with their report: Is Portland’s form of government effective and does it allow for fair representation of Portlanders?"
"Their unequivocal answer: no."
The City Club's committee discussed the manner of representation and made recommendations about it in "New Government for Today’s Portland: Rethinking 100 Years, of the Commission System City." It was published as City Club of Portland Bulletin, Vol. 101, No. 2, February 10, 2019. [3]
Before proceeding to the relevant portion of that report, it is worthwhile spending time understanding the values, i.e., the "equity lens," the committee brought to its task:
"The analysis below primarily compares Portland’s current commission system with a potential council/city manager system . . . Viewed through either Portland’s existing values of cooperation and inclusion or your committee’s equity lens, the strong mayor system fails on multiple counts due to its tendency to grant the bulk of all political power to a single majority without built-in protections to ensure, or at least increase the likelihood, that minority voices are heard. Perhaps not surprisingly, given these weaknesses, proposals to give the mayor greater power were heavily rejected by Portland voters in 2002 and 2007 (the two most recent attempts to change Portland’s form of government)." [4]
The following passage contains what could be the first mention of the four-district/three-councilor setup:
"Although some of our witnesses endorsed a city council of as many as fifteen members, your committee believes that a council of eight to twelve members plus the mayor represents a workable alternative. If, for example, the city were divided into FOUR DISTRICTS THAT EACH ELECTED THREE CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS, the total city council would consist of 13 members — the 12 elected by district plus the mayor. Another option would be to create five districts, each of which elected two members of the city council, for a total of 11 city council members. Assuming that districts are created based upon equal population and with no gerrymandering, switching to four or five districts would automatically increase the geographic diversity of the city council while significantly lowering barriers to entry for running for office. In any scenario involving eight to twelve elected city council members, the total size of the city council would still be small enough for members to get to know each other well, while introducing a much higher potential for the election of members from underrepresented areas such as East Portland." (Emphasis added.)
/ / /
"For example, if Portland were divided into FOUR DISTRICTS, EACH OF WHICH ELECTED THREE CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS, the barriers to entry into the election process would be lowered significantly since a candidate would only need to place in the top three in their district to be successful. Given that traditionally underrepresented groups, such as racial and ethnic minorities, have a harder time mustering the resources needed to organize a citywide campaign, moving to district-based voting and increasing the number of seats available will also increase opportunities for candidates from diverse backgrounds to be elected to the city council." (Emphasis added.)
The overlong second paragraph has been broken into two parts to call attention to the research committee's focus on finding ways to "increase opportunities for candidates from diverse backgrounds to be elected to the city council." A graphic embedded in the text carries the caption "Only three people of color and nine women have served on City Council."
In its piece about the City Club report, The Oregonian listed the principal recommendations for readers who opted not to follow the link to the document itself. [5]
"The City Club panel recommend Portland have eight to 12 councilors."
"This number of city councilors would put Portland more in line with other American cities of similar size,” the report states, “and would significantly increase the ability of the city council to represent Portland’s increasingly diverse population without suffering excessive costs and difficult operation associated with very large city councils.”
"City Club researchers also recommend electing councilors by district rather than with the current scheme, in which officials are elected city-wide."
"Even better, the report states, is a system where districts have multiple councilors. For example, five districts could field 10 councilors of two per district."
"Researchers also said councilors should be chosen in a so-called instant-runoff election that eliminates the need for a primary election. In two-member districts, for example, the top pair of vote-getters would win during a single round of balloting."
There you have it: the concept of multiple districts with several councilors each was in the wind.
Given Candace Avalos' demonstrated hostility to questions from Portlanders outside her identity group bubble, further questions about the genesis of the 4/3 concept would be better directed to one Ken Fairfax, chair of the research committee that made that recommendation and others that found their way into the new city charter.
Who is Ken Fairfax? Anyone who is expecting Fairfax to be just another member of Portland's incestuous government-nonprofit axis will be pleasantly surprised. According to The Oregonian, he is a "retired U.S. ambassador." The Ambassador's CV [6] is so dazzling that it is tempting to think The Oregonian got it wrong. What on earth was he doing in Portland? Did he flee after the leftist insurrection in 2020-21? In any case, Ambassador Fairfax's chairmanship of the committee who did the heavy lifting on the charter reform harkens back to a golden age when grownups used to run the city. None of this makes Fairfax immune to the social justice mind virus. In fact, it could make him more vulnerable. Plus, the Ambassador is an Oberlin graduate.
Anyone with consuming curiosity and 57 minutes to burn can hear Ken Fairfax discuss "Portland's Inequitable System of Government" on Episode 5 of the City Club of Portland's podcast "Next at the Mic." [7]
In closing, it is regrettable that OregonLive/The Oregonian did not cover the work of the Charter Committee with the same zeal and level of detail as they devoted to the City Club report in 2019. Also, the City Club committee's fixation on racial and ethnic minorities in 2019 shows that white progressives were engaged in racial engineering in Portland before the George Floyd awokening of 2020.
The last City’s Club meeting I attended was in 1962. In those days it was populated by the movers and shakers in Portland’s business community and performed their civic duties for the benefit of the entire community. Much of what made Portland great came through the old City Club, a far cry from the current destroyers of hallowed traditions!
2) the current initiatives are such a poop salad that even Willamette week refused to bite save the pne to impeach crooked state officials ( only of they're Republican)
3) Oregon has become the "feed it to Mikey , he'll eat anything " of the idiot progressive referendum machine
Richard. Your writing style engages readers and cuts to the chase while sprinkling humor into otherwise dour situations. I always find your pieces educational as well. RCV is literally a devils playground.
Wow. Richard, insightful column as usual. The new voting scheme is a debacle but I don't think sitting out is the answer. Look at D3 (most of Montavilla)…there's a chance to bring in some non-status quo candidates like Harrison Kass and Kezia Waner…..or we could get 3 people like Angelita Morillo. Got to try.
Ranked choice voting is a scheme to disconnect elections from issues and allow candidates with marginal support from voters to win.
It obscures true debates and issue-driven dialogs among candidates and eliminates genuine binary choices between two top-tier candidates
It also disenfranchises voters, because ballots that do not include the two ultimate finalists are cast aside to manufacture a faux majority for the winner.
After I file a piece, I always wake up around 3AM with stuff I should have written suddenly popping into my head...and here's an additional thought: progressives love to destabilize any existing institution, belief, or procedure they can get their hands on. These must be destroyed in order to build their utopia. (Thus the idiotic debate about "who is a woman.")
Elections are an obvious target--with the bonus that a confused electorate is easier to control.
Ditto their pitch that RCV will make elections more warm and fuzzy and we'll all get along together, when what the city and country needs is tough, no holds-barred debate about real issues and how we'll try to fix them. Warm and cuddly and confused--perfect cover for the real progressive project.
Rank choice voting is funded and propagated by progressives as it allows unpopular progressive candidates a better chance of winning.
Rank Choice Voting “RCV” invites the problem of “ballot exhaustion,” which occurs when too many voters rank too few candidates such that their vote is not counted in the final runoff.
Consider an election where five candidates are running but a voter ranks only three, all of whom get eliminated before the final tally. Since none of his votes will have gone to either the winner or the runner-up, his ballot is effectively discarded.
Richard is right on about Will Lathrop.
This is the most important race on the ballot in Oregon and will be highly consequential for the next four years.
Lathrop deserves every vote and it would mean a great deal to break the extreme left Democratic monopoly .
You have outdone yourself! Excellent piece of work! You have my admiration for your intellect as well as your wordsmanship.
Thank you for all you do for Portland, or as I now call it, “Baghdad on the Willamette”.
"I’ll vote for Will Lathrop for attorney general. I’ve met him, and he seems human, as opposed to the robotic Kotek-style cipher he’s running against, who is both a darling of the machine and The Oregonian. Two institutions that deserve a good spanking."
Love this! LOL....
"As I’ve mentioned before, after reading all of the minutes of the Charter Commission I simply cannot find who, specifically, advanced the farcical idea that—for no apparent reason—the city should be chopped into four, no more, no less—districts with three councilors apiece. Why three? Ask Candace Avalos next time you see her. "
There's a reasonable argument to be made that the Charter Commission found no need to deliberate over the number of districts and the number of councilors per district because a research committee of the private City Club of Portland worked out those details, like most other key elements of what became Portland's new city charter, in reports published in 2019 and 2020.
A cynic would have no difficulty explaining the purpose of the Charter Committee given that the City Club did most of the work. They effectively laundered the work product to disguise the fact it was ghost written by the great and the good white people at the City Club of Portland.
Anyone interested in learning more about the City Club can find a profile of the organization in the the Oregon Encyclopedia. Here's the group's raison d'être in a nutshell: "The City Club mission is “to inform its members and the community in public matters, and to arouse in them the realization of the obligations of citizenship.” [1]
In an article about the City Club's review of Portland's form of government that was published shortly after the report was released, The Oregonian described the research committee's work and its purpose: [2]
"The report, written after months of research and interviews with current and former city officials, promises to reignite the debate over whether Portland should abandon its commission-form of government in favor of something better."
/ / /
"City Club researchers set out to answer two questions with their report: Is Portland’s form of government effective and does it allow for fair representation of Portlanders?"
"Their unequivocal answer: no."
The City Club's committee discussed the manner of representation and made recommendations about it in "New Government for Today’s Portland: Rethinking 100 Years, of the Commission System City." It was published as City Club of Portland Bulletin, Vol. 101, No. 2, February 10, 2019. [3]
Before proceeding to the relevant portion of that report, it is worthwhile spending time understanding the values, i.e., the "equity lens," the committee brought to its task:
"The analysis below primarily compares Portland’s current commission system with a potential council/city manager system . . . Viewed through either Portland’s existing values of cooperation and inclusion or your committee’s equity lens, the strong mayor system fails on multiple counts due to its tendency to grant the bulk of all political power to a single majority without built-in protections to ensure, or at least increase the likelihood, that minority voices are heard. Perhaps not surprisingly, given these weaknesses, proposals to give the mayor greater power were heavily rejected by Portland voters in 2002 and 2007 (the two most recent attempts to change Portland’s form of government)." [4]
The following passage contains what could be the first mention of the four-district/three-councilor setup:
"Although some of our witnesses endorsed a city council of as many as fifteen members, your committee believes that a council of eight to twelve members plus the mayor represents a workable alternative. If, for example, the city were divided into FOUR DISTRICTS THAT EACH ELECTED THREE CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS, the total city council would consist of 13 members — the 12 elected by district plus the mayor. Another option would be to create five districts, each of which elected two members of the city council, for a total of 11 city council members. Assuming that districts are created based upon equal population and with no gerrymandering, switching to four or five districts would automatically increase the geographic diversity of the city council while significantly lowering barriers to entry for running for office. In any scenario involving eight to twelve elected city council members, the total size of the city council would still be small enough for members to get to know each other well, while introducing a much higher potential for the election of members from underrepresented areas such as East Portland." (Emphasis added.)
/ / /
"For example, if Portland were divided into FOUR DISTRICTS, EACH OF WHICH ELECTED THREE CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS, the barriers to entry into the election process would be lowered significantly since a candidate would only need to place in the top three in their district to be successful. Given that traditionally underrepresented groups, such as racial and ethnic minorities, have a harder time mustering the resources needed to organize a citywide campaign, moving to district-based voting and increasing the number of seats available will also increase opportunities for candidates from diverse backgrounds to be elected to the city council." (Emphasis added.)
The overlong second paragraph has been broken into two parts to call attention to the research committee's focus on finding ways to "increase opportunities for candidates from diverse backgrounds to be elected to the city council." A graphic embedded in the text carries the caption "Only three people of color and nine women have served on City Council."
In its piece about the City Club report, The Oregonian listed the principal recommendations for readers who opted not to follow the link to the document itself. [5]
"The City Club panel recommend Portland have eight to 12 councilors."
"This number of city councilors would put Portland more in line with other American cities of similar size,” the report states, “and would significantly increase the ability of the city council to represent Portland’s increasingly diverse population without suffering excessive costs and difficult operation associated with very large city councils.”
"City Club researchers also recommend electing councilors by district rather than with the current scheme, in which officials are elected city-wide."
"Even better, the report states, is a system where districts have multiple councilors. For example, five districts could field 10 councilors of two per district."
"Researchers also said councilors should be chosen in a so-called instant-runoff election that eliminates the need for a primary election. In two-member districts, for example, the top pair of vote-getters would win during a single round of balloting."
There you have it: the concept of multiple districts with several councilors each was in the wind.
Given Candace Avalos' demonstrated hostility to questions from Portlanders outside her identity group bubble, further questions about the genesis of the 4/3 concept would be better directed to one Ken Fairfax, chair of the research committee that made that recommendation and others that found their way into the new city charter.
Who is Ken Fairfax? Anyone who is expecting Fairfax to be just another member of Portland's incestuous government-nonprofit axis will be pleasantly surprised. According to The Oregonian, he is a "retired U.S. ambassador." The Ambassador's CV [6] is so dazzling that it is tempting to think The Oregonian got it wrong. What on earth was he doing in Portland? Did he flee after the leftist insurrection in 2020-21? In any case, Ambassador Fairfax's chairmanship of the committee who did the heavy lifting on the charter reform harkens back to a golden age when grownups used to run the city. None of this makes Fairfax immune to the social justice mind virus. In fact, it could make him more vulnerable. Plus, the Ambassador is an Oberlin graduate.
Anyone with consuming curiosity and 57 minutes to burn can hear Ken Fairfax discuss "Portland's Inequitable System of Government" on Episode 5 of the City Club of Portland's podcast "Next at the Mic." [7]
In closing, it is regrettable that OregonLive/The Oregonian did not cover the work of the Charter Committee with the same zeal and level of detail as they devoted to the City Club report in 2019. Also, the City Club committee's fixation on racial and ethnic minorities in 2019 shows that white progressives were engaged in racial engineering in Portland before the George Floyd awokening of 2020.
=================================================================
[1] Kaye, Ted. "City Club of Portland." Oregon Encyclopedia. A project of the Oregon Historical Society. Updated 12 April 2024. https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/city_club_of_portland/
[2] Friedman, Gordon J. "Portland’s form of government fails residents in almost every way thinkable, report finds." OregonLive/The Oregonian. 10 February 2019. https://www.oregonlive.com/news/g66l-2019/02/26b0a1c1b14487/portlands-form-of-government-fails-residents-in-almost-every-way-thinkable-report-finds.html
[3] The City Club of Portland. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5724080-Cityclub-Equity-rev4-EMBARGOPdf.html
[4] Ibid. p. 17-18
[5] Friedman, Gordon J. "Portland’s form of government fails residents in almost every way thinkable, report finds." OregonLive/The Oregonian. 10 February 2019. https://www.oregonlive.com/news/g66l-2019/02/26b0a1c1b14487/portlands-form-of-government-fails-residents-in-almost-every-way-thinkable-report-finds.html
[6] Brewig, Matt. "Ambassador to Kazakhstan: Who Is Kenneth Fairfax?" AllGov. 10 October 2011. http://www.allgov.com/news/appointments-and-resignations/ambassador-to-kazakhstan-who-is-kenneth-fairfax?news=843399
[7] City Club of Portland. "Next at the Mic." https://www.pdxcityclub.org/next-at-the-mic/
The last City’s Club meeting I attended was in 1962. In those days it was populated by the movers and shakers in Portland’s business community and performed their civic duties for the benefit of the entire community. Much of what made Portland great came through the old City Club, a far cry from the current destroyers of hallowed traditions!
1) Portland is doomed
2) the current initiatives are such a poop salad that even Willamette week refused to bite save the pne to impeach crooked state officials ( only of they're Republican)
3) Oregon has become the "feed it to Mikey , he'll eat anything " of the idiot progressive referendum machine
Spot on!
I almost made it through all that. What an effing mess the self important have made of things.
Richard. Your writing style engages readers and cuts to the chase while sprinkling humor into otherwise dour situations. I always find your pieces educational as well. RCV is literally a devils playground.
I love his work. It's informative and SO funny.
Wow. Richard, insightful column as usual. The new voting scheme is a debacle but I don't think sitting out is the answer. Look at D3 (most of Montavilla)…there's a chance to bring in some non-status quo candidates like Harrison Kass and Kezia Waner…..or we could get 3 people like Angelita Morillo. Got to try.
Ranked choice voting is a scheme to disconnect elections from issues and allow candidates with marginal support from voters to win.
It obscures true debates and issue-driven dialogs among candidates and eliminates genuine binary choices between two top-tier candidates
It also disenfranchises voters, because ballots that do not include the two ultimate finalists are cast aside to manufacture a faux majority for the winner.
You get it.
After I file a piece, I always wake up around 3AM with stuff I should have written suddenly popping into my head...and here's an additional thought: progressives love to destabilize any existing institution, belief, or procedure they can get their hands on. These must be destroyed in order to build their utopia. (Thus the idiotic debate about "who is a woman.")
Elections are an obvious target--with the bonus that a confused electorate is easier to control.
Ditto their pitch that RCV will make elections more warm and fuzzy and we'll all get along together, when what the city and country needs is tough, no holds-barred debate about real issues and how we'll try to fix them. Warm and cuddly and confused--perfect cover for the real progressive project.
Rank choice voting is funded and propagated by progressives as it allows unpopular progressive candidates a better chance of winning.
Rank Choice Voting “RCV” invites the problem of “ballot exhaustion,” which occurs when too many voters rank too few candidates such that their vote is not counted in the final runoff.
Consider an election where five candidates are running but a voter ranks only three, all of whom get eliminated before the final tally. Since none of his votes will have gone to either the winner or the runner-up, his ballot is effectively discarded.