Tis the politics season again. Yeah, yeah, I know... why must I bring up politics on a social blog. But hey, let's think about what makes Portland so great. Our culture is progressive and so are our politics. So, who are you supporting so far in the races for mayor and commissioner in Portland and why?
In the mayor's race it's Commissioner Sam Adams vs. business leader Sho Dozono, David Ackerman, Bruce Broussard, Kyle Burris, Slav Davidson, Steven Entwisle, Bob Leonard Forthan, Craig Gier, Lew Humble, Beryl McNair, Rich Christopher, Patricia Stuart, Jeff Taylor, and Gerhard Watzig.
In City Commissioner position 1 we have Jeff Bissonette, John Branam, Mike Fahey, Amanda Fritz, Charles Lewis, Christopher P. Smith, and Howard Weiner.
In City Commissioner position 2 we have a very tight race between Jim Middaugh and Nick Fish, but other candidates are looking to sneak into the lead, and they are Tamara DeRidder, Ed Garren, Nick Popenuk, Fred Stewart, Harold C. William II.
And then, there is City Commissioner position 4 with Rand Leonard taking a big lead. But, what do you think? Challenging candidates include Edward Kill, Martha Perez, and Emily S. Ryan.
In the mayor's race it's Commissioner Sam Adams vs. business leader Sho Dozono, David Ackerman, Bruce Broussard, Kyle Burris, Slav Davidson, Steven Entwisle, Bob Leonard Forthan, Craig Gier, Lew Humble, Beryl McNair, Rich Christopher, Patricia Stuart, Jeff Taylor, and Gerhard Watzig.
In City Commissioner position 1 we have Jeff Bissonette, John Branam, Mike Fahey, Amanda Fritz, Charles Lewis, Christopher P. Smith, and Howard Weiner.
In City Commissioner position 2 we have a very tight race between Jim Middaugh and Nick Fish, but other candidates are looking to sneak into the lead, and they are Tamara DeRidder, Ed Garren, Nick Popenuk, Fred Stewart, Harold C. William II.
And then, there is City Commissioner position 4 with Rand Leonard taking a big lead. But, what do you think? Challenging candidates include Edward Kill, Martha Perez, and Emily S. Ryan.
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Portland
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Wed, April 23, 2008 - 11:33 AMOh, and remember to have your ballots mailed by May 20th.
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Wed, April 23, 2008 - 12:06 PMSam Adams tax proposals are already making me mad.
He wants to add a road tax to the water and sewer bill.
My main gripe is that its not based on use.
If he wanted to add his tax on use rather than service fee.
If your an older person with no increase of income or single person household, you get taxed twice as much or more than
multiple person households that use more resource, but would pay less service fee per person.
Note to Sam Adams: Please make your tax proposal fair or spend less!!!!!!!
m7
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Wed, April 23, 2008 - 3:02 PMI like Sam Adams. -
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Wed, April 23, 2008 - 11:24 PMI worked on the PDOT street tax levy project until it was killed a couple months ago due to political pressure (for Sam Adams). I was a consultant at the City.
What I've learned is, there is no perfect answer. But the WRONG answer is to do NOTHING. This project was proposed years ago, and it was killed due to politics then, too. Since then, nothing has been done, and Portland's streets are in horrible condition. You may not notice it in your neighborhood because you live in a nicer area, or busier street, but many citizens would tell you, their roads go unpaved with potholes the size of Humvs. I've seen them. They're right.
But it's not jost random streets without much traffic. Drive down major busy roads and notice ruts, pot holes, etc.
People who do not drive, or are single households, share the burden. It's just the way it is. You want to ride a bike through potholes? You want your friends to have damage to their cars because of ruts or gravel or poorly marked streets? What if you call 911 and emergency responders can't get to you, readily, because your street is poorly marked, has no parking space, is too narrow, is full of potholes, etc.?
Taxing via license is a state vote that would never pass. Besides, why would people in Fields OR ever agree to a tax increase to fix streets in Portland?
Tax via use is a tough thing to study and resolve. It looks impossible to me. Number of licensed drivers in a household, or mileage per driver, is not meaningful for this purpose. What if you are a stay at home mom with a license, but you rarely leave the house. Yet your husband is a traveling salesman who logs thousands of miles. Do you split the mileage? What if all his miles are in Idaho, Montana, etc.? Do you pay them anyway, as if they are local?
Again, there are no easy answers. But one. Our streets are in BAD shape, and we have to do something. At least Sam is trying to influence a solution, versus do nothing. It's only going to get FAR more costly for future generations if nothing is done. -
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Thu, April 24, 2008 - 7:41 AMI have to agree that there is no perfect answer. My preference is to tax by mileage and/or vehicle weight rather than drivers license or household. Taxes would be assessed at the time of registration renewal, with mileage recorded as part of your vehicle inspection. This would be the fairest way to do it and would tap into existing vehicle licensing processes. Though like anything else reasonable and fair it probably wouldn't work in eastern Oregon. No matter, the METRO jurisdictions could simply impose it on themselves and work with Salem to change the law (assuming a statewide referendum wasn't allowed). Sure, the outer suburbs have brand new roads and could care less...but there are plenty of older cities and neighborhoods that need those funds.
As for whether or not the miles or local, I'm guessing that the overwhelming majority of mileage of Portland area drivers is in the Portland area and to a lesser degree Oregon itself. Your example of the stay at home mom and road warrior man is not the typical household me thinks, though I get your point. People in eastern oregon may cross into Idaho a lot, or southern Oregon into California, but i doubt that's the case with Portland (but I could be wrong). What about all the Vancouver drivers who don't pay Oregon taxes but use our streets and public safety services? How fair is that? Should we start imposing entrance fees on the Columbia River Bridge?
Taxing via use is a hard thing, but in the end I think taxing by mileage is more fair than a per household tax. We live, work, and play as a region. Any solution should recognize that.
Any for the record, I'm still voting for Sam. =)
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Tue, April 29, 2008 - 9:41 AMThis year we had a small surplus in our city budget.
Did they put that towards street repair?
I just want a fair solution, not one that taxes those most unable to pay.
Lets put inmates to work on filling street holes.
Lets get create.
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Thu, April 24, 2008 - 10:28 AMSam may make you made, but at least he has something to say. Sho's saying nothing, and he has never done anything. I don't understand what his appeal is. Sam has a proven track record with the city, Sho is just a friend of Potter, an ineffectual mayor with no vision who has used his office for personal vendetta and acted like a big baby when he didn't get his way. I have no idea what Sho's popularity is based on. -
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Sun, April 27, 2008 - 7:22 PMpssst - I heard that one of the city council candidates is married to a burner!! ;-) -
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Sun, April 27, 2008 - 11:39 PMVoting for Potter was a big mistake for me. It was one of those " pick the least horrible choice for me". I still feel sort of dirty though, like I voted for Bush or something.
You can't wash that kind of shame off easily.
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Mon, April 28, 2008 - 12:42 AMI know. At this point, I think Francesconi would have been better. Scary. -
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Mon, April 28, 2008 - 12:50 AMI know! And what a frightening thought that ! -
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Mon, April 28, 2008 - 9:07 AM"Voting for Potter was a big mistake for me. It was one of those " pick the least horrible choice for me". I still feel sort of dirty though, like I voted for Bush or something."----I still don't understand how he got elected. If I remember correctly, didn't we hate him when he was chief of police? What was the motivation for turning around a couple of years later and electing him mayor?
Sam Adams is a little too free with taxpayer money for my taste. His new pet project is "recycling" the Sauvie Island Bridge as a bike/pedestrian bridge over I-405. I'm all for recycling, but not if it's going to cost $2,000,000 more than the alternative. When our school buildings, sewers, and roads need as much help as they do, this seems like a waste of tax money disguised as a politically correct "green/environmentally friendly" project. -
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Mon, April 28, 2008 - 10:57 AMI'm all about the lawn signs. I figure if a candidate doesn't have the sense to hire a decent graphic artist, how can they know to make the correct other choices?
So this mayoral election I'm in a quandry: I see those pleasing, comforting and simple blue and white Sho signs, and I just think, My, he must be a guy who can really deal; here's a guy who is at the center of all the real business of a city, fo' sho!
Contrast that with those horrid, Best Buy-looking, visually noisy Sam Adams signs with too much information at 35 mph. It bothers me. If I wasn't so pro-queer . . . -
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Mon, April 28, 2008 - 1:12 PMI think the lawn signs for some guy named Ted are hilarious. They have a picture of a guy jumping or running and the motto" Go Ted Go". I have only seen a few, but I find them pretty damn funny.
Sam Adams' signs are interesting. Sho's are like a boring old man, they might as well say " Get off my lawn,"whippersnappers".
Potter got my vote cause the other guy was uber scary and pissed me off for some reason at the time,.I no longer remember why, but I shook my fist about it, so it must have been good. -
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Mon, April 28, 2008 - 1:21 PMDoes anyone know if there's a place to see these signs on the net? I haven't seen any of them, and now I'm really curious.
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Mon, April 28, 2008 - 2:58 PMI don't want to participate in this discussion too heavily because I want to hear what all of you have to say. But, in regards to this quote:
"Sam Adams is a little too free with taxpayer money for my taste. His new pet project is "recycling" the Sauvie Island Bridge as a bike/pedestrian bridge over I-405. I'm all for recycling, but not if it's going to cost $2,000,000 more than the alternative."
The Sauvie Island bridge project is a GRANT! from the Federal Government. The Federal Gov't has offered the City of Portland $5,000,000 if the City can put up the remaining $500,000. If the City of Portland says no to the grant, the money is gone and will never come back (probably end up going to Iraq). Also, the money can only be used for a bridge project on Sauvie Island-- and I mean, only Sauvie Island. It cannot be used to fill potholes, build schools, homeless shelters, or any thing else. The money can only for a bridge project on Sauvie Island. -
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Mon, April 28, 2008 - 9:13 PMI was wondering, I kept hearing about how the money could not be spent anywhere else, but never a reason why.
Thank you!!!
I see those Ted signs too, he even has a back pack.
Who is Ted? -
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Tue, April 29, 2008 - 9:28 AM"Also, the money can only be used for a bridge project on Sauvie Island-- and I mean, only Sauvie Island."---I had heard this, too, but I was under the impression that this was the money for the construction of the new Sauvie Island Bridge itself. The way I understood it, the federal money is paying to replace the current bridge, but city money is paying to move the old bridge and reinstall it in Portland.
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Tue, April 29, 2008 - 4:44 PMTeddy Keizer, Candidate for House District 42, State Representative.
He's running against Regan Gray, and Jules Kopei-Bailey.
Teddy actually calls up people himself, and asked them what their concerns are.
I like his approach.
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Tue, April 29, 2008 - 4:51 PMDon't worry it will cost us more than $500.000. in matching funds.
Also we have to pay to maintain it, paint it etc.
We don't even maintain those cute little traffic islands we've planted all over the place.
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Tue, April 29, 2008 - 9:51 AMThanks Deb for pointing this out.
I agree with you.
Its not that I don't appreciate Sam Adams progressive ideals, he's gonna need to balance things out.
We've already had big budge problems form the Tram. Which cost the city millions of dollars more all so
we could see all the pretty ugly glass sky scrappers pop up.
I used to have high hope's for Erik Sten until he costed the city a lot of money with the water bureau computer software problems among other items.
All these resources could have been used for roads.
I don't want to see the same things repeated for Sam Adams at the helm
Sam was on the city council when the Instate renaming hassle started. Did he help solve that problem? No.
If were such a progressive city, why don't we have more diversity on our city council?
Also,
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Tue, April 29, 2008 - 9:57 AMCorr:
Interstate Ave.
no also...
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Tue, April 29, 2008 - 11:24 AMI always thought that the Tram project was a good example of pet projects for special interests do get pushed through our city council more often than not. Just like that street naming debacle, thank god people saw sense at some point.
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Tue, April 29, 2008 - 11:39 AMEveryone, please forgive the tone of this post as it may come across harsher than intended. =)
Where exactly are the "road issues" that everyone keeps screaming about. Can someone point to a specific stretch of road that aside from a random crack or small dip is in bad shape? This is not a hypothetical question, I really do want to see what all the fuss is about.
I walk and drive around this city a lot, and compared to many others I've visited or lived in, Portland has a pretty decent road network. It's not perfect or as new and shiny as those in the burbs, largely because are roads are older, but many people on tribe and the local media disparage that countries like Somalia have better road maintenance than we do. Maybe I'm missing something, or maybe I just have different standards and expectations for public expenditures.
Thanks for helping this relative newcomer out (I moved here a year ago, but visited Portland many times in the previous 10 years). =)
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Tue, April 29, 2008 - 5:48 PMJ,West Burnside comes to mind. Parts of downtown for sure.
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Tue, April 29, 2008 - 5:53 PMI recommend you examine the Cully neighborhood, like say, south of Prescott, east of Cully Blvd.
I like the unimproved streets myself. Keeps the Yup factor down, at least for a while. -
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Tue, April 29, 2008 - 5:54 PMArg-I meant north of Prescott! -
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Tue, April 29, 2008 - 6:05 PMOh, shit yeah! That's area's *unbelievable*! I don't know what to call them, but I certainly wouldn't call them "roads." I was terrified to drive on them for fear my car would fall to pieces. I've never seen roads like that anywhere (although, admittedly, I've never been to Somalia). I'm actually amazed that Portland would let people live on those alleged "roads" for *any* length of time without doing something about them. -
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Tue, April 29, 2008 - 6:09 PM85th between Division and Powell.
UN fucking amazing. I feel bad for the people who have to put up with the conditions of that street.
I swear I saw people snorkeling in one of the pot holes.
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Tue, April 29, 2008 - 7:06 PMAwesome, thanks for the tips. Looks like I'll be doing some driving this weekend...albeit slowly if the roads are that bad.
Thanks for indulging me. =)
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Wed, April 30, 2008 - 1:23 PMI lived in New Jersey for a few years before moving back home to Portland. The roads in the City of Newark are ridiculous! And, a friend of mine told me that in Detroit their are a ton of potholes on the freeways! Granted, Portland's streets are due for repair, but it is also true that Portland's streets are relatively in good repair compared to other American municipalities. Upgrading infrastructure in the United States has never been a governmental priority, but the complaints over roads in Portland have become louder ever since projects like the Tram and Pearl District were completed.
On the flip side, however, by 2015 the City of Portland should see a big increase in property tax income from properties in the Pearl and the Tram provides access to properties that could foster a biomedical industry in Portland, i.e. more jobs.
So, a BIG question I would like to ask everyone is about sacrifice in the name of progress. In order to ensure that the city continues to progress, where and what do you feel comfortable sacrificing? -
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Thu, May 1, 2008 - 7:35 PMI admire your faith in the generosity and altruism of the people
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Thu, May 8, 2008 - 7:15 AM"I lived in New Jersey for a few years before moving back home to Portland. The roads in the City of Newark are ridiculous! "
yeah, I lived in Philly for a few years and the roads in Eastern pennsylvania and New Jersey could be shocking at times! Portlanders have it pretty good, even if there are some rough spots. :-)
I just talked to my parents in Iowa. The roads in that state are ridiculous thanks to an extremely cold winter that trashed the roads due to repeated freeze/thaw cycles. They said it was amazing how much damage occurred in one season. -
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Thu, May 8, 2008 - 11:35 AMMeasure 53 is bothering me. I want animals to better protected via the law, but I still have this gut reaction that this measure is kind of dangerous in giving the government too much leeway..
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Wed, April 30, 2008 - 1:50 PMWillamette Week released their endorsements today. Check out the following links:
Mayor: wweek.com/editorial/3425/10891/
City Council P#1: wweek.com/editorial/3425/10892/
City Council P#2: wweek.com/editorial/3425/10893/
City Council P#3: wweek.com/editorial/3425/10894/
The rest can be found at this link: wweek.com/editorial/3425/10870/.
So, what do you think? Is WW on the ball or are they just fulfilling their role as the "smarty pants" news outlet of Portland? -
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Wed, April 30, 2008 - 3:50 PM
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Thu, May 8, 2008 - 12:58 AMI think everyone has good intentions and wants to do good for the public.... so I'm having a hard time choosing! -
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Re: Mayor, City Council positions, elections, oh my!
Thu, May 8, 2008 - 7:11 AM"I think everyone has good intentions and wants to do good for the public...."
Ah, the idealism of youth. I'm too much of a cynical bastard to think that they're all looking out for the public good. ;-)
Beyond the presidential primary (OBAMA!) and mayoral race, I'm having a really hard time getting excited about the lower level positions....and i work for a local government and know the power of council members (having presented items for their consideration just 2 nights ago). What's really troubling me are the three state measures that amend the state constitution. Given the profound legal changes that can result, I really think it's a bad idea to let people make these decisions without some sort of broader debate and/or a more transparent and more balanced description as to what the implications of these measures really are. No offense to Oregon, but other states put in better summaries than what I'm seeing on my ballot.
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