SUHNAP

I don't always agree with her, but I know she doesn't have a self-serving agenda. Charlie, not so sure.

Am I missing something? How is marginalizing oneself in the service of making a pointless "no" vote a "political nuke?" It sounds more like a political pop-gun, or political suicide.

I'm just a bystander to all the council intrigue, but it really worried me to see Fritz commit so much of her own personal money to win her re-election. You can call it principled I guess, but I see it as a desperate act of poor judgment by someone betraying an unhealthy relationship with power.

This weird eagerness to marginalize herself for a symbolic "no" seems like another symptom of that.

The mounted patrol is an embarrassment in light of the programs taking cuts or being eliminated. Glad I voted Fritz.

CC, the alternative is for her to vote "yes" on a bill she doesn't agree with.

I've supported Fritz and voted for her, mainly for her willingness to act independently on the last council. Unfortunately now, I think I'm closer to Hales' priorities so far then her priorities as laid out in this article. Without Sam and Randy to stick it to, she may start to lose me.

To be realistic, Fritz has made a council career of being the lone "No" vote in 4-1 decisions that move ahead without her. The only nuclear impact of this may be on her choices in bureau assignments.

Is city hall turning into a good old boys club?

I was very disappointed by Fritz voting "yes" on the fluoridation ordinance when she clearly seemed torn (and think she wanted to vote "no"). I lost a lot of respect for her that day. BUT, given what she did at the recent city council meeting, I have to say, she's earned back some (a lot) of my respect. As with the fluoridation vote, the city council is set up to push things through, and is not a true democracy (imo), there is no counter balance, NOR receptiveness for the public will. I'm so glad she stood up to them and hope in the future, the city of Portland changes the structure of this group that clearly has too much unchecked power. Good on ya, Commissioner Fritz.

Hey Fritz: This is no time to have a conscience -- the budget needs to be passed, and everybody knows that things like swimming pools and cops riding purty horsies trump ideas about helping abused humans every time. As it should be. We have an image to uphold here.

If you're so worried about having to look victims of abuse in the eye after this, just wear sunglasses and think happy thoughts about all of the downtown hipsters that now won't be denied the chance to tremble at the sound of "klipity-klop, klipity-klop" and to step in horse shit in the future.

Now d-up and turn that frown upside-down -- believe it or not, the prostituted kids will turn out just fine after the budget cuts, and will soon actually thank us (and some of us them!) for helping them to become such fantastic lovers at such an early age. And the beaten wives will finally learn to stop back-sassing. And the abused elders won't be around much longer anyway; they probably had a good life at some point, and now it's time for them to move aside, bruises and all.

Meanwhile, the horses and the Buckman kids need our help NOW.

@ Blabby, it's possible to just vote no without alienating people, or even simply abstain.

Fritz is a politician - her job is to be an effective advocate for her constituents' agenda. Any action she takes should be analyzed by the standard of whether the action is likely to be a net positive as far as moving forward that agenda.

That's a simple way to say something really complicated, of course: an agenda has a lot of different (sometimes conflicting) pieces, some parts will succeed, some parts will never succeed, you can't move the ball forward on all parts at once, etc.

Fritz should be the expert on whether she's made the right move here or not, but it seems to me (an esteemed armchair political analyst) that showing up her could-be-future-allies with this kind of pointless grandstanding isn't likely to help move her agenda forward either now or in the future.

The "won't someone please think of the children" shit is something that only plays with people who don't know or don't care how politics work. Since Fritz isn't running for office again (right?) that shouldn't be a consideration.