Finally something productive.

I really trust the wholesale revamping of the Portland City Charter to a group that couldn't even get people to go camping on Mt Tabor.

Also, this will most likely need to get broken up into several different ballot initiatives as this isn't a single subject issue as defined by Article IV, section 1.1.d of the Oregon Consitution. This type of wholesale administrative reorganization of the Portland City Charter will affect both city management (Title 3), elections (Title 2), and water (Title 21); probably a few others as well. But I seriously doubt that these amazingly effective organizers know their administrative procedures.

But whatever, this isn't going to happen. No one really believes that the Portland City Counsel is corrupt and engaging in backroom shenanigans with developers. This city has a corruption rate roughly on par with Norway.

Graham:

I think these folks are professionals and aren't related to the camp crusaders. If I'm not mistaken, the coalition is backed by large industrial users and is the group that is suing the city. If there is sufficient representation of residential users, this could be a good thing.

If the constitutional issues are too great to overcome, maybe they can push for public utilities to face the same oversight on rate setting as private utilities.

I think creation of a public water district would qualify as one issue. A complex one, but still one issue. I'm all for it.

Portland (and Oregon to some extent) most definitely has a corruption problem. It is because there is no meaningful opposition here. Everyone is on the same team, so no one asks hard questions. In fact it is quite the opposite: they keep their mouths shut because they have to stay in good graces with the one-party establishment.

It is the kind of atmosphere where a Randy Leonard can spend water money on whatever unrelated pork that he wants, with complete confidence that no one would ever object to it, and the paper only starts talking about it once he announces his retirement. It is the kind of atmosphere where the fact that Neil Goldschmidt is a child rapist can remain an open secret for decades. It is the kind of place where shortly after his election, Sam Adams can be revealed to have dishonestly smeared his opponent and have a relationship with a 17 year old and everyone rallies around him like some sort of misunderstood hero.

The city, and officials, can get away with a lot of corruption in an atmosphere like that. And the city and the PDC do very large deals with developers all the time.

How does creating an obscure special district increase accountability or transparency. How many people can name a single member of any of our existing special districts let alone track their decisions? This initiative is backed by industrial polluters who have long held an agenda of gutting the city's environmental programs. Now they have resorted to this Trojan horse masquerading as a populist revolt. It is pathetic that Friends of the Reservoirs in their frustration and desperation have allied themselves with industrial polluters... If you don't like the way council manages the bureaus, write a letter, attend a hearing, vote them out of office...but don't make the oversight of critical public bureaus more remote and obscure and don't fuel the anti-environment agenda of some of Portland's biggest environmental polluters and least civic-minded industries.

Bob Sallinger
Conservation Director
Audubon Society of Portland

I'm on the fence here myself. With Randy Leonard out of office, is it still needed?

frankieb
Concerned Citizen
Taxpayer
Voter
Vet
Owner of Toy Poodles