RE: "Taken for a Ride" [Letters, Feb 16], in which "Travis Bickle" writes in to comment on the financials of being a Radio Cab driver as outlined in "Cabbie Crackdown" [News, Feb 2].
Travis wrote that the lease at Radio Cab is $100 a day, while the article "Cabbie Crackdown" reports a weekly kitty of $245, and comes up with a weekly lease total of $550 for 5.5 days. The discrepancy between the article's total and Travis' total is that $245 is the weekly kitty for cab owners, whereas $100 a day is the lease for a Toyota Camry cab when leased out to a driver who does not own shares in the company.
-Alex Reiger
RE: "It's Not About the Bikes" [Feature, Feb 16], about the complicated issues surrounding North Williams.
Urban renewal needs to be abolished. And as cities, we need to start showing the care for minority neighborhoods that we show for white neighborhoods.
-posted by mcd
Just like the care they showed to Lents during the same time period that Albina was being torn apart? While race certainly played a role in the unfortunate policies used in Albina/Eliot, it really was poor neighborhoods in general—not just black neighborhoods—they were targeting. Poor white people got the same treatment and are still waiting for their neighborhood to come back to life, along with all the displaced minority folks that have moved in.
-posted by whitecultureisnotmonolithic
The point about large transportation projects typically occurring in neighborhoods with little political muscle is well taken, and has incidentally happened all over the country in poorer neighborhoods. The thing that is significant here is that black people could live nowhere else in Portland (if they wanted to purchase a house). Albina was home to the largest population of African Americans and African American-owned businesses in Oregon. What's left are three or four African American businesses, and trendy businesses that cater to the bike crowd.
-posted by sabrosaone
RE: "Putting the Squeeze On" [News, Feb 16], regarding the city's push against the Oregon Liquor Control Commission's (OLCC) plan to issue liquor licenses to food carts, citing that it would increase the burdens of the already-strapped police bureau.
The city's argument is more than a little bit ridiculous. I imagine that as OLCC-licensed establishments these food carts would be subject to the same rules of any bar or restaurant serving alcohol. New bars and restaurants open every month here, and I've never heard the city or police in such an uproar.
-posted by Turkey
DEAREST MERCURY—The seagulls are the greatest recent addition to the city. I don't care for all the shitbags driving around, acting like their lives are in any way meaningful. I can tell this by the way they pretend that murderers are a bad thing when all they care about is getting fucked and filling their bellies with bullshit. So when I see a seagull casually plop out a white blob of poop onto the dirt in the Park Blocks, it satisfies me so much to think that all of these atheist-political assholes will complain about having to pay tax dollars to repair the Park Blocks if the rain doesn't wash it away.
-Chance
PUTTING ASIDE THE FACT that seagulls have been hanging out in, and casually pooping on, Portland for quite some time now, we love bird watching, too! Oh hey, you're not a murderer, are you? I mean, that's not what you meant there when you said... you better take these two tickets to the Laurelhurst Theater, while we back away, slowly.
