- Denis C. Theriault
- The last time fluoride went before the Portland City Council.
Good news! Commissioner Randy Leonard, down to his last city council meeting after 10 years, has reportedly found a way to make what’s already been a crammed, scrambling council calendar (all thanks to Mayor Sam Adams’ lame-duck thrashing) even more congested.
The Oregonian says Leonard will schedule a vote next week on moving the city’s fluoridation referendum up by a year, to May 2013, when voters already will be asked to approve a renewal of Dan Saltzman’s children’s levy. Without a council vote, the vote would come in May 2014.
Yesterday, the council spent something like seven hours in session—fun sport for reporters and council watchers, but a grueling day for anyone hoping to come in and comment. And next Wednesday’s meeting, the last of 2012, is already expected to be just as busy—even without the specter of passionate fluoride advocates flooding council chambers. (Again, great fun for reporters, but maybe not so much for civilians.)
That scene playing out again isn’t unlikely, given the contentious atmosphere back when the council unanimously approved fluoridation. The O says anti-fluoridation advocates already are angry about the proposed shift, calling it hasty. The paper previously reported that fluoridation backers were floating the idea of an earlier vote, thinking it might deliver a favorable electorate, what with it being an odd year and already home to a well-liked children’s issue.
Of course, Leonard could ask for the vote to be scheduled for next Thursday, less busy, but still exhausting coming after a long few weeks in city hall. Moving the vote from 2014 also means it won’t be up when Saltzman and Nick Fish, should they both decide they want to stick around, thrown in for re-election.
Leonard, Adams and the rest of City Council love mone…I mean fluoride so very much, they must have just forgot to disclose their individual meetings with fluoride lobbyist’s on their public calendars.
http://blog.oregonlive.com/portlandcityhal…
I’ve been legitimately thrilled with Sam Adams’ take no prisoners actions since he decided not to run for re-election. Between reading the riot act for the Alberta Thursday nuisance-makers to standing his ground more then he ever did before in the firing of Officer Frashour. I wrote him in on my ballot as an act of protest, but I’m sure he wouldn’t have even had to work TOO hard to get re-elected for realzies.
Poor Upstream Public Health. They already had gone through all the trouble of buying off City Council, running an costly propaganda campaign and plans were all in place to break ground on a $5 million dollar fluoride treatment plant, conveniently scheduled to come online in 2014. Now that Clean Water Portland has, in record time, submitted double the amount of signatures needed to put this travesty up for a vote, those poor poor folks are going to have to wait on that pesky little thing called democracy.
@Spindles – thanks for the link. That’s interesting.
If you still have faith in the “public process” in this City, you haven’t been paying attention. I don’t find this surprising at all: there is obviously serious influences pushing for this, and for one reason or another, several elected leaders deliberately tried to conceal lobbying efforts.
This seems like par for Portland.
The only thing that surprises me Fid Ax is that anyone still buy’s into the fluoride scam. Thankfully it’s never been the majority here in Portland, but it’s enough to make you go hmmmm….
Hey, speaking of a spectacular political fail from Oregon…..guess who’s lifting his procedural hold barring the Senate from renewing Bush’s Constitution shredding warrentless wiretapping program otherwise known as the FISA Amendments Act, previously set to expire at the end of the year?
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/12/f…
…sigh….
@Spindles – I wouldn’t call this a spectacular fail, I mean, there’s only so much that one Senator can do. What’s more of a failure was the inability of other Senators to join Wyden in his fight to maintain basic levels of privacy for Americans. Wyden is literally the biggest champion of civil liberties in the Senate right now, so this isn’t a failure, it should be a point of pride that we have such great representation from an elected leader.
Right now every single American with an email address or phone number has a file with the feds, and they’re recording every single conversation and email, storing the information indefinitely, and drawing complex data about our behavior out of it. We are rapidly approaching a compete total information awareness state, whereas the government will be able to understand our reactions to political events before we as individuals are able to process it. The intelligence agencies are already able to predict the future with computers, and now their capabilities are being rapidly expanded and more accurate. The worst part about it is that there was only one guy standing in the way, and he just folded. Just wait for the next step: when collection of personal information is no longer necessary, and government begins to manipulate the internet and media to remove data they don’t like (this is, after all, what China does) …and people think I’m weird for wanting to own assault rifles.
The thing with fluoride is the amount of propaganda out there by both sides of the debate. There’s too much scientific evidence on both sides, so everyone is absolutely sure that they are correct, and whatever preconceived notion you had about the subject is only reinforced the more you look into it. The real lesson is that the City Council knew that this would be unpopular, they knew it would lose if brought before a public vote, and rather than follow the will of the majority (as civics class told you they would) they are just going to do as they please. It was the same thing with the JTTF vote, and many other decisions.
This is why I laugh at people who tell me to write my congressmen/elected leaders.
Fid Ax, I agree with you about Wyden. It is a shame that only at the end he backs down, but I gotta give him kudos for trying. As for fluoride, if you think the science supports both sides than:
1. It is far better to err on the side of caution. After all, if fluoride proponents are right, people who aren’t particularly concerned with proper tooth care will have slightly less cavities. But if they’re science is wrong the consequences are much more severe.
2. There should never be a reason for any “authority” to forcibly medicate a population, especially without regard to dosage, case history, medical circumstances or consent.