Opinion

It’s becoming harder and harder for Portland to attract—and retain—new police officers. In a recent analysis of the police bureau’s finances by the City Budget Office (CBO), city economists say that the headline-grabbing problems plaguing the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) can all be traced back to this one issue. As an example, the CBO points […]

In January, Portland made history by welcoming its first African American woman to city council. By February, that victory seemed like a distant memory. Rather than a celebration of past achievements, Portland’s Black History Month acted as a reminder of how deep Portland’s racist roots reach. It’s worth a recap. On February 1, a group […]

Every city government has its council meeting mainstays. In my old stomping grounds of San Antonio, it was an old white guy in a cowboy hat who’d merrily bark at the majority-minority city council about government overreach. In Portland, it’s a cadre of housing advocates and police critics (including one guy whose legal name is […]

The last time Portland officials created a committee to improve police interactions with the public, it blew up it their face. It wasn’t entirely the city’s fault. Portland was ordered to assemble a Community Oversight Advisory Board, or COAB, by a federal judge as part of the city’s 2014 settlement agreement with the US Department […]

Maybe it’s just bad timing. It’s almost too easy to pin the sudden shift in Mayor Ted Wheeler’s communications strategy on Eileen Park, the former KOIN reporter recently hired to lead Wheeler’s communications department. Perhaps Wheeler was just waiting for a new communications director to help him unleash a new social media strategy—one that’s both […]

Public comment at city council meetings has recently centered on one topic: criminalizing Portland’s homeless population. One group that’s been especially vocal? The “Montavilla Initiative,” a conservative spinoff of the Montavilla Neighborhood Association. Montavilla Initiative members have vilified the police bureau for not responding to low-level crimes they say have been committed by homeless people […]

Only 18 percent of Portland’s police live inside the city limits. Does that matter?

What can city council learn from the mistakes at Holgate Manor?

The First Amendment has become the city’s excuse for inaction against hate groups—rather than an opportunity to condemn them.