- Photographs by Denis C. Theriault
- Jesse Sponberg unfurls a banner shortly before his ouster from council.
Commissioners Dan Saltzman and Amanda Fritz snuffed the last remaining bit of political drama looming over today’s Portland City Council vote on fluoride, breaking their silence with well-parsed yes votes that made the council’s expected decision a unanimous one.
Saltzman was far more convicted in his decision, though, than Fritz was.
“The dental health of a child during their formative years will affect him for his entire life,” he said. “It is extremely hard to concentrate in school when your mouth hurts all the time…. The single most effective, safest, and affordable way to extend lifelong dental health to our youngest Portlanders is to fluoridate our drinking water.”
Fritz’s voice, instead, broke up as she read, for several minutes, from prepared remarks that acknowledged, as she saw it, lingering uncertainty over the risks of fluoride, questions about its efficacy if people still feed kids sugar and don’t brush teeth, and what’s arguably been a lousy public process for an issue so passionate and controversial. Well before any hearings were scheduled, Mayor Sam Adams and Commissioners Randy Leonard and Nick Fish had announced their support.
Ultimately, though, Fritz said she couldn’t talk about equity on one hand and then ignore the pleas for fluoridation coming from minority community groups. Her “aye” vote—which stunned a hissing, booing, backtalking crowd in search of at least one “no” champion—came with a huge caveat:
“Some of the concerns raised by opponents are valid,” Fritz said, after noting that “fluoride isn’t a cure-all. We will still have dental health disparities… We cannot simply add fluoride and expect that our children and adults will have cavity-free, perfect teeth.”
At least eight people were ejected by a standing cadre of security guards and police officers after repeated warnings from Adams to pipe down and not shout—”More of that, and I’ll just have you removed. It’s very simple.”—although as one security guard joked afterward: “I lost count” of exactly how many. The outrage flared fantastically after Fritz spoke. One guy was almost forcibly ejected by officers and shouted “fuck you” at everyone on his way out the door.
- Police attempt to boot a man who shouted “fuck” several times on his way out of the council chambers.
That anger then kept flowing in the city hall plaza, where protesters held signs and booed and heckled fluoridation proponents and chanted loudly enough that they could be heard in the council chambers. And immediately after the council meeting, anti-fluoride proponents were down in the city auditor’s office asking permission to gather signatures for a 2014 referendum. They were told they would have to wait until this afternoon, when the ordinance approving fluoridation would be recorded and given an official number.
A statement by the group, Clean Water Portland, said 125 volunteers have registered to help gather signatures and that 25 paid gatherers are expected to be in place by the end of the week.
“Whether you are for or against water fluoridation, giving voters the right to have a say on water fluoridation just makes sense, and that is what this referendum is aimed to do,” Kim Kaminski, a spokeswoman for the group, is quoted as saying in the statement.
- Petitioner Frances Quaempts-Miller, who last week spoke of the council’s “white guilt,” in the auditor’s office with referendum paperwork.
During the meeting, and also during a short cool-down break after the vote, Adams and Fish and Leonard all defended the public process behind the vote, rattling off the number of comments and emails they’d seen and mentioned how they’d even managed to watch a documentary opposing fluoride, An Inconvenient Tooth after opponents begged them to do it.
“I understand why my predecessors didn’t vote for it,” Leonard quipped when it was his time to vote, also making sure to mention he didn’t get the “point” of the documentary. “This is not an issue for the faint of heart.”
Fluoridation could start as soon as March 2014, according to city documents. That would be before any referendum, which, under city rules, can’t happen until the general election of an even-numbered year. There isn’t enough time to gather and validate signatures ahead of this fall’s election.
Fritz said, during her remarks, that she fully expected some kind of vote would happen—even though she felt the preponderance of evidence she reviewed pointed toward the benefits of fluoridation. Her vote was a difficult one, politically, given the support she’s courting from voters outraged over water rates and water projects.
“The way we get there does matter,” she said.
I think a unanimous vote sends a good message. The anti-fluoride folks are the same people who think power lines cause cancer, etc., etc. Schwarzwald peasant paranoia masquerading as enlightened concern: should be ignored.
I’m also curious about any referenda they’re going to file. Sounds like the earliest will be 2014? That’s great. By that time, fluoridation will be an accomplished fact, and its opponents will be trying to take dental health away from poor children, all for superstitious reasons.
No, this isn’t purely democratic. Folks need to realize that democracy is more a liturgy than a recipe, it needs to be interpreted. It’s waaay too easy for people to be confused, propagandized, and just not have the time or smarts to properly understand issues. A system where people elect representatives just works better, as long as safeguards are in place to prevent corruption.
THIS IS WHAT FLUORIDATION LOOKS LIKE
Prohibition would solve a lot of health problems. Banning gambling/lottery would put more food on poor families’ tables. Morning calisthenics would do us all some good. The council has a lot of work ahead of it.
Don’t equivocate, fluoridate!
Public vote? Hells to the no….it would be roundly voted down, just like it has been three times before. What else can we expect from a Mayor who brought in the Joint Terrorist….I mean Terrorism Task force, and conspired with 16 other Mayors across the country to coordinate a goon squad crack down of Occupy?
So if there’s such a “dental health crisis” in Portland like the fluoride lobbyists are claiming (nice banner by the way Merc), why are they basing that claim by comparing statewide numbers for Oregon with other states?
They like to say children in Oregon have the “fifth worst teeth in the nation”. Gee, if that’s the case than why aren’t they using Portland metro’s readily available dental health numbers? Hmmmm, could it be because when compared to other states Portland kids actually rank as having the 15th lowest cavity rate in the US even when compared to states that are heavily fluoridated?
http://www.cleanwaterportland.org/wp-conte…
I think the real “crisis” here is that the City Council weren’t going to have big enough houses by the time they left office.
Anyway, “fluoridated” is too hard to spell. Just call it “Leonardized.”
“The anti-fluoride folks are the same people who think power lines cause cancer, etc., etc.”
This is a flat out lie and indicative of the type of BS the City Council fell for. The vast majority of nations on this planet have banned fluoridation of water. This list of nations includes Germany, Sweden, Netherlands, Russia, Japan, China, … and many more.
So, these nations are all wing-nut conspiracy theorists?
Your straw man arguments are so tedious.
Germany has all of their power-lines underground, I now know why.
People make fun of Strawman arguments all the time. But he always seemed like the best character from Wizard of Oz, I don’t see how he could fail so easily.
If tapwater is an appropiate conduit for public health interventions, then why not add multi-vitamins while we’re at it?
Demondog – that’s because continental Europe fluoridates salt, not water.
If you want to avoid cavities, you’ll need to brush your teeth and see a dentist from time to time. Fluoride will not save you or anyone else from cavities by itself. Do I think fluoride is a threat? I’m not sure, but the $5 million price tag is definitely a threat. So is the half million a year upkeep fee for something you should be applying by yourself with a toothbrush. They should have spent the money on a ‘Toothpaste for Tots’ campaign or something instead of spiking the water with something so controversial in a state that (along with Europe) rejects at every opportunity.
Why do we even elect representatives if we want to vote on every goddamned thing? That’s not how our country is supposed to work. We, the people, elect representatives who work on our behalf. We are free to petition them accordingly, and if we’re dissatisfied with their representation, we can vote them out.
If we’re going the direct democracy route, we could save a lot of time and money by abolishing representatives altogether and decide everything via American Idol-like text message voting.
Fucking internet. Fucking google. Everyone’s a goddamned scientist, doctor and lawyer all rolled into one. Everyone’s opinion matters because they’re special and unique. Leave policy decisions to the people we hire to decide those things. Otherwise, what are they even there for?
Fruit Cup, I reject your Strawman comment in Toto.
LawyerPepper: yes, they fluoridate salt, which is a very different thing than water. The point is they banned fluoridated water. BANNED. Made it illegal. Because they felt it was harmful. The pro-fluoride advocates would have you believe that only tin foil hat people are against fluoride in public drinking water, but the fact is the vast majority of nations BANNED it.
The vast majority of nations on earth is not a lunatic fringe.
It is good to know that peer reviewed science can still trump misinformation and fear mongering in this city.
Help us out… What are some cities we can move to Sapir refuse to let this city sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids?
Ralph Nader on water fluoridation; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5HN4Rkxx78
Notable quotes from scientists on dangers and negligible gains of fluoridated water; http://www.nofluoride.com/quotes.cfm
This needs to be stopped.