Last Wednesday, city hall staffers were placing bets. Not on who would come out ahead on election day—but on whether two activists who hijacked the council meeting to talk about housing issues would be back the next week to do it again. During the Wednesday, May 14, meeting, as always, Mayor Tom Potter asked if […]
politics
Posted inNews
Tears, Cheers, and Beers
A Recap of Tuesday Night’s Election Results by the Mercury‘s Election Squad
IT WAS A PRIMARY ELECTION season marked, from the Democratic presidential contest on down, by excruciatingly close races—at least according to the pre-election day polls and punditry. According to poll numbers, Sho Dozono was holding Sam Adams under the 50 percent mark in the race for Portland mayor, and Steve Novick was consistently neck and […]
Posted inNews
Among the (White) People
Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Endgame in Oregon
The sun is going down over the Jackson County Fairgrounds in southern Oregon, washing everything in that kind, soft light that you tend to see in uplifting campaign commercials. You might call it the best light possible. Beneath this light, a line of excited Hillary Clinton supporters stretches from a Secret Service screening area toward […]
Posted inNews
Rules of the Game
Homeless Protest Stretches On
TUESDAY AFTERNOON, May 13, with the homeless protesters in front of city hall facing enforcement of the city’s camping ordinance, five representatives sat down with Mayor Tom Potter. The meeting did not go so well. Potter didn’t let the protesters record the conversation. Afterward, protest organizer Arthur Rios Sr. waved the mayor’s prepared statement, and […]
Posted inNews
Shadow Budget
Adams’ and Leonard’s End Run Around Mayor Potter
THE CITY COUNCIL was supposed to vote on Mayor Tom Potter’s proposed budget at their Wednesday morning meeting. But the May 14 meeting may be a showdown, instead. Thanks to a few omissions in Potter’s budget—namely funding for transportation and arts-related projects, and funds to implement a recent council mandate to move the Portland Development […]
Posted inNews
Hall Monitor
Political Prudence
You have to give Commissioner Sam Adams some credit. He sure knows how to turn a politically driven evacuation plan into a chance to be seen as a ballsy leader. Last week, just before the city council was poised to take a final vote on the contentious plan to move the defunct Sauvie Island Bridge […]
Posted inNews
Swing Out, Sister
Homeless Nonprofit Resigns from Sit-Lie Group
SISTERS OF THE ROAD, a nonprofit that works with the homeless, resigned from the mayor’s Street Access for Everyone (SAFE) oversight committee last week, vowing instead to devote its time to advocating for the repeal of the city’s controversial sit-lie and anti-camping laws. The sit-lie law emerged from the SAFE committee, but Sisters isn’t happy […]
Posted inNews
Ballot Boxing
For a guy who wants to take over city hall’s third-floor mayor’s office—and who wants to assign bureaus, oversee the city budget, run a few bureaus, and provide overall leadership for the city—Sho Dozono’s campaign has been woefully short on specifics. Until now. On May 2, the day ballots went out—and months after he started […]
Posted inNews
Unhappy Campers
Homeless Protest Continues, Politicos Take Notice
OVER THE PAST two weeks, a makeshift homeless encampment has been growing in front of city hall. Kicking off on Friday, April 25, a few men and women who’d been “swept” out from under the Burnside Bridge—where they usually slept—set up camp on the sidewalk, against city hall’s cement balustrade. They gathered there to protest […]
Posted inNews
Sweep This
Homeless Set up Protest Camp at City Hall
TWENTY-SEVEN HOMELESS people slept on the sidewalk outside city hall on Monday night, April 28, and remained there into the day on Tuesday, in protest of a series of recent bridge sweeps by the Portland Police Bureau. The group, which says it plans to stay outside city hall until the politicians inside find them somewhere […]
Posted inNews
Hall Monitor
Opposites Detract
What a sore loser. Mayor Tom Potter, upset that his political foe City Commissioner Sam Adams had rounded up three votes to move the old Sauvie Island Bridge to NW Flanders—where it will be the innovation connection for two halves of a bike and pedestrian boulevard—issued a statement on Thursday, April 24. “This bridge will […]
Posted inNews
Bait and Switch
Voters Are Lining up to Register as Democrats—But Will They Stick
Lindsey was one of the rare ones. “I feel like a tool,” she said after switching her party affiliation from “nonaffiliated” to Democrat in order to vote for Barack Obama in Oregon’s May 20 primary. “I like to think of myself as a radical. Am I getting old? I just want Barack to win.” After […]