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GOOD MORNING, PORTLAND!đź‘‹
Put the thought of snow behind you and get ready for a rainy/occasionally sunny week with highs in the upper 40s and topping out at... 58 degrees on Friday? You may want to join me in taking your thongs to the dry cleaners! In the meantime, here's a thong-full of NEWS.
IN LOCAL NEWS:
• It's President's Day—a useless holiday if there ever was one—and the 50501 movement (50 protests, 50 states, one movement) will be staging a peaceful protest at City Hall in Portland from noon to 4 pm today, with similar demonstrations happening across Oregon in Salem, Eugene, and Medford. There will also be a seperate protest against Elon Musk—our other corrupt and bloviating Commander in Chief—organized by the SW Indivisible chapter, this coming Friday, Feb 21 (4 pm-5:30 pm) at the Portland Tesla dealership (4330 S Macadam). Yet another demonstration against Musk was held this weekend, so be sure to mark your calendars for this Friday and get rid of your Teslas, please & thank you!Â
• Our new city council seems to be making headway on their efforts to curb Portland's housing affordability crisis. According to this report from our Courtney Vaughn, at last week's Homelessness and Housing Committee meeting, they signaled their intent to address construction permitting, rental pricing, and residential vacancy rates—all of which contributes to our current housing woes. But District 3 Councilor Angelita Morillo is going extra hard with her proposal to ban the use of anti-competitive rental practices, which includes algorithmic pricing software used by landlords to collude with each other to keep rents skyrocketing upward.Â
Councilor Steve Novick went hard during the first meeting of the Portland City Council’s Climate Resilience, and Land Use Committee today.
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— Taylor Griggs (@taylorgriggs.bsky.social) February 13, 2025 at 10:59 AM
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